by S. L. Viehl
Several of the nurses looked shocked while the healers murmured among themselves.
“He wasn’t well treated by the psychopath who did this to him. He’ll never admit it, but he’s afraid. So when you work with this patient, take into consideration the amount of abuse he’s already suffered, and try to be gentle.” I turned to another resident who had gestured for my attention. “Yes?”
“That mass in the left lower quadrant”—he pointed to the odd organ I had discovered in PyrsVar’s chest—“does not have an apparent function. What is it?”
“I don’t know.” I glanced at ChoVa. “Were you able to identify it?”
“We did not recognize the mass, so we assumed it was Jorenian in pathology,” she replied.
That wasn’t good. “It scans as reptilian, not humanoid, on the cellular level. He claims to have had it since early childhood, perhaps birth.”
“May I, Healer?” Our pediatrician took my scanner and peered at the display. “These rows of echoes bisecting the central compartment suggest a pedunculated vertebrate tumor.”
“The fibrous membrane could be a chorioamnionic complex,” another healer put in. “The other incorporated structures are unfamiliar to me, but they appear similar to what is presented by a malformed monozygotic diamniotic parasite.”
“Fetus-in-fetu.” I nodded, and then caught Cho-Va’s blank look. “Hsktskt births are always multiple. PyrsVar must have absorbed another fetus while in utero.”
ChoVa’s jaw dropped. “He is impregnated with a sibling?”
“It happens.” To the curious interns, I said, “The fetus becomes embedded due to a repercussion of vitelline circulation anastomoses. The absorbed twin probably suffered a developmental delay which resulted in multiple reversed arterial perfusion syndrome.”
The pediatrician nodded. “We see the same mechanism at work in the gestation of acardiac twins. The reversal of the arterial flow retards the growth and cardiac development of the impaired twin, which is then embedded in the larger, stronger fetus.” She frowned. “Healer ChoVa, this condition should have been detected at birth and the mass excised from the patient’s chest. This disorder also becomes readily apparent from the parasite’s slow but continued growth and compression of the adjacent organs. He has likely been in pain his entire life. Why does this remain untreated?”
“The male is the offspring of a disgraced pariah. As such he had no recognized bloodline, and was not entitled to the rights and benefits afforded to our citizens.” ChoVa’s inner eyelids drooped. “Other than what was done to him during the alterformation process, this is the first time in his life he has received medical care.”
“I see.” The healer didn’t verbally express her contempt, but it was written all over her face.
“Many of my colleagues and I do not hold with our species’ custom of punishing the young for the crimes of their sires,” ChoVa said. “You are doubtless familiar with the cultural implications of disrupted or disgraced lineal status. For years your people were largely unsuccessful in integrating offspring of slave rape into your society.”
“We refer to them as ‘the ClanChildren of Honor.’” The healer’s disdain abruptly faded from her expression. “Your pardon, Healer ChoVa. Perhaps our people are more alike than either world cares to believe.”
“No one is seeing the value of this aberration,” I pointed out. When everyone looked at me, I added, “The fetus-in-fetu is a twin. It will contain the same DNA PyrsVar had when he was born. We can harvest the unadulterated genetic material we need directly from it.”
“How would you use it?” ChoVa asked.
“Rather than try to remove the Jorenian organs from the Hsktskt, we could infect them with a retroviral compound that would deliver the natal DNA and encode it into the Jorenian sequences.”
“That would work very quickly.” Apalea looked thoughtful. “But would the body be able to withstand such rapid transformation?”
“It’s worth exploring.” The room intercom chimed, and I went over to answer it. “Yes?”
“Healer Cherijo, we have received a summons from the Ruling Council,” Apalo told me. “They have requested that you attend them in chambers at once.”
Joren’s governing body probably wanted to be briefed on our project, but I still needed to run more tests and put together a tentative treatment plan. “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
“Stand by.” The intercom fell silent for a minute, and then Apalo’s voice returned. “The council members have received an interplanetary signal that requires your immediate attention, Healer.”
There goes my staff meeting, I thought glumly. “Very well. Tell them I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
I dismissed the off- duty staff for the rest of the day, wrote up quick orders for PyrsVar’s care, and left the ward in ChoVa’s capable hands. She and the pediatrician promised to run secondary scans on the fetus-in-fetu lodged in PyrsVar’s chest and determine if it could be removed without compromising the blood supply to the surrounding organs.
“Don’t tell him that he has a sibling in his chest,” I advised the Hsktskt healer. “He’s carrying around enough guilt.”
Shon joined me. “Are you leaving now?”
“Yes.” I started toward the lift, and then stopped to look back at him. “Where, exactly, is the Ruling Council?”
After a little bickering (I didn’t need an escort, the oKiaf didn’t want me going alone) Shon accompanied me to the council’s chambers, which were in a beautiful but tightly secured sector of the innermost halo. Built of neutral golden stone studded with panels of polished minerals from every inhabited province on Joren, the place looked like a small palace.
My admiration for the structure seemed to amuse the oKiaf. “You were chosen as a ruler of this world, and yet you have never once been in their chambers?”
“I’ve signaled them a few times.” I made an exasperated sound. “Back in those days I was busy being a doctor, and a fugitive, and a ship’s healer. Don’t even get me started on how time-consuming it is to be enslaved.”
“There are eleven seated members on the council,” he told me as he parked our glidecar in a designated area. “They are elected based on provincial governing experience; most are high-ranking members of their HouseClans. Three alternates also monitor every proceeding from their home provinces and participate when necessary. While you were away from Joren, one of the three would have voted in your stead.”
I’d never asked to be made a planetary ruler, so I didn’t feel bad about the lousy job I had done as a council member. Still, I felt a little uncomfortable with the way the security team grinned and greeted me as we stopped at three identification checkpoints on the way to the ruling chamber. At the final gate, six guards stood smiling but with weapons ready as Shon and I were scanned from head to footgear and our mouths swabbed.
I didn’t mind being searched, but I was never happy about giving up a DNA sample. When the guard verified we were genetically who we said we were, I asked for both our swabs back and dropped them into a small disposal unit.
The interior of the council chamber proved to be as interesting as the outer structure. Oversized screens encircled the room, and had been installed at an angled pitch so they could be easily viewed from the center platform. A long spiral of ClanSigns, one from every House on the planet, marched across the screens, and illuminated pedestals holding complex flower arrangements glowed underneath them.
The real show was on the center platform, a dais surrounded by gently sloping tiers of stone steps that ended at the edge of a polished expanse of old, scarred wood. The humble material used for the platform seemed out of place compared with the grandeur of the rest of the chamber, until I realized what it was.
“That’s the base of an old warrior quad, isn’t it?” I murmured to Shon.
He nodded. “It is the quad where Tarek Varena defended his honor.”
My stomach rolled—I wouldn’t have preserved a place where hundre
ds of men had been slaughtered—but I could see the symbolic power of it. Tarek Varena had not only created Jorenian path philosophy, he’d been responsible for instituting the first set of planetary laws. Without the hundred days he’d spent killing everyone who challenged him, there would be no HouseClans.
Atop the old warrior quad stood the eleven members of the Ruling Council, dressed in simple white robes with narrow belts woven from yiborra grass. The five women and six men had calm faces, and plenty of purple in their hair, one of the few signs of age among their species.
One of the women stepped forward. “Healer Torin, we thank you for attending us so quickly.”
“My pleasure, council member.” I glanced up as another Jorenian face appeared on the room’s screen panels. I recognized the handsome face and shrewd eyes of an old ally.
“Welcome back, Doctor,” Ambassador Teulon Jado said from the screens.
I knew from the records that the ClanLeader of the Jado had been sent to Akkabarr to be sold as a slave to the Toskald. There he had somehow escaped to the surface, and united the tribes of slaves left to die there into a rebel force. With their help, he had cobbled together a fleet out of the thousands of shipwrecks on the planet, and taught the tribesmen how to fly the ships. Then he had begun staging attacks against their former masters, the Toskald, until the surface rebellion had developed into a full-fledged war.
The rebellion had given Teulon direct access to secret bunkers on the surface, which contained weapons stores and the Toskald’s greatest advantage, crystals etched with command codes that gave him control over thousands of armies. He’d used the crystals to bring the Hsktskt and the League as well as the Toskald to their knees. His rebellion had been an engine of vengeance, a vehicle of justice for the Jado Massacre, but in the end he had used his power to force a peaceful end to the war.
Even I didn’t have to be told that he was the most admired man in the galaxy.
He looked as young and vigorous as any Jorenian male, his blue-skinned face austerely handsome and his long black hair coiled into a deceptively simple-looking warrior’s knot. But his eyes were another matter altogether; they spoke of his soul, one that had been battered and pushed to the brink of madness while witnessing unthinkable tragedies.
He and Jarn had been allies, but I wouldn’t hold that against him. “It’s good to see you again, Ambassador. How may I be of assistance?”
“My bondmate and I are presently on Vtaga, negotiating some trade agreements with the Hanar,” Teulon said. “We have received several signals from a number of border patrols and cargo vessels which have encountered a newly formed anomaly in an unexplored region between N-jui and Varallan. The anomaly appears to be a rift in space.”
Rifts, or dimensional disruptions, were so rare that only a handful had been discovered and mapped over the last thousand years. While their bizarre properties were interesting, most were unstable and presented only a minor hazard to the shipping routes. No one knew what caused them to appear or vanish.
“Does this rift pose a threat to any populated worlds?” I asked.
“Not to our immediate knowledge,” Teulon replied. “It is what came out of the rift that concerns us now.”
The fuzzy image of a star vessel appeared on the chamber screens. It appeared to be drifting in front of an uneven ellipse filled with millions of tiny stars. I couldn’t tell how large the ship was, but the sweeping design and intricate filigree of its hull arrays were unlike anything I’d ever seen. So were the red, white, and orange alloys or materials used to build it.
I frowned. “What is that?”
“We have been unable to identify it,” Teulon said. “The hull reflects most of our scans, although our patrols have used a drone probe to determine there is a crew on board.”
A vidfeed from the drone appeared on the screens, and showed the little mechano using some exhaust shafts to gain access to the mysterious vessel. It passed through several conduits and into what appeared to be a fuel tank filled with some dark, gelatinous liquid before it emerged into an interior compartment. There it widened the view from its lens to take in a series of clear vertical columns suspended from the upper deck.
Inside each column a motionless humanoid body hung suspended in a silvery white fluid.
“Are those stasis chambers?” I heard Shon say.
I didn’t see any breathing tubes or monitor lines attached to the bodies, but their heads were completely covered by some sort of helmet that might have been providing them with oxygen. Each column had also been equipped at the base with a series of control panels.
The technology we were seeing was so far advanced that it appeared unlike anything in existence.
I also saw something on the exposed skin of the bodies. “Ambassador, can you magnify the image and focus on one of the hands inside the tank?”
“Yes.” The image zoomed larger as it was magnified, until it showed a close-up of the back of one hand, glittering as if it was gloved in clear crystal. As we watched, the mineral attached to the skin grew a few millimeters.
“Those tanks are filled with protocrystal,” Shon said.
I glanced at him. “Are you sure?”
“I have seen it many times on my homeworld. The matrix is unmistakable.” He kept staring at the image. “But why isn’t it attacking or absorbing the bodies?”
I studied the images. “Maybe they’re somehow immune to it.” I raised my voice. “Ambassador, have you determined if the crew of this vessel is still alive?”
“Not as of yet.” Teulon Jado’s face reappeared on the screen. “We have sent out a salvage crew to secure the ship and tow it a safe distance away from anomaly, but for obvious reasons we do not wish to bring it to an inhabited world.”
“You can’t leave it to drift through space, either,” I said.
The council member made an elegant gesture. “Ambassador Teulon, the Hsktskt Hanar and our council agree that the first to board should be a medical response team, in the event the crew is still alive and require treatment. Healer Torin, Healer Valtas, you have had much experience with this mineral. You understand the dangers involved.”
“Seeing as the protocrystal almost ate Healer Valtas,” I said politely, “I guess we do.”
“Ambassador, this mineral is unpredictable, aggressive, and very dangerous,” Shon said. “As this appears to be the same substance, I advise against having any contact with this ship.”
“But if this crew belongs to a species unknown to us, one that has found the means with which to control the protocrystal,” Teulon countered, “they may be willing to share their knowledge. It could save your homeworld, oKia, from being consumed by it.”
I’d feel better if we first found out who the crew were. “Have you been able to determine if the ship came out of the rift?”
“Both appeared on a cargo vessel’s long- range scanners simultaneously,” he said.
Which meant that the ship could have been caught in the rift when it formed, or may have created it. “Have your patrol ships sent in any drones to see what’s on the other side of the rift?”
He nodded. “There is an unusual energy field within the perimeter of the anomaly. It has destroyed every drone sent through it.”
I didn’t want to go any more than Shon did, but the ambassador was right: we had the most experience in dealing with the effects of protocrystal exposure. “I’ll need time to assemble a team and arrange transport.”
“HouseClan Torin has put the Sunlace and her crew on standby,” the council member told me. “The Hanar’s delegation has also been instructed to provide you with any assistance the Faction may provide.”
Jarn had worked with ChoVa to cure the plague of memory, and with her experience in stasis medicine ChoVa would be invaluable. It meant putting Pyrs-Var’s restoration on hold, but I had no doubt if the Hsktskt healer came on the sojourn, he would insist on accompanying her. I could also work on designing the retroviral compound.
“If the Sunl
ace is ready, we can leave tomorrow,” I told Teulon. “I’ll go, on one condition.”
“Which is?” the ambassador asked.
“There is one person I don’t want on this expedition,” I told him. “He is to be kept on planet while I’m gone. Under guard, if necessary.”
Teulon’s brows rose. “Who is this male?”
“The ship’s linguist,” I said. “Duncan Reever.”
Seven
At my request, Ambassador Teulon sent orders for the Sunlace to land at Adan Main Transport while I put together a medical team. As soon as Shon and I explained the situation to ChoVa, she immediately volunteered to go along, and as I’d expected, so did PyrsVar.
“There are some species that use different mineral compounds in their stasis suspensions,” the Hsktskt healer told me. “It is possible that these people have mastered the use of the protocrystal as a life-support system.”
“We’ve only just begun discovering its properties,” I reminded her. “And since it doesn’t occur outside our galaxy, that implies that this rift may have come through time as well as space.”
“You think this ship jumped here from the future? PyrsVar chuckled. “No one can do that.”
“No one can now.” I looked over the roster of residents and nurses. “The Sunlace has a competent medical staff on board, but I’d like a couple of extra hands. If this crew is still alive but in distress, and we can extract them, they’re probably going to need intensive, round-the-clock care.”
In the end we recruited another dozen Adan medical professionals to join the expedition, as well as a xenogeologist and several engineers who were very interested in getting a good look at the ship.
Xonea Torin was waiting for us at the docks when we reported the next morning. He greeted the Adan, ordered the medical equipment be brought on board, and then pulled me to one side.
“I know this is a time of great personal distress for you,” he said, his voice gentle, “but know that whenever you need to talk, you have but to ask for me.”
