Plague of Memory (37 page)

"We should move him to the ship, Jarn," ChoVa said as she limped over to my side.

"No time." As Reever's respiration began to falter, I dragged over an oxygen rig. "Qonja, we will intubate him now. ChoVa, if you can remain on your feet, scrub."

I operated for seventeen hours to repair Duncan Reever's injuries. As soon as we opened his torso I saw that the sword had pierced both his liver and heart, and the damage inflicted by the jagged blade

358 S. I. VleW

had virtually destroyed both organs. In ordinary circumstances, I would have attempted a double transplant, but there were no Terr an organs to be had on Vtaga or the Jorenians' ship. It would take many weeks to grow new, bioartificial replicants from Reever's own cells.

With ChoVa's help, I repaired what I could, and took him off the heart-lung machines long enough" to ascertain that his heart would not beat on its own. Then I restored life support and spoke to the Omorr, who had arrived on-planet halfway through the operation and had used the time to set up an intensive-care area in the least-damaged section of SrrokVar's facility.

"How long to retrieve replacement Terran organs?" I asked him as we watched the machines keeping my husband alive clean and pump his blood. My body drooped with exhaustion and vibrated with nerves. I felt like a frayed cord, about to snap.

Squilyp adjusted the drip on Reever's intravenous line. "Months. Terra keeps live donor organs quarantined on their homeworld, and refuses to have them transplanted into any being unless they prove their genetic purity. Jarn." He turned me toward him so that I would look into his face. "Duncan will not last more than a week on life support. He is too badly injured to place in stasis."

I glanced down at the Hsktskt shroud I had wound around myself. Reever's blood stained it here and there. "I know."

"You cannot save him."

I refused to admit defeat. There had to be a way;
I only had to think it through. "This is not the first time I operated on my husband. He was stabbed on Terra." Ruthlessly I dragged up the memories of that time. "Cherijo's sire repaired his kidney by impregnating the damaged one with special cells. Hypercells. They were programmed to regenerate the organ."

The Omorr's gildrells went stiff. "You remember that."

"I have all of Duncan's memories of it." Which were less technical than I cared for. "You and I discussed a method of duplicating the chameleon cells."

"It was only a discussion. You understood your father's theory, and had ideas on how to replicate the equipment and hypercells. We had planned to conduct research and tests on them after we finished our work on Oenrall," Squilyp said. "The League took you shortly after that, during the Jado Massacre."

I, too, understood the theory, but I did not have memories of Cherijo's findings, or what she had observed during her sire's original surgery. "There was nothing in Cherijo's journals. Did I write anything in Duncan's chart about it?"

The Omorr shook his head.

"I will take a sample of his kidney tissue," I said, turning back to the berth. "We will begin from there."

"You told me that your father wished to design the chameleon cells to degrade over time, as a type of self-building scaffolding that could be replaced by natural organ cells. Reever's last physical
showed only normal kidney tissue," Squilyp sai

"They are no longer present in his body."

I had to remember. "Leave me alone with him."

The Omorr hesitated, and then nodded an

hopped away.

I sat down and took my husband's hand in min careful not to dislodge any of the lines and tul keeping him alive. I did not weep, nor did I feel sor row. Instead I concentrated on the memories Reev had poured into me, going over each one momen by moment.

For days I worked. I did not sleep or eat unles coerced. And I failed, time and again, to find a wa to save Duncan Reever's life.

All I had to console myself were his memories.

She will wake soon, and return to her duty. She wi think ofKao with sadness and grief, but she has alread' made many new friends among this crew. The Joreniar have adopted her, and very shortly she will be made a cit izen ofjoren. They will do everything they can to protec' her, and if anyone attempts to harm her, they will hut them down and kill them slowly.

If I do not get there first.

Cherijo is young, and has a long life ahead of her. know she will devote herself to healing the sick and the injured, and she will fight her father and the League for her freedom.

She may never care for me, but that does not matter. I have made my Choice. For as long as I live, I will stay with her. I will watch over her, and I will protect her. If necessary, I will die for her.

I do this not for balance, nor for the blood vow I made

to Kao Torin. I do this because I discovered I do have emotions—or at least, one emotion. I love her.

"You don't have to die for me," I whispered.

The Hanar's Palace had not been destroyed by the plague riots, but like much of Vtaga it bore new scars. I would not have come here, would not have risked moving Reever, but the damage to SrrokVar's stronghold had resulted in buckling walls and ceilings, making it unsafe to occupy. The Akade had sent a glidecraft used for medical rescues and transport, and with it Squilyp, ChoVa, and I were able to transfer my husband without disrupting life support.

Reever could not live without the machines. Soon even they would not prevent his death.

The private chambers we had been assigned still smelled of smoke, and impact marks left by dis-placer rounds fired from below pocked most of the view panels. As ugly as the confrontation with SrrokVar had been, I felt glad I had been spared witnessing the fighting in the city. I had seen enough of war, and violence, and men dying for no sane reason.

"Jam." Alunthri, who had come down from the ship with Squilyp, brought in a tray with steaming servers. "I thought you might like to have some tea before the ceremony begins."

The Chakacat, as I had learned over the past week, had a soothing way about it that seemed to intensify under crisis. It had practically made itself my servant, gently bullying me into eating and resting while the nurses attended Reever.

I did not want the tea, but I could not rememb when last I ate or drank, so I went to accept it. "Y should go back to the ship, Alunthri. There is n much more to do here." Except end my husband' life for good.

"Once I needed sanctuary, and Cherijo provid it for me. She spoke for me, and when I was deni the dignity of sentient rights, pretended to be m owner so that I could have a semblance of dom." Its bullet-shaped head titled forward. "I only returning that care and love."

"Mama." Marel came to me and hugged my le as she had once done with Reever. She looked up a me. "Can't you make Daddy wake up now?"

Alunthri's eyes glittered, perhaps with tears, b fore it silently retreated, leaving me alone with m child.

My husband's impending death had shake everyone, but over the last two days the sharp de spair and self-hatred I felt over being unable to save him had begun to ease. I was almost ready to let him go. He had given me his memories of me, as well as the rest of his life, and in them I could be with him whenever I wished.

Marel refused to believe her father was dying. She ignored the machines performing his life functions for him, and spoke to him as if he were only ill. No matter how carefully I explained the matter to her, she still insisted he was only sleeping.

"He can't wake up, baby." I picked up Marel and held her close before turning back to the view panel overlooking the city. "Look at all the people. They came here to see Hanar TssVar honor your Daddy."

PIAGUE OF MEMORY 36 3

Hsktskt from all over Vtaga had traveled to the capital, and were massing in the streets beneath the Hanar's Palace. Much of the city still lay in ruins after the plague riots, and it would take some time for the inhabitants to rebuild, but calm prevailed. ChoVa's enzyme had neutralized the bone dust, and once the city's structures were fully decontaminated, the citizens could return to living in them and begin the process of recovery.

"Healer."

I turned to see the Hanar and his son standing behind us. "Is it time?" TssVar nodded, and I put down Marel and drew on her cloak before shrugging into my own outer robe. I looked through the open doorway to the adjoining chamber, where two nurses kept watch over Reever. Seeing a Jorenian and a Hsktskt no longer seemed strange, but I could not look upon my husband's inert form for long. It tore at me.

"Healer." I pulled my thoughts into order and turned to the Hanar. CaurVar took Marel by the hand, while TssVar offered me his arm in Terran fashion. "Thank you." We went out to the reception area, where the Hanar's guards stood waiting to escort us to the ceremony. "Your daughter and my son have formed a close friendship," the Hanar said as we watched them walk ahead of us. "I could not have imagined such a thing even a year ago, but now it seems promising." "They are the first generation who will grow up

in this time of peace," I said. "They will need that friendship. We all will."

"I would like nothing more than for you and Marel to make Vtaga your home, if you wish to change your mind," he reminded me.

The Hsktskt offer of sanctuary had startled and touched me, for I had not expected it. But as much as I cared for TssVar and his people, Marel and I needed to make our own place. Then, too, I did not know where or with whom that would be.

I did not wish to face choosing a new direction for my life any more than I wanted to turn off Duncan's life support. The Jorenians had already expressed their wish for me to return with them to their homeworld, and take up my responsibilities as a member of the Jorenian Ruling Council. Maggie's story about the threat of the black crystal, and the promise I had made to her, still haunted me. SrrokVar was not the only person who had wished revenge on me, or desired the secrets of immortality.

My daughter and I would always be targets.

Xonea had suggested gathering ships and crews from Joren to mount an expedition to find the surviving members of the Odnallak race, who might be persuaded to help us investigate the spread of the black crystal through our galaxy. I could not discuss it at the time, or even think about it for too long. It seemed obscene to make plans that would only initiate after the man I loved died.

Xonea and most of the crew from the
Sunlace
joined us out in the corridor, where a detachment of Jorenian warriors joined ranks with the Hsktskt guards.

The captain came to stand beside me. "You have not slept, have you?"

I shook my head. "Has there been any word from Kevarzangia Two?" I had asked Xonea to contact Cherijo's friends there and request their assistance in finding replacement organs for Reever.

"Dr. Mayer signaled just before we came down to the planet. He has contacted every medical facility with transplant capabilities within one hundred light-years of Vtaga. No one can provide a tissue match." He rested his six-fingered hand on my shoulder. "I think you must release him to the embrace of the stars."

Salo and Darea had come to the planet to pay their respects, like most of the crew, and had told me about the Jorenian funerary custom of sending the body of the deceased into space where it would be pulled into a star's corona; a strong symbolic expression of their belief that the dead embraced the stars. But as much as I respect my adopted people's beautiful customs, I thought of the salvagers SrrokVar had told me of, and their practice of body-snatching in space, and knew I would not be abandoning Reever to the whim of the stars. I also knew that my husband preferred the Hsktskt tradition. I knew because I knew everything about Duncan now.

The honor guard escorted us out to the ceremonial platform that had been constructed above the streets, where we stood beside an enormous unlit pyre, upon which rested the draped body of the former Hanar.

PyrsVar came to stand with me and Xonea. The
Hanar had exonerated him of his crimes against the people, but he still looked a little lost.

"We gather here to pay tribute to those who were taken from us," TssVar said, his voice ringing out in the absolute stillness as he addressed the people. "No one on Vtaga has been left untouched by the madness, not even those who came to help us overcome it. In the Palace, the Terran male known as HalaVar lies dying. HalaVar entered my life by saving it. His blood name, Duncan Reever, will be added to our lines, and his story will be told, so that we never forget what he, his mate, and those who came with them have sacrificed for us." He looked out over the mass of silent citizens. "As your chosen Hanar, I will work to show Reever and his people that the Faction can be the sort of allies that they have been to us."

Many in the crowd were not Hsktskt. There were several humanoids; the slaves whom TssVar had freed in the aftermath of the plague. Here and there I saw Tingalean peacekeeping troops, who had landed and controlled the rioters while we had gone to rescue ChoVa and PyrsVar from SrrokVar's stronghold. On the very fringe of the crowd stood the desert outlaws who had helped the Adan at the stronghold. For their efforts, they had been pardoned and invited to rejoin Hsktskt society.

"We honor the Hanar before me," TssVar said, lighting a torch from the flames of an immense brazier. "As we honor all those who have gone to the life after, or who will soon depart."

Marel suddenly darted around me and ran into the Palace. I gave the Hanar an apologetic look be
fore I hurried after her. I should have known that the Hanar's funeral would prove too much for her.

I found my daughter in the chamber with her father. She had climbed onto his berth and was clutching his hand between hers. The two attending nurses hovered close by but did not interfere. I gestured for them to leave us, and waited until they withdrew before I spoke to the child Duncan had given me.