by S. H. Jucha
Renée replied.
Nyslara watched Ené’s eyes burn into her, but no words were exchanged. Nyslara could hear the shuffling of clawed feet on bessach behind her. The queens and wasats were growing restless, waiting for the Harakens’ reply to Nyslara’s request. Many were probably thinking that if they were to die, they would prefer to die fighting.
“I will leave judgment of these three to the Dischnya,” Renée finally said.
When Willem translated Ser’s words, there was visible relief among the queens and wasats. Young Posnossa was especially relieved, having hoped for a longer reign than it appeared she would have had several moments ago. She wouldn’t have ruled for three full days if Dassata’s mate wanted revenge, which, in the Dischnya’s eyes, she would have every right to demand.
“Tomorrow, Ené,” Nyslara said, bowing gravely to Renée. “Judgment will be rendered when Nessila lights the day.”
Renée nodded curtly, turned, and headed for her transport. Willem commed everyone to board the ships.
As the Harakens walked away, Nyslara blew out a long breath and heard the queens and wasats do something similar. She spun around and stalked over to the body of Chafwa. She could understand Ené’s anger, as she wanted nothing more than to rake her claws across the unconscious queen’s throat.
Nyslara requested the queens bind Chafwa, and Pussiro asked the wasats to do the same to Foomas. Then Nyslara sent Pussiro to order soma to fetch water and food. The discussions surrounding the judgments would be long and heated, and Nessila’s emergence over the horizon would come sooner than anyone expected.
-22-
Aftermath
Svetlana’s destination was the Rêveur. There were no better medical facilities for humans on any of the three Haraken ships.
Orly might have objected to being demoted to the copilot’s seat, except Svetlana’s formidable reputation preceded her. Using his helmet’s connection to the ship’s controller, Orly took the opportunity to learn, carefully following Svetlana’s maneuvers. Her takeoff was unorthodox, but she was shaving fractions of time off her flight, even as she notified the Rêveur that Alex Racine was injured and unconscious.
Historically, New Terran pilots, such as Orly, were trained to lift and take the shortest route to space. Instead, Svetlana exhibited her Haraken fighter pilot training. She queried the controller for the shortest flight time to the Rêveur, and they sped across the landscape, barely edging over a mountaintop, to intercept the liner, which was close to the planet’s horizon.
Pia bent over Alex, examining the wounds. She requested Z turn Alex over to see if the slug in his chest had exited.
“There’s no need, Pia. I felt for that wound as I carried Ser here. The projectile is still inside his body.”
Of course, you did … and a million other things as you ran, Pia thought, chastising herself. At this time, both humans and SADEs would be experiencing heightened emotions. Only humans would have to fight to concentrate on what to do next — not so for the SADEs.
Pia dug in her med kit and produced a tube of specialized medical nanites, which were designed to seal a wound with a temporary patch and stop the bleeding. These nanites wouldn’t attempt repairs. They’d stay in place until a medical specialist signaled their disassociation. Then they’d enter the body and join those nanites already present in the body. These dual-purpose, medical emergency nanites were designed by Terese, specifically for the Sojourn’s mission, and brought to fruition by the SADEs. Terese could never have guessed that the first patient to receive her invention would be Alex.
Pia examined the ugly head wound. Pieces of bone stuck up at odd angles. The meninges, the protective tissue layers surrounding the brain, were pierced. Pia paled and her hands trembled. Inside, she wailed at the horrendous circumstances that had placed the life of Alex Racine in her hands.
Suddenly, Miranda’s head intercepted Pia’s sightline. The SADE rotated a single eye over the wound and then, lifting her head, said, “Under magnification, I detect three bone fragments near the surface. However, assembling them virtually, they are insufficient to encompass the damaged area. My conclusion is that there is a fourth, much smaller piece that lies on the plains of Celus-5 or —”
“It’s lodged inside the skull or possibly deep in the brain,” Pia completed for Miranda.
“What’s to be done first, dear?” Miranda asked quietly.
Pia reached up and touched Miranda’s cheek, grateful for her calming influence.
“Z, no pressure on this head wound during transport,” Pia said.
“Understood,” Z replied.
After receiving Svetlana’s emergency comm, Captain Lumley oriented the Rêveur to place an empty bay broadside to her flight path. He thought to move his ship closer to her, but knowing Svetlana well, he knew that he stood a zero chance of guessing the thoughts going through her mind.
The Rêveur’s docking protocols required traveler pilots to enter the bay aft first and settle to the deck before any action was taken by the flight chief. Svetlana, Z, and Miranda scrapped those regulations. Svetlana brought the fighter in nose first, and Z signaled the bay doors closed before the ship touched down on the deck. Once inside the bay, Svetlana performed the dangerous maneuver of spinning the mission shuttle in a half-circle to point the aft end directly at the bay’s airlock.
The bay doors closed, and Miranda triggered the bay’s pressurization. Meanwhile the Rêveur’s medical specialists waited in the airlock. Svetlana eyed the air pressure and signaled the ramp to drop even before her telltale flashed ready.
Z held Alex in his arms, cradling the head to prevent jostling and waiting for the ramp’s descent. Pia stood anxiously nearby. The ramp was in a horizontal position with another 15 degrees to drop to the deck when Z took off. Algorithms churned as the SADE calculated trajectories, mass, and his avatar’s response, allowing him to cushion his impact on the deck as he jumped clear of the ramp and minimally disturbed his precious cargo.
As Z raced across the deck, he signaled the medical team to clear way and overrode the airlock protocols to open both hatches. The crew members barely had time to jump aside as Z barreled past them, headed for the medical suite, and the specialists took off after him.
Pia saw Z jump, and her eyes beseeched Miranda.
“I love a woman who learns quickly,” Miranda said, scooping Pia up and tearing after Z. Miranda signaled the specialists to stand aside as she passed them in the corridor. Neither Z nor Miranda bothered with the lift. Instead, they took the stairwell up the three decks to the medical suite, their legs churning and taking the steps three at a time.
Pia commed Z and indicated on which medical table he should lay Alex. Miranda and Pia entered the suite just as Z was gently lowering Alex on a table outfitted with equipment prepared for the more grievously injured.
The full-body medical scanner Pia positioned over Alex delivered its images to a controller, which prioritized his injuries. The slug in the chest nicked an artery and required immediate attention. Pia sent a command to the medical controller, which signaled her patch over the chest wound. The nanites released their bond on one another and assumed their secondary purpose, quickly disappearing into the body.
Pia called for the controller to select a tiny arterial sleeve from within its medical supplies. “Miranda,” Pia said, “you’re going to play surgeon.”
“Not my favorite role, dear,” Miranda replied, linking to the controller. She studied the first item on the surgical prio
rity list and the scanner’s imagery of the arterial bleeding. Immediately, she shunted the controller into a passive state and directed the tips of the delicate surgical arms into Alex’s chest cavity.
Miranda’s eyes were open, but she kept her vision app in a low priority state while she focused on the scanner’s imagery, which displayed Alex’s body and the controller arms. Gently, she slipped the open sleeve around the artery at the site of the nick and, as its two edges touched, the sleeve sealed and shrank to tighten against the artery. Days from now, the sleeve would be dissolved by the medical nanites in Alex’s body — long after the artery was repaired from the inside.
“The controller can do the rest, Miranda,” Pia said gratefully, when the device confirmed zero blood loss from the artery.
“Nonsense, dear, what a controller can do, a SADE can do better and faster.” Miranda glanced down the controller’s code, examining the next steps for the chest. She undertook the process of sealing muscle layers, small bleeders, and skin from the inside out with the surgical laser tool.
At one point, Z looked at his hands, whose fingers hid sleep darts or whatever loads he required. He spread the massive digits apart, and designs formed in his crystal kernel about other tools, such as surgeon’s instruments, that he might incorporate in the next avatar’s iteration. As the list of possibilities grew, he yanked himself back to the here and now, realizing he was trying to occupy his mind to defeat the feeling of an impotent bystander at this critical time for Alex.
Miranda completed her work on the chest, and Pia linked to the SADE, who was peering into Alex’s skull injury. “I need the three bone fragments you mentioned, Miranda,” Pia said, placing a small dish of liquid near the SADE. “Place them in this dish in their original orientation to one another but separate them by a centimeter or so.”
As Miranda fished out the bone fragments, Pia realized the tremendous advantages a SADE surgeon offered over a medical controller. Miranda’s eye magnification and precise hand control, coupled to the controller’s knowledge base and imager, could create an unsurpassable amalgamation of tools. It gave Pia ideas for surgery’s future. If I’m going to have one, Pia thought. She wondered where she might live if she was the medical specialist who lost Alex Racine.
After Miranda retrieved the third fragment, Pia requested an extreme closeup of the wound from the SADE. At the same time, Pia rechecked the scan. The metal slug wasn’t present. It hadn’t penetrated the skull.
When Miranda heard Pia’s trembling sigh of relief, she surmised the reason for it. “But, Pia,” Miranda said, “you should have known the slug wasn’t in Alex’s brain. Everyone is aware of the great hardness of this dear man’s skull.”
Pia released a strangled giggle at Miranda’s jest. Realizing the extent of her tension, Pia took a deep breath in and exhaled. Then she focused on the work.
The fourth piece of bone was driven backward between the skull and the outer layer of the meninges, the dura mater. Miranda’s close magnification revealed that the next two layers of the meninges were bruised but not penetrated. The SADE glanced at Pia, who said. “We need that piece of bone removed as carefully as possible.”
“But of course we do, dear,” Miranda replied, not any happier than Pia to be the one responsible for the operation. In a cascade of events, Miranda linked to Z, who was embedded in the medical controller. He merged the scan image, real time, with the controller’s medical directives and laid them in Miranda’s kernel, essentially generating the exact intertwining Pia envisioned.
Miranda located the tool attachment the controller would have chosen to retrieve the bone fragment but passed over it in favor of another one. She closed her eyes, since her sight would be useless in locating the bone fragment unless they opened Alex’s skull — a barbaric concept for Haraken or Méridien medical specialists.
During the entire procedure, Z rotated the scanner to provide Miranda the best possible view, as she closed on the tiny piece of bone. Every movement of arm and hand was calculated by Miranda to minimize the impact on surrounding tissues. Rarely had she run so many algorithms in concert for such a simple procedure. But she certainly wasn’t going to be responsible for injuring the man any more than the queen and her wasat had already managed to do.
The tip of the tool merged with the scanner’s view of the fragment, and Miranda eased the injector rearward, which sucked the fragment to the tool. Then she slowly withdrew the bone and laid the piece in Pia’s dish in its proper orientation to the other three. Pia ordered the controller to repair the dura mater layer, but Miranda cancelled it and managed the job herself.
When Miranda finished her work, Pia checked the scanner’s output for any signs of bleeding and was pleased to see none. The bruising of the meninges would be repaired by the nanites in Alex’s body.
“Do we replace the bone fragments now, dear?” Miranda asked. She’d reviewed the controller’s procedural steps, but there were a host of variable conditions to consider before proceeding, and the SADE didn’t have the experiential memories to understand their application.
“Not yet,” Pia replied, closing a lid over the dish and placing it carefully in a medical containment unit. She signaled the controller to lock it and added a safeguard so that it couldn’t be tampered with by a human, even accidentally. From a tube of nanites, similar to those used on Alex’s chest wound, Pia placed a semi-permeable seal over the open area in Alex’s skull. “This seal will allow seepage if there’s any swelling of Alex’s brain from the concussion. When Alex recovers,” Pia said with determination, “we’ll dissolve the seal, implant the bone fragments, and apply some synth-skin, genetic copy, of course, for his scalp so that his hair will regrow.”
In her haste to treat Alex, Pia hadn’t applied a temporal device to Alex while he was out. The slug’s impact rendered him unconscious, and he remained so. She attached one now in case Alex woke in an agitated state. At this point, there was nothing more to be done but monitor Alex’s condition and wait to see if irreversible damage had been done to his brain.
The medical team went about their jobs, cleaning up from the operation, removing Alex’s clothes, and closing the medical table’s case over him to allow the controller complete imaging access to the patient.
Pia found a place in the suite to rest, and a specialist hurried to fetch some hot thé for her.
Miranda stood beside Z, choosing to hold his hand, which the two of them found comforting.
Z sent an update to Julien, trusting his friend would know when to deliver the news to Renée.
* * *
Renée, always the calm one when it came time to exit a traveler, stood at the hatch, impatient for the bay to pressurize. Franz, Julien, Cordelia, and Willem were all monitoring the exterior pressure and the hatch so that Ser did not trigger it prematurely.
Julien had communicated to Renée the news that Alex was stable but still unconscious. “We must wait, Ser,” he said, adding, “I believe fortune is in our favor. I calculate his skull is probably of sufficient thickness to withstand almost any alien, slug-throwing weapon.”
Renée had burst into tears, hugging Julien and burying her face in his chest.
Julien couldn’t agree more. Inside, he was fighting to maintain control of his emotional algorithms. He felt as if he was suffering some sort of cascade failure in his code. We’ve come so far along the path with Alex, he thought, that we’re becoming as vulnerable as humans to the loss of one another.
When the bay’s controller signaled pressure equalization, five signals triggered the hatch open. Rather than climb down the steps, Renée leapt to the deck. Julien barely had time to drop the energy in a section of grav plate to relieve Renée’s impact.
Just as Z and Miranda had done, Jul
ien cleared the way for Renée. Both sides of the airlock were triggered open, despite safety protocols. Cordelia spared a moment to warn those in the medical suite that Ser was on her way, and Franz requested Captain Azasdau collect Teague and Ginny for transport from the Sojourn to the Rêveur.
Renée burst into the suite and ran to the medical table. She placed her hands on the case, frustrated that she couldn’t touch her beloved partner and feel the warmth of his skin. Tears streamed down her face, and she turned to stare at Pia, who started to break down.
“We’ve done the best we could, Ser,” Pia sobbed.
Renée enfolded her good friend in her arms. “I know that, Pia,” she soothed. “Alex knows that.” Realizing the pain others were suffering, Renée set aside her own grief and took up Alex’s role. She walked up to Z, who she couldn’t hug while he was ensconced in his considerable Cedric suit. Instead, Renée gripped his shoulders and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
Z merely nodded, unable to choose fitting words from his extensive library.
“And you, dear,” Renée said, standing in front of Miranda and copying her inimitable speaking style, “are invaluable too.” Then, she hugged the SADE.
“The dear man deserves our best efforts,” Miranda replied.
“That he does,” Renée replied.
Julien entered the suite and signaled to everyone that they should give Renée some time alone with Alex. Pia picked up her reader, which rendered a feed from the controller, which, in turn, monitored Alex via the temporal attachment and the 3-D scanner. Then she slipped out of the suite with Z, Miranda, and the medical team.
Julien started to leave too, but he was halted by Renée’s signal. Turning around, he saw her sitting on a couch and holding out a hand to him. He sat beside her, taking up her hand. The two of them kept their vigilance in silence — two old friends in need of each other during the worst of times.
