I finished that obligation by lunchtime.
I scarfed down another much-needed meal and scrambled back to Cryo, barely in time to introduce our second archaic human to her first alien. Tralgar told me they’d probably have Oni awake within the week, so that was one more task on my plate unless Loese could make herself available. She had better make herself available. Or I was going to have to turn into twins.
Nobody had asked Tsosie—or even suggested Tsosie as an alternate. Apparently, nobody thought much of his bedside manner.
I guess being overbooked is a compliment. But I was going to need a nap in the on-call room, because getting to my own quarters… well, they were far away. And I needed to get on with the task that O’Mara and the tree had assigned me.
And I needed to check on Helen, and make sure somebody somewhere was keeping tabs on the machine in Zhiruo’s and Linden’s absence. Not to mention find the time to talk to Sally some more about her own experience with sabotage.
There were not enough standards in the dia.
I wondered if I had enough time to find Rhym and ask them for a squat, tentacular hug. And maybe a neck massage. Those flexible sucker paddles on the ends of their gross manipulators are surprisingly excellent for getting right up into the attachment points at the base of the skull that are so poorly designed on us humans. And they squeeze really comfortingly.
When I let myself into Jones’s room this time, I was struck by how cramped it was in comparison to the rooms in the private unit. There was just about enough space in here for a Thunderby to edge around the bed if it was excruciatingly careful.
Jones seemed alert and oriented. She remembered me at once. “Hello, Dr. Jens.”
“Hello, Patient Jones,” I replied. The consonance of our family names pleased and amused me.
Based on her laugh, she hadn’t realized it before, and it amused her, too. “Do you think we’re related?”
I thought about the poetry that somebody had engineered into her DNA.
“It’s possible,” I said. “You’d have to ask an archinformist about the vowel shifts.”
She had solid food on her tray, I noticed approvingly. She seemed to have made a pretty good accounting of it, too, before she pushed it aside.
“How’s the grub?” I asked.
“A little weird,” she admitted. “Scrambled tofu is pretty much scrambled tofu, though.”
“Some of the options are worse than others, but I’m afraid it’s all hospital food.”
“All right, Doc.” She folded her arms and cocked her head suspiciously. Tubes draped with her movements. She was still being hydrated and electrolyte balanced. “I can tell from the look on your face that you’re up to something. And it’s not just checking up on patients, is it?”
“No… oo.” I looked over my shoulder. Cheeirilaq was out of sight along the wall. “Did you look over the files I left you?”
“About the Synarche? Sure.”
“Would you like to meet your first syster?”
Her eyes widened. “Already? I mean, there’s one here?”
“There’s a lot here. Your care team is minority Terran. Once you were awake, though, we didn’t want to shock you before you had some time to prep yourself.”
“Your multispecies culture is diverse and honors complexity,” she said, parroting one of the files I’d given her. “Mine only has boring human people in it.”
I laughed. Both of these archaic humans were so charming. Whatever brain damage Jones had suffered, Dr. K’kk’jk’ooOOoo’s intervention seemed to have helped her heal without evident deficits other than the memory loss. It made me feel even more awful about the people we wouldn’t be able to save. And the ones we hadn’t been able to save already.
“I’ve seen the movies,” Jones continued. “If you’re not going to use me as an incubator for some horrible insectoid’s eggs, I can probably manage without freaking out.”
Hmm. Goodlaw Cheeirilaq definitely counted as a horrible insectoid, from an atavistic primate point of view. Maybe I should go get Tralgar. Or even Rhym or Hhayazh, though Hhayazh probably wouldn’t be any less horrifying, and its reproductive cycle did involve parasitism. Though not of sentient beings, in this dia and age.
Camphvis would probably do it if I asked nicely enough, but—eyestalks aside—I’m not sure a Banititlan really would be perceived as exotic enough.
The Goodlaw really did want to interrogate all of the surviving patients. I hadn’t seen anything to indicate that it would not do so nicely. But it didn’t hurt for me to keep an eye on the process, and my patients.
My secondhand patients. Patients once-removed?
“Well, in at the deep end,” I said. “Specialist Jones, this is Goodlaw Cheeirilaq. Cheeirilaq, come on in.”
The Goodlaw’s exoskeleton clicked gently as it lowered itself to duck through the doorway. It kept its raptorial arms and manipulators folded, and its wings furled tight under the wing coverts. Nothing, however, could make it look small.
Jones made a noise. I hadn’t taken my attention off her. Her heart rate spiked, though not as sharply as Carlos’s had. Eyes wide, shoulders pulled back against the pillows.
“I was kidding about the horrifying giant insects,” she said.
I solemnly vow not to parasitize you, Cheeirilaq responded. With its small manipulators, it popped the collar of its uniform jacket.
Its “voice” came from the bedside monitor, and Jones turned her shocked look at that. “It talks?”
“It’s sentient and sapient,” I said. “And very law-abiding.”
“Damn,” said Jones. “How many different kinds of… of systers are there?”
She had been studying.
“Thousands,” I said. “It’s a big galaxy. Not all of them are equally distributed. Any more than we are. Space travel is harder for some systers than others, depending on their environmental and emotional needs.”
“And not all of them are like that? Like you, Goodlaw? I’m sorry.”
She didn’t attempt Cheeirilaq’s name, and I didn’t blame her. It’s kind of a trill followed by a click, and human vocal apparatus can approximate it, but not without long practice. Mostly, we all rely on the translators.
No, not all of the systers
