Beyond Varallan Read online

  The Omorr resident bumped into me as he bounced by. “Doctor! Didn’t you hear the announcement? We have to hurry and make preparations!”

  “Don’t get your gildrells in a knot, Squilyp.” I felt like smacking him with something hard and heavy. “This is why we have all those endless drills, remember?”

  We managed to strap all the patients in protective harnesses just before the ship’s transitional thrusters fired. I turned to locate a spare harness. Squilyp, who was already strapped in, gave me a derisive glare. What a little paragon of caution he was.

  “See? Nothing to worry about. I bet that had to be a record—” I found myself flat on my face, watching the deck below me ripple and reshape itself. “Forget what I said.” I groaned, and pushed myself up on my elbows as the Sunlace transitioned.

  Through the distortion of reality, the Omorr looked like a big blob of white corkscrews. Corkscrews that were jiggling with laughter.

  “You can get up now, Healer.” Tonetka was too polite to laugh at me, once the transition was over. “Perhaps I will increase the number of drills we perform.”

  “The Doctor could apply some off-duty time to remedial training,” Squilyp said. Always the helpful resident.

  I’d like to apply something flat, wide, and adhesive to his gildrells, I thought. I held my head and stood up carefully. “I’ll never complain again. Long as I live.” Which I hoped would be until I was a little old grey-haired genetic construct.

  “Remain still, Cherijo,” the Senior Healer said, and performed a brief scan. She frowned slightly. “Your vitals are registering above normal parameters. Norepinephrine levels are also unusually elevated.”

  “It’s just the sympathoadrenal response, Tonetka.” I straightened my tunic. “Terrans exposed to sudden, unexpected stress generally enter a hypermetabolic state.”

  “As you say, Cherijo.” She didn’t look entirely convinced, but we had other things to do. “Come, we must perform rounds.” To the residents, she said, “Prepare the field packs. Allow enough supplies for possible heavy casualties.”

  The Senior Healer made sure we had enough staffers to cover the ward, then she and I performed quick rounds. Squilyp and another resident sorted what equipment we would need. The supplies were divided among the medevac team. I shouldered my heavy pack with a grimace. The Omorr must have put an extra fifty kilos in mine.

  “Caution,” the Medical Bay display announced. “Medevac launch will depart Sunlace in ten minutes.”

  We took the gyrlift down eleven levels, where one of the launches was waiting for us. Other teams were still loading their shuttles with relief supplies and equipment.

  “Have you received reports from the surface?” Tonetka asked once she was inside the launch. I stowed my pack before shrugging into a harness rig. The pilot turned around, and the interior light revealed a thatch of orange hair with two small, red hornlike protrusions. It was my Oenrallian friend, Dhreen.

  “No signal from the colonists,” Dhreen replied, and punched in the initiation codes. The launch engines hummed into life.

  Squilyp leaned forward. “What about the raiders?”

  The Oenrallian, who had long ago transported me from Terra to K-2, shrugged. “A trader reported that ships were attacking the colony,” Dhreen said. “Probably a passing route jaunter who saw them firing on the planet from orbit.”

  The Omorr looked pained. “A trader? Surely more reputable sources could have provided information.”

  “Nothing wrong with traders,” Dhreen said.

  “They’re the worst sort of opportunists.” Squilyp’s gildrells bristled. “Always looking to profit from the suffering of others. Why, once I knew this—”

  “Uh, Squil?” I interrupted him. “Want to guess what Dhreen was before he joined the crew?” The Omorr’s eyes widened as he glanced from the unsmiling Oenrallian to me. “Exactly. So . . . you were saying?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled.

  Dhreen winked at me. I felt much better.

  The launch shot out of the flight bay and into open space. Below us the looming sphere of the planet swelled into view. It was a placid-looking world. Land masses solidly paved the outer surface in a myriad pattern of green and brown topography. Small blue circles indicated water sources, probably former sites of ancient meteor collisions.

  I noticed that Dhreen was scanning the immediate sector continuously. Slipping from my harness, I went to the helm and quietly asked him about it.

  “Standard procedure after raider attacks,” he said, his oddly pitched voice equally low. “Loot haulers sometimes hide close by, wait for rescue to come in, jump them as well.”

  “According to the reports, this species is principally involved in agricultural trade,” Tonetka said behind us. “Who would attack such a world?”

  Dhreen’s cheerful voice iced over with contempt. “Scum looking for easy takings.”

  It took only minutes to descend through the upper atmosphere, and clear the last distance to dock. En route we used the time to check our equipment and review medevac protocols.

  “Triage must give priority to salvageable cases,” Tonetka made the grim reminder. “Remember to enlist the aid of any native healers whenever possible. We come to assist, not to offend.”

  I thought I was tough, that I’d seen the worst. I’d been a surgeon on Terra for nearly nine years, and after that had survived a planetary epidemic on K-2. I discovered I hadn’t. After we landed, one glance through the viewport made my stomach turn.

  NessNevat’s Central Transport had been completely razed. The smoldering ruins of a dozen vessels surrounded our launch. Craters pitted the docking pads, like the footprints of a rampaging titan. No one responded to Dhreen’s request for landing clearance. The Oenrallian pilot still performed standard decon procedures before he permitted us to disembark.

  “I’m jaunting back up to the ship to ferry another team,” he said when I passed by the helm. His spatulate fingers pressed mine briefly. “You owe me another round of whump-ball, you know. Have a care, Doc.”

  I squeezed back. “You too, pal.”

  When the outer hull doors parted, the stench of death and destruction welcomed us. Among other things.

  “Mother of All Houses,” one of the staffers muttered.

  “Monstrous.” The Omorr choked out the word. “Monstrous.”

  For once I agreed with him. “You’re right, Squilyp. There were definitely monsters here.”

  Motionless, mutilated bodies littered the ground, dismembered body parts flung around them like parts of broken toys. Blood gleamed dark and wet. It was everywhere. Pooled under the bodies. Splashed over ruined equipment. Blended with the spilled fuel that oozed past our footgear. Blood that was red, like mine.

  There were no rescue efforts being made by the natives. No signs of life. Nothing moved but drifting smoke on a warm, fetid breeze. That came from the fires burning both around Transport and in the distance. A lone warning claxon echoed an eerie wail.

  I shifted my pack as I scanned the horrified faces of the medical team, then caught the boss’s eye. We often had moments of perfect empathy. This was one of them.

  Time to get busy.

  “Okay, people, we’ve got work to do,” I said. “Let’s go over the plan one more time.”

  My announcement drew the team’s attention away from the massacre and jolted them out of their initial shock. Faces cleared. Backs straightened. Eyes sharpened. The Senior Healer took it from there.

  “We will set up our triage station where we find the highest concentration of survivors. I will see to the use of existing facilities. The Engineers will build a temporary hospital if necessary.” She turned to me. “Cherijo, your first priority is getting an area secured for the surgical cases. Squilyp, supervise triage until we can set up sterile fields. Let us make haste.”

  Whoever did this had no concept of mercy or surrender. All around us were the scorched scars left from heavy pulse fire and displacer blasts. What wasn
’t burned was blown to rubble. I was so mesmerized by the widespread destruction that I stumbled over one of the bodies.

  Looking down, I bit my lip to keep from groaning.

  Up close, the inhabitants of this world were even more pitiful. Red-blooded mammalians, from the look of their furry bodies. They were smaller than me. Benign faces. Little muscular development.

  I remembered what Dhreen said. Easy takings. The butchers.

  “Over there,” Tonetka said, and pointed.

  Several small, fearful faces peeked at us from the shadows of a partially collapsed structure. As we walked, we kept our hands open to show we carried no weapons.

  “Where the hell is Reever?” I said under my breath.

  “He’s on the next shuttle. Keep a pleasant expression,” Tonetka said. “Smile, nod, beckon to them. It will ease their fear.”

  The survivors slowly crept out of hiding to get a better look. We stopped and stood still as they drew close. Tonetka spoke softly to them as her graceful hands moved in soothing patterns.

  “Come, we are friends, here to help you. Come, we have medicines, we will bind your wounds, we will comfort you.” She kept smiling as her eyes met mine. “Cherijo. You are closest in size to these beings. Approach one of them, very slowly, please.”

  I moved cautiously toward the largest one, who was only half my height. These survivors were a lot smaller than the other victims we’d seen.

  “Hi, there. My name is Cherijo. We’re here to help you.” I kept smiling. “Come on, I won’t bite. I promise.”

  This one displayed an apprehensive smile and moved within inches of me. One small paw tentatively touched my blue tunic. I didn’t try to touch it, afraid it might scamper off. It turned its head and spoke to the others. Their native tongue was a rapid, uneven stream of throaty mutters and yips.

  “They sound like they’re growling,” Squilyp said.

  “No, look at their eyes,” Tonetka said, her voice still entreating and gentle. “They’re simply afraid.”

  The little paw trembled as it curled around my fingers. I caressed the silky fur.

  “So soft,” I said, then it dawned on me. “Tonetka. These are the children.” This one had a bad burn across the shoulders. “He’s wounded.” I took a scanner from my pack, very slowly, and let the child hold it to see that it wouldn’t hurt him. I made a quick scan, and my mouth tightened to a flat line. “Someone shot him with a pulse rifle.”

  Tonetka approached now. The little one curled up next to me and squinted up at the huge Jorenian. She made soothing sounds as she examined the child’s wound. The other survivors lost their fear and gathered around us. All of them had suffered nearly identical wounds. Tonetka used her hands to point to all the burns, then to show we didn’t understand how they had been hurt.

  All but one of the children stretched out on the ground, paws behind their heads. The one left standing pantomimed shooting them in the back by sweeping an imaginary weapon from right to left. The ones on the ground rolled over and writhed, then went still.

  “The raider who shot them didn’t realize he missed the back of their heads,” I said. “They faked him out.”

  We were grim as we helped the children back up. The Omorr suggested treating this group, but Tonetka shook her head.

  “Not here. Look. They want to take us to the others.” The largest was pointing to one of the few buildings left standing just outside Main Transport. Other shuttles had landed by now. I saw Reever sprinting across the docks with his team to catch up with us.

  About time.

  “Senior Healer,” he greeted Tonetka, then turned to me. “Doctor.”

  “Linguist Reever.” My boss smiled with relief. “I am very glad to see you.”

  In order for our vocollars to work outside the confines of the Sunlace, a portable terminal was normally brought from the ship and set up on the planet. However, since the Jorenians had made no previous contact with this species, it was useless.

  Reever was going to be a very busy guy.

  The children led us to the other survivors. It was slow going, because we had to stop along the way to check the bodies. There were plenty of stops. They were all dead. The kids began whining miserably as they apparently recognized some of the corpses.

  Here in what had been a city, there was no breeze to take away the smell of death. Sweat beaded my brow as the temperature continued to rise. I hoped the climate on this world wasn’t too warm. The odor would be the least of our problems.

  The airless interior of what had once been a storage facility was crowded with the injured. Many, I saw, were already dead or dying. The living coughed and growled their pleas through raw throats as they had for days. We found no power, water, or food supplies. Puddles of blood and waste were everywhere. The stench was as thick as the bodies.

  It soon became apparent there were no medical professionals among the survivors. What supplies they had before the attack were evidently gone or destroyed. The wounded themselves were terrified of us, and fought when we tried to examine them.

  “Linguist Reever.” Tonetka’s hands made a gesture of frustration. “We must relay our intentions. Will you interpret for us?”

  “Of course.” Reever listened as the Senior Healer quickly outlined the emergency aid plan. He then approached one of those still ambulatory and made a gesture known throughout the system as one of peace and friendship. He reached, took one small paw. The small creature gazed up at him.

  They remained locked in a still, silent regard for some time. Then Reever growled. The survivor did, too. That went back and forth for a minute. At last Reever released the creature’s paw and went directly to the Senior Healer.

  “I have informed him of our intentions. Their computer core was damaged during the assault on the colony. This one believes enough information remains to download their linguistic files into our database.”

  “We also need access to medical data, if possible,” I said.

  The Omorr, who had been hopping between the puddles of filth, got indignant. “Why must we access native data? They are warm-blooded, mammalian life forms. Even you, Doctor, can surely handle—”

  “Squilyp?” The Senior Healer’s sharp voice cut off the Omorr’s sneering. “Shut up.”

  I managed—only just—not to applaud.

  “I will transfer the data personally,” Reever said.

  “Good idea,” I said, knowing Reever had the expertise to handle the task. “Did the NessNevat tell you what the city’s population level was before the attack?”

  “Several hundred thousand,” Reever replied.

  “Not so good.” I looked around and made a swift estimate. “There are only about five hundred here. Where are the others?”

  “These represent the only survivors on the planet.”

  Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at Reever. Even Squilyp, which ruined his grand thumping exit.

  “This is all that remain?” Squilyp’s gildrells arched in surprise. “The trader indicated—”

  “The trader was wrong,” Reever interrupted him. “The native population has been exterminated.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I wanted to know.

  “I have seen such assaults in the past. All of the colonists were herded to this immediate area, then systematically massacred.”

  “That’s preposterous!” Tonetka said. “Anyone knows that raiders only take what they can trade!”

  “This wasn’t a raid,” he replied. “It was an assault by the Hsktskt Faction.”

  Four hours later, as I was preparing for my eleventh surgical case, the Jorenian database finally accepted the NessNevat linguistic download. We knew because our vocollars began translating the sounds our patients were making into words.

  Under my hands, the adolescent with severe cranial fractures got particularly eloquent.

  “Mother . . . Mother . . . take me back . . . to your . . . womb. . . . End . . . this. . . . Mother . . . do not . . . leave . . .
me. . . .”

  “I liked the growling better,” I muttered under my mask. The nurse next to me repositioned the instrument tray so she could stroke a gentle gloved hand over the boy’s furry brow.

  “I am here,” she lied to him. He couldn’t understand her, but the sound of her soft voice calmed him. “I will make the pain go away.”

  My thought exactly. “Put him under.”

  Squilyp and the other surgical resident were set up a few meters away from us. Engineering had installed remote generators which created two large sterile fields and powered the portable laser rigs. Through the containment static, I heard the Omorr swear now and then. Tonetka appeared regularly, monitoring both of us. A nurse told me the Senior Healer was coordinating all the relief efforts while simultaneously treating the minor surgical cases.

  I had refused her offer to replace me and only requested the nurses be rotated every five cases. I told Squilyp to do the same, which he didn’t like. He had an unpleasant tendency to view nurses the same way he did a lascalpel: You only replaced it when it couldn’t function any longer.

  The NessNevats’ voices drifted from the open area beyond our temporary surgery, mourning the dead, crying out from pain. I knew many would die. Tonetka, Squilyp, and I were the only surgeons, and there were simply too many critical cases.

  Reever’s cool voice kept echoing inside my head. This wasn’t a raid. It was an assault by the Hsktskt Faction.

  That kept me cutting as fast as my hands could move.

  Hours crawled by. I worked. Nurses came and went like the patients. I learned the rather limited extent of the Omorr’s repertoire of curses. Sweat made my gear cling to every inch of my skin. The lascalpel hissed. The odor of singed fur and cauterized tissue filled my head.

  The same stench the Hsktskt had smelled, as they fired upon the colonists.

  Much later, after I’d finished closing the center incision on a NessNevat with internal injuries, the Senior Healer appeared. I noticed her standing across the table from me in a fresh mask and gloves. Over my shoulder, I saw Squilyp and the other resident were already gone.