Zenn Scarlett (11 page)

“No, this isn’t about that.” Her voice took on an edge of anger, at him, at herself for not making herself clear. Of course she was worried about her father. But this was something else, something happening inside of her. “It’s what I’ve been feeling around the animals lately. It’s like, sometimes, they notice that I’m there, in some different way. It’s like, maybe they sense I’m trying to help.”

“And you think you’ve… felt this before, with other animals?”

“I felt the same thing, about a month ago, with Katie. Somebody left the cover off the well pit. She fell in and couldn’t get out. I was in the side garden, tying up hopps vines. I heard her yowling. Soon as I lifted her up out of the pit, I had this… peculiar feeling. Like being dizzy, or weak all of the sudden. And then she just went quiet, flipped over and gave me this look, like… I know, I know how this sounds. But it was like she was looking into my eyes and sensing that she was safe then, that I would help. I felt so close to her. Close in a different way than ever before.”

“Well, now, Zenn, let’s think about this. You’ve always had a way with the animals. Ever since you were little. And Katie isn’t just another pet. She’s a bright little creature.”

“But this was different, Otha. Then it happened again, with the hooshrike.” It was two weeks ago. She’d been prepping the big, bat-like fruitivore for surgery when it happened. “Hild had asked me to shave his abdomen, for the gastric resection op. He knew something was up. When I turned on the clippers, the sound scared him.”

“No surprise there,” Otha snorted. “Those clippers are older than I am. The noise makes
me
jump sometimes.”

“He spooked and reared up. One of his primary wings went through the cage bars and got stuck. He was thrashing around something fierce. I had to get him free before he hurt himself.”

“He’s bigger than you, girl, and strong. You should’ve come for me.”

“There wasn’t time. He was panicking. I was about to make a grab for him when it happened again. The feeling. Only this time I got really… wobbly, and all at once he stopped struggling. He just drooped there, perfectly still. He let me pull his wing free, he never resisted or fought me. It was like he knew I was there to help him.”

“Yes, but Zenn… this feeling you say you get. Why didn’t you speak up before?”

“I couldn’t be sure before. But it happened again when I was doing the whalehound’s eye, for just a second. And today, with the sandhog. Each time, I feel it more, like the connection is getting stronger. Otha, I know how this sounds. But something is happening between me and these animals.”

Otha was silent, and Zenn couldn’t read his face. Did he think she was imagining it? Having a breakdown? Did he think she was just a scatter-brained little girl? He looked at her again, sharply, for a long while, as if trying to see something beneath her words.

“Zenn, what you’re feeling, no, what you
think
you’re feeling around the animals isn’t that unusual. You spend your days, all your time, treating these patients, becoming… involved. You don’t see anyone else, beside Hild and me and Hamish. You don’t have a chance to interact with other kids your age and…”

Zenn tried to interrupt. She’d heard this before, from both Otha and the Sister. Her uncle held up a hand to silence her.

“And what happens then is projection. You know the term?”

“Yes, Otha, but…”

“You’re projecting, Zenn. You’ve got a … need in your life, a necessary psychological need that isn’t being met in the way that it’s met for most kids your age. So you see things in the animals, you feel things that you think are coming from them, but they’re not. They’re coming from inside of you. Do you see how that works?”

“Otha. I understand about that, I know what you mean, but you’re wrong. This is something real. Not something I’m manufacturing because I’m lonely, or cut-off or… crazy.”

“Of course you’re not crazy, Zenn. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying this is a natural reaction to your situation. To
our
situation at the cloister. You’ve lived behind our walls your whole life. If anyone’s at fault here, it’s me. I should’ve seen what this was doing to you.”

“Otha, I’m telling you that’s not it!”

“Oh? What, then?” he said, exasperated. “What is it? You tell me.”

“It’s…” She was frustrated too, now, and it made her even less able to say anything convincing to her uncle about what was happening to her. “It’s like the animals… allow me in. They let me in… somehow.”

“Yes. Somehow,” Otha shook his head. “Zenn, I’m not sure you’re hearing me. You know the science about this sort of thing. And you know what I’m telling you is true. You need to take a step back. Will you do that? Take a step back, look at the facts?”

She could tell him yes, that she’d do that. But she wouldn’t do it. And she wasn’t going to tell him she would. She was already looking at the facts. But she was failing miserably in describing those facts to him. She turned away, watched the rock and scrub growth passing by, angry with him, angry with herself.

They drove in silence for a short time.

“We need to tell Warra about this,” he said then, surprising her.

“Dad?” Zenn turned quickly to face him, no longer angry, but concerned. “Why?”

“Because it affects him too. Your life. How you’re doing.”

“Do you have to? Tell him? I know I’ve been… a little unfocused lately.”
That
was an understatement, and almost an admission Otha was right about her mental state. She didn’t care. “But… he’s got other things on his mind. You’ve said so. Why bother him?”

And why give her father a reason to think he’d been right all along? That she wasn’t ready; that she was too young to stay behind on Mars and start her exovet training.

“Girl, he worries about you. Despite what you think. Gil said the
Helen of Troy
was going to Enchara. I’ll send off a shard.” Carried aboard the Indra ship, a message recorded onto the holographic crystal data-shard would take at least a week to reach Enchara. It would then take more weeks for a reply to be sent on the next Indra ship headed back to Mars. The delay always maddened Zenn. While the Indra had evolved the ability to traverse interstellar distances almost instantaneously, communication signals like radio and TV transmissions were still limited to travelling no faster than the speed of light. So communication shards had to be physically transported via Indra ship from star system to star system like any other cargo.

“Otha, I know there’s no such thing as telepathy,” Zenn said, deciding to try a different tack. She knew her uncle’s disdain for anything remotely mystical. She had to convince him she wasn’t going off the deep end or, worse, allow him to make her father think that. “I know things like that have never stood up to real testing.” And it was true. Claims of telepathy had never been shown to be more than pseudo-science, bad experimental controls, or just plain old wishful thinking.

The dimension-jumping Indra, of course, were a special case. It was known they could establish an elementary form of long-distance communication with others of their kind using the principle of quantum entanglement. It was a concept Zenn had never entirely sorted out in her head. But according to Otha, it involved two particles that were created in a way that makes them act like a single particle, even after they were separated. So, whatever happened to one of these particles instantly happened to the other one, regardless of where it was – in the next room, or on the other side of the universe.

Zenn knew this unique Indra ability wasn’t some sort of magical ESP. It was straightforward, documented biophysics, directly linked to the Indras’ billions of years of evolution. Indra brains were “entangled” in a way that let them ignore the distances between them when it came to communicating. But believing that a human could telepathically exchange thoughts with another being, on the other hand, was akin to believing in demons and unicorns.

“I know I’m not talking to animals,” she went on, careful to keep her voice calm, analytical. “But it just seems as if sometimes I’m… extra-sensitive, or the animals are. What could cause that?”

There. That’s a reasonable question. I’m asking for his input. He should respond to that.
 

“I can’t say, girl,” he said, running one hand over his scalp as if trying to dislodge a troublesome thought. “We’ll… run it by Warra, see what your father says.”

So much for the reasonable approach.
 

She thought hard to come up with some good reason not to tell Warra she was having trouble. She could think of nothing useful.

“But what I can say right now,” Otha said, his tone brisk again, “is that you need to focus on the week ahead. Your first in-soma run is no place for scattered thoughts. You need to be sharp for this test. Especially after what happened with the hound.”

Did he understand what she was trying to tell him? Was he just dismissing everything she’d said? The truth was she didn’t understand it herself. In any case, she’d told him and there was no turning back now. She couldn’t press the point. Not with a man like Otha. She’d simply have to assemble her evidence, and lay it out logically for him when the time was right.

And Otha was clearly correct about the coming week, and what lay at its end. Anything less than a near-perfect score on the in-soma test was simply not an option. Calling it “a busy week” didn’t do the prospect justice. But, she told herself for the hundredth time, she was ready. At least, as ready as she’d ever be for this particular procedure.

The first time she’d laid down in an in-soma pod and closed the door, she realized with a small shiver of anxiety that there was no room to move your arms or legs. The feeling as the cushioning surfaces pushed in on her body from all sides was like being wrapped tight in a high-tech coffin. But that wasn’t what concerned her most about the device. What kept her up at night was the memory of one of her mother’s early in-soma runs.

TEN

The insertion of the in-soma pod carrying her mother into the body of the female ultratheer had gone smoothly enough. Looking something like a short-legged, shaggy hippopotamus blown up to the size of a three-story building, ultratheers were huge but gentle herbivores from the lowland plains of the planet Taraque-Sine in the Gliesian system. The problem for Mai Scarlett started in the creature’s second stomach; the pod was being impacted by the animal’s grinding stones – boulders that helped break down the tough bog-ash trees it favored. The stomach muscles spasmed and two big stones caught the pod between them. In-soma pods are tough, but they do have their limits; a small rupture in the hull opened up. Finally, Otha had to fully sedate the patient and perform emergency abdominal surgery to get her mother out. Amazingly, the ultratheer survived with only a large scar.

It was Zenn’s memory of the aftermath of this event that truly haunted her – the sight of her mother’s foot as Otha carried her into the clinic ready room, the flesh raised into steaming blisters where the creature’s stomach acid had burned away her boot.

Amid the confusion of it all, Zenn’s mother had called Zenn over to the exam table where she lay and, through clenched teeth, reassured her daughter that she would be fine.

“But it hurt you,” Zenn had said, feeling both fearful and angry. “It could have killed you.”

“Zenn, this wasn’t the animal’s fault,” her mother said firmly. Wincing against the pain, she reached out to take Zenn’s hands in hers. Her mother’s jet-black hair, usually hanging straight to her shoulders, was fanned out across the pillow under her head. Even now, Zenn remembered the scent of her hair that day, like apricot blossoms with a faint tang of antiseptic. “It’s part of Mommy’s job, honey,” her mother said, her dark, almond-shaped eyes fixing on Zenn’s. “We take risks sometimes to help animals get better. Understand?”

Her father had entered the ready room. He came to stand beside his wife.

“Mai? Are you alright? Otha said there was a problem, with the ultratheer.” His gaze went to the aqua-plast cuff Otha was applying to her mother’s lower leg. “How bad?”

“Not bad,” she said, smiling up at him. But Zenn could tell she was hurting, and that she didn’t want her father, or her, to know.

“Ah, well,” her father laid one hand softly on her mother’s head. “I’ll assume the animal learned its lesson...” He winked at Zenn, trying, she thought, to look unconcerned. “You don’t mess with Dr Mai Scarlett.”

“Otha,” Her mother propped herself up on one elbow to address her uncle, who had finished with the cuff and was now looking for something in a cupboard on the wall. “How’s that abdominal incision look? You must’ve had your hands full getting that big girl closed up all by yourself.”

“Hild gave me a hand,” he said. “We managed. And the animal will be fine, just a little tender for a week or two.”

Her mother lay back down, breathed out a long sigh and closed her eyes.

“Mom,” Zenn said, “Weren’t you afraid? Inside her stomach?”

She spoke without turning to face Zenn, her eyes still shut.

“Yes, honey, it’s always a little scary to do in-soma work, to go into an animal.” She looked up at Zenn. “But sometimes that’s the only way we can help them. The important thing is to remember that these animals are depending on us. When they’re very sick, they can’t get better by themselves. And when I became an exovet, I took an oath. I promised to do whatever I could to help them. And sometimes, that means being a little afraid now and then. But you know what?” Her mother’s dark eyes stared into Zenn’s. “Sometimes, feeling afraid is how you know that you’re doing something good and necessary. In fact, sometimes Zenn, doing the right thing is the scariest thing of all.”

“And your mother should know,” her father said. “But sometimes it’s scarier for us on the outside than for her on the inside, huh kid?” He tousled Zenn’s hair. “At least she could see what was going on in there.”

“Dad!” Zenn ducked away from his hand, scowling. “It practically ate her. And you’re just making jokes.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” he said, but she couldn’t tell if he was taking her seriously or not. “Sometimes grownups do that… make jokes to make ourselves not be so scared about something. The important thing is…” he took her mother’s hand and held it tight in both of his hands, “…your mom’s alright, and we’re here with her.”