Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle (14 page)

Harmonies no! She wanted more of that wonderful light. To see again, even through this strange medium... it was wonderful.

“... didn’t hurt, Kazim,” Varya said. “Calm down. You heard her. She’s fine.”

“But she yelped in pain,” Kazim said. He had moved to Shima’s right side and was standing within reach. Shima carefully took his hand trying not to move her head. Kazim squeezed her hand. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine, just excited. I saw light, Kazim! I haven’t seen any for so long. I was surprised that’s all.”

“Light you say,” Hymas said sounding professionally calm again. “Hmmmm. What colour, how bright? Did it flash or was it constant? Did you hear anything? What about smells?”

Shima felt swamped. She had been too excited to concentrate. She said so, and Hymas said it was fine. They would start over. Shima heard the disappointment in her voice though, and was determined not to mess up this time.

“Here we go, Shima. Concentrate now.”

The light appeared again. “Blue.”

“Good!” Hymas said. “And now?”

“Still blue... its turning green... green now.”

“Excellent,” Hymas muttered and Shima heard her typing something rapidly. “Keep going.”

“Green... slowly turning to yellow... yellow coming up... now!”

“Very good!” Hymas muttered. “Shan appear to see colour a little differently to Humans. We’ll have to make allowances for that. Shouldn’t be hard... need to fully map... and then change the parameters in the database. Program a Shan option to upload the correct set at the start of each session. Yes, that’ll work. I wonder if they can perceive different spectrums.... hmmm. Very interesting. Depth perception might be different too. I bet they see in the dark like Avalonian badgers! Hah!”

Shima might have laughed if she had known what Hymas was talking about, but the Human healer was lost in the data and Shima was too happy luxuriating in the light to interrupt. She knew her eyes were dead, or damaged beyond seeing, but the helmet put the light directly into her brain. To her, it seemed her eyes were suddenly working again and she was looking straight into a coloured light. There was nothing but the light. It filled her vision and pushed out the panicky claustrophobic feeling she felt all the time. Her emotions lightened as the smothering dark lifted away from her. She couldn’t help silently weeping tears of joy.

“Are you crying?” Chailen said in concern, and Hymas suddenly sounded worried again.

“What was that, crying?” Hymas said. “What’s wrong, tell me!”

“Nothing,” Shima blubbered. “It’s wonderful.”

“Hmmm. Well that was the first in the series. Ready for the next one?”

“Can we keep the light on?” Shima said hopefully.

“Sorry no. It would ruin the data.”

“Oh,” Shima said sadly. “Let’s get it over with then.” Darkness smothered her, but she forced herself not to cry out. “What’s next?”

“Sound. I know what you’re going to say, but it will all make sense later I promise. We’re mapping your entire brain not just one part. The more we know the better.”

“Fine, but my ears are trapped. I can hear you, but not very well.”

“Don’t worry about that. It will be like the light. Here take these controllers,” Hymas put a small cylinder into each hand. “Feel the button on the top?”

“Yes.”

“In a moment you will hear various frequencies of sound. When you hear something in the right ear, press the button in your right hand. When you hear it in your left, press the left button. Okay?”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“You’ll have to concentrate. The frequencies might be so high or low you can barely hear them.”

“I will,” Shima said.

“Here we go then.”

Shima listened intently, and as Hymas said, she began hearing various tones. It was strange because she could tell her ears weren’t hearing the sounds. Her ears were fine, but flattened upon her head the sound would be muffled and not clear. The sounds in her head were clear and pure. She used the buttons as instructed and the test was soon over. Hymas pronounced herself satisfied with the results.

The next phase of testing was quicker. It was scent and the follow up test for taste was equally as quick, but the results confounded Hymas. She said that Shan were nothing like Humans for taste and smell, and that because of the scent glands at the back of the Shan throat, taste and smell were intimately connected. The areas in the brain activated by the tests had what she called crossover.

“It’s like your people have two noses,” Hymas explained. “You can smell a scent with your nose but also taste it with the scent glands at the back of your throat. Your taste buds are like ours, but your noses are unbelievably sensitive. I can’t think of any other species that come close to Shan in that area.”

Shima was glad Hymas was excited, but it was all old news to Shima. She used to hunt with her father regularly, and had done so since her first nameday. She used her nose and scent glands all the time. It was part of being Shan.

“This next test will require you to be completely passive, Shima. Can you do that?” Hymas asked.

Kazim made a sarcastic noise and Varya laughed. Sharn chuffed, but turned his laugh into a cough.

Chailen squeezed Shima’s hand. “Take no notice of them. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

“When you say passive, what do you mean?” Shima said.

“The test will find your motor functions. The helmet will search for the areas that move your body. So for example, it will try to make you lift an arm or leg. All you have to do is let it work. Don’t try to move your body or stop from moving. It will feel odd, but that’s all.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Shima said doubtfully.

“Oh yes, it’s easy,” Hymas said. “Here we go then.”

Shima let herself relax as if in meditation and that seemed to impress Hymas as the test progressed. She didn’t struggle as each of her fingers and toes moved without her willing it. Her claws sprang out and retracted. First her left fist all at once, then her right. Then her feet. Lastly, each claw slid out one by one and back in. It did feel very odd, but not as odd as when her entire right leg lifted and the knee flexed.

Shima let the helmet run its test and when it had moved every part of her body, even her tail and ears—even though they were pinned down she felt them trying to turn and lift—she flexed every muscle to throw off the phantom feelings the machine had left behind.

“Good! Well done, Shima,” Hymas praised. “We can take a break now if you want. You could start again tomorrow?”

And spend another cycle in darkness with nothing to do? Shima shuddered at the thought. The journey to Snakeholme would take about ninety cycles. That was an entire season. She had plenty of time to contemplate the dark. At least the tests were a distraction.

“If it’s all right, I’d like to continue.”

“It’s more than all right with me,” Hymas said. “But there’s no rush. We have time.”

“That’s what worries me, Healer Hymas. I’m in the dark all the time. I hate it. I need the distraction.”

“Hmmm, I think I can help with that. These tests will have a side benefit for you. I think you’ll be very surprised and happy with the result.”

Shima didn’t know what the healer could mean, but if it distracted her she would be happy.

Hymas removed the scanning unit and Shima rotated her head on her neck to ease tension. It hadn’t been heavy, but the effort not to move had begun to tell. It felt good to move her ears. Chailen helped her off the couch and they wandered the room for a bit. It was called sickbay or medical by the Humans. Hymas worked her data, collating and assessing while Shima worked the kinks out of her body.

A short time later, Shima was lying on her side practically falling asleep as another machine swallowed her into its guts. It was a computer tomograph machine, and produced detailed internal scans of a body. It was a restful procedure. All Shima had to do was hold still and breath regularly as the CT scan progressed. She was inside the thing for perhaps a half seg, no more than that.

After the full body scan, Hymas put the helmet back on Shima and asked a lot of questions. She was asked to recall events from her past, and other more recent events. Sharn helped with the questions. Lastly Hymas posed puzzles and math questions, nothing difficult, but enough to make Shima think carefully upon her answers.

There were no lights or sounds, just questions and plenty of whispering between Sharn and Hymas as they discussed what her answers revealed. When it was over, Shima asked about the last test. Sharn explained that it filled in a few blanks on the brain scan by locating the long term, short term, and logic centres. Hymas had expressed her surprise that Shan healers had not already mapped the brain as they were advanced in other areas of medicine. They were already advancing into genetics for example, but Sharn explained that mind healers used the harmonies in their work, not machines. Mind healers were specialists, and used their gifts to bring their patients peace and guide them back to harmony. Hymas questioned Sharn extensively about that and seemed very excited by it for some reason, but when she asked about brain chemistry and surgery, Sharn had no answers. Brain surgery was unknown to the Shan. That shocked Hymas into silence for the longest time, but then she explained that Humans used nanotech for surgical procedures, even in a patient’s head, but before that, they had used laser scalpels and skilled hands.

At the end of that cycle, Shima felt satisfied that she had done something to help her situation at last. She was still blind, still walking the ship’s corridors on Chailen’s arm and in the dark, but the light she had seen in her head gave her great hope for the future. Surely the Humans were right and she would see again.

Hymas set a time two cycles hence for another visit to sickbay. Shima would have preferred sooner, but could do nothing about it. She had to wait. The time passed slowly, but it did eventually pass and a viper she hadn’t previously met came to fetch her.

Shima was curled up in the corner of her cabin, trying to sleep, but she spent so much of her time doing that, she wasn’t even a little sleepy. She considered meditating, but again she did that a lot and couldn’t rouse the enthusiasm. A sound like a bell chiming interrupted her thoughts, and she remembered the Human word to say when that happened.

“Enter,” Shima said clearly.

The hatch slid aside and a Human male entered her cabin. The harmonies told her she had not met this one before. He was a viper, all Humans aboard the ship were of course, and his aura was like a banked fire. There was power in him, a deep and strong well of power held in check. Shima sensed he would be strong willed but the banked fire in her head suggested he could erupt into a violent conflagration at need. He was the quintessential warrior.

It was a puzzle how different he seemed to the other Humans she had met. Then again, she hadn’t met that many; they were all very different to her people in the harmonies. They burned brightly, vivid colours moving with violent frenetic motions. Shan were all pastels and gentle motion. Shima could only assume it was the intimate connection with the harmonies that caused the difference. Shan lived in harmony, or strove to do so. Humans had no connection with the harmonies and did not know what they lacked. It was very sad.

“Good morning, Shima. May you live in harmony. I’m Sergeant Stone. Call me Stone, I prefer it.”

Shima pushed herself up to stand on two legs to greet him properly. She bowed to him. “A pleasure to meet you. May you live in harmony. Have you come to escort me to Healer Hymas?”

“Marian will be there, but you’re mine today.”

“Yours?” Shima said uncertainly. “How so?”

“I’ll explain on the way,” Stone said. “May I take your arm?”

Shima flicked her ears and held her right arm out. Stone took her arm and wrapped it over his. He held his arm up rigidly allowing her to hold on tightly or not as she chose. She liked that. She would never tell her sib, but Chailen grabbed her arm and led her around like a youngling when she did this. Stone walked at her pace, letting Shima control things. When they reached the elevator needed to change decks on Human ships, Stone told her to stop and used the controls to call the car for her.

“Handy things, elevators,” Shima said thinking about the ramps her people used at home. “I’ve had trouble with the spiral ways back home.”

“Hmmm, you would. Humans sometimes suffer from vertigo too.” Stone said. “My people use stairs and elevators everywhere; ladders as well, especially in ships for emergencies if the elevators lose power. You never want to be stuck in a box in the middle of a battle.”

Shima shuddered. “I should think not!”

Stone chuckled. The elevator doors slid aside and they stepped into the car.

“Deck Two,” Stone barked. “We’re not going to sickbay.

Shima flicked her ears. Sickbay was on three. “Where then?”

“Rec room... that’s recreation room. Marion told me she needed a scanning unit to fit a Shan. That was easy enough. I borrowed Kazim and Chailen to help me design one and test them for fit. They work like a charm, but the really interesting part was when she told me how much you liked the vision test.”

“It was marvellous!” Shima enthused. “I hadn’t seen light for the longest time. I was very excited.”