Panacea (2 page)

Ty scowled. “No, Ly, it was not your turn for funny skin. It looks surprisingly good. Your hair got paler.”

Ly grinned and fluttered her fingers down her body.

“Yeah, they managed to grow my hair out as well. Well, you get some rest. I am going to do the same.”

Ly watched her sister leave, and she heaved a silent sigh. She hated to see her go, but it was for the best. She was going to be taking quite a bit longer to settle into her new situation. Her period had started while she was in the tank, and they had had to make emergency measures to compensate for that. It seemed her body wanted to test them at every turn.

She didn’t really mind. She could wrestle with the difficulties and anything else that came along. Now that Ty was healed, she was lovely once again, and her face matched her soul.

Whatever happened to Lynni, she already had what she wanted. Her sister was healthy and in good spirits. Who could ask for more?

The duality of her skin tones was taking some getting used to. Right and left had always been an issue for her, but now, she had built-in help. Looking on the bright side was always work for her. Having to direct it to herself was quite the twist.

“You appear upset, Lynni.” Leko’s voice boomed through the liquid around her.

She looked at him and cocked her head. She tried to find a way to mime that she needed something to read. It involved miming a book but that just confused him. Finally, she saw a tech with a data pad, and she pointed toward him.

Leko nodded, grabbed the man and hauled him to her tank. He pressed one hand to the curved surface. “What do you want from him?”

She pointed down to the data pad, and the tech looked relieved.

Leko moved his cameras. “You wish to read?”

She nodded in relief.

He pulled his hand away and spoke to the tech before releasing him. The other man scrambled away, and Lynni was left bobbing away in the tank while she waited.

It took about ten minutes for a data pad, sealed in a membrane, to be lowered into the tank with her. A hooked rest was arranged so that she could rest the tablet instead of hold it. With a few fumbled attempts, she was soon reading up on alien languages.

There was nothing on the Lrrko. She scowled and tapped on the inside of the glass.

Leko put his hand against it again, and he tilted his robotic head.

She pointed at him and then at her mouth.

“I am sorry, Lynni, I do not understand what you are asking for.”

She typed in the words
Lrrko Language
on the pad and showed it to him.

“Ah. You want that now?”

She nodded.

Leko cocked his head and nodded. “Very well.”

She watched her tablet record a download, and when it was complete, a large button appeared in the centre of the screen. She pressed it and light flashed around her. She kept her eyes open as the information was downloaded into her mind.

She got language, history, details that she would never have guessed at and knowledge of what she had just committed herself to.

Assassins. A long history of killing others for a price. It was enough to make her uneasy about what she had gotten herself into.

It wasn’t enough to upset her. She was floating across from a seven-foot robot with the physique of a body builder in a paramilitary uniform with bare silvery arms. It seemed to be a design intent on actually taming the frightening aspects of his size and features. The shine of the metal made it easy to see him, and the cameras kept his features from giving away any hostile intent. She was both comforted and fixated by his appearance.

She really needed to get herself out of the tank.

Sighing and releasing bubbles, she set her tablet back on the stand and continued reading with the new language circling in her mind. She couldn’t practice her pronunciation and that itself vexed her. She really wanted to try out the words and concepts in her mind.

Lynni would never have thought that being unable to speak would have been the most difficult part of her current situation. She had just confirmed that she was a chimera by human standards, and it did explain a lot. When Ty had been injured, she had been unable to donate blood because she wasn’t a match. It was weird because their family medical records indicated that she should have been. It was only an overzealous tech’s devotion to Ty’s survival that had led her to running the type. To their shock, Lynni did not match her sister. At least not out of the right arm.

Lynni was conflicted by the urge to learn and the urge to
move.
She didn’t know if it was the days in the tank or the changes in her system, but she felt stronger than she had before.

Something in her head told her that she could break through the plexi of the tank if she wanted to. Detailed attack patterns started to fill her mind.

She floated along with Leko occasionally conversing with her, and she answered back via the data pad.

While she waited, she learned about the Bride ship and that it was the Lrrko’s last attempt at the desperately needed genes. The crash on Terra was not expected, and the resulting blending with the locals had an astronomical unlikelihood, and yet, here she was generations later.

Now and then, Lynni caught a look at herself in the lenses of Leko’s cameras. Her hair was completely white now, which she supposed complemented the split of colouration on her body. She wasn’t one person. She was two complete people, split down the centre.

It was hard to understand, but when her transformation occurred, her vision had improved dramatically. She could now read the monitors and displays on the other side of the room, and as everyone in the space was speaking a language she could understand, she could also read lips.

Reading lips was a habit she had gotten into at the hospital. While the doctors told her that Ty was doing well, she learned a lot more if she watched them talk to each other. Their body language spoke volumes, and their lips said in private what they would never say to the family. Despite her relatively stable situation, Ty had been dying by inches. She might have had another three years to live, but it would not have been longer.

Now, Ty was in the arms of her Familiar with a pinup’s figure once again and a healthy glow to her cheeks. The tears that Lynni had shed at the sight had thankfully blended in with the tank fluid.

The image of the damage Ty had been wearing for the last two years was fading with the smiling memory of her repaired face taking over. The day that Ly had gotten the call was even worse than the day that their parents were killed in a vehicular crash. Tyanni was her older sister by less than a year. They had grown up more like twins than just sisters.

Now, the resemblance between the sisters was on the genetic level and little more. Lynni was definitely something different now. She hoped that their bond would still be there when they met again on the Lrrko home world.

“Lynni, are you all right? You look a little... unhappy.”

She smiled slightly and looked at Leko, typing on her data pad. “I am fine. Well, as fine as I can be. How long has Ty been gone?”

“Seven days. You are holding up rather well for that. I believe your treatment is nearly complete.”

“Hooray. I want to take this body for a spin. I have had the urge to punch something a lot more frequently than I used to.” Typing in Lrrko was economical. The phrases were tight around violence. Talking about violent thoughts was easy.

“I believe they will have you out tomorrow. From that point onward, you will be solely in my care.”

She nodded. That part was clearly understood. The Lrrko had paid to heal Ty, so Lynni was on board with whatever happened next as long as she could be near her sister.

Leko would take good care of her. He hadn’t let her down so far.

The metal hands that hauled her from the tank belonged to her Familiar. He held her while she threw up the fluid that had kept her alive and breathing. Her coughing cleared her lungs, and Leko rubbed her spine to sooth her.

When she was limp and there was nothing else to come out of her, he lifted her from the platform and carried her to the med table where the team was ready to undo all of the implants they had installed when she went in.

Leko stood back and watched over her as the doctors buzzed around her, sealing the holes and running scans.

Her body went from floating in a tank to feeling air blowing across it, and her skin prickled as her new senses came alive.

She looked at the techs around her and knew how to incapacitate each one of them with just a few flicks of her fingers. The idea freaked her out. She wasn’t violent under normal circumstances, but this was as far from normal as she had ever been. She was two freaking colours for Pete’s sake.

The doctors worked on her for an hour, and when they were done, Leko held her in the solar shower to get the last of the fluid off her skin.

He wrapped her in a medical robe and carried her down the hall, passing a few chambers that contained other tanks with other Familiars.

“So, the other three ladies are still in the tanks?”

He nodded. “They all had different requirements that needed to be addressed by the medical teams.”

“Here, I thought I was an easy case.”

“You were, until you weren’t. You have come through it well, Lynni. Everyone heals at their own pace.”

He brought her to a set of quarters that had a charging station in it, as well as a wardrobe. He set her on the bed and turned to the wardrobe, selecting a silvery bodysuit that was sleeveless and complete with feet.

“I will help you into this.”

Lynni sat up and reached for it. “I can do it.”

He paused. “You will tire yourself.”

“I am pretty sure that I can get dressed.”

She grabbed the clothing and slipped on the legs of the suit and started working them into position. She had them up to mid-thigh when she glared at Leko. “Please help.”

He didn’t say anything, merely knelt down and put her hands on his shoulders to stabilise her as he lifted her into a standing position. His hands worked quickly, and before she knew it, he was tucking her arms into the armholes and straightening the lines before he sealed the suit.

“Thank you.”

“You do not need to thank me; I am here to keep you safe, clothed, rested and fed. When we begin combat training, I will also teach you what you need to know to become a full Lrrko.”

“I am a Terran.”

“Not anymore. After that treatment, you have become a Lrrko in physiology. Well, a female Lrrko. We don’t have any of our own anymore.”

She gave him an arch look. “I am here to tell you that, apparently, is no longer true.”

He chuckled. It was a strange noise to hear from a robot, and she gave him an arch look. Her stomach rumbled and wrecked her speculation. “Can I eat?”

He picked her up. “Yes. I will take you to the dining hall and prepare your meal.”

“You are going to prepare it?”

“Who knows better what Lrrko can and cannot eat than your Familiar?” His tone made it seem that she was being ridiculous. She settled and let him carry her through the base. She didn’t care how she got to food as long as it showed up in the next half hour.

There were a few other people in the dining area, and several of them stared at her.

It took her a few minutes to remember the colour differentiation of her face. She blushed and tried to look out at the moonscape.

She bit her lip and propped her chin on her hand while she watched the huge orb of Earth in the sky. It felt so weird to see it from her current location.

After ten minutes, Leko returned to her with a tray of food that woke up saliva glands and made her stomach rumble.

He inclined his head and eased into a crouch next to her.

“Why don’t you sit in the chair?”

“It won’t sustain my weight.”

“Right. What is this?” She pointed to the different dishes, and she waited while he explained the contents of each individual plate.

“Do they teach you how to cook on Lrrko?”

“It was part of my preparation for this mission.”

She nodded. Right. It was probably a programmed series of recipes or something.

The food was exactly what she wanted. It was primarily vegetable, but there was enough meat in it to satisfy her craving for protein.

She was a little disgusted that she was exhausted by eating a meal, but Leko caught on, and when she was done, he lifted her up and carried her out of the dining room and back to her quarters.

Before she could protest, she had been stripped, placed in a loose shirt and tucked into bed.

“You will feel better after you have rested and your meal has digested. The doctor will need to look at you one more time before we are free to leave, but then, we can head to Lrrko.”

“I can hardly wait. I want to see how Tyanni is coming along.” She yawned and snuggled down in bed.

Leko went to the wall and clipped himself into a charging station; a pale light glowed in one of the lenses of the camera, so she knew he was watching.

Lynni curled up and went to sleep.

* * * *

Leko watched her assume the position that she had been in while she slept in the tank. Apparently, the fetal position was common as a reflex in Terrans. She curled into that position whenever she entered a deep sleep.

Her senses and reflexes were obvious in the way she moved, and they were entirely Lrrko. She was tracking targets, which was an advanced reflex that took years of training. It was as amusing to watch as it was terrifying. He was responsible for what appeared to be one of the most potentially deadly Lrrko he had ever seen.

Leko’s clan specialised in the art of assigning jobs within the genetic caste that the child had been designed in. Their population was relatively stable, but the needs of the society changed with the times, and the roles that they needed the young men to fill had to change as well.

Leko was going to be a Master Selector, but the Selector of his clan offered him as the Familiar when this assignment came up. It wasn’t an assignment so much as a life sentence, but Lynni appeared to be polite and soft spoken.