I stroked the puggle’s hair and stared at Saro and Ledikjin. Hurting my kid was like being stabbed. This wasn’t just some childish temper tantrum. The kiddo was frightened for a perfectly good reason. At the same time, the hospital was no place for a vulnerable child when I wasn’t in a fit state to protect one. The predators who’d held Shajn weren’t the only ones out there.
“Come sit next to me, kiddo.” Shajn joined me on the couch. “Sit close. That’s it. Do you understand why I have to go to hospital?”
“To make your legs work. But they work anyway.”
“No, the machine makes them work. I want to be able to walk and run with you and keep up. I can’t get better unless I have this operation. I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important. Do you believe me?”
The puggle stared up at me, black jagged face stripes indicating distress. “Yes. Why now?”
“Because the bit they need to fix me is ready. I’ve been waiting for a long time. And when they put it in, it will be another long time before it works. The longer I wait, the longer it will before I can walk.”
I let Shajn process this. The kiddo had an excellent brain, and plenty of empathy to go with it.
“I’m scared, Pax. You won’t come back, and then they’ll take me away. I don’t want to go away.”
Saro knelt by the chair. “Pax will come back, Shajn. And no one will let anyone take you anywhere. I promise you.”
I had an idea. “I think Dibin might be able to get you an eyepiece, Shajn. Then you can talk to me anytime you want. Would that be enough?”
The puggle thought about it. “No. Maybe? But I’m scared.”
A small victory, then. Ledikjin looked at me. “Let’s discuss it with Dibin. Shajn, no one will hurt you here. Pax will come back as soon as the operation is finished.”
Shajn’s face flushed violet, indicating stubbornness overlain with fear. I decided enough was enough for now. “Come to bed, puggle. Don’t wear yourself out worrying.”
I had a shivering, sobbing kid to console during the night, and I don’t know which of us was more heartbroken by it all. I couldn’t promise absolutely that I would return—surgery was known to go wrong—and for a child, a week was an eternity. So many adults had lied to and betrayed Shajn. Somehow I had to go and come back, so my kid could trust that I would come back the next time I had to go somewhere.
Dibin brought some much needed calmness to the house, and arranged a visit to the hospital, so my surgeon could talk to Shajn and explain why this operation was so important and what exactly would happen. My doctor suggested Shajn could stay in my room, so long as the operation went well and the kiddo behaved.
Shajn seized on that suggestion, so that was our solution. Dibin paid for a private room, a medic was assigned solely to look after Shajn’s needs, and Dibin would be on hand any time I was unconscious or in treatment, so Shajn didn’t have to interact with any strange adults. The Federation was prepared to throw any amount of resources at keeping a precious chromatomorph safe and well. I was prepared to do anything to keep my child happy.
Shajn was with me all through the pre-surgery check, and the doctors and medics made sure to explain everything to the kid as much to me. Dibin and Saro planned to wait with the puggle until I came out of surgery. So far, so good. I’d find out when I returned if the plan had worked.
Plugging in cloned spinal cord and vertebrae is a little more complicated than plumbing in a new kidney. Fortunately, I didn’t need to be knocked out, but the ten-hour surgery was exhausting. I’d been afraid that Shajn might expect me to be up and normal immediately, despite our explanations. I couldn’t even hold my kid because I had to lie on my front, but the puggle was content with seeing me again and kissing my cheek. Then Saro left, Dibin took over and I was left to recover.
Things were copacetic for the first day and a half. Hospital staff and Dibin worked their behinds off to entertain and distract Shajn while keeping my kid safe and away from visitors and patients. I couldn’t do much, being confined to bed and all my free time taken up with tests and therapy. But at night Shajn slept peacefully in a cot next to my bed, knowing Dibin was close by, and that crawling up beside one of us was always an option.
On the third day, our plan went badly off course in a way we should have predicted, and yet we didn’t. Another long day for me, but one Dibin and the specially chosen medic made enjoyable for my kid, so I was happy. By supper time, I was ready to listen to Dibin read Shajn a story and go to sleep. Tomorrow we hoped I’d be able to move my toes a little and have regained some sensation in my feet. Shajn had promised to tickle them when they were “all better”. We had a fun little argument about how scared I was by the ‘threat’, the puggle’s face pulsing delicately pale blue and pink in delight at being able to dominate me a little. Shajn was starting to show eyebrow crests and cheek ridges. Adult chromatomorphs used these to enhance communication between them. Dibin took notes on when Shajn’s grew prominent, even while messing around with us.
Their meals were brought in, as usual, at six, and as usual, the attendant set them out on a tray table for the puggle and Dibin. Absorbed in the food, Shajn didn’t really look at the attendant. But then the attendant bent down, and my kid screamed.
“Get the freck away!” I yelled.
Dibin got between the attendant and Shajn, pushing the stranger back. “Move away now.”
“But I didn’t do anything!”
Shajn fled to the corner of the room, huddled with hands over face. “Get out,” Dibin said, physically shoving the attendant from the room. “Don’t come back in here again.”
Then my friend went over to Shajn. “Hey, kiddo.”
“Go away! Bad bad bad!”
That was what we had taught Shajn to say if anyone threatened or tried to assault the puggle. Dibin moved back immediately. “Pax, call Shajn. Use your voice.”
Dibin stepped out of the room and closed the door.
“Shajn, baby, come here,” I said. “We’re safe and alone. Come on, puggle. Come over.” Fucking spine! I wanted to go to Shajn but all I could do was call calmly and hold out an arm. “You’re safe, kiddo. No one’s here.”
Shajn uncurled and slunk over to me, head hanging. “I’m sorry, Pax. I was bad to yell.”
“No you weren’t, baby. Come up here. You’re good and I love you. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
The black facial stripes came and went. “Bad bad bad,” the puggle whispered.
“That person? You know that one?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Maybe that one reminded you of someone else?”
A nod. “So many. I can’t remember all of them.”
Now I wished I’d brought a laser rifle into that brothel and just opened up. But then the kids would have died or been lost and Shajn.... No, what I’d done meant Shajn was safe and so were the others, and that was all that mattered. “That one won’t come back in here ever. You did the right thing, puggle.”
“You’re angry at me, Pax?”
“Look at me, kiddo. Do I look angry? Can you tell?” It wasn’t meant to be a trick question. We didn’t know how well Shajn could read the facial signals non-chromatomorphs used, and my expression was hard enough for most people to read.
“You look mad.”
“Not with you. I’m upset because someone upset you. I’m angry at the bad, bad, bad people. But not at you. I love you very much and I’m not angry at you at all. Do you believe me?”
Shajn stared at me, trying to read my monochromatic skin and my dark, unchanging eyes. I guess the clues were there after all. A nod, and a hug, and then I stroked soft hair, wishing I could stroke the pain away as well. “You did the right thing. So proud of you, little one. You are so brave.”
After a bit, Shajn pushed away. “I’m sorry I yelled at Dibin.”
“We know why you yelled. But do you know if that one hurt you? If you think so, you can tell me.”
“Maybe. The smel
l...is like....”
A shudder, so I pulled the kiddo close again.
“It’s okay. I’ll never ever let that one near you again. I’ll ask for the food to be thrown out and get some clean stuff. You want to push the button for me? Thanks, puggle.”
I had Dibin to thank for smoothing over the annoyance my request made, and for explaining why that particular attendant could not come back to the room. When Dibin came back after Shajn and I had eaten, the puggle ran up and hugged my friend. “Sorry, sorry, Dibin.”
Dibin ruffled Shajn’s hair. “You’re fine, kiddo. You’re the best. You did the right thing.”
We didn’t mention the incident the rest of the evening, and Shajn seemed to be fine, even chatting with Ketan using Dibin’s Glimma and mine, which we’d left at the farm. The puggle settled down on the cot and wasn’t particularly clingy, somewhat to Dibin’s surprise.
“Disaster averted,” Dibin whispered once Shajn was sound asleep.
“Find out if that frecking attendant did anything.”
“Already on it, Pax. I should have thought of it.”
“You’d think in a hospital....”
“Predators are everywhere. Now get some rest. Tickling day tomorrow.”
I grinned. “Oh no.”
I was too tired to stay awake even if I’d tried. Shajn’s scream woke me up out of a sound sleep. At first I thought that attendant had come back, or someone else, but there was no one else in the room other than the three of us.
Shajn was wide awake, screaming and pointing at the air.
“What is it, kiddo?”
“I can see—”
“Ghosts.” I stared at the misty image, perfectly visible in the air near Shajn’s bed. “Can’t you see it?” I said to Dibin who rubbed tired eyes and stared at the space.
“See what?”
The puggle climbed onto my bed, and I put an arm around my shivering child. “Right there, damn it!” I pointed.
“Pax, there’s nothing there.”
“I see it, Pax,” Shajn whispered. “Make it go away.”
“I can’t, hon. Hold onto me. I don’t think it’ll hurt you.”
Just like before, the translucent spectre disappeared in a minute or so. Shajn calmed down immediately. “I saw it. I didn’t make it up, Pax.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said, staring at Dibin over the puggle’s head. “I’ve seen it before.”
Shajn’s screams had brought the medics and doctors running. Dibin did the explaining while I held onto my kid. I had no idea what was going on, but Shajn wasn’t imagining things.
Dibin returned. “Okay, whatever this is, it’s more than we can deal with here. Pax, do you think either of you are at risk?”
“No. I mean, this is the second time and nothing happened. I don’t even know what it is that we’re looking at. Just a mist.”
“A person,” Shajn said. “Arms and legs. But no face.”
“Yeah, could be,” I said. The form hadn’t seemed that defined to me, but I could see how Shajn might think that.
“There are no such things as ghosts.”
“I do know that, Dibin.”
“Sorry. Shajn, do you want to stay or go back to the farm?”
“Stay.” I was so proud of the defiant tilt of my kid’s chin. “I won’t yell anymore though. Pax says it’s okay.”
“All right. Then let’s get some more sleep. Shajn, you know you can’t sleep up there with Pax, but you can come over with me if you want.”
“No. I’m staying here next to Pax.” The chin tilted even further, purple cheek stripes reinforcing the determined attitude.
Dibin gave me a rueful look. “Okay. Good night, you two.”
My puggle kept a hand on my arm as long as possible. I couldn't sleep until my kid did. Amazingly, we both slept until the rattle of the morning shift woke us up.
One of the attendants Shajn liked and trusted turned up next morning to give my kid a bath and sort out clothes for the day. Dibin, who had joined us for breakfast, took that chance to talk to me in private, leaning in close and voice low.
“Um, so about last night.”
“Stress, I guess.”
“You said, ‘second time’, Pax.”
“Oh, did I? I was exaggerating. It was nothing. Stress and strange surroundings.”
My friend made a face. “This isn’t the first time Shajn has seen ‘ghosts’ either. I checked the records at the care centre last night. There were several reports of nightmares, which are normal, but the child claimed to have seen ‘something’ in the room.”
My rising blood pressure made the monitors ping in alarm. “Why the freck didn’t someone tell me? Shajn is my child.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I guess they thought it was normal given the distress and um, the removal.”
I glared. “And now it’s back. Only we both saw something.”
“Are you sure? Tell me about the other time.”
I explained what I’d seen or sensed when I’d been in the hospital before. Dibin was perplexed by the entire business. Shajn had already been extensively tested as part of investigations into what the brothel had done, and I’d had a brain scan after the shooting.
“Could it be this building? Some...projection? Atmospherics? Maybe the smell?”
“That produces something you and Shajn can see and I can’t?”
The bathroom door clicked and Dibin signalled that we should shut up. Later we agreed to drop the subject until I was out of the hospital and back home.
~~~~~
“Maybe it’s a chromatomorph thing.”
Back at the farm, Dibin had found me resting on the porch at the end of my first day back on chores. I had finished my four weeks’ intensive rehab, and was now back to working on my own, with only a weekly visit to monitor progress. Every day I had to spend a couple of hours using a new stimulation suit to do a set of exercises and movements. I wore the stimulaid all the time, even under the exowalker, and day by day, as sensation returned, so did my ability to make small but significant movements with my lower limbs.
Shajn had been untroubled by further visions, or, to my relief, by other unwelcome reminders of captivity. The puggle had still not returned to school, but had progressed enough to sometimes shadow Saro and Ledikjin as they worked around the farm. When Dibin arrived, the kid was playing in the yard with the other children, but ran over to give Dibin a hug.
Dibin knelt and squeezed Shajn back. “Hey, kiddo. So good to see you again. Why don’t you go back and play? I’m staying for supper.”
“Okay.” Shajn hugged Dibin again, looked at me for reassurance, then ran back to Ketan and the others. Dibin climbed the stairs up to the porch and pulled up a chair. I hadn’t seen Dibin since I left the hospital, but as I discovered, my friend had not given up on the mystery.
“I’ve searched every database on your kind that I can locate. Sent out personal enquiries. No one has ever reported this kind of vision in chromatomorphs.” Dibin grinned queasily. “My contacts wondered if you’d come down with some kind of religious fervour.”
I glanced at the little pottery lamps on the porch rail, left over from a family spirit gathering three nights before. The Gavnir practised a quiet kind of deism almost indistinguishable from the morality and common decencies I’d come to expect from them anyway. Any rituals they had were largely private or woven into seasonal celebrations. No one had tried to convert Shajn or me, although we were welcome to participate and watch whatever was done in their religion’s name. “Uh, no. Still an atheist, and so is Shajn.”
“I figured. There has to be a real, physical explanation, so I need to take real, physical data readings. Do you mind if I put sensors in your bedrooms?”
“As a matter of fact I do. This isn’t my house. Also, my kid isn’t an experiment.”
Dibin’s shoulders sagged. “Oh. Okay. I thought you’d want to get to the bottom of this?”
“Not enough to upset Shajn again. Can’t
it wait? Or are you going off-world soon?”
“Me? No, I’ll be here for ages. More of us are coming in fact. The child-trafficking ring is just part of a wider investigation, and we haven’t even finished laying all the charges.”
I grimaced and gestured minutely towards the kids, playing unconcernedly in the sunshine. “Thanks for the reminder, and please keep your voice down.”
“Sorry.”
“Once Shajn is back at school, then maybe we can talk about it again?”
“Okay. Sure. The visions are interesting, but your safety and happiness are all that matters to me. What?”
I held out my hand. “You’re a good friend, Dibin. We owe you so much.”
“It’s just my job.” But my friend blushed as my hand was taken.
“You could have left Shajn in that care centre and still have done your job. So, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Dibin’s smile gleamed in the low evening light. “It’s been a pleasure.
Dibin wasn’t the only guest expected for supper. Namjikil had arrived earlier that afternoon on a supply run, and had rejoiced to see me and to hear the news about Shajn. Now, as Saro and Ledikjin walked up to the house with our Kanimil friend, I waved to them all.
Namjikil grinned and came over ahead of the others. “Friend Pax!”
“Friend Namjikil, please meet Kushida Dibin. Dibin’s the one who helped me adopt Shajn.”
“I am glad, Dibin, and I call you friend.”
Dibin rose to shake Namjikil’s hand. “Glad to meet you. I’ve long wanted to meet one of the Kanimil.”
Namjikil smiled politely but waited for Ledikjin to translate. “You study us?”
“I work for the Federation. I help protect smaller populations from exploitation and abuse.”
Namjikil’s expression grew somewhat less sunny as Ledikjin explained, but Shajn prevented any reply by running up and hugging Namjikil around the waist. “Hello again!”
“Hello, sweet child.” Shajn liked Namjikil because the Kanimil were short and didn’t loom like the rest of us. And because Namjikil was just damn likeable.
“Ketan, Lilikin, come help me bring some drinks for our friends,” Saro called.
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