Dream Called Time (10 page)

HouseClan Adan’s newest and largest medical facility had been recently built in the very center of the halo city, and occupied nearly three-quarters of the multilevel structures in the circular construct.

Shon guided me to the physicians’ entrance, where a friendly receptionist scanned our wristcoms before directing us to an isolation ward on the top level.

“Why are they verifying identifications?” I asked the oKiaf in the lift. The last time I’d been on Joren, no one had asked me to prove who I was.

“Someone attempted to use a patient at a Torin medical facility as a bomb,” he said.

“Who were they trying to blow up?” When he gave me an ironic look, I groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“The device was deliberately sabotaged before it was implanted so that it could be discovered before it detonated,” he told me. “The mercenary who arranged it wanted Jarn and Reever to leave Joren so they could be forced to crash-land on Trellus.”

“Those little details weren’t in Xonea’s encrypted files.” I wondered what else had been omitted.

“Another version of the facts was presented to the Torins to avoid a subsequent invasion of Trellus. The colonists were shielded, but it would be best for everyone concerned if you discuss this matter only with Reever.” The lift came to a stop, but he put out a paw to stop me from exiting. “I have no wish to intrude on your personal life, but you cannot hide in your work to avoid settling matters with your mate.”

I smiled a little. “Oh, everything is settled now, Shon.”

On the isolation ward we found an entire staff of Jorenian healers and nurses busy arranging equipment and preparing different work areas. Apalea appeared to be supervising, but the delegation was absent, and ChoVa and PyrsVar were also nowhere to be seen.

“Where are my Hsktskt?” I asked the Senior Healer.

“The delegates are meeting with our ClanLeader to strike a formal agreement between our peoples.” She nodded toward the back of the ward. “The healer and her patient await you in assessment room one.” She handed a stack of surgical shrouds to a nurse before she added, “The Hsktskt healer seems somewhat agitated by the alterformed male.”

Poor Apalea, she hadn’t picked up on the underlying reason for that. “If we can restore him, they’ll probably mate.”

“Mother of all Houses.” Her eyes widened.
“Here?”

I felt a surge of sour amusement. “I think we can persuade them to first return to Vtaga for the proper rituals.”

I asked Shon to inspect the surgical suite while I went to check on my patient and his healer. I found both sitting in silence; ChoVa read a chart while PyrsVar toyed with his vocollar. Neither of them would look at each other, and I saw why when I spotted a monitor array in pieces on the floor, and a tail-shaped dent in the wall.

“All right, children,” I said as I stepped in. “Before the Jorenians and the oKiaf join us, let’s get something straight.” I addressed ChoVa. “When you are on this ward, you are a physician, and my assistant. If you have a problem with the patient, you bring it to me.” As I heard PyrsVar make a snickering sound, I turned to him. “And you will cooperate and do as you’re told without giving me or Healer ChoVa any lip, or I will see to it that you’re realterformed into a mud-dwelling, slime-eating Ichthorii.”

“He will not follow my orders,” ChoVa told me, her tongue lashing the air between us. “He would rather behave like a youngling and destroy valuable equipment.”

“I did not care for the sounds it made,” the rogue snapped. “SrrokVar strapped me to a thing that made the same noise and left me to burn in my hide for three rotations.”

“The equipment can look and sound a little scary,” I agreed, “but we are going to try not to hurt you. If something causes you pain, all you have to do is tell us, and we’ll stop the procedure. Do you understand me?”

“He says he wants this, but he cannot control his temper,” I heard ChoVa mutter.

“Is that right?” I gestured to the wall. “What calm, levelheaded person in the room did that?”I dropped my hand and sighed. “This is going to be difficult for all of us. And remember, we’re the guests of a species with zero tolerance for bad tempers. If you threaten or cause harm to a member of the Jorenian staff, whether you mean it or not, they can declare ClanKill and use their claws to have you eviscerated alive—and I won’t be able to stop them.”

ChoVa grimaced, but PyrsVar looked down at his alterformed claws and then grinned at me. “I knew these had to be good for something.”

I decided the youngsters needed some time apart, and after I gave ChoVa the data I had obtained from Squilyp, I told her to download it into the ward’s database. PyrsVar I took across to the wardroom he would be occupying for the duration, and had him strip down to his skin while I prepared my scanners.

“I cannot wait to have my other limbs restored to me,” he said as he dropped his garments on the floor and stretched. “Four are not enough. Will you grow back what SrrokVar cut off?”

I glanced at the faint marks on his torso left by the amputation of two of his Hsktskt midlimbs. “We’ll see. Now lie down on that berth and relax.”

After taking his vitals, which were abnormal for both species, I began scanning at the top of his head and worked my way down to his chest.

His brain presented predominantly natal reptilian features and functions, and the few humanoid characteristics that had been added were mainly involuntary: the ability to produce his own body heat, adrenaline, sweat, and hair. When I got to his chest, however, I found two sets of cardiorespiratory systems, eight kidneys, a freakish-looking liver that appeared to be cobbled together from Jorenian and Hsktskt organs. And then there was the mystery mass that my scanner failed to identify.

I set the device aside and palpated a spot just to the bottom left of his chest plate.

He immediately scowled. “That hurts me.”

“I’m sorry.” I picked up my scanner again and studied the display before inspecting his hide. “Were you wounded in that place?”

“No. It has always been so, since my earliest memory.”

Whatever was inside him was congenital, and definitely of Hsktskt origin. It didn’t show any aspects indicating that it was a tumor or other form of malignancy. But with its complicated structures and vascular supply, and what looked like a rib it had at some time absorbed, it didn’t even vaguely resemble any of their organs on record.

I’d have to take a biopsy and determine exactly what it was before I decided if it needed to be safely removed along with the other, redundant Jorenian implants.

“Why do you make your face like that?” PyrsVar asked.

I saved the new data before I met his gaze. “You are the most complicated patient I have ever had.”

He flashed his pointed teeth. “No, I am simple. ChoVa has told me so, many times. Did her father ask you to kill me?”

“Let’s just say that he cares for his daughter more than he wants your throat cut.” I sat down on the edge of the berth. “PyrsVar, there is a group of crossbreeds on Joren who have formed their own HouseClan, the Kalea. All of them are like you: half Jorenian, half some other species. From what I’ve heard, at least two of them are part reptilian. It might be wise to take a trip to their territory and meet them.”

He looked puzzled. “You wish me to befriend these people?”

“Friendships can lead to other things,” I agreed. “As you are right now, you can walk out of here, live a seminormal life, and maybe, with a little luck and very selective mating, reproduce.”

“But not with a pure-blood Hsktskt female.”

“No.” I went ahead and gave him the second option. “I believe I can also perform some cosmetic procedures to alter your physical appearance to that of a Hsktskt, which would allow you to reside on Vtaga and blend in better with your natal species.”

“You mean you would not take out the Jorenian parts. You would only change my outsides.” He muttered something under his breath that sounded vicious.

I sighed. “There is no need to get agitated. As your doctor, it would be irresponsible of me to attempt a full restoration without first offering some safer alternatives.”

“I do not want safe,” he informed me. “I want ChoVa.” He seized my hand. “You will help make me worthy of her, so that her father does not slit my gullet, and she does not take another mate.”

“All right. If I couldn’t have my love, then maybe making it possible for my namesake to have hers would fill a little of the ragged hole in my heart. “I’ll try.”

Once I had inspected the ward and filed a few requests for some additional equipment, I called the staff together in an adjoining conference room and met my new crew.

Apalea had outdone herself in finding experienced professionals with backgrounds in genetics, reconstructive surgery, and hybrid physiology. Along with four other medical physicians of various specialties, I had six residents, ten interns, and a small horde of intensive care nurses.

After all the introductions had been made and work assignments handed out, I presented my preliminary scan results to the staff. The room fell quiet as I detailed the brutal amount of augmentation and alterformation that had been forced on PyrsVar, as well as some of my immediate concerns.

“Keeping him stable is our first priority, so your primary responsibility is to ensure that our patient remains on schedule with his meds,” I told the nurses. “If his regime is interrupted again, his immune system will revert to its natal functions again and begin attacking the Jorenian organs. Given the amount of damage the last episode caused, he probably won’t survive a repeat.”

One of the physicians, a healer who worked in pediatric genotherapy, made a polite gesture to catch my attention. When I nodded to her, she said, “Healer Cherijo, since the process used to alterform this male has been lost, how will we know how to proceed?”

“PyrsVar remembers what was done to him,” I told her. “He has no medical training, but already today I’ve learned that his midlimbs and tail were amputated before his remaining limbs were alterformed, and he was left in a dermal regenerating unit for three days.”

Several of the nurses looked shocked while the healers murmured among themselves.

“He wasn’t well treated by the psychopath who did this to him. He’ll never admit it, but he’s afraid. So when you work with this patient, take into consideration the amount of abuse he’s already suffered, and try to be gentle.” I turned to another resident who had gestured for my attention. “Yes?”

“That mass in the left lower quadrant”—he pointed to the odd organ I had discovered in PyrsVar’s chest—“does not have an apparent function. What is it?”

“I don’t know.” I glanced at ChoVa. “Were you able to identify it?”

“We did not recognize the mass, so we assumed it was Jorenian in pathology,” she replied.

That wasn’t good. “It scans as reptilian, not humanoid, on the cellular level. He claims to have had it since early childhood, perhaps birth.”

“May I, Healer?” Our pediatrician took my scanner and peered at the display. “These rows of echoes bisecting the central compartment suggest a pedunculated vertebrate tumor.”

“The fibrous membrane could be a chorioamnionic complex,” another healer put in. “The other incorporated structures are unfamiliar to me, but they appear similar to what is presented by a malformed monozygotic diamniotic parasite.”

“Fetus-in-fetu.” I nodded, and then caught Cho-Va’s blank look. “Hsktskt births are always multiple. PyrsVar must have absorbed another fetus while in utero.”

ChoVa’s jaw dropped. “He is impregnated with a sibling?”

“It happens.” To the curious interns, I said, “The fetus becomes embedded due to a repercussion of vitelline circulation anastomoses. The absorbed twin probably suffered a developmental delay which resulted in multiple reversed arterial perfusion syndrome.”

The pediatrician nodded. “We see the same mechanism at work in the gestation of acardiac twins. The reversal of the arterial flow retards the growth and cardiac development of the impaired twin, which is then embedded in the larger, stronger fetus.” She frowned. “Healer ChoVa, this condition should have been detected at birth and the mass excised from the patient’s chest. This disorder also becomes readily apparent from the parasite’s slow but continued growth and compression of the adjacent organs. He has likely been in pain his entire life. Why does this remain untreated?”

“The male is the offspring of a disgraced pariah. As such he had no recognized bloodline, and was not entitled to the rights and benefits afforded to our citizens.” ChoVa’s inner eyelids drooped. “Other than what was done to him during the alterformation process, this is the first time in his life he has received medical care.”

“I see.” The healer didn’t verbally express her contempt, but it was written all over her face.

“Many of my colleagues and I do not hold with our species’ custom of punishing the young for the crimes of their sires,” ChoVa said. “You are doubtless familiar with the cultural implications of disrupted or disgraced lineal status. For years your people were largely unsuccessful in integrating offspring of slave rape into your society.”

“We refer to them as ‘the ClanChildren of Honor.’” The healer’s disdain abruptly faded from her expression. “Your pardon, Healer ChoVa. Perhaps our people are more alike than either world cares to believe.”

“No one is seeing the value of this aberration,” I pointed out. When everyone looked at me, I added, “The fetus-in-fetu is a twin. It will contain the same DNA PyrsVar had when he was born. We can harvest the unadulterated genetic material we need directly from it.”

“How would you use it?” ChoVa asked.

“Rather than try to remove the Jorenian organs from the Hsktskt, we could infect them with a retroviral compound that would deliver the natal DNA and encode it into the Jorenian sequences.”

“That would work very quickly.” Apalea looked thoughtful. “But would the body be able to withstand such rapid transformation?”

“It’s worth exploring.” The room intercom chimed, and I went over to answer it. “Yes?”

“Healer Cherijo, we have received a summons from the Ruling Council,” Apalo told me. “They have requested that you attend them in chambers at once.”