Endurance

by Richard Chizmar

Level eighteen was a remote storage area, seldom accessed by the crew except during loading and unloading procedures. Seven open-paneled sections had been filled with crates of redundant tech, stanissue crew gear, and other nonessential equipment. A team of centurons lead by Reever intercepted me as I got off the lift.

  “Did you find them?” I paced Reever as he headed toward the end of the level access corridor.

  “I don’t know.” He handed me the data pad he was carrying, then gave the guards orders to search every section. Only the last compartment had a closed door panel, I noted. “Do you recognize the chemical composite listed there?”

  I read the list: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorous. Since the elements were listed in minute, trace amounts, they could have represented anything from a bowl of soup to hunk of plastic. The levels of hydrogen and nitrogen registered higher than the other three signatures, that was all.

  “Where did you take this reading?”

  “A higher concentration of the composite registered on the ship’s enviromonitors.” Reever activated the light panel for the last section and looked inside the panel viewer. “From in there.”

  Dusty and packed with junk, the storage compartment was completely silent. I would have hit the access panel and gone in to have a look, but Reever held me back. “Wait for the centurons.”

  “Why?” I didn’t like the look in his eyes. “What are you so worried about?”

  He didn’t respond, and two guards came up to flank us. With a frustrated exhalation, I opened the panel and stepped inside the compartment.

  Immediately the smell hit me. So sharp and dense my eyes watered and my lungs burned. I backed out, my hand over my nose and mouth.

  “Seal the room. Now.” Once the panel was secured, I spent a minute coughing to clear the horrible odor from my nose and throat. “There’s high levels of ammonia in there.”

  Reever programmed the room controls to discharge the poisonous air and replace it entirely, which took a few minutes. I wiped the tears away with my sleeve and swallowed against the searing sensation lingering in my throat.

  “We’ll need breathers if we go back in,” I said. “It could be leaking from a storage tank.” Although why the League would want to store liquid ammonia was beyond me. It had been used as an emergency coolant once, but had been replaced with much safer biofreon gas nearly a century ago.

  One of the centurons produced the masklike units that would allow us to breathe without getting poisoned, and after we slipped them on, we went in. The interior lighting panel wasn’t working, so we had to depend on Reever’s emitter to illuminate the way. The stacks of crates formed a sharp-edged labyrinth, through which we walked slowly. I kept my eyes to the deck, looking for puddles, which is why I found the remains.

  “Hold it. Over here.” I shuffled back a step and dropped down, waving at Reever to aim his light toward my feet. A small pile of what looked like melted chalk lay in a solidified lump. I scanned it and came up with the same chemical composite. Only this time I registered something else—deoxyribonucleic acid. “There are a few viable DNA patterns in this. Reever. This was a person.”

  He told the centurons to search through the remainder of the compartment, then knelt down beside me. “Can you identify the victim?”

  My scanner couldn’t, but the main database array back in Medical might be able to. “I think so.” I signaled the shift resident and had him send a recovery kit down to us. The remains were in such a bizarre state that nothing in my experience explained how they’d gotten that way. “What kind of weapon does this to a living being?”

  “I don’t know.” Reever got up, and took an air sample before removing his breather. “The levels are within safety range now. Could the ammonia be used to do this?”

  I could still smell it when I took off mine. “Ammonia alone, no. A few species’ derma are highly sensitive to it, but not to the point of it melting them upon contact.”

  “Melting them?”

  “I’m not sure how it happened, but that’s the result.” I gazed at the small, sad, white pile. “All that’s left here is skeletal residue.”

  My postmortem only revealed two facts. One, the DNA from the remains didn’t match the profile of either missing patient. Two, I was right; all that remained of the victim was a badly degraded lump of calcium and phosphorous that had once been solid bone.

  I made my report directly to Reever after cleaning up.

  “I want to know what happened to this person, and how the hell someone got two people out of Medical without anyone noticing,” I said after I’d gone over the particulars. He nodded. “And just how did you know the missing patients were both male?”

  He didn’t answer, and abruptly terminated the signal.

  Over the next week I spent what time I could scouring the database, but came up with no answers. Then I found myself with a whole new set of problems.

  FurreVa responded well to the various skin flap transplants and grafts I performed over her back, but the hormonal therapy was making her a bit difficult to deal with. Apparently Hsktskt adolescence is even more stress inducing than the same period in Terrans. She got loud, obnoxious, and routinely sent the nurses into panicked hysterics. Eventually I had to threaten to reveal my confidential knowledge to get her to settle down.

  Either you stop hitting and swearing at the nurses, I typed, or I’m going straight to TssVar and tell him I’m going to soon need seven crates of diapers—and why.

  “I should have snapped your spine when I had the chance,” FurreVa said, turning her face toward the wall panel.

  I adjusted her monitors and withstood the urge to slap her unscarred cheek. “I know exactly how you feel.”

  Alunthri’s condition had gone from pathetic to nearly normal. Whenever one of the staff came to check on it, it continued the wildcat act, roaring, spitting, and fighting its berth restraints. Restraints I had rigged so it could release itself whenever it pleased.

  Conscious that it needed more than a safe place, I had the nurse program the isolation console to play continuous loops of soothing Terran music, from classic Mozart to the B.B. King age of blues. I also altered the interior controls in order to bathe Alunthri in cool, pastel-tinted light.

  Although I’d tried to keep the postmortem report quiet, it was inevitable the staff would gain access to the records. Too many of them had seen the victim’s remains, and rumors began to fly.

  It didn’t help when I finally identified the remains as one of the original escapees from Detainment.

  Colonel Shropana decided the circumstances made excellent ammunition, and he didn’t waste any time in using it against me. At first he restricted himself to snide remarks about how no one had disappeared until I’d left isolation, or how convenient it was that I was in charge of injured, helpless prisoners.

  Things got progressively worse. Patients began watching me with intent, leery gazes. Nurses followed up behind me, checking everything I did on rounds. I was having an argument over proper diagnostic procedure with one of the junior residents when it finally got out of hand.

  “Do not listen to her,” Shropana said, interrupting us from his berth. The surrounding inpatients became very quiet. “The Terran traitor will only murder more of us.”

  I told the resident to take the rest of the shift off, tried to ignore the voices, and went to perform my rounds. Patients started cringing or shouting at me whenever I approached. To complicate things further, all the nurses collected at the prep units and went on a mass beverage break.

  “Look.” I set down my charts and addressed the entire ward. Better be up front and blunt. “I didn’t kill anyone. I’m a doctor. We’re not allowed to do that.”

  “Crew members have been disappearing since you became Medical Primary,” the Colonel said, his face an ugly purple color. At the side of his berth, a monitor began bleeping. “You turn them over to the monsters, to conceal your own incompetence and better your own situation!”

&nb
sp; Patril always gave me such tempting ideas. I didn’t have time to act on this one, as half of my ward began trying to leave their berths, a few with the assistance of the staffers.

  I was shouting and wrestling with a patient who had tangled herself in monitor leads when an emergency signal from Command came in over the main console. “Medical Primary, report to level twelve immediately.”

  “I’m a little occupied right now!” I yelled back.

  Whoever manned the Command console was nice enough to send an armed detachment of guards to Medical. Once they had intimidated the frightened patients back into their berths, I went to Shropana. Ignoring his mouth was easy, doing the same with his readings wasn’t.

  “You are bordering on full arrest,” I said as I pushed him back and strapped him down. He was so weak I had no problem handling him. “If you don’t calm down, you will have a heart attack and you will die.”

  He didn’t believe me—until the resident shoved in my direction saw his monitors, and started spouting the same thing.

  I injected him with digitalizine—the irony of that didn’t escape me—and instructed a nurse to run another full cardiac series. Before I could do anything else, one of the centurons grabbed me and dragged me out of Medical.

  “Hey. Hey!” I couldn’t get his attention. “I’ve got patients to see to back there!”

  I was manhandled all the way to level twelve, where a full squad of lizards had a section of the corridor blocked off. They were wearing protective gear and looking quite grim. The guard hauling me shoved me toward the temporary barrier.

  “Deal with her.”

  I pushed through the centurons and climbed over the four-foot panel. “Her” turned out to be FurreVa, who was on her back ruining all my transplantation work right in the center of the deck. She saw me, but still lifted a pulse rifle and fired it.

  I ducked and swore. “Don’t shoot!” I kept crouched over as I moved forward. “I’m here to help you!”

  She fired three more times, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to hit me unless I took the end of the rifle and pressed it against my chest. Her eyes appeared clouded and unfocused. Her abdomen swelled and bulged.

  Mother of All Houses, I thought. Not now.

  “OverSeer, put down the gun.”

  “Terran?” FurreVa’s rifle sagged as she raised her head and finally recognized me. “Terran … the brood … the brood comes … too early.”

  Yes, they were definitely doing that, judging by the condition of her oviductal flaps. I looked back at the waiting centurons, all of who had trained their weapons on me. “I need some incubation units and a nurse to help me.”

  One of the Hsktskt threw a heavy storage container over the barrier at me. It was an empty alloy box with a sturdy-locking mechanism. “Put them in that.”

  “I can’t. They’re premature, you dimwit, they need specialized equipment.” I watched the lizards exchange significant glances, but did nothing. FurreVa screeched as her belly rolled from within. “Okay, either you go get what I need”—I picked up FurreVa’s rifle and pointed it at them—“or I do the shooting for her.”

  One of the Hsktskt disappeared. The others gave me nasty scowls. I kept the weapon up and on them as I knelt beside my patient.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were in labor? I might have been able to suppress it.” I didn’t wait for an answer but rolled her to her side. Her back was bleeding freely. “Nice work. You’ve ruined half of my grafts, too.”

  “One of the young … emerged,” she said, then writhed under my hands. “Beware … of it.”

  “It’s loose?” I jumped up and scanned the corridor. Nothing in sight. No wonder they’d put up a barrier and gotten the rifles out. “Have you seen it?”

  “It will not … attack … if you stay … close to me,” she said, and groaned again.

  So I could just sit back and relax? Not a chance. “Listen, Helen, I’ve done this before. The little darling love to attack soft-skinned, warm-blooded doctors who should have minded their own damn business.”

  She stopped moaning and lifted her disfigured head. “Helen?”

  “Never mind.” One of her oviduct flaps opened wider, and the curve of a miniature, sac-covered Hsktskt skull bulged out. I had no choice but to deliver it. I grabbed the storage container, shoved it next to FurreVa, then cradled the infant’s crown in my hands. “On the next pain, push as hard as you can.”

  She did, and bellowed with maternal agony. Loud enough to make my eardrums compress.

  The baby Hsktskt didn’t pop out, but slid into my palms still enveloped by its embryonic sac. I guessed like most reptiles it was the first thing they ate after birth, so I merely tore a hole to check its airway, and placed the entire bloody mass in the alloy box. The infant coughed a few times, then went to work on the sac with its tiny, sharp teeth.

  I should have performed a more thorough eval on the baby, but FurreVa clamped a limb around my waist and dragged me around. “More … come.”

  “Hooray.” I checked her vitals with my scanner and delivered the next infant. “I can’t put them together, they’ll try to eat each other.” Holding the sac in my arms, I glanced at the fascinated centurons. “Hey! Where’s my equipment?”

  Nurse Dchêm-os and two interns appeared a moment later, pushing a cluster of portable incubator units. Before I could yell out a warning, they crossed the barrier. At once something small and lethal dropped down on them from the upper deck.

  “Here.” I handed FurreVa the second struggling infant, who was already tearing free of the sac. “Bond for a minute. And whatever you do, don’t push.”

  One of Zella’s ears was half gone, and the infant was busily gnawing at an intern’s throat when I got to them. I shoved the nurse to one side and grabbed the still-damp Hsktskt baby by its thin torso.

  She was far too small and showing signs of respiratory distress, but her teeth worked splendidly. I got her as far as the incubator unit when she sank her teeth into my forearm. I shrieked. She kicked free and jumped to the deck to land on all sixes. A moment later she was over the barrier and down the corridor, with half of the centurons in hot pursuit.

  I’d never dropped an infant before, but I couldn’t exactly feel terrible about this one.

  “Terran!” FurreVa still held her baby, but another had emerged halfway out her flap and was snapping at its sibling’s little tail.

  “Coming.” I checked the intern, whose throat was a bloody mess, to make sure he’d survive. He would. The other intern was unconscious. Zel cowered when I reached for her.

  I didn’t have time to indulge her. “If you can knock out your own tooth, you can handle a chewed-on ear. Come on.”

  I delivered the fourth infant, which was in better shape than the others, and placed it in the incubator at once. Zella managed to do the same with the one FurreVa held. All that was left to do was transfer the first from the storage container to the unit, then deliver the last three.

  After a minute with no further progress in the delivery, I scanned the Hsktskt OverSeer. She was panting and exhausted, but no longer experiencing active labor.

  I had to tell her why.

  “FurreVa. We’ve got three of them safe. The centurons will get the other one.” I didn’t want to upset her, but she had to know. “The remaining three young in your body are dead.”

  She turned her head and made a sound of grief.

  I placed a hand on her scarred face and made her look at me. “We have to do this together. I want you to push when I tell you to, and let me take care of them. Okay?”

  Delivering the stillborn proved a grim, silent task. Two were perfectly formed, but far too small. The last was huge, but from my scans possessed a congenital heart defect, which had caused the infant to die in the womb some time ago. The resulting toxic reaction within the mother’s body explained the premature labor.

  Unlike TssVar’s mate, FurreVa wouldn’t be naming this one after me.

  “Let me look upo
n them.”

  Carefully I presented each one to their mother, allowing her to hold them before gently taking them from her. I carefully placed the bodies in the abandoned storage container, then attended to the cleanup.

  “All right.” I looked at my ravaged medical team. “Let’s move them to Medical.”

  I stopped by Reever’s quarters for a clean tunic on the way back to Medical. As soon as I stepped inside, the yowls and crashing sounds made me snap out an order for lights.

  “What’s going on in”—something large and solid whizzed past my face, and I ducked—“here?”

  The tableau before me bordered on absolutely ludicrous. Jenner stood perched on top of the garment storage unit, his tail and back swelling with stiff, raised fur. He was peering over the edge of one side and yowling furiously.

  I saw some League footgear sticking out, kicking and jerking, and strode over to confront the intruder. A familiar spine-covered being was cornered between the storage unit and the wall panel. The object of Jenner’s displeasure paid no attention to me as he busily wrestled with something smaller, scaly, and quite determined to rip out his throat.

  “Lieutenant Wonlee?” Then I saw what he was clutching between his talons. “God.” I looked around for my medical case. “Whatever you do, don’t let go of it.”

  “I have … no intentions … of doing … so….” He had to keep dodging the hungry, snapping miniature jaws.

  I noted with approval that he was trying to hold FurreVa’s missing infant as far away from his spine plates as possible. Then I spotted my case shoved under a chair, grabbed, and dumped the contents on the deck.

  Easing the Hsktskt infant from Wonlee’s sharp claws proved no simple task. A few minor lacerations later, I wrenched the baby free, thrust it into my case, and snapped the lid shut.

  “There.” Panting, I pushed a handful of hair from my eyes before I went to the console and reported that I’d captured the last of the infants. Then I turned to address the Lieutenant. “How did you get in here?”

  “Ventilation shaft.” He pointed to a small open hatch on the upper deck. “I’ve been using them to collect reconnaissance information for Major Devrak.”