Beyond Varallan (43 page)

“We want the Terran,” I heard Rogan shout. “The rest of you can go. Leave her.”

Oh. good. I didn’t have to leave this waste heap without getting a shot at Rogan after all.

Silently I motioned to Dhreen. “Here.” I handed him one of the smooth round stones I had picked up near the tree houses. “Watch.”

I dropped down and dug my hands in the brown muck. Dhreen imitated my actions. When we were armed, we darted across the open ground for the shuttle.

Pulses of energy smashed into the mud all around us. Rogan was only a few meters from us now, firing at our legs. Didn’t want to damage the merchandise, I thought. We danced around the beams, but it was obvious we weren't going to reach the launch.

“Surrender!” Rogan yelled.

“Okay! We surrender!” I called, approaching Rogan slowly. I kept one hand behind my back. Just a little closer. “I give up! Let the others go!”

“Krugal is very unhappy, Doctor Torin. You may be on your back for days.” Rogan leered. We were close enough now to catch a whiff of his stench.

“I don’t think
I’m
going to assume that position, Phorap,” I replied. I nodded to Dhreen. “Now!”

We volleyed our mud balls directly at Rogan. Mine hit him in the head with a solid thunk. Dhreen’s curving pitch delivered his to the side of Rogan's thick neck. The heavy rocks we had packed in the center of each sphere did the job, and Rogan landed facedown in the muck. He wasn’t going to be feeding for a couple of hours.

The prone Ichthori swarmed around Rogan, making bubbling snorts and trying to prop him up. Dhreen and I raced for the hull doors. The engines were already firing. Two of the team members literally dragged us through the closing panel.

“We have them, Salo!”

Dhreen and I were thrown to the bloodstained deck as the launch ascended sharply upward. When we cleared the upper atmosphere, the Oenrallian caught my hand and squeezed it with his spatulate fingers before he helped me up.

“Thanks, Doc.”

I squeezed back. “You’ll have to teach me that curve pitch someday.”

We arrived back at the
Sunlace
in time to see the crew making final preparations for transition. Salo and I exchanged a few words before I took a gyrlift to Medical Bay.

Squilyp barred my path before I had taken six steps through the door panel. “Doctor! What has happened?”

“Did you prep the patients for transition? I—” I glared at him. “Get out of the way, Squid Lips.”

“You are filthy,” he said, his dark eyes eloquent.

I looked down. Ichthora muck covered my tunic. “Squilyp-”

“I can
smell
you, Doctor.” He shuddered. “The bacteria alone…”

“Okay, okay. I’ll go get cleaned up. Get the patients ready.”

I ran down to my quarters. Jenner hissed as I darted inside.

“Just me, pal,” I said as I stripped off my clothes and jumped into the cleanser. Two minutes later, I stepped out, free of dried mud and dripping all over the deck.

“Here.”

Reever stood there, holding out a towel. I snatched it from him. Dried off fast. Wound it around me. Thought of where I’d like to hurt him.

“My door chime not working?” I asked.

“I didn’t use it,” he said as he sat down. I pulled my clothes on, awkwardly keeping the towel in place until I was covered. I had gotten used to living alone again, that was all.

“Why?”

The door panel opened before he could reply. Xonea stood just outside, along with Salo.

“That is why,” Reever said.

“May we come in, Senior Healer?”

“Sure,” I said. “Invite some of the crew. We’ll have a party.” Neither man reacted to my sarcasm. “Aren't we supposed to be transitioning right about now?”

“We cannot leave yet,” Xonea said. “Fasala Torin is missing.”

“There was no place for her to stow away on the launch,” Dhreen said as we checked the interior for the third time. “I went over the storage holds myself. They were empty, except for the gear.”

“What about Dr. Rogan?” Reever asked. “He was carrying a heavy pack.”

“Not large enough,” I said. “Fasala is nearly five feet tall, and weighs almost as much as I do. Even if she was tied up, Rogan’s pack didn't have enough room in it to carry her.”

Salo appeared, carrying rifles. “Here.” He tossed a weapon to Dhreen, then Reever. “Arm yourselves. The mercenary fleet is approaching.”

“Fleet?” I reflexively caught the rifle he tossed to me.

“Twenty-two ships. Half are comparable to the
Sunlace
.”

I carefully put down the weapon. I healed people, I didn’t shoot them. “We have to get out of here.”

Salo nodded. “If Fasala is on Ichthora, we will come back for her.” He said it with all the hopelessness of a parent unable to protect his child. “I must go to Darea.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said.

He nodded. “She may need some… professional aid.”

As we hurried through the corridor, we checked with the other search teams we encountered. No one had found a trace of the child, who had disappeared just before the launch left the
Sunlace
for Ichthora.

Darea was waiting in their quarters, in the event Fasala came home. When Salo told her we had not found their ClanDaughter, tears streamed down her beautiful face.

“Is there nothing we can do?”

Their door panel chimed. Darea shot to her feet and had it open before I could blink. She sagged as she saw who it was.

“Oh, come in, Navigator.”

Hado Torin entered, and his good arm went around Darea. They hugged briefly, then the older man helped her to a chair.

“She will be found, my ClanCousin. Have no fear of that.” Hado glanced at me. “Senior Healer, perhaps you can leave us? I will sit with her until Fasala is found.”

“Yes, please.” Darea nodded. Salo went to her and would have taken her in his arms, but she stepped back. “Go look for our child, Salo. I will wait for your signal.”

He lifted her hand to his lips. “I will find her.”

“Speaking of signals, has anyone checked your console lately?” I asked.

Salo hurried over, and scrolled through the intership file. “No, there is—” He paused, then pulled up a data-only screen. “There is a message here for Fasala. From you, Senior Healer.”

I looked over his broad shoulder. “Salo, I never sent this.” I read through the brief message. Someone pretending to be me had requested that Fasala meet them on level fourteen. The exact place where Fasala had been injured. “Has anyone checked the storage area on that level?”

“She would not go there,” Salo said. “Fasala knows the area has been restricted.”

“She might do it for me.” I was thinking of the talk I’d had with her about facing her fears.

Salo immediately signaled Operational. “Send a team down to fourteen at once.”

We ran. Two levels down from Sale’s quarters, an impressive display of warning signs and portable barriers barred access to the storage facility. I noticed there was enough space for someone my size or smaller to duck under and crawl through. One of the barriers stood slightly askew.

“She’s been here.” I pointed to the jostled unit. Salo began ripping the equipment out of his path, tossing the heavy units aside like toys. I stayed out of range until he cleared the entrance panel.

“Fasala? Fasala!” he shouted as the door panel slid open. “Answer me, child!”

I picked my way around the discarded barriers and followed him into the storage facility. There was an eerie hollow feeling here, where weeks ago the buffer had shattered backward and hurt the little girl. Something was wrong. The fine hair on my arms and nape felt the ghostly brush of energy gathering around us.

“Salo! We have to get out of here! Now!”

“I must find her!”

I saw a faint ripple in the buffer covering the repaired hole in the hull.

“No!” I shouted, and tackled the Jorenian. Surprise was the only reason I knocked him down behind one of the large cargo bins. I landed right on top of him. He rolled me off and thrust me behind him.

A flash of blinding light appeared above us. The smell of melting alloys stung my nose, while a two-meter circular section of the cargo bin began to dissolve right next to us. I pushed myself up, and yelled as I yanked on his arm. “We have to go! Come on!”

We staggered away from the damaged bin. I looked back and saw a solid beam of energy pouring from the buffer itself into the metal where moments before we had been standing. The beam was nearly transparent, but hummed with menacing power. I glanced back at the buffer.

Just as the beam cut off, I saw a flickering, rainbow-fringed circle of light.

Salo hauled me out of the facility and sealed the door. He panted and his face dripped sweat. “What was that?” he demanded.

“That’s what killed Roelm and Ndo,” I replied, gasping for breath. “The same thing that hurt Fasala and her educators.”

“It has done something to me as well.” He lifted the edge of his tunic, and I saw his abdomen rapidly turning a mottled purple.

“Medical.” I pointed to the gyrlift. “Right now.”

“My Fasala—”

“We’ll find her. Right now I have to see what kind of damage that thing did to you.”

He nodded, already pale and shaking with reaction. I pulled one of his long arms around my shoulders and got him into the gyrlift.

Salo collapsed just as we reached Medical. Immediately two nurses and Squilyp were there to help me maneuver his big frame onto an exam pad. Adaola gasped when I opened his tunic. His entire abdomen was badly bruised.

“Scan him for internal damage,” I told the Omorr. “I’ve got to signal the Captain.”

At the display, I waited impatiently until my emergency relay was put through. Xonea listened as I reported what had happened.

“Have you located the girl yet?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Search teams have been recalled. We must transition now.”

“Someone has to tell Darea,” I told him, then looked over my shoulder. “Report on Salo!”

“His spleen and pancreas are ruptured!” Squilyp yelled back. “He needs surgery, now!”

“Prep him. Surgical team, prepare for emergency procedure!” I turned back to the display. “How long until transition?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“I can’t do this kind of surgery that fast!” I told him. “Can you transition sooner?”

Xonea’s mouth thinned. “Five minutes.”

“Do it, if you want Salo to live.” I reached for the keypad.

“Cherijo.” I looked up at the screen. “Will he remain on the path?”

“Salo has Fasala and Darea. Two very good reasons to stick to the path.” I gave Xonea a half-smile. “Not to mention one of the best cutters in the quadrant working on him.”

“Keep me advised. Prepare for emergency transition.”

I yelled at the Omorr and the surgical team, who were frantically readying for the operation. “Hold it. The ship is going to transition first. We need to put Salo in sleep suspension,
now
.” I gestured to most of the nurses and my resident. “Prep the patients. Adaola, you’re with me. Move it, people!”

Adaola and I just managed to get Salo under as the ship transitioned. We helped each other off the deck once reality righted itself and checked Salo.

“He’s going into shock anyway!” Adaola cried out as we pulled him back out of suspension. “Blood pressure is dropping!”

“One hundred ccs of synepinephrine,” I said as I increased oxygen flow. Sale’s damaged tissues had begun to flood with fluid. I injected him with the bronchodilator drug. “Get his legs up, Adaola. That's it. Vitals look better.” I stared at the monitor for a moment. “That's how they died. That's why Fasala went into shock. Proximity to the beam creates stress on the system. Direct exposure causes the cellular disruption.”

“Senior Healer?” Adaola asked. She looked worried. I shook my head to clear it.

“Never mind. Prep him for surgery. I want him ready in two minutes.” I put down my scanner and ran into the scrub room. My team was already geared and waiting. The Omorr hopped in after me. “Report.”

“Minor injuries keep coming in, but we can handle it on the ward,” Squilyp said. “Salo?”

“Anaphylactic shock brought on by proximity to intense sonic-based energy. Someone tried to shoot us with it.”

“There is no such thing as a sonic-based weapon—”

“Oh yeah?” I finished scrubbing and snapped on my gloves. “I saw it, Squilyp. Salo used his body to shield mine. It melted a damn cargo bin right in front of us.”

The Omorr’s expression was comical. “But the only thing capable of doing that is—”

“—a resonant harmonicutter, I’ll guess.”

He nodded.

“Squilyp, I know you said these things are huge, that they couldn’t fit one inside the ship. What if someone found a way to make one out of available materials here on the ship?” I put my mask and the rest of my gear on. “Is it possible someone is using this thing to kill our people?”

His gildrells flared. “If they could build it, we’d see it. It would have to be nearly as large as the entire ship.”

“So what is almost as large as the ship that we see everyday that could be a harmonicutter?”

“Nothing. I’ve never seen a single piece of equipment that size—”

Neither had I. That was it. “Maybe we
can’t
see it.” The Omorr looked at me. We were thinking the same thought. Said the same words together. “The buffer.”

Sale’s surgery lasted six hours. I successfully avoided a complete pancreatectomy, by repairing the small ruptures in both the head and body of the organ. The Jorenian exocrine tissue was remarkably resilient; the same damage would have killed a Terran. Once I'd salvaged the main duct, I removed the pancreatic tail and linked the remainder of the repaired organ with part of Sale's small intestine.

The larger problem during the operation was presented by Salo’s spleen. In a Terran, the tiny organ usually weighed no more than seven ounces. In a Jorenian, it was five times that weight and triple the volume. Standard procedure on Terra required a splenectomy; in adult humans there were virtually no ill effects after complete removal.

My friend Salo, however, had not one but three arteries leading into his spleen. He hemorrhaged from two of them. Jorenian spleens not only removed worn-out blood cells and fought infection, but also regulated their digestive and immune systems, too. If I removed it, he would die in a matter of days.