20. Ryoch
20
RYOCH
“ W hat?” Charlotte bolted upright, flushed and breathing fast. “What are you talking about? If you can save Naomi?—”
I sat up and gripped her hands. She stilled, pursing her lips and waiting for me to speak.
We needed to have this conversation, but I hadn’t prepared, and I knew discussing it would only bring us both pain. I wanted to go back to holding her, imagining how it would be to bond with her. Even letting myself picture being with her on Vytaris.
That fantasy was dissolving, going up in smoke. All I could do was explain and hope she understood.
“I’m bound by laws that restrict how much of our technology we can reveal. These laws were born of chaos and violence. Lydaxians have a shameful history of subjugating the inhabitants of less advanced planets. Even when our dealings were well-meaning, there were often unintended consequences. Many wars were fought and lives lost. We learned from our mistakes, and now these protections form the fundamental basis of all our interactions with other species.”
“What about medical care? You can’t help people who need it?” She pulled out of my grip and climbed off the bed, looking around for her clothes.
My heart sank.
“Charlotte.” She paused to look at me, and I sighed. “Let’s get dressed. I have a story to tell you.”
We moved beside each other in silence, getting our clothes back on. By the time we were both ready, she seemed calmer, but I could scent her apprehension.
“I’ll make some tea,” she said, walking toward her kitchen. “You can sit at the dining table.”
A few minutes later, she joined me, sitting down across the table with two steaming mugs. She pushed one in front of me.
“Thanks.” It was too hot to drink yet, so I watched the steam rise. I was still trying to figure out where to start.
Charlotte blew on her tea and then leaned back in her chair. “I’m listening, Ryoch. I’ll hear you out. Explain it so that I understand.”
I nodded. She deserved to know my past, even the parts I was ashamed of.
“Seven years ago, I was selected for an off-world assignment with the Novel Species Research Team. I was proud to earn the position, especially as a xa’xan . It gave me a sense of purpose.
“We were dispatched to a newly discovered planet called Nax-5. My team was there for a year, shifted to look like the dominant species, the Naxlids. Our task was to observe, without alerting them to our presence. We blended in, integrating with their society as we studied them. Over time, they became my friends.
“I knew—intellectually—that we were prohibited from using our technology on assignment. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that I could easily diagnose and cure diseases that the Naxlid population had no treatment for. We couldn’t risk discovery, and we couldn’t alter the developmental trajectory of an entire species. So, for months, I did nothing.”
“That must have been very difficult,” Charlotte said.
She reached across the table to squeeze my arm, and for a moment I had hope. But she hadn’t heard all of it.
“It was. Then one of my Naxlid friends, Tax, became ill. It was, essentially, an infection. Such a simple thing to cure. I thought maybe I could give him the medicine in secret. He’d make a miraculous recovery, and no one would question it. But I was wrong.
“I didn’t realize that it wasn’t just miraculous for one of them to survive this illness, it was totally unheard of. Tax was tested. His close contacts were investigated. Under such intense scrutiny, our covers were blown. Once they realized we were shifters, the authorities suspected that aliens were invading their planet in large numbers. They started rounding up innocent Naxlids and torturing confessions out of them. The paranoia spread like wildfire. In a matter of days, it was anarchy.”
“Oh my god.” Charlotte’s eyes were wide, her hand over her mouth as she listened.
It had been years since I’d thought about those final days and hours, and bile rose in my throat. I swallowed and forced myself to continue.
“We had to abort the mission and use our tool of last resort. We had to erase memories on a mass scale.”
She gasped. “You can do that?”
“Yes. The gap in one’s mind is filled with a sense of well-being, and it isn’t physically harmful.”
“But it’s a violation.”
I nodded, and found that I was trembling. “It is.” I blew out a shaky breath. “After his memory was altered, Tax didn’t know me anymore. I’d saved him, but at such a steep cost. More than just relationships and research. Many Naxlids had been injured in the chaos, and I saw those wounds up close, healing them as we took their memories. I saw the suffering my actions caused.”
A tear fell down her cheek, and I leaned forward to wipe it away with my thumb. Her empathy for a species she hadn’t known existed, beings she would never see, made me love her even more.
“We left after everything was returned to normal, with incomplete data and a galaxy-wide embargo in place on making contact with Nax-5 for at least one hundred years. I was reprimanded, but the medical council on Vytaris allowed me to continue practicing. They blamed my lack of training and experience.” I looked out the window, remembering my disciplinary hearing and admission of guilt. How I’d broken down, barely able to testify about what I’d seen. “I think they felt that my remorse over what happened had been punishment enough, that I’d learned my lesson. They were right.”
“Ryoch…” Charlotte stood and came to my side, and I pulled her onto my lap. She looped her arms around my neck, resting her head on my shoulder.
I held her for a long time, letting her calming warmth soothe the pain my memories stirred, and gathering the courage to speak. Would she hate me now?
“You understand?” I asked.
She leaned back and nodded, looking up at me. Her eyes were damp, boring into mine. “I do. I understand that you tried to do something good, and horrible things happened as a result. I understand why there are laws and rules about this. But…” Her voice hitched. “Isn’t there some way? Naomi…”
I shook my head, my heart aching. “Even if I could save Naomi, where would it end? What about everyone else with her disease on this planet? You see why we can’t draw attention to ourselves, the harm it would cause. No matter how much we might want to, we can’t interfere.”
They were the words I had to say and to believe. But, in my darkest moments, I could admit that I didn’t regret saving Tax. I regretted not covering it up better. If I had to do it over again, I wasn’t sure I could let him die.
It was pointless to dwell on what I might have done differently. I was here, now, facing a similar dilemma, and I had to do the right thing. So why did it feel wrong?
Charlotte didn’t agree or disagree, searching my eyes as though she might find a different answer there. I wondered if she could see that I wasn’t as sure of my convictions as I pretended to be. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, a whisper.
“This is why you all can’t stay here. It’s a huge burden on you.”
“It’s not, Charlotte. I found you.”
Before she could respond, her phone buzzed with a notification.
“Let me turn that off,” she said.
She stood from my lap and went to pick up her phone on the kitchen counter. Her face paled, and she turned to face me.
“It’s Naomi.”