“One of Bind 02376,” Ecla said as she fluttered up to me and handed over the chart. “Separation anxiety, I believe, since it arrived alone. It wouldn’t let anyone touch it or examine it.”
A group of Binders (colony slang for them, I hadn’t a clue how to pronounce their species name) were visiting K-2 while applying for transfer. Just another group of tourists.
Problem was, some bizarre error occurred with the transport schedules, and several of the interdependent pairs had been separated. Their vessels were a light-year out of orbit before K-2’s perplexed translators figured out what the Binders who had been left behind were telling them.
Binders were born in sets of twos, psychically joined from birth. They were emotionally as inseparable as Terran Siamese twins before the development of in utero segregation. An advisory had come out warning that special interpreters were needed if any of the stranded Binders required medical treatment.
“Request a Binder translator from Admin,” I told Ecla. “I’ll check on Springfield one more time.” I found the boy resting comfortably and didn’t bother to tell him I agreed with his opinion of his father. Once I had checked the nurse’s work, I went to take a look at the Binder.
The special translator was already waiting in the exam room with the patient. “Dr. Grey Veil.” It was none other than the chief linguist, Duncan Reever.
“Every time I turn a corner,” I muttered, averting my gaze toward the exam pad.
I’d never seen a Binder before, but the frail creature enchanted me at once. Like something from an old Terran fable, the being had a fey, elfin countenance. It couldn’t have weighed more than twenty kilos.
The torso and limbs vaguely resembled a humanoid’s, but there were several orifices, like extra mouths, arranged on its iridescent derma. A shimmering fleece of transparent tendrils covered its ethereal frame.
“Just like a fairy.” I smiled.
“Excuse me?” Reever broke into my reverie.
“A fairy, Chief Linguist.” At his blank look, I demanded, “Didn’t anyone ever tuck you in and tell you a bedtime story?”
“No.”
“Your loss.” The patient was curled into a tight fetal position, shuddering with each shallow inhalation. I caught the faintest scent of a chemical odor. “What is that smell?”
Reever breathed in, and frowned. “Binders do not exude that odor naturally.”
Curiously I checked the room controls and dialed an analysis of the room’s air content. What I read on the console made me freeze with dread down to my toenails. Swiftly I relayed the readings to the front desk and hoped my charge nurse wasn’t occupied. Ecla was going to have to be very busy for the next several minutes.
“Cherijo, what-“ Reever said, before I interrupted.
“Do you know anything about KleeFourteen?”
“I know what it is.”
“That’s good, because you’re standing in a room with twenty times the safe limit dispersed in the air,” I said as I secured the entrance to the exam room. Not that quarantine seals would help us directly, but they would keep people out and the toxin in. “Try not to breathe deeply, and don’t make any unnecessary movements,” I told Reever. Slowly I moved over to the i exam pad and passed my scanner over the Binder. “Our friend here has ingested it.”
“Skin seals-“
I shook my head. “It’s already saturated and begun the transdermal process.” Disaster was only minutes away. “Ask it exactly how much it swallowed.” My scan revealed the potent toxin, but I had to know the exact amount in order to prepare an antidote.
Reever turned to my patient and said something in a guttural language, simultaneously pressing a careful hand to an orifice on the upper torso. The patient’s tendrils undulated while it whispered a reply.
“Half a stanliter,” I was told.
I met his dispassionate gaze with a steadiness I didn’t feel. “That’s enough to do the job.”
I prepared the correct countermeasure as fast as I could. My hands didn’t exhibit any sign of the internal trembling I was trying to ignore. A brief display signal from Ecla confirmed she was evacuating the entire facility.
“Why did you order an evacuation?” Reever asked.
“Given the amount in the Binder’s system, the blast radius will be close to one kilometer. If I don’t do this right, that is.”
“Do you have sufficient time to stop the process?”
“I don’t know.” Not that it mattered. I might blow us into orbit simply by resorting to’ the only course of treatment - forcing the Binder to exude the rest of the toxin.
KleeFourteen, once used as a soil enhancement agent, had been a serious problem in the Pmoc Quadrant. Tons of it were once kept in agricultural storage facilities, considered an inert, harmless substance.
However, once the rather tasty fertilizer was ingested by a living organism, the digestive process altered the chemical composition of KleeFourteen. Unfortunately, not to the benefit of whatever ate it. A scientist had figured all this out when some little rodents on another planet began exploding inside the storage facilities.
Most colonies had destroyed their stock, but K-2 had held on to their supply for bartering purposes. A system-wide notification had warned of the danger, but it had been ignored as none of the mishaps had occurred on our planet.
Until today.
The syrinpress was ready. “If you pray, Reever”- I lifted my eyes to the cool gaze watching me-“do it now.”
He didn’t comment on the grim advice. “How long to complete the exudation?”
“Two minutes. Can you hold your breath that long?”
He nodded as he watched me glove. “KleeFourteen is very efficient.”
“You don’t say.”
The only chance we had was to introduce the antidote as close as possible to the arterial system through an intramuscular injection. I gently slid restraint clasps over each of the Binder’s limbs and tightened them to immobilize it.
The Binder murmured something, which Reever explained was sincere regrets for its actions. I finished setting the room controls to full discharge.
“You must not have wanted to die too badly, if you came for help.” I smiled down at the patient’s timid face. The back of my tunic was growing damp.
The Binder imitated my smile, and replied with visible weariness.
“It had second thoughts after the act,” Reever said. “Two of Bind 02376 will not survive without it.”
“Love triumphs over despair,” I said as I gently touched one trembling limb. “Hold the arm still for me, Reever. Like this. I’m going to inject at the bicepular joint. I have to get this next to the plasma stream, or we are all going to be vaporized.” I carefully positioned the syrinpress, and administered the counteragent. “Now, take a deep breath. Chief Linguist, and shut up.”
After that, it was just a matter of waiting. Ten seconds, twenty. We stayed in position, holding our breath, unable to move. Once the antidote took hold, the KleeFourteen ingested by the Binder was directly exuded into the air. It would take the environmental units at least two minutes to evacuate the deadly toxic gas and neutralize it. If we breathed it in, it would kill us. If we moved, it would ignite. The catalyst effect could be triggered simply by disturbing the air.
I watched the first minute pass on the console readout. I admit, I was scared. Dad’s secret seemed meaningless now - and wouldn’t he be delighted to hear his only child had been turned into a small pile of ash.
Reever was staring at me. I decided his eyes were blue, but they seemed to change color every time I looked at him. Some Terrans did that with cosmetic lenses. Reever probably used some weird mental trick.
Finally, the evacuation units switched off. Reever and I both exhaled in relief. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Sweat and what might have been tears made wet tracks on my skin. I offered the chief linguist a wobbly smile.
“Do you need anything else, Doctor?”
“I can handle it from here.”
“Good.” Reever exited the exam room without further ceremony. It was understandable. I felt like collapsing into a quivering, sobbing heap myself. I gazed down at the remorseful Binder.
“Next time,” I said, “try crying on someone’s shoulder, okay?”
I expected to be summoned by Dr. Mayer at the end of my voluntary shift, but oddly enough there were no orders waiting for me. Ecla was effusively grateful as we discussed the last of the cases and the incident with the Binder.
“You saved a lot of lives today, Doctor,” she said with a fluid undulation of her ruffles.
“Thanks, Ecla.” Why did I still feel so restless? “I’m out of here.”
All I had to do was wait for Kao to finish his shift. I went back to my quarters, got cleaned up, and played chase-the-yarn-ball with Jenner for a few minutes. His Highness quickly got tired of entertaining me and stalked off.
Before I realized it I was out the door panel and walking, so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice where my feet were taking me. That had happened a lot to me since Karas had died. Absently I followed one of the pathways leading to the Cultural Center. A few minutes later I found myself in some type of gallery.
It was the flickering light that finally drew my complete attention. I had wandered into the Hall of Art and Expression, which was filled with works by some of the most talented painters, sculptors, and light manipulators in the colony. I’d never found the time to properly tour it. It was beautiful.
I stopped before a particularly fascinating illumination sequence of deep-space microorganisms. The tiny critters were found in asteroid belts, hosting even smaller parasites. The purity of the blues and greens intermingled with the most astonishing bursts of bioluminescent light.
“Beautiful,” a deep voice said next to my ear. I yelped and nearly jumped out of my skin. Jorenian males had this pesky ability to be absolutely soundless whenever they wanted.
“Don’t do that!” I said. Kao smiled at me, and my irritation shrank a few degrees. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“I know,” he said. “I have been following you since you entered the gallery, and twice called your name.”
Had I been that lost in thought? “I thought you were going to signal me when you got off work,” I said.
“I attempted to. You were not in your quarters.” He studied my face. “You are distressed.”
“Are Jorenians capable of telepathy?”
“Empathy is not uncommon among those who Choose,” Kao said. He gave me this significant look, then folded my hand in his. “Walk with me.”
We made our way down the long hall, and Kao quietly commented on the artworks we passed. I didn’t concen trate on the compositions or even what he said. It was soothing just to be with him, to hear the deep music of his voice. At last we stopped at an observation dome, where the entire night sky of K-2
sparkled above us in a glittering display of moons and stars.
Kao turned me to face him, and cupped my shoulder with one large hand. “Tell me about what has happened.”
I didn’t want to talk about Maggie, or the tense moments with the Binder. Instead I found myself describing the unpleasant encounter with Harold Springfield.
“Cherijo, did he harm you?”
Something in Kao’s voice made me look up. My eyes widened. His expression was ominously still.
“Of course not.” Why was he acting like this? I knew Jorenians didn’t appreciate someone hurting their relatives, but I wasn’t part of the family. “He never laid a hand on me, Kao. Even if he had, I could have handled him.”
He ignored that. “Did he threaten you?”
Evidently I did qualify for the same ferocious protection. “No.” As much as I disliked Kyle’s father, I didn’t want to see him in a lot of small pieces all over the colony. “He didn’t do anything to me. Stop it.”
“I know this man,” Kao said, still looking every inch the warrior bent on a rampage. “He has a careless mouth.”
“He was just being Terran.” Which was becoming a universal synonym for bigoted idiot, I thought sadly.
The Jorenian’s tense frame relaxed. “There are many differences between our people,” he said, smoothing his palm over my cheek. “Do you regret being associated with me?”
“No.” Until that moment I hadn’t given a lot of thought to certain aspects of our relationship. Still, I wasn’t ashamed of being involved with him. “I don’t care what anyone says about us.”
“I can never be Terran, Healer.”
We belonged to two different species. So what? “I’ll never be Jorenian.” I shrugged. “Springfield is a jerk, Terra is welcome to him.”
“Tell me what is in your heart.”
I looked up into his strong, beautiful face. How could I even describe how I felt? When I was with Kao, everything else in my life seemed to fade away. I was deeply involved with a blue-skinned alien man, and I didn’t even know how that had happened. It just occurred to me that it had.
There were problems, I reminded myself. “Tell me, how many times have we been together in the past two weeks?”
“Let me think,” he said, pretending not to know. Jorenians had incredible recall. “Four?”
“Five times, and you know it. Twice I had to leave you because of an emergency at the facility.”
“I do not expect you to sacrifice, healing for me,” he said. “As I recall, once I had to leave your company for an unexpected change in the flight schedule.”
“There will be more emergencies,” I said.
“We both of us have occupations which demand much of our time.”
His open, confident manner had me blurting out, “You want more than just my time, Kao Torin.”
One blue finger traced the line between my brows. “Yes. I do.”
“Okay.” I took a gulp of air. “So do I.”
“Are you certain?”
“Not exactly.” His keen eyes made me grimace. “What if we can’t fulfill - if I can’t-“ I made a frustrated gesture. “I don’t know what the term is in your culture. In mine, it is a relationship. What if we can’t make this work? What if my job demands more of my time than you’d like? What if-“
“What if seems to preface most of your worries,” Kao said. “I can present similar concerns. What if I am permanently consigned to an inter-sector flight run? What if I am injured in a shuttle crash? What if I am exposed to HydroTyrannial Radiation and turn a disagreeable shade of yellow-green?”