GROUND / CH. 13: RESCUE PARTY
SPACE
“Rodger,” Maggie called over the intercom, “are you busy?”
“I can talk.”
“We have detected what looks distinctly like a rescue flare on the planet surface.”
“No chance it's a natural phenomena?”
“Not very likely.”
“You think it might be your brother and the alien biologist?”
“Yes. I've no idea what, if anything, has been decided; James has been spending night and day trying to analyse the language from first principles.”
“Why, when there's an interpreter trying to get in contact?”
“Why do people do anything? If nothing else, it's his favourite intellectual pastime, he doesn't want to cheat, or look at the answers at the end of the book until he's had a decent stab at coming up with some of his own.”
“Oh. OK. I guess that makes sense.”
“Also, he's thinking that regrowth will take time, and if we rely upon Mick too much then we'll be at a total loss if it turns out you need to anaesthetize him for a month, or something like that.”
“That also makes sense, yes. I'll just finish adjusting Barbara's therapy for today, then I'll be free for whatever is needed.”
Maggie closed the connection, and looked at the probe's video feed. Fortunately, Mick had turned off the flare, so it wasn't being totally dazzled now. “Sathie?”
“Yes?”
“Your call, do you want to watch the approach? I'm currently looking at a hillside above the city.”
“What I'd really like to do is go down there myself.”
“Tempting, isn't it?”
“We know that Mick's been fine living on Lana's shoulder for the past six years. Why do we need quarantine?”
“Because he's not got his own blood. What if there's something that would destroy your red blood-cells?”
“You took that risk.”
“I was wearing a helmet all the time, just in case.”
“OK. Deal!”
Maggie groaned, “I walked into that one, didn't I? Go on, then. But a total decontamination before you step out of the ship and when you get back in, and if there's any problem you're in quarantine for maybe a month.”
“Thank you, Maggie!”
“The probe is on channel fifty-six. Fly safely.”
“I intend to.”
----------------------------------------
GROUND, OBSERVATORY HILL
“Hi Mick, hello Lana, if you understand me,” the voice sounded from the little probe.
“Maggie? Is that really you?” Mick asked.
“In the disembodied voice. Sathie is in the little dot that your friend is watching, and under strict instructions not to remove her helmet, just in case.”
“That's not a bad idea. As you see, we've got some predators around here, too.”
“I noticed. What did you do to its face?”
“It was rolling around after I de-legged it. So much for a clean kill. It was on a kill or be-killed attack plan, so I'm claiming self-defence and defence of others.”
“OK, I'm sure the pictures of its brains will keep someone happy. You're certain it was a do-or-die attack?”
“Lana has studied them, and can understand their language. It was starving and half-mad.”
“How do you know that?”
“Starving, because you can see its ribcage, half-mad, because it tried what should have been a surprise attack from thirty meters away instead of three. Plus of course she'd warned it to get lost or die, but it still attacked.”
“She'd warned it?”
“You learn something new every day. Lana not only understands them, she can talk predator too, but communication doesn't stop them from eating each other, so I guess it's fair they still think Lana makes a good meal. Oh, spread the word, Maggie, in case I forget. There are some nasties around in the grasslands and the sea. Multi-organism, brainless, hungry, cooperations called 'slime creatures' that are OK fried and not that dangerous if you're a multi-organism creature but if you're a multi-cellular organism and they get into a wound they'll try to eat you up. Generation time is about two hours, during which time they consume their own mass. The preds resort to self-surgery by teeth if they can.”
“No swimming then?”
“I don't think so. A sharp knife probably won't help much against a brainless slime creature that eats whatever it can. You'd probably just give yourself extra problems if you sliced it up.”
“How big do they get?” Maggie asked.
“Sometimes they are long and thin,” Lana replied, “exploring for food. Other times they are balls, digesting. As a ball, they might be the size of a village house. If they are too hungry, they bud and the budlings swim until they find a meal. If the budlings do not find food, their organisms start to die, and the living consume the dead, and on they swim. There are swimming multicellular sea creatures that will try to eat them, at that stage.”
Mick was shocked: “I thought you didn't speak English?”
“I told you I've been learning. You decided a few weeks ago you wanted me to learn, and your mind is a good teacher.”
“And you've learned that much in a few weeks?”
“No, of course not. But your mind told me what to say.”
“I need to start paying more attention to what you're thinking again, don't I?”
“Don't you trust me, Mick?” Lana asked, in her mother tongue.
“I'm remembering you once told me I was an experiment, and you talking to my brain behind my back is just a bit creepy.”
“I thought you knew, Mick. Sorry.”
In the pause Kalak said, “I do not understand how that ship stays up,”
“It makes the gravity flux look the other way,” Mick said. Then looked at Lana, “How did I know the expression 'gravity flux'?”
“Fair is fair, Mick. To help me learn your language, I moved some memory organisms so they can talk to your brain. They are collaborating, just as they should.”
“That's how you learned to speak predator?” Mick asked.
“Yes,”
“And did the predator find it could understand you?”
“It had a simple brain. It's thoughts were about attack and defence, about territory, how to get to places. It didn't want to communicate with me, it wanted to get home to its pack or failing that, kill me. It might have found my spacial memory, if the experiment had carried on longer.”
“You ended it?”
“I had to expel it,” Lana said, “It was trying to take over my eyes and mouth and make me bite myself to death.”
“Anything Sathie needs to know before she lands?” Maggie called from the probe.
“That while I can cope with Lana and her people without clothes on, I really hope she is properly dressed.”
“Oh, I don't think you'll complain on that front, Mick.”
“Is there some other front I'll complain about?”
“Yes. The five minute decon once she's landed, me interrupting your reunion, and numerous people wondering how to get you into your own body. Rodger the regrowth therapist ought to be available for discussions in about three minutes.”
“I have been making assumptions,” Lana said, “But I don't really think discussions are what is needed.”
“No?” Mick asked.
“I need to know what chemicals and enzymes and so on are involved in regrowth, Mick, and if they will harm my organisms. And you know that your wonderful knowledge of chemical structure is mostly useless to me.”
“You need to taste the chemicals?” Mick asked, in Lana's language.
Lana replied in Mer, “Yes. And then we can made decisions if it is better if I regrow you, he does while you're attached to me, or if we separate.”
“I noticed what you did there, Lana,” Mick said. “Did you, Maggie? She's going to speak to you in fluent ancient Hebrew or something next.”
“How? You never learned to speak it fluently,” Maggie said. “So those are the options?”
“Or James gets to decapitate me, yes.”
“I do not like that option,” Lana said, again in Mer.
“Me neither,” Mick wholeheartedly agreed.
“I mean,” Lana continued, “I've been carrying around all this extra mass, on the assumption it's going to be useful one day...”
“Maggie, as you might have noticed, Lana is quite a funny person. Please tell me that you have some way of letting us on board.”
“You're serious?”
“Yes. Kalak found my ship, and the inscription, by triangulating on the probe's path. Others might do too. Furthermore, Lana's previous field research has a reputation for dabbling in very dangerous and morally questionable things. Individually, so far we've been able to convince people that she's a good person. But you know what crowds can be like. And as of last month the traditions party is in government, so she's in an even more precarious position.”
“'Traditions party'?”
“Expect political sciences departments to go crazy. Revolving government on a semi-fixed cycle. Each party gets something like twenty changes to law they can make before its swap time. The traditions party prefer stability and time-honoured solutions, the progress party like novelty, and the reason party prefer things that promote health, education and knowledge. There's some popular voice element, because if a certain number of people agree on a measure then up to two laws in a cycle can be declared the people's choice in which case they don't count.”
“So a party happy with the status quo stays in power indefinitely?”
“No, because it's more complicated than that,” Lana said, “The other parties can call a popular vote to end the cycle early, and there's also a cost to staying in power. Members of the party in power have no income. So tradition party members are poor and have power for longer, the progress party are rich, because they plan most of their decisions before they're in power and rarely stay in power more than half a year. And some policies change back and forward and back and forward until one party — normally the reason party — makes a pair of interlocking laws which refer to each other and each of them pleases a different one of the other parties. It would take three changes to cancel them and put back the law that they approve of, so they'd need to think hard about doing that. Especially since their opponents could easily undo it.”
“And you think the traditions party won't approve of you hosting Mick?”
“Let's ask Kalak what he thinks,” Mick suggested. Lana did.
“I expect they would say it is obvious that frontier biology has once again put the whole race in danger, kind one, declare all such hostings to be wrong-podding, and try to claim that there is no need for a change of law because wrong-podding has always been punishable by death.”
Mick translated, adding “Wrong podding is when a female takes organisms from a dead male and pods with them, that's to say makes a child.”
“How....?” Maggie asked.
“Technically the male is only legally dead when his organisms have started to separate, so a wife can pod with her husband after he's had a catastrophic head injury, as long as she's quick. But the accusation is easily made and very hard to defend against, unless there's a witnesses to him starting to separate.”
“May I ask, what happens to the organisms when they separate?” Maggie asked.
“They are no longer the person they were, they are lost, without direction, and collaboration ceases. They seek to hide in the soil, first the muscle organisms, lastly the bone organisms. Larger scavengers would consume them if they stayed on the surface, but the small creatures will consume them eventually. A podling formed with organisms that have known such loss does not react well to stress. Especially not the bone organisms. They are dangerous to themselves and others, and if the stress is bad enough then wrong-podded organisms will fully enclose the brain organisms trying to protect them. It causes brain damage, and bone-organisms will stop even bloodflow. Thus the death penalty applies for making such a podling.”
“But you are not making a podling with Mick.”
“Am I not? If I separate from him leaving a being with some of my organisms and some of his, all here would call that being my podling, and I find you would call him a chimera, a monster. And Mick's body was certainly not in one piece when I joined with him. I have no desire to be tried for wrong-podding, or podling-withholding. I could also be accused of other things, like eating a person. Mick is forgiving, but not everyone will be, I'm sure.”
“So the sooner you separated from Mick, the better?”
“Probably. But even then, accusations might come. You will forgive me, I hope, Magdalena, if having saved your brother from certain death, I now do all I can to become indispensable to you, and hide behind your protection.”
“If only she knew the concept, I expect Lana would like to claim asylum,” Mick said.
“Oh thanks, Mick,” Maggie replied, “A potential diplomatic crisis before we've even got diplomacy; lovely. I am suddenly very glad that Sathie's not in that ship alone.”
“She's not?”
“No, Gran's on board too, apparently. Ah, and Rodger is here.”
“Hello Rodger,” Mick said, “Speaking as a fully conscious head with lungs, most of my spinal column, liver, and other bits Lana considered to be of scientific interest, without many muscles below the neck, let alone any guts, skin, heart or even my own blood, what would you say the prognosis would be if she just spat me out into your care?”
“About five seconds before brain-death if you're conscious. If I somehow first put you into a coma and dropped your temperature to about just above freezing, then maybe we'd have an hour to connect some blood vessels for you, and plumb you into an artificial heart. The surgeon would probably prefer to have about six hours. If the operation was successful and we managed to wake you up... Well, after six years of your accident? I've got the equipment to do it, but your chances of regrowing everything properly would be about thirty percent. And it would take about five years of intense pain while the nerves regrow.”
“Lana's kept quite a lot of my nerves,” Mick said.
“And various glands too,” Lana added.
“I can regrow bones and cartilage, they're relatively easy in fact. But I can't regrow them in situ around living nerve cells. There's no way to do that I know of.”
“But couldn't you grow them with a slot or something for the nerves and then let the bones heal over the top?” Mick asked.
“Do you know what you're asking?” Rodger asked.
“No.”
“I didn't think so. But I suppose I could grow you some bones and then let the surgeon at them with his power tools. That might work. Getting them in place without damaging the nerves, though...”
“Is not hard at all,” Lana said. “I move bones around in myself anytime I change. What is hard is knowing if the chemicals you use are poison.”
“I can tell you the formulae.”
“Useless to me. Maybe a chemist can make sense of them.”
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“Lana's organisms can decode enzymes and analyse hormones, Rodger, but it's a translation problem.” Lana thought to Mick and he translated it. “Lana says she tell you that I make a lot of stuff that's roughly speaking sugars, but with a bit of sparkle, and a bit of stink at the other end, and I've got receptors in my skin which seem to be related to how fast my beard grows. And she was really tempted once to see if she could make patterns in my beard by playing with the concentrations, but she says she wouldn't do that. She also says she's had to put filters to keep the high concentrations of it away from her brain organisms, because they don't like it. Cue jokes from Maggie about finally having proof of testosterone being bad for the brain.”
“I never said a syllable,” Maggie replied.
“I was sure I heard you thinking it.”
“Your ears are working better than they used to then.”
“Probably, Lana thinks ear-wax build-up is disgustingly wasteful, and we won't mention dead skin-cells. I don't want to know what she does with them, but her skin organisms send out clean-up feelers every so often.”
“I was joking, Mick.”
“So was I, about hearing you. I'm used to Lana's organisms tickling my ear-drums, but I thought it was worth making the point. They don't have microscopes, because why would you need them other than a children's toy, when an expert in the field can feel the molecules on the outside of a virus and tell the chemists how to adjust the vaccines?”
“I get it,” Rodger said, “You're telling me Lana's people can communicate at an individual cell, sorry, organism level if they want to.”
“It's sort of like movable and individually addressable taste buds, yes.” Mick agreed.
“Why does the ship fly like that?” Lana asked in her mother tongue.
Mick looked up. It was coming from the opposite side of the hill to the city, maybe a kilometer away, and it was weaving left, right, up and down as though in a slalom.
“They are coming in over the archery camp,” Kalak said. “Would arrows hurt the ship?”
“No,” Mick said.
“Ah. They seem to be trying to catch the arrows.”
“I'm sure Sathzakara will have a good explanation,” Lana said.
“Samples, probably.” Mick declared. Then asked, “Lana, might an archer lose skin organisms when firing an arrow?”
“It is sad, but it happens, yes.”
“Could you tell me of the ethics concerning such organisms?” Mick asked.
“The ethics?”
In English he asked, “Would it violate ethics to study organisms that flew with an arrow? Or should they be reunited to the person they came from?”
“Ah. I understand. Every podling knows it would be a betrayal of cooperation to knowingly send organisms to their death except to save others. Soon they learn it would be betrayal of cooperation to risk organisms unless there is a very good reason. A large mass of organisms unwillingly separated from their person will keep integrity, hoping for rescue, an individual organism or small group of organisms will be lost, traumatised, certain they will die. It is not kind to prolong the life of such. But... yes, with your microscopes to see how they react, it would be ethical to try Rodger's chemicals on them.”
“And if we find that Rodger's chemicals make them grow and multiply?”
“There are some such chemicals, yes. Kill them quickly, burn them. You should not make a new kind of slime creature.”
“Did you catch all that, Maggie?”
“I did, thank-you Lana.”
“But the podlings would be very happy to get their arrows back,” Lana said, as the probe-ship silently landed, and Sathie leapt out.
“Hello, my beautiful Shipbuilder!” Mick said, “I thought you were supposed to suffer five minutes of undignified decontamination?”
“I did, your Gran's been having fun as pilot,” Sathie said, coming over and reaching out for Mick's face. “I've missed you. I've missed you so much.”
“I've missed you too, Sathzakara, and I've been very very annoyed with myself that I didn't just chain you up and drag you with me.”
“Barbarian throwback. You can't do that, Mick, you'd have been arrested.”
“I know. That's why I didn't. But about a week into my flight I was certain that I did love you. I'm still certain I do love my memory of you, I really want to replace that out of date memory of you with happy recent memories.”
“Six years is a long time,” Sathie said.
“I know. So, may I cover you with kisses now, or do I need to woo you with roses again?”
“Roses?” Sathie asked, half-outraged once more at his first gift to her.
“Well... technically it was sea weed, wasn't it.”
“It was, yes. And no seaweed by another name does not smell as sweet as roses,”
“I've made you this, Sathie.” he presented her with the necklace he'd made, an interlocking chain he'd made by cutting sliver after delicate sliver from a piece of local marble.
“It's local stone?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“All rock-cutter work? From a single slab?”
“Yes. There's one piece of metal in the latch, but otherwise, yes.”
“It's beautiful, Mick. I didn't know you could do work this fine. And I know why it looks like its made with roses and seaweed. Thank you. Can you help me put it on? I didn't bring anything to give you.”
“You've brought yourself,” Mick said, kissing her hand. “That's more than I hoped.”
“I hope that's not a proposal. We need to get to know each other again.”
“I know, Sathie. But you're here. It's a nice planet, isn't it?”
“It is. A bit short on swimable water, I hear.”
“That's true. Sathzakara, can I formally introduce you to Lana? She's about our age according to the clock, which means in relative terms, she's almost twice our age.”
“Thank you for keeping Mick alive, Lana.”
“It has been... challenging and interesting and given me lots of nightmares. And in case you're wondering, your presence here is doing all sorts of things to his biochemistry.”
“You don't really surprise me. And I expect him kissing me is doing things to mine too. Don't stop, Mick, it's nice to be appreciated.”
“I can probably lift you by wing power more easily than hold you up with my legs, I'm afraid,” Lana said, as Sathie leaned into Mick's kisses.
“Sorry.”
“Goodbye, Mick,” Lana said, then added “The One be with you, podling,” in her mother tongue.
“What?” Mick and Sathie said, both shocked.
“I cannot hold onto a podling.” Lana said to Sathie, then explained to Mick, in her native tongue “You've just started to pull organisms away from me, Mick.”
“I have?” he replied, in the same language.
“You have. You wanted another hand, your own hand, to hold Sathzakara better.”
“But... I can't survive on my own!” Mick objected.
“You can, my podling, I'd be a very poor mother indeed if I didn't make sure of that.”
“But we need to make plans!” Mick said.
“You've made the necessary one, my podling,” Lana said, her voice full of pride, “all that's left now is the biological imperatives you've triggered. The brain organisms that helped us learn each others languages are yours now. Your desire for an hand, your exertion of selfhood, severed them from me. I'll keep my wings, Mick. And I'll leave you with the legs, and then I plan to make very good use of that predator carcass. You should do too, of course, but for that you'll need to grow yourself a digestive tract, so don't eat too much to start with.”
“This is crazy, Lana, we can't do this, not here not now!”
“It's done Mick,” Lana insisted.
“Congratulations on the most well-educated podling, not to mention most argumentative podling of all time, Lana,” Kalak said, grinning.
“What's happening?” Sathie asked.
“Apparently, mid-hug I half-aware decided I needed another hand to hug you with better, which Lana's organisms have interpreted as a kid making a bid for freedom from mum. Thus making all discussions about how Lana could maybe grow me a new body null, void and irrelevant. She's going to give me a chunk of hers instead.”
“What, here and now?”
“Process has started already, and nothing I can say or do will alter it. I hope you're filming, Maggie.”
“What does Maggie need to film?” Heather asked, coming from the ship.
“Sathie, can you explain?” Mick said, “I need a quick lesson in not being a parasite.” [Lana, how do I develop a digestive system?]
[Eat, chew. Wait a bit, eat chew, wait some more, decide where you want the undigestable residue to go. Now, I'm trying to sort out your interesting bits... I'm guessing it's going to be easier for me to move them than you, but you'll need to learn eventually. Did you originally have them in a stomach-pouch like predators do?]
[No. {embarrassed} they're exposed, which is one reason we wear clothes.]
[Hmm. I never did ask what the second tube is for.]
“This is too much! Now Lana's asking me about where I want the internal and external plumbing.”
“You mean I get to choose?” Sathie asked, “That could be interesting.”
“Not until after your wedding day, dear,” Heather said. “Mick, have you tried giving her a memory ball?”
“Doesn't work, nor do images. And I don't get the feeling I've got time to learn how to move things myself.”
[Nonsense. It's not hard.] Lana said, and once she'd sat down she patiently explained how he could move the legs to his side of the body, and the wings to hers. It took him a few minutes. [Don't worry, my podling, you'll get faster. You meant it about the liver?]
[Yes, Lana.]
[Now, you remember how you felt where things were? Think about what's inside you. Feel what shape they are, and where they are. OK?] He had no idea how, but he managed to do it.
[Urm, yes. What's that hard round thing?]
[Oh, I never did ask you about that, did I? It was in one of your bones. You don't recognise it?]
[Lana, if that's what I think it is, it's not part of me. Well, only emotionally. And I've no idea how it got into a bone.]
[Well, bring it to the surface and ask the skin organisms to let it out then.]
[You've carried it around all this time?]
[It wasn't doing any harm.]
“Sathie, this might be gross.” Mick said, holding his hand to his stomach, where the thing was going to leave him. Sathie ignored his warning and looked. “Really?”
The ring wasn't nearly as messy as he'd thought it would be. “Apparently Lana thought it was part of me.”
“Well, I did say to look after it, Mick.”
“Can I put it where it belongs?”
“After it's been in your guts?”
“I'll wash it first opportunity.”
“Good idea.”
“But, otherwise?”
“I thought we'd just agreed we needed to do a lot of talking.”
“Oh yes. We did didn't we. Me optimist, you sight for sore eyes.”
“By the way, Sathie,” Heather said, “if you want to break the seal on your helmet, I won't tell on you, and no one will come to any harm from it.”
“I heard that, Grandma,” Maggie said.
“Oh, bother, I'd forgotten about our electronic eavesdropper here. Tell you what, Maggie, why don't you fly those arrows to the camp?”
“I thought you were going to give them to the biologists?”
“Not those ones, the crystal ones Sathie made.”
Mick looked at Sathie, confused.
“I brought a little extruder with me. Apparently, it looked useful; it was. Setting it up gave me something to think about while I was getting fully decontaminated.”
“Nice touch,” Mick agreed.
“What's crystal?” Lana asked.
“What my ship was made of,” Mick supplied.
----------------------------------------
GROUND, ARCHERY CAMP
“Strange alien device coming, sir!” one of the students called out.
“Well no one shoot at it this time, that looks like the thing that the report said smashed a predator.”
“Why do we get top marks for hitting a space ship, but mustn't shoot at little robots?”
“Because I didn't think any of you would hit the spaceship.”
“Only Runth did before the spaceship started helping.”
“Yes, and Runth got ten points on his own merits, and the rest of you get ten points because I didn't think to say you weren't allowed help. Now get back to making arrows.”
“It's coming closer, sir,” Runth said, “And it's carrying something.”
“Your eyesight's as good as your mother's,” the teacher complimented him.
“Thank you sir!”
“Arrows,” the teacher saw, increasing the magnification on his own sight.
“If it's bringing back our arrows, does that mean we don't need to make any more?”
“Of course not. I'm sure you didn't find all the ones you shot, did you?”
“No, sir.”
The probe flew towards where the target had been rested against the hut at the end of the lesson, tilted slightly, and turned off the forcefield. The arrows pierced the target in a gentle hiss. Perfectly centred around the pred's-eye. The probe retreated.
The first student to the target stopped, confused. “The fletching is in our colours, sir, but they're not our arrows.”
“How can you tell?”
“They're glass.”
“Who ever heard of glass arrows?”
“No idea sir. Aliens, I guess.”
“They don't feel like glass.”
“Absolutely straight, sir.” Runth added, picking his one out. “The right weight and balance too.”
“Hmmph, warm glass. Just don't cry if it shatters.”
“It's got a hunting point, sir. Very sharp,” Runth added, looking at the spot of blood on his finger.
“Shoot rubbish training arrows and get glass hunting arrows in exchange, strange.”
The probe suddenly dropped down to head height, and they heard, “Urm, like this? Really? Oh, apparently you can hear me already. I'm academician Kalak of the astronomy department. I've just been told that the aliens were very happy to get your arrows, because they've not had anything to study that we've made before. I've explained they were just practice arrows, so you don't need to be too ashamed of your work. The arrows they've given you in exchange are made from something they make their spaceships out of. It will crack if you really try to break it, but it's harder than clearcoal, and doesn't crack easily, so feel free to use them.
“The aliens have a tradition of granting names to people who do exceptional things. They've called me Kalak Accurate-Eyes, for instance. But it's not really for people to call themselves, but for other people to call you. According to that custom, the person who managed to hit the spaceship without it changing its path is given the honorable name of Sureshot, and they've written that on your arrowshaft in their script. What's that? Oh, one of their scripts. That's all I've got to say. No it isn't. Please don't shoot any aliens, they're friendly. But they are multicellular organisms and one of them has just demonstrated that she can gut a predator before it could even leap. The evidence of that encounter will be delivered to you, fairly soon.”
----------------------------------------
GROUND, OBSERVATORY HILL
“Very well done dealing with that predator, Gran.” Mick said.
“Slow ambling target, as befits my ageing bones. And I did get more warning than anyone else did. You aren't in any fit state to move much, are you?”
“Err, no.” Mick agreed. The process of separating was almost over, Mick and Lana had no blood connection now, just an area where they both needed skin. But Mick's lack of much of a stomach was taking its toll. He was low on blood-sugar and his skin organisms were stretched and hardly growing at all.
He'd also adamantly refused any more organisms from Lana, on the basis that she'd already given him more than half her skin organisms. So they were still joined along their sides, and Mick had put any plans to move his internal organs on hold. “Mick,” Lana said. “You're being ridiculously stubborn. If another pred comes, I'm just going to ignore you and finish separating. And if you can't digest faster, I'm going to feed you. That's what ought to happen if a podling gets low on energy.”
“Please don't,” Mick said.
“Why not?”
“Let me try, Lana,” Heather said. “It's because in human male minds, breasts are not at all about caring for the sick, and for most not really about feeding babies. He's an adult and you're not his wife, so it would feel wrong for him to get near them.”
“So if I put milk into a cup it would be OK?”
“Better, but not really good,” Mick said.
“Let's tackle this another way,” Sathie said, “Can you tell us what Mick's organisms need most?”
“Energy, salt, minerals.” Lana said.
“Sugars or fats?”
“Yes, either.”
Sathie went to the ship, and brought back a dark green bottle, “Is this dangerous for Mick, Heather?”
“Doesn't look it to me.”
“What's in it?” Lana asked.
“It's something I like when I'm exhausted. Water, sugar, glucose, fructose, plant extracts including caffeine, salt, and a mixture of minerals that are probably different to the ones you were after.”
“May I sample some, just to make sure?”
“Of course, I've got more.”
Lana took a little on her finger, and put it on her bottom lip. Her eyes opened wide. “Well. I don't know which of the 'plant extracts including caffeine' it is, but something in that mixture is going to make his life interesting. But maybe it won't work on him.”
“Why?” Mick asked, suspiciously.
“I'll tell you later. It'll do you good and won't hurt you. Drink, Mick.”
“OK,” he said, pulling a face, and taking a swig. “You know, I used to drink far too much of this when I was a student? It doesn't taste much better now than it did then.”
“Why did you drink it then?” Sathie asked.
“Social reasons and helping me stay awake.”
“Oh? What were the social reasons?”
“There was this beautiful girl I wanted to get to know who seemed to drink nothing else,” Mick admitted.
“You can't be saying you were after me back then!” Sathie said.
“I was... optimistic you might come to faith one day,” Mick said.
“Drink some more, Mick,” Lana commanded, “Stop wasting your energy talking and instead think about feeding your skin organisms. Everyone will be certain now that I was withholding freedom from a podling, whereas the truth is more that he's not letting go of me because he's wasting his energy talking and re-arranging his innards. Stop that, Mick. Your skin organisms are practically starving to death.”
“Is that why they're itching?”
“Yes, that's an urgent plea for help, now keep on drinking that love potion.”
“Love potion?”
“And stop talking. If you drink a hormone to keep you awake, that's your fault. It's not like you're likely to start lactating when you're that low on energy.”
“Lactating?” Sathie asked.
“Yes, lactating, some time when he's actually got a proper digestive system and he doesn't have any organisms that are malnourished, give him some of that drink and he might be able to produce a few drops of milk for your scientists to analyse. Or he might not. There's not much of it there.” Heather returned from the ship carrying a snack assortment.
“This one looked like something I shouldn't give him,” she said, holding up a packet of peanuts, “But the rest look good to me.”
“Hush Mick,” Sathie said, preemptively. “He's allergic to peanuts, Heather.”
“Oh, I knew that! So, any opinions, Lana?”
“These are foods?”
“All considered unhealthy for us but OK in moderation. This one is basically sugar with some plant extracts, this one is fried slices of plant tuber — full of starch — with salt and dry plant leaves for taste. This one is crushed plant seeds including the husks, with dried fruits, animal milk extract and sugar. This one is made from meat, fat, and various chemicals to stop it going bad. This one is fried plant starch and lots of plant extracts and chemicals to overload his taste-buds.”
“The sugar one and then the meat one would be best.”
“Mints and salami it is then, Mick. I hope you're not going to suggest he alternates them,” Heather said, “His taste buds would probably rise up and strangle him. Figuratively speaking.”
“You do realise I've not eaten anything since my accident?” Mick said, “My pseudo-stomach is full already. And the itching is getting steadily worse.”
“I was afraid of that,” Lana said. “His stomach's not big enough to meet his organisms' needs.”
“What about putting him on a glucose-saline drip?” Sathie suggested.
“What's that?”
“Injectable food. I'll get it.”
“Injectable food?”
“In case of accidents, when there's been a lot of blood lost,” Heather said.
“Strange idea. You don't actually mean injectable do you?”
“Straight into a vein. Dripping in slowly.”
“That sounds impossible,” Lana said.
“Assuming it's not, would it work?”
“Urm, probably.”
It didn't take long to set up the drip, and it started helping fairly quickly. Half an hour later, he and Lana were separated, but the drip was still necessary.
“Good stuff that,” Mick said, “thanks Sathie.”
“Shut up, chew your salami, and grow yourself a stomach,” she replied, stroking his head, “and enjoy the sunset. Suns-set? Sun-sets? Whatever the word is, it's pretty.”
[I am enjoying it. Am I allowed to think to you? While I chew?]
[That might be habit forming.]
[Is that really such a problem?]
[I suppose not, Mick. I used to think it was, as you know.]
----------------------------------------
Back from delivering the second predator carcass, the probe let Maggie restart an earlier conversation.
“Lana,” Maggie asked, “are you still thinking you should ask for asylum?”
“Now more than ever, yes. It's obvious I've done a major podding, and they'll look and where Mick's head was, decided that he was a podling all along, and I'll be in the condemned cell.”
“Capital punishment?”
“Approximately. There is a grid. Small budlings are not held guilty for their parent's crimes.” She indicated with her fingers, the height of a tiny budling. “No food for me but my budlings would be fed. I'd have to bud myself out of existence, starve my organisms to death, or stop breathing.”
“No chance to appeal?” Maggie asked.
“Not that I'd want to risk my existence on.”
“Grandma? You're the expert on this stuff.”
“Like I told Sathie, Maggie, ” Heather said. “The biologies are so different that the disease element doesn't much come into it, which is really fortunate for Mick. You don't have diplomatic ties that can be messed up, so you can present it as 'we listened to what you might accuse her of, and decided she wasn't guilty, and she's saved the life of my brother, so of course we let her come.'”
“May I ask,” Lana said, “How is it you know what's dangerous?”
“A gift I have from God. He lets me see danger, truth, happiness, sadness, love, fear, trustworthiness, tiredness, kindness. You, for example are more exhausted than you'd have us think, quite afraid, and a bit hopeful when you look at Kalak, and sad when you look at Mick. Which is not that surprising, since you've given birth to him and he's firmly put Sathie in your place.”
“I think, more, it was that I'd usurped her place from the start.”
“Not entirely,” Heather said. “It is useful us being able to talk directly, but it excludes Kalak, and I would like to have him as part of this conversation. Will you translate for me?”
“OK,” Lana called Kalak over.
“Kalak, I would like to ask you if what Lana says is true. Will she be condemned for hosting Mick?”
Lana translated, and Kalak agreed. “It's almost certain that she would be condemned, and so would her previous field of studies.”
“We have very little knowledge of what is dangerous for her that we consider normal. I have a very rare gift from God that I can see what is safe and what is not, among other things. Some of the food I thought of bringing was not safe. It would be good for us to know more before we accidentally hurt her or Mick's organisms.”
“What was dangerous?” Maggie asked.
“So far, things with ginger, garlic or onions, and the decon unit.”
“Hmm. Glad to have you along, Gran. Sorry for interrupting.”
“The other issue is that Lana is weaker than she admits after what she has done.”
“She says I'm weaker than I admit,” Lana told Kalak.
“I'm not surprised,” Kalak said, “You have undergone a major budding.”
“So,” Heather said, “I ask for your advice, yours and Lana's. We will protect Lana. But where should we protect her? We can feed her with our food, but we cannot be sure it will be good for her, and I cannot understand how she eats so much, so quickly. If that is normal, we will have to go home for more.”
“If I ate that much every day, I would be unable to fly,” Lana said, laughing. Then she translated.
“Their marvelous ship could take you anywhere, is that what they ask?” Kalak asked.
“Yes.”
“You have friends in Yasfort.”
“I can't just turn up on the doorstep and expect them to give me a home.”
“Magdalena could, on your behalf, I expect. But it is better if she asks for a home for her brother. If they will take me and if you will permit me, I will ask for a home for you.”
“I am tired and confused, Kalak,” Lana said.
“I expect my parent's home in Yasfort is lived in, but it is still my native home. If you do not mind being associated with me.”
“You claiming your home would also be re-claiming your name, would it not?”
“It would. And you do not know what it is, kind Lana. You are thinking, I expect, of Unf, the name I wore before the students showed disrespect. I wore another one before that.”
“One I have heard of?”
“I expect so, young Lana. Unless the history books have decided to leave the history of the wars untold.”