by S. L. Viehl
“Primitive?” I gave her a snide smile. “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Guess you’ll just have to wonder about that forever.” To Shon, I said, “Come on, we’re done here.”
“I will go with you,” Maggie said. When she saw my expression, she added, “If I may. Pretty please? With the sugar on top?”
“I don’t know,” I said, tapping my footgear on the ramp. “You’re useless and nasty, and those are your redeeming qualities. We have a lot of work to do to repair our ship and return to our own time. You’ll probably only get in the way.”
“I will help you with this work,” she offered.
Bingo.
On the jaunt back to the Sunlace, Shon took my lead and treated Maggie almost as brusquely as I did. By the time we were on final approach to the launch bay, Maggie had asked us a dozen questions that we hadn’t answered, a situation that dumbfounded her as much as when I told her to shut up while Shon attempted to signal the ship.
“There is too much interference,” he said, and changed the external viewer to display the transceiver array. Like the rest of the ship, it was encased in protocrystal. “That may be why our relays are jammed.”
“Jxin crystal absorbs all forms of differentiated energy,” Maggie put in. “You must align your devices to transmit at the same frequency for it to pass. As you did on the larger ship when you came here.”
“We didn’t change the frequency of our signals when we came out of the rift.” I scanned the protocrystal and used the readings to calibrate our transmitter.
“Someone did,” Shon murmured back to me.
“Sunlace Command, this is Healer Cherijo Torin,” I signaled, using the new frequency. “Respond and confirm.”
“Lieutenant Fasonea Torin confirming your signal,” I heard one of the helm officers reply over the clear relay. He sounded relieved. “It is good to hear your voice, Healer. Are you in distress?”
“No, Lieutenant.” We might be if what I planned didn’t work. “Stand by, please.” To Shon and Maggie, I said, “We have to get into envirosuits. Right now.”
Shon didn’t question my order, but Maggie began to argue at once. “My body is inviolate. I do not need this outerwear. Why are you doing this? You have breathable air in this vessel. These suits are badly designed.”
I ended up shoving her into the envirosuit like an impatient mother dressing a fussy child. When she tried to struggle, I grabbed her chin. “Enough. You’re wearing the suit, or I’m going to save myself a lifetime of grief and toss you out of the air lock.”
“That will not harm me,” she said.
“No, but it will give me a great deal of pleasure to see you encased in ice and floating around out there.” I jammed the helmet over her head and sealed it to the collar of the suit.
Once we were all in protective gear, I went back to the console and signaled Fasonea again. “Lieutenant, please notify launch bay that we’re on approach.”
“Launch bay remains inoperable, Healer,” Fasonea said quickly. “Do not attempt to dock. You will collide with the ship.”
“It’s all right, Lieutenant,” I replied. “We’ve taken some safety precautions.”
“Healer, do not approach, I repeat—”
I shut down the relay and turned to Shon. “Fly straight at the access doors,” I said over my suitcom. “Slow and steady.”
He brought the launch around into docking position. “What if they do not open?”
I watched the ship as we drew closer. “Then we’re going to make a great big dent in the hull.”
The launch’s com panel lit up as we drew closer. I kept my eye on the doors, and the glittering crystal filling the seams.
“Come on,” I muttered. “You took us off, you can let us back on.”
Collision was imminent, and while I knew it wouldn’t completely destroy the launch, slamming into the Sunlace wasn’t going to do great things for it, either.
Slowly the crystal oozed out of the seams, and a gap appeared in the center of the doors. Someone on the other side had wisely engaged the air lock, so this time nothing was blown out into space. Then we were flying into the ship, hovering for a moment in the massive air lock as the doors closed behind us, then moving forward and landing on the docking pad.
“How did you know it would allow us access?” Shon asked me.
“I didn’t,” I admitted. “But if we had hit the ship, its orbit would have towed our wreck alongside it for a couple of hours, which would have given the crew enough time to come out on tethers and rescue us.”
“Assuming we survived the collision,” he amended.
“It was a risk.” I saw half the engineering crew running toward the launch, led by the captain. “But you and I can survive pretty much anything, and as loudmouth back there has so often reminded us, she’s inviolate.”
“I want to take this suit off now,” Maggie complained from the passenger compartment.
We removed our envirosuits while the launch went through biodecon, and then lowered the ramp. Xonea was the first one on board.
“Are you injured?” he demanded, eyeing Shon with a less-than-friendly glower.
“We’re okay. Before you declare anything, I Shield Healer Valtas. Shon was not responsible for what happened.” I gestured vaguely at Maggie. “She was.”
“You blame me?” She looked astonished. “I did nothing to bring you primitives here, Cherijo.”
“No,”I agreed, “but someday you will.”
While Maggie wandered around the launch bay to examine its equipment, Shon and I quickly briefed Xonea on what had happened on the planet and the complete lack of interest the Jxin had taken in us.
“I’m positive they didn’t have anything to do with bringing us here,” I added. “We’re nothing more than a nuisance to them.”
“If they are not concerned about our presence, then why has she come to the ship?” he asked.
“I lured her here. She’s young, and for a Jxin, she’s fairly stupid. But the protocrystal wanted me to see her people as well as talk to them. It seems to be the real reason we were brought here.” I watched her inspect one of the security guards as if he were nothing more than an exotic bug. “I have to find out more about the Jxin of this time.”
“It would be better to send her back to the surface,” Xonea said. “If her people are as powerful as you say, then she could do a great deal of harm to the ship or the crew.”
“That would require her to actually give a damn about us,” I told him. “Which she doesn’t. Generally speaking, we barely register on her radar.”
“We might convince her to help us return to our time,” Shon said. “If we can hold her interest for that long.”
I gave him a grim smile. “Let me handle that.”
After assuring Xonea that I wouldn’t let Maggie out of my sight, I went over to her and informed her that Shon and I were leaving. “I have to examine Healer Valtas and determine if there is any damage to his body.”
She flicked a glance in his direction. “There is not.” She pointed at the guard. “Why do these males carry such crude destructive devices?”
“They use them to shoot things they don’t like,” I advised her. “So be nice. How can you tell Healer Valtas has no damage to his body?”
“I can see his insides. They have already healed.” She tried to touch the guard’s pulse rifle, making him step back. To him she said, “I wish to examine that device. Give it to me.”
“Uh-uh.” I took her arm and guided her away from him. “We don’t let kids play with guns.”
“I am a thousand years older than any being on this vessel,” she said, sounding sulky now. “And I do not play.”
I stopped and turned to her. “If you’re not going to behave yourself, I’ll tell the captain to dump your ass on a drone launch and send you back to the planet.”
She frowned. “But I cannot go back. You have not yet answered my questions.” Her expression turned suspicious. “Are you going to te
ll me how you were able to use the collector?”
“I don’t know. Maybe when I feel better about you.” I nodded to Shon, who followed us out of the bay and down the corridor.
“Where are you taking me?” Maggie asked in between staring at everyone who passed.
“Medical.” I marched her into the lift. “I want to see if your assessment of Healer Valtas is correct.”
“I am not wrong,” she said, her tone growing lofty again. “I am never wrong. We Jxin do not make errors.”
I thought of what Future Maggie had said to me to try to keep me away from the derelict. “Someday you might revise that statement, honey.”
She spent the rest of the time it took us to reach Medical explaining to me how she could not be compared to the food product of a hive insect, complaining about the inefficient design of the ship, and making general observations about how bored she was. As we had on the launch, Shon and I ignored her, which seemed to be the only way to keep her attention focused.
ChoVa was making rounds when we entered the bay, and handed off a chart to a nurse before coming over. “Cherijo, we were deeply concerned about your abduction. The captain just signaled and apprised us of your”—she glanced at Maggie—“situation.”
“You are not like the others,” Maggie said, inspecting ChoVa. “You cannot regulate your body temperature as Cherijo and Shon do. And you are green and scaly and have many teeth.” She glanced past the Hsktskt healer and became riveted. “What is that?”
“I am called PyrsVar.” The rogue came up to Maggie and sniffed her. “She smells strange. Did you find her on the planet?”
“It speaks.” Maggie’s expression filled with revulsion as she walked around him, staring at his body. “You made this, Cherijo?”
“I am not a this,” PyrsVar told her. “I am a person, like you.”
“You are not like me. Or like them.” She squinted as she came around to the front of him. “You are two people. But you are one. Your insides are all wrong.” She turned to me. “This thing was made, not born.”
“Lots of us were made,” I reminded her. “And PyrsVar is not a thing. He is a person, and you will treat him as such.”
“But he is ...” Lost for words, she shook her head. “How could you allow him to take apart another being and put the pieces inside himself so?”
“This was forced on me by an evil one who deceived me,” the rogue answered for me. “Healer Torin is trying to restore me to be as I was born.”
“You have to separate him,” Maggie told me. “He must be made into the two again.”
“I’m working toward a less drastic solution, but we don’t have time for that now,” I said, and turned my back on her to speak to ChoVa. “We need to do a full workup on Shon.” Using my hands close to my chest, I made the Jorenian gesture for “no.” “Nurse, can I have a blank chart?” When it was handed to me, I made some quick notes, explaining my plan to ChoVa, and handed it to the Hsktskt. “Set up assessment room five for the examination, and monitor him from the main console.”
“There is nothing wrong with him,” Maggie said as she followed us into the room. “I told you that.”
“We primitive beings have to follow certain procedures,” I told her. “None of which include relying on the word of Jxin as a diagnostic tool.”
“You could be employing your time to do other things.” When I didn’t react to that, she said, “How long will this take?”
Through the view panel I saw ChoVa working at the main console. “Oh, no time at all.”
While I performed a thorough exam of the oKiaf, ChoVa used the scanners embedded in the walls—the room had been designed for healers to remotely assess dangerous or quarantined patients—to scan Maggie, me, and Shon. I wanted to be sure the oKiaf and I were not contaminated with any more protocrystal, but more important, I wanted to find out exactly what Maggie was.
Shon’s vitals and scans read normal for his species, with a slight elevation in synaptic activity. “Any headache or aftereffects?”
“I feel as I did before we came into the rift,” he said carefully, and touched his chest. “I think my difficulties after the passage were caused by the protocrystal infection.”
“It did not infect you,” Maggie said. “It merged with you. Do I have to stay here? I want to look at that PyrsVar person again, and this is taking forever.”
I glanced at ChoVa, who nodded to indicate the scans were completed. “You can talk to him, but don’t be offensive. He can’t help what he is.”
“None of you can.” She left the exam room.
As soon as we were alone, I rubbed the back of my neck. “She’s like my daughter was when she was a toddler.”
“She is quite childlike.” Shon looked thoughtful. “She has no parents, I assume.”
“I didn’t see any kids down there. Maybe after they attained immortality, they lost the need to reproduce.” I saw his gaze turn shrewd. “What are you thinking?”
“She maintains that she is superior to us, and yet since we came from the planet, she has been recurrently boasting about herself to you,v he said. “It is as if she wishes to impress you.”
I thought about it. “You mean if she genuinely believed that she was superior, she wouldn’t bother bragging to me. The same way I don’t go around telling my cats how wonderful I am.”
“I think it more accurate to say that she wishes to obtain your approval. In the same manner a child wishes a parent to admire their accomplishments,” he said.
I covered my eyes and groaned. “She has to grow up and be my mother someday. I can’t be hers.”
“Perhaps you were her maternal influencer.” Shon fastened the front of his tunic. “You remarked on how different her speech is from the Maggie you knew in our time. And yet just now she used Terran slang: ‘This is taking forever.’ ”
“She absorbed the language from me when we were on the planet, she said. The language she taught me from birth.” My head whirled. “When I was a kid, I always wondered why she talked the way she did. And I’m the one who taught her. God.”
Shon touched my shoulder. “I do not mean to upset you. But everything you do in this time, especially in Maggie’s presence, could have a direct effect on you in the future. Be careful, Cherijo.”
Maggie seemed to be getting along with PyrsVar, who was showing her how to operate the prep unit, so I called ChoVa into my office, where she related to me and Shon what the room scanners had revealed.
“She appears to be somewhat humanoid,” the Hsktskt healer said as she pulled up a holoimage of Maggie’s form. “Her internal organs are similar in size and arrangement to that of certain biped species from our time, but they no longer appear to have active function. There are some other, startling differences, such as this.” She stripped the derma, musculature, and organs from the holoimage, reducing it to a skeleton.
“Her bones are transparent.” I magnified the image. “No cells. No marrow.”
“She does not possess any blood cells, either. Her body fluids are as clear as her skeletal system. Here is the most interesting aspect of the scan.” ChoVa switched the display to thermal, and we saw Maggie’s bone structure begin to twinkle with millions of tiny white lights.
“What is that?”
“Our medsysbank could not identify it,” she advised me. “It does not register as matter or heat, only light.”
“They absorb sunlight,” I said. “Maybe they’re converting it into this light. Some kind of advanced photosynthesis. It would explain why they no longer need to eat or rest.”
“Are their bones made of crystal?” Shon asked.
“They don’t scan as mineral, bone, or any other matter.” ChoVa turned to me. “I never believed I would encounter a living organism whose physiology is beyond our comprehension, but it would appear that this female’s species has evolved beyond the limits of our knowledge and understanding.”
“Maggie told me on the planet that they are purifying themselves f
or this Great Ascension. From what I observed, they’re preparing to discard their corporeal bodies and transition to a higher-level existence.” I thought for a moment. “Once they abandon their bodies, they won’t be able to exist here anymore. The process has to be irreversible.”
“What has that to do with us?” Shon asked.
“From the time I left Terra, Maggie has been communicating telepathically with me, manipulating me and using me to carry out her orders.” I turned to him. “The Jxin didn’t make us immortal healers just so that we would live long enough to combat the black crystal. They couldn’t do it by themselves, or they would have. After they ascend, they’re going to realize they screwed up. They’re going to create us to clean up the mess they left behind.” I uttered a single bitter laugh. “We’re not doctors, Shon. We’re janitors.”
He didn’t like it any more than I did. “We must stop them from ascending.”
“How? They aren’t going to listen to us. On the planet, they barely acknowledged our existence.” I pulled up the scanner readings again. “Why didn’t their synaptic activity register?”
“It did, briefly,” ChoVa corrected. “The scanner’s display stopped registering when the comparative exceeded the maximum scale of nine hundred and ninety-nine trillion.”
A nurse called in on the com panel. “Healer Cherijo?”
“Hold on.” I looked at the Hsktskt. “Their synaptic activity is a quadrillion times more than ours?”
“At the very least,” she agreed.
At last I understood why Maggie’s people had been so quick to dismiss us. “A Jxin having a conversation with us would be about the same as me trying to having a heart-to-heart talk with bacteria.”
“Healer Cherijo,” the nurse called again over the panel.
Feeling impatient over the interruption, I punched the button. “What is it?”
“It is the female visitor,” the nurse said. “She and the crossbreed went into one of the surgical suites.”
