Beyond Varallan Read online

  PART ONE: Departure

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Sunlace

  I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel.

  Hippocrates (460?-377? B.C.)

  Hippocrates never got smacked in the head by a patient, I thought as I ducked to avoid a wildly swinging counterweight. That, or he’d kept them all in restraints.

  My first patient, Engineer Roelm Torin, had been admitted to the ship’s inpatient ward late yesterday. He wasn’t happy about it, either. According to the nurses, he had already destroyed an infuser array, knocked his berth monitor over twice, and kept all the other patients awake half the night with his grumbling.

  I grabbed his traction rig before the blue-skinned patient kicked it off the berth mounting. “Good morning, Roelm.” I performed a visual examination and adjusted the rig’s clamp. His left leg, while plainly mobile, was badly swollen. “Feeling a little restless?”

  “Your pardon, Healer.” Roelm made a swift, apologetic motion with one six-fingered hand, then turned to address the Omorr making a chart notation. “Release me.”

  I looked over at the ship’s senior surgical resident, too. Squilyp had gone and started rounds without me. Again.

  The Omorr never glanced up from his data entry. “That is not possible, Engineer Toriri.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, purposely contradicting him.

  That got my rival’s attention, and Squilyp’s round, dark eyes glared at me. I was a few minutes late for my shift. My braid, still damp from my shower, hung over one shoulder. He’d probably make note of both crimes.

  In contrast, Mr. Punctuality appeared immaculate and authoritative as ever. Despite his pinkish derma, Squilyp’s green resident tunic actually looked good on his tall, lanky frame. Not that I planned to tell him that. I didn’t like the pompous little ass. Since I was in line to be Senior Healer-the job he wanted-Squilyp didn’t like me.

  That had been the status quo for nearly two months now, since I’d joined the crew of the Jorenian star vessel Sunlace. I’d agreed to replace the retiring Senior Healer, Tonetka Torin, but there were problems. I was Terran, not Jorenian, and had only a year’s experience treating nonhumans. I was also a fugitive with a bounty on my head.

  Hardly a sterling resume.

  I held out my hand. “Chart, please.” The Omorr shoved it at me. “Thanks, Squilyp.” I gave him a broad, friendly smile. He hated that even more than my untidy hair.

  “Dr. Grey Veil.” Squilyp didn’t call me Healer. I’m sure he called me plenty of names, but not Healer. “My latest scans are annotated.”

  They’d be perfect, too. Squilyp ranked first among the Sunlace’s five surgical residents, for good reason. I’d never seen him make a single error on the job. The Omorr’s knowledge of procedure rivaled that of the diagnostic array.

  The known universe would collapse before this guy ever screwed up.

  “Did you run a hematology series?”

  “Of course.” The hundreds of gildrells that covered the Omorr’s oral membrane muffled his offended tone. The white, prehensile filaments measured half a meter long, and tapered from a thick base to slender, fingerlike ends. I’d never seen Squilyp eating or drinking. That wasn’t a big priority for me.

  “Good.” I reviewed the rest of his notations. “Nice work.”

  His gildrells stiffened as though I’d yanked on them. “Excuse me.”

  The Omorr stalked off. He had four limbs, but used three like arms, leaving the fourth to stand on and hop around with. It should have looked silly, but Squilyp moved with what I could only call a stately bounce.

  Like me, the Omorr was something of an oddity. On his homeworld, touch healing and ceremonial prayer were the preferred methods of medical treatment. Yet he never attempted to use his spade-shaped appendage ends (no fingers, just incredibly dexterous membranes) to touch-treat a patient. Squilyp also had a bit of an obsession with cleanliness. Mere dust motes seemed to aggravate him. Almost as much as I did.

  Oh, well, I thought. Can’t expect everyone to adore me.

  “Healer Cherijo!”

  I turned to my patient. Roelm pushed himself up, too quickly, and impatiently jerked his leg. Before I could grab it, the traction rig crashed onto the deck.

  Roelm’s white eyes-Jorenians had no detectable pupils or irises-widened as he looked from the ruined equipment to the sight of the Senior Healer stalking toward his berth. “Healer, aid me to convince Tonetka this was none of my doing.”

  I got the usual crick in my neck as I greeted the Senior Healer. I’d become resigned to feeling like a dwarf ever since I’d boarded the ship. Nearly everyone, including my boss, was at least a foot taller than me.

  “One more mishap, and I vowed to put you in restraints,” Tonetka said, and gave the rig an ominous look. “I shudder to think Pnor trusts you to keep the stardrive operational.”

  Roelm’s chin jutted. “Which I cannot do, unless you release me!”

  The Senior Healer muttered something rude. The patient growled something back at her. I had no idea what they said. The flat, square-linked vocollar I wore around my neck wouldn’t translate Jorenian profanity. I’d been told it had little equivalent in any language.

  “Why don’t I take a look at the leg?” When Roelm made an impatient sound, I patted his shoulder. “Let me do a proper evaluation, Roelm. The boss will fire me if I don’t.” I picked up a scanner. “Relax.”

  Tonetka kicked the rig out of her way. “You may wish to sedate him first.”

  One side of my mouth curled. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  She moved beside me to observe. “More scans?”

  I nodded across the ward toward the Omorr. “Just in case Mr. Wonderful missed something.” I performed three passes over the leg, then studied the readings.

  Roelm tried to get a look at my scanner display. “Well?”

  “Well, if you were on my homeworld, I might think this was a form of filariasis,” I said. “The readings are consistent.”

  The big man frowned. “What is that?”

  “Swelling caused by parasitic worms that block the lymphatic vessels. Very nasty,” I said, deadpan. Roelm’s skin rapidly acquired a greenish cast. I took pity on him. “Luckily, it isn’t that.”

  “Thank the Mother.” Roelm closed his eyes and exhaled dramatically. One of his big, work-roughened hands pressed over the twelve-valve heart in his chest.

  I said aside to Tonetka, “Surgical history?” She shook her head. “Okay.” I put his chart down. “Tell me what you’ve been doing over the last few days, Roelm.”

  He looked indignant and virtuous. “I have been inspecting the port thrusters, every shift.”

  Yeah, right. Jorenians worked hard, and played harder. Then there was all that warrior-training stuff they did in between. He’d either injured himself on the job, gotten clobbered during combat training, or done something even stupider off duty in the dimensional simulators. I picked probable idiocy number three.

  “Try out any new programs during your recreational interval?” I asked. “Wrestling some swarm-snakes, maybe? Rappel down any Andorii cliff-plateaus?”

  “I made two visits to the environome, both for-“ He paused. “Nothing physically strenuous.”

  “Come on, Roelm,” I said, prompting him with a roll of my hand. “Details, give me details.”

  “I merely sought to increase my manual dexterity. The program employed fine manipulative skills. My work demands that I keep my fingers... flexible.”

  I considered this. “Flexible like... grav-rowing down the white-water rapids on Radonis?”

  “No.” He hunched down. If his shoulders got much higher, they’d be covering his ears.

  “
You did not think to attempt blade dancing?” Tonetka asked, horrified.

  Our patient simply shook his head again and looked more miserable than ever.

  I sighed. “Roelm, don’t make me walk all the way over to that environome and access your program.”

  “You will laugh at me.”

  My boss and I exchanged a glance.

  “We won’t,” I said. “Physicians’ oath. Right, Senior Healer?”

  Tonetka nodded vigorously.

  “Very well.” Roelm looked around and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I have been learning how to weave.”

  “Weave where?” My boss moved closer, ready to throttle him if necessary. “Between blade dancers?”

  I could barely hear him now. “I have been weaving baskets.”

  “What? You mean-“ I bit my lip. “Oh. Right. Baskets.”

  Here we’d been thinking Roelm had tried to half-kill himself in some intense physical challenge. In reality, he had been teaching himself the gentlest-and definitely the most feminine-of Jorenian art forms.

  “Yes,” he said. “Baskets!”

  Tonetka whirled away just as I caught the expression on her face. I stepped between her and Roelm, so he wouldn’t see her shoulders shaking, and cleared my throat.

  “Well, that sounds nice, Roelm.” If this got out, he’d never live it down. “Um, very interesting.”

  “It is not amusing,” he said. “A male can learn such skills as easily as a female.”

  A cough that didn’t do much to cover a laugh burst from the Senior Healer. I jabbed her in the back with my elbow. My calm, understanding expression never wavered.

  “Of course they can,” I said. Tonetka snorted and I elbowed her again. “What else have you been doing?”

  “No more than is usual. Eating. Sleeping. Working.”

  That reminded me of what he’d said before. “Describe how you inspect a thruster.”

  He elaborated. The Sunlace’s colossal engines required careful maintenance and regular inspections. As a supervisor, Roelm directed most of the stardrive operations, and routinely inspected the work performed by his subordinates. Not surprising. He’d been one of the ship’s primary designers.

  From what he told me, a new design concept required him to perform several comparison tests on the thrusters. I recalled what I knew of the equipment from the lengthy tour I’d been given during my first week.

  “Roelm, when you were running these tests, did you have to balance yourself against the edge of the access panel?” He nodded. “On one leg, maybe?” Another nod. I lightly patted his swollen limb. “This leg?”

  “Yes, but-“ He stopped and looked sheepish. “I did spend an extended interval in such a position, recalibrating the directional relays and checking circuit tolerances.”

  Tonetka had gotten over the giggles. Now she glowered over my shoulder, “How extended?”

  Roelm made a weak gesture. “A double shift.”

  My boss tossed Roelm’s chart up in the air and stalked off. I caught it neatly when it came down, then made the appropriate notation.

  “Well, that explains where the edema came from. We’ll keep your leg elevated for now. The diuretics will reduce the swelling.” I tried to look stern. “No more twisting yourself into a pretzel for a whole day, Roelm.”

  “What is a pretzel?”

  I laughed.

  Tonetka didn’t appear at all amused when I entered her office. She shoved aside a touchpad onto which she had been pounding data. White eyes glared in the direction of the Engineer’s berth. Then she exploded.

  “That stubborn t’lerue!”

  I closed the door panel, sat down, and calmly completed my chart entry while she vented.

  “Males will be males,” I said when she started to run out of bad words I couldn’t understand. “It’s the reason the female of most species invariably lives longer.”

  “Hmph. I should like to divert his path.”

  That constituted a declaration of ClanKill, or-in Jorenian idiomatic terms-a death threat. I knew she wasn’t serious. Tonetka often blustered to vent her frequent frustrations.

  “Give him a day or two on a restricted diet,” I said. “That should teach him a lesson.”

  “He’s fortunate we don’t perform amputations in this age.” Tonetka rubbed her fingers against her brow. A reluctant chuckle escaped her. “Weaving. Mother of All Houses.”

  “Think of it as great blackmail material,” I said. “He could be your devoted slave from now on.”

  “At the very least. Ah, well. Here are the current cases.” She indicated a short stack of charts. “Roelm constitutes the only new admission. We should prepare for transition in a few hours. I want to put Hado back in sleep suspension.”

  Tonetka and I had performed open-heart surgery on Navigator Hado Torin a few weeks before. Despite his steady recovery, his condition remained guarded. The extra precaution of putting him in a sleep suspension field before the Sunlace dropped out of dimensional füghtshielding would protect his still-healing cardiac organ.

  “Are we getting near that planet Captain Pnor told me about?” I asked. “Ness-something?”

  “NessNevat. You haven’t been accessing your relays again.”

  “I keep forgetting.” No, I didn’t.

  “Program an alarm,” my boss said. “As Senior Healer, you will be required to review intership communications daily. Even,” she said when I tried to interrupt, “the ones to which you do not desire to respond.”

  I rolled my eyes. “If you only knew how many times I get invited to someone’s quarters for a meal interval...”

  “You are a popular member of our HouseClan.” Tonetka had no sympathy for me. “As Terrans say, get used to it.”

  That was the whole problem. My life had never been this complicated before. On my homeworld, for example, I worked, ate, and slept. After I’d left Terra and transferred to Kevarzangia Two a year ago, I made a few friends I never had time for. Worked. Ate. Slept.

  However, here on the Sunlace, I found myself up to my eyebrows in nice, sociable Jorenians who had absolutely no intention of leaving me alone. Ever since I’d been formally adopted by HouseClan Torin, I’d been under siege.

  They signaled me constantly. Invited me to eat, talk, or spend recreation time with them. Stopped by my quarters to chat. Would have stayed and sung me to sleep if I’d asked.

  My biggest problem? Guilt. I suspected all the attention I was getting sprang from sympathy over the death of my Jorenian lover. I was considered a widow in the crew’s eyes. Yet Kao’s death had been my fault.

  Then there was the Allied League of Worlds’ failure to recognize me as a sentient being over the matter of my being a genetic construct-a clone. That ruling had ultimately prompted Joren to rescue me from K-2, adopt me, then break off all relations with the League. Added to that was the bounty the League had put on my head, which constituted more credits than a raider could make in ten lifetimes. Half the mercenaries in the galaxy were probably out hunting for the Sunlace by now.

  In light of all that, I felt the HouseClan should resent me. They thought I should just ignore the whole distasteful business, and stop by for a meal when I was free.

  Eventually (I hoped) I’d get used to it. The Sunlace was currently en route to Joren. HouseClan Torin’s homeworld, in the Varallan Quadrant. Since the journey would take a revolution, equal to a standard Terran year, I had ample time to adjust to my new family. Or to get off the ship.

  “Caution.” Tonetka’s vidisplay sounded an alert. “Multiple incoming emergencies.”

  The Senior Healer and I dropped what we were doing and hurried out into the bay. Squilyp intersected our path. A pair of female educators limped in, carrying an unconscious child between them.

  They were a mess. Shredded garments. White eyes wide with shock. Serious lacerations all over them. A spattered track of greenish Wood on the deck trailed behind them back to the gyrlift panel.

  “Here.” Tonetka hel
ped them place the limp little girl on an open exam pad. Her experienced eye evaluated case priority in a blink. “Cherijo, the child. Squilyp, with me.”

  I performed a visual first. She had a minor head wound, dozens of” shallow contusions, and a few deep ones, all on the front surfaces of her body. Her powder-blue skin felt cool and clammy; her respiration sounded jerky and labored. A quick pass of my scanner revealed the rapid drop in her blood pressure.

  “I need hands over here!” I yelled as I put aside the scanner, then yanked a thermal cover over the child. One of the junior residents joined me at the exam pad, and monitored while I quickly sterilized, masked, and gloved.

  I checked the child’s airways, and found them mercifully clear, “She’s in shock. Oxygen, stat.” The resident took care of that while I attached a fluidic infuser to the small arm.

  “Uhhh...”

  “Easy, sweetheart,” I said as her eyelids fluttered, “You’re going to be fine.” My gaze shifted to the resident, who adjusted the monitor’s sensors from adult to juvenile levels. “What’s her name?”

  “This is Fasala Torin.”

  “Fasala.” My hand lightly stroked her brow. “Honey, can you hear me?”

  “Yes...” Dull with pain, the child’s eyes opened.

  Her gaze made a tight knot form in my chest. Had mercenaries attacked the ship again, without an alarm sounding? What else could have done this? Fasala couldn’t be more than five years old. Just a kid. Bleeding because of me?

  “Heal... er... hurts...”

  I could agonize over the possibilities later. She needed me now. “It’s okay, honey. We’re going to take care of that.” To the resident, I said, “Twenty-five cc’s of pentazaocine.”

  After administering the painkiller, I watched the monitors. The vise on my lungs eased as her levels began to stabilize. Although Fasala slipped back into unconsciousness, the immediate danger of traumatic shock was over.

  She wouldn’t die. I wouldn’t let her.

  The resident rapidly prepared an instrument tray while I ran a second scan series. By then the shallow head wound had stopped bleeding. That was odd; the shallow ones usually gushed like fountains. I frowned when I saw none of the other open gashes were bleeding, either. Jorenians had wonderful physiologies, but their blood didn’t coagulate this fast. Especially not with multiple breaches of the subdermal cartilage layer,