Beyond Varallan

by neetha Napew

  “It is too small, and will melt,” Tonetka said.

  I nudged the lid up and pushed it aside, revealing the hundred pounds of clean, sterile sand inside. I knew it would be there. After all, I was the one who had explained the Terran concept of a sandbox to these kids.

  “We can pour it on the flames,” I said. “It will extinguish even the chemical fires. Get some of the bigger students to help us.”

  We passed out containers to the older children and formed a Terran bucket brigade. Tonetka and I took up positions by the fires. The kids passed full containers of sand down to us. We emptied them on the flames and passed them back. In a few minutes, all that was left was smoldering components and a heap of sand-covered debris.

  “That’s it,” I said. “Let’s get them out of here!”

  Tonetka nodded, and gestured to the children. “Listen carefully now. Wrap your hands with strips of your clothing. Do not touch anything for very long. Move as quickly as you can.”

  She tried to examine my ruined hands, but I yanked them away.

  “Later. We’ve got to move, now.” I turned toward the opening and shouted, “Xonea! We’re sending the kids through! Get ready!”

  “Ready!” a distant, muffled voice called back.

  It took both of us to boost each child up to the gap. As their weight fell against my burned, broken hands, I said some words I hoped the kids would forget. We kept hoisting them up. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Finally we pushed the last child through.

  I turned to Tonetka. “Let’s see how well you can climb, old woman.”

  She eyed the gap. “Piece of bread.”

  “Cake. Piece of cake.” It hurt to laugh. “Wait till you get to the top. Come on, let’s go.”

  “You must go first, Cherijo.”

  “Age before beauty.”

  “You won’t be able to climb with your hands. I will have to lift you.”

  I looked down. So much for my surgical career. “You’d better not drop me.”

  Tonetka cradled my face with her hands, and gazed into my eyes. “I bless the Mother for the day you became our ClanDaughter.” She even kissed my forehead.

  I scowled up at her. “Yeah, I honor you, too, you stubborn old battle-axe. Now give me a boost.”

  I was the same size and weight as most of the kids, but Tonetka had to push me up by herself. With a string of curses my vocollar ignored, she thrust me up to the gap.

  Large hands were waiting to pull me through-Xonea’s and Hado’s. I made it without bruising my already abused body too much. Xonea saw my hands and leg, and cursed. As soon as my feet touched the lower deck, I turned and called out to Tonetka.

  “Come on, Senior Healer!”

  Hado put a hand on my shoulder. “Healer Cherijo. You must come away from this area, now.”

  A strange sound and subsequent vibration shuddered through the level. Had the mercenaries somehow followed us? The huge pile of rubble shifted, as if it was sliding over, away from us.

  It was collapsing. On top of the Senior Healer.

  “Tonetka!” I screamed, but Xonea was helping Hado pull me away. “Hurry-we’ve got to-“ My hands wouldn’t work right, I couldn’t get them off me. “What are you doing? Help her!”

  Hado looked at the opening with a sad expression. “She cannot fit through the gap.”

  “I’ll make her fit!”

  “Cherijo!” Xonea shook me. “You must see to the children!”

  Small cries of pain finally penetrated my fury. I grabbed the front of my Chosen’s tunic as best I could, and thrust my face close to his. “Listen! I don’t care how you do it, get her out of there!”

  Xonea nodded. I let go. He went back to working on the panel with Hado.

  One of the nurses sprayed my wounds with skinseal, against what she told me was her better judgment. I ignored her. I gloved while I bit back a shriek of pain, then went to treat the wounded. Four entire classes of children had been rescued. Most were suffering from shock, minor burns, and smoke inhalation.

  More injured were brought out from a collapsed section. They were educators who had been in a planning session when the attack occurred. Two were dead. Three more died on the deck as we tried to keep them breathing. Their bodies weren’t just burned, they were charred.

  Crew members from all over the ship assisted in removing the critical cases on litters. When those ran out, the injured were simply carried off in strong Jorenian arms. I had just stabilized one of the children for the move when an ominous rumble shook the deck. The sound of tearing alloys ripped through the air. I glanced toward the obstruction, saw it shaking, and ran.

  “Tonetka!”

  Xonea and Hado stood a few feet from the pile of rubble, still fiddling with the emergency controls.

  “Get her out of there!” I screamed at them.

  “We cannot. The buffers are too weak.” Xonea caught my arms. “They have already begun to reform. She has chosen her path!”

  “The hell she has!”

  Another vibration shook the level, then the rubble collapsed and disappeared out into space. All that was left was a huge, empty hole.

  “No!” I shoved Xonea away from me and ran up to the buffer. Debris floated just beyond the gap in the hull. I pounded on the invisible wall, making my gloves split, leaving bloody splotches hanging in mid-air.

  A strong arm hauled me away. “She is gone, Cherijo.”

  “No!” I looked over at the navigator, who was closing the access panel. He shook his head. I wrenched myself around until I faced Xonea. “Why didn’t you get her out?”

  “I tried.” He lifted his hand toward my face.

  “Don’t touch me!” I pushed him away.

  Hado spoke up then. “She begins a new journey, Healer.”

  That made me snarl, “Oh, shut up!”

  The navigator inclined his head. “I regret your pain.”

  “And you.” I turned on Xonea and thumped a bloody fist against his broad chest. “You’ll just plan another big party, won’t you?” Snarling had become ranting. I didn’t care. “Maybe her body will get pulled into a star, and you can save yourself a grass shroud!”

  “Doc.” Dhreen put himself between us. His spoon-shaped fingers settled on my shoulders. Troubled amber eyes peered into mine. “Don’t do this.”

  I pushed Dhreen to one side, and advanced on Xonea. Once I got close enough, I pulled back my arm, and let it fly. My shredded glove made the slap sound louder than it was. My bloody handprint glowed against his blue face.

  “I’ll never forgive you for this,” I said. “Never.”

  Then I walked away.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A Matter of Honor

  Dhreen kept Xonea away from me. That extended his life expectancy. It was nice for me, too. I wasn’t sure how much more punishment my hands could take, and my hands were needed elsewhere.

  Someone brought up fluidators and foam cradles. We used them for the worst of the burn victims. Nurses kept coming at me, babbling about my injuries. I shoved them away. Yelled when that didn’t work.

  Others weren’t so concerned.

  “What have you done?” A furious ClanMother who’d just arrived on the scene pulled me away from one of the children I was treating and backed me up against a panel. “Have not enough been harmed? Now you cause our children to suffer?”

  “I’m sorry. I never meant anyone to get hurt.”

  “Show your contrition.” She gave me a shove. “Leave us.” Then she picked up the child and carried him away.

  Someone touched my arm, and asked if I was all right. I wasn’t. But I needed the pain. Wanted it. God, I deserved it.

  I coordinated moving the last of the injured from level six down to Medical, then followed. Patients overflowed into the outer corridors. The least-seriously wounded sat on the deck, patiently waiting to be seen. A few got to their feet when they saw me. I told them to sit back down, waded through the labyrinth of bodies, and limped into the Bay.

  Wh
at should have been chaos was simply a busy, crowded triage. Squilyp was one hell of a manager. The patient roster was the first thing I checked. My injuries weren’t bothering me that much. The envirocontrols simply needed adjustment.

  I read the names that had been entered. So far we had nearly a hundred casualties. I read each name, felt each one burn into my mind. I’d done this. I was accountable for every single entry.

  Duncan Reever’s name wasn’t among the wounded. I told myself it didn’t matter. When I looked up and saw him standing in the entrance to Medical, my eyes closed briefly.

  Of course it didn’t matter. Not now that I could breathe again.

  “Cherijo?”

  His eyes were green, I decided. Not blue. Not happy, either. He came across the busy ward toward me. The tunic he wore was filthy. He’d probably been helping with the evacuation. His hands were a mess, the old scars latticed with dozens of new wounds. I’d done that, too.

  How was I going to tell him what I’d only just figured out?

  “Reever.” His hands didn’t feel that wonderful as he took hold of me. I didn’t breathe in just to smell his scent. “Better have one of the nurses look at you.”

  “What have you done to yourself?”

  He was yelling. Reever never yelled.

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Nurse!”

  The pain was making it hard to concentrate. Why was he gripping me so tightly? “I have patients to see to,” I told him. “So take your messy hands off me, if you would, please.” I couldn’t claim he was soiling my tunic. All the smoke and blood hadn’t left it very sanitary.

  He released me, and my knees decided to get cute. The thigh wound I’d forgotten about was throbbing so hard I nearly moaned out loud. No, I had to keep moving, that was all. I limped over toward the sterilizer array. After a disaster like this, the surgical cases would be endless.

  “Healer Cherijo?” someone said.

  I thrust my hands under a sterilizer. So I was glad Reever was alive. The bloody wounds and skinseal had glued the gloves to my flesh. Hadn’t I saved his life back on K-2? I activated the unit with my knee. I had a vested interest in his survival. The sterilizer spray stripped the glove and skinseal material from my fingers. If I couldn’t imagine life without Duncan Reever around, it was no big tragedy. A million hot needles of pain flashed up my arms.

  Behind me, Adaola screeched, “What are you doing, Healer?”

  “Scrub... bing...” I looked down, saw the gleam of white shining through blackened, tattered flesh. My hands were in shreds. The ends of splintered finger bones were sticking out here and there. “Oh.” Stupid me. Should have expected they would be this bad. Where was the damn skinseal?

  The nurse grabbed my wrists and jerked my hands away from the unit. “Iolna! Here, with me!” she called over her shoulder.

  I tried to tug free, but it was useless. Adaola could have squashed me like a bug with one finger. Not to mention the fact the agony of my hands increased a thousandfold with every passing second. I’d better find some skinseal and a syrinpress.

  “Let go of me, please.” I tried to be polite. Sweat ran freely down my face. Why couldn’t I find a nurse who would follow orders?

  “Healer, we must treat your wounds.”

  Reever hovered on the other side of me now. They guided me over to an exam table, then Duncan lifted me like a little kid. Honestly, the stuff I had to put up with, just because I was short. He spotted the binding Tonetka had wrapped around my thigh, and touched it gingerly.

  “Her leg,” he said. Why did he sound so upset? It was just a little jab. I tried to sit up. “Don’t move, Joey.”

  The other nurse appeared, her eyes wide as she looked at my hands, then my leg. I felt blood start to pulse from the wound again as they cut away my trousers. I peered down my body. The fabric, stiff with dried blood, had temporarily sealed the wound.

  “Artery plug!” Adaola said.

  “If you’d left it alone you wouldn’t need one,” I told her. “Just seal it and let me up.”

  Neither of them listened. They were fiddling with me, scanning me, being a general nuisance. Here I’d thought Jorenian nurses so efficient. Now the hole in my leg became a new well of torment. This was going to make standing in surgery a little difficult. Well, I’d just use a stool or something.

  “I’m all right. Seal the damn wound and get me another pair of gloves.” I glowered first at the nurses, then Reever. “Aren’t you people listening to me? Move!”

  “Of course. Healer,” Adaola said.

  She had the smallest set of bonesetters in her hands.

  Just what was she planning to do with those?

  “Now, Adaola!”

  I found out Jorenians do lie. Before I could defend myself, the other nurse had a syrinpress in her large blue hand and pushed it against my throat. The sedative went to work instantly. I stared helplessly up at Reever.

  “The patients... Have to... help... the...”

  “I know.” His hand touched my brow. “I know.”

  Blackness.

  I woke up briefly while they were prepping me for surgery. Felt the pain, though it was distant and nonthreaten-ing. Adaola’s eyes narrowed over the edge of her mask as she bent down to me.

  I had to know. “How... bad?”

  The mask rippled as she replied. “The femoral artery in your leg is completed severed. You have second- and third-degree burns on both hands, as well as severe lacerations and tissue damage. There are twelve separate fractures of the phalanges and metacarpals; three are compound.”

  “Squilyp... operating?”

  “Yes, Healer.”

  I got out two last words before I went under again.

  “No... amputations.”

  Post-op Jorenian nurses were efficient, competent, and dedicated individuals. They didn’t take any nonsense from their patients. Even those who usually gave the orders.

  “Healer, will you lie down!” Iolna said from her position at the vitals display. For the tenth time. She forgot to say “please,” too.

  I sank back on the pillow. My lips were as thin as my patience. I had been out of surgery for more than six hours. Most of my meds had worn off. I was conscious, rational, and in a considerable amount of pain. Now all I wanted to know was exactly what that Omorr had done to me.

  “Signal Squilyp,” I said. For the tenth time.

  “By the Mother.” Iolna didn’t normally use Jorenian swear words, but I could see it was becoming a temptation. “Resident Squilyp is taking a rest interval.”

  He could sleep later. “Signal him anyway.”

  “Healer. Please.” The reproachful tone was worse than the all the “by the Mothers” she kept scolding me with.

  “Oh, all right.” I sulked, then brightened. “Time to change my dressings?”

  “No.”

  “There could be signs of infection.” I was hopeful. “Let’s check.”

  She cursed softly. “You have antibacterial dressings on both hands.”

  “I think I can feel some serious keloids forming.”

  “Healer Cherijo.” The nurse thrust aside my chart and came to the berth. “I know you are distressed, but you cannot remove the dressings. You cannot check for infection. There has not been time for scars to form.”

  “I’ll think of something,” I muttered.

  She heard. “I have checked the human database. There is nothing you have not thought of. Please.”

  I could pull rank. After all, Squilyp worked for me now. The reason for that made my temper abruptly evaporate. “Sorry.”

  Another six hours passed before I saw Squilyp’s handiwork. By the time the big moment arrived, I was so impatient I would have cut the dressings off myself. I would have done it, too, if I didn’t have nearly every finger in a bonesetter. Adaola, the replacement post-op nurse, gently unwrapped my hands. Iolna had already gone off duty, muttering to herself as she left about gags and sedatives.

  The Omorr, wh
o looked almost as bad as he had after our fight, bent over me and performed a visual scan. He made a non-committal sound that puffed out his gildrells.

  “Well?” I was flat on my back and couldn’t see a damn thing.

  “Scanner,” he said to Adaola. She placed it in his membrane. “Status?”

  He was ignoring me. Typical doctor-patient arrogance. I should have known. I was an authority. Just not on this side of it.

  “Extremely ill-tempered, demanding, and prone to frequent outbursts,” the nurse said. “Otherwise she’s making an excellent recovery.”

  Ill-tempered? Demanding? I tried to pick my hands up to check them myself, and found Adaola had strapped my arms with berth restraints. Outrage made me jerk against them.

  “Remain still, Doctor,” Squilyp said. He was examining my right hand while making multiple passes with the scanner.

  “If someone doesn’t start talking to me,” I told the group at large, “I’ll make the worst patient you’ve ever treated seem like a recreational interval!”

  “You are the worst patient I’ve ever treated,” the Omorr told me.

  “That’s right. Go ahead and insult me, now that I can’t smack you,” I said. “I won’t be stuck in this berth forever, Squid Lips.”

  Squilyp moved from the right hand to the left. The scanner hummed. My nerves frayed. The nurses were giving each other these weird, troubled looks.

  “How is she?” I heard Duncan Reever ask.

  I lifted my head and peered eagerly past the green and blue tunics. “Reever!” I forgot we weren’t speaking to each other anymore. “You’re human, you have to be on my side. Do something. Challenge Squilyp!”

  He came to stand next to Squilyp. They exchanged a completely masculine look. It pushed me to the about-to-scream level in my frustration.

  “Is she becoming difficult?” Reever asked while he gazed at me. The same way he would a slide smear under a ‘scope.

  “Becoming?” The Omorr let out one sour chuckle. “Becoming?”

  The ship’s linguist nodded. “Her temper is swift to flare.”

  “Swift?” My voice squeaked. “I’ll have you know, Duncan Reever, I am being restrained!”