Endurance

by neetha Napew

  I used one strictly as a primary-care unit and continued to treat prisoners and Hsktskt alike. Since she was too critical to move, I kept FurreVa there, too.

  Vlaav stuck by me like glue.

  “Doctor, you should take a rest interval.”

  “I will.” No, I wouldn’t. I gestured to Zella. “Next patient, please.”

  “What are your plans, when you leave this place? Will you resume your position on the Jorenian vessel?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m going to do.” That was the truth, and it surprised me anyway. I looked over at the Saksonan. “Why?”

  The red nubs on his face glowed brightly. “I have learned much from working with you. I would appreciate the opportunity to finish my residency under your tutelage.”

  I knew he had a bit of a crush on me, but I wasn’t going to encourage it. “Don’t you want to go home, Vlaav?”

  “No. Not if I can learn to be half the surgeon you are. Will you teach me?”

  “Flattery won’t get you any slack.” I’d helped train other interns and residents in the past, but I’d never been asked to be a primary instructor before. If I’d possessed hemangiomas, they would have been popping like champagne corks. “Are you sure you really want to be my student?”

  “Yes.”

  The other problems I had to deal with made my grin fade. “Let’s get off this rock, then we’ll talk about it.”

  Vlaav happily performed rounds for me after that, and came back to report on the half dozen prisoners we’d kept in the shelter for observation.

  I listened, and imagined once more teaching this kid to be a cutter. I could do that, I thought. If everything else worked out. “How’s the OverSeer doing?”

  “She cannot remain in artificial hibernation much longer,” he said as I finished medicating yet another former prisoner suffering from mild hypothermia. He gave me a rundown of scan results from her chart.

  He was right. If we didn’t get her up to the Sunlace and on an operating table soon, she’d never come out of it. “Keep close monitor on her vitals for me.”

  The massive transport operation slowly came to a close. Salo and a warrior party arrived as we were loading the last of the prisoners into the Akesellan launches, and I had saw their collective reaction toward the remaining Hsktskt.

  It wasn’t a desire to hand out Jorenian kisses of peace.

  “Salo, the compound has been completely destroyed.”

  “A pity.” The big warrior removed a large, bladed weapon from his sojourn pack. “I would have decorated it with my ClanSign.”

  ClanSign was what Jorenians did with the bodies of their enemies after they disemboweled them. I saw Wonlee join the Jorenians. Beneath his envirosuit, his spines flexed. He was carrying a Hasktskt pulse rifle in each hand.

  “Stop right there, Lieutenant.”

  My prickly friend’s voice transmitted his rage and fury over my comunit. “They enslaved us. They killed or sold thousands here.”

  “Which was my fault, remember?”

  No one seemed to care. The lizards collected in a tight mass, ready to defend themselves. HouseClan Torin started swinging their blades in what looked like massacre warm-up exercises.

  Time for me to play referee again.

  “Hold it,” I placed myself between the two groups, and held up my gloved hands. I’d already gotten the Aksellans to back off, and knew how to stop the Jorenians. “Salo, I shield these Hsktskt.”

  “You would protect these monsters, Healer?” Salo asked me.

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing.” I walked over to the largest of the Hsktskt. “I want you to tell your people to stand down. Now.”

  “Hsktskt do not surrender to slaves,” the centuron said with chilling conviction.

  “The Hsktskt are going to end up as fodder if you don’t back down and let me negotiate a compromise here.”

  It took a few more minutes, but I convinced the lizards to stop putting on the aggressive act. Finally, I had to deal with Wonlee, who didn’t care what I shielded.

  “Lieutenant.” I intercepted him as he started toward the group of Hsktskt. “Don’t do this. This slave-depot is useless now, and the pel won’t let them build another one. We can let them go.”

  “They killed my wife.”

  “A lethal mineral called the tul killed your wife.” I put my hand on the barrel of one pulse rifle, and hoped he wouldn’t shoot me just to get at the lizards. “Wonlee, we’ve been through so much together. If I can let them go, so can you.”

  “You are a physician. You do not understand the need for justice.”

  Oh, but I did. “You were a medic. You know how fragile and brief life is. Let the violence and hatred end, here and now.” I glanced over at the Hsktskt, and thought of the coming League invasion. “Believe me, they’ll get what they deserve, soon enough.”

  Another round of negotiation convinced the Jorenians to allow the Hsktskt survivors to take a ship and return to Faction space.

  “This was not the end I envisioned,” the Jorenian said as we watched the Hsktskt launch lift off. “Releasing the beasts was never a consideration.”

  “They’re not all beasts.” I thought of FurreVa. They were-what they were. “Come on, big guy. We’d better get off this rock and back where we belong.”

  Zella met me halfway down the entrance ramp. “Continues to weaken, the Hsktskt female. In critical condition now, she is.”

  It was time to go home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Masks Off

  The last jaunt up to the Sunlace seemed to take forever. I couldn’t stay in my harness, not with FurreVa stretched out on a litter, so I planted myself beside her for the duration of the trip. Her monitors didn’t look good.

  The surgery couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Signal Medical for me,” I asked the pilot when we were halfway to the ship. “Tell them I need a thoracic team scrubbed and ready for us.”

  By the time the pilot docked in launch bay, I stood at the hull doors with the OverSeer, and pushed her out onto the docking ramp the moment the panels opened. Once off the shuttle, I had the Jorenians load her onto a gurney, and signaled Squilyp.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  “We’re prepared, Doctor,” the Omorr said. “What’s the patient’s condition?”

  “Bad. Direct displacer blast to the upper torso. Multiple internal trauma, definitely cardiac and liver, God knows what else. I had to induce artificial hibernation just to keep her alive.” I checked her infuser lines, then nodded to the crew members helping me. “Have the team in the suite. We’ll be there in a minute.”

  I paused long enough to snap out orders for the injured to be taken to Medical, then accompanied FurreVa’s gurney into a gyrlift. Every step made my stomach clench. Every glance down at the motionless Hsktskt female made me move that much faster.

  Adaola, who was wearing a first-year intern’s tunic, manned the gurney from the moment we entered the bay. “Go and scrub, Healer. I will prep the patient.”

  “Where’s Squilyp?” I stripped off my outer garments as I headed for the cleansing unit. “I need him to assist.”

  He hopped out of the surgical suite, already scrubbed and gowned, and lifted his gloved membranes. “As I anticipated, Doctor.”

  “Mr. Wonderful. Still as exemplary as ever.” My mouth hitched as I thrust my hands under the biodecon port to sterilize. “As soon as she’s under, get her chest open. I’ll be there in a second.”

  My eyes went to the monitors as I entered the suite, and waited for a moment as Squilyp lowered the sterile field. FurreVa’s heart rate was erratic, and she’d lost too much blood. I was pleased to see Adaola had already initiated the synplasma infusers and had the heartIlung array standing by.

  “First-year intern, huh?” I studied the instrument setup with approval. “So you were serious about becoming a physician.”

  “Senior Healer Squilyp has been an inspirational instructor,” Adaola said, h
er white-within-white eyes crinkling above her mask. “He has encouraged me to pursue a surgical residency.”

  Squilyp had once treated nurses with the same compassion he would a lascalpel: to be used until they no longer functioned. He’d grown up a lot since those days. “Couldn’t help infecting her with the bug, could you, Squid Lips?”

  He winced at the old nickname. “I feel certain Adaola will make a competent surgeon.”

  “I always thought she was wasted as a nurse,” I said as I went around the table and took my position opposite the Omorr.

  The big Jorenian female made a modest gesture. “My thanks, Healer.”

  Squilyp had already made the initial incision and opened FurreVa’s thorax from her neck to her pelvis, and was now clamping back the subdermal layers to expose the chest cavity. I pulled the primary laser rig down and activated the lascalpel, then leaned over to have a look.

  “Son of a bitch.” The Omorr lifted his head, and I shook mine. “No, not you, Squil. The one who did this to her.” And had gotten away with it, which still infuriated me.

  Squilyp ran an organ series as I performed the visual and probe assessments. “Significant vessel damage to both chambers of the heart. Right kidney is compromised, and there are dozens of perforations in the superior colon.

  “She never could do anything the easy way.” I couldn’t get a clear take on the central region of the chest cavity-there was simply too much blood and tissue occluding the area. I ordered more suction. “What about the liver?”

  The Omorr scanned the female Hsktskt a second time. “Elevated bilirubin, serum alkaline phosphatase, serum aminotransferase, decreased serum albumin and prothrombin time.”

  SrrokVar had known exactly where to shoot her to cause the maximum amount of damage. “What else?”

  “I’m reading no organic cohesion. Liver cellular loss stands at...” Squilyp scanned her again, before he gazed at me with solemn eyes. “It’s ninety-seven-point-four percent.”

  That meant-“No. You’re wrong.”

  I thrust his scanner aside and took the suction tube from the nurse using it. Blood and body fluid swamped the cavity. I’d simply evacuate it myself.

  “Cherijo-“

  “It’s displaced from the impact. I’ll find it, it has to be here.”

  A moment later, I pulled the tube from her chest, and the Omorr cleared his throat. In the old days, when we’d been competing for the Senior Healer slot onboard the Sunlace, he would have gloated over this. Now all he offered was a silent gaze of sympathy.

  “You were right. Okay. I’ll harvest viable cells and clone her a new one.” I pulled a specimen tray, and began to search for a shred of the organ. “We’ll keep her going until I have a replacement organ.”

  Membranes took the probe from my hand. “Doctor.”

  I grabbed another one from the tray. “No, Squilyp. I’ve put her back together twice before. I can do it again.”

  “If there were no other injuries, I would agree with you.” The Omorr came around the table and pushed the tray aside. “Cherijo. She took a full burst, at point-blank range. You have to accept the facts. Her liver has been destroyed.”

  I stopped probing the chest cavity and pulled the laser rig down. “Then we’ll keep her in sleep suspension until I can locate a transplant.”

  The monitors went off, and Adaola gave me a despairing look. I began resuscitation, biting into my lower lip with each compression. She couldn’t die on me. We’d been through too much together. Echoes of her low, rough voice pounded inside my skull.

  Angry. You are called SsurreVa? Suffering. Let me die, Terran. Wistful. Reconstruct... this? Determined.

  There will be no more arena games. Dying. My young are safe. You are safe. It is enough.

  The monitors slowly flat lined.

  We tried electro-stim. More drugs. Nothing worked. The Jorenians stayed out of my way. Squilyp and I worked on her body for a half hour before I finally straightened and slowly stripped off my gloves.

  “I’m calling it. Time of death is”-I glanced at the wall console-“oh-nineteen, twenty-two hours.”

  The Omorr looked down at the dead Hsktskt. “I’m sorry, Doctor.”

  “Thanks.” I gently pulled the surgical shroud up over the peaceful face I’d worked so hard to repair.

  Adaola and the nurses intoned a solemn Jorenian chant of passage. I couldn’t seem to move away from the table. It was as if I expected FurreVa to yank aside the linen and shout at me for giving up.

  A warm membrane touched my arm. “You did everything you could for her,” the Omorr said. “There was simply too much damage.”

  “Yeah.” I tugged my wet mask from my face. “There was.”

  Adaola paused in her chant to ask me, “What was her name, Healer?”

  I remembered how I’d called her Helen of Troy, and caught a sob before it emerged. “FurreVa. Overseer FurreVa.”

  Treating the injured prisoners kept me busy for the rest of the shift. My adopted family, while having no love for the Hsktskt, expressed their sincere sympathy for the loss of my friend.

  Squilyp let me work until there was nothing left to be done, then asked if I would do rounds with him in the morning.

  “Sure.” I had nothing to do, nowhere to go. “See you then.”

  “Cherijo.” I stopped at the door panel. “You told me never to... mess with you over a patient you just lost, but if you need someone to talk to-“

  I smiled wanly back at him. “You’ll be the one, Squil. Thanks.”

  I couldn’t face my empty quarters. Xonea had signaled from the helm that the last of the launches from Catopsa were arriving, so I decided to go down to the launch bay and see what I could do there.

  The final shuttle hull doors parted, and the Jorenian team brought two men out. Both were in enviro-suits, but their hands had been secured in detainment bonds. I started to ask why, then one of the crew removed their helmets and I saw who they were.

  Gael Kelly and Noarr.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked one of the Torins. “Why are they tied up like that?”

  “We discovered them fighting near an alien vessel.”

  “Blue-arsed mentallers! If you’ll not give me a weapon, for pity’s sake, shoot this sleeven before he gets loose.” The Irishman strained at his bonds, then fixed his gaze on me with relief. “Dote, tell ‘em to stop acting the maggot!”

  A security guard glanced at me. “Our vocollars are not translating what he says, Healer.”

  “I know. Gael, you have to speak stanTerran, please.”

  “This gouger-this collaborator-tried to kill me, dote. I told you, he’s been spying for the beasts, and I’ve got proof.”

  I glanced at Noarr, who stood in his usual brooding, silent stance. “Is that right?” I motioned for their bonds to be released. “Is what he’s saying true, Noarr?” Not that I believed it.

  “Part of it.” The alien slave-runner rubbed the joints above his flippers slowly. “I tried to kill him.”

  My eyes widened. “Why?”

  “He was attempting to remove prisoners from Catopsa.”

  “That’s sort of the general idea, at the moment.”

  “He did not intend to bring them here.” Noarr pulled off his hood and turned to Gael, who was visibly seething. “Will you tell her now, or shall I?”

  “I will in me ring,” the Terran said, and spat on the deck.

  “I think that means no,” I said to the confused Jorenians. “Gael?”

  “His name is not Gael.” Noarr folded his arms inside his cloak and regarded the Terran with an expression akin to pity. “It is GaaVar.”

  “Aye, right.” The Irishman let out a sputtering laugh. “You’re addled, that’s what you are, sleeven.” He continued in stanTerran. “I was born in Clare, in the Celt Republic, on Terra. Check the database, if you like.”

  “I am sure you were.” Noarr pulled his cloak around him. “Your family took you from Terra to immigrate to a new c
olony. When you were a young child, did they not?”

  “I’ve told you all this, dote,” Gael said to me.

  Noarr stepped closer to the Terran. “How old were you when the Hsktskt attacked your ship?”

  “I was but a wee lad.”

  “You were an infant. The Hsktskt do not take children hostage. Why did you survive?”

  Gael exploded. “I don’t know what the gammy thicks wanted with me! They took me!”

  “And adopted you, the same way they adopted me.” Noarr turned and gazed at me. “He was raised by the Hsktskt from infancy. By Lord SrrokVar.”

  Before anyone could move, Gael pulled a Hsktskt pistol from the inside of his tunic and lunged in my direction. A moment later, he had me in an armlock, and the business end of the weapon pressed tightly against my cheek.

  “Don’t do this, Gael.” I looked at the Jorenians, who had formed a deadly ring around us. White eyes narrowed, claws emerged. “They’ll kill you.”

  He pointed the gun at Noarr. “In the shuttle. Now. Or this scanger bitch dies.”

  I warned the Jorenians to stay back as we entered the shuttle and Gael shoved Noarr toward the helm.

  “Fly this gammy crate out of here.”

  “They’ll come after us.” Gael’s shove made me fall against the harness rigging. I clutched it to regain my footing. “You don’t have to slave for the Hsktskt anymore. Give yourself up, and I’ll help you get back to Terra.”

  “Terra?” He laughed. “You’re off your nut.”

  “I think you can drop the dialect now,” I said as he tied me into the harness.

  “It took me years to learn. Still, you’re right. I don’t need it anymore, do I?”

  “Not anymore,” I agreed.

  Gael watched Noarr pilot the shuttle out from the launch bay. “Input these into the navigation array,” he said, and rattled off some coordinates.