Plague of Memory (15 page)

"My Dominary and Designate, ChrrechoVa," TssVar said. "She serves as personal physician to the Hanar."

The female's name sounded like a reptilian version of Cherijo, a bit corrupted by the Hsktskt's rolled and snapped consonants. I wondered if I should try to pronounce it.

"I am called ChoVa," the female said, relieving me of one burden. "It has been some years. When last we met, I was only a child."

"I regret that I cannot remember that time," I told her. "But I am glad to meet you again, and to know that you are well."

"ChoVa became a physician to honor you." TssVar didn't sound approving or disapproving, but I detected a softer note in his voice as he referred to his daughter. "She brings much distinction to our line."

"She serves adequately." The Hanar looked at ChoVa again, and she stepped back out of sight. "I will forego her attendance so that she may accompany you during your time here and give you what aid you need, Terran."

"I thank you for that, Supreme One." Whatever his reasons for sending her with me, I could use ChoVa's expertise. I had little experience with ensleg, and none treating reptilian life-forms.

"Do not be so eager to offer your gratitude, now that you are here." He almost snarled the words. "I have lost too many of my children. More I will not sacrifice. You shall heal my people, Warm-Blood, and you shall do so quickly."

"I will do everything I can," I promised, choosing my words carefully, "but as the Supreme One must know, I cannot guarantee any results."

"SubAkade TssVar weighed out for me a price for you that was not pleasing to my heart, but I paid it for the blood." The Hanar jerked his lower jaw several times as if agitated—or pretending to chew on something attached to me. "I see it convenient, this plague, to emerge at such a time on our world. Perhaps it was released by our enemies as a coward's weapon, to destroy us when they could not."

"That may be possible," I conceded, "but I think it unlikely. Your planet, like you, is too well protected against such things."

"Your speculations do not interest me," the Hanar said, causing the males around me to tense. "You could be part of a conspiracy to wipe out our kind."

"I am not."

"That you must prove," the old Hsktskt said, baring his teeth in a horrible mimicry of a humanoid smile. "The only proof I shall accept is a cure."

The interview came to an abrupt end as the Hanar's guards surrounded us and led us out of the chamber. On our way out, the female Hsktskt physician joined us.

"It is best if we begin at the quarantine center," ChoVa said as we were escorted to a waiting transport. "We have isolated the active cases there, and perhaps a dozen are still lucid enough to respond to questions."

138 S. L. Viehl

"How many patients have you quarantined?" I asked.

"Two thousand at last inspection, but the occupancy fluctuates." She opened the access hatch and gestured for me and Reever to enter the transport. "New cases are brought in each morning, and any number of terminal cases is resolved each day."

"Resolved? You mean die?" TssVar had indicated that the plague itself was not fatal.

"We have stabilized the number of deaths by suspending those patients judged terminal in a form of cryopreservation. It is a procedure normally used during certain forms of cardiosurgery on our kind." ChoVa eased down in the seat beside mine and released a very humanoid-sounding sigh. "Cryo does not keep them alive very long. Seven to ten days, at best, and then the blood begins to crystallize."

"But if the plague itself is not terminal, why kill them with cryogenic procedures?" I demanded. She gave me an enigmatic look. "You must see that for yourself, Healer."

EIGHT

ChoVa questioned me as we rode from the palace to the Hsktskt quarantine facility.

"Conditions on the surface of Akkabarr have been described to me as primitive," she said. "What sort of health care is the native population given?"

Evidently she worried about my ability to provide responsible treatment for her patients. I could not blame her—in her position, I would have done the same—but I was reluctant to talk about Akkabarr. Then I realized that unlike Reever, ChoVa would not care that I longed for my homeworld. She simply wanted to ensure that I would not in ignorance kill anyone on hers.

"Before the war, nothing but what the male tribal healers could provide." I looked through the clear panel to my right and saw two armed centurons patrolling the empty street on foot. "During the rebellion, we skela took over triage and medevac. Skela are outcast females who handle the bodies of the dead for the tribes."

Her tongue flicked rapidly. "I take it they also had no proper medical education."

"I trained them. I do not have Cherijo's personal memories, but her skills are still mine. Once the skela learned how to handle the living, we requisitioned supplies from salvaged crashes and built temporary hospital shelters. Toward the end of the war, we were able to perform almost any surgical procedure." Which had been fortunate, given the number of ruined bodies that we had also carried off the battlefields, but I did not say this. I did not even like to remember the fighting.

"I am astonished that you did so much under such primitive conditions." ChoVa's inner eyelids lowered a notch. "You must have seen to a great many wounded."

"More than any healer would wish." And watched as they were wounded, feeling helpless and terrified, unable to look away. The images in my head made me feel ill, but by that time the transport had stopped in front of an undecorated building of dark stone. I climbed out of the vehicle, glad to escape my thoughts.

"I need a moment with my wife, ChoVa." Reever took my arm and pulled me away from the others. "You are flushed. Are you feeling ill?"

"I am feeling hot." It was not a lie. "This planet could do with an ice age." The worry lines tightened around his mouth, so I added, "A little discomfort will not harm me." Neither would unhappy memories, if I could but discipline myself not to recall them.

My assurances didn't placate him. "If you feel dizzy, tell me." "If I fall down, assume I cannot." I rejoined ChoVa and we walked to the air lock access panel to

the facility. Once there, she hesitated, as if reluctant to go in.

Perhaps she did not believe my assurances to her, either. I needed to work on my powers of persuasion. "Besides what I did during the rebellion, the Senior Healer on the ensleg ship that brought me here made thorough tests. You need not fear that I will harm anyone."

"It is not you. I never want to.. . see them," ChoVa admitted, and then her posture changed, as if she were bracing herself for a blow. "We have so many infected now that we have had to economize on available space." She pressed one hand to a panel that scanned it and identified her. "Our methods may seem unkind to your eyes, but they are efficient, and allow us to treat as many as are brought here."

The reason for her remarks was revealed the instant we entered what must have once been a reception and processing area. The large room was filled with triangular columns of a semitransparent blue color. In each was a Hsktskt, but they were almost too large for the columnar containers, and appeared to be wedged inside, completely suspended in a clear, bubbling gelatinous liquid. Tubes from machines capping the containers snaked around the outside, attached to sensor patches near the necks, chests, arms, groins, and thighs of the patients. Some were apparently to drain urine and waste, others to provide liquids and soluble nourishment. Thick black alloy bands had been applied to each patient's jaw to keep them closed. Oxygen and medicines appeared to be fed through some of the machine tubes directly into the patients' chests.

"You keep them in bottles," I muttered, walking over to the nearest container. I had never seen living beings in such a state. "Is there no other way?"

"No. This is the only form of restraint from which they cannot escape," ChoVar said, and tapped the surface of the clear blue material. A light emitter illuminated the interior, and the patient opened his eyes to glare at me. He must have been making sounds, judging by the pulsing muscles in his throat and the straining of the black band clamping his jaw shut, but I could not hear them.

"Do their cries power the life-support system?" I asked.

"No. Power is provided by the facility's operational grid." ChoVa pointed to several raw-looking wounds on the male patient's face and neck. "This OverCenturon was brought in after he tried to tear out his ears and throat. He regurgitates everything he is fed by chest tube, and is weakening rapidly, so we will place him in cryopreservation tomorrow."

"You might keep him alive longer with intravenous feeding," I suggested as I made a visual assessment.

"As effective as they are, our restraining columns cannot prevent small movements, and regular administration of neuroparalyzer creates a toxin in Hsktskt blood," she said as she adjusted one of the tubes. "Several of the patients we attempted to keep on IV nutrients managed to strangle themselves with the tubing before we could remove it."

I had watched rebels endure varying amounts of self-hatred from the shock that came after intense battle, but only a few had actually tried to harm themselves. "Surely they are not all suicidal?"

"In the beginning, we thought not," ChoVa said. "The initial symptoms manifested in a wide assortment of bizarre behaviors, and we assumed systemic failure was the cause of death. Only after we performed autopsies on the first victims did we learn that each had in some manner self-terminated. It was then that we interviewed the patients who could still communicate and discovered they all had the same psychotic desire: to die rather than endure."

"Endure what?"

"We do not know," she admitted. "Their vitals only indicate they are under some extreme mental or physical stress. They will not tell us what they endure. When we ask, all they do is scream."

A large, agitated-looking Hsktskt male in a silver-black uniform came to ChoVa. "The Palace signaled of your intention to come here for an inspection." He looked down at me. "I am Dr. IshVar, facility director." He glanced over at the Adan. and Reever, who were staring aghast at the patient tubes. "You may enter, Dr. Torin, but I cannot have armed warm-bloods wandering the facility and agitating the staff and the patients. They must stay here."

"We should perform rounds and then look at the corpses in pathology," ChoVa said to me. "Will your men allow you to accompany me alone?"

"Let me speak to them." I went to Reever, whose face was pale and beaded with sweat. "Are you ill?" "I never thought to see them like this." He

sounded as if he might empty his stomach on the floor. "It is as if they are cooking them in boiling liquid."

I recalled Cherijo mentioning my husband's dislike for illness and blood in her journals, but she seemed to feel a slight disdain for it. I understood his revulsion better than she had, but I had been through a war. "It is for their safety, so they will not harm themselves. The warmth of the liquid promotes body temperature regulation in the absence of exercise, and the bubbles are oxygen, to keep their derma healthy."

He turned his head to stare at me. "How do you know that?"

"I know what has to be done with such patients." I gestured toward the corridor. "ChoVa and I must walk the wards and examine some cadavers. The male who directs this place will not permit you to accompany me."

His eyes, a pale gray, turned dark. "We will not be separated."

ChoVa came to stand beside me in time to hear this. "HalaVar, you know my obligation under blood law. I am the Designate. I vow to you that I will guard her with my life."

"What if your life is not enough?" my husband demanded.

"It will be." She gave him a rather frightening look that bared many rows of her teeth. "Hsktskt physicians are not only trained to heal."

They stared at each other for a long time before Reever gripped my wrist and did something to the translator I wore. "We will be tracking you by re

mote signal. Don't leave the facility under any circumstances." I nodded and went off to the next patient area with ChoVa.

By the time we reached the patients who had been frozen, I had examined over fifty patients in various stages of infection with ChoVa. We had performed all manner of scans and screens and still had made no progress. ChoVa and I had to don special insulating garments to enter the cryolab, and we only stayed long enough for her to show me what precautions they were taking to preserve the patients in the final phase of treatment.

"One of our chemists has produced a serum made from a natural anticoagulant that has slowed the rate of blood crystallization," ChoVa told me as we quickly walked the silent, chilly ward, "but it does not eliminate it. Even with the serum, once frozen, the patient has two to three weeks to be revived before the deterioration of the cells becomes too extensive."

I had not liked looking upon the patients in the upright tubes, but seeing the Hsktskt encased like so many haunches of ptar meat in square, ice-filled vats was worse. "Have you tried reviving them to see if the cold affects the pathogen?"

"Yes, but it does not. Even those with significant cryoexposure revert back to their suicidal behavior. Any reduction in body temperature only serves to suspend us, not alter us." ChoVa regarded the tanks for a moment. "My father discovered that for himself when he tried to place my mother in cryosuspension."

My nose was freezing, and my breath hung white and heavy on the air, and I felt more relaxed than I had in weeks. It was a pity we could not linger; I felt more at home here than anywhere since I had left Akkabarr. "Your mother has been infected?"

"I meant when TssVar tried to prevent her delivery." ChoVa led me out to the changing area where she enabled a heat emitter and stood before it, warming herself. "You do not remember when you delivered me and my siblings of my mother on Kevarzangia Two?"

"No."

"You were a trauma physician there. My father had to remove my mother from his ship and take her to someplace isolated to deliver, so he chose your world. Hsktskt females are not permitted to reproduce while on active duty, and can be killed for it up until the time they deliver."