Dream Called Time (20 page)

Maggie nodded. “You must take away what is lethal before you give her what she is missing. I can do this.”

My daughter’s pulse had grown so faint I could barely detect it on my scanner. “What do you need?”

A few moments later we had rigged a transfuser from my arm to Marel’s. I clamped off the tubing halfway and fitted a dialysis reservoir between us.

“All right, now what?” I asked Maggie.

“I will purify it.” She crouched down, releasing the clamp and slowly filling the reservoir with a pint of my blood. As soon as it was full, she cupped it between her hands, bombarding it with the strange light energy she used.

I watched my blood turn clear. “You’re removing the platelets. If all she needed was some plasma, why didn’t you say so?”

“It is more than plasma,” Maggie murmured as she concentrated. “It does not have a name because you have not yet discovered it. Now shut up.”

I bit my lip and looked over at my husband. He was kneeling beside the berth and holding our daughter’s hand, but he was staring at me.

“How long has she been able to do this?” I asked him.

“She teleported herself and TssVar’s son on Vtaga,” he said. “That was the last time that I know she attempted it.”

I was still angry with him. “Why didn’t you just lie to her when the ship disappeared?”

“After you went missing from Oenrall, I lied to her for years,” he said, the lines of weariness around his mouth and nose deepening. “I told her you were still alive and just waiting for us to find you. That we had to keep looking.”

“That wasn’t a lie.”

“I knew you were dead. I wouldn’t admit it to myself—I couldn’t—but somewhere inside me, I could feel it.” His eyes turned to a glassy blue. “Lying to myself and our child was all that kept me sane during those years. Finding Jarn was . . .” He trailed off and shook his head. “It was wrong to take Jarn from her friends and her people. But we needed you, and she was all that was left.”

“You can stop there.” I didn’t want to hear the story of his big romance again. I looked at Maggie, who had taken her hands away from the reservoir. “Is it ready?”

“Yes.” She released the clamp on the transfuse tube and allowed the clear fluid to slowly seep into my daughter’s veins.

“If this poisons her,” I said in a low voice, “I will spend the rest of my existence finding a way to kill you, Jxin.”

She looked more puzzled than worried. “Even if you could, then you would die.”

“Why would I want to live without her?” I felt dizzy and closed my eyes.

It took what felt like an eternity before I saw the first signs of color returning to my daughter’s small face. Then her blood pressure rose and her heart rate steadied. As I removed the needle from my arm, her breathing became more regular.

I didn’t relax; what we had done was beyond foolhardy. But after another hour of constant monitoring, and no signs of any toxic reaction to the transfusion, some of the tension eased out of my shoulders.

“She will be well now,” Maggie said. “You have saved her life.”

“So did you.” I studied her lovely, indifferent face, and wondered how she could rip apart a man and then save a little girl, all within the space of a few hours. “Thank you.”

She imitated my smile. “Now will you tell me how you were able to use the collector?”

ChoVa and Shon took over monitoring PyrsVar and Kao in recovery so that I could stay with my daughter. Maggie seemed content to watch the maintenance crew repair the damage from the vortex, and when that palled, she created exotic concoctions at the prep unit and tried to coax the nursing staff into sampling them. To be safe, I summoned a couple of security guards to keep an eye on her. That left me alone with Reever in the isolation room where I’d moved Marel so she could rest undisturbed.

I expected that my husband would want to know what had happened to us since the
Sunlace
had been swallowed up by the rift. When he held his hand out to me, I realized giving him access to my mind was the simplest and quietest way to update him. So I let him initiate a link, but I didn’t try to project any thoughts to him. Instead I let him search through my memories and see whatever he wanted.

You have not discovered how to return to our time,
he thought to me.
Can Maggie re-create the rift that brought the ship here?

I don’t know,
I admitted.
Maybe. She has tremendous power, but she’s also unpredictable. I’d rather find our own means of getting back home.

I could attempt to communicate with the protocrystal and persuade it to help us.
He winced as the memories of the Core plague and the possession of the oKiaf welled up into my thoughts.
Then again, perhaps not.

After seeing what it did to Shon, I vote no.
I could feel the edge of something dark in his mind, an emotion he was trying to suppress. All of it centered around Marel.
I have been through this before, Duncan. If my blood had hurt her, I would have found the beginning stages of toxicity by now. She’s going to recover.

I believe you.
He seemed a little uncomfortable that I had picked up on his negative emotion.
I can’t lose her now, Cherijo. Not after losing both you and Jarn. I would not survive it.

You found me again.
Resentment still filled a few corners in my heart, but the prospect of never seeing my family again had made his betrayal seem less monstrous than before. If I was going to be completely honest, he hadn’t betrayed me; he’d simply tried to cope. It wasn’t his fault he’d fallen in love with Jarn, or because of it he’d realized that he’d never been in love with me. None of this had happened by my choice or his.

Maybe, I thought, if I let go of the last of my pride and tried to take Jarn’s place in his life, eventually he might learn how to feel some affection for me again.

What are you thinking?

You’re occupying my mind, Duncan. If you can’t tell, we’re both in a lot of trouble.

He laced his fingers through mine.
You are not as simple to read as you once were. Part of your mind is closed to me now. It has been since you returned.

I was thinking I’d rather be a poor substitute for Jarn than go on living alone.
I squeezed his hand.
When all this is over and we’re back on Joren, we should do like you said, and talk about it. Try to work things out.

You would do that?
He touched my cheek.

My motives are completely selfish, trust me.
I glanced up and broke the link between us as I saw ChoVa gesturing at me from the view panel. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I murmured before I slipped out of the room.

“I regret disturbing you, but the Jorenian male has regained consciousness,” she told me. “Shon thought you should be the one to first speak with him.”

“Signal the captain and ask him to come down here,” I said. “Assign one of the nurses to keep an eye on Marel and Reever for me, too.”

It wasn’t easy to walk into recovery and see Kao Torin sitting up in his berth and looking around him with his gentle, curious eyes. When he saw me, he made a simple gesture of greeting and smiled when I returned it.

“How are you feeling, ClanSon?” I asked as I scanned his chest.

“I fear I am a little confused.” He politely waited until I had completed my first scan before he asked, “Where am I?”

“You’re on the
Sunlace
.” Giving him too much information might cause him to panic, so I kept the details to a minimum as I briefed him. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I cannot say for certain. I had left Joren to serve as a pilot at a new colony. I remember being on patrol.” He peered up at me. “May I know your name, Healer?”

“I’m Cherijo Torin,” I said, watching his face. He gave no reaction to my name. “Your HouseClan adopted me some time ago. I’m the Senior Healer on this vessel.”

“Tonetka Torin retired at last, did she?” He chuckled. “Captain Pnor often despaired that she never would. May I speak with the captain?”

“Pnor embraced the stars some time ago, ClanSon.” His readings were in good ranges; he was simply weak from blood loss and, I imagined, the shock of being built out of an alterform’s spare parts. “We have a new captain now.”

“Kao?”

Xonea strode into recovery and stood over his ClanBrother, his eyes wide as he looked all over him and then at me. “How has this happened?”

“You would have the Senior Healer explain the matter of our kinship, ClanBrother?” Kao joked. “Surely you have not forgotten the hundred times ClanFather has told that tale at the gatherings.”

“Mother of all Houses. He is Kao.” Xonea turned chalk white. “Returned to us as you were.”

“There’s a bit more to it than that.” I touched Xonea’s arm. “Your ClanBrother’s last memory was his last assignment as a pilot.”

He pinned me with a sharp glance. “He does not recall you?”

“Have we met before, Healer?” Kao asked mildly. “Your pardon, but I do not remember you.”

“No pardon is required, ClanSon. Would you excuse us for a moment?” When he nodded, I led Xonea out of recovery and closed the door panel. “Maggie removed all the Jorenian organs and DNA from PyrsVar, and re-created Kao from them. He has retained some memory of his past life, but evidently nothing beyond his transfer to K-2.”

“These organs taken from the Hsktskt were cloned from my brother’s cells. This male never lived as Kao Torin. And yet . . . he is my ClanBrother. His voice, his hands . . .” He looked through the viewer. “I know that bodies can be duplicated, but how could anyone re-create a life lost?”

“His life was not lost, Jorenian.” Maggie came to stand by the viewer and looked in on our patient.

“That man died in my arms ten years ago,” I told her, my hands curling into fists. “Don’t you tell me he was still alive when we put him in that capsule.”

“The body died,” she assured me. “Before that, you gave him your blood. It changed his cells. It preserved what he was.”

“No.” I swallowed. “My blood is what killed him.”

“This is because you are impure. Like the other, but more complicated.” She regarded me. “Do you wish me to separate you?”

I thought of Jarn, and how happy Reever would be to have her back. “Sorry, but I don’t have another body sitting inside my chest.”

She shrugged, and started to say something else, when she frowned and turned toward the starboard side of the ship. “There is another vessel approaching.”

“You claimed that you did not have any ships,” Xonea said.

“It does not belong to the Jxin.” Her expression cleared. “It is only the undesirables.”

Something hit the side of the
Sunlace
, rocking the deck under our feet.

“They are shooting at you,” Maggie said helpfully.

Thirteen

Xonea left Medical while the staff and I secured our patients and prepared for incoming wounded. I went to the isolation room to check on Marel, who was still sleeping, and brief Reever on the situation.

“Unless Xonea needs you to negotiate with these people,” I told him, “I want you to stay here with her.”

“I am not leaving her.” He glanced out at the nurses hurrying to prep our staging area. “What provoked this attack?”

“We’ve been signaling for help since we got here.” I bent down to kiss my little girl on the brow. “This is probably why they didn’t respond.”

Maggie didn’t protest when I put her to work preparing triage gurneys and instrument trays, although she seemed a little bewildered by our response to the attack.

“They have a faster vessel, and more powerful weapons,” she told me. “You should not shoot back.”

I’d already heard the sonic cannons booming as Xonea returned fire. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Why are they attacking us, Maggie? What did we do?”

“It is not what you did; it is what they do.” She shrugged, and then said something even more ominous. “That is why there are no others. They attacked and killed all of them.”

The first wave of wounded arrived from a lower level that had suffered heavy damage and some sort of explosion. The crew’s injuries were a combination of impact fractures and serious burns. Whatever weapons the Odnallak were using employed a lethal phosphorous compound I’d never seen before: one that flash-burned on contact and then continued to burn through the derma down through the muscle and bone tissue, charring everything in its path. Three crew members died before I found the right counter-agent to neutralize it.

Shon joined me as I finished assessing a navigator with spinal trauma. Jorenian blood spattered the front of the oKiaf’s tunic, and he looked ready to maul someone. “I will do what I can here.”

“Don’t overextend your ability,” I warned him. “I’m going to need you in surgery.”

Grimly I reported our status to Command, issued orders for the neutralizer to be administered to every burn victim who came in for treatment, and then took my first patient, a female with severe head trauma, into surgery.

The battle raged on, and as the ship shuddered and jerked around us, I wondered how long the stardrive core would hold up. If the Odnallak were able to successfully locate and target it, this fight and the ship wouldn’t last much longer.

I worked as fast as I dared to remove tiny fragments of bone from my patient’s brain before I closed and called for the next patient.

Time and faces began to blur as I operated to save patients with crushed rib cages, fractured spines, and battered organs. At some point I realized the fight had ended, but then we began having disruptions in our power supply, and I had to give the order to switch the bay over to the emergency generators in order to maintain life support systems for the critically wounded.

When I had a minute between cases, I looked in on Shon and ChoVa, who were working in the other surgical suites, and the residents, who were handling the now-overflowing triage. I issued orders to our logistics technicians for them to set up every available chamber on our level as temporary patient wards. Our caseload surpassed twenty, then fifty, then reached a hundred before security stopped carrying in wounded.

Six hours after the battle, almost one-third of the crew had reported or had been brought to Medical for treatment.

Xonea signaled me sometime that night. “We have negotiated a cease-fire.”

“Thank God.” I stripped off one bloody glove before I rubbed my tired eyes. “What are the terms?”

“We are to follow them to their homeworld and surrender some of our people to them for questioning.”

I didn’t like that. “Who do they want?”

“Maggie, you, Duncan, the Hsktskt, and the oKiaf.” Before I could ask, he added, “They would not explain how they knew your names, or why they wish to question you.”

I glanced at the isolation room. “Can we jump away from here?”

“Only if we wish to finish what the Odnallak started. The stardrive is inoperable and on the verge of implosion.” He sounded old and very tired. “Cherijo, we cannot escape or continue to fight. Presently the only thing holding the ship together is the protocrystal. If I am to make repairs and save the crew . . .”

“I’ll speak to the others, and we’ll get ready,” I promised. I already knew what their answer would be. “All I want in return is for you to protect Marel, and get everyone home. Do whatever it takes, even if it means leaving us here.”

“I will, ClanSister.”

We arrived at Odnalla two days later and assumed orbit above the planet. I caught a few hours of sleep now and then on a cot in Marel’s room in between caring for our patients. Reever never left her side and ate only when I brought food to him, and slept in the chair beside her berth only when I threatened to sedate him. Our exhausted daughter slept a great deal, but the few times she woke, she was alert and coherent, if a little confused. She had no memory of teleporting to the
Sunlace
, and in particular watched me with wary eyes.

“Healer Cherijo,” she said on the second day, when I paid her a visit during my morning rounds, “you are my mama, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” The lapses in her memory did concern me, but considering the trauma she had suffered, they weren’t unexpected. “Do you remember being with me on Joren?” Her curls bounced as she shook her head. “I came to see you after Jarn left.”

She looked at me, and then her father. “Daddy? Who is Jarn?”

Reever exchanged a look with me before he said, “She was a friend of ours who stayed with us while your mother was away.”

“Oh.” She yawned and her eyelids began to droop. “Was she nice?”

“She was very nice.” I sat down on the edge of the berth and held her hand. “Marel, try to stay awake a little longer. I need to ask you some questions to see how well you can think now. Do you know how old you are?”

“Four.” She frowned. “No. Nine. I’m nine years old.”

I didn’t have time to run a full neurological series on her; I’d have to hope I’d have the chance when we returned from the planet. If we returned. “Can you tell me where you were before you and Daddy came to the ship to see me?”

“In the courtyard at the pavilion. I was finishing my schoolwork. I was sad.” She sighed. “I’m very tired, Mama. Can’t I rest now?”

“All right, baby. Go back to sleep.” I held her hand until she drifted off, and then gestured for Reever to come with me.

Outside her room, we both watched her through the view panel.

“Has she suffered brain damage?” my husband asked, his voice tight.

“I don’t think so.” I rested a hand on his shoulder. “This amnesia was trauma-induced, and it’s not completely retrograde. She remembers only select events and facts. I think her mind has chosen to forget what has hurt her most.”

“Losing Jarn.”

I nodded. “She feels responsible for what happened to Jarn.” I related what Marel had confessed to me during the surreptitious signal she had sent from Joren, and added, “I tried to reassure her that it wasn’t her fault, Duncan. I wasn’t happy about her transferring her affections to Jarn, but I would never allow her to think she was to blame for her death.”

“She tried to warn Jarn and me of what was going to happen,” he said slowly. “Somehow she knew when we left Joren for oKia that she would never see Jarn again.”

Xonea signaled to let us know that the launch was ready to take us down to the planet, and that during preflight checks the bay chief had discovered the protocrystal had already retreated from the hull doors.

“It wants us to go down there,” I said as I peered through the viewport at the Odnallak’s dark and dismal-looking homeworld. “But why?”

“Perhaps we were meant to meet them as well as the Jxin,” Reever suggested.

None of it made sense to me. Both species had advanced well beyond our capabilities; even if the Odnallak were less evolved than the Jxin, the massive ship they had sent to attack us had more than enough firepower to vaporize the
Sunlace
. One of the technicians I’d given a follow-up exam to had mentioned scanning a number of worlds we had passed on the sojourn to Odnalla. All of them were dead worlds that appeared to have been attacked from orbit, so viciously that every trace of life had been wiped out.

“PyrsVar was displeased when I told him we were sojourning down to the planet,” ChoVa told me as we left Medical. “I was obliged to sedate him so that he would not try to follow us.”

“Smart idea. His body is still adjusting to all the changes.” I glanced at Maggie and lowered my voice. “She doesn’t seem to be worried about meeting the enemy.”

“I can hear you,” Maggie said. “I do not worry. The undesirables can do nothing to me.”

ChoVa flicked out her tongue. “She has no fear.”

“Or common sense,” Shon put in.

Maggie sighed. “I can still hear you.”

None of us were carrying weapons, but Reever went to weapons storage and helped himself to several daggers. After a thoughtful glance, Shon joined him, and the two returned looking slightly more at ease.

“You know they’re probably going to disarm you the minute we step off the launch,” I advised my husband and the oKiaf.

“They may try,” Reever said.

“What is it with males and the unknown that makes them resort to weapons?” ChoVa asked me as we boarded.

I hefted my case onto an upper rack. “It’s probably the reason our response is to pack extra medical supplies.”

With the exception of Maggie, we were all on edge. We were surrendering ourselves to an enemy that had likely destroyed almost all the other civilizations in this region. Not knowing their intentions or what we would be facing down on the planet didn’t help matters.

During the flight Reever briefed us on the surface conditions. “The climate is harsh, and the atmosphere thin. Gravity will be half of what we are accustomed to, so curtail your movements. The Odnallak appear to have resurfaced most of the landmasses to serve their population. Natural resources have been exhausted; they rely heavily on their technology and offworld sources to support life.”

“Are they raiders?” ChoVa asked.

“Scans indicate more than a thousand types of nonindigenous life-forms,” he told her. “We must assume they imported these creatures from surrounding solar systems.”

My husband’s information was chilling, but even so it didn’t prepare us for what we saw as we approached the landing coordinates the Odnallak had transmitted.

Towering structures, industrial facilities, and transportation systems covered every inch of land as far as the eye could see. Which wasn’t very far at all, considering how much the Odnallak had polluted their atmosphere. A thick, dirty-looking fog hovered over the metropolis, darkening from a maroon color at the outer limits where their sun still penetrated to an ugly gray at surface level. The only water I saw was a sickly-looking green color, and was funneling through wide alloy canals between the structures.

“Open sewers.” ChoVa drew back from the viewport. “What manner of people are these Odnallak, that they would dwell in their own filth?”

We got the answer to that as soon as we landed, and our pilot was instructed to lower to the docking ramp. My first inhalation of the planet’s air made me choke—it was so tainted—and I grabbed breathers and quickly passed them around to the others.

“Keep them on until we get inside a sealed structure,” I ordered, and then took Reever’s hand and walked down the ramp.

The group waiting for us on the dock all wore helmets and protective garments, and carried their own air supply on their backs. They also held glowing spheres that they extended like weapons. One of them pointed at us and swept his arm around toward a nearby elevated transport system while the others flanked us.

We walked to the rail transport, climbed inside one of the compartments, and stood waiting as some of the Odnallak came in behind us. The compartment’s doors closed, and I nearly fell over as the transport took off at high speed.

“This is like a visitors’ tram,” I murmured, watching the Odnallak city flash by as the transport sped along. “Only who wants to tour this place?”

One of the Odnallak’s helmets turned toward me, and through it he issued a stern command.

How were we supposed to answer their questions if they weren’t going to make the slightest effort to communicate with us? “I guess that means be quiet.”

The transport stopped at one of the largest structures at the very edge of the city, where we were escorted off the compartment, then led through a tunnel and into the gigantic building. We passed through three different chambers that scanned us and blasted us with different gases before we reached the interior.

Once inside, our captors removed their helmets and began speaking to one another in hard, clipped voices. I didn’t recognize their language, but their features held me riveted.

They were all male, each with the same black hair and dark blue eyes. Their faces were scarred, bitter masks, some showing open sores, broken capillaries, and other signs of ill health, but other than those aberrations their features were nearly identical—and their features were Terran. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing until one of them moved and a light emitter illuminated the gray sheen of his dark hair.

The Odnallak all looked as if they could be my brothers.

I shook my head, wrenching my hand from Reever’s and backing away. “This is a mistake. A trick. They’re shape-shifters—they’re doing this deliberately.” I turned and ran toward the decon chambers.

Our pilot caught me and smiled down at me. “You cannot leave. You have just arrived.”

I knew I was behaving irrationally, but I couldn’t overcome the terror I felt. “Get me out of here.”

“This is your home, Cherijo.” The pilot’s face began to pale and seemed to dwindle as his body shrank inside his uniform. His black hair pulled back into his skull and took on a gray cast, while his white-within-white eyes formed new, dark blue irises. He smiled, baring Terran teeth, and when he spoke, it was in the same language as that of the other Odnallak. Then he looked into my eyes and tried to touch my face.