Shockball

by S. L. Viehl

  “You whiteskins ask so many questions.”

  “You Indians do some really weird stuff.”

  “We remind you of who you are, beneath the skin.”

  “I’m not one of you.” I took a sip of my tea, which was getting cold. “I don’t belong here. You know that.”

  “I know you are here now.”

  “Not by choice. You know that’s wrong. You could help me and Reever a great deal just by getting us out of here.” I thought of Joseph, and tried a not-so-subtle threat. “Those men who searched the village—they’ll be back. Eventually they’ll find a way down here. They’ll notify the authorities about you. Help us, and you’ll be protecting your tribe.”

  “No.” He got awkwardly to his feet. “I do not betray my chief.”

  “Glad I am to hear it, my friend,” Rico said from behind us, making me spill lukewarm tea down the front of my tunic. “Doctor. You wished to speak to me?”

  Hawk limped away. Everyone else in the cavern found something else to do or look at. That left me to handle the chief.

  “Yes, I do. You have a real problem that needs taking care of, right away.”

  Rico crouched beside me and offered me a colorful square of linen. “Tell me about this … problem I have.”

  After I mopped up the tea with that, I related how I’d found the hybrids in the outer sewer system, and what I’d discovered from examining them. I explained what a spirochete was, how it was responsible for the symptoms, and presented my request for a diagnostic unit in order to find a cure. I used simple, nonclinical terms as much as possible.

  He listened at first, but by the time I got to the part about the equipment I needed, I had the feeling he’d lost interest.

  I speeded up my delivery. “The bottom line here is, I have to identify this bacteria first, then I can treat the infected patients. I’ll have to check the other members of your tribe, and temporarily isolate anyone who tests positive for the spirochete. We can have it under control immediately, and hopefully once we find out what it is, and how to treat it, have it completely cleared up in a few weeks.”

  Rico, who had been watching Hawk hobbling on the other side of the cave, picked up a small stone and tossed it into the fire. “No.”

  I wasn’t sure what part of that he was objecting to. “I beg your pardon?”

  “No, you will not get the equipment, treat the infected, test the tribe, or isolate anyone.”

  “Maybe I didn’t explain this right. The hybrids living in the sewer system are very sick. The sickness they have is highly contagious. I’m positive there are others here who—”

  “You do not have to repeat your words, patcher. I heard and understood every one of them.”

  “Then what’s your objection?”

  “It is simple.” Rico stood up. I did, too. “The outcasts you examined are unclean and worthless to me. They are cursed.”

  “But—but—” I shook my head, trying to process this bizarre reaction. “Chief, you don’t understand. They’re not unclean or cursed, they’re sick. They need medicine. They may have infected other members of the tribe, who aren’t showing signs of sickness yet.”

  “They will perish. If any more of the Night Horse become cursed, they will be cast out and perish, too.”

  “You can’t do that,” I said, getting angry. “It’s not their fault. You can’t simply ignore them.”

  “That is our way,” he said.

  “Your way? Your way?” My voice climbed several octaves. “Is it your way to allow innocent people to die from a preventable illness? Or is that why you had Wendell keep them drugged? So they wouldn’t bother you? So you don’t have to look at them?”

  Rico’s attention wandered away from me, and fixed on someone entering the cavern. “Wendell. Join us.”

  Wendell came over, looking a little nervous. “Chief. Doctor.”

  “Dr. Torin tells me she’s been taken among the unclean. She tells me you gave them drugs.”

  Wendell blanched. “It was only to keep them quiet, Chief.”

  “You’re a real humanitarian, Wendell.” I was mad, but something was starting to worry me. Something was wrong. Wendell had gone completely white. And Rico, Rico was radiating something very peculiar. He should have been angry, but he wasn’t. He was happy. At least, something like happiness.

  “Wendell makes many mistakes, Doctor.” Rico stepped forward, and tapped his hand against Wendell’s cheek. “Many, many mistakes. Like bartering with the unclean.”

  I felt sick. “You sold them the drugs?”

  “Chief.” Now Wendell sounded desperate. He even got on his knees. “I only took a few things. They didn’t need all that silver anymore.”

  “What are you planning to do with it, Wendell?” Rico asked.

  “Let me go topside. I can get a good price for the stuff, start over somewhere else.” He held up his hands in entreaty. “I won’t tell anyone about this place. I swear.”

  I got disgusted at once. “You deliberately addicted those people to barbiturates, just so you could get out of here?”

  “They needed it for the pain. There was nothing else I could do for them anyway.” He gave me a filthy look. “You’d do the same thing, if you had the chance. You want out of here as much as I do.” He turned back to the chief. “I have to get out of here. I can’t stand it anymore.”

  “I will let you go, Wendell,” Rico said in a gentle, reassuring way. Then he grabbed Wendell by the hair, and before I could stop him, whipped out a knife and cut his throat.

  The blood hit me first.

  “No!” I caught Wendell as he fell, and jammed my hands around the throat wound, applying direct pressure. More blood from the jugular and the carotid arteries sprayed directly in my face. I looked desperately at Rico. “Help me!”

  The chief reached down, wiped the blood from his knife onto the sleeve of Wendell’s tunic, then straightened.

  I kept yelling. No one came to help me. I tried to lift Wendell myself, but slipped in the blood. By then it was everywhere. I tried to drag him, until I saw Rico still standing there, watching my futile efforts.

  “Help me get him to Medical. There’s time. I can save him.”

  “No.”

  Rico leaned over then and did something that I would have nightmares about for weeks after. He licked some of the blood from my cheek.

  As Wendell’s life drained out between my fingers, the chief of the Night Horse smiled at me, and then simply walked away.

  I managed to drag Wendell toward the nearest hogan, but whoever was inside quickly shut the door covering. I yelled for help, for anyone to help me. Every door I could see was closed. Everyone had disappeared inside the hogans, and they weren’t coming out.

  Why wouldn’t anyone help me?

  I changed direction and dragged Wendell toward the tunnels. I kept shouting until I was hoarse. No one came out. He was too heavy for me to pick up, but I tried that a couple of times, too.

  Wendell went into full cardiac arrest near the entrance to the tunnels, staring up at me, his face filled with horror and disbelief. When I heard that last, choked breath leave his lungs, I dropped his arms, knelt beside him, and performed CPR. When that failed to bring him back, I just sat there with him.

  I don’t know how much time passed. All I could seem to do was sit there on the cold stone floor and look at him. Bleeding to death made him look whiter than ever.

  “Cherijo.”

  Reever was there, lifting me up, wiping my face with something. I looked at him, but I didn’t really focus on his face. All I could see was Wendell, lying there, dead.

  Hands were running over me. “Did he hurt you? Are you cut anywhere?”

  I focused on my husband’s face. I guess all the blood made it hard to tell. “No. It’s his. I’m … I’m fine.”

  Reever knelt and checked Wendell’s pulse. I’d taught him that. With a little work, my husband might make a decent medic one day. If he ever got over being so squeamish.r />
  “He’s dead.”

  I looked down. “Yeah. He’s dead.”

  “Did you do this to him?”

  That got to me, when nothing else would have. Still, I felt frozen and disconnected as I returned the favor. “Do you think I could have slit his throat?”

  “No. Who did it?”

  I saw Rico’s smile, heard the soft pleasure in his voice, and then the terrible slash of the knife.

  “Rico.” I started to shake, and wrapped my arms around myself. “Right here. Right in front of me. One stroke, severed both arteries. Then he”—I swallowed bile—”then he licked some of Wendell’s blood off my face.”

  Reever pulled me up against him and started rubbing his hands up and down my back. “It’s all right, beloved.”

  “I couldn’t carry him. I tried to. The blood made my hands slippery and he was too heavy. I yelled for help, but no one came. No one would help me. I had to drag him. He was too heavy. He stopped breathing.” I lifted my eyes to look into his. “I tried, Reever, but I couldn’t save him. Why did he do it? Why wouldn’t anyone help me save him? Why did they leave us alone like that?”

  “You did what you could.” He guided me away from the body. “Come with me now.”

  A woman stepped out of the tunnels—the young, beautiful woman who had been hanging all over Rico before. She didn’t look very pretty now, not with that smirk on her face.

  The girlfriend came toward me. “You need to wash, patcher. You stink of whiteskin.”

  “Move out of the way,” Reever said.

  “You know who I am, whiteskin?” She turned her smirk on Reever. “I’m Ilona Red Faun. I belong to Rico.”

  The girlfriend was jealous.

  “Congratulations,” Reever said. “Move out of the way.”

  She hit me in the chest instead. “You stay away from Rico, patcher. He’s mine. He wants to put his mouth on a woman, he comes to me. Only me.”

  As I rubbed the sore spot on my sternum, I stared at her, unable to make sense of what she was doing. She was upset? About that? “I’ll be sure to send him to you the next time he wants to lick body fluids off someone’s face.”

  Reever got me around her and took me back to Medical. There he helped me wash my face and hair. I pulled off my bloodstained tunic and threw it to the floor. The shock faded, and became something else.

  “Where’s the suture laser?” I looked around.

  “There are at least a hundred people around him. You’d be dead before you could activate it.”

  I took a couple of deep breaths. “He cut Wendell’s throat for nothing. Nothing.”

  He held me by the arms and made me look at him. “Killing Rico won’t change that.”

  “Reever, we’ve got to—” I saw someone walk past the alcove and blinked. “And now I’m hallucinating.”

  I pulled out of his grip and hurried out into the tunnel. No sign of anyone, either direction. But I couldn’t have been mistaken. Not about him.

  “What is it?”

  “I just saw a ghost,” I said, and leaned back against the wall. I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping it had been some crazy figment of my imagination. “I saw Dhreen.”

  “Cherijo.”

  Reever sounded odd. I opened my eyes, and saw him starting to slide to the floor. “Oh God, no.”

  Judging by the levels of phosphates, urea, and creatinine in Reever’s bloodstream, his kidney had begun to fail. I had no choice but to put him on the jury-rigged dialysis array to keep him alive.

  I’d already surgically prepped an arteriovenous fistula, the artificial junction between an artery and vein in his right leg, to facilitate removing and returning his blood supply.

  I would never admit it to Reever, but I was almost glad this had happened. If it hadn’t, I don’t know how else I would have dealt with witnessing Wendell’s murder.

  “Get comfortable, you’re going to be doing this three times a week until we find you a new kidney. You’re also going on a new diet. No more splurging on the sodium and potassium, got it?”

  As I hooked him up to the machine, I explained how the rig’s dialyzer filtered the toxic substances out of his blood.

  He watched his blood flow through the tubing into the rig. “How long will this work?”

  “Forever.” I smiled down at him. “Okay, not forever. But long enough. All I have to do is find a donor organ that matches your tissue type.”

  “That will be difficult, given our present circumstances.”

  “I’d give you one of mine, if I could.” I thought of Kao—I couldn’t help it—and blinked hard. “I wouldn’t recommend it, though.”

  “How are you feeling?” he asked me.

  Why lie? “Scared.”

  “Can you tell me what happened with Rico, before he murdered Wendell?”

  I told him everything, including my part in seeing that Wendell got killed by telling the chief about the drugs.

  He thought it over for a while. I kept busy by making unnecessary adjustments on the rig. “It’s not your fault, Cherijo.”

  “I know.” Or I should have known. “But why would Rico pretend these people are cursed?”

  “It may not be a pretense. Such superstitions are common among primitive cultures. Many Terran races believed sickness resulted from divine malediction.”

  “These are modern Terrans who have chosen to live this way. When they belonged to the Four Mountains tribe, they were regularly examined and treated by state-funded physicians. That’s the law, even on the reservation. They know better.”

  “Perhaps they have chosen to forget.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll find a way to treat them. I have to go back—they’ll be suffering from barbiturate withdrawal.”

  “You can’t go alone.”

  “I’ll take Kegide with me.” Before he could argue, I held up one hand. “Don’t give me a hard time about it. You need to stay here. Besides, it’s not like he’s going to say anything to Rico.”

  By the time I tracked down Kegide and made him understand what I wanted to do, I had to stop back at the alcove and take Reever off the rig. Who immediately insisted on going with us.

  “This isn’t going to be pleasant,” I told him. “You’re still weak and tired.”

  “I feel better.” He picked up the Lok-Teel and propped it on his shoulder. “I’m coming with you.”

  Kegide led us back to the exiles’ hogan. I could hear the groans and cries from a hundred yards away, and took out a syrinpress.

  “I’m going to infuse them with mild opiate to help with the withdrawal symptoms, then I’ll do the penicillin screens. They’re going to have a hard time of it for the next couple days.” And I still didn’t know if the penicillin would do anything to rid them of the infection.

  I went inside the hogan, and saw most of my patients were considerably more animated now. Feverish, covered in sweat, and experiencing delirium tremors.

  Reever put down the Lok-Teel, who went right to work cleaning up the mess.

  I handed Reever and Kegide the gloves and masks I’d brought. “I need you to help me hold them down.”

  It was an unpleasant business. Some of the hybrids spit and snarled, and tried to attack us. They were too weak to do much more than make noise. Others wept and pleaded for the drug they believed kept them from suffering.

  “Your body has become dependent on it. It isn’t helping you anymore,” I tried to explain to one, fairly lucid young woman. “You’d have to keep taking more and more of it to keep the pain from coming back. In the end, it would kill you.”

  She clawed at me, suddenly furious. “Then let me die!”

  Out of the fourteen patients I examined, only one showed a mild dermal reaction to the penicillin screen. If I could find a way to culture the spirochete and see how it reacted to penicillin, then I could possibly use it to treat them. After I took more blood samples, we gave them bed baths and made them as comfortable as possible.

  I checked al
l three of us to make sure we hadn’t been infected with the spirochete before sending Kegide back for food. He returned with a large pot of stew and a jug of water, but no one wanted to eat or drink.

  “Try.” I spooned some of the stew into one young man’s mouth. “You need to eat something.”

  “We are cursed by the gods,” he said, knocking my hand away. “Leave us alone to die.”

  “The curse thing again.” I stood up and addressed all of my new patients. “Listen up. I know you’ve been told you were cursed. That’s superstitious nonsense. You’ve been infected with a disease that comes from bacteria.”

  “What kind of disease?” he demanded.

  I had no choice but to admit, “I don’t know yet.”

  Someone screamed with weak fury. “You are torturing us!”

  “Okay, I’m torturing you. Good reason to rest, and get better, right? Then you can come after me for doing this to you.”

  I collected my supplies and told them I’d be back to check on them as soon as I could. We left, followed by the sound of more shrieks and curses.

  “It’s so nice to be appreciated for your work.” I ran a tired hand over the back of my neck.

  Reever was holding the Lok-Teel, who appeared to be gorged. “How long will it take until they recover?”

  “Physically—a couple of days. Psychologically the addiction and the belief in the curse have done a lot of damage. It’ll take longer to fix that.” I looked at my Man Mountain. “Kegide, I need to come here again. Can you bring me back tomorrow?”

  The big man shook his head.

  “Rico will be suspicious if you disappear too often.” Reever glanced back at the hogan. “When you come here, I want to be with you.”

  “You’re not a doctor.” I wished I could get Hawk to come with me, but I suspected he’d not only refuse, but he’d also tell Rico about it. Then someone else’s throat might get slit. Like mine.

  We went back through a different tunnel, and I noticed a large recessed area filled with books. It must have been the vault Wendell had told me about, the one filled with books—

  I halted. “The books. That’s it.” Kegide motioned for me to keep walking. “I know, I’m coming.”