Plague of Memory (3 page)

The color of the Omorr's facial skin darkened. "Consult your end notes again, please."

I consulted them. "I wrote that the patient made a request for his Speaker, whatever that is, and the means with which to self-terminate. This is simply a record of his requests." I handed the chart back to him. "I do not see the problem."

He took the chart. "You would permit Dapvea Adan to commit suicide because he is now a paraplegic?"

"It is my understanding that the right to self-terminate is protected and enforced by Jorenian custom, whatever the condition of the body," I said. "Was I instructed incorrectly on this subject by the ship's protocol officer?"

"No, you were not." Squilyp sat down and looked through the viewer panel at the patients in the surgical ward. "Suicide was an accepted practice among the Iisleg, I take it?"

"There were circumstances when it was deemed appropriate to give oneself to the ice." I had never agreed with it, as I had not agreed with the Jorenian amputee's request, but it was not my place to question a male's resolution. It was not something a woman of the tribe did.

His gildrells snarled for a moment. "Life is precious, Doctor. Never more so than after so many lives were wasted by war."

Akkabarr's rebellion had ended the war between the League and the Hsktskt Faction, and I was proud that I had, in my small way, contributed to resolution. Reever had told me that most of the inhabited worlds supporting both sides of the galactic war were pleased to see an end to the aggressions. I
also understood that this initial peace effort was a fragile thing. One error might destroy it.

"There has to be a way," he was saying.

I did not wish to interrupt his conversation with himself, but I wanted to go to work. "Senior Healer, I will gladly correct the mistake I made with this patient's chart, but you must be more detailed as to how I should do that."

"Once I saw you threaten to kill yourself along with a suicidal patient," Squilyp said. "You did it to make him realize what an enormous waste it was, to discard his life so readily." He moved things on the top of his console, aligning their edges. "It was a moment in which my admiration for you went from grudging to monumental."

He was speaking of her, not me. He admired her, not me.
He does not know me. "1
regret that I am not that person, Senior Healer." Cherijo was dead. When would they accept this and permit me to be Jam?

"1
try to remember that, Doctor, but it is difficult. When I look at you, I... " He would not finish the sentence.

I had hoped that our mutual skills would form the basis of some alliance. I had no true friends on this ship. But just like the others, Squilyp was so enamored of my former self that he was not interested in befriending me.

Suddenly I was tired of it. "If my presence is proving this painful, perhaps I should request reassignment. You have adequate medical staff, and there are other things I may do." Things like adequately guard my child.

He sat straight up and gave me an outraged look. "You will request no such thing."

I had no desire to challenge his authority. At the same time, I could not work for the man if he could not accept who I was. It was difficult to know what to say. "Senior Healer, I know there are nuances to customs and practices among you ensleg, but obviously I do not know them. I am not a telepath, as my husband is. If I am in need of remedial instruction or special guidance, I ask that you provide it so that I may better serve." There, that sounded almost humble.

"You were never like this," he muttered. "Never. You were brilliant and headstrong and so quick to act I thought you might someday drive me insane." At my blank look, he added, "Forgive me. I speak of your former self. In all the years that I knew her, I followed her lead.
She
taught
me.
Now ... "

"You might repay her by providing some guidance for me," I suggested.

He seemed surprised, and then nodded slowly. "In the future, if Dapvea or any patient expresses a desire to self-terminate, please do not note it on the chart, but relay it to me privately. It is an old Jorenian custom, one that we are obliged to honor, but I wish to discourage it. I know this is a confusing request, but life is a finite resource. We cannot squander it."

I did not have to understand the reasons he had for giving me an order. I only had to know precisely that which he wanted me to do. "It will be as you wish."

"Excellent." He picked up a medical scanner and

PIAGUE of MEMORY 21

came from behind the desk. Due to their singular lower limb, Omorr hopped rather than walked, but he had a very graceful bounce. "We shall conduct rounds together this morning, and then convince Dapvea Adan that wearing prostheses is more desirable than killing himself."

Two

Rounds in the
Surface's
Medical Bay were not very different from those I had performed in the battlefield hospitals on Akkabarr. It was true that the patients were kept much cleaner, and their surroundings even more so. Ensleg technology and medicines proved much better than what we had been able to salvage from the wreck stores, and the nursing staff worked without fear of male retribution. No one on the ship suffered from malnutrition, snowbite, or fleshrot, as so many of my people had during the rebellion. Still, the sick and injured here were not healed by any magic means. Here as on Akkabarr they needed constant monitoring and evaluation of their conditions, which required Squilyp and me to examine them daily.

Our inpatient ward held four patients, and we went to evaluate the youngest first.

"Knofki Adan," I read from his chart before I looked at his smiling face. "How do you feel this morning?"

"I am well, Healer Cherijo." Like Marel's teacher Thalia, Knofki was not a Torin, but one of House-Clan Adan, which had sent several of its people to serve as crew for the
Sunlace.
The Adan were allying

themselves with the Torin for some reason too complicated and Jorenian for me to fathom. The boy fidgeted too much for my liking. "Why do you squirm like that?" Knofki went still and grimaced. "My new toes itch."

Our youngest patient had been involved in an engineering accident that had also injured our other three patients. The young male had been visiting his father, one of the ship's senior engineers, to watch him at work. This was some sort of thing the Jorenians did to expose their young ones to various occupations. A work crew had been refitting the shell on a large piece of equipment and had not judged the weight correctly. The hoisting equipment had failed, causing the shell to fall atop those observing from the deck.

The edge of the shell hitting the deck had neatly amputated five of the six toes on Knofki's right foot, which had been directly under it. Fortunately the boy's sire had jerked him back at the last moment, or he might have been cut in two.

"Nurse, please remove the dressing," Squilyp said to the Jorenian female attending to the boy. I gave the Senior Healer the chart and took Knofki's vitals, which were at acceptable levels. "Have you tried to move your toes, ClanSon Adan?"

Knofki nodded. "That makes the itching stop."

I examined the foot when the nurse clipped away the last of the gauze strips covering it. The boy's severed toes had been crushed by the falling shell, too badly to consider reattachment and regeneration therapy. Instead, we had used bone, nerve, ligament, muscle, and dermal grafts grown from Knofki's own cells to fashion him five new toes. I had offered to perform the delicate surgery to attach the new toes, but the Senior Healer had elected to do it himself. I had the impression that he didn't yet trust me enough to let me use the equipment in the surgical suite.

"Have you felt any pain or lack of sensation?" Squilyp asked the boy as he inspected the foot. "No, Senior Healer." Knofki tried to remain still. "It only itches."

"Bring some dermal emollient," I told the nurse. I took the boy's foot in my hand and tested each toe. "He heals well. We should splint the foot and permit him to try walking on it." I noted the boy's delighted grin. More was itching than his foot, I imagined. Had I been ten years old, I would not have wished to spend every waking hour in a berth and endure being prodded and poked by healers and nurses.

"I disagree," the Omorr said. "It has only been two weeks since the attachment surgery. Too much weight on the foot could cause the internal tissues to tear."

"Not if it is properly bandaged and supported," I said. "His circulation will not further improve without proper exercise."

Squilyp appeared ready to argue the point, and then he looked down at the boy. "If I permit you to walk about, will you promise to restrain your exuberance and follow instructions on how you are to distribute your weight and use the walking supports?"

Knofki's grin only widened. "Yes, I vow I will, Senior Healer."

"Very well, then." He patted the child's shoulder. "We will have you up and about after your morning meal."

The next two patients had also improved; one enough to be discharged and returned to limited duty. Squilyp hopped over to Dapvea Adan's empty berth and glared back at me. "You provided the means for him to self-terminate? Without my permission?"

"I relocated his berth." I indicated a room, which was generally used for those requiring very close monitoring. "I had thought he might need the space and time to be private and make peace with his deity." Daevena knew these people never gave anyone much solitude.

"Has a nurse been monitoring him?" Squilyp hopped past me and quickly entered the room. I followed, and found him hovering next to Dapvea Adan's berth, checking his vitals.

"Greetings, ClanSon Adan," I said. The Jorenian opened his white eyes and nodded. "Has my Speaker arrived?"

I still did not know what a Speaker was, but no one new was present in Medical, so I assumed not and shook my head.

"It is time," he said, closing his eyes. "Summon her."

"I must first compose the signal to send to your HouseClan on Joren," Squilyp said. "It is difficult to find words to describe your condition. Were I to call you a coward, they might declare me ClanKill on the spot."

ClanKill? These ensleg actually killed something other than the taste of food? I looked at the Omorr with new interest.

"My Speaker shall inform my ClanUncle of my decision," Dapvea told him. "I am not a coward."

"Surely no," I said, stepping up to the other side of the berth. "It takes great courage to face one's death. I should know. I am told that I have died at least four or five times."

Squilyp glared at me. "Your sixth may arrive sooner than you think."

I thought of flashing a dagger. "Death never forgets a promise." I glanced down at Dapvea, who watched us with an appalled fascination. "Jorenian, if you wish to end your life, so be it. As you have no mate—"

"I have a bondmate. She is on Joren," he said, his expression turning sad. "My Speaker will relay my wishes to her."

"I see. Well, then, it is not as if you have children—" I stopped when I saw his black eyebrows draw together in the center. "Forgive me. You also have children?"

"Five." He gestured toward the empty half of the berth. "I will not have my ClanSons and Clan-Daughters seeing me reduced to this—this half of what I was."

"Ah, so you wish to die rather than shame your children and mate," I said, nodding. "I did not know of their existence, or that they held you in

such low regard. You should have said so, Jorenian. My sympathies." "My embrace of the stars will be celebrated," Dapvea snapped. "They honor me."

"But they would wish you to live only if you have four limbs? A strange sort of honor you people have for each other. I was told your kind were most affectionate, particularly toward kin. Ah, well." I sighed and made a notation on his chart. "Senior Healer, under the circumstances, perhaps we should persuade Knofki Adan to self-terminate as well."

Squilyp caught my eye and nodded. "Yes, I see the wisdom in that, Doctor." "Knofki is a child who lost some toes," the Jorenian shouted. "I have no legs."

"Toes, arms, legs—does it matter?" I shrugged. "A flaw is a flaw. One does not wish the boy to suffer the pain and humiliation of being outcast on the homeworld when we could have attended to his proper disposal here." I gazed at Squilyp. "How, exactly, do you help boy children take their lives? This custom is strange to me."

"I know what you are doing," Dapvea said, and fell back against the pillows to stare at the ceiling. "I would not have them see me a cripple. I have always been the strongest of my ClanFather's children."

"To lose two legs, learn to use prosthetics, and walk again requires great strength of body and will. I saw much of that during the rebellion." I measured him with a glance. "You reminded me of those fighters, until this talk of death. To die is to lose. Everything."

Dapvea fell silent, and the Omorr and I used the interval to examine his stumps and update his chart. It was difficult not to say more, but I sensed that to do so would push the Jorenian too far. The Senior Healer seemed also aware of this.

At last he struggled to sit up and gestured to the berth linens. "I want to see them."

Squilyp appeared ready to refuse, but I pulled away the sheet and showed him the neatly bandaged stumps.

"Your thighs are mostly intact," I told him, speaking quickly as the skin of his face turned a chalky color. "The prosthetic limbs can be fitted to the stumps when they heal, and work off the nerve and muscle tissue we were able to salvage. In time, you will walk and perhaps even run, as any strong man does."

"Or woman," Squilyp said briskly. "ClanLeader Sajora Kalea lost most of her leg during the siege of Reytalon. Do you know of her?"

"Know? I celebrated her return to the home-world, when she and the Blade Dancers were made Clanjoren and named the House Kalea." Dapvea reached down to gingerly touch one of the dressings. "Do you know that she had one of her kin weld her shattered leg together before it was removed, so that she could fight to avenge herself and her Chosen?"