Regeneration (Czerneda) (63 page)

Leaving her and Mudge alone.

“What just happened?” Mac asked, throwing her hands in the air. “Where’s he going? He’s supposed to stay on the
Joy
—he was working with Fy—he can’t just go with her!”

“Think of it not as losing Fourteen’s expertise, Norcoast,” Mudge suggested, looking smug himself, “but of gaining their firstborn.”

“That’s not funny, Oversight.”

“You should see your face right now.”

“I am not adopting or otherwise accepting any child of theirs! What?” This as he shook his head and smiled. “They can’t make me,” she insisted, then sighed. “Can they?”

Mudge laughed. “Norcoast, don’t you know the Myg life cycle?”

Mac eyed him suspiciously. “Beyond wanton enthusiasm and sloppy parental care? Not really.”
Given that enthusiasm, she’d half expected to have the results joining the offspring in ruining her wardrobe.

“The firstborn of any fertile pair is a
nimb
.” Mudge held out one hand and mimed putting something in it. “Myg literature variously refers to it as “the love lump,” “the ideal gift,” or more crudely as “proof the plumbing works.” They aren’t the most lyrical species.”

“Lump of what?”

His cheeks turned pink. “I’ll let you look that up. Suffice it to say, caring for one requires a jar, not a room and education.”

Why that . . .
“Fourteen knew perfectly well I’d assume—” Mac’s outrage turned to reluctant admiration. “He got me, didn’t he?”

Mudge whirled one finger in the air. “Welcome to my world, Norcoast.”

Mygs might boast they had no external genitalia, but their bodies possessed a number of effective contact points to compensate for a lack of pinpoint accuracy. Mac hurriedly scrolled through the known, presumed—
and highly unlikely—
sexual positions involved, to the physiology of pregnancy.

The pre-
nimb,
it turned out, was a plug separating the birth channel from the lower digestive tract, its eventual connection to the outside world. A male Myg’s sperm not only impregnated his partner, but began the process of crystallizing that plug into a
nimb,
which the female would pass before discharging her embryos. The embryos came packaged in membranous sacs of six each, completing their growth outside the mother’s body. Birth was officially declared when a sac split and offspring began climbing and warbling on the nearest adult or facsimile.

The
nimb
itself received somewhat better treatment, being considered a family heirloom as each pair could produce only one.
Not to mention,
Mac realized,
it was the only product of a successful mating that stayed put.
The birth sac was traditionally stuck up in a tree or, in urban centers, hung on a hook outside the door. The hatched offspring were quite capable of finding and adopting their own surrogate parent, who apparently couldn’t refuse.

She grinned, imagining Unensela packed and on her way to the spaceport, only to become a Myg-mom by walking down the wrong street.

Mac poked her finger in the ’screen to find an image and found a catalog of display containers instead, ranging from ornate to obnoxious. Apparently, one did not bother to look directly upon the
nimb
.

No surprise.
“That is not going on my desk,” she stated.

Cayhill looked up. “What isn’t?”

Mac closed her ’screen and stretched. “Fourteen’s firstborn.” She got up from the table and walked over to the pod.

“I don’t want to know.” Cayhill went back to his work.

“Good choice.” Mac peered into the window. “How’s it working?”

The physician had come up with an ingenious, if low-tech, way around their lack of experience with Dhryn anatomy. Rather than hunt for a blood vessel or internal organ, he’d simply fixed tubing inside the pod so one end, with a self-closing nipple, rested against the Wasted’s partly open lips. The other end of the tube came out of the pod, where a bulb and clip arrangement allowed Cayhill to test-squeeze a drop of his latest concoction into the being’s mouth. The idea was that a preferred taste would make the lips close on the nipple, then the Dhryn would either suck on its contents or they could force more in from outside.

For this to work, Cayhill had had to reduce the repeller field to minimum. Even that slight press against the sheets below had caused more skin to fracture, more blue fluid to leak out.

It had to work,
Mac thought, appalled. The Wasted was now more skeleton than flesh.

After leaving the hangar, Mudge had headed for the bridge, gleeful at having been invited by Townee to watch the shuttle launch. Mac had returned here to find Cayhill trying one mixture after another. The source? Bins and carts loaded with the remnants of fresh vegetables and ornamental plants filled one side of the room. A workbench with extraction equipment was in the center, lines of fluid-filled vials at one end. Piles of shredded leaves littered the floor. She assumed a technician had helped dismember and extract. No one person could have made that much mess so quickly.

Though it smelled quite wonderful.
You just had to ignore the undertone of rotting Dhryn flesh.

Mac watched as the next glistening drop formed at the nipple’s tip, fell away to land on a cracked lip, then slid inside.
No response.

“Which one was that?”

He checked the ’screen hovering over the pod. “Aloe and soy.”

“Hand cream?”

A shrug. “Components fit the list.” Cayhill pointed to the bench. “Bring me the next please, Dr. Connor. There.”

Mac found the vial he wanted and brought it. She chewed her lower lip as he poured the liquid into the dispensing apparatus.

He glanced at her. “You have a comment?”

“He’ll be dead before you can try all the combinations.”
They all would.

“If I were substituting,” Cayhill agreed. “But I don’t care about negative reactions.” He squeezed to release a new drop. “Only to find a positive one. I’m adding a new pair of nutrient sources each time. Should be done with the lot in another hour.”

So much for scientific method.
Mac shrugged, willing to go along. “Why not do them all at once, then?”

“Some of these items are in short supply, but contain essentially the same elements as the rest. So I’m trying the abundant ones first.”

Okay, some logic.
“Let me help.”

“Wait.” His face lit with triumph. “Look!”

Mac pressed her nose to the window.

The Wasted’s lips had fastened over the tube. She could see the muscles of his neck working as he swallowed.
Again.
She scarcely breathed.
Again.

“Hold this,” Cayhill ordered, thrusting the tube and bulb at her. He hurried to the table, his ’screen going with him. “I’ll make more.”

“Hurry,” she advised. The swallows were coming faster; the level of liquid in the tube dropping apace.

A vibration rattled the pod and the Wasted’s eyes cracked open. Mac fumbled for the com switch with her free hand. “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re safe. You need to stay still. This is—”
Dhryn had no medical terms
”—a rescue pod.” His eyes closed again. She couldn’t tell if it meant comprehension or collapse.

“Move.” Without waiting, Cayhill shouldered her aside. He sat a beaker of liquid on top of the pod and began tearing apart the bulb and clip. Mac helped, taping in place the funnel he’d brought in his pocket. Cayhill threw more than poured, somehow managing to add more liquid into the tube before the Wasted drained it.

Once they were sure the Dhryn was swallowing steadily, Mac leaned her back against the pod and surveyed the damage. Pale green liquid coated the side of the pod and puddled the floor. They both had streaks of it down their clothing. “Toss you for cleanup.”

Cayhill frowned. “Call someone. I have to make more broth.” He went to the table, his left foot leaving damp prints on the floor.

Mac looked inside. The Wasted had closed his eyes, but his fingers were now wrapped around the tube as if to make sure it stayed in his mouth. He swallowed regularly. “We could be killing him,” she commented uneasily.
Or not helping at all.

“Do we have a choice?” Cayhill gave her that unreadable look. “Sometimes you have to trust the patient.”

An apology?
Mac let it go. She filled her cheeks, then let the air out through her teeth. “I’ll clean up.” There was a bag of wipes and a vacuum mop by the door. She set to work on the pod, sniffing at the spill. “Is that tea?”

“Green tea. And macadamia nuts.”

Herbivore? Fits the migration profile,
she pondered as she cleaned the floor. A trip across most of a planet might take a couple of generations of ordinary Dhryn to accomplish on foot, even if the Progenitors could live that long. More rapidly moving prey would elude them.

She helped Cayhill pour—more carefully—another dose of broth into the tube. “We need something better than this,” he decided. “Wait here.

Between looks at the Wasted, Mac moved on to sweeping up the discarded leaves and other debris from around the table, putting those into the bins. It was the closest thing to gardening she’d done in years, and she found herself enjoying the feel of stems and peel, the delirious smells of what grew.

Cayhill backed through the door, pulling something with him.

“Don’t you ever ask for help?” inquired Mac.

She could read that look all right.
Annoyance.
“It’s the middle of the night, Dr. Connor.”

Sure enough, she glimpsed night-dim lighting in the corridor before he was through the door.

He wrestled what turned out to be a stand festooned with empty bags over to the pod. “We fill these,” Cayhill announced, “connect them in sequence, and he can drink all he wants.”

“What about the—ah—consequence?” Mac ventured.

A pitying look. “The catheter was the easy part.”

Working together, they produced enough broth to fill all but one bag. Once he’d checked the system for leaks, Cayhill declared himself satisfied. “Nothing to do now but wait, Dr. Connor,” he finished.

And stood there looking at her.

Mac sighed, giving up her untouched bed. “I’ll stay. I’ve reports to read.”

His eyes strayed to the equipment attached to the pod.
Not about to let a mere biologist handle
his
patient
, Mac decided. “No, no,” Cayhill said at last. “I should stay. You go.”

“I won’t touch anything,” she promised. “You’ve hooked it all to remote monitors, right?” At his hesitant nod, Mac grinned. “Get some rest, or we can play cards. Kudla left his deck.”

“Call me if there’s the smallest change,” said Cayhill hastily. “And watch for gunk in the tubing. The filters were coarse.”

“Change, gunk, got it. Go.” Mac let her grin fade. “And thank you, Doctor. Whatever happens.”

Her gratitude seemed to startle him. “Whatever happens,” he replied gruffly, “I expect to be notified without delay.”

After Cayhill left, Mac amused herself by walking around the room a few times, straightening this and that. Noticing the bed had fresh sheets, she rolled it from the corner and positioned it alongside the pod, in case she needed a nap. She stared in at the Wasted, seeing no change at all. In case, she switched on the com so they could hear one another.

Out of excuses not to sit down and work, she stood in the middle of the empty room and closed her eyes to listen.

The barely heard, self-conscious hum of machines. A drip from within the pod.

Mac checked the door again, then stared up at the unblinking vid in the corner, hating to think this would be public record.
So she was obsessive.
It wasn’t the first time.

Despite feeling a thorough idiot, she disconnected the handle from the vacuum mop and used it to carefully sweep the room, including pokes at the ceiling and finishing with a lunge under the pod.

Done, she positioned two chairs so she could sit in the one and see blue flesh through a window. The other was for her feet.

She pulled out her imp and set up her ’screen, looking first for updates from Mudge. Nothing.
Probably going to stay on the bridge till they kick him off,
she thought, glad he was happy.

There were a few notes from members of the Origins Team, mostly dealing with what had been left behind, or for when she came down. Mac shunted those to Mudge and looked for anything from a little farther afield.

Finally.
She smiled as she called up a set of newly arrived vid messages, from the latest newspacket or courier. She didn’t care which.

Mac settled deeper in her chair and cued the messages to play.