Endurance

by Richard Chizmar

  “Do you mind?” He slid off the berth and stepped up to me. “We were making cohesion.”

  Cohesion. That was a new term for it. Someone had been palming their daily ration of chemical inhibitor.

  “You’re messing up my inpatient berth.” I tossed his trousers and orange tunic at him, then pulled the partition back in place. “Get dressed.”

  They appeared a few minutes later. The female was slightly larger than the male, and had a belligerent set to her otherwise softer features.

  She got in my face, too. “We weren’t doing anything wrong. We have made cohesion before.”

  I ran a scanner over her and checked my readings, which told me exactly what I’d suspected. Adolescent Forharees, just coming into their fertile phase.

  Teenagers in lust.

  “Okay, kids. What are your names?”

  “I am Jgrap. This is Kroni.” The male sounded suspicious. “Why do you wish to know our names?”

  “So I can track down your parents and have them ground you both for a few revolutions.”

  The teenagers looked puzzled, and I sighed again.

  “Want to know what the guards will do if they catch you two playing twine-the-tendrils?” Both sets of eye stems looking at me arched. “You don’t want to do this. Not here. Trust me.”

  “We would rather die together than live apart,” Jgrap said in a passionate tone, weaving his longest tendril around his girlfriend. They both fairly quivered with the dramatic conviction of young love.

  I needed an antacid tablet.

  “Nobody is going to die.” I put aside my scanner. “Get back to your tiers, and don’t let the guards see you leave together.” I held up a hand when they would have hurried past me. “No more cohesion. Especially not in here.”

  “Very well,” Kroni said as she went by. She had a sweet, lilting voice. “We will find another place.”

  The antacid didn’t help.

  I continued to work every day for as many hours as I could stay on my feet, then was escorted under guard to my chamber. It was conveniently located around the corner from the infirmary, and isolated from the rest of the prisoner population. Someone had placed a prep unit and a rather comfortable cot in the small cell, which made it tolerable.

  The first day I left the infirmary, I found Jenner waiting for me. I picked him up for a joyous cuddle, and looked into his disgruntled blue eyes.

  You left me alone with that cold-eyed one who never pets me.

  “Sorry, pal.” I buried my face in his fur. “I’ve been sleepwalking for a while.”

  Well, wake up. I’m hungry.

  Alunthri was delivered back in its cage, and it took half a shift before I could convince the guards to leave it alone. I requisitioned a separate chamber near my own and used the excuse of continuing therapy.

  “You may have to keep up the wild animal act,” I told my friend when I relayed the news.

  “E-e-e-e-e-e R-r-r-r-r,” the Chakacat said with a yowl, then cocked its bullet-shaped head. “I’m afraid the guards no longer find me very convincing, Cherijo.”

  “Try to look meaner.”

  “How is this?” Alunthri gave me a realistic snarl, baring lots of teeth, then dissolved into purrs of delight when I took an automatic step back. “I will take that as a yes.”

  It became apparent that the nurses and I couldn’t handle the daily caseload, so Reever allowed me to draft Vlaav Irde and two more interns. When the number of patients leveled off, then began inexplicably dropping, I didn’t volunteer to send any of them back.

  My earnest young intern worried about that. Constantly.

  “They won’t sell us if we do a good job, right?” Vlaav asked me as he scanned a patient with a low-grade fever.

  Lying to him would only make it worse. “They can sell us any time they feel like it, pal.”

  I finished suturing my patient’s multiple lacerations and inspected my handiwork. The Capel-du suture laser I had to use seemed primitive compared to League tech, but still did a fairly good job.

  “How did you get these injuries?” I asked the humanoid, who had remained silent throughout the treatment.

  The patient said nothing, only stared at the Hsktskt guard standing just inside the door panel.

  Only a handful of prisoners had appeared for treatment that day, and I was beginning to wonder if the Hsktskt were preventing them from reporting. Making a scene about it wouldn’t help, I decided, and wrote up the discharge notes.

  “I want to see you back here in the morning.”

  He muttered something that sounded like “crying chambers,” rose and then hobbled out.

  Crying in his chambers? I’d done some of that myself.

  The resident Lok-Teel got busy on the exam table as soon as the patient left. It had taken some getting used to, watching the blobs scour everything the moment it got dirty, but even I couldn’t deny the benefits.

  I’d scanned the fungus and found it exuded its waste products in a gaseous form which had the additional plus of acting as a stringent antiseptic on all surfaces.

  “Who’s next?”

  The prisoner who would have reported was shoved aside, and two centurons hauled a third through the door panel.

  “Doctor, this male has been injured.”

  That he had, considering the amount of blood he was dripping all over the floor. One of his limbs hung at an unnatural angle. I directed them to the exam table. Scanning revealed multiple compound fractures along the upper half of the Hsktskt’s limb.

  I checked his airways. “What hit him?”

  “He was attacked by a slave.”

  “Some attack.” The centurons flanked the table and got in my way. “You two can go. I’ll take care of him.”

  “You can’t help him!” someone said.

  I looked around at the patient the Hsktskt had knocked aside. He was still sprawled on the floor. “I beg your pardon?”

  “How can you even think about giving them aid?” The prisoner got up and jerked the edge of his tunic up. A big, ugly bruise darkened the flesh over his rib cage. “Look at what they did to me!”

  One of the centurons shuffled forward and raised a limb with the apparent intention of adding more contusions to the angry prisoner’s torso.

  “Hold it.” I left the exam table and put myself between them. “Centuron, I need to treat your friend over there. I don’t need to be scraping someone else off the floor right now.”

  The limb dropped, and I pivoted to address the indignant loudmouth. “I understand how you feel. I’m sorry you got hurt. But you’ll have to wait. Make being quiet your number-one priority, okay?”

  All my warning got me was a hateful glare. “I shouldn’t have come here. The League Commander was right. You’d rather make things better for yourself than help us.”

  The League Commander was going to get my foot up a certain portion of his anatomy if he didn’t stop polluting the prison population with his waste. The centurons both looked ready to pound this guy into paté.

  I scanned him, was assured there was nothing life-threatening present, then gave him a push toward the door. “Do yourself a favor. Get out of my exam room. Come back in a few hours.”

  The patient stalked out, muttering things not complimentary to me or the medical profession.

  I went back to the injured Hsktskt, who was regaining consciousness. Heavy limbs started thrashing around. Bellows of pain erupted from the thick throat. The centurons would come in handy after all.

  “Grab his limbs and help me get him into restraints. No, not the injured one, idiot.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Nurse, if you’re done ogling, a syrinpress would be nice.”

  A thorough scan reveal additional tissue and muscle damage, and I directed Vlaav to get the largest bonesetter we had prepped.

  One of the centurons hovered at my elbow, and I glanced at him. “What, exactly, did this slave use to attack this male?”

  “His foot.”

  Now I saw the
outline of the wide-base sole imprinted in the flesh. No question about it, the attacker had been Major Devrak. As far as I knew, he was the only Trytinorn on Catopsa, and twice the size of the next largest prisoner. The Hsktskt had been forced to modify a launch last week just to transport him off the Perpetua.

  “Where’s the attacker?” Neither Hsktskt answered me, so I stopped working. “Don’t tell me you killed him.”

  “The Major will be placed in isolation.” Reever entered the infirmary and stood at the end of the exam table. “Will the centuron recover?”

  I finished infusing the patient with a sedative/analgesic compound and helped Vlaav align the bone-setter before I replied. “He should, if he’s given a week of bed rest and lets the limb heal.”

  “See to it,” Reever told the centurons, then turned to my intern. “Can you continue the treatment by yourself?”

  Vlaav’s hemangiomas pulsed and darkened. “Of course, I can. But—”

  Reever grabbed my medical case and my left arm. A moment later I was being hustled down a corridor.

  “Hey!” I tried to get loose. “I’ve got work to do!”

  “There are prisoners who need treatment,” he said.

  “So send them to the infirmary. I’ve been twiddling my thumbs for the past five days.”

  “They refuse.”

  I started to ask why, then recalled what the loudmouthed prisoner had said. My lips thinned. “How many need treatment?”

  “Forty. Possibly more.”

  We arrived at tier three’s commons, where a group of male prisoners had been assembled for a meal interval. A ring of Hsktskt centurons surrounded the large group, and held their weapons ready. I saw why when I pushed past one to get a better look.

  A cluster of males in bloodstained tunics were shoving and snarling at each other, while several others lay wounded or ill on the floor. Surprisingly, the injured were all female. That didn’t make much sense.

  Major Devrak trumpeted over the other voices, but I had no problem understanding him. “—an honorable death! It is better to die than to submit to the beast!”

  Lieutenant Wonlee, I saw, was standing in front of the Major, with his claws ready to tear. Only he was holding them extended toward the League subcommander. Now that really confused me.

  “You corrupted her!” Wonlee moved in. “She won’t listen to me!”

  Fists, limbs, and tendrils started to violently collide.

  I turned to the closest guard. “Can you fire a warning shot off in here without making more work for me?”

  The centuron glanced at Reever, who nodded. The beast pointed his rifle at the ceiling structure and activated the weapon. A moment later a huge boom shook the commons and everyone stopped fighting.

  I walked over to the first prone figure and knelt beside her. She was babbling and twisting, her body temperature elevated. A red, blotchy rash covered her face and upper appendages.

  I opened my case to grab my scanner. “Get a blanket or thermal covering over here.”

  There was absolute silence for a moment. Then someone threw a folded piece of berth linen at me. I caught it and covered the shivering female as I ran an internal series. The outer coverings of her brain and spine were badly inflamed She reacted only when I shined an optic light in her eyes, and then she tried to hit me.

  “Get this one to the infirmary.”

  I went to the next female, who was pale and still. A quick scan revealed she had died of the same symptoms. It took a few more seconds to scan the remaining females and confirm what I already suspected.

  “Reever.” I gestured for him to join me. “They all have it. Two of them are already dead. I’m taking them out of here, now. We’ll need help to move them to an isolation area.”

  Before my ex-bondmate could say or do anything, Devrak shuffled through the prisoners to stand over me. “You are not taking them anywhere.”

  The last patient groaned as I got to my feet and straightened my tunic. Calmly I met the Major’s furious gaze.

  “I said I’m taking them out of here,” I said. “They’re dying, you titanic moron.”

  “Doctor.” Wonlee hurried over to one of the females who was curled up tightly in a fetal position, and picked her up in his arms. The insides of which, I realized, had no spines. “Can you help her?”

  She possessed the same spiny exoskeletal plates as Wonlee had. They flattened to act like a prickly cushion between the two beings. A relative? I scanned her one more time to be sure, but the female was far beyond any help I could offer.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. It’s too late.”

  He gently laid her down again, then hurtled up and at the Trytinorn with a furious shriek of rage. Devrak knocked him aside, but not without receiving some substantial, deep gouges on his hide.

  “Wonlee, stop.” I went to where he lay on the deck, and scanned him. Devrak began thumping over, and I turned my head. “Back off.”

  “We will not permit the doctor to remove these females.” A hunched-over canine figure appeared beside Devrak. Shropana. “She will kill them. Just as she did the others, from the Perpetua.”

  “No.” Wonlee spat out some blood, then propped himself up by one arm. His claws scraped over the shoulder of my tunic, but he didn’t hurt me. “Take them. If you don’t, they’ll all die. Like she did.” Despite his injuries, he got to his feet and positioned himself between me and the League officers, his spines trembling but erect. “Let her do her work.”

  “Very well.” Shropana gave me a shrewd smile. “They’re nearly dead as it is.”

  Meaning I’d get blamed for that, too. “I was wrong, Patril. I can’t do heart surgery on you. I wouldn’t be able to find it.”

  Reever organized more Hsktskt guards to begin transporting the females. The males watched in silence. One of the dead females was removed by a centuron, but Wonlee picked up the other before anyone could stop him.

  “You will need to perform tests to identify and cure the sickness, will you not?” he asked me. I nodded. “Use her body.”

  Knowing how attached he was to the female, I started to shake my head. “I’d need to do an autopsy.”

  “I know. I want you to.” The Lieutenant started limping toward the infirmary. “I want to know what killed my wife.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Twists and Turns

  The Hsktskt grudingly transported the entire group of females to an isolation chamber near the infirmary, where I spent the next several hours treating and monitoring them. After the last patient stabilized, I returned to the infirmary to check on the injured Hsktskt and Wonlee.

  I found the Lieutenant sitting alone at the end of the inpatient ward. On the berth beside him lay the body of his wife. He held her claws in his and stared down at her slack face, grief etched in deep lines around his eyes and mouth.

  One of the Lok-Teel had attached itself to the dead female’s leg, cleaning the encrusted bodily fluids from her cold skin. I gently removed it and set it on the floor.

  “Excuse me for intruding, Lieutenant, but I need to speak with you.” I sat down beside him and hoped he would confirm my suspicions without going ballistic on me. “Can you tell me what happened? How long ago did the females become ill? Why didn’t your wife and the others come to the infirmary?”

  “They have shown signs for several days. My wife, Mareek fell sick last night. They would have reported, but Shropana and Devrak convinced them that you would have them killed. This morning Mareek became confused, nearly incoherent.” Something tore in his voice as he added, “I argued with her. Our last words to each other were spoken in anger.”

  I couldn’t touch him, or I’d have put an arm around him. “I’m sure Mareek knew how much you loved her, Lieutenant.”

  He made a harsh sound. “Wonlee. Just Wonlee.”

  “How did the females end up in the male tier?”

  “I don’t know. They appeared in our commons a few days ago. We hid them in our berths at first, but the beasts ar
e everywhere and”—he gestured toward the see-through walls around us—“our deception was discovered.” He tenderly placed the female’s claws on her spiny breast and got up slowly. “Last night, their temperatures spiked. They caught me trying to cool them down.”

  “You’ve had some kind of medical training, haven’t you?”

  “I was a medic on our homeworld. That’s how I met Mareek, during one of her furloughs. I worked in the Star Surgeon’s Office, and she needed a deep-space eval. We married and I joined the League, to be with her. It would be an adventure, she said.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Now they’ve killed her.”

  “I’m very sorry, Wonlee.” I didn’t like the way he stood, favoring one side. “I should take a look at you now, okay?”

  He nodded. “Doctor, I know it doesn’t matter anymore, but I have resigned my commission from the League. As long as I am here, I will do what I can to aid you.”

  “I can always use another pair of hands.” I pointed to the exam area. “First let’s make sure you’re going to stick around for a while.”

  Devrak had nearly shattered Wonlee’s diaphragm which, unlike the Terran version, was composed of bone. Had it not been for the band of cartilage that allowed it to naturally collapse under stressful conditions, his chest cavity would have been crushed. The Lieutenant’s entire skeleton was similarly designed, another plus. Support braces and some analgesics for the inevitable inflammation were all he needed to remain mobile. I admitted him to the inpatient ward anyway.

  “The last thing you need to do,” I said when he started protesting, “is to go back to the prisoner tiers right now. So keep your promise, shut up, and get some rest.”

  Dchêm-os had finished the hematological work-ups when I emerged from the ward and offered a data pad with the results of her analysis. I didn’t bother with niceties. “Well?”

  “Cell levels, decreased glucose, elevated protein and white blood. Nothing, the cultures revealed.”

  That meant something more serious, but I’d have to do a spinal tap to confirm my suspicions. “Set up to perform lumbar punctures. Orderly.” I pointed to the Lok-Teel, who were climbing up the sides of the berths. “Move those blobs away from the patients, will you?”