13 Degrees of Separation (13 page)

“We
wish to be remade into human. Homo Sapiens.”

The
doctor blinked at him, jaw dropping. Slowly she recovered herself composure and
crossed her arms. “It's not possible. Not for you, you can pass for human, but
not a complete genetic makeover. In an adult that would most likely kill you.
Even a child...” she shook her head.

“Doctor,
we know the risks. We are willing to sign any document you present to prove our
intent. We have no interest in litigation, only in results.”

“I...”
She stepped back, stunned by that stubborn insistence. “Wow.”

“In
exchange for the services of you and your staff, we have a hundred tons of
medical equipment our clan has carefully kept over the centuries. Along with
petabytes of data to go along with it.”

Doctor
Thornby blinked. “I... I'd need to see a list of the items. I don't mean to
sound mercantile, but...”

“Not a
problem. Some of it is Ynari in origin, therefore incredibly rare.”

That
had the doctor staring once more. “I'm sorry, I don't mean to stare. But you do
realize that... of course you do, you mentioned incredibly rare. Priceless.
Ynari equipment? You are certain of the origin?”

Trenton
nodded. “All of it is useless to my people since we do not have the implant
keys and language necessary to access any of it, despite centuries of
attempting to learn. Which brings us to you. On Old Nelly's last stop we heard
strange rumors of implants being once more explored. And you yourself confirmed
them a moment ago.”

“Yes.”

“So you
can do it?”

“Not so
fast,” Doctor Thornby said, hands up. “Hang on. We need a lot more information
than what you are providing. Information like your history, why you are doing
this, what level you will accept, and the usual contract information. You do
realize a lot of what you are asking is borderline unethical? And dangerous?
You could die on the surgical table? Die in the regen tank if your body has a
reaction we can't cope with? Even with our modern equipment and training, there
are no guarantees.”

That
simple statement actually seemed to excite the delegation for some reason. “We
understand that doctor. We are ready to proceed.”

“Well,
good for you, but I'm not. I move cautiously here. Assess what needs doing and
form a plan of attack. Working on your genetics...” She shook her head. “That
alone... Are you all simian? Ape?”

Trenton
shook his head.

“Of
course not. That would make it too easy,” The doctor sighed.

Trenton
snorted. He explained the history of the clan to the doctor. Of how changes in
Horathian space made them more and more isolated from society. “Five centuries
ago, our ancestors emigrated from Horath. But the isolation followed us. They
settled for a generation on Finagle, a world near Horath. There they had an
epiphany, to change ourselves to human.”

“I...”
Thornby frowned.

Trenton
continued. “When humans wouldn't breed with Neo chimeras our ancestors bred
with chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans, and that of course complicated
the issue of their... our genetics. Those that were born and survived to
adulthood were true Chimeras.”

“I
see.”

“It
is... complicated doctor. We have spent the past four and a half centuries
attempting to untangle and understand the knot. It is daunting.”

Doctor
Thornby frowned. “I'll have to bring doctor Martel in on this. She is our
resident geneticist and genealogist. We'll have to have in-depth genealogy
records going back since this... started.”

“I have
what we recorded on file. Some of it is... vague,” Trenton said, setting a chip
down on the doctor's desk blotter gently.

“I
see,” she said looking at that. “Any reason why you are vague?”

Trenton
sighed, seeing her interest. “In the interest of full discloser, and I expect
this to remain doctor patient confidential,” Trenton looked at the doctor with
a long challenging stare. She felt the test of wills but didn't back down.
After a moment though she realized he was making a point so she slowly nodded.
“Several times in the past there were dark days of rape as well,” Trenton
admitted, with a bit of frost in his disapproving tone.

Doctor
Thornby's eyes widened at that news.

“Oh,
not raping a female human, raping or in most cases, seducing a male human. For
their seed,” he explained. Slowly she nodded.

“How do
you... no, I'm not sure I want the details,” she said, holding up a restraining
hand.

“From
the records, they didn't use aphrodisiacs, or at least not often. The simplest
method was to get the victim rip roaring drunk, take their seed in hopes of
propagation, then leave them.”

“I...
see. Quite the hangover.”

“Right.”

“I'd
hate to wake up in their shoes, confused about what happened, sore, sick,” the
doctor mused, rubbing her chin. She was fairly certain he was leaving out
things like possible date rape drug use. She decided she didn't want to know.

“Yes,
it was most likely not pleasant. They survived, with minimum wear. Of course,
we don't do that anymore though,” he added hastily.

Doctor
Thornby locked eyes with the Chimerian. “I see.”

“It was
before my time doctor,” he said, holding up his gloved hands. “I don't know the
success rate, you'll have to be judge of that. You or your doctor Martel. We
are a desperate people doctor.”

Thornby
nodded. “Moving on.”

...*...*...*...*...

After
several hours of discussion her stomach rumbling and a growing headache due to
low blood sugar and high stress told her it was time to eat.

She
exited with the Chimerian leader to find the lobby filled with his people. They
spilled out into the area outside her hospital. Station security was in force
to discreetly monitor the situation she noted with approval.

“Trenton,
you all came?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I am
not the only doctor here,” Trenton said. That was the first time he had
informed her that he was a trained medical professional. That raised her
eyebrows. Now she understood how he knew some of the more technical procedures.
“I and a few others of the clan learned medical teachings in order to aid in
our change... since very few trained outsiders were willing to help us.”

Slowly
Thornby nodded. She could understand that, and by keeping the medics in house,
they obviously didn't charge for it. She also now understood part of why he was
so okay with it if something went wrong. Obviously, from time to time,
something did no matter how hard they tried to avoid it. “I see. Do you have
accommodations Trenton? Doctor?”

Trenton
shrugged. He noted a few Neos nearby and blinked in surprise. A Veraxin also
surprised him. “My this is a different place,” he murmured. The Veraxin paused
to interact with a Gashg. A Naga nearby leaned his head out of a stall, nearly
tipping himself off the stool he had seated himself on. A judicious use of his
tail kept him upright. He waved a hand leg to the other two aliens who turned
and waved back.

“Very
different for you, for us this is normal,” Thornby replied.

“Indeed,”
he said and turned back to the doctor. “To answer your question, no, We were
going to look into that next.”

Thornby
frowned. Why he hadn't delegated that task was a question she wished to ask,
but privacy was possibly involved so she bit her tongue. “Well, there is a
newly restored hotel a few decks down near the college. It's not full yet, I
think they can put your people up.”

“I will
endeavor to look into it,” Trenton said diplomatically.

Thornby
rapidly came to a decision. She sent a request through her implants to Smithy
who connected her to the hotel front desk. A quick text exchange reserved forty
rooms for her guests. “It's the end of semester, so they have rooms available.
I just booked you the remaining forty rooms. You'll have until Old Nelly leaves
to use them, though you'll have to arrange to pay for your own food if they
have functional food replicators.”

“Food
replicators? We have two,” a woman said.

“Good
for you,” Thornby said, nodding to the Chimerian woman. The woman looked away. 

“I tell
you what, you can charge me for food for the day while I and my people go over
your proposal,” she said smiling. Trenton and his fellow delegates had laid out
what their people wanted, which was essentially a total body make over. The
list of equipment had her salivating though. She couldn't wait to get her hands
on it, which was why she was even entertaining this in the first place.

 Trenton
frowned. “I thank you doctor, but we will not be indebted to your generosity.
We have some credit with the ship and station, and we can find work for ourselves.”

“That
remains to be seen. We have a very high tech society here, robots usually do
menial tasks. Middle class jobs are hard to come by with the college. Students
usually snap up service jobs within hours to help pay for their own expenses.”

“I...
see.”

“Look
into it and get back to me. I can always use a hand in the hospital or medical
clinics on the station or abroad, and of course the college is always
interested in guest speakers.”

“Thank
you doctor for the pointers.”

“As I
said, look into it. For now, why don't we go eat?” she asked, smiling politely.

“I
thank you doctor, but we are wearied and not comfortable with eating in public.
We shall retire,” Trenton said.

Thornby
blinked at him and then nodded. She watched him put his mask on and then wave
his people out. One had a tablet, he consulted with that person then pointed to
the lifts.

“First
time I've been stood up in a while,” the doctor murmured, watching the gaggle
of people milling about the lifts. She turned and headed to the coffee shop. It
had half way decent sandwiches. She needed to eat and then wrap her head around
this project.

...*...*...*...*...

The
next morning Doctor Thornby entered her office early and sat down. She'd been
up a lot, most of the night, tossing and turning, unable to shake the problem.
Now she faced it head on as she nibbled on her baguette and sipped her morning
coffee. She put the chip into her E-reader and started going through the files,
first focusing on their journal.

It was
a self pitying thing, going on and on how they had been born bad and wanted to
change. She shook her head and scanned on.

The
clan's history in Horathian space had created an inferiority complex, that much
was obvious. No matter what they did to fit in to society, they always stood
out. They may have even tried too hard, making the situation worse. They had
ended up rejected a lot, moving away from a system when the population became
hostile to them. They settled for breeding with humans who have altered
themselves to be more animal like at one point three centuries ago. Apparently
they had taken the long view, deciding that if they couldn't better themselves
they would try to better their children. That at least was a more normal
outlook, all species wanted to better things for the next generation.

They
shaved their bodies, used plastic surgery to look more human, that however was
a bit off.

It all
boiled down to... They wanted a cure to the Neo scourge that they thought they
were. Self flagellation on a grand scale. Masochists, she thought, to have gone
through that, generation after generation? The clan was highly educated,
insulated against others by their appearance. A few of the engineers had
civilian ident implants, something they used to help them gain work. Apparently
they passed them on from one person to the next when one aged or sickened. She
winced, imagining the horror of that sort of surgery.

They
would be put out by the competition in Pyrax, nearly half the working
population had implants, many a much better grade than the ones the Chimerians
boasted. Their implants were good, but they still couldn't use them to access
the machinery on the level that the engineers could now.

The
doctor however could, she could at the very least fix that for them. She also
has medical nanites, so some basic fixes and changes were a given. She turned
her attention to the equipment inventory. Was it really worth it? Right off the
top she knew it was.

There
were over thirty pieces of equipment, all rare. The four pieces of Ynari
equipment she could hardly guess at. But the others, even the more common ones
were vital. Uterine replicators, and other equipment, some used in artificial
gene synthesis to repair genetic damage in a fetus. Two of the pieces of
equipment were regen capsules, only one was functional from the report. One of
the machines was a nano therapy tube and another was a nano factory used for
medicine. The industrial nanofactory was used by a pharmaceutical company and
was itself precious, it could make blank medical nanites in quantity, not just
for basic medicine or to stock regen tanks, but also to repair damage and to
generate anti aging therapies. Vast quantities she needed since people all over
the system were clamoring for it now, her own systems were having trouble
keeping up. To the clan it was next to useless, only medical officers with
implants could use the machine. She had that.