Plague of Memory Read online

Reever had come closer, and his expression was so fierce that I abandoned my brief defiance and dropped without thinking to a respectful crouch.

  He will beat me this time, I thought, closing my eyes and bowing my head to the inevitable. Daneeb, the headwoman of the skela, had warned me it would be so, and while I despised the thought of again being treated like a woman of the tribe, which was little better than a life slave, a tiny part of me felt almost relieved to see my husband act in a manner I understood.

  “No.” He took my hands and drew me up, handling me as he might an infant. “I will not strike you. I will never strike you. I am not angry with you for thinking of Teulon and Resa. The men here do not beat women.”

  Because Reever was a telepath, and shared a bond with my mind and body that I had yet to understand, he always knew precisely what I thought.

  “I am scheduled to report for duty in ten minutes. Before this, I must take the child to where she is educated.” I stared at his boots, which were black, like his garments. Reever did not wear uniforms. I would not think of my life on Akkabarr. Reever did not like it. “May I do so now?”

  “I have told you, you need not ask my permission to attend to any task.” He bent forward and pressed his mouth to my forehead. “I will pick up Marel after school and prepare the evening meal. Signal me if you need me.”

  It all sounded so bizarre. On Akkabarr men were not obliged to care for children, prepare food, or wait on signals from women. They would whip any woman who dared imagine such things, much less suggest them. Sometimes Reever’s behavior made me wonder if he truly was a man.

  I turned my head and smiled at the small girl who had emerged from her bedchamber. The sight of our daughter calmed me as nothing else could. “You are ready to go, little one?”

  “Yes, Mama.” Marel walked over to kiss her father—another morning ritual—and then took my hand.

  My daughter had a curious dignity for one so small. She preferred not to be carried by me unless she was extremely weary, so we left together walking hand in hand. As soon as we were outside Reever’s quarters, I released her hand, drew a dagger, and tucked the blade under the edge of my sleeve.

  Marel moved to my other side and took my free hand. “Daddy didn’t take away your blades?”

  “He has said that I am to wear them under my garments when I am near the crew. I see no crew yet. It is mostly under my garment.” I thought of what my husband had told me and glanced down at her. “Do my daggers frighten you, child?”

  Her small blond head tilted to one side. “I think they’re pretty and I know you feel better having them. But they scare Daddy and Uncle Squilyp and ClanUncle Xonea. A lot.”

  “I will never understand the ensleg.” I accessed a lift and followed her inside. The lifts whirled around the outside of the ship, which was shaped like the curl of a ptar’s tongue. I did not enjoy being whirled, even if I could not feel the motion, but Reever said walking through the corridors required too much time. Ensleg were very much concerned with time efficiency, yet I still did not know what they did with all the time they saved by doing things so quickly. “What are you to do at the place of learning on this day?”

  “Reading, mathematics, sonic sculpture, and a biology experiment.” Marel drew a child’s datapad out of her satchel and handed it to me. “We’re pruning the Jorenian p’naloit fruit clusters that we grew in the hydroponics lab.”

  But for the food cultivation, none of it seemed very practical. Although Iisleg had no formal education for children, they began teaching them how to survive as soon as they were weaned. It seemed excessive to make the girl go to this school for many hours each day as well. We only had her to ourselves every sixth and seventh day.

  “What about hunting, catching, and butchering game?” I asked her. “When do they teach you this?”

  My daughter peered up at me. “We don’t kill our food, Mama. We eat—”

  My vocollar, which translated everything the child said into Iisleg, buzzed on the last word. I touched the mute switch and tried to repeat it. “Syn-the-tics?”

  “Food made from organic material,” Marel reminded me. “Do you remember where we get it?”

  “The wall machines.” Reever had one in his quarters, and there was another, larger area where many more machines were made available to the crew. “I do not much like the taste of what comes out of them.” They reminded me too much of what we had been forced to live on in the last days of the rebellion.

  “It’s okay, Mama.” My daughter grinned up at me as if I were the child and she the mother. “You’ll get used to it.”

  “What of when we land on a world?” I asked her as we stepped out of the lift. “We will hunt then, yes?” I had so much I wished to teach her.

  Golden curls bounced as she shook her head. “We do not use living things for food, Mama, and we never hunt them. Many living things are our friends.”

  “Friends.” Another difficult concept for me to grasp. How could one be a friend to one’s future meal? Still, I did not like to admit my confusion in front of Marel. She needed a strong mother to protect and guide her. “I thank you for explaining this to me.”

  Outside the entrance to the education facility, Marel stopped and tugged on my arm. I dropped into a crouch before her. She pressed her small hands against my cheeks before she touched her forehead to mine. I was not alarmed; Reever had told me that among Jorenians such was a show of deep affection. Sometimes my daughter did this thing; sometimes she pressed her mouth to some part of my face. Any touch from her made my heart swell with affection.

  “Mama, Daddy loves you. I love you.” Her eyes, so close to mine, changed from blue to a clear gray. “Please don’t go away again.”

  “They will have to kill me to separate us,” I promised, holding her in a loose but secure embrace. I saw her mouth curl down, and touched my forehead to hers. “Akkabarr did not kill me. Nor did the rebellion, or our enemies.” So that she did not worry, I added, “Your father will protect us.”

  She nodded and buried her face against my neck.

  How much I loved this little female child who I had known for so short a time. It did not matter that I could not remember her, and she had only a few memories of me. The moment they had told me that she had been born of my body, my heart had been lost to her. I did not fully understand it myself. I had never considered having a child when I lived among the Iisleg. Perhaps there was a bond between mother and child that did not require memories or explanation; a bond that no misfortune could touch or destroy.

  In the oldest dialect of my people, I said, “Wherever you walk, child, shall I follow.”

  Someone made an uncertain sound in their throat, and I glanced up to see a seven-foot-tall blue-skinned female hovering behind us. Like the other Jorenians on board the ship, she had long, thick black hair, and solid white eyes, like one who had been blast-blinded. She could see, of course; her people’s strange eyes worked perfectly.

  “Healer Cheri—uh, Jarn,” she said. “It is a pleasure to see you.”

  “Is it?” I had never met the woman in my life, so what pleasure was it of hers to lay eyes on me? I tightened my fingers around the hilt of the blade tucked under my sleeve. “What do you want?”

  “Mama, this is my new teacher,” Marel said.

  “Thalia Adan,” the woman said, flapping her hands in the complicated greeting gesture of a Jorenian. “I saw you from the view panel and thought I would come out to greet Marel.” Thalia looked upon my daughter. “We are preparing to begin our morning meditation.” She held out her hand. “What say we join the others?”

  This Adan female was an educator. She would not hurt Marel. If she tried to, I would gut her.

  You must not say such things, Reever had told me, over and over. No one on this ship wishes to harm you.

  Perhaps it was true, but many moments in this place did me harm. Placing my daughter into the care of a stranger terrified me. I knew I could put my trust in Reever, for he had demonstrated
that he would face death rather than relinquish his claim on Marel. No one else had yet proven to be worthy of my confidence.

  There were also the duties to which I had been assigned. My supervisor would not schedule my shifts so that I could remain outside the education facility while Marel was being taught. Even when my off-duty time coincided with her hours of attendance, Reever would not permit me to stand watch.

  My daughter squeezed my hand. “I’ll be all right, Mama.”

  I took in a deep breath, bent, and rubbed my cheek against her soft one in the brief Iisleg gesture for affection. “If your father does not come for you, signal me at once.”

  She would not signal, I thought as I watched her take the female’s large blue hand and walk with her into the entrance. Reever was never late.

  Once the door panel closed, I made myself return to the lift and take it to the seventh level, where Medical Bay was located. Reever had told me that the Sunlace had been badly damaged during the Jado Massacre and that much renovation had been done to repair as well as improve the ship. He had warned me that Medical, which had been expanded, upgraded, and retrofitted with all manner of ensleg technology, might appear strange to me.

  Nothing on this ship seemed familiar, new or old.

  Some areas of the ship, like Medical, were now restricted or duty-access-only areas. I walked up to the access panel and stood before the scanner.

  “Healer Jarn, reporting for duty,” I said as it swept a greenish-blue light over my face.

  “Repeat ID,” a drone voice asked from the panel.

  “Healer J—” I stopped and sighed. No one had yet reprogrammed the database to accept my name. “Healer Cherijo, reporting for duty.”

  “Welcome, Dr. Torin,” the panel said as it opened for me.

  “I am not Dr. Torin,” I muttered as I strode past it.

  Coming here to work with the ill and injured was another in my many daily skirmishes with my former self’s life. My expertise lay in treating patients on the field of battle, where they had fallen, or in our field hospital at battalion command, where those who could be safely transported were evacuated. Providing first aid while pulse fire screamed over my head had been nothing unusual for me, nor had performing emergency surgery behind a line of rebels as they held back the advancing Toskald infantry.

  Here the cleanliness was blinding, and the silence deafening. Everyone wore the same type of uniform, so I could not tell who was friend or enemy.

  “Good morning, Healer.” A Jorenian nurse whose name I could not remember stopped and, as Thalia had, made hand motions at me. Reever said it was part of their language.

  “Nurse.” I did not respond in kind, for Iisleg only made such hand and finger gestures as obscenities or to mark a death curse on an enemy. Also, I felt certain that my hands would not move in such ways. “Will you aid me with rounds?”

  The nurse’s smile faded. “Senior Healer Squilyp wishes to speak with you before you begin your shift. He is waiting for you in his office.”

  I went to the Senior Healer’s private chamber and buzzed the panel chime. It opened and I walked in.

  “Good morning, Doctor.” Squilyp did not call me Jarn or Cherijo. He appeared to be entering information on his console and did not look up at me. “I’ll be with you in a moment. Sit down, please.”

  Sitting was another thing these people did; so frequently that I often wondered why they did not have calluses on their buttocks. Iisleg women did not sit; they crouched or stood. I lowered myself into the only comfortable chair in his office, a rigid-backed curl of alloy with little cushioning.

  Senior Healer Squilyp was an Omorr, not a Jorenian, so he appeared radically different compared to most of the crew. He was a little taller than Reever, and humanoid, with a dark pink dermis and bald cranial case. He had four limbs like a Terran, but the three that had very dexterous, sensitive membranes on the ends were used as hands. The fourth had a much broader base and served as the Omorr’s only leg.

  I liked the Omorr’s dark eyes, which like his manner were sharp and direct. I did not have to interpret any shifting gazes or surreptitious looks from this male. I also found the long, thin white appendages that formed a beard around his oral cavity and on the lower half of his face rather mesmerizing. Called gildrells, they each measured a meter long, were prehensile, and were used mainly as extra “fingers.” It was by close observation of these gildrells that I had learned to read Squilyp’s moods. When he was busy, they were busy. When he was feeling pleasant, they were relaxed. When he was unhappy or angry, they turned stiff and straight.

  This morning Squilyp’s gildrells were as icicles. I did something wrong again.

  During my time working in Medical Bay I had learned that the Omorr disliked being interrupted with a lot of unsolicited questions, so I held my tongue and waited in silence for him to complete his data entry and address me.

  “Stop doing that,” he said as his membranes sped across the console keypad.

  I looked down at myself. “What am I doing?”

  “Behaving as if I mean to—”

  My vocollar did not translate the final words he used. “I do not understand your meaning. Please restate in terms that can be translated by the device around my neck.”

  “Never mind.” Squilyp shut off his console and at last looked at me. “Have you considered relearning Jorenian? It would make communicating with you easier for the rest of us.”

  I did not wish to learn the language of the large blue people. The vocollar functioned adequately, and I had too many other things to learn.

  “I speak Terran,” I said in the same language. “I will use it instead of Iisleg.” I often did while in Medical, for there were not many Iisleg words for matters and materials involved in healing.

  He shook his head. “The Terran you speak is corrupted by Toskaldi and outdated. It will not suffice. You should relearn Jorenian.”

  “I never learned Jorenian, Senior Healer.” Dr. Cherijo Torin had, and I was so sick of hearing about her many perfections that I could happily thrust a dagger into my own chest to prevent her from ever returning and seizing control of my body. I rose from the chair. “I will speak to Reever about teaching me.” My husband was the ship’s linguist; it was his job to ensure everyone understood each other. “I may attend to the patients now?”

  “No, that is not all I have to say.” He stood and handed me a chart. “Please explain this entry you made during your last shift.”

  I scanned the contents of the chart display. “I examined Dapvea Adan and checked his stumps. I explained to him why his crushed limbs could not be regenerated by your machines. The male was adamant in his refusal of prosthetic replacements. Everything is as I noted it here.”

  “You recommended killing the patient,” Squilyp said through stiff gildrells.

  “I made no such recommendation.” I had killed for food, of course, and once to prevent a Toskald from assassinating Teulon, but I did not kill people or advise anyone else do so. Before and during the war I had disguised myself and pretended to be a creature of Iisleg divine myth called a vral in order to deliver men from death.

  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. “I regret that I am not that person, Senior Healer.” Cherijo was dead. When would they accept this and permit me to be Jarn?

  “I 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.