Endurance

by Richard Chizmar

  “Why?” I glanced around, and saw we were surrounded by at least three hundred League crew members. Some were standing, a few sitting against the bare walls, but most lay huddled and sleeping on the deck. No one looked very happy. “Oh. Never mind.” I gazed back at Alunthri. “You’d better get off me now.”

  The Chakacat made another of those hnking sounds and moved away from me. At once, the nurses I’d rescued formed a tight circle around us. Zel finished arranging the cloth and opened a narrow fold over my face.

  “Talk, don’t,” she said. “Who are you, the minute they find out, dead you will be.”

  “I thought that was the general idea.”

  She pulled her headgear back on. “Up, shut.”

  Something large started moving toward us. The deck shook with every step.

  One of the nurses made an urgent sound. “Devrak is coming.”

  Dchêm-os shoved me down on my back, and I automatically closed my eyes and played dead. The titanic footsteps halted. A sonorous, harsh voice demanded to know what the nurses were doing.

  “From Interrogation, we escaped,” Zella said.

  “What about her?” Something nudged me. “If she’s dead, dump her in the corner over there with the rest of the waste.”

  “She’s not dead, Major Devrak.” One of the nurses coughed. “Only unconscious.”

  “Who is she?” Devrak sounded a little too interested. “Why have you wrapped her brain case like that?”

  Zella took that one. “A Reedol intern, she is. Their features to anyone but their mates, they don’t reveal.”

  I wondered if the Reedols had humanoid hands, if the Major had noticed mine were distinctly Terran-shaped, and exactly when Zel’s generosity was going to run out.

  “Wake her up. The four of you have work to do. I’ll start sending the injured over to be treated.”

  One of the other nurses protested. “But we haven’t any supplies!”

  “The beasts have furnished a few first-aid kits; do whatever you can with those.” With that, the deep-voiced Major stomped off.

  My eyes popped open. “Care to tell me how I’m going to pass as a Reedol, nurse? Whatever a Reedol is?”

  “Than you, they’re more nonverbal. Your Terran mouth closed, you keep.” Dchêm-os pulled me to my feet. One of the other three nurses was still in bad shape. I prodded my unwilling assistant, then motioned to the injured female. “And rest, Bree, stay where you are. Us, Pmohhi help.”

  Nurse Bree gratefully sank back down on the deck. I saw a huge, League-uniformed being herding a sad-looking cluster of wounded crew members toward us.

  “I take it Major Devrak is the Trytinorn?” I whispered to Zella.

  She didn’t have to say yes; he was looming over us in another moment. Trytinorns make Terran elephants appear dainty and petite. Vivid yellow and black markings streaked over his dusky, wrinkled hide. Small, shrewd eyes peered at the slit in my head covering.

  He was Shropana’s Chief Operational Officer, I recalled. If the Major found out I was masquerading as a League captive, I’d be stomped into the deck in short order.

  “Reedol, you are fit for duty?” he asked, and I nodded, keeping my hands tucked in my pockets. “Good.” With one thick forelimb he urged forward the first of the injured, a small, gelatinous being with severe pulse burns on its undulating torso.

  So far, so good.

  A couple of small medical kits were brought over to us, along with a cargo transfer unit we were apparently to use as an exam table. I motioned for the patient to recline, and tried to ignore the Major’s odorous breath as he stood over me, observing every action.

  I couldn’t say a word or the game would be up. I used a scanner, handed it to the nurse, and with some surreptitious hand signals was able to treat the patient with a universal topical antibiotic available from the limited supply.

  “Why does the Reedol not speak?” the Major said, sending a blast of breath that ruffled my head covering.

  “Injured in the fray was her larynx, from Interrogation while we were escaping” was Dchêm-os’s convoluted explanation.

  I injected the patient with the only analgesic on hand to help eliminate some of the pain, and received a pleasant overture of gratitude before another crew member climbed up on the unit.

  We continued in that bizarre, speechless fashion. The prisoners had to be treated for everything from lacerations to broken bones, and eventually the Major lost interest and thumped off. Alunthri stalked a few feet away on all fours, then sat as though standing guard.

  “Whew!” I blew out a soft breath. “That was nerve wracking.” I noticed the next patient was having trouble stretching out on the table, and went to help. The willowy life-form had a few burns on his limbs, but the problem was a deep puncture wound and surrounding abdominal lividity. I frowned as I checked the injury. “We need to get this one to Medical.”

  “Shhhh!” Dchêm-os examined the patient herself, then removed her headgear. “Because of the incident with the guard, they have confined this section. In or out, no matter what the emergency, no one goes. Him, just stabilize.”

  “Not possible.” I scanned the available supplies, and found a container of generic antiseptic usually used in field emergencies. “We can sterilize ourselves and the patient with this, and sedate him with what’s in this syrinpress.” I hunted through the rest of the case. “I need a laser.”

  Zel glared at me. “About, what are you talking?”

  “There are no lasers,” one of the other nurses said. “Nor are we likely to get one if we ask.”

  “Then I’ll need the sharpest blade you can find, a heat source to cauterize the vessels, and something to sew the tissues back together.” I thought for a moment. “Something to suction or soak up the body fluids with, too.”

  “Perform surgery here, you can’t,” Zella said. Why was she acting so agitated? “Your arm, what about?”

  I flexed it gingerly. The stab wound and wrenched muscles twinged. “I can handle it. I have to,” I said, when the nurse would have argued, “or this one won’t make it.”

  While my staffers went to search for supplies, I walked over to Alunthri. “Why the big snarly kitty cat act?” I finally had the chance to ask.

  “I have had to assume a more feral demeanor since being incarcerated,” the Chakacat said. “For purposes of self-defense.” It bared its fangs. “Actually, I have found it most stimulating. Dramatics are, after all, a true physical art form.”

  It would think that.

  The nurses proved incredibly resourceful. As Zella and I prepped the patient, they went through the Detainment Area, and came back with a small garment-repair kit, a thermal braising tool, and a pile of personal hygiene sponges.

  I looked over the collection and hoped it wouldn’t kill my patient. “I still need a something with a blade.”

  “They seized all the weapons when we were boarded,” Pmohhi said.

  “A moment, wait.” Before I could stop her, Zella took the blunt end of the braising tool and struck herself in the face with it.

  “Stop—what are you doing, you idiot?” I grabbed her furry face to assess the damage, but she shoved my hands away and put a paw in her mouth.

  “Take this, here.” She worked it loose, then handed me a bloodstained chunk of one of her incisors. “It’s sharp, be careful.”

  It was, I nearly sliced my hand open grabbing it. And the shock of what she’d done made me yell at her again. “God, Zel, we could have found something else!”

  “Down, keep your voice!” She spat blood out onto the deck. “Use it, go ahead. Fine, I will be.”

  I packed her mouth with a small hygiene sponge anyway.

  “All right. Sterilize everything with that antiseptic. Pmohhi, section us off with some linens and make sure you keep everyone at least three yards away from us. I’ll need something undyed and as clean as possible for bandaging the patient after surgery.”

  Zella tugged me off to one side. “With you
, I must speak.”

  “Okay.” I bent down. “What?”

  “Dizzy or nauseous, are you feeling?”

  “No, I’ve done this thousands of times.” Her fur was standing on end, why was she so damned skittish? No one was going to tear her into pieces. “Zel—”

  “About it, forget.”

  I went back to the table. The sedated patient didn’t flinch as I made the initial incision. Internally, the damage was thankfully restricted to the three-sided left kidney; I’d have been wasting my time if the bowel had been compromised.

  “Sponge. Apply it there. Keep monitoring his vitals. That’s it.

  I went to work. The surgery went slowly without a lascalpel, but I silently thanked the Medtech instructor who had insisted I learn to cut with traditional as well as modern instruments. Though I wasn’t sure that any surgeon in modern history had ever performed a procedure with another being’s tooth. Still, the incisor was the sharpest nonmechanical implement I’d ever used.

  Two hours later, I finished sewing—literally—the abdominal incision and manually checked the patient’s vitals again. His signs remained weak, but steady. I had the feeling he’d make it, in spite of the crude tools I’d used to repair his body.

  “He needs to be isolated,” I said to Zella, checking her mouth before she could stop me. The shiny nub of her tooth looked jagged and painful. “How do you feel?”

  “Fine. Grow back, it will.” Dchêm-os turned to instruct the nurse, then froze.

  “Very interesting work,” the Trytinorn’s bass voice said just above my head. “I see the Reedol intern is quite handy with a bladed weapon.”

  A vicious blow from behind knocked me down. Then someone tore the covering from my head. Once my ears stopped ringing, I looked up into little, mean eyes and an extremely large, yellow-and-black striped foot.

  So this is how it feels, I thought, to become a rug.

  “You must be Torin,” the Major said. “But Colonel Shropana told us you were Terran, not Reedol.”

  “Maybe he got mixed up,” I said to the towering being.

  The nurses all stood in place, their expressions a mixture of dismay and guilt. Dchêm-os stared at the Major, then at me, then she shrugged. Zella’s compassion meter just hit empty, I thought. It had been nice while it lasted.

  “It was not enough that you sold the Fleet to the butchers,” the Major said. “You had to come here and do some carving of your own.”

  “I operated on this man”—I indicated the patient—“to save his life.”

  The Major turned and got louder. “The Terran traitor is here among us. What shall we do with her?”

  There was some gruesome suggestions, delivered by several angry shouts. The entire population of the Detainment Area began to close in on us. God, I hoped Alunthri wouldn’t have to see this. The gentle Chakacat was revolted by even the mildest form of violence. I waved a hand to get the Trytinorn’s attention.

  “Excuse me? Major?” When he looked down, I smiled. “Before you tear me to pieces, would you have some of your men move this patient to an isolated spot? His kidney won’t take any more abuse.”

  “Remove him,” the Major said, and the nurses helped push the makeshift operating table across the deck away from me.

  Now I was standing alone, facing a ring of furious faces. Some of them I had treated only hours before. Guess League memories tended to run from short to nonexistent. No one moved, and quite frankly, I was tired, so I sat down on the deck.

  The Major stepped forward. “Get up.”

  “No.” I yawned, and rubbed my face with a tired hand. “My feet hurt.”

  “Terran beast-lover,” someone shouted. “Stand and face your victims!”

  “There’s an open mind,” I said to the Trytinorn. “You can feel the draft from here.”

  “S-s-s-stop!”

  That came from someone I hardly recognized. The long, lean feline’s fur was raised all along its spine. Long, dangerous-looking talons sprouted from all four paws—which it had dropped on. Sharp fangs glittered as it released a terrifying bellow.

  Was that my nice, quiet, pacifist pal, Alunthri? Roaring? Some acting job.

  Dchêm-os stepped in between the Chakacat, the Major, and me. She scanned the other crew members, her broken incisor bared in a exasperated grimace. “Me, you know. This Terran bitch dead, I vowed to see.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to help, nurse,” I said. And what was this “vow” stuff? “But thanks for the thought.”

  “This area alive, she will not leave,” Dchêm-os said. “Before we can make use of her, don’t kill her.”

  Alunthri let out another feline screech for good measure.

  “I would kill her for using my air,” the Major said.

  “See?” I said to Zel. “Just get out of his way, you’re perpetuating his breathing problem. Take Wild Kingdom here with you.”

  “Up, shut!” Dchêm-os yelled at me, then turned on the Trytinorn. “The wounded, she can treat. Until she dies, it won’t be long now.”

  “Get out of the way,” Devrak said.

  Finally something got through my preoccupation with getting stomped on by the Trytinorn. Until I died?

  “We can’t trust her,” someone shouted.

  “In a few hours, she’ll be dead.” The nurse swung toward the other voice. “Makes no sense, killing her now.”

  “Go back to that part about a few hours,” I told Zella. At the same time, Alunthri gave the little nurse a decidedly ferocious look.

  “There are other doctors!” a third voice said.

  Dchêm-os sent a look of antipathy in that direction. “Yes. All confined to Medical, they are.”

  “I’d still like to know why I’m going to die in a few hours,” I said, feeling a little disgusted myself.

  “Enough.” The Major spat out the word. “I will hear her bones grind under my feet.”

  “No.” Dchêm-os grabbed my good arm and hauled me to my feet. “Mine to claim, her death is. Of my people, by the right!”

  “Zel, I don’t think he’s going to let you keep me alive until it’s convenient for you personally to kill me,” I murmured, eyeing the Major. The dizziness. Zel not wanting me to operate. “Or have you taken care of that, too?”

  “Digitalizine,” the little nurse said without a hint of remorse. “Enough to kill three Terrans, I injected you with.”

  That was interesting, I thought. That particular drug took a few hours to induce a fatal seizure. And all I’d felt was a little dizziness, now gone. Had my boosted immune system neutralized the toxin?

  “You are League first,” the Trytinorn reminded the nurse. “Step out of my way, or share her fate.”

  “I will sh-sh-share it.” Alunthri pushed past Dchêm-os and shielded me with its body.

  “Thanks, Alunthri, but I can handle this.” I stepped around the Chakacat and eyed the nurse. “Get lost, Zel. Do some soul-searching. Maybe you’ll locate one.”

  “Touch you, I won’t let them.” Her dark fur rose stiffly all around her nose. “Mine to kill, you are.”

  She was determined to protect me until I dropped dead from the digitalizine. To her, undoubtedly a perfectly logical situation.

  The Major removed Dchêm-os by picking her up with his long, prehensile lip/nose and setting her down ten feet away. Others forced her away from the inner circle, which left me and Alunthri facing the towering giant being.

  “I have my orders from the Colonel,” the Major said as he started toward me. “You have to die.”

  Alunthri sprang at the Trytinorn, and landed on his broad back. I heard the Major’s surprised gasp of pain when the Chakacat sank its claws into his tough hide. Devrak couldn’t shake it off, not without trampling some of his people in the process.

  “Alunthri.” I spoke low and softly, to get its attention. “Do you remember promising to return the favor when I set you free on K-2?”

  The Chakacat’s tail switched back and forth as it gazed d
own at me. Reluctantly it gave me a single hnk.

  I’d take that as a yes. “Enough physical art form, okay? I want the favor now. Get down from there. Go watch over the man I just operated on.”

  For a minute, I wasn’t sure it was going to work. Then, with a slow, mesmerizing grace, the Chakacat sprang down from Devrak’s back. Then Alunthri lifted a hind paw and urinated on the Major’s leg.

  “Alunthri,” I said, trying not to grin at the gesture of supreme feline contempt. I failed.

  The Chakacat gracefully padded off toward my patient.

  Devrak didn’t seem to be concerned about the small puddle he was standing in. Or maybe he was just trying to act nonchalant. “Now we will finish this.”

  “Be my guest.” I sat back down on the floor and deliberately examined the deplorable condition of my fingernails. Why was it that doctors were unable to maintain a decent manicure? I had no idea. The working conditions?

  “Get up and defend yourself,” the Trytinorn said.

  Against a being several hundred times my size? What, was he kidding? “I’ve sworn an oath to do no harm to other life-forms. Do you really think I could take you in a fight, anyway? Pick on someone your own size.”

  “I dislike killing cringing cowards.”

  “I’m not cringing,” I told him. “I’m sitting. And wanting to do no harm doesn’t make me a coward.” I raised my voice so all the mob could hear me. “Hurting people who can’t or won’t defend themselves—now, that’s more like what a coward does.”

  Suddenly everyone seemed to notice how big the Major was, and how small I was in comparison. People who a minute ago wanted to stomp me into the decking now shuffled back or looked away.

  “Perhaps the nurse is right,” someone said. “We could use her skills, until our plan can be—”

  “Silence!” The Major looked back down at me. “This is your last chance, Terran. Get to your feet.”

  “No. If you’re going to kill me, be my guest. If you’re going to stand there and argue with me all day, I’d rather take a nap. Make up your damn mind.” I smiled. “Coward.”

  I knew from dealing with Trytinorns back on K-2 that the Major’s species had very rigid views about honor. He couldn’t bring himself to strike the killing blow. I had been counting on that. The only problem was he was League, and had learned the fine art of delegation.