Omega Games (19 page)

Mercy’s chin sagged.
“Cherijo?”

Cherijo, indeed.

“We’re clear,” Cat said, hopping up to us but making no move to interfere. “You can let her go now, Doc.”

“Very well.” Carefully I released my grip on her garment and cleared my throat. “You say you have a treatment room prepared? I would like to see it.”

Mercy closed her mouth, turned on her heel, and stalked off.

The Omorr picked up my medical case and gestured toward the staff’s quarters. “Right this way.”

I followed Cat to the treatment room, which had been stocked with a motley assortment of medical supplies and equipment. A dining table had been refitted with weight sensors and extension arms, and several of the plush furnishings from the lobby lined the walls.

“What we didn’t have, we appropriated or rigged,” the Omorr told me as he set my case on a tiered table. “I know some of it’s not standard”— he nodded toward several flexible, snakelike emitters in one corner that were slowly undulating and casting soft, multicolored light around the room— “but it should serve. If you find that you need something more, don’t yell at Mercy. Signal me and I’ll take care of it.”

My head pounded like a second heart. “I should not have lost my temper with Mercy like that. Drefan warned me that she was angry and might attempt to keep me here.” I felt as weary as he looked. “What did she think happened to me?”

“When the dreds went offline yesterday, she was sure the shifter got you,” Cat said. “Then when you didn’t come back from Gamers, she thought Drefan would use you as bait, to tempt it to try again. She hasn’t eaten or slept since.”

And I had threatened and shouted at her. “I should find her and apologize—”

“Please, don’t,” Cat told me. “I love Mercy more than my life, Gods know, but she’s a bully. She believes she knows exactly how to run everyone’s life. It’s good for her to find out that she can’t.” Speculation gleamed in his dark eyes. “You know, that’s the first time I’ve heard you sound like a real Terran. What brought that on?”

“I cannot say, but it gives me a headache.” I took a syrinpress out of my case, dialed up a mild dose of analgesic, and injected myself. “I will need a few minutes to set up, and then you can begin sending in the

Ten

I spent the next several hours examining Mercy’s pleasure-givers, all of whom were by professional necessity familiar with medical exams. None presented any ailments, and although several had minor work-related complaints, I found them all to be in good to excellent physical condition.

“Increase the temperature and mineral content of your cleanser feed,” I advised Kohbi, a Munitalp who reported experiencing discomfort with her gluteus minorus after servicing a particularly vigorous regular. “Soak in a hip bath for thirty minutes each night, and advise your trick to handle you with more care.”

“That one?” Kohbi blew some air through a skin flap. “His drill speed is permanently set on sonic blast.”

“Unless you enjoy sleeping on your belly,” I replied, “I would introduce him to the concept of extended, gentle foreplay.”

“I’ll try. My kind don’t sleep in this stage of life, you know.” Kohbi tugged on the narrow tube of virulent green silk that served as her only garment.

“Saving it up for your next
lokhgetiti
?” I joked.

“Yes, it should be any sol now.” She eyed me. “Few offworlders know our word for the transition time.”

I thought for a moment, and found the memory Reever had given me. He had witnessed the phenomena during a year spent among Kohbi’s people. Some of those memories were unhappy, so I said, “I must have heard it from another patient.”

She grew more interested. “How many other Munitalp have you treated?”

None
, I thought as I noted the impending transition on her chart. But apparently Cherijo had seen enough while serving as a trauma physician on Kevarzangia Two to also give me complete knowledge of the species.

“I can’t remember,” I said truthfully. “Have you informed Mercy that you’re due to evolve?”

“Not yet.” Kohbi spit out several lengths of silk, the same livid green color as her garment, and wove it between four of her pincers. A few moments later she draped the head end of her torso with the resulting covering. “She has enough on her mind lately.”

“I doubt you want her to find you cocooned somewhere and unable to speak because you haven’t yet regrown your vocal passages.” I switched off the chart. “Your next stage of life will render you mute as well as nonsexual for several weeks.”

“Oh, right, it’s my silent season. That did slip my mind.” The Munitalp absently rubbed her pelvic arch. “I’ll talk to Mercy, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention my
lokhgetiti
to the others. I know the multimorphs will understand, but the oneforms might overreact to my body shift and do something crazy again.”

I looked up. “Crazy such as . . . ?”

“There was this Psyoran.” Kohbi’s pincers clicked as she rubbed them against each other. “You know how they shed their frills every so often for new growth? Posbret saw the guy drop a neck flap while he was walking through one of the common areas, and decided the Psyo was the one playing the skin “I see,” I said, thinking of a female Psyoran Cherijo had known on Kevarzangia Two. The species were gentle, helpful creatures that often went into the medical and spiritual fields so they could help others in need. The thought of one being lynched simply for its bodily functions outraged me. “I won’t pass this information on to the others, but Kohbi, talk to Cat. He will see to it that you’re given a secure place to cocoon.”

After Kohbi slithered out, I went to find Mercy. Despite Cat’s assurances, I still felt that I should apologize for how I had spoken to her, if not for what I had said. One of the girls directed me to try looking in a place she called “the solitude room.”

“Sometimes when Mercy gets angry, she spends a couple of minutes getting some feedback in the ’sizer,” the prostitute told me. “It’s quiet and helps her work out her frustrations.” She bumped her hip against mine. “Ask her if you can have a turn with my mindset. You’ll love it.”

I didn’t understand half of what she told me, but followed her directions to the room. I found it empty. As frustrated as I felt, I could use the benefits of the ’sizer, whatever that was. All I saw in the room was an upholstered chair, privacy screens on the viewers, and several pairs of shades designed for different types and numbers of eyes.

I sat down on the chair and examined the eyeshades made to fit a Terran. Sensors of a type I had never seen before lined the interior frame as well as the lenses. Curious, I slid them on.

I felt something tickling the back of my neck, and smiled as I came fully awake. “You have two months to stop doing that.”

Prehensile gildrells slid around my throat and into my hair like a bunch of long, white snakes, while three muscular pink arms tugged me back against an equally hard body.

“In two months, the contract will be signed,” Cat said. “You’ll be my wife. Then I can do anything to you that I desire.”

The idea that we would marry was still something of a shock, and a thrill. Thrilling because I wanted it as much as he did. Shocking because there was no record of an Omorr ever taking a human for a spouse.

That I had once been a professional pleasure-giver, and now was a brothel owner, and that he had been the son of a preacher and now ran my brothel factored in there, as well.

“Hmmm.” I wriggled my hips, adjusting to the interesting changes in his lower anatomy. The genitalia of Omorr males remained within a pelvic recess, extruding only when they felt an undeniable need to mate. Cat definitely had some needs. “Where are you taking me for the honeymoon?”

The tip of one gildrell tickled the rim of my ear. “Terra?”

I giggled like a young girl. “Oh yeah, they’d
love
us.”

Two of the delicate membranes on the ends of Cat’s arms spread over my breasts, while the third stroked down over my bare belly to slip between my thighs. What he did with those dexterous webs of flesh was the reason more Terran women should get over their alien prejudices, I thought.

“What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?” Mercy said as she snatched the eyeshades off my face and checked the inside. “This is my mindset.”

Being jolted out of dream and back into my own body so abruptly made me fall off the seat.

“What was that?” I rubbed my hands over my face and looked at my palms; sweat covered them. “One of the girls sent me here, and I just . . .” I didn’t know how to describe the experience.

She put her hands on her hips. “Did you have fun with my boyfriend?”

“Mercy, when I put those shades over my eyes I was you. I was in your body. Thinking your thoughts. Feeling . . . I was . . .” I looked up at her in horror. “Those aren’t eyeshades, are they?”

“Uh, no, they’re not.” She reached down and helped me back onto the seat. “It’s okay, Cherijo. You didn’t actually do anything with Cat. I did. You watched.” She exhaled heavily as she reached over and picked up the now-smashed shades. “This is a mindset.” She pointed to the chair. “And this is a fantasizer. The two of them create neurosimulations recorded from actual experiences. We use this room to relax, and for tricks who prefer to have sex by themselves.”

“But how do they . . . oh.”

“Exactly.” She pocketed the broken mindset. “I shouldn’t have left the ’sizer on, but I got called away. Your husband is looking for you. Cat routed his signal to the exam room console. Do you know how red your face is?”

As hot as it felt, I could only imagine. “I’m so embarrassed. Please believe me, I would never have touched this equipment if I had known what it does.”

“You didn’t strike me as the voyeur type.” She went to leave and then hesitated and looked back. “You’re still blushing. I didn’t think a doctor could do that. So what did you think of Cat?”

“He was, uh . . .” I tried to think of a diplomatic phrase. I settled for the truth. “Amazing.”

“That he is.” She grinned for a moment. “But if you ever touch him in real life I’ll kick
your
uptight little ass all over this dome.”

Once she left, I hurried back to the exam room and answered the relay from Reever.

“Waenara,”
his voice greeted me, but the relay remained blank on my display. “I am out at the crash site with Drefan’s engineers. You must adjust your vid feed.” He gave me the code for an upload connection, which allowed me to patch into his envirosuit monitors and view what he was seeing. An image of Trellus’s rough, rocky surface coalesced onto my screen, and moved up and down slightly as Reever walked.

I didn’t see engineers,
Moonfire
, or any of the domes. “What are you doing out there?”

“There is an impact crater several hundred meters from the scout,” my husband replied. “I am walking out to have a look at it.”

Through the feed I saw the curved rim of the crater. It didn’t seem large, but the blackness of its interior area indicated that it might be very deep.

We couldn’t link through a machine, so there was no way I could tell if what he had told me was truth or

“I thought I saw something.”

More reason not to go near it, I thought, but held my tongue as he approached the edge. His gloved hand appeared in the screen, and he directed an emitter into the crater. “Can you see what it’s doing to the light?” Reever asked. A thousand tiny prisms with jagged bands of purple, blue, and green filled up the screen. I described

them to him and added, “Your suit or the channel must be distorting the feed.” “No. I see them, too. They’re everywhere.” His voice changed, became almost dreamy. “So beautiful. ” A dark crater reflected sparkling light, but in the wrong colors. Sudden, nameless panic seized me.

His helmet isn’t shielded.

“Duncan, show me
Moonfire
.” When he didn’t respond, I shouted, “The reflected light is hypnotizing you. Look at the ship. Now.” Slowly the image on my screen changed, and I heard my husband drag in a deep breath. “Cherijo, the