Sororal

I liked to think I was a good team player.

Trouble was, sometimes being a team player meant sitting on the bench.

It wasn’t fun or gratifying, but it was necessary. So the best team players did it without complaining.

“Do I really need to be here for this?” I asked.

Sue me, I wasn’t always the best team player.

“Yes,” Nerin snapped.

“I don’t exactly know that much about human anatomy,” I said. “How much help could I really be?”

“Where else do you have to be?” she replied. “It’s not like you’d be that much help there either.”

That stung. She didn’t know it, but she was right. Nai and Serral had frustratingly left me behind while they visited the local branch of the Organic Authority.

On top of that, Nora’s condition was showing signs of change. But for better or worse, nobody knew. So Nerin was grilling me for any information that might help.

“You’re absolutely sure you don’t know what normal Human blood pressure is?”

“Very sure,” I said. “I was a student, remember? I’m not a medical professional. I don’t even know the names of all my bones.”

“So you don’t have any valuable information to contribute?”

“Not as far as I know,” I said. “Hence why I’m wondering if I need to be here.”

Given that I was living in the same apartment as her, it wasn’t surprising that out of all of the alien physicians monitoring Nora’s coma, I knew Nerin the most. I couldn’t say I knew her ‘best’ because she seemed to be determined to be as antagonistic as possible.

It was a bit how I’d imagined having a bratty younger sibling would be. With that in mind, I was doing my absolute best to stay mature and not retaliate. She was making that more and more difficult though.

“You’re that eager to be anywhere else?” Nerin derided. “How can you not have more compassion for your own kind?”

I inhaled sharply, fighting the itch to curl a fist.

Despite talking to, no, talking at me, Nerin’s focus was preoccupied with the machines monitoring Nora, but Thugnin noticed.

My bodyguard nervously looked between Nerin and I. The Casti wasn’t quite bold enough to speak.

“You’re younger than me,” I said coldly, “so I’m going to let that pass. But it is not anywhere I’d rather be, but a very specific place, that is: working to find the rest of the humans, and finding our way home.”

I’d been doing so well not letting her get a rise out of me. Nerin continued to surprise me.

“You’re not older than me in any way that really matters,” she said. She quickly moved on before I could respond to her retort.

“Confirm normal body temperature,” she demanded.

I looked at the instruments and put the back of my hand on Nora’s forehead to double check. Ninety-eight point six Fahrenheit, thirty-seven Celsius. I knew the number back home, and I could estimate closely using my own body temperature, but my conversions weren’t exact.

And with the small but definite changes Nora was showing, those small errors in conversion could rear up quickly.

“She’s definitely warm,” I said. “Maybe a degree or two. But I can’t—”

“Is it good or bad?” Nerin asked, cutting me off.

“…I can’t say if it’s good or bad,” I finished. “I know body temperature dips a bit when we sleep, and I think that’s true for comas too. Maybe this is her beginning to wake up? But the opposite could be true too. She could have been a normal temperature, and this now is a fever.”

Nerin’s expression darkened. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. A fever probably meant infection, and that could be even worse than a coma.

“How could she even get an infection?” Thugnin wondered. “The odds of an alien germ being able to thrive in a Human body are a few trillion to one.”

“Except I’m human,” I pointed out. “I’m still carrying some Earth germs. I’ve been in here every day.”

“Then why aren’t you sick?” Thugnin asked.

“Could be a lot of reasons,” Nerin said. “Caleb is Adept, and his meta-microbes might be more effective than hers. Or the germ might be relegated to a portion of Caleb’s body his immune system can handle. But Nora might have breathed in the germ—let it get somewhere more vulnerable in her body.”

“What about another blood transfusion?” I asked.

“She’s not missing any blood,” Nerin frowned.

“But my blood has meta-microbes,” I said. “Would they still work in a transplant?”

Nerin grimaced, “…Maybe. There’s a risk they might attack her healthy cells.”

“That sounds auto-immune,” I said. “That didn’t happen the first time.”

“She was shot the first time,” Nerin said. “Gaping wounds like that supersede the risk.”

“So how close is this fever to superseding the risk?”

“I’m going to ask you a slew of questions about her symptoms, and I need you to tell me anything you even might remember from Earth.”

“Go.”

“Her brain is still going through sleep cycles,” Nerin said. “At least, it looks like your brain does when you sleep. She’s even synchronized with the diurnal lighting. Is that normal for long-term unconsciousness?”

“No clue,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Can humans fall unconscious from blood-energy content?”

“What is—”

“Farnata blood doesn’t just carry oxygen,” she explained quickly. “It also carries dilute amounts of glucose everywhere in the body to regulate homeostasis. Do Humans do the same thing?”

“…I think so. That sounds like blood [sugar].”

“Then I can see two likely possibilities,” Nerin said. “This might be her body reacting poorly to the nutrients she’s on. There might be something missing from what we’re giving her. The other is that this is a one-in-a-billion infection.”

“The Green Complex gave us an antibiotic in case I got sick,” I said.

“It was derived from your white blood cells,” Nerin said. “Forget your meta-microbes, that would cause an auto-immune reaction.”

“Which is more likely,” I asked, “the infection or the nutritional deficiency?”

“I don’t know, but the latter would be very complicated to solve.”

“…How long can she have a fever like this and be okay?” I asked.

“If she was a Farnata she’d already be dead,” Nerin said. “But Humans are denser than us. Your metabolism runs a bit hotter. I can’t say for sure, but I’m about ready to start having you materialize ice to cool her down. But we don’t actually know if she has a fever. We could be worried over nothing.”

“Then which option best addresses the possibility of a fever without risking other reactions?” I asked.

“… Dira, it’s stupid, but your meta-microbe transfusion idea is the least risky. You’re going to have to customize them.”

“…I don’t know what that means,” I said.

“Basic Adeptry,” Nerin said. “Intend to make modified meta-microbes. You want them to focus on bacteria, so bias them to ignore Human cells."

“This falls under basic Adeptry?” I asked. “I know intentions can go along way, but I’m not sure I know enough about even my ordinary immune system to do what you’re talking about, much less Adept additions.”

Nerin was already grabbing tubing and needles.

“You’ve been learning Adeptry from my sister,” Nerin said harshly. “You have to be capable of at least this.”

“…Alright, fine.” I said. “Talk me through it.”

“Cascade your arm, get a good image of the vein we’re tapping. You want to add tiny concentrations of meta microbes to the vein and let them flow toward the needle, and get sucked up.”

“[This is so scuffed…]” I muttered. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d needed to go out on a limb though. I was more worried about Nora.

Nerin grabbed a special infrared light to illuminate the veins in my arm and prepared to stick me.

“Remember, you want these new germs to ignore Nora’s cells, and only attack cells that aren’t hers.”

“Anything that isn’t her cells,” I repeated, focusing on the idea. Blind Adeptry like this always made me sweat. But as long as I focused on my intended result, and remembered to include restrictions like ‘don’t be toxic’ and ‘don’t go harming organs’, then we should be fine.

There were a lot of ways this could go wrong. I just had to preemptively imagine and predict enough of those to account for them beforehand.

“Ready?” Nerin asked, syringe gun hovering above my skin.

“Ready,” I told her, materializing alcohol on the injection site before wiping it clean.

“Materialize the meta-microbes no more than two seconds after the needle goes in,” Nerin instructed. “And be ready to dissolve them if anything goes wrong. Four, three, two—”

She stuck my vein on ‘one’ and I materialized the smallest mass of meta-microbes I could imagine.

And of course it went wrong.

I could see exactly where I materialized the immune agent. A dark grey dot appeared under my skin, quickly traveling down the vein with the flow of my blood. Red blood mixed with dark streaks of meta-microbes began flowing through the tube in my arm.

The problem was obvious. I’d made way too many. Most antibiotics were dosed micrograms at a time. Just eyeballing, I might have made half a gram of pure meta microbes inside my vein.

“Dissolve them,” Nerin said. “Now.”

I did so, and the dark grey additions in the tube vanished.

“Caleb!” Thugnin pointed out, alarmed.

My veins were still colored grey, running down my arm. I couldn’t move the arm properly; it was going numb.

“Inside my own body,” I recalled. “Safeguards.”

“What?” Nerin said, panic in her voice.

“Adepts can’t easily create inside living flesh, except their own,” I said, mastering my panic. “But when it comes to dissolving constructs, the opposite is true. Most Adepts, especially ones with augmentations, have a lot of trouble dissolving their own creations within their own body.”

I lost sensation in my hand as the dark lines in my veins spread.

“Nai says… the popular theory is it’s an unconscious safety mechanism…” I said. “Something to stop Adepts from ruining their own bodies by instantly eliminating their augmentations…"

“What do we do?” Nerin shrieked.

Funny. She took the words right out of my mouth. Except this wasn’t a medical problem, was it? Nerin was a brilliant doctor, but she was not Adept.

“Agh!” I realized. “I screwed up. I focused on ‘anything that isn’t her cells’. That includes mine!”

Nerin blanched, face writ with shock.

My own meta-microbes were attacking my body. My arm was already swelling.

“We need to…blood…” Nerin murmured, trying to race to a solution.

“Shut up, let me concentrate,” I told her. “…I think I have a solution, but…I’m probably going to pass out from the blood pressure.”

“What?” Nerin asked, frantically rummaging through medical supplies.

I materialized inside my own bloodstream again, this time, explicitly ignoring some of my previous safeguards.

If customized meta-microbes were possible, then I just needed more of a different type. The first batch was going after anything that wasn’t Nora. A second batch could specifically go after the first.

Except the numbness was creeping up my shoulder and into my chest now. Whatever I’d made was going everywhere in my body. This was probably going to hurt…

I had the presence of mind to sit down right before I visualized a new dangerous agent in my blood—something else that wasn’t Nora for my creation to attack, burn itself out on.

Done.

The sensation of stuffing even more matter into my bloodstream settled into reality, and everything went dark.

·····

The first couple weeks, Nora’s room had been abuzz with doctors coming in and out. I’d even had to threaten some that wanted to take medical samples.

But life marched on, and there were only three physicians who were authorized to see Nora regularly. Today, Nerin was the one on duty.

As I came back to consciousness, I was surprised at the anger in her face.

“…I’m awake,” I said, sitting up more. “How long was I out?”

Nerin didn’t speak or even look at me.

“…less than a minute,” Thugnin said.

I shut my eyes and went about cascading my body. Pushing a cascade back into your own flesh was tricky, like turning something inside out with one hand. But my results put me a bit more at ease.

Falling unconscious had wiped out the majority of both of the additives to my blood. There were still some traces of the first batch diffused around the initial site, but I’d made them with an expiration date in mind. The rest would be dissolved back into nothing in an hour or two.

“I’m alright,” I said, gingerly flexing my arm. “But I think Nerin needs to listen a bit more the next time I say I’m not sure I can do something.”

“I get it!” she snapped. “You’re right! It’s my fault.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Not the reaction I’d been expecting.

“Relax,” I told her. “We’ll sort it out later. Is Nora still feverish?”

“Her temperature hasn’t changed,” Nerin said angrily, not meeting my gaze.

This wasn’t unfamiliar behavior for her, but the timing was odd. I hadn’t known her to be like this while she was on medical duty.

She was a trained professional despite being even younger than me, one of the only people qualified to operate on all three common species of alien, and one of the best physicians to entrust Nora to.

And yet now, she was on the verge of throwing a fit.

“Is this fever of hers going to harm her in the next thirty minutes?” I asked.

“...No,” Nerin said guiltily, like a toddler who’d just been caught red-handed.

I was getting déjà vu. Months ago, I’d made the mistake of thinking Nai was older and more mature than she actually was. The assumption had come entirely from not knowing any better.

Right now I was drawing close to making the same mistake.

But my psionic exchange with Nai showed itself once again.

It was odd knowing how out of character Nerin was acting. She was always this way. Maybe not this harsh usually, but every time I’d talked with her, she was at least a little testy.

And that was what I’d failed to notice before. Every time I talked with her. Every time only I talked with her.

“Oh,” I realized. “It’s just me.”

Nerin smothered her impulse to turn toward me, but I didn’t miss the twitch she gave when I said the words. I was right on the money.

“Thugnin, can you give us the room? I need to have a talk with [miss medicine] here.”

“You’re sure you’re okay? If you die, I’m in so much trouble…”

“I’m sure,” I said. “It’s just Adept nonsense, and I cleared it up. I’ll be fine.”

“…Sure,” the Casti said, relieved at the excuse to leave. “I’ll be with Fenno outside.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Thanks,” I said.

Nerin and I were left alone with the sounds of Nora’s monitors beeping.

“If you’re just going to yell at me, get it over with,” she said.

“I’m not going to yell at you,” I promised. “But we do need to talk. Because you can’t stand me, and I can’t realistically get out of your life. So we’re going to settle our differences.”

“I screwed up,” she spat. “There isn’t anything else to settle.”

“I…well I didn’t quite almost die,” I said, “but it’s probably closer than anyone would rather risk. And it’s probably the last time for a while that I listen to you about Adeptry.”

“I screwed up,” she repeated. “How much do I have to say it?”

“None. But you can make it right by actually talking with me now,” I said. “I’ve been putting up with you for a while now because it wasn’t really a problem, and honestly you’re not that good at being mean. But this needs to stop, so spill. You’ve been on edge around me for a month, and before now, it hasn’t caused any problems. But you rushed into this right now, because you were distracted by whatever has you angry at me.”

Now that we were alone, she let herself glare at me. I could see the dark navy swelling in the corner of her eyes. They were bloodshot in a way I hadn’t seen in Farnata before. She was on the verge of tears.

“What do you want me to say?” she said. “That I’m sorry? I am!”

“I know,” I said, keeping my voice quiet. “You’re a good doctor. I’m not really qualified to talk about your medical reasoning. But I do want to know what problem that you have with me.”

“It’s nothing,” she insisted. “I can handle it. It won’t come up again.”

“You might as well tell me,” I said. “You’re right about this at least: I’m not going anywhere else right now—much as I would have liked to go with Nai, I’m not fond of leaving problems unresolved.”

Nerin physically flinched when I said, ‘liked to go with Nai’.

Trying to draw on whatever knowledge Nai had imparted on me backfired, because this wasn’t something Nai was aware of.

“This is about your sister?” I asked, surprised.

“I said it’s nothing!” she hissed.

“Like I said, you might as well tell me, because I’m going to try figuring it out anyway…”

Nerin was angrier than I’d ever seen her, but she didn’t storm out of Nora’s room. She couldn’t. Nora’s condition was still uncertain and Nerin was her assigned physician on duty. The rules were a bit complicated because it was Nora and not some Casti or Farnata in one of the regular wards, but even in the high-security wing, doctors couldn’t just leave their patients unmonitored.

“You just have to dig at everything in sight, don’t you?” she said. “You can’t just leave us alone. You became Nai’s problem, and so she—” Nerin angrily gestured at Nora, “—became my problem, and now I don’t get to have another sister because she decided to get tangled up in diraksi First Contact!”

“…You don’t like that I’m friends with Nai,” I realized.

“I—I’m not…shut up!” she said.

She was like a bratty teenager! I would know, I was one often enough myself.

“Nerin, can you take a minute and be vulnerable with me for a second? I just made myself pass out, so…my point is I’m not really in a place of judgment right now. I just want to talk honestly.”

“No,” Nerin said. “I’ve already called for another doctor to relieve me. I’m not having this conversation with you, I don’t trust what I’d say.”

“Then trust what I say,” I said.

She refused to respond, almost pouting like she was playing the quiet game.

Nai and Tasser knew each other well. They had a word from Nai’s home about trust. If it was from Nai’s home…

“Please…Hivivi,” I asked.

Nerin exploded, balling her fists and glaring at me.

“You…Do Not get to say that!” she shouted. “That is not for you!”

“Nai said it to me because I needed to hear it,” I said. “If that’s not good enough for you, then take it up with her.”

“You are not Farnata!” she cried. “And neither is Tasser! You have no business asking that of me. You don’t even know what it—”

She clamped her jaw shut as she saw the lack of surprise on my face.

I did know what ‘Hivivi’ meant.

“Nerin, I don’t want to be whoever you think I am. I’m trying to find a way for us to coexist a bit smoother. Because—and I’m really sorry to hold this over your head right now but—I just passed out because you tried to tell me what Adeptry Nai had to have taught me. Whatever this is about Nai? I want to solve it.”

“It’s not your responsibility to solve!”

“I know plenty about what this isn’t,” I said. “Tell me about what it is. I know you and Nai get along…”

“It’s…complicated! It’s not about how well we get along, it’s about how much!”

That was…linguistically odd. Starspeak adjectives could be hard to discern…She wasn’t speaking to the quality of her relationship with Nai, but the quantity?

“I don’t think it would be that hard for you to spend more time with your sister,” I said.

“Well it is!” Nerin shouted, “I wish Nai never met you!”

“…That’s what this was about for you?” I asked, stunned. “You were jealous?”

“It’s not—” she spoke haltingly, her own anger rushing her unprepared into sentences. “…I want my sister to be my sister, not some…legend…Do you even know that she doesn’t like being called ‘Warlock’?” Nerin asked, voice growing shrill.

“Yes, and I know why.”

More than anything else, that caught Nerin off guard.

“What? Why-how?”

“Because I’ve spent time with her and gotten to know her as a person?”

“Shut up, I’m serious!”

“So am I!” I protested. “Nai and I have saved each other’s lives. It’s hard not to be friends after that kind of thing.”

“Of course you did. This is Tasser all over again!” she hissed.

“Nerin, breathe. You seem like you’re about to hyperventilate. That’s still a thing for Farnata, right?”

She pushed her thumb into her own neck—taking her pulse. It must have felt fast because she sat down, right in the middle of the floor and forced herself to slow her breathing.

Oh man, how I could relate to that…

“I’m…furious!” she said, still trying to get her breath under control. “She’s the only sister I have left! I don’t get to see her for months and when she gets back, she’s got more time for the quirky new alien than she does for me. Dira I feel like a child! I—”

“…Aren’t you still a kid?” I asked.

“I’m a surgeon!” she snapped. “I cut into people and put them back together—without even a lick of Adeptry of my own!”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not still a kid,” I pointed out.

“If I was Kiraeni, you might be right,” Nerin said coldly. “But Farnata don’t have that luxury. I can’t be ‘just a kid’. I have responsibilities.”

“Kids have responsibilities too,” I said. “You’re just ahead of the curve.”

“What would you know about it?”

“I’m not an adult by my people’s standards either,” I told her. “But I’ve had to fight for my life and others. Responsibilities don’t get much larger than that.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It really is. You’re still allowed to feel envy,” I said. “Nai told me Farnata aren’t considered adults until they’re sixteen in homeworld years. [Hell,] even if you were numerically an adult, you’re allowed to be upset about the state of your relationships.”

“Why aren’t you…I don’t know… angrier?”

“Practice,” I shrugged.

“Oh, shut up,” she hissed.

“No,” I told her plainly. “Speaking as someone who isn’t a proper adult yet? You can’t force it, especially not by denying your problems exist.”

“I’m not denying anything!”

“Not one minute ago, you said ‘you feel like a child’. I’m still a relatively new Starspeaker, but that feels like trying to dismiss your own feelings. Or at least downplay them.”

“It’s none of your business,” Nerin sniffed. She was fighting off tears. “I don’t need you to be… nice to me.”

“Too bad,” I told her. “Your needs don’t dictate my behavior. So, how can I help?”

“W-What?”

“Nai is my friend, and you’re her sister. I want to help my friends’ families, if I can.”

“You can’t.”

“Nerin, I learned an alien language in six months, from scratch, mostly by pantomime. You and I haven’t gotten along perfectly, but neither did Nai and I at first—for months in fact, but don’t let that detract from the fact that I’m a pretty good communicator. And right now, forget about your sister, you’re communicating poorly with yourself.”

“People don’t communicate with themselves,” Nerin said. “It’s literally not what the word means…”

“You know, before your sister threw me through a wall, I would have believed that this was just a translation error, but I don’t think so now.”

She blinked. “Nai threw you through a wall?”

“Yes, ask her about it sometime,” I said. “When I say you’re not communicating with yourself, I mean you’re not being honest with yourself. You feel one way, you don’t want to, so you try to convince yourself that you aren’t feeling that way. I don’t even think it matters if you’re successful or not. In this case, it really is just the thought that counts.”

“So what am I supposed to do then? Just talk to myself about how I feel? That would be imbecilic.”

“Why not?”

“Did I not just say?”

“Fine then, talk with me. Are you envious of my friendship with Nai?”

She only glared at me with the vicious intensity that only a younger sibling could muster.

“N-no!” she sputtered. “No, that would be ridiculous. And unfair to her. I can’t just say you can’t be friends with my sister.”

“Maybe this is a translation error,” I said. “I think I mean the older Earth meaning of jealousy. It’s not that you want the friendship I have with your sister: it’s that you want to keep what you already have. When you see me or Tasser being friends with her, you feel like you’re losing her to other people.”

“...That would be ridiculous. Only a child would feel that way.”

“I don’t think it would be ridiculous,” I said. “I don’t have any siblings, but I’ve had friends I worried about losing before.”

“…She went off to tactical training and met Tasser,” Nerin said. “When she got back, she was a different person, and… koievaiwalta I don’t want to say this out loud!”

“Too bad. Own it. It’s how you feel whether you like it or not.”

“…I hated him,” Nerin hissed. “I hate that you’re making me go through the same thing again! You two got closer to my sister in six months apiece than I did in ten years!”

I nodded, trying to step carefully. I felt like I knew what I was doing, but I could still screw it up.

“Do you want to feel that way?” I asked.

“What kind of a question is that?” Nerin hissed. “What am I supposed to say? Yes?”

“Maybe,” I said. “If nothing else, you can trust that I’m not going to hold it against you either way.”

“Why would you do that?” she asked incredulously. “Is ‘hate’ not the same thing on your planet?”

“There’s no pleasing everyone,” I told her. “So answer the question for yourself. You don’t even have to say it out loud, but ask yourself ‘do I want to hate Tasser and Caleb for being friends with Nai?’ and whatever the answer is, at least accept that’s how you feel. Maybe you want to change that. Maybe you don’t. But you can’t do anything about it as long as you haven’t answered the question.”

Nerin, to my surprise, took me seriously. She looked away from me, and I could sense the gears in her head turning as she forced herself to take the time to evaluate her own emotions.

I sensed her come to an answer, and she didn’t speak it aloud.

“…I don’t think I’ve ever thought about talking with myself,” she said.

“Back on Earth, it can be a sign of serious mental instability,” I admitted. “But the way I see it, talking to yourself isn’t that different from writing in a journal. And keeping a diary can be positively therapeutic.”

“You didn’t just stumble onto this,” she accused. “You must have been on the other side of this at one point.”

“More than once,” I said. “There was another human who survived being abducted with me. What he had to say helped me out like this several times…even after he died. I know it’s odd, and it doesn’t come naturally, but just talking to yourself does help.”

“It still doesn’t change the fact that I feel like a child about this. She’s my sister , not some toy kids are going to tug-war over. But I still feel angry when she spends time with people who aren’t family.”

“It occurs to me,” I said slowly, “that Nai is a very busy person. Like yourself.”

“Brilliant observation,” she said. “Who could have known?”

“I mean… you might not be wrong? It’s entirely possible Nai isn’t spending enough time with her sister.”

“So?” she asked.

“So what?” I replied.

“So what do you mean?”

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s possible, but that doesn’t mean she is. Do you feel like she’s spending enough time with you?”

“Maybe? Yes? I don’t know! When you do things like let her sleep through the chores we scheduled, I don’t know what to do. I was looking forward to getting to do something with her…but it’s not like we don’t spend time together. I just…”

She grit her teeth in frustration. Words were failing her.

“Don’t rush,” I said. “Just do the same thing again.”

“Can you stop?” she hissed. “You’re as bad as Toe, always pushing.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not perfect at this either.”

Nerin held her head with both hands for a few minutes, taking her time to formulate exactly what she was feeling.

“I…wish she knew how much I worry about this. But I wish I didn’t need to say anything to her. I’m embarrassed to feel like this, because it makes me feel immature. I don’t want her to see me as immature.”

“It’s not hard to see why. Your sister is your hero,” I said. “It makes total sense that you wouldn’t want her to see your worst.”

“Yes,” Nerin sighed.

“…Yeah, but that’s total crap,” I said. “Nai’s your older sister: she knows you might be embarrassed to share, but she’d never hold it against you. Besides, your sister isn’t that much older than you. She’s got her own immaturity. I reiterate: she threw me through a wall in a fit maybe two months ago?”

Nerin showed a hint of a smile at that.

“This feels weird,” she said. “It’s awkward to just…talk about this. Especially with…you.”

“Sometimes the best people to talk with are the ones you aren’t close with,” I said. “Less at stake that way. But I agree. When I was first learning how to express feelings in Starspeak, Tasser and I had to force ourselves to ignore the awkwardness. It was the only way we could actually make any progress.”

“My bedside manner is great,” she said. “I don’t want to be someone who all of the sudden has trouble expressing myself. I’ve literally done medical training to be a better communicator.”

“In surgery, you dictate every action aloud, right? Even if everyone already knows exactly what’s happening?”

Nerin nodded.

“Communication is a safety feature in an operating theater. You’re trained to overcommunicate to prevent mistakes.”

Another nod.

“But that doesn’t mean you’re suddenly a perfect communicator in every field. Being good at one part doesn’t automatically make you good at all the rest. Even surgeons specialize don’t they? Have you actually said any of this to Nai?”

“N-no, why would—” She cut herself off.

“Because how else is she going to know?” I asked. “You and I both know that if she knew even a sliver of this, she would shake the earth to fix it.”

“It’s pathetic,” Nerin said. “She’s a hero, and I’m so insecure that I just want her to quit being someone amazing so I can get my sister back. She leans into it to give our people hope. I can’t just ask her to stop.”

“Yes, you can,” I said honestly. “Because if you do, maybe she scales herself back, maybe she doesn’t. But until she knows what you’re feeling, her decision is made with incomplete information. She has the right to know what her choices are costing her sister.”

“…I can’t just tell her cold,” Nerin said. “It’s not that simple.”

“I think it could be that simple, if you’re willing to treat it that way.”

“No, it can’t be that simple because I can’t treat it that way. It’s too important. Despite what medical cures exist, as incredible as everything out here in the void can be, there aren’t miracle fixes for everything, Caleb,” Nerin said. “We can’t just magically become better communicators.”

I burst out laughing.

Her face scrunched up, hurt.

“Hahahaha! Sorry, sorry!” I wheezed. “It’s just—ahaha—you’re dead wrong.”

You couldn’t magically become stronger either. But with the right tool you could, no magic involved.

Her hurt expression changed to confusion.

“I have…an Adept thing,” I explained. “It’s not a solid you can touch, but it's something that interacts with your mind. It’s really complicated, but one of the things it can do is let you talk with people…differently. Nai helped me refine it after I had the breakthrough. But if I told you it could help you connect with your sister, would you be willing to try it?”

“…Yes?”

“Alright, then close your eyes and pay attention, because I’m going to push something towards your consciousness now. You’re either going to grab hold of it, or it’s going to slip away. Are you ready?”

“What are you talking about? I-I think so?”

“Here,” I said, pushing a cluster of psionic constructs toward her mind.

“I don’t feel any— wha—” Nerin devolved into a string of Speropi, every individual word of which I failed to grasp, but the overall meaning was very clear.

‘Whattheshitomigodwhatishappening’. Something to that effect.

“Alright,” I said. “You’re my [guinea pig] for this thing. I’m trying something new for when I start teaching this to more people: an introductory module. That’s a bundle of tools, there’s Starspeak instructions how to use each of them, and some tutorial challenges to try and complete. You see the instructions?”

She nodded. “How does this work? What is this?!”

“Sorry,” I told her with a grin. “I might have invented psionics, but I don’t have all the answers. I’m tossing you in the deep end. Because I’m not going to help you at all. If you want any outside help, you’re going to have to talk to your sister, she’s the next best psionic after me. Oh, and take some notes about how to improve the tutorials would you?”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Nerin howled.

“Like I said,” I grinned, climbing up from the floor, “one of those constructs can let you talk with Nai mind-to-mind. Better get cracking figuring out which one that is! Good luck!”

“You can not leave, you passed out!” Nerin protested. “I still need your help figuring out what’s wrong with Nora!”

“...Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “I’m sticking around, but I’m seriously not telling you anything about psionics. You gotta talk to Nai about that. I don’t want to skew feedback on my starter kit.”

I held out my hand, and Nerin took it, pulling herself up from the floor.

“You said you called for another doctor to relieve you,” I said. “How long is that going to be?”

“...They told me at least ninety minutes,” Nerin admitted.

“Well we can sit and monitor Nora until then,” I said. “Tell me some embarrassing Nai stories in the meantime. It’ll be hilarious.”