Eternity Row (2 page)

Our patient, Yarek Torin, was a data archive analyst and lifelong warrior-instructor. Over the years, his dedication to teaching weekly classes in swordsmanship had earned him a great deal of respect from the crew. Waving around all those heavy Jorenian multibladed swords had also given him a pair of direct inguinal hernias, bilaterally opposed on either side of his pelvic bone.

“Reinitiate sterile field,” I said as we stepped up to the table and donned our cortgear. “Vitals?”

My assisting intern checked the monitors. “Stable and holding steady, Healer Cherijo.”

“Excellent.” I powered up the laser rig. “Let’s try this again, shall we? Clamp.”

Squilyp seemed content to observe, so I made the primary incisions. There were only a few areas on Jorenian bodies that weren’t protected by a subdermal layer of cartilage, but unfortunately both sides of the lower pelvis were among them.

“Nurse, a little suction here, please.” After opening the patient’s external oblique muscle and separating the cord structures from the first hernia sac, I stepped back to let the Omorr make the call. “Invert, or excise?”

He made a huffy sound. “Excise.”

I winked. “Just checking.”

Once I’d removed the protruding viscera, Squilyp took over and reinforced the site with biomesh, to strengthen the abdominal wall and prevent reoccurrence. The other hernia wasn’t large enough to merit excising, so I inverted it and did the same patch work myself. We worked without speaking, except to ask for instruments, but I could almost hear the gears whirling around in the Omorr’s busy head.

As we finished suturing up our respective sides of Yarek’s lower abdomen, Squilyp finally got chatty. “Let me talk with Marel later. Perhaps I can influence her behavior. She has always responded well to me.”

Was that the hair up his olfactory channel? I looked at the Omorr over the edge of my mask. “She’s fine, quit worrying. Wait until next revolution-on Terra, we call that stage of development ‘the terrible twos.’”

“What do you call the threes?”

“Nothing. We’re too busy thanking God we survived the twos.”

“I can see why.”

I finished the last suture and powered down the laser rig. “Done.” I watched him finish, then stripped off my gloves. “Nice work, everyone. Let’s move him into post-op now.”

As the assisting nurse wheeled Yarek out of the suite, a Lok-Teel oozed down the wall and went to work on the deck. The ambulatory fungus we’d discovered on a slaver depot world had become very handy in Medical. The Lok-Teel absorbed almost any kind of waste and secreted a natural antiseptic byproduct that sterilized the surrounding surface. The one we’d brought back had happily divided until its offspring populated every deck, and had integrated themselves into everyday life on the ship.

“Cherijo, I think we should test Marel,” Squilyp said as we went to clean up.

Since emerging from Squilyp’s prototype embryonic chamber, my daughter had been conspicuously healthy-no viral or bacterial infections, not even a little sniffle. Marel carried half of my bioengineered genes; genes that had doubtless enhanced her immune system.

Among other things. Things I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. “For what?”

The Omorr misinterpreted my reaction. “I would never do anything to harm her.”

“I know that. God, she’s practically more your kid than mine.” I tugged off my outer gear. “I’m serious, what kind of tests are you talking about?”

He removed his cortgear and pulled down his mask. “It would not hurt to run a full series. Her growth rate is two percent below average for a Terran female.”

“She has a short mother.” Squilyp was famous for becoming obsessively meticulous under stress, but I had a feeling Marel wasn’t responsible for his present bad mood. “All right, let me talk to Reever about it.”

Once we’d stripped, cleansed, and checked on Yarek, who was doing fine, we retreated to the Senior Healer’s office. I dialed up some tea for us and sat in the uncomfortable chair in front of his console. “I hate this chair.”

“So does everyone else.” He accepted the server with an absent glance. “I’ll have it replaced.”

I nodded through the viewer at the strange resident, who was updating charts with one of the nurses. “Who’s the guy with the pretty necklace?”

“Qonja Torin, a psychiatric resident.”

I raised my brows. “We need a psychiatrist around here?”

“They usually serve a portion of their medical rotation in space.” He frowned. “Is there a problem with him?”

“No, he’s just… new.”

“After the retrofit on Joren, we obtained more than thirty new crew members-replacements for the crew who chose to stay onplanet.” He gestured toward the viewer. “I can assign him to another shift.”

“No, I’ll get used to him.” I steepled my fingers. “Now why don’t you tell me what’s got your beard in such a scramble?”

Squilyp seemed surprised by that. “Nothing.”

“This is me, Squid Lips. I’ve seen you go on these Mr. Wonderful binges before, remember?” I grinned at the indignant reaction. “Come on, I’m serious-are the students making you nuts? Need me to take over training for a few rotations?” My first attempt at instructor duty hadn’t worked out so well, but I could try again. “I won’t browbeat them, I promise.”

“That would be rather difficult,” he said, “but the interns are not a problem. Neither are the residents. Vlaav is ready to complete his final year requirements, and Adaola shows great natural talent for microsurgery.”

I’d thought we’d left all the competitiveness between us in the past, but maybe Squilyp still had some issues. “Is it me?”

“Of course not.” He set his tea aside, and spread one appendage end out on his desk. “It’s a personal problem unrelated to work.” Something made him look, for a moment, very young and unsure of himself. “You wouldn’t understand.”

I felt sorry for him, but I couldn’t let that last part stand. “Squilyp, I’m a fugitive genetic construct on the run from basically everyone in the galaxy. My adopted family are lovely blue people who eviscerate anyone who threatens their relatives-handy in my case, but often nerve wracking. My father was a monster, my genetic twin, and experimented on me for twenty-eight years. My alien-raised husband until recently had no human emotions, and you incubated my daughter in an artificial uterus.” I laced my fingers together and rested them on my knee. “Believe me when I tell you, there is
no
personal problem I can’t handle.”

He eyed me with speculation. “I suppose you’ll badger me until I do.”

“My reputation”-I shrugged-“has to be upheld.”

He began tracing circles on the surface of the desk with one edge of his membrane. “I’ve been considering pursuing an alternative to my current situation. Certain biological imperatives are involved.”

I became immediately wary, with good reason. A certain Jorenian biological imperative had gotten
me
accidentally betrothed. Twice. Everyone knew Reever and I were exclusive to each other, but it never hurt to be cautious. “Could you be a little more specific about the imperative part?”

“Acting as surrogate father to Marel these past four cycles has given me great satisfaction. It made me realize I’ve been denying my own personal needs in pursuit of my career.”

“And you need… ?” I spread out my hands.

“More than I have.” He rested his head against the high back of his chair and closed his eyes.

“It’s time I went home, Cherijo.”

Home. I checked on our patient one more time before heading in that direction myself. Yarek was awake, comfortable, and talking with his bondmate, who gladly agreed to my instructions not to let her spouse lift anything heavier than an eating utensil for the next three weeks.

My quarters were on level nine, two decks below Medical, so it was a short walk. Before I reached my door panel, it opened and something small, fast, and blond came darting out.

“Mama! Mama!”

I found my arms full of twenty-two-and-a-half pounds of Terran kid. “How did you know it was me? It could have been Salo.”

“CanUncaw woves me,” Marel said with the absolute confidence of a much-adored child. “Daddy knew id you.”

My husband came to stand in the doorway. Somehow he always knew it was me, too. “Daddy’s radar is pretty neat, isn’t it?”

Reever gave me one of his rare, spontaneous smiles-something Marel had taught him. “She has been asking me to signal you every five minutes for the last hour.”

“Miss Impatience,” I said as I went into my husband’s embrace. Marel wiggled and laughed between us. “So what’s for dinner?”

While Reever prepared our meal, I took a quick shower and dressed. As I came to the table, I thought of what Squilyp had told me.

He can’t quit and go home. We need him.

Over dinner, we talked about work, and Marel informed us what she’d done in day school. Once we’d finished, our resident Lok-Teel oozed over to clean up the scraps while we went into our living area for family time. Marel had already begun tackling the elementary Terran reading texts at school, so we listened to her read every night.

“‘See Max run.’” Marel traced her fingertip over the display of a little Terran dog. “Mama, we ged a Max?”

“No, sweetie. We’ve already got Jenner and Juliet,” I reminded her, nodding at the two felines presently curled up under the table at our feet. My Terran cats had wasted no time in consummating their brief romance, and as a result Juliet had a nice, fat tummy. “They don’t like Maxes.”

She pouted a little. “I wan one.”

“You, Madam, want everything.” I tugged her into my arms. “How about a bath instead?”

Marel caught my neck in a stranglehold. “With buh-buhs?”

“Absolutely with bubbles.”

Bathtime was another task that required full-family participation. Reever’s job was to keep Marel, the bubbles, and her bath toys in the small oval tank we’d recently installed. Mine was to apply cleanser where needed, scrub, and rinse.

Marel’s job was to make all this as difficult as possible.

Finally, glowing pink and yawning, our daughter toddled off to her room. Both cats were already waiting on her small sleeping platform to curl up with her.

“Sleep well,
avasa
,” Duncan said as he kissed Marel and tucked her in. “You are my delight.”

“You mine wide do, Daddy.” Marel peeked over the edge of the bright blue linens at me. “Sorry I noddy doday, Mama.”

“No, you’re not.” That made her giggle, and I smoothed some fine golden strands back from her now-green eyes. “Good night, baby.”

We turned down the optics as we went out and I dropped on the sofa. “How did she get away from you today? Was she even at school?”

“I picked her up as usual, then put her down for her afternoon sleep interval. When I checked on her a few minutes later, she was gone.” My husband eased down beside me, and began unwinding my braid. “I went to see if she had slipped out to visit Fasala.”

I rubbed my cheek against his hand. “Can’t we put a bell on her or something?”

“We used bells for the cats.” Reever’s mouth touched my cheek, then drifted over to my ear. “A small proximity transmitter would be more efficient.”

“Get some. I’ll attach them to her play clothes.” I pulled open the front of his tunic as an image of Marel and a little Omorr playing together flashed behind my eyes.
Wouldn’t that be something to see
.

Duncan stopped kissing me and drew back. “Squilyp wants a child?”

“Hey.” I whacked his bare chest with my hand. “You promised me you wouldn’t
do
that anymore.”

“I didn’t link with you. You projected to me.”

“Yeah, right.” I glared as I felt him slipping into my mind. Sometimes being married to a telepath was a pain.
Don’t say anything about this; he told me in confidence
.

Proliferation is a natural desire
. Reever’s thoughts echoed inside my head as he completed the link.
The Omorr need not suppress his biological needs, or be ashamed of them
.