Stardoc (44 page)

More cruisers joined those currently surrounding K-2 and the Sunlace. Once repairs to the stardrive were completed, Captain Pnor decided it was time to leave orbit before someone started firing. The order to prepare for dimensional transition was signaled throughout the ship.

I was in the Medical Section with Tonetka when the word came. We prepped the patients and secured ourselves in the launch pods provided for that area. The Senior Healer patted my hand as I snapped on my restraint harness.

“The jump between this dimension and the next is jarring, especially the first time. Do not fight it, relax and allow yourself to be passive.”

I hadn’t enjoyed knowing that on the Bestshot my cellular structure was being altered. Now that my cells were about to be altered and thrown into another dimension, well, I was more than a little tense.

Relax, don’t fight it, I thought. Be passive. Right.

The Sunlace’s powerful stardrive throbbed into life, and for a moment I thought I felt the impact of something smashing into the outer hull just beyond Medical. What was -

Reality twisted.

Colors and shapes ran together in a confusing blur. My body was being sucked in, folded and tangled by the whirling blend. Tonetka’s advice rang in my ear. I tried not to resist the effect. Something was wrong, I thought.

I was being wrenched apart, my flesh stretching, nerves screaming. Tonetka had never said anything about pain. I blacked out for what seemed like eternity.

Reality righted itself. Tonetka was speaking to me, saying my name, over and over.

“How long did that take?” I said as Tonetka released me from my harness. I collapsed into her arms, and she exclaimed something my vocollar wouldn’t translate. Jorenians didn’t use expletives often, but when they did, there was little parallel in any language.

“Hold on to me.” She lifted me in her arms like a child. “Look at me, Cherijo. Keep your eyes open.

Good.”

Tonetka placed me on an exam table. I was barely aware of the scanner she passed over me. Vaguely I heard her barking out orders. Someone must be hurt. She only sounded like that when -

A crushing weight descended on my chest. I was paralyzed, unable to breathe. My eyes felt as though they would burst from my skull. My ears were filled with millions of bees. I opened my mouth to scream, but there was no air. No air at all. Then my heart stopped beating.

“By the Mother,” Tonetka said. “She’s-“

I blacked out once more. The pain dimmed. I opened my eyes a century later, to a tangled procession of images. Wide white eyes. Scanner grids. Blue hands. Optic lights.

A syrinpress nuzzled my throat. Must be serious, I thought. My mind felt groggy, drugged. Direct jugular... injection... for what? I fought to clear the haze from my head. Discovered the pain that was waiting behind it.

Gravity crashed down and squeezed the breath from my lungs. Not again, I wanted to whimper, but I couldn’t get a breath. My heart slammed against the stony cage of my ribs. Voices jabbered around me in a disconnected frenzy.

“Nerve cells firing-“

“- toxic level-“

“Get the one who-“

“- er, she’s arrest-“

My heart stopped beating again. I was going to die. I was ready. The pain was so vast, so unmanageable that I couldn’t grasp it anymore. Time to embrace some stars. That was a nice way to think about it. Would Kao really be waiting there for me?

Beyond the pain something else moved into competition for my attention. I glimpsed a glittering light, and thinking it was Kao, I tried to move through the pain toward it.

Come to me.

It was warm and kind, that voice. It wanted me. I certainly wanted to get to it. I considered the layers of pain almost clinically now. Such a large, looming wall of torment. I had no more time for that sort of thing.

Some unfamiliar part of my mind told me I could move between the pain. I found the path easily.

The light grew dazzling, and I was flooded with a serenity I hadn’t felt since I’d made love with Kao.

Only he could have come for me, given me this blessed relief. I opened my arms to the light. Here I am.

Over here.

Cherijo. At last.

The pain was behind me, wasn’t it? Why was I feeling it now? Slowly I recognized the light, the voice, the one who called to me. I was wrong, it wasn’t Kao. Kao was dead.

It was Reever.

The whole thing was really absurd, in a macabre sense. On one side, unbearable pain, extended suffering, and death. Opposite that was Reever, linked with my mind, coaxing me from that unpleasant but necessary release.

Fought too long. My thoughts were lackluster, comical. Can’t decide which is worse.

Come to me, Cherijo, Reever demanded harshly. A moment later, with more persuasion, Come back to me.

You won’t ever leave me alone, will you? I thought, feeling sorry for myself. I can’t get away from you.

Not even to die. You’re always in my head.

Reever made a rough sound that made no sense. You can’t die like this, he told me. He was coming to me now, forcing himself further into my thoughts.

Oh, yes I can. I drew back.

He halted. I will not let you go alone.

won’t let you come with me, I told him wearily. I don’t want you to die, Duncan.

Then, come to me, Cherijo. Just come to me.

I didn’t trust him. I didn’t even like him. He was a reminder of what I had lost, and what I would never have. Yet still I went to him, and lost myself in that strange white light.

At last I opened eyes that felt glued together, and found myself flat on my back in the critical-care berth.

My body was hooked up to every piece of equipment known to Jorenian Healers.

Above me Tonetka’s eyes crinkled with pleasure. “Greetings to the living.”

“Tonetka - Healer Torin,” I swallowed against the horrible rasp of my voice and tried again. “Give me my chart.”

The Jorenian woman shook her head. “Once you have stopped trying to frighten the rest of the journeys I possess out of me, I might let you have a glance at it.” Her hands moved over my head and chest as she scanned me. I tried to get up and assess the damage for myself. The best I could do was a weak twitch.

“Be still.”

“What happened?”

The Senior Healer was muttering to herself. “No residual brain damage, and thank the Mother, minimal damage to the mitral valve.”

“Do I want to know what happened?”

“Probably not, but I suspect you’ll give me no peace until I tell you. You died twice on my table, Healer Torin.” Tonetka made it sound like a personal insult. “I will thank you not to try that a third time.”

“Cause?”

“A brain episode I still can’t fathom, which began in the middle of flight transition. I barely got you out of the harness before you went into shock. Once I’d stabilized you - I thought I had stabilized you, I should say - you suffered massive cardiac arrest. Twice. Every God of Luck in existence has smiled upon you since then.”

“There is no such thing as a God of Luck,” I managed to say before I fell into a healing sleep. As I entered the darkness again, I thought I felt a gentle hand touch my face, then the cool drops of someone’s tears.

Kao had never told me that Jorenians were overly protective. I found out the hard way.

I spent a week flat on my back. When I tried to get up, Tonetka made threats. A few times she actually began to strap me in restraints.

“If you embrace the stars while I’m treating you, the HouseClan may stuff me in your receptacle,” the Senior Healer said. “Now, rest.”

“Give me my chart, and I’ll read it while I rest.” Said chart was being kept far out of my reach.

“Healers make the worst patients,” she said, sidestepping my request. Again.

In the meantime, Tonetka ran every test she could think of on me. I suspected she made up a few of her own, too. I was probed and scraped and prodded to the point of screaming hysterics.

“That’s enough!” I said after a week of the same routine. “I won’t have any blood left soon!”

The Senior Healer made a peculiar sound with her lips that was the least musical of Jorenian expressions. I laughed in spite of myself.

“Who is in charge of your case, Cherijo?” She checked the scanner she’d passed over me, nodded to herself, then frowned at me. “Don’t argue with your Healer.”

“I may do more than argue if you don’t let me out of here soon,” I said.

The only bright point was the fact that I had scores of visitors. During my convalescence, I think nearly every member of HouseClan Torin tried to personally visit me. At last the Senior Healer ordered everyone on board to stay out of her department unless they needed treatment. She backed it up with a threat to put me in suspension sleep until we reached Joren.

“Out - out - out,” she said when she found Dhreen and Xonea at my bedside - again. “By the Mother, you’d think she was ready to be bound and praised.”

“I’m ready now,” I said, impatient with my confinement and needing a good fight.

“Not anymore,” Tonetka said, “but do not tempt me.”

Dhreen started to make a comment about how quickly I was infecting the Jorenians with my particular language idioms. He decided to leave rather quickly when the Senior Healer picked up a syrinpress and waved it under his nose.

Xonea chuckled and managed to beg a moment alone with me before Tonetka threw him out, as well.

She granted it with a grudging look and muttered something about containment fields as she left us for her office.

“How are you, Cherijo?”

I shrugged and sat back against the head support. “As well as can be expected. Bored, mostly. I need something to do.” I eyed him. “Why?”

He put his large hand over mine. “Need you ask?” He gazed over his shoulder and leaned close. “Your company is missed. Dhreen would win every credit I possess.”

“Stop playing whump-ball with him.”

“It keeps my thoughts occupied.” He smiled slowly. “We all miss you, Healer.”

“Hey, when I get out of here, I’ll be after your credits, too.”

Xonea laughed, and squeezed my hand. “I accept your challenge.” Then, with a more sober air, he touched my cheek. “Grow strong, ClanSister.” He left me just as the Senior Healer approached to chase him out, too.

As she took my vital readings, Tonetka looked after Xonea thoughtfully. Then I got the same speculative look.

“What?” I thought she saw something wrong on the scanner. “Don’t tell me I’m going to be stuck here any longer.”

“I plan to release you within the hour,” she said. I whooped with glee. “I await the peace and quiet with great anticipation. As well as the absence of certain pilots I have stumbled over several times a day.”

“Xonea and Dhreen are just trying to cheer me up.”

“Dhreen, yes, but Xonea-“ Her shrewd eyes met mine. “He honors you greatly.”

“Right.” I snorted. “He just wants to clobber me at the whump-ball tables.”

“Perhaps.” Tonetka put down her scanner. “Now, I want to talk to you about your test results.”

She had been keeping most of them from me. I steadied myself. “Tell me the bad news first.”

She smiled. “It is not bad.”

I didn’t trust her. She was being too nice. “There’s cardiac damage, isn’t there? Have I developed arrhythmia?” I sat up and folded my arms over my chest. “Go ahead, tell me. I can take it.”

“My initial scans indicated some significant ischemic damage. Mitral insufficiency was probable, along with arrhythmia.”

It wasn’t bad, I thought. It was terrible. Oxygen deprivation had affected my heart’s cells. Had killed them. “So I need a transplant.”

“Cherijo, the last scans I performed were vastly improved. Ischemic damage is negligible.” At my gasp, she patted my shoulder. “The first series of scans may have been inaccurate. Or perhaps the ischemic cells are healing.”

“Healing?” I made a scoffing sound. “Not possible in Terrans. Your scanner must have fused.”

“It is difficult to say.” Tonetka handed me her scanner. “Check for yourself.”

I read the data quickly. “This can’t be right. Not after two consecutive myocardial infarctions. There’s hardly anything registering.”

“It may be explained by the unusual measures the League took in their attempt to retrieve you from the Sunlace.”

This was news. I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Your violent reaction to transition was caused by the League. Before Captain Pnor transitioned, cruisers began to attack the ship. We believe they tried to isolate you with one of their containment devices during transition. The physical stress triggered the episodes of heart and brain dysfunction. It was fortunate they did not succeed. The disruption of the flightshield would have caused the stardrive to implode.”

They’d tried to take me off the ship? And kill everyone on board the Sunlace in the process? “Why didn’t anybody tell me about this?” I demanded.

“You have been ill,” Tonetka said, then leveled a direct gaze at me. “Now, tell me, why would the League sacrifice a valuable treaty with Joren and exterminate every member of this crew merely to remove you from this vessel?”

“I don’t know.” I had some ideas, but I wasn’t going to tell Tonetka.

“There is more. Reports have come to us of a massive recovery operation initiated by the League. They will undoubtably try to pursue us, if they can ever locate the ship again.”

I stared at my hands, which by now were white-knuckled. “They’ll never stop hunting me.”

“You will need to plan your path accordingly, my colleague.” She sat down on the side of my berth.

“Cherijo, I have spoken to you about my retirement. If you desire the position, I will recommend to Pnor that he appoint you as Senior Healer.”

I lifted my face to watch hers. “Do you really think I can handle the job?”

Tonetka was equally grave. “You will bring honor to it.”

That was a sterling endorsement, in Jorenian terms. I couldn’t go back to Terra or K-2. The Sunlace had provided sanctuary for me, and now offered continued freedom and purpose.

“I accept the position,” I said, and watched the big grin spread across her face. She turned and announced it to the entire staff, who within moments were crowding around and congratulating me, too.