Endurance

by Richard Chizmar

  I recalled something one of my own instructors had done back at Medtech, picked up a waste disposal receptacle, and banged on it a few times with an unused chart.

  “People.” The voices hushed. “Anyone I see not working within the next sixty seconds is permanently relieved from duty. No exceptions.” I dropped the receptacle so that it made a ringing bong. “I hear the Hsktskt can use some extra hands in the galley. To serve or be served, I can’t remember which.”

  That got them moving.

  Vlaav began sullenly evaluating the waiting patients, while I dealt with the ones who had been ignored for days on end. They were in fairly good shape, so someone had attended to them, more or less. Still I saw infections that could have been prevented, muscle damage from lack of therapeutic treatments, and several other situations that made me very testy.

  Two of the ten patients would need minor surgery, but most simply needed a doctor who actually read their chart, listened to what they had to say, and treated them accordingly.

  One of my nurses was replaced almost immediately by Dchêm-os, who scurried in from the outer corridor, carrying an armful of charts. “Talk, Doctor, we must.”

  Zel must have requisitioned some new toxin she wanted to try out on me. “Later.” I eyed the Hsktskt guard who’d come in after her. They carried a crew member between them, and when I saw who it was, I groaned. “How the hell did he get out of Medical? Can’t I leave for a couple days without everything going down the sanitation duct? Vlaav, get him on a table and take a look at him.”

  My Saksonan intern quickly triaged Colonel Shropana. I left Zel and the other nurse holding charts as I went to evaluate Vlaav’s notations. Patril snarled and tried to punch me the moment he saw me, which is why I directed two of the orderlies to put him in restraints.

  Someone had gone at him with something thin and sharp. Repeatedly. His uniform hung in tatters, his upper torso and arms were slashed a dozen times. Not blade wounds, from the ragged look of the outer tears.

  “Calm down, Patril. That dilapidated heart of yours won’t take much more stress.” I infused him with valumine and ran a full scan series. Shropana’s heart was my main concern, so after ensuring that his recent surgery hadn’t been compromised, I assessed his cardiac system. “Your arteries make plasteel look spongy. Did Malgat at least start you on therapy?”

  He snarled something obscene.

  “Thanks, maybe later.” I checked his records, and discovered that although my predecessor had diagnosed the Colonel’s condition, he’d done nothing to treat it. “We’re going to need to do something about those rib splinters, and talk about repairing this arterial situation.” He kept quiet, so I explained what was needed, then went on to the lesser of his problems.

  The gashes weren’t blade wounds, they were claw marks. Whatever had attacked him had nearly ripped out his throat, too. Another centimeter here or there, and I’d be bagging him for autopsy.

  “Did you and Lieutenant Wonlee get into a disagreement?”

  He spat at me, but missed. “This is your fault!”

  I made the appropriate chart notations while one of the nurses set up a suture tray. “Everything is my fault, have you noticed that? No matter what I do.” I set the chart aside and dialed up a compound treatment on a syrinpress. “I’m going to use some topical anaesthetic on the wounds, but what I’m injecting you with will help your heart functions—for now. You need that surgery.”

  “I’ll see you dead first,” the Colonel told me.

  Nurse Dchêm-os took the place of my suture nurse and assisted as I worked on Shropana’s wounds.

  Since Patril wasn’t feeling talkative, I glanced at Zel. “Who did it?”

  Zel slipped off her headgear. “Attacked him, that big cat of yours, this morning. To question it about you, he was trying.”

  Alunthri inflicted this kind of damage? “What did you do to the Chakacat, Patril?”

  The Colonel ignored me and glared at the nurse. “You were supposed to kill it. And her.” He jerked his head toward me. “Now you slave for her as well as the beasts.”

  Zel stopped assisting and went very still. “With digitalizine, I injected her. No effect, it had. For no one, I slave.”

  “Nurse.” I was in the middle of a complicated suture and didn’t need the patient and my assistant getting into a fistfight. “Want to shut up and swab this?”

  “You see?” Patril grinned. “Next she will have you on a leash, like her domesticate.”

  Zel’s vibrissae quivered. “Never.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” Too bad I couldn’t suture his lips together. I deactivated the laser and pushed it out of the way. “Zel, ignore him and do your job. Colonel, you’re entitled to an opinion, but if you don’t shut up immediately I’m going to sedate you.”

  “Won’t be necessary, that.” Zel turned and called to another nurse. Once her replacement came over, she stepped away from the table, her black eyes glistening with renewed malice. “Murderer, you are. From you anymore, I will not take orders.”

  “Crushed, I am. Taa-taa.” I turned to the new nurse. “Prepare dressings for this patient.” I grabbed the laser and bent back down over Shropana.

  It took a double shift to get things into reasonable order in Medical, then I left. By then knots had formed in my belly, but not from hunger. I had to confront Reever again, and I wasn’t looking forward to that.

  Or perhaps I didn’t have to. I went to the quarters that the League had assigned to me, way back when, and after a quick check to determine they were unoccupied, locked myself in.

  There, I thought. Not being obligated to look at my ex-bondmate’s face, eat his food, or sleep in his bed proved very relaxing. Yet when I went to the prep unit and automatically dialed up some chicken noodle soup, I still felt like weeping.

  Chicken noodle soup had been the first Terran dish I’d ever made Reever.

  “So I’ll have asparagus bisque instead,” I said, and altered my program accordingly.

  When it was ready, I carried a tray over to the table and sat down. That was when I caught a glimpse of my own face in the wall reflector, and saw that the bruise from Reever’s hand had darkened to a rather pretty lilac color. My appetite abruptly vanished, and I toyed with the soup until sometime later, when my door panel slid open.

  “Cherijo.” Of course it was Reever. It wasn’t like Nurse Dchêm-os was going to drop by for some tea and a chat.

  I examined the thin skin that had formed on the surface of my cold soup. “I need to reprogram those locks.”

  “You will report to my quarters when you have completed your shifts in Medical.”

  I lifted the spoon and let the thickened green liquid drip slowly from it back into the bowl. “No, I’m not going to do that.” I rested my bruised cheek on my other hand, and wondered why I felt so battered and exhausted. “Go away.”

  He hovered. “I will not apologize for striking you.”

  “No one asked you to. Leave.”

  “I have something that belongs to you.”

  He certainly did. There should have been a large, oozing hole just to the left of my sternum to testify to that. “Keep it.”

  He sat down beside me. “You are upset.”

  The man was so dense that light bent around him. “Will you get the hell out of here?”

  “Very well.” He didn’t try to touch me. “Shall I give the domesticate to the Hsktskt? They have indicated he would be considered a delicacy.”

  He? I finally looked at him. His bruise wasn’t as spectacular as mine, and it didn’t make me feel any better to see it. “Alunthri is an ‘it,’ and, I imagine, very stringy and tough. Don’t even go there.”

  “I am not talking about Alunthri. I have your other domesticate. The small one.”

  The small one?

  I got up so quickly that the table fell over, the server smashed into a hundred pieces and cold asparagus bisque splattered the deck. “Say that again.”

  He sat bac
k and folded his arms. “I have your Terran feline.”

  I didn’t stop to think about the hows or whys. “Where? Where is he?”

  “In my quarters.” He moved fast, and caught me before I could reach the door panel. “Where he will stay, as will you.”

  I struggled out of his grip and ran, dodging League captives and Hsktskt alike on every level until, panting, I’d reached Reever’s door. My fist hit the access panel and I ran in, completely ignoring the fact that Reever had somehow kept up with me and closed the panel silently behind us.

  For a moment I wondered if it had been just another game. “Jenner?” It came out in a whisper. Then, as loud as I could: “Jenner!”

  Something small, thin, and furry flew up from the floor and landed in my arms. A hard little triangular head butted into my chin, and huge lapis eyes regarded me with extreme indignation.

  Thought you’d leave me behind, you ungrateful wench. Jenner sniffed delicately at me. After all the attention I lavished on you, too.

  I was laughing. Weeping. Burying my face in the softest silkiest fur in the universe. “Hi, pal. Oh, Lord, I’ve missed you.”

  My Tibetan temple cat slanted a sideways look at Reever. Yeah, well, Prince Charming wouldn’t let me out, or I’d have found you long before now.

  That reminded me. I sat down on the nearest surface, still holding and caressing my pet, and regarded Reever with a mixture of fury and bewilderment.

  “He’s been onboard, all this time, and you never told me?”

  Reever nodded.

  “How did you get him off Joren? Why didn’t you say something?” My fingers ran over the prominent outlines of my cat’s ribs, something I hadn’t felt since finding Jenner as a kitten, abandoned and starving in a gutter. “Why is he so thin?”

  “Adaola gave him to me before I left the planet. She hoped I could reunite the two of you someday.” He walked over and stood beside us, and reached down to Jenner. His Majesty lifted his head and allowed Reever to give him a brief caress. “As for the weight loss, I have yet to discern the animal’s food preferences.”

  “He has none. Whatever he sees, he eats.” I lifted Jenner so that we were face-to-face. “Hungry, pal?”

  He uttered an emphatic yowl. Does a cat have nine lives?

  I went over to the prep unit and dialed up a dozen of his favorite dishes, then watched with pleasure as my small companion attacked the enormous meal. At the rate he was wolfing down synthetic shrimp bits, he’d be back to his old self in no time.

  I sat on the floor beside him, afraid to take my hand away, certain Jenner would vanish if I did.

  “Why do you call it Jenner?”

  “He’s named after Edward Jenner, the eighteenth-century English physician who cured smallpox.” My fingers trailed through my pet’s soft fur. “He was an amazing man for his time. What he did altered the course of Terran history.” I went on to tell Reever about the simple country doctor, who had noticed that dairy workers seldom contracted smallpox, and gone on to create the vaccine that had saved millions from death and disfigurement.

  Reever’s only comment was, “He sounds much like your creator.”

  “There’s a big difference.” Jenner had been a humanitarian. Joseph, I suspected, barely rated as human. “Why didn’t you tell me about my cat, Reever?”

  “I attempted to, several times. It was necessary to conceal his presence from the crew.”

  So that was why he’d been so hot and bothered to get me to his quarters. Something occurred to me, and my head snapped up. “You hid him because of the League captives. You knew they’d try to hurt him to get back at me.” He didn’t have to say yes. I got up and faced him. “What’s this going to cost?”

  “No currency is required.”

  But something else was. “You know how much Jenner means to me. What do you want?”

  To his credit, Duncan didn’t rub it in. He simply said, “You will report to my quarters and remain here when you are not working in Medical.”

  I’d room with GothVar, just to have Jenner. “Done.”

  PART TWO:

  Indoctrination

  CHAPTER SIX

  New Debts

  So began my stint as Reever’s roommate. I’d never had many. During my childhood, Joseph Grey Veil had kept me in a separate wing of the family mansion. Maggie, my “maternal influencer,” had sometimes braved my creator’s displeasure and slept in a chair by my sleeping platform. Jenner had been my only constant companion since her death.

  Kao and I had never had the chance to live together during our brief time together on K-2, although Alunthri had shared my quarters after I’d assumed its ownership, so it would not be sold back into slavery on Chakara.

  While working as Senior Healer on the Sunlace, I’d been forced to Choose Kao’s ClanBrother, Xonea, to protect him from an unfair sentence of banishment. We’d lived together for a short, tense period, both of us the unknowing victims of aggression-enhancing drugs that had driven us both to violence.

  As a roommate, however, Reever proved to be nearly invisible.

  I spent most of my waking hours in Medical, getting the staff whipped back into shape and catching up with the patient caseload, and when I arrived at Reever’s quarters, Jenner made up for every horrible thing that had happened since I’d left Joren.

  Well, almost.

  Reever invariably came in when I’d fallen asleep. The few times I’d woken up was to discover him easing down beside me on the sleeping platform. He never touched me—another bonus—and I rarely if ever acknowledged his presence.

  That’s how the uneasy truce went on, until captives from Detainment began to be sent to Medical, showing obvious signs of abuse.

  I treated four beings with multiple fractures during the last hour of my shift, and was none too pleased by it. For once Reever was in our quarters when I came in, and I let him have it.

  “What in God’s name is going on in Detainment? Are the centurons playing shockball and using the prisoners for spheres?”

  He set out a meal for both of us and gestured to my empty seat. “Tell me about it over dinner.”

  I wasn’t crazy about eating something he’d prepared—he had some very strange taste preferences—but when I saw it was one of my own programmed recipes, I dropped in the chair.

  “We had four new patients come in today. Three had compound fractures from severe percussion injuries, and of course they aren’t going to tell me a damn thing about how they got them.”

  I gave him the rest of the details on each case, then finished my vegetable and synpro lasagna, and dialed an after-dinner server of herbal tea for both of us.

  “Well?” I asked when he made no comment. “Is there some funny business going on down in Detainment?”

  “Two of the escapees have not yet been located, and OverLord TssVar is unhappy with his managing OverSeer’s progress on the case.” Reever thought about it. “It is possible someone is interrogating the slaves.”

  “His managing OverSeer would be the one with the pretty face … what’s her name? FurreVa?” He sipped his tea and nodded. “Yeah, I could see her beating people to get information.”

  “If she is doing so, she does not have TssVar’s sanction.”

  That might prove helpful. Getting Alunthri out of Detainment had become a top priority. I went to feed Jenner, who was hungrily prowling around my legs, then cleared the table. “Are you going to tell TssVar, or shall I?”

  He set down his server. “After the debacle on Drift Nine, the OverLord has little interest in what you have to say.”

  “Is that right?” I propped my fists on my hips. “Then you tell him.”

  “TssVar trusts his centurons to follow his orders.” Long fingers thrummed on the table surface. “All I have to offer are your allegations.”

  “I have plenty of bruised and broken patients to show him.”

  “They are slaves. He won’t believe them.” He got up, changed his tunic, and went to the door pan
el. “Don’t meddle with OverSeer FurreVa, Cherijo.” And with that, he left.

  Good old Reever. Always eager to help out the tyrannized. Callous snake that he was. I thought over everything he’d said, and two facts slowly emerged.

  If she is doing so, she does not have TssVar’s sanction.

  TssVar trusts his centurons to follow his orders.

  “Does he?” I gave that some consideration. “Then maybe it’s time he found out they don’t.”

  It took half the night, but I managed to program a thermal sensor in the Detainment Area to send me an alarm whenever the ambient temperature significantly dropped, and another in the Interrogation Area to send a signal when the temperature increased.

  Bodies generated heat, and took it with them when they moved.

  Both alarms went off, one after the other, just as I was dragging myself from the sleeping platform. After dressing at the speed of light, I ran down to Medical.

  Since Dchêm-os was on duty, I drafted her to help. “Grab a field case and come with me. We’re going down to Detainment.”

  She took off her headgear. I noted the tooth she’d broken off for my impromptu surgery down in Detainment had almost grown back in. “In accompanying you, I am not interested. Someone else, ask.”

  “Who’s asking? Move your tail and get that medkit together. Now,” I told her. “Or I’ll have you transferred to a sanitation crew for the rest of the trip.”

  Her tail whipped into a frenzied pattern of slaps. “For this, you will pay, Terran.”

  Yeah, like everything else. The list got longer every day. “Just shake a paw. We’ve only got a few minutes.” I went to the console and sent three signals.

  About nine and a half minutes later we arrived at Detainment. Reever was waiting for us. So was TssVar, who looked at me the way he would a smear on the decking.

  “Gentlemen.” I adjusted my grip on my case. “Thanks for coming.”

  “What is this, SsurreVa?” TssVar trudged closer, causing the entire deck to vibrate under my footgear. “No slaves are being tortured.”

  Low sounds of moaning and sobs echoed down the corridor, along with another set of heavy footsteps, getting progressively louder. “I hate to disagree with you, but …”