Eternity Row (10 page)

“Only a slight headache.” He hopped off the exam table. “I understand you have five new feline companions.”

“For a couple of weeks, anyway.” I gave him a speculative look. “I was thinking-”

“No.” He backed away, shaking his head, holding up all three appendage-ends. “No kittens. I beg you.”

I scowled. “Coward.”

We decided to keep Dhreen in sleep suspension while we went back to work trying to slow the rate of deterioration in his liver. Ilona showed up again, demanding to see him.

“We did this yesterday.” I gestured behind my back at Adaola to come and help me. “You can’t go in there.”

“I will see him today.”

“Weaver Red Faun!” Adaola distracted the Terran girl by admiring the striking black-and-yellow tunic she wore. “What a lovely garment! I am going off duty now. Perhaps you would accompany me for a meal interval and discuss its making with me?”

“Chief Xonea will hear of this.” Not quite finished, Ilona shot me a look of sheer dislike. “The men on this vessel understand a woman’s duty.”

I couldn’t help the chuckle. “Jorenians don’t subjugate their females, Ilona. They’d get their teeth knocked in if they so much as tried.”

She didn’t like me laughing at her, either. “Regardless, I shall return.”

“I’ll hold my breath in anticipation,” I assured her.

Squilyp called me over to perform morning rounds with him, and we discharged most of the inpatients who had come in with injuries from the brief Hsktskt attack. Several signals came in from Qonja, which we both ignored. Our double-hernia patient, Yarek, proved to be healing rapidly and anxious to return to duty.

“Other archivists must work double shifts to compensate for my continued absence,” he said as he tried to talk us into discharging him. “Surely I can sit at my duty terminal and run analysis programs without risking physical injury.”

“Oh, sure, no problem. And when you’re off duty, of course you wouldn’t teach any classes, or lift so much as a throwing dagger to demonstrate something for your students, right?” I watched the telltale shift of his white-within-white eyes. “That’s what I thought.”

“You are a tyrant, Healer.”

I batted my eyelashes at him as I completed my scans. “Flattery will not get you discharged, ClanCousin.”

One of the nurses interrupted us with her concern over Dhreen’s monitors, which were showing unusual cardiopulmonary fluctuations, and Squilyp decided to take him out of sleep suspension long enough for a full examination. He left me to finish rounds, which I continued until crashing sounds came out of the critical care unit.

“What now?” I ran in.

Squilyp was holding Dhreen down by pinning him to the berth with his body. The Oenrallian struggled wildly, tearing at the monitor leads with scrabbling hands.

“Stop that!” I pushed between the two males and hauled a restraint strap over Dhreen’s chest. “Squilyp, get his legs!”

“Let me out of this contraption,” Dhreen said, then coughed up some blood. “I need some air.”

Between us we got him restrained, but I already knew what the problem was from the heat emanating from his skin. I turned and grabbed a syrinpress and a scanner. “Temperature’s spiking. One hundred fifteen degrees. He’ll stroke out on us.”

“I can’t breathe! Get off!” the Oenrallian yelled as his wavering fist connected with the side of my head.

Squilyp turned and bellowed, “Nurse! Coolant paks, stat!”

Fever in an Oenrallian was much more lethal than in humans, as their lung/heart organs automatically valved off blood circulating to the extremities. It rendered the feverish patient irrational, then unconscious. A healthy Oenrallian body would kick-start itself by reopening those arterial valves once the internal temperature dropped to a normal one hundred and five degrees.

Dhreen’s tattered lung/heart, on the other hand, couldn’t stand that kind of strain.

“Cardiopulmonary rate falling. Thirty-two cycles.” Squilyp reattached the leads, then grabbed a chest tray and brought it over. He shoved a mask over Dhreen’s nose and mouth and placed him on pure oxygen. “Blood pressure still dropping. One-sixty over forty.”

Our patient shouted through the mask, the gist of which suggested Squilyp and I attempt something anatomically unlikely with our respective heads.

“Gee, Dhreen, I find the Omorr attractive, but that kind of thing would really upset my husband.” I injected the Oenrallian with an aggressive analgesic, yanked off the berth linens, and tore open his patient’s gown. Dhreen’s suggestions went from obscene to vile. “Where are those paks?”

As if conjured, three nurses appeared beside us and began slapping the plas-encased coolant gel onto his limbs and torso.

I kept a chest scanner on continuous as I watched the monitors. “Come on, come on. Body temp’s still rising. One-sixteen. One-seventeen.”

Someone yelled from outside the unit, then the door panel slid open and a black-and-yellow blur hurtled toward the berth. “Dhreen! What are you doing to him? Dhreen!”

She landed on top of the Oenrallian, who got an arm free and grabbed at her head. “Get off!”

Ilona cried out in pain as Dhreen ripped the ring from her ear. “No!”

“Nurse!” I pulled her off, and thrust her into capable blue hands. “Take her out, treat her ear, and keep her out.”

“Let me go!” Ilona tried to struggle, but it was rather pitiful, considering the Jorenian female was twice her size. “No, I want to stay with him!”

The Oenrallian managed to dislodge his mask by whipping his head to one side. “Get out, you fatuous nuisance!” he shouted at his mate. “You’re nothing but an irritant, always suspending yourself from every appendage on my body!” Then he threw the earring at her face, where it left a bloody mark before bouncing off and rolling under the berth.

Ilona stopped struggling to stare at Dhreen with unblinking, tear-filled eyes. The nurse wisely took advantage of the moment and guided her out of the unit.

“I guess you remember who Ilona is.” I watched as the indicators began to slow. “Leveling out. One-seventeen. Replace the torso paks with fresh ones.” I glanced down at Dhreen again. “What, no more creative propositions for me and Squilyp?”

“You think you’re so unique,” he said, practically spitting the words. “Your dilemmas are nonexistent collated to mine.”

He might be furious, but hearing him mangle Terran delighted me. “At the moment, I have to agree.”

As the nurses removed the paks, four Lok-Teel oozed up onto the gurney and onto Dhreen’s body. I’d seen them do that before, on Catopsa.

“Leave them,” I said when one of the nurses went to detach them. “They’re attracted by the toxins in his blood. They’ll absorb them out through his skin. Just arrange the new paks around them.”

“Take this slime off me!” Dhreen shouted.

Squilyp put a membrane on his brow and bent over. “Try to relax, pilot. Breathe deeply and slowly.”

“She despises me,” he told the Senior Healer. “You might as well let me expire.”

So he remembered me, too.

“No, Dhreen.” The Omorr eyed me across the berth. “She’s going to save your life.”

After an interval that stretched into forever, Dhreen’s body temperature slowly began to cool. He began muttering to himself as he slipped into a semiconscious daze. The Lok-Teel remained in place, steadily removing impurities from the Oenrallian’s bloodstream.

“One-sixteen. Heart rate stabilizing.” I glanced up and saw Dhreen’s face grow slack. “One-fifteen. Cerebral pressures?”

“Sluggish, but improving.”

A half hour later, we had Dhreen sleeping peacefully and his body temp back down to normal. More tests would have to be performed to ensure he’d suffered no systemic damage, but at least we’d gotten him stabilized again.

“We should put him back in sleep suspension,” Squilyp said as I ran a complete blood series. “He’s at less risk of infection that way.”

“Not a good idea,” I said, and nodded at the data on my screen. “Look at his counts. In his species, fever is a form of anaphylactic shock. Leave the Lok-Teel in the unit; they may be able to help.”

“What do you think triggered this episode?”

“I’ll run an allergen series, but my guess is he’s reacting to the suspension drugs.”

Gildrells turned into spokes. “He couldn’t be-he’s a pilot. He’s flown dozens of deep space jaunts!”

“Maybe.” A chill ran up my spine as I glanced at the critical care unit. “Maybe not.”

“Your pardon, Healer, Senior Healer.”

We both turned on Qonja. “You were relieved of duty, resident,” my boss said, his voice matching his gildrells. “Return to your quarters at once.”

“I have been reinstated to my position, and will report for my usual shift tomorrow.” He handed the Senior Healer a data pad, gave me one of those irritating, cheerful smiles, then strolled back out of Medical.

“Did Xonea reinstate him?” If he had, the ship was going to be minus one Captain.

“No.” My boss sounded odd as he passed the pad over to me. “According to this, the Ruling Council on Joren did.”

I signaled the Captain, and filed a formal protest to be sent back to the Ruling Council. “I don’t know who this guy is, Xonea, but I don’t want him around me.”

“I will relay your concerns.” Xonea made a note on something, then looked up at me. “Report for combat training after your shifts ends.”

“Didn’t you hear a single word I yelled at you this morning?”

“I have your objections to our defense tactics under consideration,” my big brother told me. “You are still required to complete this inspection assignment.”

“You said combat training.”

“You must undergo the training in order to correctly inspect the programs.”

Terrific. “Who’s my teacher?”

“I am. Report to environome six.” He terminated the signal.

I closed the channel and rested my head against my palms. I needed to find out exactly who this psych resident was, and what was going on with him and my ClanBrother. Meanwhile, if I told Duncan about these lessons, he’d get mad and probably get into it with Xonea. If I didn’t, I’d be hiding stuff from him again.

Doesn’t this relationship thing ever get any easier?

In the end, I compromised-I sent a relay to my quarters, telling Reever I’d be late for dinner because I had to begin the training program inspections. I didn’t mention the words “combat” or “Xonea.” It would have to do.

Nine minutes later, I reported for my training, and began warming up. My ClanBrother didn’t join me, but took up an observation position beside a table piled with assorted bladed and energy weapons. “You get started without me?”

“No. You have already been through the primary level training program. We shall begin with secondary level exercises.”

I wanted to feel flattered, but I was still too steamed about Boy Shrink going over everyone’s head and my inability to stop him. “Can I use any of this stuff on Qonja?”

“Try to temper your behavior around the resident until we have a decision from the Council.” The door panel opened before I could say what I thought of that, and Xonea’s expression lightened. “Thank you for coming, orderly, Doctor.”

I watched as Wonlee and Vlaav entered the environome, both wearing sparring garments, then eyed the weapons table. “What are these secondary level exercises, Captain?”

“You will face multiple opponents.”

Wonlee, a former League Lieutenant who had become my friend after losing his wife during our enslavement by the Hsktskt, was an Esalmalin. Sharp, thin spines covered virtually every inch of his skin, and he had more claws and teeth than a roomful of Hsktskt.

Vlaav, who was entering his third year of surgical residency under Squilyp’s watchful eye, was a Saksonan. Bubbly scarlet hemangiomas crowded his species’ skin surface, making him appear like a gigantic, overripe fruit. He had no spines or claws, and his teeth were blunter than mine.

“Them?”

My ClanBrother nodded. “Dr. Irde and Orderly Wonlee volunteered to assist me.”

“Could you have picked someone a little easier than Won? Besides Vlaav, I mean?”