by S. L. Viehl
I walked around the lab as I thought. “Where are the bodies? Have you stored them? I need to perform autopsies on them.”
“There are never any bodies,” Keel told me. “Posbret says it eats them.”
I wished for a moment that Mercy had shot the raider instead of negotiating with him. “Posbret is wrong. The killer could eat the soft tissue of one body in several days, perhaps. But it is very unlikely that it could consume two or three a week. Very few sentient species can eat bones and cartilage. Why would you give weight to the opinion of a stranded offworlder?”
Keel looked uncomfortable. “Posbret wants to find the shifter himself so that he can make a deal with Davidov. He’s gone so far as to torture some suspects to get information out of them.”
“Or keep them from sharing it?” I suggested. “That sort of behavior would make him my prime suspect.” The puzzle of what had happened to the bodies of the missing colonists still bothered me. “Were there disposal units in the vicinities of the skins you recovered?”
“Yes, but we always check them for traces of DNA from the missing. None has ever been found. We’ve searched the tunnels and the mine shafts too.” Keel looked down as its wristcom bleeped. “Drefan needs me in central control. I should not have related all of this to you. He will be angry with me.”
“Then don’t tell him about it.” I saw the doubt in its eyes and made an exasperated sound. “Anything I discuss with a patient is privileged information, and regarded as completely private, under quadrant medical regulations. I can’t tell anyone even if I wished to.” Although I intended to pass everything to Reever that I had learned from the Chakacat the moment we had time to link.
“I don’t care if he is angry with me,” Keel said suddenly. “This is not one of his games. We need you to help us find the shifter, and stop it from killing more people. You promised to help.”
I thought of Davidov’s ultimatum. “Believe me, I will do everything I can.”
Six hours later, I handed an enormous pile of garments to one of Drefan’s bodyguards, a Nekawa whom I had to scan standing up, as the exam table would not hold her bulk.
“Well?” she asked, the lacquered curls of her crimson hair barely moving as she worked a divided skirt up over her legs. Each was twice as wide as my torso. “I’m not going to die, right?”
“No one lives forever,” I lied.
“You’re funny.” She pulled on her tunic. “I meant, I’m healthy, aren’t I?”
“No, you’re not. Your blood pressure is elevated, your esophageal passages are inflamed, and the bones in your legs have a dozen small stress fractures. “ I picked up her chart. “According to your species standards, which I downloaded from the colonial database, your body mass is four times as dense as it should be for a female of your height and weight.”
“My kind are not built like you, Terran.” She rolled the twin mountains of her shoulders. “So I’m bigger than most. It serves me well in my job. What of it?”
“You’re overweight because you eat too much, not because you’re Nekawa,” I said. “You spend most of your waking time on your feet, but your frame is not sturdy enough to carry so much extra weight. That and poor nutrition are why your bones are cracking. Your throat is sore because your belly acitoxins are constantly backing up into it. Also from putting too much food in your stomach.”
She hmphed. “So?”
“So unless you change your dietary habits, you will die much sooner than you should. Bend down.” When she did, I straightened her collar, which she could not see, thanks to her six extra chins. “There. Now, tell me why you’re eating so much.”
“I’m hungry.”
I eyed her.
“It’s mine habit,” she said, pouting a little.
“It needs to stop being your habit.”
“Not mine as in belonging to me, mine as in mining. It’s how we were trained to work down there.” She pointed to the floor. “When we saw tools, we worked. When the food buckets dropped down to us, we ate. When the drones rolled out the thermal blankets, we slept. If we didn’t, we were whipped. So every time I see food, I have to eat. I can’t help myself.”
I had already made note of the Nekawa’s numerous scars, healed fractures, and arutanium burns. Her years working in the StarCore mines had taken a moderate toll on her body, but the conditioned responses from that hellish existence were doing much more damage.
“You are no longer a slave controlled by whips and feeding times,” I advised her. “You are free now to make your own choices. If the sight of food causes an involuntary hunger response, I suggest rather than eat that you immediately drink two liters of water chilled to forty degrees.”
“Ice water?” She snorted. “What will that do?”
“It will soothe your throat, fill your stomach, and make you feel as full as a large meal would.” I tapped her chart. “It will also help reduce the amount of acitoxin your digestive system produces, and—by not eating something with calories you don’t need—it will help you lose the extra weight.”
She thought over my suggestion. “I could carry a water jugget with me, the way we did below. In truth, I miss the weight on my hip.” Her tusks gleamed as her expression lightened. “You give good advice, Healer.”
I nodded. “Now follow it.”
The Nekawa turned and made a low, lovely sound. “Have you prior claim on that Terran male hovering out there?”
I swiveled around and through the viewer saw Reever standing outside in the corridor. “Oh, yes. That one is mine.”
“I would probably squash him on the first mating. Still, I will stop eating so much in hopes that you get tired of him and discard him.” The big female bumped her hip against my shoulder in a friendly fashion, and nearly sent me staggering into a supply cabinet. “Enjoy your good fortune, little healer.”
After the Nekawa departed, Reever came in. A bruise darkened his left cheekbone, and sweat soaked his hair. “Jarn, are you finished here?”
“For now. That was the last of Drefan’s bodyguards. He has fourteen of them, and not one under three hundred pounds. I did not think a crippled man would need so many.” I went over and touched his face, gently touching the bruised cheekbone to assure myself there was no damage to the bones and muscles beneath. “Perhaps I can persuade him to lend one to you.”
“I reprogrammed some of the sparring simulations, “ my husband said as he covered my hand with his and initiated a mind link. I bypassed his system security and isolated the terminal in our quarters. We now have access to all the information Drefan possesses.
“You must have set the physical limitation protocol to zero,” I said out loud. “Let me put something on that.” What about the recording drones? Drefan will see whatever we do on the terminal.
I adjusted the lenses and overhead emitters, Reever told me as he sat on the exam table. He can still monitor what we say and do while we’re in the room, but reflected light will make it impossible for him to read what is displayed by the terminal screen.
Very clever, Husband. I took a cold compress pack out of a cabinet and wrapped it in a bandage. “This will help reduce the swelling,” I said as I brought it over and held it to his cheek. “Next time, you should duck faster.”
As I fussed over the bruise and told him harmless anecdotes about the bodyguards I had examined, I channeled through our mind link my memories of everything Keel had said about the shifter killing the colonists,
“There,” I said when I had finished both tasks. “That should feel better now. Men and their games. I will never understand them.” As long as it needs new skin, this creature will not stop killing for it. We have to find it, Duncan, and put an end to these games.
“The games they play here are more complicated and serious than they seem,” Reever said. “But I have no doubt as to who will prevail in the end.”
The next day I was sent back to Mercy to spend the day examining her staff. Drefan chose to keep Reever at Omega Dome, both to
help his engineers begin repairs on the scout and to insure my return the next day.
“You can trust me to come back,” I said as I shouldered my medical case. “Mercy told you that she would share my services, and it is not as if I can leave the colony when you are not looking.”
“Consider it a gentle incentive,” the games master replied. “Mercy feels that she has prior claim over you, and is very unhappy with the current situation. She agreed to my terms, but if she can persuade you to ignore them and remain under her protection, she will.”
“I give you my word, I will return tonight,” I said. “Whether Mercy likes it or not.”
Drefan inclined his head. “Remember, tell her nothing of Tya or what you have seen here.” His one eye shifted from me to my husband and back again. “The settlement of your husband’s debt depends on your discretion.”
Drefan sent me back to Mercy in a heavily reinforced, drone-piloted glidecar that barely fit into the access way. Mercy, Cat, and eight drednocs in battle mode stood at a view panel watching for me at the entrance to her dome. From the anger reddening her face, I guessed that she was not merely unhappy with the situation. She appeared ready to throttle someone.
Hopefully not me, I thought as I climbed out of the vehicle and squeezed through the narrow gap between it and the access-way wall to get to the first air lock.
“You all right?” Mercy’s voice demanded over the com. She didn’t look at me, but watched the drone glidecar slip backward away from the air lock.
“I am fine,” I said, stepping into the next chamber, where I was thoroughly scanned. “Drefan wouldn’t allow me to personally signal you.”
“Drefan is a jackass, and don’t worry about it.” Mercy met me at the door panels and inspected me as if I were crawling with parasites. “Your husband okay?” I nodded, and she took hold of my chin. “What did he do to you while you were over there? Don’t lie to me.”
“He did nothing to me or Reever.” I had expected her to be angry and out of sorts, not furious. “We were treated well by the games master, and he even accepted my offer of services to settle my husband’s salvage debt. I began examining some of his staff yesterday.” She kept glaring past me and at the access way beyond, and I remembered the attack. “I regret the loss of your drednocs. If I could have saved them—”
“Screw the drones.” She put her thumb under my left eye and pulled down the lid. “No blood, but it’s not like anyone can tell by looking. He didn’t try to use you?”
Her actions and questions perplexed me. “Use me for what?”
“Never mind.” She put an arm around my shoulders and guided me out into the corridor. “You’re staying here for the duration.”
“Until tomorrow,” I amended, “and then I have to go back. You agreed.”
She laughed. “I would have agreed to bed an Ichthorii to get you out of there, sweetheart. You’re not going anywhere.”
I stopped, dropping my medical case and resisting when she pulled at my arm. “If I don’t go back, Drefan could harm my husband.”
She shrugged. “I’ll find you another one. We’ve got plenty of males on colony. Just tell me what size, shape, and color you want.”
Cat hopped over to join us. “Look at her, she’s fine,” he said to Mercy. “Now will you calm the hell down?”
“Who’s not calm? I’m calm. She’s calm. We’re all kinds of calm.” Mercy turned to me. “Let’s go. I’ve got my best dreds guarding a nice, secure treatment room for you.”
I refused to move. “If you don’t intend to honor the agreement you made with Drefan, say so, now, and I will go back to Omega Dome.”
“Oh, yeah?” Mercy planted her hands on her hips. “I got eight drednocs right here who say you’re not. Try and get through them.”
Her mocking sneer made something inside me snap.
I grabbed the front of her tunic and pulled her until her face was an inch away from mine. “Look, sweetheart,” I said through my teeth. “I don’t know what sort of crybaby whiny-assed paranoid delusions you’re experiencing at the moment, but I don’t have time for this. You are going to do whatever the crippled guy wants you to so that Reever doesn’t get hurt. I, in turn, will not kick your well-used ass all over this dome. Are we clear on this, or do you need a preview?”
Mercy’s chin sagged. “Cherijo?”
Cherijo, indeed.
“We’re clear,” Cat said, hopping up to us but making no move to interfere. “You can let her go now, Doc.”
“Very well.” Carefully I released my grip on her garment and cleared my throat. “You say you have a treatment room prepared? I would like to see it.”
Mercy closed her mouth, turned on her heel, and stalked off.
The Omorr picked up my medical case and gestured toward the staff’s quarters. “Right this way.”
I followed Cat to the treatment room, which had been stocked with a motley assortment of medical supplies and equipment. A dining table had been refitted with weight sensors and extension arms, and several of the plush furnishings from the lobby lined the walls.
“What we didn’t have, we appropriated or rigged,” the Omorr told me as he set my case on a tiered table. “I know some of it’s not standard”— he nodded toward several flexible, snakelike emitters in one corner that were slowly undulating and casting soft, multicolored light around the room— “but it should serve. If you find that you need something more, don’t yell at Mercy. Signal me and I’ll take care of it.”
My head pounded like a second heart. “I should not have lost my temper with Mercy like that. Drefan warned me that she was angry and might attempt to keep me here.” I felt as weary as he looked. “What did she think happened to me?”
“When the dreds went offline yesterday, she was sure the shifter got you,” Cat said. “Then when you didn’t come back from Gamers, she thought Drefan would use you as bait, to tempt it to try again. She hasn’t eaten or slept since.”
And I had threatened and shouted at her. “I should find her and apologize—”
“Please, don’t,” Cat told me. “I love Mercy more than my life, Gods know, but she’s a bully. She believes she knows exactly how to run everyone’s life. It’s good for her to find out that she can’t.” Speculation gleamed in his dark eyes. “You know, that’s the first time I’ve heard you sound like a real Terran. What brought that on?”
“I cannot say, but it gives me a headache.” I took a syrinpress out of my case, dialed up a mild dose of analgesic, and injected myself. “I will need a few minutes to set up, and then you can begin sending in the girls.”
Ten
I spent the next several hours examining Mercy’s pleasure-givers, all of whom were by professional necessity familiar with medical exams. None presented any ailments, and although several had minor work-related complaints, I found them all to be in good to excellent physical condition.
“Increase the temperature and mineral content of your cleanser feed,” I advised Kohbi, a Munitalp who reported experiencing discomfort with her gluteus minorus after servicing a particularly vigorous regular. “Soak in a hip bath for thirty minutes each night, and advise your trick to handle you with more care.”
“That one?” Kohbi blew some air through a skin flap. “His drill speed is permanently set on sonic blast.”
“Unless you enjoy sleeping on your belly,” I replied, “I would introduce him to the concept of extended, gentle foreplay.”
“I’ll try. My kind don’t sleep in this stage of life, you know.” Kohbi tugged on the narrow tube of virulent green silk that served as her only garment.
“Saving it up for your next lokhgetiti?” I joked.
“Yes, it should be any sol now.” She eyed me. “Few offworlders know our word for the transition time.”
I thought for a moment, and found the memory Reever had given me. He had witnessed the phenomena during a year spent among Kohbi’s people. Some of those memories were unhappy, so I said, “I must have heard it fr
om another patient.”
She grew more interested. “How many other Munitalp have you treated?”
None, I thought as I noted the impending transition on her chart. But apparently Cherijo had seen enough while serving as a trauma physician on Kevarzangia Two to also give me complete knowledge of the species.
“I can’t remember,” I said truthfully. “Have you informed Mercy that you’re due to evolve?”
“Not yet.” Kohbi spit out several lengths of silk, the same livid green color as her garment, and wove it between four of her pincers. A few moments later she draped the head end of her torso with the resulting covering. “She has enough on her mind lately.”
“I doubt you want her to find you cocooned somewhere and unable to speak because you haven’t yet regrown your vocal passages.” I switched off the chart. “Your next stage of life will render you mute as well as nonsexual for several weeks.”
“Oh, right, it’s my silent season. That did slip my mind.” The Munitalp absently rubbed her pelvic arch. “I’ll talk to Mercy, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention my lokhgetiti to the others. I know the multimorphs will understand, but the oneforms might overreact to my body shift and do something crazy again.”
I looked up. “Crazy such as . . . ?”
“There was this Psyoran.” Kohbi’s pincers clicked as she rubbed them against each other. “You know how they shed their frills every so often for new growth? Posbret saw the guy drop a neck flap while he was walking through one of the common areas, and decided the Psyo was the one playing the skin games.” He voice went soft. “They beat and questioned him for three sols, and then they strung him up outside colonial security. He died dangling from the end of a cord. Just because he was growing some fresh exoskin.”
“I see,” I said, thinking of a female Psyoran Cherijo had known on Kevarzangia Two. The species were gentle, helpful creatures that often went into the medical and spiritual fields so they could help others in need. The thought of one being lynched simply for its bodily functions outraged me. “I won’t pass this information on to the others, but Kohbi, talk to Cat. He will see to it that you’re given a secure place to cocoon.”
