by Diann Read
Tristan swallowed and watched the other’s eyes. He tensed under the doctor’s touch.
“How’s your stomach?” the medic asked. “Are you getting hungry yet?”
“No,” Tristan said.
“Does it still feel upset?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll wait to give you anything else, then.” The man closed up the cloth over his shoulder and reached for his box. Tristan watched as he selected a small vial. “This is for that bruise on your forehead,” he said, pressing something white onto his fingertip. “It should be pretty well healed by tomorrow.”
Spreading the salve, he added, “I’m Reed Weil. I’m a captain in the Isselan Surface Forces Medical Corps. I’m—really sorry about all of this.”
Tristan said nothing, just watched him.
“Look,” Weil said, “I don’t blame you for not trusting me. You’re thinking I’m just another of the thugs who beat up on you—”
“You didn’t stop them!” Tristan said. “You put—those things—on my face!” The thick feeling had begun to leave his mouth.
The medic winced at his accusation. “I didn’t want to, kid, but it would’ve been a lot worse for you if I hadn’t.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to help you.”
Tristan didn’t answer.
“I’m trying to help your friend, too,” Weil said. He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I told the—the people here—that you and he would both become violent and dangerous if you were separated.”
Tristan stared at him. “Why did you say that?” he demanded. “That isn’t right!”
The medic motioned him to be quiet. “I did it to protect you both,” he said. “I had reason to believe they’d take your friend away and hurt him.”
Tristan’s puzzlement deepened. He furrowed his brow. “Why would they do that?”
The other shook his head. “Because they don’t have any use for him. They—think he’s not important because he’s not human, and he’s just in the way. Do you understand that?”
Tristan understood the meaning of the words but not the thinking behind them. He nodded, but his forehead stayed wrinkled.
“Okay,” the medic said. “Even if the part about being dangerous isn’t true, it’s important for you and your friend act like it is if anyone tries to take him away. Do you understand that?”
Tristan swallowed hard and nodded again.
“Good.” The medic straightened and returned to his normal tone of voice. “How’s your hand?” he asked. “The left one. Can you move it?”
Tristan lifted it, and stiffened. His fingernails had been cut off. He looked at his right hand, too, and felt shock. “You cut off my claws!” he accused. “Why did you do that to me?”
Weil appeared startled. He put out his own hand. “Look at mine.”
“It’s naked!” Tristan said. “Only babies don’t have claws! I need them to hunt and to—”
“You won’t have to hunt here,” said the medic. “There’s no need to have claws here.”
Chagrined, Tristan knotted his hands together between his knees and turned onto his side, his back to the man. His throat suddenly seemed so tight he could scarcely breathe.
Several seconds passed before Weil asked quietly from behind him, “Tristan, is there any pain or stiffness in your hand?”
“No,” he said into the pillow.
“It was very badly bruised. What happened?”
“I hit one of the humans wearing the—shiny shells.”
“You mean armor?” The medic said, “You’re lucky you didn’t break it!”
Tristan didn’t reply, didn’t stir. Just squeezed his hands more tightly together.
“Tristan,” Weil said after another pause, “I’m not done patching you up yet. I need you to turn onto your back again.”
Tristan waited for several more seconds before he complied, and then he watched, wary, as the medic drew the covers away, applied more salve to his finger, and reached for the cloth covering his groin. He stiffened, suddenly suspicious, suddenly angry. “What are you doing?”
“I had to make a couple of cuts in your thigh to place some tubes,” Weil said. “They need fresh salve, too. Would you rather do it yourself?”
“Yes,” Tristan said.
“Hold out your finger, then.”
He did, and Weil wiped the salve from his own finger onto it.
The healing cuts in Tristan’s upper thigh glared pink and still felt tender. “Why did you put tubes in my leg?” he demanded.
The medic drew a deep breath. “You’ve been in—hibernation—for over two weeks, except in medicine we call it ‘stasis.’ The tubes were to feed you.”
“Weeks?” Tristan furrowed his brow again at the unfamiliar word. “How many nights is that?”
“You were asleep for fifteen.”
“Fifteen!” The shock returned, along with a dry-mouthed fear. “Three hands of nights!” Tristan stared at the man. “Why?”
Weil studied him briefly, looking uncomfortable. At last he sighed. “They wanted to move you,” he said. “I did it to make the trip easier for you. It took almost fifteen days to get here.”
Tristan looked away from him, toward the gray skyscape. His throat felt tight again. “It’s—too close in here,” he said. “It’s ugly.”
“Yes, it is,” Weil said, very quietly. “I’m sorry.” He pulled the bedcovers back up over Tristan’s legs and sighed once more. “You’re doing fine,” he said, “but I think you should try to sleep some more. I’ll be here if you need help.”
Waking again later, Tristan thought maybe he had only dreamed it all, until the medic brought him more water and he drew one hand from beneath the bedcovers to take the cup and saw his naked fingers.
He turned back toward the wall and didn’t sleep after that. When a dull ache began at the back of his skull, he curled deeper under the covers, wrapping his arms over his head. He heard the medic moving around the room. Ignored him until he heard the wall open and close. Then he shifted onto his back, grimacing with the headache.
Evening had come. The walls glowed pink with light reflected from a red sun that slid down behind the far away towers. He watched the smoky sky turn bloody, then black. He saw no stars, heard no insect noises or jous howling. Just watched lights wink on in the silhouetted towers and heard sounds he didn’t recognize.
He lay for a long time staring out on it all, lay with his violated hands clenched together, wanting to keen out his loss, his fear and confusion, but the sound caught like a bone in his throat, swelling the ache in his chest.
He didn’t hear the wall open and close again, just glimpsed a shadow’s motion from the corner of his eye. He thrust a hand from under the covers in an ineffective shove. “Leave me alone!”
Another swifter hand caught his, and claws gripped it in brief reprimand. “Little brother.”
“Pulou!” The tension left Tristan’s hand. He freed it to nudge his companion’s chest with his knuckles. “You’re all right?”
Pulou grinned, a flash of teeth in the dimness. Tristan saw a broken bottom fang, but Pulou said, “I’m all right.”
He crouched close, stroking Tristan’s hair with the back of one hand while the medic counted his pulse again.
“How are you feeling now?” Weil asked.
“Head aches,” Tristan said.
“What about your stomach?”
Tristan shrugged.
The medic opened his box, removed the seal from a tiny cup of dark liquid. “Drink this. It’ll stop the headache and help you relax. Can you take some more water with it?”
Tristan accepted the water as well, drank it with Pulou and the human watching him, and kept his hands curled so Pulou wouldn’t see they were naked.
He waited only until the medic left to get out of bed. He tried to tug its cover off but he still felt shaky and weak. “Help me,” he asked Pulou.
“You do what, little brother?”
“I sleep on ground,” Tristan said. “I don’t like this; I’m afraid I fall off.”
When he sank into sleep again, rolled up in the bedcover, Pulou sat cross-legged beside him, gazing out on the night skyscape with his head cocked in bewilderment.
Light filtered through the curtain, and Pulou had curled up in sleep beside it, when Tristan woke at a clinical touch on his forehead. He shifted onto his back and blinked up at Captain Weil.
“Why are you on the floor?” the medic asked. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Tristan said. And then, “I need the bushes.”
Weil appeared puzzled. “Oh,” he said after a moment, and offered a hand. “Let me help you up and I’ll show you where the latrine is.”
He took Tristan by the elbow and helped steady him on his feet before maneuvering him around the bed toward a curtain in the wall. Tristan flinched, putting out a blocking hand when the medic pushed the curtain aside.
It hid a tiny room full of shiny things, oddly shaped. Weil explained their use, showed him how they worked, but Tristan hung back, wrinkling his nose with revulsion.
He felt the medic eyeing him. “What’s wrong?”
“At home we go away from camp for that,” Tristan said. “We never do it in the lodge! It’s not clean.”
He saw several expressions, including mild amusement, flicker across the other’s face, but the eyes that met his held only sympathy. “Look, I know this is all really strange to you,” Weil said, “but you can’t ‘go away’ here. I’m trying to make it as easy for you as I can. You’ll get used to it. Do you want me to wait outside?”
“Yes,” Tristan said.
Even then, he stood staring at the toilet until his bladder left him with no choice.
When Weil came back, he pointed at a cylinder in the corner, like the trunk of a large tree. The side slid open when he touched it, revealing a hollow big enough to stand in.
“It’s a hygiene booth, for washing yourself,” he said, and pointed out small holes in a ring around the top. “The water comes in through those. You push the buttons here—” he tapped a panel just inside the door, “—to start it and make it cooler or warmer. It’ll stop by itself when the ration’s spent. I think you’ll feel better after you’ve washed.”
Tristan held onto its doorframe with both hands and let the medic assist him out of the loose garment. Wadding the cloth and tucking it under his arm, Weil helped him into the booth. “If you start getting shaky or faint,” he said, “just call; I’ll be right here.”
Tristan watched him push the buttons, and stiffened when he slid the door closed. He glanced around the enclosure and tested the door panel’s seam with his fingers until a soft hiss jerked his vision to the water ring over his head. Remembering the creeks he’d bathed in since childhood, he braced himself for a downpour of icy water. The water that streamed down on him was warm, but he gasped anyway.
Only then did he realize he’d seen no way for the water to escape. Wet hands clawed at the door’s seal, pulled at the grid in the ceiling. “How do I stop it?” he called out. “I’ll drown in here!”
The water turned to lather, white and slippery, matting his hair. He shook it out, and lost his balance. Staggering, he flung out an arm to catch himself and caught a swath of white spray across his face. He gagged on its bitterness in his mouth, swiped at burning eyes, began to choke and spit.
From outside, Weil’s voice asked, “. . . all right, Tristan?”
“Let me—” Choking cut him off. He coughed, spat, managed to drag in a breath. “Let me out of this!”
One hand brushed the button panel. He slammed at it blindly, and an icy deluge broke over his head. The cold took his breath, but it swept away the lather.
He reached out to save himself, shivering violently. His legs gave way; his fingers slid down a seam in the cylinder’s wall. He tore at it, scrabbling on wet metal, and yelled again, “Let me out of here!”
Pale light shot over his shoulder through the opened door; the waterfall ceased at once. “Are you all right, Tristan?” asked Weil.
He had turned the wrong way, had been tearing at the wrong seam. He twisted around, glaring at the medic as he pulled himself to his feet. His hands shook, and his legs. “Am I—all right?” he said, teeth chattering. “Y-you—put me in this—this water thing—like a lomo—in a burrow—with no way out—and th-that white slime—almost made me go blind, and—” He broke off, coughing again. “Why didn’t you—just kill me—before?”
“Tristan, calm down,” Weil said. “I’m sorry. That ‘white slime’ is just body cleanser; you’re not going blind. I should’ve told you what to expect. I’m sorry.” He reached out, but Tristan, still shaking, raised a curled hand and bared his teeth. The medic hesitated. “All right,” he said after a moment. “Do you see the square black button? Push that one.”
Tristan eyed him, suspicious. “What’ll that do to me?”
“It’ll send in warm air through the vents above your head and dry you off,” Weil said. “If you stand there cold and wet much longer, I’ll be treating you for pneumonia instead of just stasis shock.”
Tristan fixed him with a warning glare from beneath his dripping forelock as he reached for the square black button.
The shivering subsided after a few moments in the rush of warm air, but it took longer for him to begin to relax.
The medic held out a fresh tunic when he stepped out of the hygiene booth. Tristan took it, wrapped it snugly around his waist, and knotted it.
“That’s not how it’s worn,” Weil said.
“It’s like a loincloth this way,” Tristan said.
The other didn’t argue, just shrugged, helped him back to the bedroom, and asked, “Are you hungry yet?”
“Yes,” Tristan said. He sat down on the floor, deliberately avoiding both the bed and the medic’s look.
Weil collected a container from beside his box and twisted off its lid. “This is cracked grain gruel,” he said. “It’s good nourishment but it’ll have a laxative effect. Stasis tends to make your bowel sluggish.”
Tristan eyed the thick liquid, smelled it, stuck a finger into it and licked it off to taste it. The gruel had a vaguely sweet flavor and a chewy texture in his teeth. His stomach growled. He tipped up the container for another mouthful.
“You’re making a very good recovery,” the medic said, “but I suggest you rest again today. I’ll come in from time to time to see how you’re doing.”
Occupied with eating, Tristan didn’t answer. In a few minutes he put his head back to tip the last bit of gruel into his mouth, then swept a finger around the inside of the container to make sure. Licking his finger clean, he thrust the empty canister at the medic.
Weil accepted it with a dim smile. “Are you still hungry?”
“No.”
“Fine. I’ll wait a while to bring you anything else, then. Just go ahead and rest now,” Weil said, and picked up his box and stood.
Tristan watched, eyes narrowed, as the wall simply parted when the man approached it, and closed again after he stepped through. Glancing back once at the sleeping gan, he rose.
The wall didn’t open when he drew up to it. He tried to force his fingers into seams that his nails might have succeeded at, then sat down to brace his feet against the wall and strain to slide the panel back.
The effort left him weary, left his arms and back sore. He searched with eyes and fingers for latches or buttons but found none. Realizing that it must be secured from the outside, he gave up and sat down to stare out on the skyscape.
In another moment he shot back to his feet, pushing the curtain aside. He held to the wall, still not certain the pane wouldn’t give way when he pressed his face to it to look down. The view made his stomach roll as it had before. He squeezed his eyes shut, pushed himself back, and released his breath.
The pane had been set into a squa
re hole in the wall that reached from the floor almost to the ceiling, sunk several fingers’ width into the wall. He tried to get a purchase on it, around its edges, but he couldn’t without fingernails. He hissed his annoyance through his teeth.
Behind him, Pulou stirred, opening one eye. “You do what, little brother?”
Tristan curled his naked hands against his body. “I try to find way out.”
“Not that,” said Pulou, and motioned at the opening wall. “That’s only way out.”
“I try that,” said Tristan. “It doesn’t open.”
Pulou shrugged one shoulder; he still lay on the other. “It’s daytime, little brother. Go to sleep.”
Sighing, Tristan dropped down and stretched out on his belly beside the gan. He didn’t feel sleepy. He felt restless and frustrated and more than a little anxious. He began an agitated picking at the fleecy floor covering with the hand not supporting his chin.
“Pulou?” he said after a minute.
“What?”
“We are where?”
He heard a noisy yawn, and Pulou said, “Far away.”
“We go out how?” he asked.
Pulou turned his head, blinked at him. “I don’t know. It’s like tsigis’ nest.”
Tristan remembered a honey tree he’d seen once, pocked and tunneled through and mostly hollow, and crawling with the insects. He questioned Pulou with his look.
“Go to sleep,” the gan said. “We talk at night.”
Pulou fell asleep again in a moment, but Tristan didn’t.
He’d never slept before daylight began to fade into evening and the medic arrived with bowls of food and a pair of tiny sealed cups.
“You’ll need to take one of these before you eat for the next few days,” Weil said, peeling the seal off the cups. He gave one to Tristan, the other to Pulou. “The food here is different than what you’re used to and this’ll help your bodies adjust without the typical upset. I’m sorry I couldn’t just immunize you for this along with everything else while you were still in stasis.”
The white liquid caked Tristan’s mouth like mud. He grimaced, fighting the desire to spit, and watched Pulou wrinkle his nose over his own.
Weil put a bowl in his hands: red soup with meat in it. He smelled it, felt its scent bite his nostrils, and glanced up. Pulou had begun fishing meat out of the broth with his fingers. Tristan did the same.
It tasted like—burning! He managed three or four chunks before thirst drove him to tip up the bowl and drink. That only worsened it. Choking, he pushed the bowl away. “I want water!”