by S. L. Viehl
Kao Torin answered my signal with a slow smile. “Healer Grey Veil. I was just thinking about you.”
Too bad I couldn’t have said the same thing. “Hello, Kao. Are you busy?”
“I am preparing to report for my shift.” His grin faded. “Cherijo, what has happened?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “Have a good rotation.”
“I will, if you tell me why you have been crying.”
Damn. “Me? Crying?” I forced a chuckle. “Not at all. I’m fine. Just got something in my eye.”
He wasn’t convinced, but didn’t press the issue. “I will be off duty tonight. Will you share a late meal with me?”
“Sure. Call me when you get back.”
After I terminated the signal, I changed my tunic and headed out to my glidecar. If I couldn’t spend time with Kao, I could check in with Trauma, see if they needed an extra pair of hands. That would keep me from brooding over Maggie’s message.
When I arrived at the facility, there were a number of priority cases on hold. The remaining patients in Assessment were audibly irate.
Nurse Ecla greeted me with an air of great serenity—if that’s what two clusters of frills along her cranial ridge meant. She told me Drs. Mayer and Dloh were involved with two critical cases from a glidecar collision. Dr. Rogan, it seemed, had not bothered to show up for his shift, and could not be located.
“Have you tried tracking him through his TI?”
“Yes, but since he never wears it off duty, it was a useless exercise.” The Psyoran turned to deal with one of the more contentious patients and quickly soothed him. Ecla wasn’t the type to let dire circumstances rattle her. I suspected very little ever did. She escorted the patient back to the waiting area, then returned to the Assessment desk.
“Any sign of the contagion involved with Karas?” I asked, and she shook her head.
“No other cases reported. I even ran two scans over myself, to be sure. Both were negative. What are you doing here?”
“I’m just restless.” I looked around Assessment once more, and sighed. “Tell you what, Ecla, I’ll take Rogan’s shift until he shows. Who’s next in line for treatment?”
“Springfield, Kyle,” she said as she handed me the chart.
“Terran?”
“Uh-huh. Just brought in, and spitting mad, too—GravBoard injuries.”
I winced. We treated a lot of children with injuries, but an increasing number of them were lately due to GravBoard accidents. An impromptu track had been erected behind the Sports Complex, and the kids were crazy about it.
“Serious?” I said, and Ecla made an affirmative gesture.
Our young GravBoard enthusiasts generally sustained multiple lacerations, bad sprains, and even some broken bones. The track was elevated, and it was a long way to fall. Last week I’d treated two cases of serious compound fractures. I had promised mu Cheft I’d make a formal report to HQ Administration on the next case.
“This is going to make me popular,” I said to Ecla. “You’d better notify Mr. Springfield’s parents and tell them to get over here.”
Kyle Springfield was thirteen years old, according to his chart, and displayed the normal amount of Terran adolescent attitude as I walked in.
“Hey, can you fix me up so I can get out of here?”
“Hey, Dr. Grey Veil, can you please fix me up,” I said as I made a visual survey of his wounds. “Be polite, and it will open every door, Mr. Springfield.”
“Whatever. Can you do something about this?”
He had the usual assortment of scratches and gashes, but I didn’t like the way his right leg was turned. He propped himself up on the exam pad. I noticed it took considerable exertion.
“Sure.” I picked up a scanner, and gestured for him to lay back. “With your cooperation, and some luck.” He reclined, muffling a whimper as he shifted his weight. I frowned at the resulting data. Evidently his right hip had taken the brunt of his fall. “Looks like you took quite a spill.”
“I’m—I’m okay. Stupid board’s stabilizer blew. Marv ride, ’til then.”
“I bet.” I dealt with the hip first. He flinched under the gentlest touch. “Your landing must have been fantastic.”
“Yeah, I just—” One traitorous tear slid from his lashes, and he swore as he knuckled it away savagely.
I knew just how he felt. “Watch the language, pal.” I took the sting from the reproach by adding, “You’ll give Terrans a bad rep.”
“We already—hey!” He pushed my hand away from the injury, and tried to sit up again. “I don’t believe this. If Dad finds out—”
“I’m afraid he’ll have to. Your hip is dislocated.” Sympathy softened my tone as the boy’s face reflected his dismay. “The cuts and bruises you can hide, Kyle, but you’re not walking out of here.”
“Marv. Just marv.” He sagged back down, and I touched his shoulder briefly.
“It will work out. Trust me.”
“You don’t know my dad.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea of what he’s like.” I thought of my father as I injected the boy with a mild combination of analgesic and muscle relaxant. After a few minutes, I swiftly manipulated the hip into place. He shuddered with relief.
“There,” I said, and ran a scanner over him once more. “That’s got to feel better.”
“Dad’s gonna space me.” The boy’s fierce expression relaxed as the painkiller took effect. “He doesn’t know I swapped my glideskates for a GravBoard.” He grimaced once more. “He’s got this Terran thing about alien tech.”
“You won’t be GravBoarding for a while, kiddo,” I told him.
“But everyone—”
“Dr. Grey Veil, Harold Springfield is here,” Ecla said via display, interrupting us.
I patted the boy’s tense shoulder. “Relax, Kyle. I’ll go talk to your dad.”
I left one of the nurses to clean up his lacerations and suture the gashes that needed it, while I went to speak with the father. I spotted a Terran male pacing restlessly in front of the Assessment desk and approached him.
“Mr. Springfield?”
The man was obviously a pilot, from the flight suit he wore. Springfield repeatedly thrust his fingers through his thinning hair as I related the particulars of Kyle’s condition. When I mentioned the GravBoard, he froze.
Terrans tended to flush when they lost their temper. Springfield’s face went right past flush into purple rage.
“Damn contraptions,” the Terran said. “I’ve had enough of this! No transfer bonus is going to make me change my mind!”
“Transfer bonus?” I was confused.
He sneered at me. “Why else would I be here, rubbing elbows with all these filthy offworlders, if not for the credits? Well, that’s it. I’m shipping my family back to the homeworld as soon as I can invalidate my contract.”
No one had offered me a transfer bonus. Not that it mattered. “Mr. Springfield.” I was aware of the many sets of alien eyes watching us. Time to get him calmed down before one of the filthy offworlders decided to shut him up. “Kids fall and get hurt all the time. It could have happened back on the homeworld, with our own tech.”
“I’m sick of this place! All these—these—freaks!”
“That’s enough,” I said. “I know you’re angry, but lower your voice. You’re upsetting the other patients.”
He laughed at me. “Yeah, well, it figures you’d care what they think. You’re that big Jorenian’s plaything, aren’t you?”
“Mr. Springfield,” I said, “you are out of line!”
“Doing it with an offworlder!” He looked at me, then spat on the floor. “That’s what I think of you!”
“I’ll have Kyle transported to your quarters when he’s ready.” I gestured toward a couple of sizable orderlies. “You, Mr. Springfield, can take your filthy mouth out of my clinic. At once.”
“Why, you slut, I—”
I shut out the rest of what he shrieked as he was haul
ed out of the facility. Once Springfield was gone, I saw I had the full attention of the patients waiting to be seen. Dr. Mayer watched me from the Assessment desk.
“He belongs on Terra,” I said. I didn’t wait to hear the response as I brushed past the chief to enter the treatment area. I thought I heard him say something under his breath, but I’d had enough insults for one day. I got back to work.
“One of Bind 02376,” Ecla said as she fluttered up to me and handed over the chart. “Separation anxiety, I believe, since it arrived alone. It wouldn’t let anyone touch it or examine it.”
A group of Binders (colony slang for them, I hadn’t a clue how to pronounce their species name) were visiting K-2 while applying for transfer. Just another group of tourists.
Problem was, some bizarre error occurred with the transport schedules, and several of the interdependent pairs had been separated. Their vessels were a light-year out of orbit before K-2’s perplexed translators figured out what the Binders who had been left behind were telling them.
Binders were born in sets of twos, psychically joined from birth. They were emotionally as inseparable as Terran Siamese twins before the development of in utero segregation. An advisory had come out warning that special interpreters were needed if any of the stranded Binders required medical treatment.
“Request a Binder translator from Admin,” I told Ecla. “I’ll check on Springfield one more time.” I found the boy resting comfortably and didn’t bother to tell him I agreed with his opinion of his father. Once I had checked the nurse’s work, I went to take a look at the Binder.
The special translator was already waiting in the exam room with the patient. “Dr. Grey Veil.” It was none other than the chief linguist, Duncan Reever.
“Every time I turn a corner,” I muttered, averting my gaze toward the exam pad.
I’d never seen a Binder before, but the frail creature enchanted me at once. Like something from an old Terran fable, the being had a fey, elfin countenance. It couldn’t have weighed more than twenty kilos. The torso and limbs vaguely resembled a humanoid’s, but there were several orifices, like extra mouths, arranged on its iridescent derma. A shimmering fleece of transparent tendrils covered its ethereal frame.
“Just like a fairy.” I smiled.
“Excuse me?” Reever broke into my reverie.
“A fairy, Chief Linguist.” At his blank look, I demanded, “Didn’t anyone ever tuck you in and tell you a bedtime story?”
“No.”
“Your loss.” The patient was curled into a tight fetal position, shuddering with each shallow inhalation. I caught the faintest scent of a chemical odor. “What is that smell?”
Reever breathed in, and frowned. “Binders do not exude that odor naturally.”
Curiously I checked the room controls and dialed an analysis of the room’s air content. What I read on the console made me freeze with dread down to my toenails. Swiftly I relayed the readings to the front desk and hoped my charge nurse wasn’t occupied. Ecla was going to have to be very busy for the next several minutes.
“Cherijo, what—” Reever said, before I interrupted.
“Do you know anything about KleeFourteen?”
“I know what it is.”
“That’s good, because you’re standing in a room with twenty times the safe limit dispersed in the air,” I said as I secured the entrance to the exam room. Not that quarantine seals would help us directly, but they would keep people out and the toxin in. “Try not to breathe deeply, and don’t make any unnecessary movements,” I told Reever. Slowly I moved over to the exam pad and passed my scanner over the Binder. “Our friend here has ingested it.”
“Skin seals—”
I shook my head. “It’s already saturated and begun the transdermal process.” Disaster was only minutes away. “Ask it exactly how much it swallowed.” My scan revealed the potent toxin, but I had to know the exact amount in order to prepare an antidote.
Reever turned to my patient and said something in a guttural language, simultaneously pressing a careful hand to an orifice on the upper torso. The patient’s tendrils undulated while it whispered a reply.
“Half a stanliter,” I was told.
I met his dispassionate gaze with a steadiness I didn’t feel. “That’s enough to do the job.”
I prepared the correct countermeasure as fast as I could. My hands didn’t exhibit any sign of the internal trembling I was trying to ignore. A brief display signal from Ecla confirmed she was evacuating the entire facility.
“Why did you order an evacuation?” Reever asked.
“Given the amount in the Binder’s system, the blast radius will be close to one kilometer. If I don’t do this right, that is.”
“Do you have sufficient time to stop the process?”
“I don’t know.” Not that it mattered. I might blow us into orbit simply by resorting to the only course of treatment—forcing the Binder to exude the rest of the toxin.
KleeFourteen, once used as a soil enhancement agent, had been a serious problem in the Pmoc Quadrant. Tons of it were once kept in agricultural storage facilities, considered an inert, harmless substance.
However, once the rather tasty fertilizer was ingested by a living organism, the digestive process altered the chemical composition of KleeFourteen. Unfortunately, not to the benefit of whatever ate it. A scientist had figured all this out when some little rodents on another planet began exploding inside the storage facilities.
Most colonies had destroyed their stock, but K-2 had held on to their supply for bartering purposes. A system-wide notification had warned of the danger, but it had been ignored as none of the mishaps had occurred on our planet.
Until today.
The syrinpress was ready. “If you pray, Reever”—I lifted my eyes to the cool gaze watching me—“do it now.”
He didn’t comment on the grim advice. “How long to complete the exudation?”
“Two minutes. Can you hold your breath that long?”
He nodded as he watched me glove. “KleeFourteen is very efficient.”
“You don’t say.”
The only chance we had was to introduce the antidote as close as possible to the arterial system through an intramuscular injection. I gently slid restraint clasps over each of the Binder’s limbs and tightened them to immobilize it.
The Binder murmured something, which Reever explained was sincere regrets for its actions. I finished setting the room controls to full discharge.
“You must not have wanted to die too badly, if you came for help.” I smiled down at the patient’s timid face. The back of my tunic was growing damp.
The Binder imitated my smile, and replied with visible weariness.
“It had second thoughts after the act,” Reever said. “Two of Bind 02376 will not survive without it.”
“Love triumphs over despair,” I said as I gently touched one trembling limb. “Hold the arm still for me, Reever. Like this. I’m going to inject at the bicepular joint. I have to get this next to the plasma stream, or we are all going to be vaporized.” I carefully positioned the syrinpress, and administered the counteragent. “Now, take a deep breath, Chief Linguist, and shut up.”
After that, it was just a matter of waiting. Ten seconds, twenty. We stayed in position, holding our breath, unable to move. Once the antidote took hold, the KleeFourteen ingested by the Binder was directly exuded into the air. It would take the environmental units at least two minutes to evacuate the deadly toxic gas and neutralize it. If we breathed it in, it would kill us. If we moved, it would ignite. The catalyst effect could be triggered simply by disturbing the air.
I watched the first minute pass on the console readout. I admit, I was scared. Dad’s secret seemed meaningless now—and wouldn’t he be delighted to hear his only child had been turned into a small pile of ash.
Reever was staring at me. I decided his eyes were blue, but they seemed to change color every time I looked at him. Some Terrans did that wit
h cosmetic lenses. Reever probably used some weird mental trick.
Finally, the evacuation units switched off. Reever and I both exhaled in relief. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Sweat and what might have been tears made wet tracks on my skin. I offered the chief linguist a wobbly smile.
“Do you need anything else, Doctor?”
“I can handle it from here.”
“Good.” Reever exited the exam room without further ceremony. It was understandable. I felt like collapsing into a quivering, sobbing heap myself. I gazed down at the remorseful Binder.
“Next time,” I said, “try crying on someone’s shoulder, okay?”
I expected to be summoned by Dr. Mayer at the end of my voluntary shift, but oddly enough there were no orders waiting for me. Ecla was effusively grateful as we discussed the last of the cases and the incident with the Binder.
“You saved a lot of lives today, Doctor,” she said with a fluid undulation of her ruffles.
“Thanks, Ecla.” Why did I still feel so restless? “I’m out of here.”
All I had to do was wait for Kao to finish his shift. I went back to my quarters, got cleaned up, and played chase-the-yarn-ball with Jenner for a few minutes. His Highness quickly got tired of entertaining me and stalked off.
Before I realized it I was out the door panel and walking, so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice where my feet were taking me. That had happened a lot to me since Karas had died. Absently I followed one of the pathways leading to the Cultural Center. A few minutes later I found myself in some type of gallery.
It was the flickering light that finally drew my complete attention. I had wandered into the Hall of Art and Expression, which was filled with works by some of the most talented painters, sculptors, and light manipulators in the colony. I’d never found the time to properly tour it. It was beautiful.
I stopped before a particularly fascinating illumination sequence of deep-space microorganisms. The tiny critters were found in asteroid belts, hosting even smaller parasites. The purity of the blues and greens intermingled with the most astonishing bursts of bioluminescent light.
