Crystal Healer (15 page)

The day of our departure from Joren arrived, and at dawn Reever and I reported to Torin Main Transport. We had kept Marel up late the night before, saving our farewells for when she went to sleep, and did not wake her to accompany us to the ship. After I told him about the nightmares she had been having, Reever thought it better that she not be there to see the ship launch.

"I know we have to do this, but I still feel as if I'm betraying her by leaving," I confessed as we walked to the lift to board the
Sunlace
. "Her dreams have convinced her that I won't return this time."

"This is not the first time she has had such dreams," Reever said. "For years after the Jado Massacre, she would wake in the night, crying and calling out your name. The nightmares didn't stop until I found you on Akkabarr."

We handed over our cases to the cargo master and entered the boarding lift. Reever held the gate open for a porter carrying a tall stack of slat-sided containers. The Jorenian thanked my husband, grimacing because he could not use his hands to make the usual polite gestures, and braced himself against the back of the lift.

I eyed the stack, which wobbled as the lift jerked into motion. I saw some
t'vessna
petals sticking through the slats, and Marel's voice rang in my ears.

In my dreams you're wearing your blades under your tunic, and there is a little purple flower in your hair. You hug me and kiss me good-bye, and then I never see you again.

I swallowed against my dry throat. "Duncan, why are they loading plants onto the ship?"

"The Jorenians prefer their native foods over synthetics, so the Torin bring a select amount of edibles on board the ship," Reever said. "On long sojourns, they even grow them."

I pointed. "They don't eat those."

"The
t'vessna
are kept in pots in the crew's quarters and common areas to improve the quality of the air. They are also the symbolic flower of HouseClan Torin." Reever looked up and moved quickly to catch the top container as it tipped over and fell from the stack. Some of the contents spilled out and were blown off the lift by the strong morning breeze.

"No," the porter groaned. "That was all the
t'vessna
. There is no time to collect more." He made an archaic gesture. "This is an ill omen for your journey."

I glanced over the side to see the cascading shower of purple blossoms drift down on the head of the bewildered cargo master. "I'm afraid I cannot agree."

At the entrance to the lower docking bay, a smiling duty officer gave us official permission to board the
Sunlace
. Reever helped the porter with his burden, and then turned to say something to me.

When he only gave me an odd look, I asked, "What is it? Did you forget something important?"

"Yes." He pulled me into his arms and tilted my head up, burying his hands in my hair as he kissed me soundly.

"Oh." I grinned. "That was quite important."

He slipped one hand into his tunic pocket. "I am meeting Qonja at the survey lab to recheck the storage units. Why don't you come with me?"

"I should look in on medical first." I saw the concern in his eyes and lowered my voice. "I know you're worried, and the first hours apart from her are always the most difficult for me. But I won't change my mind or jump off the ship. I promise."

"Good." He bent to kiss me again, this time on my brow. "Signal if you need me."

Squilyp had personally supervised preparing the medical bay for the sojourn, and left it in such a state of pristine perfection that I had nothing to do until the rest of the medical staff arrived. I went next to the quarters assigned to me and Reever and unpacked our cases, but that didn't take very long, as neither of us carried much in the way of possessions.

I did set a framed image of our daughter on the table beside our sleeping platform, and spent a moment examining her sweet face.

"As soon as we come back," I told the picture, "we are going to make a home for the three of us. You, me, and Daddy."

Reever and I had left the pavilion without bothering with a meal. I still had no appetite, but to stay busy I prepared a light meal for the men, packed it up in some food containers, and carried it down to the survey lab.

I entered the lab's open door panel and looked around. Nalek had installed a massive amount of equipment, most of which I didn't recognize. I saw my husband and Qonja standing inside a large, seven-sided plas chamber built in one corner; Reever appeared to be mounting a very large specimen container on a console of some sort.

"Duncan? I've brought you two some food." Then I saw the glittering dark column inside the specimen container, and quickly put down the containers. "Why do you have that black crystal in there?"

"It's the specimen we collected from the impact crater on Trellus. We need to study it, and use it for comparison with any new deposits we might find." Reever came out of the chamber through a narrow gap between the plas panels, and after Qonja did the same, a shimmering wall of energy filled the aperture. "We have already discovered some of its properties. The crystal may look solid, but according to our scans it is actually part solid, part plasmoid, and part liquid. There is also a fourth, as yet unclassified, form of matter in the crystal's core."

"How can it be all those things and still look like a shiny rock?" I asked.

"For some matter, existence in a variety of states is possible," he told me. "Water becomes a gas at temperatures above one hundred degrees Celsius, a liquid between zero and one hundred degrees Celsius, and a solid below zero degrees Celsius. If you drop ice into a server of steaming-hot water, you can observe it in all three states."

I eyed the lethal mineral. "
That
is not made of water." "No. While gases, liquids, and solids are the three most common states, there are several others that we have classified, and another hundred or so that have been proven theoretically possible. Matter in dimensional shift, for example, is temporarily converted into a trimorphous solid by the phased energy that moves it from one reality to another." He nodded toward the chamber. "I believe a similar factor is affecting the crystal's physical state."

I didn't care what it was doing; I wanted it off the ship. "What if it gets out of there?"

My husband shook his head. "Drefan provided the container. It's made of etched crystal, and once sealed it cannot be reopened."

I realized I was staring at the crystal and quickly averted my gaze. "You are putting a great deal of faith in a container, Duncan. That crystal is lethal. Even looking at the light it reflects can be dangerous. You can't keep it out in the open."

"The container's shielding prevents any light refraction," Qonja told me, "and if it should fail, the drone response system Nalek Kalea installed will immediately engage. The dimensional grating responds to any spatial distribution of matter."

I turned to my husband. "Explain this in words I can understand."

"The chamber is under constant monitor by a failsafe program. If the crystal's container breaks or is opened, the failsafe takes immediate action to remove it from the ship." He gestured to various parts of the chamber as he spoke. "A probe programmed to fly into the nearest star will enclose the crystal and its container as soon as the breach is detected. The probe will then be ejected from the ship through the chamber's airlock."

"We hardly know anything about the crystal or its properties, except that it controls, maims, and kills any living being that comes in contact with it," I reminded him. "What if something goes wrong with your failsafe and the crystal contaminates the ship? How can we protect the crew?"

"Nalek designed this chamber with a buffer modified to remain in perpetual energy shift," Reever told me. "It will remain engaged for the entire sojourn. Even if the failsafe measures don't work, the crystal cannot escape the chamber."

I still didn't like having it on board. "As soon as we're finished with the survey, I want that specimen dropped into the nearest star."

"I have no desire to begin a collection," my husband assured me as he removed a disk from his tunic pocket and turned away from me. At the same time, something fluttered to the floor, and I bent down to retrieve it.

As I straightened, I closed my hand over it and said, "I have to report to medical. Excuse me."

Only when I was outside in the corridor did I open my hand and stare at what had fallen out of Reever's pocket. It had been crushed by a strong hand, but I recognized it. Several containers of the same had fallen from the lift that morning, just before my husband had taken me in his arms and kissed me.

I remembered the odd look, the feel of his hands in my hair as he kissed me, and went to the nearest disposal unit.

In my dreams you're wearing your blades under your tunic, and there is a little purple flower in your hair.

I dropped the mashed thing in the intake receptacle and switched it on.

You hug me and kiss me good-bye, and then I never see you again.

Once the disposal had reduced the remains of the
t'vessna
flower to an organic mush, I vented the unit's contents into space.

An hour later, when the entire crew had reported for duty, I held a brief meeting in medical to introduce myself and become acquainted with my new staff. Squilyp had given me a full complement of experienced nurses, three interns, and an orthopedic resident in her second year. Jylyj, however, was the most experienced physician on staff, and with some misgivings I designated him as the Supervising Healer, which gave him the right to act as Senior Healer whenever I was off duty or not on board the ship.

"Unless the sojourn requires us to do otherwise, we will work standard three-shift rotations," I told my staff. "As we have no patients at present, your first assignment is to run diagnostic checks on all of the equipment. I know Senior Healer Squilyp likely had you do that before we left Joren"--I noted the wry smiles all around--"but the stress of launching and transitioning has been known to cause random equipment malfunctions. We don't want to assume everything is working; we want to be certain of it. Do you have any questions?"

One nurse lifted her hand in a polite gesture. When I nodded to her, she said, "Very little information on the oKiaf is available from our database, Healer Jarn. Is there a comparable species we can study in order to better prepare for the jaunt down to the planet?"

"The Skartesh and the oKiaf possess nearly identical physiologies," Jylyj said, startling me. "You may access my medical records, or request data from Kevarzangia Two. The physicians at the colony's free clinic have treated thousands of Skartesh refugees."

I didn't know whether to admire or suspect the Skartesh for recommending the medical staff contact K-2 for more information on his species while making his own records available to them. He either had nothing to hide or had hidden the truth so well he presumed they would never discover it.

Before I could comment on his generosity, a voice from the bay com panel announced that the ship would be transitioning in five minutes.

Like my former self, I had trouble staying conscious during the interdimensional jumps the Jorenians used to shorten the length of their sojourns. I ended the meeting and asked a nurse to accompany me to one of the isolation rooms, where I occupied a berth and had her restrain me.

Jylyj appeared and looked down at me. "What are you doing?"

"Sparing myself some bruises." At his blank look, I added, "I often lose consciousness during ship transitions. This spares the crew much of the trouble involved with reviving me."

"Have you ever determined why you faint during transition?" he asked, taking out a scanner.

"Squilyp and I have both tried, to no avail. The Omorr thinks it has something to do with my brain chemistry." I frowned as he initiated a cerebral scan. "We have not yet transitioned, so that is useless."

"The technology the Jorenians use for transitioning first releases a modified phase-energy pulse to create a dimensional aperture." He switched on a pen light and checked my pupils. "You may be sensitive to the effects of the pulse."

I blinked. "No one else faints or sees the ship turn into a swirl of color."

"No being undergoing a dimensional transformation preserves its sense of spatial relation." He spoke absently as he scrolled through the scan.

"I read no signs of injury or infection, and yet your white-cell count is elevated." He scanned me a second time. "It is still increasing."

"My immune system has been enhanced to respond more aggressively than the average Terran's." I felt the vibration of the
Sunlace
's engines growing stronger, and closed my eyes as I braced myself. "Whatever happens, don't code me."

I felt Jylyj bending over me a moment before the sickening slam of the ship's transition took over my senses and sent them into overload. My stomach dropped as the unpleasant sensations of reality bending and twisting around me grew unbearable. I felt something else--a touch on my face--before the stress and nausea rendered me unconscious.

When I next awoke, I still felt the vibrations of the engines, although now they were subsiding. The Skartesh no longer stood beside the berth, but had been replaced by one of the senior nurses.

She flinched with surprise when I asked her to release the restraints. "Your pardon, Healer Jarn. We were told you would likely remain unconscious for several hours."

My brow felt very warm, and my stomach clenched slightly with a remnant nausea that vanished as soon as the nurse released me and I sat up. "How long has it been?"

She glanced at her wristcom. "Three minutes, forty seconds since the ship completed transition."

I had been healing faster than my former self; perhaps I was adjusting to transition better. I got up, walking slowly until I felt sure I had regained my equilibrium, and then washed the sweat from my face at the scrub unit. As I used a linen to dry myself, I remembered Jylyj's comment about my white-cell count and performed a quick blood scan. All of my counts read at normal levels.