by Viehl, S. L.
“I don’t need them,” she replied as her image appeared on the screen. She seemed amused. “I’m just going to run a little interference and give you and the Jorenians some time to get out of here.”
“We’re not leaving without you,” I said.
“Hold on.” The Takgiba maneuvered the scout around a heavy burst of pulse fire. “I don’t know who that shifter has on weapons, but they’re good. They’ve taken out your long-range signal array. A couple more hits and they’ll take out the Jorenians’ propulsion. I can’t see you finding a cure for Shon while you’re drifting around the quadrant.”
“Shon needs you,” I said, seizing on that.
“Shon has everything he needs. So do you.” The Takgiba muttered something under her breath as the scout rocked. “I’ve got to wrap this up; things are getting snarled out here and it’ll be a tight fit as it is. Duncan, I love you. Always have, always will.”
“No.” He reached out and touched the screen. Uorwlan, no.”
“Keep your promise.” Her image disappeared, and the signal terminated.
Reever tried signaling again, and then put the view of the scout on the screen. The small ship flew directly into the path of the alien raider, artfully dodging most of the pulse volleys fired at it.
“What is she doing?” I murmured. “She can’t destroy the ship by ramming it.”
“She isn’t trying to collide with the ship,” he said, and took my hand in his.
At the last minute Uorwlan cut the scout’s engines, and the nose of the small ship drifted into the large emitter of the sonic cannon. The impact breached the scout’s hull, which imploded, along with the power cells. A brilliant flare of light engulfed the display. It had barely begun to fade when a second, much more powerful detonation tore the alien raider in half.
I held on to the side of the console and Reever’s hand as the shock wave rocked the Sunlace.
Eighteen
Xonea transitioned as soon as the ship was secured, and then performed another two jumps to evade the other alien raiders pursuing us. The attack had resulted in several casualties, a few serious, but no deaths. Once reality stopped melting into a transitional swirl, I spent the next twelve hours alternating between surgery and the isolation room where Shon was being treated.
Although I no longer had the supply of heartwood I had collected from the oKiaf—the Odnallak had confiscated it—I was able to glean enough carvings from the remnants of our native garments to keep the crystal infection in check. The oKiaf drifted in and out of consciousness, and I directed the nurses to keep him under close monitor.
Herea efficiently managed triage and supervised the treatment of the ambulatory patients, and to reward her efforts I brought her in to operate on a crew member with a severely fractured pelvis. She didn’t hesitate as she gloved and masked and reached for the lascalpel.
“This left hip will need to be replaced as soon as the pelvis heals,” she said as she studied the skeletal scans. She glanced at me. “That is, if you agree, Healer Jarn.”
“That’s not the standard treatment,” I said, and then smiled under my mask. “But you’re right. Given her size and weight, performing the usual reinforcement procedure will only delay the deterioration of the joint. I believe she serves as a security officer, which means she spends most of her duty shift on her feet. I agree. A replacement is a better solution for the patient.”
She sighed her relief. “For a moment I thought I might have to argue the point.” Her tone turned curious. “Can you say what happened to Resident Jylyj? That crystal embedded in his hide—it looks very serious.”
As we worked, I related an abbreviated version of what had occurred on the planet, and discussed possible treatment options.
“I can synthesize the resin and continue dialysis until we reach Joren, but we have to purge the protocrystal from his bloodstream.” I handed her the retractor she needed and watched her skillful hands as she exposed a jagged break in the right pelvic bone. “The only substance that repels it, Cu2Au, would also poison him if I introduce it into the bloodstream.”
“It’s a pity it isn’t attracted to his fur, Healer,” the nurse monitoring the anesthesia said. “It would exit the body through his hair follicles and give him a very pretty pelt.”
I stared blindly at her as I remembered fifteen blobs of mold following Shon around the ship like pets eager for attention. “We’ve used the Lok-Teel before to remove toxins from patients.” I turned to the intern. “Herea, can you—”
She nodded, understanding. “The patient is stable and her vitals are strong. I know what to do, but I will call you if I need any assistance.”
I ran out of the surgical suite, stripping out of my mask, gloves, and shroud as I looked for one of the helpful little housekeepers. One crawled up to my feet and sat there as if waiting.
“Hello,” I said as I bent to pick up the mold. “I have a job for you.”
I took the Lok-Teel into the isolation room, where Shon was presently sleeping. Gently, I placed the mold next to the oKiaf’s crystal-covered arm, and thought of Shon’s paw as it had been. I couldn’t force it to attempt to absorb the protocrystal in Shon’s bloodstream, but if it was willing . . .
The Lok-Teel read my thoughts as clearly as ever, for it slowly crawled over the paw and stretched itself out over it. At first it settled down and didn’t move, and then it began to undulate and expand.
“What is this?” Shon asked, his voice slurred. “A new type of berth bath?”
“An experiment.” I scanned him and checked the level of crystal infection. It had not decreased or increased. “How are you feeling?”
“Heavy-headed.” He turned his face toward me, and I saw solid crystal now covered half of it. “It doesn’t blind you, you know. I can see through it, although it does make everything look as if it is composed out of colored light.”
The Lok-Teel, now bloated and bulging, inched away from Shon’s paw. Crystal still covered it, however, and I felt a crushing sense of disappointment.
“That didn’t work,” I told him. “We’ll have to try something else.”
“I thank you, Jarn, but you cannot cure this thing.” His remaining eye closed. “Not even if you were the Crystal Healer.”
“I’m not giving up,” I told him, and picked up the Lok-Teel, which had gone stiff and still. “Rest now. I’ll be back to check on you shortly.”
I took the mold to the biopsy room and placed its inert form on the dissection table. It appeared lifeless, and I worried that I had killed it by exposing it to the crystal, but then it suddenly began bubbling and dividing.
I scanned the mold as it divided into two and then four individual Lok-Teel. Their readings were healthy and, thankfully, free of crystal.
“It was worth a try,” I said ruefully as the four little molds moved toward me and caressed my hands with their cool, soft surfaces. “I hope you enjoyed whatever you did absorb from Shon.”
The Lok-Teel began moving to climb off the table. Doubtless they were hungry, I thought, and removed the lid from the room’s waste container before I went out into the ward.
There were no more surgeries to perform, so I made rounds of the patients in post-op, wrote up orders for the nurses, and looked in but didn’t interrupt Herea’s procedure, which she had almost finished. A yawn almost split my face in two as I watched from the view panel.
“Healer Jarn.”
I glanced back at a nurse. “Yes?”
She pointed to the floor, and when I looked down, I saw that every Lok-Teel in medical now waited in a wide mass around my feet.
“What is this?” I tried to step over them, but the Lok-Teel crawled out from beneath my feet and formed two groups on either side of me. Then I looked down at my tunic, which I had not changed since boarding the Sunlace. “Is this your way of telling me that I need to cleanse?” To the nurse I said, “Signal me in my quarters if Major Valtas’s condition changes.”
“Yes, Healer.”
It felt good to strip out of my dirty garments and scrub myself under the cleanser. No one would have noticed my condition on Akkabarr, as we rarely wasted time or water on frequent bathing, but the ensleg had very different standards of personal hygiene. I smiled to myself as I remembered how I had protested when Reever ordered me to bathe daily. How ignorant I had been, and how changed I was.
I had just finished dressing when Reever arrived. I came out of our bedchamber to greet him but came to a halt when I saw him standing by the open door panel. What appeared to be every Lok-Teel on the ship were crawling into our quarters.
“I know I needed a cleansing,” I said, giving the horde of mold an uneasy glance, “but surely I didn’t smell that bad.”
“They were waiting outside in the corridor.” My husband made a sweeping gesture. “All of them.”
“I used one on Shon a few hours ago in an attempt to remove the crystal infection, but the Lok-Teel couldn’t absorb it.” I crouched down to pick up one of the Lok-Teel. It crawled away from me and on top of another, engulfing it. I glanced around as the others began doing the same thing, and I looked up at Reever. “Have they ever joined together like this before?”
He shook his head and closed the door panel. “They may be somehow infected by the exposure to the crystal. Stand back from them.” He used the com panel to signal an environmental hazard alert, which automatically locked down our quarters.
The Lok-Teel by this time had melted together into one gigantic mass, which was shrinking in and growing up into a vertical direction.
I went to the storage container and took out a pulse pistol, tossing it to Reever before taking one for myself. “Shoot it.”
“Wait.” He pressed a hand to his head. “It’s not the Lok-Teel. Something else is present.”
The merged mold began to stretch into the shape of a humanoid with a head, torso, and four limbs. The bland beige color of the form changed, lightening in some areas and darkening in others. The center of the mold turned green and became filmy, like thin fabric. The top of the shape formed a mass of curly thin red strands.
I knew who it was as soon as I saw the hair. “Maggie.”
A half-formed mouth smiled.“Hold your horses, slave girl. Borrowing a corporeal form takes some doing.”
I held on to the pistol and took a scanner from my case. The readings showed only Lok-Teel and Reever present in the room. “She’s not registering,” I told my husband.
“She never does.” Reever looked disgusted. “What do you want now, alien?”
“He never calls me Maggie anymore. It’s hurting my feelings.” Now fully formed, Cherijo’s surrogate mother stretched out her arms and studied her red-varnished fingernails. “Interesting. Quite a cooperative bunch, too, unlike some lower life-forms in the room I could mention.”
“If we shoot her while she’s using the Lok-Teel, will it kill her?” I asked Reever.
“Probably not, but I’d enjoy it, anyway.” He aimed for the back of Maggie’s head.
“Temper, temper.” Maggie flicked the fingers of both hands, and the pistols we were holding went flying across the room. “I can’t hold these creepy things together for much longer, so let’s get down to business. You have to tell the Jorenian to turn the ship around, go back, and destroy the raiders chasing after you. All of them.”
I stared at her for a moment, and then laughed.
“That means no,” Reever said. “Release the Lok-Teel and get off the ship. Now.”
Xonea walked in, his movements stiff and jerky. “Duncan, Jarn,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Something has taken control of me.”
Maggie waved at him. “That would be me, Captain. Since Grimface and the little woman aren’t listening to me, maybe you will. You have to go back and destroy that raider fleet.”
“The ship has sustained heavy damages to the weapons array,” Xonea told her. “We cannot attack until repairs are made.”
“Offer to surrender,” she suggested. “When the raiders come close enough, then you can blow your core.”
“I am not destroying the Sunlace or killing my crew,” he told her flatly.
“Why do the raiders all have to be destroyed?” Reever demanded.
“The shifters infiltrated the tribe on the surface,” Maggie told him. “While you were going native, they were picking your brains every night while you slept. That’s why you always woke up with a headache, Duncan. Even when you were unconscious, you tried to fight them. By the way, you lost, you wimp.”
“They made me dream of Trellus?” I stared at her. “Why?”
“They wanted your memories of that happy time. Specifically, of Swap, the friendly neighborhood larval-form omnipotent being. Besides Major Pain-in-the-Ass Valtas, he’s the only other being who can accelerate the growth of the black crystal.”
I shook my head, trying to make sense of her babble. “Why would they want to do that?”
“You’re going to love this: because they believe it will turn them back into what they were before the big breakup.” She made a sound of contempt. “We tried to get through to them that messing with the black crystal is a very bad thing, but when you’re the remnant flotsam of the most powerful civilization of all time, you tend to believe your species’ dumb-ass mythology over very wise advice from the people who were actually there when the universe went all to hell.”
“If they know about Swap,” Reever said slowly, “then they know what he is.”
“Right on the money, big guy. And here I always thought that you were the stupid half of the equation.” Maggie turned to me. “Because you’ve prevented the mercenaries from capturing Shon Valtas, they’re going to Plan B. In a few hours, they will invade Trellus, capture the worm, and force it to be their alarm clock. When that happens, say bye-bye to everyone and everything that matters, because Swap is going to eat it.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
Maggie glowered. “Why else would I send you to a pretty much guaranteed death, kiddo? I mean, you’re a nasty bitch with identity issues, but you’re still the closest thing I’ve ever had to offspring.”
“You are no mother to me.”
“Yeah, well, as a daughter, you stink, too,” she snapped back. “And thanks to the little vacations you and Reever have been taking lately, you’ve totally fucked our timeline. For your information, the space occupied by an object undergoing a transformation does not preserve all linear dimensions. There are no other options now.”
I shook my head. “You’re lying.”
“You want proof? My pleasure.” Maggie snapped her fingers, and our quarters became the surface of Trellus. “Here we are a little further along the present timeline, at everyone’s least favorite vacation spot, the colony from hell.”
I knew we couldn’t be standing on the surface of the planet, for if we had been we would have frozen and suffocated simultaneously. At the same time, I knew we were there. Somehow Maggie had made that possible.
I glanced over at the domes in which the colonists lived, but they were all dark now. Some had been fired upon and had collapsed atop the ruins of the structures and dwellings they once protected.
Tall, thin beings in envirosuits marched out of Swap’s dome in two columns. Between them slid several tons of an enormous pink worm, now harnessed to a device that wrapped its amorphous body with thousands of pastel bands. A probe attached to the end of each band seemed to be feeding some sort of green fluid into the worm’s body.
“The Odnallak have forgotten a lot of things, but not how to kill everything that gets in their way,” Maggie said, her voice bitter. “Or what controls a baby rogur.”
Swap was led up a cargo ramp and into the belly of a massive alien raider. At the last minute he tried to resist, but the shifters’ device pumped more green poison into his body, and at last he slithered inside.
Maggie snapped her fingers again, and we were walking across a meadow of orange-gray flowers under a red sky.
“Welcome to Naetriht, home of zip.” She kicked aside some of the flowers to reveal the ground, which appeared to be made of black crystal. “A few million years ago, this crap ate everything that might have evolved into something interesting, before it went to sleep.” She looked up as shuttles began descending on the meadow. “I swear, you could set a timing device by these guys.”
Odnallak, this time dressed in some sort of ceremonial garments, poured out of the shuttles and took up positions around the edge of the clearing. A much bigger shuttle flew overhead, opening its cargo doors and releasing Swap, who fell to the ground in the center of the Odnallak.
The worm tried to crawl away, but the Odnallak took out weapons that sprayed it with the green fluid and drove it back to the center of the meadow.
I turned to Maggie. “Why are they doing this to him? He’s harmless.”
“Actually, no, he’s not,” Maggie said. “We evolved the Hsktskt specifically to exterminate his entire species, but somehow he escaped the genocide, and later the attack on the colony. For a worm, he has lives like a cat.”
Disgust filled me. “You sent the Hsktskt to Trellus.”
“It was a mistake. Occasionally we make them,” Maggie admitted. “After that, we saw him taking care of the surviving kids and realized why he hadn’t evolved into the adult form. He may be a planet-destroying monster’s maggot, but Swap actually has a good soul.”
“Is that why he marooned himself on Trellus?” Reever asked. “To keep from evolving?”
“That, and to study the black crystal. Swap has been trying for millennia to find a way to destroy it, same as us.” Maggie gave him a grim smile. “Too late now.”
The orange-gray flowers withered and turned to dust as the ground beneath them rumbled. Swap curled in on himself as massive shafts of black crystal erupted around him, shifting and crossing each other to form more complex structures. The Odnallak moved in, touching the crystal and calling to Swap, who had become a tight, pulsing ball.