by Sarah Zettel
A pair of sisters faced her, with their ears tilted forward and quivering a little, although whether it was from concern or simple weariness, Praeis couldn't tell. Filter masks covered their faces and rubber gloves covered their hands up to their elbows. Their overalls were cheap and obviously meant to be worn for a short time and then disposed of, possibly burned.
Praeis's skin shook from her shoulders to her ankles. “No, no, thank you. I am looking for a Human care-taker, Dr. David Zelotes. I am Praeis Shin t'Theria, representative of the Queens-of-All.”
The sisters looked at each other in astonishment. Praeis wondered how long it had been since a Queens’ representative had walked in here. A spasm of anger crossed her shoulders.
“She will be in the laboratory,” said the broader of the two. “I will take you. My sister must stay on patrol.”
“Of course.” Praeis dipped her ears. “The Ancestors alone cannot watch our sisters.”
Praeis followed the care-taker through a side door that led to a white corridor smelling of warmth and yet more disinfectant. This was a Human-constructed section of the budding. It had the seamless look of something grown rather than something built. They passed a number of small, windowed laboratories on the right-hand side. Inside the labs, Humans wearing white overalls over their clean-suits wielded pipettes and needles over glass eggs of culture media, filter dishes of layered ceramics, and even old-fashioned microscopes they must have appropriated from the larger hospital.
In the last lab, David, his clean-suit covered by the loose, blue tunic and trousers that seemed to be the traditional uniform of Human doctors, stared at a portable screen displaying what looked like a fuzzy cluster of fat, grey-and-white springs. The care-taker tapped on the window and David jerked around. He saw Praeis, waved, and held up one finger.
Praeis watched him type something on his keypad. Res and Theia had not asked why she wanted to see David rather than a t'Therian care-taker, and she was glad. She did not want to have to tell them it was because David, with his Human reserve, could be counted on not to talk about what he saw.
In the lab, David picked up a couple of the glass eggs and carried them over to a storage locker, placed them inside, and latched the door firmly shut.
“Praeis Shin t'Theria,” said David as he stepped through the laboratory door and shut it behind himself. “Lynn said you might be able to come by to lend us a hand.”
“I'll see what I can do, but I also need your help,” said Praeis.
David nodded. “I can't let you in the lab, but we've rigged an examination room over here.” He gestured up the corridor.
The care-taker left them, and David led Praeis down to the end of the corridor.
“I had no idea it was this bad,” said Praeis softly.
David shook his head ruefully. “You should have seen it when we got here. God,” his voice dropped to a harsh whisper. He opened the door to the examining room and stood aside for her to enter.
The office was bigger and more comfortable than she had imagined it would be. It was obviously a t'Therian construction with Human conveniences laid over top. Fiber-optic bundles made veins on the white-plaster walls. The examining table was wide enough for two of her. The instrument stands were held to the side with C-clamps. Everything was scrupulously clean. In fact, the jobber in the corner was still humming, so it probably had just finished from the last patient.
“It wasn't neglect that ran this place down, it was death.” David climbed up on a stool between the examining table and the comm station. “The trained care-takers had all died. When we got here, we found family members, arms-sisters, students, an incredible array of people, trying to learn on the fly out of books or from medical instructors, what instructors there were left. It wasn't that no one was willing to try, it's that there was no one left who knew what to do.” His voice shook and he stopped. “As it is, you've seen what a mess it is out there. Bioverse isn't willing to let anything major wait to get us a proper facility going. They say they're all going to be relocated within the week, why waste time and resources on a building down here?” She saw a familiar gleam in his eye. “We're working on persuading them otherwise.”
“Lynn said you were having cultural problems?” asked Praeis.
“We can't separate the families,” he said. “When one sister is sick, they all come in and they all stay here. They keep constant hold on her, breathing her air, breaking what little sterility and isolation we've got …”
“Yes, I saw.”
“I thought we'd handle it the way we did in the colonies. Firm persuasion and explanation.” He shook his head. “But here …”
“Here the ties are even stronger than they are there, yes.” Praeis ran her hand over her belly guard. “What most Humans never understand is that our basic need, what keeps us going at the core, is not the survival of ourselves and our children. It is the survival of our sisters. We will kill or die to save a sister and her children. When a sister is sick or hurt …” She waved her ears. “It is hard for us to be detached. Have you tried prayer shifts?”
“What?” David's face wrinkled.
“Prayer shifts. Ask the family to designate one sister to stay to tend the patient, and send as many of the others as you can convince to their Ancestral shrine to call for protection and help.” Her face puckered. “Presence is vital, but in its place any useful activity will do. They, we, just need a direction, and you will see amazing cooperation. Those who are not petitioning their Ancestors, you can send on errands, or maybe use them as scavengers. There are a lot of abandoned buildings left in the cities. Who knows what's useful out there? You can ask them to go see. Or get them to lobby the Council offices for what you need—” All at once, an idea blossomed inside her. “No,” she said. “Send them straight to the Queens.”
“What?”
Neys and Silv can run a letter to the Queens saying the sisters should be admitted, they should hear about the hospital's shortages and inadequacies in style, along with any other shortages and inadequacies anybody can think of. Then the Queens can harangue the Council for not doing its job, get a reporting structure going at the bottom, get some largess out, fix this death trap, renew their link with the people, use it on the Council … It's the perfect chance to change minds. The Council won't be able to hold out if the rest of the Great Family turns against them!
“Hello?” said David. “I think I just lost you.”
“No, no.” Praeis shook her ears and shoulders. “I'm sorry. Yes, get some lobby parties arranged, about anything anybody wants done, and send them straight to the Queens. They'll be heard, I promise.”
David's eyes narrowed. “I have a feeling we've just made it onto an agenda.”
“Isn't that what you wanted?” asked Praeis innocently.
David's face broke into a delighted smile. “I knew you could help us.” He leaned forward. “Now, tell me what I can do to help you.”
Praeis told him. As she spoke, his expression rearranged itself into calm, professional lines.
“Would you get undressed, please?” he said, turning away to reach for a fresh pair of thin, outer gloves. “We'll see what's here.”
David's gloved hands were cool and careful as he palpated the swellings at Praeis's groin. His expression remained bland as he turned away from her to his comm station. He threw out a few new threads, but Praeis was too far away to read the data as it flowed back to him.
“Ad right, Praeis,” said David, stripping the outer gloves off his clean-suit gloves. “Why don't you get comfortable, and we can talk.”
Praeis strapped her belly guard back on and slid the ver-milion-and-gold kaftan over her shoulders. David busied himself with his data and his instruments, carefully not watching her. She climbed off the table, trying not to feel the way her pouch drooped against the bottom of her belly guard, and sat in one of the wicker settees next to the examining table.
David stayed perched on the stool next to his comm station and looked her
straight in the eyes.
“There's not much I can tell you that you don't already know.” His t'Therian was good, but he still spoke with a lazy, drawling accent that sometimes got on Praeis's nerves. Now, for instance. “All your estrogens are dropping, and all your testosterones are rising to compensate. It's happening at about three times the normal rate. This is not unheard of. We don't have any good statistics on it, but there are cases. You will be fully Changed within three to four weeks.”
Praeis folded her arms across her belly guard. She wanted Senejess and Armetrethe. She wanted Resaime and Theiareth. She wanted anybody except this alien creature in front of her.
She forced herself to take a deep breath. “My second-mother Changed like this, but no one else …”
“Had your second-mother lost her sisters?”
Praeis's ears crumpled a little. “Yes. In a skirmish with the Getesaph.”
David nodded. “We've got some stats that say the Change happens earlier on the Mars colonies than on All-Cradle, and there's some evidence that it's happening earlier in plague-ravaged areas.” He shrugged. “But we don't know if it's really a consequence of being removed from the family, so that some hormonal check or balance is not received, or if a large die-off sets off a breeding trigger …” He gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I am not attempting to belittle what's happening to you. I'm just wishing I knew more about its cause.”
Praeis's ears and skin twitched irritably. “It's good,” she lied.
David caught the insincerity in her tone. “I know this is difficult. What I can give you as good news is that even though the Change is accelerated, it is proceeding smoothly. You will father many daughters before the Ancestors claim your will.”
Praeis took a deep breath. She let it out all the way before she spoke. “Is there anything you can do to slow it down?”
David puffed out his cheeks and Praeis wondered if he'd picked up the gesture from Lynn, or if she got it from him. “I sent out a thread for that. It caught onto some research in hormone replacement they're doing at one of the Lunar facilities. It looks … promising anyway.” His reassuring expression faltered. “Praeis, we really don't know enough about you, about the Ded—excuse me, the t'Theria, to do this.” He shrugged almost irritably. “The Human biological clock is a quartz mechanism. Smooth, simple, steady. The t'Therians’ … It's an antique cuckoo clock; a thousand moving parts, all perfectly meshed, all responding to each other's movements, but how do you determine what each one does?” He looked toward her without seeing her.
“But there is research being done,” Praeis prompted him.
He waved his hand at the comm station. “Theoretically, I could separate your estrogens out of a blood sample and synthesize a set of doses to get you back to your pre-Change levels. This should slow the production of your testosterones.” He turned his gaze fully toward her again. “But it also will effectively stop your natural production of estrogens. If we start this, as soon as you stop dosing on the synthesized estrogens, there will be nothing between you and the Change because you'll have frozen the mechanism that makes it a slow slide.” He stopped. “Instead of having weeks to make your preparations, you will have hours.”
Praeis rubbed her hollow belly guard. She thought of her daughters, not yet mothers for themselves, left alone with Senejess and Armetrethe and their plans. She thought about everything she had come to do that hadn't even been started yet.
Her ears had drooped, she realized. She raised them. “You will not tell Lynn any of this?” The last thing Praeis needed right now was her shock, or worse, her pity. Lynn was a good friend, but the Change was not something she had ever really understood.
David shook his head. “I never discuss patients with Lynn. She doesn't even ask.”
Humans are so strange. “Can you give me two months?”
David nodded slowly. “If that's what you want. I can do that.”
Ancestors forgive me. I cannot add my will to yours yet. “That's what I want.”
Chapter VII
David leaned toward Lynn from the other side of her video wall. “It's too early in the game for you to be looking this tired, Lynn.”
Lynn lifted her faceplate and rubbed her eyes with her fingertips, aware of how clearly their dark rings showed against her skin. “Yeah, wed, we didn't get to bed last night. There was a crisis between the Chosa ty Porath and the t'Theria. We spent six hours orchestrating a conference between the Queens-of-All and the Byarikane, the First Speakers.”
She lowered her faceplate. The word WIPE flashed in front of her eye. She reached for the box of sterilization tissues, plucked one out, and wiped her hands on it.
She looked up again and saw the sympathy plain on David's face.
“You don't want to talk about this, do you?”
She shook her head, pitching the tissue into the one-way garbage can next to the comm station. It sucked the tissue down with a brief whirring-hum. “Not really. Not right now anyway.” She felt her face fall as the memories of the previous night swarmed up. She'd seen the pictures, she'd heard the thinly veiled threats, and she'd felt like going after both sets of leaders with a blunt instrument. “I can only think about reparations for six blown-up bodies for so long.”
David winced. “Lynn, I'm sorry.”
“Yeah,” she sighed, “so am I.” She smiled softly. “What I'm really sorry about is that you're not here to hang on to.”
“Want to go back to Florida?”
“What, and leave the job not even half-done?” The utter horror in her voice brought out David's real, warm smile. “Not a chance.”
“I didn't think so.” He paused and shifted a little. “Look, love, I have to go. I've got an inventory to finish before the evac… sorry, relocation, starts.”
“And I've got Arron coming in any minute now.”
David's brows shot up. “I've untied his knot. Are you going to let him out of there alive?”
Lynn schooled her face into perfectly serious lines. “I'll consider it.” Then she laughed. “No, really. Arron's always done stuff like this. Brador's overreacting.”
“I don't know,” said David. “I heard we've got three more contractors in danger of losing their subs because of the debate.”
“I heard that, too. It's funny how no one can tell you which ones are in trouble though.”
David nodded. “That it is.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Okay, love, I've got to go.”
Seriousness dissolved into tenderness. “I love you. Have a good trip up.” David and some of the other groundside doctors were heading up with the t'Therian prep wave to join the hospital teams as advisors and researchers for the pre-evacuation setup since they'd gotten a look at the extent of the situation.
“I love you, too. I'll call tomorrow.” They exchanged a final smile, and David cut the connection.
Lynn stared out her window at the rolling surf and granite cliffs. Raindrops pattered against the windowpane.
David, I miss you. She sighed. Well, this was temporary. As soon as the relocation was completed, they'd be down in the southern hemisphere together, working more closely than they had on Earth.
“Lynn?” Trace's voice from the intercom cut over the sounds of the rain and ocean. “We've got Arron Hagopian out here.” She lit up Lynn's desk screen. It showed a man standing out in the waiting area, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and glancing around at the walls as if he expected to see who was spying on him. Lynn pressed her lips together to hold back a laugh. It was Arron ad right.
She strode out through Trace and R.J.’s workspace to stand in the doorway of the waiting room.
“It's okay, Arron. Nobody's going to shanghai you.”
He whirled around. He was clean-suited under a thick linen shirt and canvas trousers. He was darker than she remembered, and as bald as she was, but his eyes were the same sparkling green behind the protective helmet, even if there were lines around them that hadn't been there when they gradua
ted.
“Lynn!” Arron threw his arms around her.
She returned his embrace enthusiastically. When they pulled apart, she saw the shock on Trace and R.J.’s faces.
Lynn laughed. “Come on inside. We're scandalizing my staff.”
“Your staff.” Arron drawled the word out as she dragged him into her office. “My, my, how we do move up in the world.”
“Shut up and sit down.” She pulled a guest chair into the center of the room, then pulled her personal chair out from behind the comm station. Arron sat and so did Lynn.
“You're pale,” he said, looking her up and down.
“You're tan.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Strong, too. You've really been doing fieldwork in the field, haven't you?”
“Well, it's easier to get people to talk to you if you're helping haul nets.” He squeezed her hand back. “It is really good to see you.”
“Even if I'm a corper?”
Arron shrugged. “I always suspected you leaned that way. I've worked hard not to let it ruin our friendship.”
“Your tolerance is saintly, really.” Lynn gave him a sour grin. “Tell me what you've been doing. You never left the university, did you?”
“What do you mean never left? We're sitting on the other side of the galaxy from the university!”
Lynn smacked his arm lightly. “You know what I mean. Aren't you a professor now, or something?’’
Arron laid his hand on his breast. “You wound me. That's like asking a ship captain if he's got a desk job. I'm a senior researcher, in cultural xenology. Haven't you untied any of my knots?”
“Not one,” Lynn lied, and shook her head. She did not want to get into that discussion just yet. “Forgive me?”
“I'll think about it.” He leaned back, folded his arms, and grinned.
“So.” Lynn folded her arms and matched his posture. “Should I ask what you want now, or should we keep going with the small talk?”
Arron shook his head. “You know, you haven't lost that total disregard for ceremonial preliminaries.”
“Oh, no. I drive the veeps crazy.” She grinned. “And I'm proud of it. So, what do you want?” Especially since you've said publicty we're not to be trusted. Lynn squashed the thought, but knew she wasn't going to be able to keep that section of the conversation shut down indefinitely.