And nobody could know if she would survive rewarming.
I thought Carlos’s continued avoidance of the question meant he was scared for her.
He looked at Cheeirilaq, tipping his head. “Well, you might as well come the rest of the way in.”
Cheeirilaq did, and shut the door behind it. Even folded to its smallest profile, it seemed to fill up the entire isolation room. It slowly extended one raptorial forelimb and pointed at the datapad. You are studying government, friend Carlos?
Carlos waved one hand. “I think it’s some kind of educational game.”
I stepped forward, glancing at the pad. “That’s the modeling protocols. It’s a sector of the government. Synizens can play through simulated problems, and then one or many of the Grand Council’s subcouncils process the results to a series of models to determine policies and outcomes.”
A line formed between his brows. The hand dropped. “Is this really how you run your country?”
I had to look up the archaic word. “Our polity, you mean?”
“If you prefer.” He sounded amused, as if I were splitting hairs. Didn’t country specifically refer to physical terrain on a planet?
“It’s part of the process,” I said. “I’m not an expert. But the game allows Synizens to model an extremely large number of policy paths, and from the repeated models and results—and occasional individual inspiration—a superior policy emerges. Structure modeling has been experimentally proven to consistently produce better results than relying on experts. Democracies, from Before, were a primitive way of managing the math.”
His face stilled, as if assessing a threat. “You don’t vote?”
“You haven’t woken up into a totalitarian nightmare,” I said, laughing. “Don’t worry. The Synarche’s index of personal freedom is around seventy-nine percent, and the index of well-being is close to eighty-seven percent. Those are the best numbers in human history.”
They’re the best numbers in Rashaqin history, too, Cheeirilaq stridulated. It hadn’t moved from its post near the door—it hadn’t moved at all, except to breathe. Essentially, I’d been treating it as a large, emerald-colored chitin statue, and from Carlos’s start I could see that his limbic system had forgotten to be afraid of it.
“Just the local constabulary,” I reminded him as his heart rate spiked.
“Do they eat you for traffic tickets here?”
I have never eaten a sentient, Cheeirilaq said. And only once or twice contemplated it. Your amino acids probably wouldn’t agree with me anyway.
They would be fine, but this seemed like a bad time to point that out.
Carlos looked at me. “Joking,” I mouthed.
He sighed. “You are very large,” he said to Cheeirilaq. “But not too different from some Earth species that were part of my ship’s biosphere.” Carlos held up his fingers about eight centimeters apart. “Is it offensive if I say we carried them for pest control?”
As long as you recognize that I am a great deal smarter, I will not be offended. Cheeirilaq’s head rose, its thorax inclining toward the vertical. Its face swiveled toward me. I assume I am a great deal smarter?
“Infinitely,” I agreed.
Excellent. After a fashion, I also specialize in pest control.
I walked back to my quarters, contemplating a nap. It had been a long dia, and it wasn’t getting any shorter. My exo didn’t let me trudge, but it was definitely doing 90 percent of the work of motivating me along the corridor.
I should have been planning my data requests regarding the “safety incidents.” But I kept thinking about what Rhym and Hhayazh had told me. I was a Core General staff physician. I could just… go and see what was going on back there in the private ox ward.
Couldn’t I?
My fox was all-access. I wouldn’t even need a suit. And there was direct access to the private unit from the Casualty Department, so I wouldn’t have to worry about the still nonfunctional lifts, or suiting up beyond decontamination protocols.
I had every right to be there. And nevertheless, I felt a chill as I contemplated it.
My species is very good at picking up unconscious cues and aversions, being highly social animals. We are excellent at reading the room and knowing what is expected of us and whether we have overstepped somehow.
And yet I didn’t want to go back there. For no reason at all.
So I found myself wondering, given the intensity of my desire to avoid finding out what was back there—or even speculating on it—if some small aversion (a don’t-see-me, a denial bug, a Somebody Else’s Problem field) hadn’t been added to the hospital staff fox updates at some point.
Sally, I asked inside the privacy of my own senso, what do you know about the private units?
She hesitated.
Sally?
Know from personal experience? Nothing. Additionally, I am unaware of any public details regarding the functioning of these units.
What do you speculate, then? Or what have you discerned?
As you know, she answered, everyone in the Synarche is guaranteed a high minimum standard of care. Everyone is entitled to be as healthy as possible, given the limits of technology.
I would have tapped my fingers on my exo, but I was much too sore for extraneous movement.
Up to and including transplants and regeneration therapies.
“Clones,” I said. “We don’t grow them with anything more than autonomic brain functions, because that would be unethical.”
So all patients receive the highest standard of care. Anything else would, likewise, be unethical.
I slid through the door to my quarters. It had hardly closed behind me before I stripped down to my exo, wiped myself off with a lemon swab that didn’t smell a thing like real citrus oil, and tipped myself into my bunk before my gear had even stowed itself. My limbs ached. My feet felt heavy and overlarge.
My exo needed a charge. I hooked it to the trickle and tried to get comfortable.
“Right,” I said. “I certainly try to provide that. And I know that you do, too. So… what’s in first class? What are they getting that we’re not?”
Now that we were in private, Sally spoke out loud.
