Some Things Transcend

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  Vasiht'h snorted, but he was amused, and fond, and it was so much like how they'd been before that it almost made Jahir miss that things were not the same. Not bad, either. Just different. His partner had seen the Pattern too, and played his own part in it, and perhaps now they both had questions to answer about themselves.

  /Integration,/ Vasiht'h said, a little more subdued. /We have answers to questions, they just haven't settled yet. And we won't know the questions those will inspire until after that./

  /We have learned a great deal about ourselves and one another./

  /And how we relate to one another./ Vasiht'h smiled a little. /And I didn't think there was anything left to learn./

  That made him smile. /I'm rather glad there is./

  /Me too./

  "Lord Seni Galare?" That was one of the healers-assist, a Tam-illee youth with a very serious demeanor and chocolate points that extended into a partial mask over green eyes. His delicate build was belied by corded arms and large, dexterous hands. "If you'll lie down on this bed for us?"

  It was a relief to give himself over into their care after having suffered through field medicine on the deck of a Chatcaavan vessel. The foxine was careful not to touch him, but he went to work with reassuring competence once the halo-arch slid over him. Jahir closed his eyes and drifted while it murmured its harmonies, until he felt a shadow cross his face.

  The senior healer of the Starsight—C-med, Triona had called him, the Chief of Medical—reminded Jahir strongly of his mentor Healer KindlesFlame. He had the same air of easy authority, though unlike KindlesFlame he was human, and built as solidly as a destrier. "Lord Seni Galare. Your injuries are minor, you'll be happy to learn."

  "I had suspected as much. Thank you, alet."

  "I'm Ale Morales," the human continued. "I've been told you and your partner were handling the Ambassador's case in concert with Healer-Assist Borden of the Quicklance? And that you have some chemistry background?"

  Of the Quicklance, Jahir noted, not "on it." Alas, for the lost vessel, and the courageous personnel who'd borne witness to her death in battle. "That's correct."

  "Can you summarize what you know about the case for me? The Ambassador's stable, but I admit I find his state… interesting."

  Jahir couldn't help a laugh at that, and if it was hesitant and fatigued, and if it was also more demonstrative than his typical, he could surely indulge. They were safe. They were heading home. "Yes, I imagine you must. This is what I know, then."

  Morales listened attentively to his recitation, waiting until he'd finished to ask questions. Finally, the human sighed. "Of course, the only samples of the drug are atomized somewhere spinward of here."

  "Will it be a problem?" Jahir asked.

  The healer shook his head. "No. I'm confident that we'll get him to the hospital at Fleet Central, and they'll be able to handle anything short of an act of God snatching him personally from their hands. It's more a matter of lost opportunities. We could have analyzed it, maybe found an antitoxin."

  "Perhaps there will be other opportunities."

  "Maybe." Morales considered him. "And now, in the interests of clarification… I've received notice that you are the Ambassador's next of kin, and as such empowered to make medical decisions on his behalf. Is that correct?"

  "I—yes," Jahir said, surprised. Technically he and Lisinthir were only distantly related by blood. Politically, however: "Yes, that's correct."

  Morales nodded. "As you've probably been told, we're on our way to Sector Alpha to deliver the Ambassador to the proper authorities. Until he's competent to make his own decisions, you'll be asked to remain there. I wasn't sure if you'd realized that, so I thought I'd pass it on."

  "I hadn't, and thank you." Jahir paused. "If I may, from whom did you receive notice?"

  "The Captain tells me the head of your household?" Morales smiled, a vague crinkle of cheek on one side of his face. "She refused to divulge more."

  Given the Veil… yes, he imagined. But he was also grateful that the Queen had not bruited about his relation to her. That was information he would rather not have more generally known. Bad enough to be called 'Lord Seni Galare,' no matter how correct. "Ah, yes. Thank you."

  Morales nodded. "Rest, then, Lord Seni Galare. You might not be mortally injured, but you've dented yourself up enough to need it."

  "Vasiht'h—"

  "With Hea Taniltan right now," the human said. "Having his own check." He smiled more naturally. "Everything's under control… and we'll be docking within two days. Less than that, given how the Captain's putting on the steam."

  To think they'd be back that soon...! And if not home, then in the Alliance and not far from Starbase Veta. Even traveling at more conventional speeds, he and Vasiht'h would not be long away once Fleet released them. Jahir thanked the healer and composed himself for rest, and it was easier than he'd expected; he really was tired. He turned his head on the pillow and glanced across the way to where Lisinthir was lying in similar estate. His cousin looked grim, but already the halo-arch was at work on his injuries. On its own, the halo-arch was incapable of solving grievous injury... but what it could not fix it could hold stable.

  Reassured, Jahir let himself fall asleep. Either he would wake up when they docked, or he would wake up and have access to a water shower and a hot cup of tea or coffee, and either situation accorded with him.

  Lisinthir was unconscious but stable. Jahir was asleep. Having been released from the Medplex as injury-free after a short session with Healer-assist Taniltan's sealer, Vasiht'h made straight for the rooms assigned him and into the bathroom.

  The shower was a tight fit, but he couldn't remember the last time one had felt so good. He tried very hard not to notice that some of the water running off him was pink or a grimy brown. That could be anything, after all. Stepping through the drier fluffed his fur so badly he wished for a brush, but all his toiletries had vanished with the Quicklance and the complimentary ones left by the Fleet personnel weren't going to make a lick of difference. That was fine too. He relished having so little to worry about.

  After that, he asked the genie for a cup of tea and a serving of fresh fruit—random—and took them to the table and that... that meal was so satisfying that he lingered over it, savoring the flavors, the wet tartness of the juice, the soft texture of the melons, the astringent bite of the tea and the way the warmth of it made his tongue tingle after eating berries off the cool metal spoon. Wrapping his hands around the mug, he let his head sink forward and his eyes close.

  Strange to have such silence. Though he and Jahir didn't spend every waking moment with one another, the enforced intimacy of the past few days made his present solitude feel incongruous, as if he'd had a limb amputated. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but he explored it carefully, the way he would have probed at a splinter in his finger.

  Things would change. He knew that now. Maybe not in the next few months, but... he'd confronted his own mortality and discovered how much he'd left undone. He'd not had children yet, and while he didn't feel ready yet, he thought he was long past due to work out the practicalities. Having children would involve him asking some of his extended family to move to the starbase...or moving to where they were. And Jahir... if he married, he could hardly sleep in the same room with Vasiht'h anymore. His wife would probably find that distressing. And Vasiht'h couldn't imagine them raising an Eldritch child in the Alliance, at least, not full-time. Assuming Sediryl married him. Assuming he asked. But what if he asked and she said 'no'? What would happen to his partner then?

  It was all very scary, but on the whole, Vasiht'h thought it could be positive. If everything worked out, anyway. So many uncertainties... he'd never liked uncertainties.

  The vessel had a Well drive, and they were no longer in enemy space. Vasiht'h woke the wall-screen in the room and checked Anseahla's local time, then placed his call. He did not, however, reach his mother or father. It was his eldest brother who answered, and Bret'hesk took one
look at him and put up his brows. "Little brother! What happened to you? You look like you've been through the thoughtless hells."

  Did he? "You're just saying that because I haven't brushed my fur down."

  Bret'hesk folded his arms. "Are you in trouble?"

  It would be Bret who answered… Bret who'd always thought him feckless, a dreamer. In the past, Vasiht'h had always backed down from his challenges and meekly accepted his corrections, because his eldest brother had been right: as a youth, Vasiht'h hadn't had a focus. Eternal student, his mother had said, but with amusement because she'd been confident he'd find his way eventually. Bret'hesk had never seemed to believe it, and as self-appointed disciplinarian of the children, he'd felt it his duty to educate the wayward sibling.

  Suddenly, Vasiht'h was tired of it. And offended. Had his brother just been attacked by Chatcaava, possibly earned a personal thanks from Fleet? Had his brother just washed someone else's arterial blood off his fur? Had his brother just kept a man vital to the security of the Alliance from dying by anchoring an Eldritch mindhealer to reality?

  The answer to all of that was 'no.'

  "I'm not in any trouble," Vasiht'h said. "And I don't see why you have any cause to talk to me this way."

  The perplexity—was it because he'd defended himself? Or was it because… he almost chuckled. He was talking like Jahir, wasn't he. Ridiculous. An Eldritch Glaseah. A Chatcaavan Eldritch. What a mess. But a glorious mess, maybe. He felt the warmth of his medallion against the puffed-up fur on his chest.

  At last, Bret'hesk said—more cautiously—"Mother and Father aren't in."

  "Then tell them I called," Vasiht'h said. "I'd like to talk to them, once they're free. Dami particularly."

  "Can I tell her what it's about?"

  Vasiht'h thought of Lisinthir's bare-teeth snarl: 'You haven't earned that right.' He understood, suddenly. "No."

  Taken aback, Bret'hesk said, "You… really aren't in any trouble, right? I know I've been hard on you, arii, but it's for your own good, and I'd never turn you away. You know if there's something going on, you can count on your family to help you."

  "It's good to hear you say that," Vasiht'h said. "Tell her I called, all right? And give my nephew a hug for me. Be well, Bret'hesk." He leaned over and terminated the call before his brother could answer and felt a moment's small pleasure in it. His education suggested multiple reasons for Bret's behavior, most of them sympathetic. Had Vasiht'h taken him on as a client he would have had plenty to work with: his brother's need for perfection and order, his worries about the family, his sense that someone had to take care of everyone when Dami and Tapa had been so busy with their careers. Managing a Glaseahn family tended to involve an extended network of relatives, and all of the older children were expected to help. As the firstborn, Bret'hesk would have had to take on those responsibilities without role models to suggest how to do it gracefully.

  But knowing all those things didn't make Bret any less irritating. That Vasiht'h no longer felt he deserved his brother's opprobrium, not just because it was unfair, but because he really wasn't that uncertain boy anymore… that was novel. He'd never stood up for himself before to his family.

  Some changes were good changes.

  Vasiht'h refreshed his tea and settled to catch up with his mail. He steeped himself in normalcy until it flavored his spirit, and fed that down the mindline to the sleeping Eldritch who'd brought so many wonderful things into his life… including his crazy cousin. Sometimes you needed the crazy cousin in your life, and Goddess bless the chaos that ensued. That was family for you, and he should know.

  It was the smell that escorted Lisinthir out of unconsciousness at last, a mélange both modern and familiar. He opened his eyes on a colored ceiling, but it was not the pale green he'd expected… a light blue, rather, in a stylized cloud pattern. Strange; from the scent he'd expected the hospital at Fleet Central where he'd undergone his acclimation regimen, physicals, and inoculations. He was definitely in some sort of facility, and under a halo-arch, a rather substantial one. That was also strange, because he felt very much as if he didn't need one. He couldn't remember the last time he felt more rested. And hale: he could take a deep breath without fighting, and the core of his body didn't feel uncertain to him anymore.

  The door whispered open; he glanced toward it to find a Tam-illee foxine approaching him with the determined gait of a doctor. Probably an important one, from the speed and the brusque finish to her movements. She stopped at his bed, swept the readings with tawny eyes, then considered him. "Ambassador. How do you feel?"

  "Remarkable," he said. "I assume I've been here for some time?"

  "A few days," she said. "A few very exciting days, might I add. I'm Healer-Surgeon TrustBody, and I'm in charge of your case. Do you feel well enough to sit up for me?"

  "I'd prefer to stop lying down, to be honest."

  She nodded and waved the halo-arch down. "Give it a try."

  Lisinthir got his hands beneath him and pushed himself up, and though he felt a tremor in his arms they served. A brief moment of lightheadedness and he was upright, the blanket puddling over his lap. "A much better vantage."

  "Dizzy at all?"

  "No." He paused. "Perhaps a touch. I think I might be hungry, which would be a novelty."

  "Yes, I bet it would be." She considered him. "You look good. Your vitals have been good for almost twenty-five hours now. If you're willing, we're going to try to get you out of here as soon as possible. There are people waiting to debrief you."

  He glanced at her. "Is there some reason I cannot receive them here?"

  "Yes," TrustBody said firmly. "You weren't well enough before. And now that you are, I'm not letting you strain yourself into a relapse until you're ready to go."

  "Is a relapse probable, then?" he asked, startled. He felt vitally alive, as if he'd been striving through a nightmare for weeks, a physical one that dragged at every limb. He found he didn't miss having to fight so hard to move well.

  "I don't think so," TrustBody said. "Like I said, you've been showing good results for most of a day now. Another couple of days like this and we can let you go." She lifted a finger. "You'll have to rest, eat, etcetera. You're probably aware of the drill... you've been in this hospital before, haven't you? This is FCH."

  She must have heard it from gossip; Lisinthir knew the censors would have scoured the records database once he'd left for the border. And quite a job they must have had, given how long he'd stayed initially. "I have, yes. Though the ceiling is a different color."

  "We vary them from section to section. Could have left ours blank, though; most patients don't remember the acute care ceiling." She smiled. "Do you feel up to guests? You've got family in the visitors' lounge."

  "Certainly."

  She nodded and departed without further comment, and he was not sorry to see her go; while not offensive, he found her clipped speech exhausting.

  And here, at the door, was his cousin, dressed as he had been when Lisinthir had first espied him, in tunic, blouse, trousers, boots, all warm brown and without ostentation; the cut could be mistaken for something modern, had indubitably been chosen from some library of offerings in an Alliance catalog. Thus did his cousin pass for as close to unremarkable in the Alliance as possible. It suited him, but Lisinthir found he wanted to see Jahir garbed as a Galare heir, and wondered what that said about his own reconciliation with Eldritch culture. It made him smile, ever so slightly.

  His cousin had arrived without his beloved... but with a silk bag, and Lisinthir knew immediately what it must contain. Jahir did not greet him, either, but came to his bedside and loosened the drawstring, his movements freighted with a ritual weight that should have seemed an anachronism given the setting, and did not, because they were what they were, they two.

  Was he holding his breath?

  From the bag, Jahir drew one of Imthereli's swords, then the other, setting them on a stool. He presented the first formally on his open palm
s with lowered head.

  Lisinthir ran his hand over the matte surface of the scabbard, observing that it had been cleaned and wondering how long his cousin had spent at it. His last memory of the sword involved grabbing the hilt and finding it slimed with blood, probably from his own wounds. And yet here it was, with every evidence of Jahir's care, exercised on the weapons his cousin had watched him wield in cruelty and violence. Lisinthir let his fingers trail over the hardened leather until they skated over the base of Jahir's palm, and with that touch he drank in his cousin's conviction, his peace—

  look at what I've become

  how can it be right

  am I now a monster

  —Lisinthir's last, unspoken fears bleached away, like shadows before the morning sun. If he could not trust himself in this, could not trust himself to recognize when he had become unfit for civilization, he could trust Jahir. And his cousin had reached a decision, and was offering it on open palms.

  To that trust there could only be one reply. Lisinthir lifted the first sword off Jahir's hands, and for once bowed his head willingly, accepting not absolution, for that was no one's to give but the Divine, but something far more precious from a mortal man, and from this one in particular: I am the one who will willingly go to your cruel hand and kiss it for gratitude.

  The soft chirps of the retracted halo-arch, the hush of the recirculated air, all of it drew back, leaving them in a cocoon of silence. Something welled into it, replenished the dry places in his spirit, and the breath he took broke the quiet, wicked him alive, left him eager for the fight to come. The second sword he accepted with one hand, leaving the other free to clasp his cousin's wrist. Jahir waited at that touch, and his obedience was pleasing because Lisinthir knew how intransigent the man could be when he chose. That he had not yet recognized just how intransigent made it all the more appealing, this acquiescence. Letting go of Jahir's wrist, Lisinthir cupped his cousin's jaw and brought him close for a kiss.