by Alan Black
The doctor pulled a medi-pen from a pocket. She twisted a dial, jabbed the end against his arm and hit the button. “Dammit!” She wiped the medicine away from his arm. It hadn’t gone in. With practiced ease, she let up the knee pressure on his chest and flipped him onto his stomach.
He couldn’t see what she was doing, but he felt a fresh blast of cool air across his backside. He felt the medi-pen slam into his buttocks, then again, and then a third time. He rested his head on his good forearm and looked up at Allie. She looked back with bald curiosity. He winked and grinned. Whatever Menendez put in the shot made him feel better or maybe it was the water working its way through his system, easing his dehydration.
“Forceps!” Menendez shouted. A small metallic object sailed across the room over Stones’s head. He saw the doctor’s hand snake out grabbing the tool in mid-air. She twirled it by the end ring, letting the medical device sterilize itself. Before it cooled to ambient temperature, the doctor jammed the plier-like tool into the bullet hole.
Before he could howl in pain, Menendez dropped a bullet onto the ground in front of Stone. He realized if he had howled, it would not have been from to pain, but surprise. It hadn’t hurt near as much as he anticipated. He picked up the bullet, stared at it, and finally shoved it into a pocket. He wasn’t much into collecting souvenirs, but this was one he might keep.
He looked across at Numos. “Did you find us a safer place than this open meadow?”
Numos looked back, his normally calm face showing concern. “Um, yeah. I think. I mean, yes, Ensign Stone. About fifty miles east by northeast is an area of broken canyons and escarpments. I sent a fireteam led by Sergeant Li to make a visual inspection.”
Stone asked, “A fireteam is four marines?”
Numos nodded, “Yes, Ensign. Sergeant Li has been with me for a while and there aren’t any rookies on his team. They are on radio silence and should be back by dark. If they find a place we can hole up until help arrives, we can move out at first light.”
“If we get through the night, Major.”
Numos nodded, “There is that. Don’t forget, Ensign, most of us marines have been here for longer than you were trapped here. We’ve had our run-ins with the local dangers, just like you. Sergeant Li and his team have been here since the marines first landed and started building our compound. We weren’t always protected by high thick walls.”
Stone nodded, “Yes, sir. I do remember you lost people.” His eyes took that moment to begin watering and he had a sudden urge to blow his nose, although it would have been difficult with Dr. Menendez still sitting on his back, holding him down. He shook his head, trying to clear his senses. He wiped the tears leaking down his face on his uniform sleeve. “Sorry, sir. Anyway, it would probably be best if you went ahead and took command. I seem to be inconsistently incapacitated.” Just as quickly as it began, his eyes and nose cleared up.
Menendez leaped off his back with a curse. She stared at him in horror. “What the frak?” She glared at her medical scanner, then back at Stone.
Stone didn’t know what to say. Numos did. “Report, Lieutenant Senior Grade Doctor Menendez, on the health of our governor.”
“Health? How the hell do I know? I’m not even sure he’s human.”
Allie laughed. “I think the doctor needs to take a break.”
Stone said, “I still feel human.”
Numos’s voice took on a command timbre. “Clarify your report, Lieutenant.”
Menendez took a deep breath. “The gash across his arm must have been open and bleeding when it got infected.”
Stone asked, “Infected by what?”
Menendez shrugged. “Drasco blood and other assorted male drasco fluids.”
Stone said, “Well, I was under the male when it died. That’s where my arm got hurt and I got covered in drasco goo, so some blood may have gotten into the cut. I’ve been around my drascos for over a year. I’ve had their spit in my cuts and scrapes for most of that time.”
Menendez nodded, “And that may have helped pave the way for this infection. I don’t know what is happening to you, but you’re suffering from a high fever and your body is changing.”
Numos asked, “Changing? How?”
“I don’t know. The blood isn’t all he has mixed in. He may have been splattered with whatever the male spit at the female drascos.”
Allie asked, “The male spit something on Jay and Peebee?”
Stone answered, “Oops. I guess we haven’t gotten that far, sir. The male raped Jay and Peebee. They are both pregnant now. What he was spitting is the male drasco equivalent of sperm!” Stone took a moment during the ensuing silence to wonder about those implications. The only thing he could ask was, “Well, Doctor, does that mean I’m pregnant, too?”
Menendez looked at him like he was stupid. “Of course not, Ensign. You are male without the equipment to become pregnant. However, the hormones in the sperm, the blood, or the mixture of both have triggered something internally. I don’t know what or why. Frakking hell, I don’t know what was happening in your body before we came to this cursed planet.”
Numos asked. “What changes? Please be specific, what do you know?”
Menendez sighed. “Yes, sir. The most obvious change is his skin is becoming thicker and more puncture resistant. Hell, Major. It’s still human skin to the touch and look, but his arm repelled a vaccination of antibiotics. The medi-pen couldn’t penetrate. I barely penetrated his gluteus maximus and dug the bullet out before his skin toughened up beyond my ability to cut it without specialized tools. And it’s obvious his vision has changed. Dammit, he can see a gilley suited marine and we can’t.”
Stone caught a whiff of what he could only describe as burnt engine oil coming from the doctor. The odor was mixed with a little mint. He shook his head and rolled over into a seated position. He was surprised his butt didn’t hurt in the least. He wrinkled his nose, catching the odor of deep chocolate from Allie, mint from Numos and Tuttle, no, the odor was peppermint from Numos and wintergreen from Tuttle. He had never been good with smells before, now even slight differences were becoming clear. The doctor continued to blast him with waves of burnt oil, although there was a slight hint of wintergreen.
He said, “Take it easy, Doctor Menendez. I know this is strange and new for both of us, but let’s not panic.”
Menendez sputtered, “Panic? No, I—” She took a deep breath and sat on the ground with a thump. “How did you know I started to lose it?”
The burnt engine oil odor was fading and the wintergreen mint odor was growing. “It’s strange. I’m not sure I can explain it.”
Numos said, “You better try, Ensign.”
Stone nodded, “Yes, Major. First I want to restate my believe that you should be in charge.”
Numos snorted, “Oh hell, boy. I’ve been in charge for as long as I can remember. You are the planetary governor. I will not, repeat not, circumvent an order from the Emperor giving you authority. I’m not on speaking terms with the big guy like you are. So you say you want us to get out of the open and into a hidey-hole? A command I believe is eminently practical, by the way. Well, I will dig us a deep hole and pull it in after us, if that is what it takes.” He pointed a finger at Stone. “Give it up, Ensign Stone, the doctor says things are changing in you. Tell us what you know.”
Stone nodded, “Yes, sir. I didn’t think—well, I guess I can see things I shouldn’t. I don’t know. It all looks normal, but maybe it isn’t. I can see Tuttle in her suit, even though she has the gilley setting on. I can see through her, too. However, I do see an outline, kind of like a fuzzy coloring book outline. And I can hear Jay and Peebee.”
“You what?” the doctor asked.
“My drascos. I can hear them chewing leaves and slurping at a bucket of water.”
Tuttle said, “I’m sorry, Ensign. I haven’t gotten around to having someone take water to them.”
Stone nodded, “That’s okay. I heard Dollish talking to them when
he took the bucket over there. He’s afraid of them, yet he took them water anyway.”
Allie said, “You heard them?”
Stone nodded. “I wasn’t thinking anything of it at the time because all I hear is just a dull buzz unless I listen carefully.
Numos said, “That is what? A hundred yards from here?”
Stone thought for a moment. It didn’t seem that far away, he could smell his girls. Both were wafting a chocolate mint odor. When he had smelled Dollish taking the water to Jay and Peebee he smelled mint with citrus and the same odor of burnt engine oil he smelled wafting off the doctor a few moments ago. Dollish had been friendly, scared, and on the verge of panic.
He realized what he had just thought. He’d smelled Dollish from a hundred yards away, not just the man, but he’d smelled the man’s emotions. Jay and Peebee’s sense of friend versus foe was in their ability to smell through the receptors in their mouths. He had always thought they liked who they liked and matched the person’s smell to their friendship, but what if they could identify a human’s emotions by smell? Didn’t some Earth animals have the ability to smell fear on humans? Someone had once told him cats could tell who was a cat person and who wasn’t, maybe they did it by smelling the human’s emotions or whatever secreted from their bodies.
Thinking hard caused his headache to come back, still he realized he was on to something about drascos. He smelled an overwhelming mixture of mints—and what was becoming clearer to him by the moment—it represented a friend. Wintergreen was friendly help. It had to be, as the odor was coming from the doctor and Tuttle, two women with strong biases toward aiding others. Peppermint was a loyal friend. Numos reeked of it.
Dr. Triplett had tripped his smell sensor. He could smell her sour milk disloyalty, the same for both scientists who made him angry, yet to varying degrees. The one Ryte had tied up smelled stronger than the other. His drascos were a wonderful mixture of all the mints he’d ever smelled with a chocolate overlay. He could smell the love and friendship from them even now. He looked at Allie and stood up. His head was spinning. She smelled of wet, dark chocolate. Yes, she loved him and he knew it.
He looked up to see faces staring at him in concern. He could smell a lemony scent of concern coming from all of them. He couldn’t say why lemon matched concern, but something in the back of his mind said so. Ryte slid into the tent, joining the group. Peppermint and—and licorice. What the hell did licorice mean? He could hear Jay and Peebee wonking at him from across the meadow. He was excited, scared, curious, and—
Tuttle caught Stone as he passed out just before his head hit the grass.
TWENTY-ONE
Stone woke with a start. Replaying his dreams through his memory, he found them muddled, mixed up, not making any sense. Was it something in a dream that pushed him to wakefulness? Were the voices chattering away in the distance too loud? Was his body just done sleeping? The conversations shouldn’t have bothered him, they weren’t as loud now that he was fully awake as he thought they were when they wormed their way into his dreams. Listening carefully, he heard simple, everyday chatter.
“Where did I leave the—?”
“Who’s got duty?”
“Double nickels! Beat that you goobers!”
He was in a cool, dark room, not at all what he expected. He clearly—sort of—remembered being in a hospital tent in the middle of a meadow. Dark as the room was, there was enough light from a dimmed lantern for him to see a decent ceiling, bulkheads, and a deck. Breathing a sigh of relief, he sat up and reached out to pat the bulkhead. Yes, the walls were rough, natural, slightly damp rocks, real, not some hologram. Real was good with Stone, at least he was inside and it didn’t matter whether the room was manmade, carved out by wind and water over millions of years, or scooped out by the hands of the gods. Inside was inside.
His movement tripped the motion sensor on a lantern across the room. It raised the light level from dim to slightly less dim. It didn’t do much to improve his vision, but it would allow him to move around the room without stumbling over the uneven floor or anything else scattered about.
There were a dozen men and women sleeping on pallets in the large room. He was able to see each sleeper clearly without the increased light, yet was glad for the extra light. Seeing something in startlingly clear detail in a relatively dark room was disturbing. He shook his head trying to wake up, wondering if he was in a coma, delusional or something else, because his head felt fuzzy and he didn’t feel quite right. “No,” he thought. “It’s worse than not quite right. I don’t feel like me.”
The soft breaths coming from most of the people sleeping in the room were gentle and slow, filling the air with a pleasant floral odor mixed with mint. A couple sleepers in the back were neutral, almost odorless. Stone wondered if their odorless breath was due to the drugs he could smell coursing through their bodies or due to their being so close to death their bodies’ resources were concentrating in a stubborn effort to live.
Stone stopped thinking and muttered, “No. That’s not right at all. I can’t see in the dark any more than I can smell drugs in someone else’s blood.” He remembered his last thoughts back in the hospital tent. Menendez said he was contaminated by drasco blood and sperm through the deep gash in his arm. He rubbed his arm. The gash had closed over and scarred. That part was simple modern combat medicine, the military nanites doing their job. Somehow, his touch felt wrong like he was wearing thick leather gloves and was running his hand over his arm through multiple layers of clothing.
He lay back down. The fuzzy feeling eased, but he couldn’t fall back asleep. He thought he must still be dreaming and couldn’t wake up. How else could he explain using a sense of smell to identify friend from foe, to discern if someone was lying, and to know without a doubt that Allie loved him? He smiled. He definitely remembered she smelled like wet, dark chocolate. Jay and Peebee smelled like milk chocolate and they loved him, so Allie loved him, too. The love wasn’t the same type, but both were chocolaty just the same. He knew Allie still felt that way because he could smell her breath. She was seated with Numos and a small cluster of marine NCOs outside about a hundred yards from the room entrance.
Yes, he must still be dreaming. There is no way he could tell where she was, much less who she was with. Humans can’t do that. He hadn’t even known his drascos could do it. He could clearly smell Allie and Numos. He could smell the breaths of the other marines, and could identify individual odors, just not who was whom, they were just blank slates at this point, yet they all had a mint overtone to the wide variety of odors coming from the group. Mint was friendship and loyalty, or loyalty and friendship. He realized the pairings were different depending on which emotion or condition was the person’s primary motivation.
He tried to wake up and realized he wasn’t really asleep. He wanted to be asleep. He wanted to be dreaming so he could wake up and be normal again. A raised voice from outside the room interrupted his thoughts. “What the—”
A second voice said, “Just give them room.”
“No shit, but did they have to step right in the middle of my backgammon game?”
“Feel free to complain to the boss.”
A thick tarp was pushed aside, covering a small opening in the cave wall letting in the light from another room. Jay squeezed through the little gap, wonking softly as she expanded back to her normal size. Stone was a little shocked. He hadn’t realized his drascos could pass through a hole smaller than their size. Jay, followed closely by Peebee, came to lie down next to him. They both tried to put their massive heads on his chest, jostling back and forth, sharing breath. Something tickled the back of his mind. Triplett had said both girls were pregnant. He didn’t require Triplett’s confirmation. He now knew they were both pregnant. Each of his girls carried three fertilized eggs, growing larger and stronger. Both Jay and Peebee knew they were pregnant and both were happy about it. Well, Peebee was happier than Jay. Jay was still angry about how she’d gotten this way, bu
t Peebee pointed out that was the only way to get babies, males being what they were.
Jay snorted in derision. “Human males aren’t that way.”
Peebee laughed, “I’d swear you think we are more human than we are us.”
“Would that be a bad thing?”
“No, it just isn’t.”
Jay asked, her voice ringing clearly in Stone’s head. “Are you awake for now, Mama? You’ve been asleep too long. Get up, please?”
Stone said softly, “I’m awake.”
Jay shook her head and snuffled to clear her breath in confusion.
Peebee wonked excitedly. “Mama? You can talk now!”
Jay said, “Hush, Peebee. That isn’t possible. Mama is still a human male and can only jibber jabber in human talk.”
“But I heard Mama in our talk! Do it again, Mama.”
Stone hesitated. If he wasn’t asleep—and he was sure he was awake—then he must be insane. He loved his girls, but they were drascos, alien animals, smart animals, but they weren’t sentient by any definition of the dozens of tests performed on them by a plethora of human scientists. He gave a mental snort. Yeah, like human is the standard for intelligence the galaxy should follow.
He said a sample, “Hello?”
Jay wonked and Peebee puffed herself up, stretching to the ceiling, flapping her wings with a snap and a pop. Both drascos were shouting.
Stone whispered, “Shhhh. There are sick people trying to sleep here.”
Peebee settled her head back down on Stone’s chest. “See, Jay? I told you.” She giggled. Stone couldn’t interpret the noise any other way. She giggled in a high-pitched little girl excited squeal. “Mama, you’ve changed! Did you get pregnant, too?”