His to Take (8 page)

Neodyma. Iridia. And the icy world farthest from the warmth of the twin suns Phalyx and Zalyx—Gadolinium
.

* * *

Earth 2734 AD

Her hands shook as she stroked the cloth over his naked body. He stirred once, and she stopped, studying his face carefully to see if any trace of awareness had returned. But his eyes remained closed, his breathing slow and labored. Still, his heart beat strong… as strong as the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, nearly two months ago.

* * *

Dabbing carefully at the dried blood, Selena assessed the extent of her patient’s injuries. He’d sustained numerous slash wounds and one vicious stab that penetrated deep into his chest below the ribcage. She ran the scanner over his body, starting at his head.
Brain intact. Functions impaired due to reduced blood flow.
That came as no surprise. His body was drenched in blood. She’d never seen a creature so badly wounded, yet still breathing. He must have an incredible will to live.

She ran it over his torso. Just as she feared. His liver and spleen had been ripped in half by the stab wound. She sealed the wound temporarily with her laser wand. He’d need a new liver and spleen, but their functions could be taken over for now with her lab equipment. Growing the new organs, however, would take a few months. Until then, she decided, he’d be best off kept in sleep mode. She continued on, the scanner beeping ominously over and over, alerting her that organ after organ was nearing failure.

She thought back to the handwritten note clasped in his hand when they brought him in. Two guards had burst into her lab, gasping for breath after running full tilt while lugging his huge body on a makeshift stretcher.

“We found this man lying on the floor of the Star Portal when we reported for work this morning. Thought he was dead at first, but then he groaned. I don’t mind telling you, it scared me half to death.”

The younger one looked as white as the uniform he wore.

“We brought him here as fast as we could. He’s in such bad shape we didn’t dare risk waiting for help. We don’t have the equipment down there for medical emergencies. Never needed it before. Transport through the Portal is the safest mode of travel there is.”

Selena rushed over, scanning his vital signs while the other guard babbled nervously.

“Is he gonna make it? He’s from Gadolinium—that’s the really cold planet, isn’t it? I guessed it from that fur cloak he’s wrapped in, even before we found the note. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Looks like something from one of the exhibits at the Museum of Planetary History.”

“Note? What note?”

The older guard handed over a wrinkled scrap of paper smeared with dried blood.

“He had this in his hand when we found him. Had to pry it loose from his fingers.”

Selena snatched the paper from him. She could barely make out the hastily scrawled message.

This is Haldor. Viking warrior from Gadolinium. The planet has been attacked by the Tabun. We’ve managed to repel the invaders but this man was mortally wounded saving the life of King Sigrun. We don’t have the technology here to heal him, so I’m sending him to Earth.

I’ll file a full report soon. Right now there are other wounded to tend to.

Talia Anderson, ambassador to Gadolinium, InterStellar Federation

The ambassador had added a line at the bottom.

I vouch for him. He’s a good man. A hero. Save his life. I know you can do it.

An hour had passed since then. The longest hour of her life. She shooed away the chatty guards and got to work. Stripping off the torn remnants of his clothing, she’d assessed the extent of his wounds, then put in an urgent call to her two best lab techs for help.

James and Mindy arrived at almost the same moment, stopping dead in the doorway of the lab. Mindy let out a startled scream at the sight of the massive blood-soaked body lying on a table in the center of the room.

Selena masked her own fear with the take-charge demeanor befitting her position as director of medical services. Her mentor, Luther, had recently retired, appointing her to his position. High time, since he was nearly one hundred thirty. But she missed him right now. Missed his wealth of knowledge, his acerbic wit. No doubt he’d have some choice comments on the sight of her hands trembling as they roamed over the body of a naked man for the first time in her life.

“An impressively well-endowed naked man, at that,” he’d point out, lessening the tension in the room. Then he’d grin at the blush on her cheeks.

Selena shook her head, trying to drive away the frivolous thoughts flooding her mind, the paralyzing fear making her heart pound in her chest.
You can do this
, she told herself.
I know you’ve never seen anyone hurt so badly, but remember—you’ve had years of training to prepare you for this moment.
Your people need you to guide them. They’re frightened too. So step up and do your job.

“This man is from Gadolinium, sent here through the Portal,” she began. “He’s been mortally wounded in some primitive form of battle—a swordfight, from the looks of him. James, we need to replace the blood this man has lost. Use the synthetic fluid for now. Once he’s stabilized, I want you to begin replicating his blood. We’ll need to replace all of it with a fresh supply.”

She turned to the young woman still cowering near the doorway.

“Mindy, prepare a pod for him. I’m going to keep him in sleep mode as long as possible. He’ll need an increased flow of oxygen, along with a gravitational adaptor. His body is much larger than that of our typical male patient and I want the strain on his damaged organs lessened. Set it at sixty percent for now and we’ll reevaluate in six hours.”

“Yes, Doctor Reston.”

Well-trained, her assistants did as they were told, but she noticed they kept a wide berth from the table, as though the unconscious barbarian might rise up and attack at any moment.

As she busied herself with familiar tasks, Selena’s pulse returned to normal. It was her duty to remain calm, she told herself. It wouldn’t do for the director of the East Metropolis Medical Center to collapse into a wailing heap on the floor, hands dripping red like some modern-day Lady MacBeth.

Who’d have thought the old man had so much blood in him
? The line from a Shakespeare play she’d read as an undergraduate popped unbidden into her mind, one of those useless bits of information she stored. They made her a formidable Trivialities opponent, but right now the words weren’t much comfort as she dabbed at endless pools of blood welling from the man.

Later, hours later, after her assistants had been dismissed for a much-needed break, she allowed herself a few moments to unwind. She’d had James drag a chair in next to the glass pod in one of the private recovery rooms off the main lab. Sinking down wearily, Selena stared at her patient. For the first time, she studied the man in front of her as a whole, instead of taking stock of injured body parts.

Haldor the Viking. From Gadolinium. She knew very little about his home, other than the fact that it was bitterly cold most of the year. Nearly twenty years ago, explorers had ventured into the first of three newly rediscovered Star Portals. Over the last two decades, they’d traveled through the other two Portals as well. Each led to one of the trio of planets settled by ancient tribes from Earth over two millennia ago. Planets where the inhabitants knew nothing of modern technology.

They lived as their ancestors had: in pristine worlds untouched by the havoc that warfare waged with superweapons, combined with reckless pollution and overpopulation, had ravaged on Earth. Rich in rare minerals, the planets were immediately placed under the protection of the InterStellar Federation. Access to them was closely guarded to avoid the plundering that Earth’s natural resources had suffered.

She fingered the torn scrap of paper. A rarity, seen only in museum collections. So fragile. Yet it survived transport through the Portal, a journey that destroyed the functioning of all modern devices. She was no physicist, but she’d been taught it had to do with the electromagnetic anomaly that created the Portal. Ancient writing instruments making markings on pressed, dried wood pulp proved to be the only reliable method of communication between her world and that of her patient.

Mindy had overcome her fear of the huge man long enough to gently rub away dried blood from a wound in his scalp and rinse the long locks clean. His damp hair lay around his head on the pillow, shoulder-length wavy strands of warm deep brown shot with a few streaks of gray at the temples. Odd. She’d always thought the ancient Vikings were blue-eyed and blond.

She studied him clinically. He was slightly above average height by Earthly standards, probably about six foot seven inches tall. Impressive body mass, though. Well-defined musculature. All that unregulated testosterone, no doubt. She shook her head. The same potentially dangerous hormone that led primitive males like this one to solve even minor conflicts with combat.

With that chest, those arms, he obviously spent his days in hard physical labor. Civilized males didn’t have muscle like that. It was one of those archaic physical traits men no longer needed, now that they spent their days doing nothing more taxing than manipulating holographic screens.

Younger than she thought at first, though, despite the streaks of gray in his hair. Selena found it hard to estimate the age of humans from other planets who hadn’t had the advantage of rejuvenating therapies, but she guessed he was around forty. Just a kid by Earthly standards, where most of the population now lived to one hundred seventy or more.

Strong jawline, covered with several days’ growth of dark beard. Another result of all that testosterone. Chiseled cheekbones in a face bronzed by long periods outdoors with direct exposure to the twin suns of his galaxy. He had a few minor wrinkles at the corners of his eyes but the rest of his face was unlined and peaceful now. The deep furrows on his brow that made him look old and worn when he arrived had disappeared as pain medication flooded his system.

But his body—that certainly didn’t look old and worn. Although he needed no clothing in the temperature-controlled pod, she’d insisted that Mindy cover him with a sheet, at least from the waist down. Despite her medical training, she’d been shocked and secretly fascinated by the sight of a completely naked male body. She was certain Mindy would be affected as well and Selena couldn’t have her assistant distracted every time she came in to check on him.

They’d all had classes featuring holographic male and females, both with and without skin covering the muscles and organs as part of their medical training. But with current surgical techniques, she’d never found a need to have a patient disrobe. Illness was nearly unheard of. Routine organ replacements required only a tiny patch of skin to be uncovered. Baring one’s body in front of another person for any reason was looked upon as a barbaric practice.

Yet she couldn’t help staring at the Viking. There was something so… compelling about seeing a live, nearly nude male. Even with all his wounds, that expanse of smooth skin covering powerful upper chest muscles and sculpted abs, the prominent outline of his genitals under the thin sheet—it set her pulse racing, the way it had when she first touched him.

Earlier, when she saw the size of this man’s flaccid penis, she couldn’t help wondering just how big it would get when he was aroused.
A damn sight bigger than anything you’ve ever seen
,
replied a wicked new voice in her head.

She chased the thought away and tried to remain detached. Clinical. A primitive culture, no doubt his people still performed the act of sexual intercourse on Gadolinium. She shuddered. What would it be like, having sex with this man, being physically penetrated with his thick shaft? Coitus had been done away with hundreds of years ago on Earth. Selena had never met a human who’d actually engaged in sex. Physical forms of intimacy had been replaced by electro-holographic stimulation.

She herself had a perfectly adequate holographic partner back home, to use with the accompanying vaginal probe designed to fulfill her sexual needs. Modern technology guaranteed her a satisfying climax every time, without any of the distracting emotional trauma early humans had to endure in their quest to feed their ceaseless sexual hungers.

At least that’s what she’d been taught in school. But the sight of him, so virile, so powerful even in slumber…
Perhaps I’ll question him about his sexual practices if the subject ever arises, purely from a scientific point of view
, she told herself.

* * *

That had been nearly two months ago.

He’d been at sustenance level in the pod the entire time. They’d replaced the synthetic fluid, replicated and replaced all the blood he’d lost within the first thirty-six hours. Then, one by one, she’d cloned nearly every major organ in his body and replaced them.

Meanwhile, James performed a number of cosmetic procedures, erasing all traces of the slashes on his torso. Her patient still had a ragged scar from the stab wound. She’d been waiting until after she replaced his liver to do away with that one, planning to make the laser incision in that spot. The surgery, performed four days ago, had gone well. He had a new liver now, cloned from a piece of his old one. Unlike ancient transplant surgery using bits of organs from others, there was never any danger of the body rejecting a cloned organ.

Physically, he was as good as he’d been before his injuries. Better, really. She’d even replaced the poorly healed bones she found in a scan of his left arm and shoulder, no doubt the result of a childhood injury. Now he had a strong new humerus and clavicle, grown from splinters she removed. There was really no excuse to keep him sedated any longer. He could be awakened, put through a course of physical therapy, and sent home through the Portal. Back to his people.