19 Bedside Manners
BEDSIDE MANNERS
I’D WOKEN FROM unconsciousness in Allied hospitals before. It was usually a gradual process, slowly becoming aware of the world around me as the body naturally restored itself.
The Empire did not subscribe to that model of recovery.
Fireworks exploded in my head as every nerve in my body screamed “Danger!” My eyes snapped open and I bolted upright, screaming. Or at least I tried. The gurney’s straps were designed for demon lords. They held me with ease.
“He’s definitely awake,” somebody said. My eyes swiveled as my body jerked against the restraints to see a reddish-skinned female demon wearing the white tunic universal to medical staff.
She was observing a holoscreen on which my vitals were presumably displayed in Imperial script.
It took me a moment to realize the healer had spoken in Imperial as well.
My brain processed her words without pause or confusion, but the words did not come so easily when I tried to reply.
“Where am I?” I asked in Imperial, my mind frantically dredging up the half-remembered words.
In response, the healer tapped a few buttons.
“And, to calm you down…” I felt a slight pressure in my arms and looked down to see a number of tubes strapped to them.
My drumming heart slowed and I felt the panicked pressure fade from my skull.
The doctor came around to my bedside and placed a single huge hand on my bare chest, her eyes unfocused.
Then her mouth broke into a tusky grin. “All feels good. Your strong new heart has integrated well to your frail human body.”
“New heart?” I asked, my brain starting to take in and catalogue my surroundings in a methodical manner.
I was in an Imperial medical facility. A well-stocked one, judging by the gleaming rows of machines and medicines my supply officer’s mind could identify.
Were we still in the Crystal Palace? Did it have this sort of surgical suite somewhere in its bowels?
The walls looked like plastcrete, which implied a different building.
I couldn’t imagine anything so modern and mass-manufactured would be allowed to disgrace the Crystal Palace’s hand-crafted architectural homogeneity.
“Where am I?” I repeated.
“The Emperor’s medical cruiser, in geosynchronous orbit over the Crystal Palace. We’re the only medical facility in the system with pre-grown transhuman hearts for transplant on such short notice,” the healer said with a clear note of pride in her voice.
“They shot out my heart? Mother Earth, I’m lucky they didn’t disintegrate my torso if you needed to grow me a new heart,” I commented. No windows. I couldn’t get a view outside. No way to tell if I actually was in orbit over the Crystal Palace.
“Oh no, it wasn’t that bad. But the Emperor’s Consort needs a better heart than you humans are born with. I think you’ll be pleased. It’s a big improvement over what you had; a cardiac organ worthy of the Emperor’s attention.”
My attention snapped back to the demon doctor. Surely I had misheard her. “What did you say?”
The healer frowned. “We gave you a demon’s heart.”
The demon heart beat in my chest, strong and steady, even as my mind sharpened with the sudden red blossom of rage. “How dare you?”
“How dare I what?” the healer replied.
My voice rose with my fury. “How dare you put some bioengineered mutation inside me? I have no idea what it is, what it can do.”
“It pumps blood, much better than your old heart ever did,” the demon healer said, her voice flat and annoyed. “You should be thanking us. The Empire probably added twenty years to your lifespan.”
“I’m so glad I’ll have that much more to lose when the war resumes,” I bellowed. “Is this how you treat your citizens, your civilians? You reach into their chests and replace bits of them without their permission?”
The demon rolled her eyes. “I don’t need a human’s permission to follow my Emperor’s orders.”
“Her orders?” Her words struck me like an entrenching shovel between the eyes, but I didn’t have time to ask anything more before the doors to the medical bay opened and the Emperor strode in, flanked and followed by a quartet of gigantic Imperial guards.
Astrid’s face was flush with anger and sternly set, her eyes blazing as though she needed the slightest excuse to kill somebody.
“I came as soon as I heard. He’s awake? Everything’s fine?” she asked in her demonic tongue.
The demon healer gestured at me. “The nanites have spliced the new heart into his body. It is working perfectly. As for the patient himself, he’s in a mild state of distress.”
Astrid glanced at me, her eyes searching me for any cause of distress. “What’s wrong?” she asked in Commonwealth Basic.
“You put a demon heart in me,” I shouted.
Surprise flashed across Astrid’s face before her anger resumed control. “And what’s the problem? Your new heart is an improvement.”
“It’s not my heart, it’s some demonic thing you shoved inside me.”
“At the Academy, you told me you didn’t care about genetic purity. Has that changed?”
Her question pulled the stairs out from beneath my mounting emotion. I was left with an unsupported anger, still fuming, but with its legs kicking in thin air, unable to go anywhere.
Demons didn’t believe in genetic purity. They cared about biological power, especially inheritable power, not whether you could trace your bloodline back to unaltered ancestors from old Earth.
“I don’t give a damn if you were born half-demon or quarter-celestial or whatever.
I don’t care about genetic purity,” I replied.
That part was true. I didn’t care about Astrid’s demon heritage.
I was not disgusted by our genetically engineered League allies like some Commonwealthers.
“But you shouldn’t have replaced my heart without my permission. ”
“This is an Imperial medbay. We don’t have spare human hearts lying around, and yours was damaged beyond repair.
I had no choice. I’m not willing to watch you die, not after you came back to life.
Would you rather I’d let you die?” My mouth snapped shut.
When it came down to death or life with a demon heart, I would take life any day.
I wasn’t certain why the new heart distressed me so.
I’d been cybernetically augmented before.
My eyes had artificial replacement lenses, and my shield generator was grafted to the bottom of my ribcage.
Why did this heart matter more? Was it that the heart was organic rather than cold machinery like my other cyber upgrades, or was I disgusted that they’d placed something demonic inside me?
“You couldn’t grow one with all this technology?” I finally replied.
“Not quickly enough for us both to return to the negotiations in time for your gift.”
“Gift?” I asked. “What is it, a new set of lungs?”
Despite my acid tone, Astrid chuckled. “No, you silly ass. It’s a hunt.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. “I don’t remember any hunts on the event schedule.”
“There wasn’t,” Astrid confirmed. “But I spoke to the person in charge of this jubilee, and she agreed to change the schedule for me. I meant to tell you last night, but we got distracted, and then we were interrupted…”
“I’m no great hunter,” I said, confused as to why Astrid would think I’d particularly enjoy a mounted hunt over a steeplechase race or herding competition.
“Perhaps not, but it is a mounted event, and traditionally Imperial. I wanted something that we could do together, you, me…” Astrid paused to swallow, then said “… and Tilly.”
I sat silent, dumbfounded.
“She is important to you, so I must learn to live with her. I thought a hunt would be a good way to get to know her.”
“And the Emperor will be surrounded by dozens of armed loyal warriors, should your beast give in to its inherent bloodlust.”
I craned my neck to look behind the Emperor to see who had spoken. I recognized her – she was one of Astrid’s guards who’d fetched me for all the Emperor’s summons, a particularly imposing demon woman covered in smooth brown snakelike scales.
“That would be inadvisable. Anyone who raises a hand against my steed will have it removed by me,” I said, projecting as much calm confidence as I could while lying undressed beneath a medical blanket.
The brown-scaled guard grimaced halfway between a smile and a snarl, exposing a mouth full of black fangs. “You need a weapon to make such threats.”
“Then bring the Consort his weapons,” the Emperor said. “We can’t afford any appearance of weakness, not when the conspirators against me already think I’m just a feeble half-human. I won’t have anyone targeting my Consort to get at me.”
The big guard stirred. “We do not see you as feeble,” she said.
The Emperor waved her away. “That’s because you know how much cyber I have inside me.” Turning to the healer, the Emperor said in Imperial, “Is he safe to move? I want him beside me for today’s hunt.”
The healer said I was fine, but the big guard spoke again. “If I may, Your Majesty, do you think it wise to waste time on this dalliance? There will be plenty of time to entertain yourself with prisoners after we’ve achieved victory.”
The guard’s words froze my veins. Before I could act or speak, Astrid replied with a whip-like voice. “Levar is not a dalliance. He is not a prisoner. He’s my Consort, Imperial and official.”
The guard’s brow lowered with disapproval. “That will upset your council. They hoped you’d choose a demon prince for a lover…”
“The council serves at my sufferance. I will not suffer their continual attempts to supplant me with a hand-picked puppet,” Astrid growled.
“No Emperor can rule without a council to support them,” the guard said, admonishing the Emperor. I’d never seen a demon speak so boldly about the Emperor, much less to the Emperor herself.