Plague of Memory (10 page)

The mild affection I felt for Reever tightened inside me. I had respected him before this, but now I understood many things about his relationship with my former self that had not made sense.
You might have said something about this when we made our agreement. You hide too much from me. How can I trust someone as dangerous as you are?

"Not dangerous." He sat back. "Devoted."

The paralysis vanished, as did his presence in my mind. I lifted my hand to touch my mouth, and then looked down at myself. "This is why she worried about giving herself to you. Because you could do this thing to her. Because you
did
it to her without her say. She knew."

He nodded. He did not seem ashamed of it.

"Do you understand
nothing
about women?" I demanded. When he didn't answer, I got to my feet. Perhaps I had been made from a man, but I felt wholly female now. "You wish me to give you my trust, and then you do things like this as if you would destroy it. You wish me to desire you, and then show me that you do not even need my cooperation to have me whenever you wish."

"I demonstrated the power of our link so that you would know that I love you," he countered. "If I did not, I would use it to take what I want."

"What is it that you want from me?" I shouted. Reever did not move. "You. All of you, mind, body, and soul. You are all I have ever wanted." "Are you insane? Blind?" I threw my arms out. "You
have
me."

"I can never have you, just as I could never have her." His thoughts filled my mind again, but this time with an aching longing.
Only you can choose to give yourself to me. Not as repayment of a favor, or in fear of me because I am male. Your choice must be made because you love me as I love you.

I knew Reever had loved Cherijo. No man would have searched as long and as hard as he had for a woman unless she meant everything to him. He had joined the rebellion on Akkabarr and fought a war not his own rather than abandon his quest for my former self.

For a moment, I felt unworthy of this man and his

PIAGUE OF MEMORY 89

love. I was not the woman for whom he had sacrificed so much, and yet he wanted me, and was apparently willing to settle for me—and love me in her place.

Could I be happy with that? "Iisleg men and women do not love each other. Love cannot... is not..." My vision blurred and the room began to whirl. "Stop doing that, or I will puke."

"It isn't me. The ship is making an interdimensional transition," Reever said, his voice drawing near. "Close your eyes."

Darea had warned me that it would be disorienting, and I squeezed my eyes shut as I felt arms come around me.

Joey.

"Jam. I am Jam. I will never be anyone but Jam." My skin crawled as I realized it was not Reever who had called to me. "Who ... "

]oey.

"Jam?" The two voices blended together, confusing me, and then they were lost in the darkness, as I was.

FIVE

I emerged from the oblivion, but not to myself or even my own body. I had arrived somewhere completely different, and I was not myself.

"Okay, Chief Linguist, I can give you exactly one minute." A
woman who looked remarkably like me picked up a stack of charts from the desk.
"What do you want?"

I heard myself answer her with Reever's voice.

"We must confirm tomorrow's agenda."

I glanced down at my hands, and saw that they were my husband's. My body had grown taller, leaner, and was no longer female. I felt the absence of my breasts, and the new and rather alarming weight of testicles between my legs.

Somehow I had become Reever, and I was speaking to myself when my body had been occupied by the mind and heart of Cherijo Grey Veil.

Her expression blanked. "Tomorrow's agenda for what?" "Your community-service quota." When that didn't register, 1 added, "You are scheduled to work in botanical fields." "What has that got to do with you ? " Before I could an

swer, she closed her eyes briefly. "Let me guess. You're scheduled to supervise me."

"That is correct."

"Okay, Chief Linguist." She glanced at her wristcom. "What do you need to confirm?" "A time and place to meet in the morning." "I'm pulling a double shift, and I need five hours of

sleep to be human." She expelled a breath. "Meet me at my quarters, main housing building, west wing, at alpha shift commencement." She moved toward the exam rooms, her shoulders hunched—as if she carried a heavy weight on her back.

Did she consider me her burden? Forcing the issue would not instill trust. "I can request another supervisor for you," I called after her.

"Don't bother." She sounded resigned. "Someone obviously thinks I deserve this."

I arrived at Cherijo's quarters the following morning at the time she had specified. She did not answer the door chime until I enabled it for the third time.

"Wait a minute," I heard her call out over the com panel. She mumbled something else before she opened the door. "Come in, Reever. I'm almost ready."

She had dressed appropriately in old, shabby gar

ments, but was still consuming her morning beverage. A

small, four-legged, silver-furred mammal approached me.

It was something like a feral Vuktafrom Carsca VII, but

smaller and without the venom-filled spine frills.

I had fought a number of felines in the arena, and they

were efficient killers. "A domesticated animal?"

"Uh-huh." She finished her drink.

The creature was quite bold—it sniffed my footgear,

then began rubbing itself against my calves and ankles.

The odd sounds it produced from its throat were quite plaintive—but so were the Vuktas', just before they pounced and stabbed their prey to death.

If she had domesticated it, she had likely formed an emotional attachment to the creature
—so
she would not appreciate me shooting it. "What does it want?"

"His name is Jenner," she told me. "He wants you to pet him."

"Why?"

"Didn't you ever—" She halted, then began securing her hair. "That's why they're called pets, Reever. You pet them." She bound the end of her braid. "Most alien cultures have domesticated animals, don't they?"

"No." I thought of my former owner, who had kept me naked, collared, and chained to her side whenever she traveled. "However, there are several species that consume such small mammals as their primary dietary—"

"Never mind. Forget I asked." She crouched down and stroked the animal with her hands. The cat didn't appear to want her attention, and continued to entreat me with its menacing yowls. It had blue eyes, like her—perhaps it was controlled by a mind-eating, sadistic parasite. "Come on. Let's go."

She seemed impressed with my glidecar. "Who did you bribe to get this?" she asked as she entered the passenger side.

"No one." I wondered if she truly cared to hear the tale, or if she was merely making what humans called polite conversation. "It was a gift."

"I see."

"I doubt it."

"Okay, who gave it to you?"

"A grateful Furinac who had been unable to communicate with colonial militia during an unauthorized transport."

"He must have been really grateful." She trailed her fingers over the soft seat covering. "What exactly did you do for him?"

"That requires a rather lengthy explanation." Her moods were erratic and unpredictable, and that annoyed me. That she would have any interest in my activities seemed unlikely—or was she at last taking an interest in me? "Have you toured the Botanical Project Area yet?"

"Some of it." Her interest, and some of her color, abruptly disappeared.

"You're disturbed. What is it?"

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat cushions. The way she sat made her look very young and defeated. "I lost a patient last night."

Surely a physician grew accustomed to watching a percentage of patients die—it was only logical that some would. Yet she seemed genuinely distraught. Terrans often avoided discussing painful topics, although I never quite understood why. Suppressing emotions appeared to be more damaging than having none at all.

"We will be working in the hybrid cultivation area today," I told her, changing the subject. "There are a number of off-world specimens being crossbred with native plants in production."

She yawned. "Excuse me."

"You did not get your five hours' sleep."

"No."

That Mayer would verbally abuse her when she devoted so much of her time to his FreeClinic made my thoughts darken. "Charge Nurse T'Nliqinara told me you've worked four extra shifts this week."

"Uh-huh." She avoided my gaze.

"Is Dr. Mayer aware of your extended work hours?" If he was not, perhaps I should inform him. Among other things.

She snorted. "Dr. Mayer probably spits whenever he hears my name. Drop it, all right?"

Another painful topic. I would need help determining what to make the next. "What would you care to talk about?"

"Nothing, Chief Linguist." She made a negligent gesture with her hand. "You can be the conversational navigator. "

"Very well." I halted the glidecar near our assigned work area. "Tell me what you know about agricultural cultivation."

"Absolutely nothing outside of a few required botany courses during secondary school." She produced another yawn. "All of which I gave little or no attention to."

"We'll begin with something basic." I thought of the various projects requiring immediate attention. Hydroponics required too much explanation, and grafting— something that, as a surgeon, she would likely be very good at—was restricted to experienced cultivators only. "Perhaps planting some seedlings."

I retrieved several flats of seedlings already removed from their hydroponics pods and prepared for transfer to the soil. The hybrids were particularly valuable, and the senior site botanist expressed his concern, but I felt the doctor could perform the simple task without difficulty. I set her to work on one side of the hybrid field and went to work on the other myself.

I discovered how much I had misjudged Cherijo when the senior botanist stopped at her row an hour later and began shouting at her. I went over to find that she had placed the seedlings exactly where I had indicated. And every single specimen was planted wrong.

"Do you see this?" The botanist, a Psyoran, was so agitated that he had turned monochromatic and had distended veins popping from his multiple frill layers. "It took two cycles to germinate these seeds! Two cycles!"

"This is her first assignment." I knelt down and carefully removed one specimen. "She will not make the same mistake again."

"Not as long as 1 work this field," the botanist promised. "You know, you should water them more," Cherijo told him. "They might grow a little faster." "They're grown in water, you—you—" The Psyoran became incoherent.

"Really." She eyed the seedlings. "Then maybe you should stick some labels on them for the rest of us non-plant life-forms. You knoio, like 'this side up?'"

He stared at her before resorting to language that I had not programmed into the colonial linguistic database, and slighted everything from her mental capacity to her genetic origins.

"Oh, yeah?" She didn't understand the words, but she clearly grasped his meaning. "And what was your mother? A tumbleweed? Poison ivy?"

Before the botanist could say more, I stepped between them. "There appears to be no permanent damage. I will personally correct her error."

"She's not to touch another pod. Keep her black thumb out of my specimens." He flapped as he stalked back to the cultivation center.

"What did I do?" she demanded.

I began digging out the next seedling. "You planted them upside down."

She scowled. "How was I supposed to know the white things are the roots, and the brown part is supposed to be above the ground?"

I could not fathom how someone so intelligent could have done something so ridiculous. "If you had listened when I explained the procedure to you, you would have known."

"Reever, you never once said the roots were the white things."

I paused for a moment, wishing briefly that I could express a few words not contained on the colonial linguistic database. "I was not aware I had to specify that fact."

"Well, I didn't kill any of them." She leaned over me and peered at the row. "Did I?"

"They'll survive."

"Great." She glanced back to where the senior site botanist was still pacing back and forth and complaining to another of his colleagues. "Tell me, what did that raving maniac mean when he said I had a black thumb?"

"He meant you need to be assigned to another project." "Even better." She sniffed. "What would you recommend that I try next, Chief Linguist?" I gave the matter some consideration. "Working with something inanimate."

"Very funny."

I brushed the loose soil from my hands as I stood and checked the time. "We'refinished." She eyed the flat of seedlings left to one side. "But I—" I raised one hand, imitating one of her favorite habit

ual gestures. "You've done enough."