Chapter 2
For the second time in as many days, I was up to my wrists in thick, translucent goo. “Is it here, Mr. Lagerta?” I asked the Blurvan jiggling in the middle of my office.
“A little to the left, Doc.”
The pain signals radiating from my patient’s spine blossomed like a bruise at the base of my skull. I tilted my head to the side until my neck cracked, trying to relieve the empathically referred ache. “Here?”
“That’s it,” Mr. Lagerta grunted, his pain spiking into my temples. “You’ve got it.”
“Okay. Deep breath in,” I instructed as I straddled his paddle tail.
I braced my back against the edge of my examination table, pressed my hands deep into the gelatinous substance composing his lower half, and felt for the junction where the spine of his humanoid upper half transitioned from bone to cartilage.
“Now blow it all the way out, and—Umph.” With a shove of my right hand and a twist of the left, I slid the rotated spinal segment back into alignment with a slurped, sucking sound.
“Ooh, you got it, Doc,” Mr. Lagerta groaned while the referred throbbing in my head faded away. “Those webbed fingers of yours are magic.”
“Sure,” I muttered while walking to the sink, my goo-covered “magic” hands held high.
“Maybe you should try different positions,” I said over my shoulder while I washed my hands.
Because this was the third time in a week that Mr. Lagerta had thrown out his back while participating in certain…
activities on the ship’s raciest deck: thirty-six.
“Or take a stretching break, at the very least.”
When I raised my eyes from the sink, my vision snagged on the diploma from Academia Asperia hanging on the wall.
First in my class at Portis’s most prestigious medical academy, I’d had the world at my fingertips once upon a time.
If things had gone the way they were supposed to go, I’d be well on my way to becoming chief of surgery at one of the military hospitals on Imperion by now.
Or maybe I would have turned to teaching instead, inspiring the next generation of physicians.
Or maybe, if the stars had ever decided to shine down on me, I would have found the courage to leave medicine all together.
To find an apprenticeship with a ship’s mechanic somewhere so I could finally become a master mechanic like my childhood heroes.
Like Glir Astes or Maximus Osbourne. Before the brilliant and enigmatic Mercurian disappeared, that is, vanishing into thin air like a ghost. But I certainly wouldn’t be here, tending to orgy injuries on one of the Known Universe’s most notoriously debauched pleasure cruise ships.
“There’s another party later tonight,” Mr. Lagerta said, twisting and flexing his torso from side to side. “Am I good to go?”
Deep sigh. “I recommend at least twenty-four to forty-eight Standard hours of reduced physical activity. No bending, no twisting, no”—I arched a brow—“thrusting.”
“Aw, come on, Doc.” The middle-aged Blurvan’s grin was firmly in place, his emotions broadcasting but I’m horny in bright neon streams. “I’m only here for a few more days.”
“You’ll just have to practice some restraint,” I said, even though I knew he wouldn’t. His vibes told me clearly enough that he’d be back in my office tomorrow with the exact same complaint.
“Restraint? On this ship?” Mr. Lagerta scoffed, pulling himself toward my door with his seven-toed feet. “Not likely.”
At least he was being honest. And I couldn’t say I was surprised by his response.
Guests didn’t holiday aboard the Ignisar to take in the sights.
They didn’t travel with us for rest and relaxation.
They were here for one reason and one reason only: pleasure.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t sure I knew the meaning of the word anymore.
Pressing the panel to slide my door open, I said, “It is possible to choose not to participate in every single orgy on the—” I froze, my mouth half-open as my heart stuttered over its next few beats.
Waiting in my hallway with her arms crossed tightly over her chest stood a tall woman with long, wavy brown hair, caramel eyes, and a spectacular scowl.
She must have been my next patient, the friend of Sunastara Nex’s who needed to be seen “right away.” The friend I had agreed to fit in today, even though my schedule was slammed.
The friend who was, given her perfectly smooth skin, impossibly plush lips, and the vacuum of utter emotional silence surrounding her, a bionic.
I hadn’t been sure I’d made the right choice when I agreed to see her, and I was even less sure of it now.
I could count the bionics I’d treated in my career on one hand, and none of those appointments had gone particularly well.
It was me, not them. Bionics had emotions, of course.
But my kind couldn’t sense those emotions.
Something about the mix of organic thoughts and inorganic data streams. Treating patients without the advantage of empathy was like trying to navigate a maze blindfolded.
Lots of awkward stumbling and constantly bumping into things, and it took way too long to get to the end.
I could be wrong, but the woman standing before me didn’t look like she tolerated much stumbling. And definitely no bumping.
Mr. Lagerta waggled his eyebrows at the bionic. And even though I sensed it coming a mile away, when he said, “Let me know how all that restraint works out for you, Doc,” and then elbowed me hard in the ribs, I was so stuck in my own head that I forgot to get out of the way.
“Goodbye, Mr. Lagerta,” I said tightly, rubbing my side.
Sliding out of my office, he waved once over his shoulder, his entire aura chuckling as he jiggled down the hall.
A very deliberate “ahem” grabbed my attention and yanked.
“Good morning,” I said to the bionic. She looked as unimpressed as any being I had ever laid eyes on. Great start. “I’m Dr. Semson.”
She didn’t say a word, but her golden skin glowed under the med bay lights, her big brown eyes studying me intently over rosy cheeks and a perfectly straight nose.
They make them too beautiful, I thought at the same exact time she said, “This was a terrible idea,” and spun on her heel.
“Wait,” I blurted out. “Where are you going?”
Her only response was to double-time it away from me.
“Wait!” I shouted, on the move, speed-walking after her down the hall.
I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I couldn’t just let her go.
She needed help, and that’s what I did. I helped.
“Um, Sunny said you had some concerns. Some questions,” I called out when she wouldn’t slow down, “about your puberty!”
I was known to, on occasion, put my foot in my mouth. As a passing group of long-limbed and milky-eyed Ulaperian guests swayed to a crawl, wincing at me while a tidal wave of yikes energy rolled out from them, I realized I might be up to my knee this time.
She turned around slowly, her eyes narrowing. “Excuse me?”
Smooth move, genius. “Sorry.” I scratched my head. “I shouldn’t have shouted that.” I took a step closer, lowering my voice. “But it’s true, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer, but her shoulders dropped a bit from her ears.
I took it as a win.
“I want to help, if I can,” I said, keeping my arms at my sides, trying to appear friendly, or at the very least unthreatening.
“Now or later. I’m here for you. For everyone, I mean,” I corrected, louder than necessary, shoving my hands deeply into my pockets while heat surged up my throat.
“I’m here for every being on this ship. In a doctorly way.
As a doctor. A physician. A professional practitioner of the… medicinal arts.”
“Are you finished?” she asked, definitely unimpressed. Something told me this was typical for her, being unimpressed. I wondered, for some inexplicable reason, what it might take to impress her.
I shook my head, took a step back. “Yes.”
She stared at me, through me.
Saints. I’d blown it. But if she wouldn’t let me help her, maybe I could at least refer her to LunaCorp’s holohealth network.
I usually tried to avoid sending my patients there.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still believed in the healing power of in-person interaction, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, hands-on—
“There’s something wrong with my breasts.”
Every cell in my body wheezed. “There’s…something…”
“Wrong with my breasts,” she finished for me, frowning and completely serious. “Are you hearing impaired? Sunny didn’t tell me.”
No, I was not hearing impaired. I was just used to my empathy cuing me in to when a patient was about to talk about their breasts. Her words had caught me so off guard they might as well have been uttered in some outer-rim language even my VC couldn’t translate.
Absolutely not looking at her breasts, I allowed myself a long, steadying blink. “I hear fine. I heard you just fine, I mean to say. Why don’t we go back to my office, and you can tell me all about your—all about them.”
I had scalpels that were smoother. But by some small miracle, she nodded and walked with me back down the hall and into my clinic.
Pointing at my examination table, she asked, “Do I sit there?”
“Please.” I leaned over to pull out the sliding step.
Through sheer force of habit, I offered her my hand.
And after staring at it for a moment, she slid her delicate fingers over my palm and let me help her up.
Her skin was unfathomably soft, because of course it was.
Because bionics were designed to be perfect in every way.
Perfect hair, perfect eyes, perfect skin…
Turning away, I walked to the counter. While I washed the feel of her soft skin from my hands, I asked, “What do you think is wrong with your breasts?” over my shoulder.
She made a puh kind of noise. “Isn’t it obvious?”
After drying my hands, I turned back around and said, “I’m afraid not—” then froze. Half-gasping. Again.