“Jahir then,” she said, glancing at what he presumed must be his student file on one of the floating displays. He could just see an image of himself from the shoulders up in reverse, a translucent rectangle in white and blue. “I’m Khallis Mekora, and barring any catastrophe I’ll be your graduate advisor until you’ve completed your education here.” She peered at him past the display, ears flicking forward again. “You can request a new advisor at any time, of course.”
“That not being one of the catastrophes,” he surmised.
She chuckled, a warm, husky burr that he decided he liked. “Not unless you want it to be. But I’m used to dramatics, being surrounded by young people all day. You’d have to work hard to make it rise above the general noise level.”
“I’m not fond of displays,” Jahir said. “So no fears, Missus Mekora.”
“Please, Khallis is fine,” she said, scanning the rest of his record and then sitting back in her chair. “So, Jahir. First year student. You’ve gotten the basic information on the program, presumably?”
“I have,” he said. “But I would appreciate a précis from someone with more experience delivering it.”
“Right,” she said, and split the display with her hands, pushing them apart and making a stirring motion with a finger until its orientation switched to face him. It truly was uncomfortably like magic, these intangible projections. “The xenopsychology program is part of the College of Medicine here, which is not always how it’s done. We do it that way, though, and it affects how the program’s run. There are three concentrations: clinical, research, medical. They all share a common core of classes in the first semester, but by the second semester they start forking… so you’ll want to have a notion of where you’re going by then. Clinical track will require a single year internship before graduation; you can take that in parts or all at once. Once you’re done, you’ll have fulfilled the license requirements for practice as a therapist on the core worlds; all you have to do is apply for the certificate. The research track doesn’t require practicum, but you’ll have to write a thesis; students completing the research track are expected to continue on into the doctoral program.
“The medical track requires a two-year residency at the conclusion of the coursework, and at the conclusion to that you have to take a separate test to be licensed as a healer-assist, at which point we also graduate you. That’s a bit backwards from how the healers handle residencies, but it works for us.” She spread her hands. “In general, I tell students: if you want to spend most of your time with people in a cozy office, take the clinical track. If you want to spend most of your time in a lab or in front of a display, take the research track. And if you want to spend most of your time in a hospital, take the medical track.”
“But I don’t have to decide yet,” Jahir murmured.
“No,” Khallis agreed. “Though it’s easier on you if you know sooner rather than later. All students have a graduation term limit—for our program, you have five years maximum—so you don’t have an indefinite period to horse around. Plus, the registration for internships can get competitive, so it’s good to know in advance what you want to apply for.”
“I see,” he said. “I’ll give the matter serious consideration.”
“Good,” she said. “In the meantime, let’s see about signing you up for your first few classes. I hope you like working hard, alet.”
“I assure you, ma’am, I did not come here to do otherwise.”
“So, have you made a decision yet?”
Vasiht’h sighed, blowing the forelock up off one eye. “Would you be surprised if I said no?”
“No,” Sehvi said with a laugh. “That would be just like you.”
He was sitting in his room facing the wall, which had a virtual window open on his sister’s room on Tam-ley, where she was studying reproductive genetics. Sehvi was one of his eleven siblings, and the closest to him; despite the expense, they tried to find opportunities for real-time communication at least once every other week. Vasiht’h was an avid letter-writer and kept in communication with all his extended family, but Sehvi was special.
“I still have time,” Vasiht’h said. “To decide, I mean. There’s no rush.”
“So you have made a decision,” she said. “You want to be an eternal student. Mother would approve.”
“Mother would most certainly not approve,” Vasiht’h said, making a face. “Given how often we’ve heard the ‘students who never leave the university, using up resources’ speech.” He sighed. “I’m still planning her route. More or less.”
“Third generation professor,” Sehvi said. “You can be Dami’s heir and I’ll be Tapa’s.” She cocked her head. “Except I never really saw you as a professor, ariihir.”
“I could do it,” Vasiht’h said. “As long as it wasn’t pure science, like our father. I don’t have patience for that. I like people.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “But I can’t imagine how much use a psychology professor with no real-world experience would be. You should go out and do something with your degree before you start chasing tenure. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe?” Vasiht’h sighed and rubbed his face. “To be honest, Sehvi, I haven’t thought that far ahead.” He made a face. “It really is true what Bret’hesk said to me at my going-away party… I’m the least deterministic of the family. Even Hatti has more of a notion what to do with her life at fifteen than I do now.”
“Try to take Bret’s comments in context,” she said. “He’s so focused he’s positively grim… and he takes his responsibility as the eldest of us seriously. He just wants you to be happy.”
“And well-off,” Vasiht’h muttered.
“Having enough money to eat is not a bad thing!” she said with a laugh. “Especially once you start feeding kits—” At his expression, she held up her hands. “No pressure! We’re both underage for that.”
“Goddess,” Vasiht’h muttered. “I’d like to know what I’m doing with my life before I start having children I need to advise on the matter.”
“Well, like you said, you have time,” she answered, grinning. “A little anyway. How’s everything else going?”
“Fairly well. In fact…” He smiled and shook his head. “You won’t believe who I got for a new roommate.”
“This ought to be good,” she said, putting her cheek in her hand. “Tell me.”
“An Eldritch!”
“A… what?” she said, sitting up. “You’re not pulling my tail?”
“No!” he said. “And yes! That was my reaction too. I found him in a hospital parking lot—”
“And you took him home like a lost peltsnake?” she said, laughing. “Oh, Vasiht’h.”
“I know,” he said. “I have a talent!”
“You do, I think,” she said. Her reply was so considering he began to ask her to elaborate, but then he heard the door. “That’s him now, actually. I should go be sociable. Catch you in a couple of weeks, ariishir?”
“Absolutely, ariihir. Kisses.”
He smiled and waved the connection closed before padding to the door and peeking through it. His new roommate was setting down his bag. “Hey, hello,” Vasiht’h said. “How’d Orientation go?”
“Well enough,” the Eldritch said, straightening. “A bit tiring, perhaps.”
“It can be a long walk,” Vasiht’h agreed, entering the great room. He squinted up at the taller male. Reading Jahir’s face was difficult, given his self-possession, but something about the tension in his jaw and around his eyes suggested discomfort. “Are you entirely sure you’re all right?”
“I should be,” Jahir said. “Though I should probably eat.”
“I’ll get you something, just sit—”
“I had better,” Jahir said, sounding confused as he swayed and then grabbed for the arm of the chair.
Vasiht’h paused, then lunged for him as he fell. “Goddess!”
It was like watching some amazingly tall tree collapse, and he
was too late to brake the Eldritch’s fall. Vasiht’h heard an alarming thump and then saw a sprawl of white limbs and hair on the dark rug. “Emergency channel! Get me a healer!” He dove for Jahir’s side and stopped when he realized he shouldn’t be touching the Eldritch. Except he was unconscious. How was that supposed to work?
The door opened too many moments later for two Seersa in the uniforms of emergency personnel, along with Lucrezia from next door. He almost didn’t notice her while answering the barrage of questions from the technicians, who examined the Eldritch with instruments before gently turning him onto his side.
Lucrezia crouched next to him and whistled. “Wow. A real live Eldritch. Congratulations, Vasiht’h. I might even be jealous.”
“You aren’t,” he said, trying not to fidget. “Is he okay?”
She glanced toward the technicians, then flicked her ears back. “If he was in serious danger they’d be moving a lot more quickly, and there would be a lot more red tags on the sensor readings. I don’t see any from here.” She nudged him with an elbow. “When were you planning on telling me?”
Vasiht’h wrinkled his nose at her. “Luci, I’m a little distracted?”
She laughed. “Relax. Look, he’s coming around now.”
Jahir was not entirely sure he’d woken when he opened his eyes; his mind was clouded with unfamiliar thoughts, memories edging against his, overlapping, giving him a medical knowledge he didn’t have. He squinted and twisted his head away, as from a too-bright sun.
“Mr. Seni Galare? Can you say something?”
“Stop touching me,” he managed in a rasp.
“If you won’t fall forward—”
“Let go of him.” That voice he recognized at least: Vasiht’h, sounding agitated.
The hands left him, and took with them the primacy of their thoughts. Jahir shook them off with difficulty and evaluated himself. He was… on his side. The rug was flush to his cheek, brown and rust and yellow ochre braids. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed in. “I appear to be on the floor.”
“You fainted,” one of the strangers said.
“And bumped your head on the way down,” Vasiht’h added, worried.
“I fainted,” Jahir repeated, finding the possibility astonishing.
“You’re not built for this gravity,” one of the strangers said, packing his instruments. “You should make an appointment so they can instruct you on proper acclimation techniques.”
“Failure to do so can result in more serious injury,” the other added. “We encourage you to report to the clinic at your earliest convenience.”
“He fainted because of the gravity?” Vasiht’h asked, ears flicking down. “You can do that?”
“It’s the exertion,” said a woman sitting beside him on the floor. “You can get light-headed because you’re working harder than your system was designed to.”
“If you have any other symptoms, check yourself into the clinic,” one of the strangers said.
“I’ll consider it,” Jahir murmured, and they left. He sat up cautiously, touching his head. He wasn’t sure if the ache there was the fall or the intrusion of other people’s minds. There was a tension in his wrist that belonged to someone using an instrument he’d never touched. He twitched his shoulders and made a face. “Vasiht’h?”
“Here, alet,” Vasiht’h said, beginning to rise and then sitting again abruptly, digging his paws into the rug. “I’m sorry, I… I probably jumped for you too late. I wasn’t sure if I should touch you, and then you smacked the chair arm on the way down—”
Jahir held up a hand to still him. “No harm done.”
“For now,” the woman said. “But you absolutely should get to the clinic.” She grinned. “Lucrezia. I’m in the building next to you.”
“She’s a second-year medical student,” Vasiht’h added. “Um, maybe I should make tea. Coffee? Wine?”
“Do you have wine?” Lucrezia asked, dry.
“No,” Vasiht’h said.
“Good,” she said. “Because I wouldn’t give it to someone who’d just hit his head.”
“The wine’s not for him,” Vasiht’h said. “It’s for me!”
“Tea,” Jahir murmured. “Sounds very good. Thank you.”
“I’ll get it,” Vasiht’h said, scrambling to his feet.
Lucrezia, sitting across from him, looked like a leopard made bipedal, with all the sensual beauty of the creature, ragged black spots on lemon-yellow fur. She had large dark eyes, heavily lashed, and a tilt to her mouth that made her look perpetually amused. Harat-Shar, he thought, if he remembered right. The Alliance’s hedonists? He wouldn’t have imagined one in a medical profession.
“I’m not going to eat you,” she said, showing teeth in her grin.
“I didn’t imagine so,” Jahir said, and carefully sat up with his back to the side of the sofa. He stretched his legs out and closed his eyes, head back.
“But I meant it, about going to the doctor,” she said, voice serious. “If they’re right about the diagnosis, you’re going to be susceptible to problems unless you take precautions.”
“Could I not learn those precautions from a search on the u-banks?” he asked, eyes still closed.
“You could,” she said, and he could almost hear her scowl. “But it wouldn’t be the same as receiving trained medical advice.”
“Am I correct in presuming that such personnel would be required to keep a medical file on me?” he said, opening his eyes.
“You’re in the Alliance,” she said. “They’ve already got a file on you.”
A file, he thought, that was subject to constant editing, though she wouldn’t know that. It had been work to get the student record to stick—the readings the two technicians just took would probably only last a few hours before the censors required by the treaty found them. There were very few Eldritch abroad, and all of them were being followed by those censors… the only place they couldn’t easily reach was Fleet’s record database. The Eldritch Veil had a long arm.
“I’ll consider it,” he said.
She sighed out, exasperated, and stood as Vasiht’h came by with two tea cups. “Going already?”
“I have studying to do,” she said, glancing at Jahir. “And since I doubt he’s going to let me seduce him, I might as well do something productive with my night.”
“I… don’t think there’s any hope of that, no,” Vasiht’h said, ears flipping back.
She shook her head, poked him gently. “Talk him into it, will you? It’s important.”
Vasiht’h stared after her as she left, then sat across from Jahir, careful not to touch him as he set the tea cup by his side. “Talk you into what? Going to the doctor?”
“Or some such,” Jahir murmured, thinking that would be the end of the matter. So he was surprised at his roommate’s outburst, perhaps as surprised as Vasiht’h himself.
“You are going, aren’t you? Because if you don’t, I’m not sure what I’d do. I’d never be sure if you’re about to collapse, what to do about it if you do, whether I can even touch you if you’re unconscious—”
“—don’t do that,” Jahir said.
“You see?” Vasiht’h said, agitated. “If you don’t go to the clinic, you’re going to pass out again at some point because you won’t know what to do to keep from having these problems. And then what? Next time you fall and crack your head for true and put yourself in a coma.”
“That sounds unlikely,” Jahir murmured, but the residue of the touch of the technicians whispered in him, hissing distracting objections.
Vasiht’h just folded his arms.
“I have worried you,” Jahir said.
“Yes!” Vasiht’h said.
Jahir suppressed a sigh. “Very well, then. Tomorrow.”
“Early tomorrow,” Vasiht’h said.
“Early tomorrow,” Jahir said, resigned. And because Vasiht’h glowering was unpleasant, he said, “For now perhaps you can tell me about our neighbors while
we make dinner.”
“While I make dinner, and you sit here and rest,” Vasiht’h said.
“While I sit here and rest,” Jahir said, and left the Glaseah mollified. How strange these outworlders were, to often be so… straightforward. He would have to remember that, to seriously entertain the notion that what they said and showed on their faces might actually be true.
CHAPTER 4
The following morning, Jahir accepted directions to the clinic and reluctantly set out to follow them. Intellectually he knew any medical records the clinic accumulated would be erased at some point, but he still felt it was his duty to maintain the Veil. So it was with every one of the few Eldritch who’d left the homeworld, as had been patiently explained by members of the Queen’s government.
It made him wonder, somewhat, that the Queen herself had not been present at any of these explanations, despite the rarity of one of their number leaving the world and the supposed importance of maintaining the secrecy about their species.
No, he wouldn’t have gone, but that Vasiht’h’s comment had struck him deeply. It was a grave discourtesy to the alien to ask him to live with the uncertainty of a roommate with an untreated medical issue. Jahir had been so deeply trained to bow to duty that he found it hard to deviate from it. And part of duty was consideration for others. That he was not sure yet how to express that consideration to people with alien needs did not excuse him from trying; and certainly if he was told outright he had no excuse.
So he took himself to the clinic, stepping into its waiting area with a sense of trepidation… and wonder. How clean everything was. How spacious. The chairs were all in perfect condition, the cushions without wear, the people friendly and professional. The Hinichi who took his name seemed to know not to touch him. He was escorted without noticeable delay to a private room with an examination bed, several chairs, and a display for his use if he needed distraction, which he didn’t. Or rather he did, but from his own curiosity, not from boredom. Doctors on his own world made house calls, and rarely had much aid to give those in their care.
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