Shadows In Still Water

by D. T. LeClaire

  Torp and Bridget looked at each other and started laughing.

  “It’s not beyond the realm of possibility,” Miguel said.

  “Come on, Mig,” Torp punched his shoulder. “A secret weapon? Sounds like James Bond Episode 57.”

  “I liked the last one,” Bridget piped in. “They finally got a new James Bond. Much better looking. He’s got one of those fancy Spacecraft MK1000’s too.”

  Miguel glared at her. “You realize if this is true, we’re right in the middle of it.”

  “Well, that would be much more interesting than rolling bandages,” Bridget declared. “Speaking of which I’m off to find more. Oh, joy.”

  Wandering around the docking bay, Bridget looked for Dr. LRuh for further instructions. Maybe she would let her do something more interesting. Just as she caught sight of the Gidellian doctor’s tentacles, she was accosted by a young man wearing a GEM Co. dress coat that was missing a sleeve. The logo had come off, but his name, Gerard, could still be read above the breast pocket.

  He gripped Bridget’s arm. “We need help in the C.C. A doctor. Anybody who can help.”

  “O...Okay,” Bridget stammered. She looked around. Aurelia was the nearest doctor. She led Gerard over to her. “He needs help,” Bridget blurted.

  Aurelia looked at Gerard, ignoring Bridget. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, ma’am. A couple people are trapped in the C.C. A crew is digging them out but we could use a doctor. And more people to help too.”

  Aurelia picked up a first aid kit, handing it to Bridget.

  It was heavier than Bridget thought and she almost dropped it. She tried to look like she had everything under control as she followed the chief surgeon out. On the way, Aurelia waved at Torp and Miguel, ordering them to come too.

  Two express elevator trips brought them to the communications center.

  One of the big barrel computers had exploded. Its gaping remains dripped sparking shards of korlonite crystals and gold filaments. The interior kedellium wall on the left had collapsed, burying the cubicles on that side. GEM Co. employees scrambled to clean up the debris.

  The Jidalian crew chief approached. “There’s a human female in this cubicle. Her vitals are good so I don’t think she’s hurt. An Aguanian male is in the far cubicle against the wall.” He pointed to a pile of glass and kedellium. “He’s not good. We’ve cleared enough so one person can crawl in to him. He’s trapped under a big piece of that wall though. It’ll take us a while to shore that all up.”

  Realizing that the others had moved on to the pile, Bridget hurried to catch up. She still wasn’t used to the delay in the translator. Dr. Aurelia didn’t even have her translator’s ear piece in. Bridget set the first aid kit down and peered in to the small tunnel that had been made through the debris.

  Dr. Aurelia took off her utility belt, handing it to Gerard.

  “Do you want your translator?” Bridget asked.

  “Won’t need it.”

  Bridget decided right then she was going to learn as many languages as possible. Everyone watched as Aurelia crawled on her stomach through the hole and disappeared from view.

  The Jidalian crew chief, Torp and Miguel went off to work on shoring up the wall. Bridget and Gerard waited for Aurelia’s return. She was back in a few seconds, ripping open the first aid kit.

  Aurelia looked at Bridget as she collected materials. “Patient is shocky, massive hemorrhaging, difficult breathing. What do you do?”

  Bridget wracked her brain. “Ummmm, administer Hagatrol, intubate and direct pressure.”

  “Except this is an Aguanian. No internal temperature control,” Aurelia said as she snapped a vial into the hypogun. “He gets Zamiline and we get him out as fast as we can.” She pulled out a quad ionic cutter, turned it on and off to make sure it was working.

  “What are you doing with that?” Bridget asked.

  “His tail is trapped. He’s bleeding out and I have to move fast. Be ready.” Aurelia disappeared back into the hole.

  Bridget’s stomach churned.

  “What did she mean?” Gerard asked.

  “I think she’s cutting his tail off.”

  Gerard’s eyebrows waggled. “Reactive.”

  Giving him a withering look, Bridget turned back to watch for Aurelia. Gerard went to get a gurney. Bridget wished she had thought of it.

  The distinctive grind of the cutter filtered through the hole. A few minutes later, Aurelia scrambled back out, her hair tumbling out of its comb, puke-green blood splattered on her hands and face and smelling like a swamp.

  “Help me get him out,” she ordered.

  Gerard jumped to help tug the Aguanian onto the gurney.

  Staring at the grayish-greenish lump of ridged skin, Bridget almost gagged.

  “Put direct pressure on that wound,” Aurelia told Bridget.

  Bridget hesitated a fraction of a second but long enough for Aurelia to shove her aside and redirect the order to Gerard. Then they were both gone, pushing the gurney ahead.

  Bridget slumped onto the pile of debris, staring into space. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there until Miguel tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Something wrong, Brid?” he asked.

  “I’m a complete idiot. Not just a partial idiot but a complete, total, absolute idiot.”

  Crouching beside her, Miguel tried to reassure her. “No you’re not. What happened anyway?”

  “I froze. I’ve never seen blood like that before and...and that...that desk clerk did better than I did.” Bridget bit her lip, blinking rapidly as a tear threatened to fall. “Dr. Aurelia hates me now.”

  Miguel gave her arm a shake. “No, she doesn’t. Come on, Brid, everybody freaks out at least once.”

  “Why did it have to be now? In front of her?” Bridget wailed.

  “I’ll bet even Dr. Aurelia has had a bad moment or two. Unless...” He dropped his voice into “spooky” mode, “she’s not really human but a Kartillion cyborg sent here on a mission of death and destruction.”

  Bridget had to laugh. “Thanks for making me feel better, Mig.”

  They both looked up as the GEM Co. crew cheered. They had freed the human female and she appeared to be unhurt. That reminded Bridget of something. She jumped to her feet.

  “We’ve got to get that tail out of there,” she said.

  “What tail?”

  “Aurelia cut the Aguanian’s tail off so she could get him out.”

  “Cool.”

  Putting her hands on her hips, Bridget gave Miguel a dark look. “Why do you guys think that’s such a great thing? I’m sure the Aguanian thought it was really reactive to get his tail cut off.”

  Miguel shrugged. “I guess it just seems like a macho thing to do.”

  “Macho?”

  “Yeah, you know, machismo,” Miguel snapped his fingers. “My people invented it centuries ago. Face the bull kind of thing.”

  Bridget rolled her eyes. Grasping a handful of his shirt, she pulled him along with her, “Come on, Mr. bullfighter. We’ve got a tail to recover.”

  Wanting to redeem herself, Bridget was disappointed when they were stymied by the Jidalian crew chief. Now that the Aguanian was freed, he seemed disinclined to work any faster and he seemed unable or unwilling to understand why they needed the tail.

  “Look,” Bridget began for the fifth time, “they can reattach his tail but there’s kind of a time limit where they can do it so he doesn’t have any problems with it.”

  Miguel nudged her, “There’s Dr. Rialus.”

  Relieved, Bridget motioned to the Kaprinian doctor, who quickly walked over to them.

  “Aura sent me to retrieve a tail,” Dr. Rialus spoke with a question in his voice, looking from Bridget to the crew chief.

  “We’ll have it out in a few minutes, Doctor,” replied the crew chief and hurried away.

  Bridget stared after him.

  With his index finger
under her chin, Miguel gently closed her mouth.

  “That’s not fair,” she finally sputtered. “I told him we needed that tail and he wouldn’t listen.”

  Dr. Rialus waved an antenna at her. “An adult Jidalian will not listen to anyone under the age of thirty. Remember, you’re not on Earth anymore.” He turned and followed after the crew chief.

  “Let’s go help,” Miguel suggested.

  Bridget nodded and slowly trailed after him. She was beginning to realize how far away she was from home.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jak Rialus hefted the carefully wrapped, sixty pound Aguanian tail onto his shoulder. It seemed he was in charge of all kinds of strange things these days. He tried not to breathe in too deeply to avoid the smell oozing from the cut end. When he reached the main docking area, he passed the tail off to Zimbin who would take it to the Pasteur where Aurelia was waiting to reattach it.

  Things were slowly getting back to normal on the space station though no one appeared to have a clue what had happened. Jak was getting nasty looks from some of the Sclarians but that wasn’t all that unusual. Kaprinians consistently beat out the Sclarians on colonizing planets that were up for grabs. A good deal of resentment had built up over the years between the two races.

  The beep of his comm-link surprised Jak. Someone had apparently gotten at least one communications computer working. Co-Lanen’s number glowed on the tiny screen. Looking at the Aguanian blood and debris on his shirt, he decided to take it on audio only.

  “Jak here,” he spoke into the link.

  “The Triad Council wants to see you now.” Co-Lanen’s tone brooked no opposition.

  “But...”

  “Be careful.” Did her voice soften? “We’ve had a massive flood down here.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Co-Lanen out.”

  Jak told Lak Zanin that he was leaving and ran for the Pasteur. It wasn’t a good idea to keep the Triad Council waiting. The Kaprinian Empire was divided into a number of quadrants, each one governed by three councilors. How much power they had outside Kaprine’s main government depended on the caste of the councilors. Jidal IV’s Triad Council had one of the Zar, the highest caste, plus one of the most famous Kaprinian explorers, Ka-Were Mitine, who was protected by the Zar.

  Jak showered and changed into his Kaprinian Army uniform, a blue one piece jumpsuit with black boots, in record time. Then he went in search of Aurelia. He found her bent over a surgical grid still working on the Aguanian. He could enter the room after going through the decontamination field for three minutes but he didn’t want to take the time. Instead, he switched on the intercom beside the observation window.

  “Doc.” Jak said to get her attention. He watched the line of her right eyebrow rise but she didn’t look up. Jannie Taylor, one of the nurses assisting, smiled and gave him a wolf whistle. “I have to go planetside. The Triad Council wants to see me.”

  “Why?” Aurelia asked.

  “I don’t know. You don’t need me for anything do you?”

  The brow went up again. “Do I ever need you for anything?”

  “Very funny.”

  Aurelia half-smiled. “Go but don’t take all day about it.”

  “Okay.”

  It took Jak quite awhile to find a ride down to Jidal IV. Chief Rekhaan refused to release any of the Pasteur’s shuttles until all systems were running again. Jak was beginning to panic when he finally found a Jidalian skreel operator on Davis who was willing to take him. Most of the other vehicles that shuttled between the planet and space station were still being worked on. Once in flight, Jak had a feeling the skreel needed to be worked on too.

  As they entered Jidal IV’s atmosphere, the ship made a screeching sound like metal scraping metal. Jak wrapped both hands around his antennae, gritting his teeth. Maybe that was where the name of the ship came from.

  As they dropped below 10000 kilometers, the noise finally stopped. Jak relaxed, peering out the window to watch their descent into the capital city, Zarnek.

  From previous visits, Jak knew that the Talax River ran through the middle of the city. He could see that it was out of its banks, the dark water flooding the streets over a wide area. A whole section of buildings had collapsed like a row of felled dominoes. As the skreel dropped lower, Jak could make out more details. Boats maneuvering in and out of second story windows, people loaded down with boxes moving into the dry sections of town. Whatever phenomenon it was that had shaken up Space Station Davis, it had devastated Zarnek.

  Jak was glad to see that the Kaprinian section of town had mostly been spared. The skreel was just under the size limit for flitter class, the only vehicles allowed to fly within the city, so the operator dropped Jak off right in front of the Kaprinian Rotunda.

  Jak looked up at the white marble building shaped like the lighthouses he had seen on his first and only trip to Earth. A half-size replica of the Rotunda in the capitol city of Klon-dor on Kaprine, the building contained the government offices of the Kaprinian presence in Jidal IV’s main city.

  Taking the steps two at a time, the doctor stepped into the automatic revolving door which deposited him in the middle of a steaming mass of people. He pushed forward a step and found himself behind a woman with the fattest pair of antennae he had ever seen. Whew, those have to be at least five centimeters in diameter, he thought, wouldn’t want to be married to her. “Uh, excuse me, ma’am,” he said out loud. “I really need to get through here.”

  She turned a pair of bright pink, obviously cosmetically enhanced, eyes on him and flicked an antenna at the ensignia on his shirt. Her size apparently didn’t hamper her movement at all. “What are you? Some kind of sit-at-home hafney who can’t keep his antennae straight?”

  “No. But I’m sure your sons are with a mother like you. Now are you going to move or do I have to use a torsion crane to haul you out of here?”

  Looking mollified, the woman stepped out of his way and Jak continued shoving his way to the front. After twelve years of living with humans he had almost forgotten that politeness would get him nowhere with the lower classes of Kaprinians. Ever since the Pletian Rule had passed, the lower castes took great delight in exercising their right to speak to higher caste members in the same way they spoke among themselves. They still had to yield to a higher caste but could say anything they wanted.

  He finally made it to the front desk which was surrounded by four walls of clear permaglass. An intercom system allowed him to speak to the girl at the desk.

  “Hi,” Jak said with a smile. Nice pair of antennae but the rest needs work he thought. Tapping on the glass he asked, “You people always need so much security?”

  The girl gave him a toothy return smile, “These are temporary. We had a little trouble this morning. A lot of people are angry about losing property in the flood. And some places still don’t have power. But I can lower the front just for you.”

  “That’s all right. I have a meeting with the Council. Where do I go?”

  She hit a few keys on her computer and looking up, asked, “Doctor Rialus?” At his nod she continued, “They’re waiting for you upstairs. Just go down to the elevators to your left and take one to the fifth floor. Someone will meet you there.”

  Thanking the girl, Jak pushed his way through the crowd down the hall. Several of the side corridors were barricaded and he glanced over, noting the dark pools of water that had leaked in and the ripe rotting fish smell. Taking the elevator to the fifth floor, Jak gave a start as the door opened and he saw Co-Lanen standing in front of him. She looked thinner than she did on a monitor screen. And her left antennae drooped as if she were exhausted. But she was still just as beautiful as ever. He couldn’t prevent a huge smile from crossing his lips.

  “Ja-ka-thon, you’re late,” were her first words.

  Stepping out, he opened his arms, “Is that any kind of welcome?”

  “The council is waiting,” she t
urned and started down the hall. Flailing himself with an antennae, Jak followed. As usual he had said the wrong thing, but he had noticed her eyes sliding over him before she turned.

  “I couldn’t find a ride,” he defended himself as they walked along. “What’s going on anyway? Why so secretive?” He almost ran into her as she stopped at an unmarked door. The red beam of a retina scanner lanced out, turning Co-Lanen’s gray eyes pink for a moment then the door slid open.

  Furnished sparingly with three chairs and a long, black metal table, the room was clearly meant for business. Jak knew that somewhere in the building another room, lavishly filled with expensive furniture, paintings and other decorations, served to entertain most visitors. Nodding to the three seated Kaprinians, he stood at attention in front of the table and waited. Co-Lanen moved off to his right, just barely in sight of his peripheral vision.

  The council member seated in the middle, Ka-were Mitine, his hair black with age and his gold skin now a sort of mottled purple color, rose slowly to his feet. Though far past his prime, the passion that had made him the explorer and first colonist of twenty different worlds still shone in his dark eyes. “Ja-ka-thon Rialus, welcome to Jidal IV,” Ka-were’s voice was soft and pleasant, not the kind of voice one might expect. “This room is completely secure,” he continued, “we may talk freely.”

  Jak frowned, lowering an antenna,” Just what is going on, sir?”

  Ka-were glanced at the other two councilors who nodded. He looked toward Co-Lanen then replied, “As you know there was some kind of wave that knocked out power including that to our dikes. Although we haven’t determined the nature of the wave or whatever it was, we do know it originated from this planet.”

  “So it was not a natural phenomenon?” Jak ventured to ask.

  “Our engineers have not determined that yet,” Councilor Led-franere Zar spoke up. He was an odd little Zar with three antennae, two in normal position and one growing out of his forehead. Jak wondered why he had never had it removed; as highest caste Led Franere probably didn’t care. Idly imagining the operation needed, wondering if a phased quad ionic cutter would be enough, Jak snapped his attention back when Co-Lanen spoke up.