Chapter 10 #2
“Er, sure. I guess? It doesn’t bother me. Do you have a scanner here?”
“In my lab,” he said, gesturing towards the other side of his office space.
She followed as he led her across. He let her in before shutting the old-fashioned door behind him. His office was generations old, and it kept a lot of old-style décor rather than the more modern. Including wooden hinged doors rather than normal ones that slid open.
But Holly smiled at it so, for once, he didn’t mind the inconvenience of having to actually close the door behind him.
She was looking around with interest at the rest of his much more modern lab as he hit the button to lock the door. Just in case a student came up, they wouldn’t be disturbed.
“It’s right here,” he said, stepping past her to the opposite corner where he had needed to move one of his older projects to make way for the bed.
It fit awkwardly between a rack of tiny, incubating curanik eggs for his pest control efforts in the mushroom fields below the city and his gently humming subspace generator for his experiments.
But an awkward fit still fit, and he knew from testing it on himself that the new machine worked fine.
He had also figured out what was wrong with him. Or rather, more accurately, what weird biological process had taken over his mind in regard to Holly.
What was finally right with him.
“You can lay here,” he said, gesturing to the bed as he moved to the foot, where he had set up the control panel.
Holly didn’t hesitate to follow his direction, pleasing him. He preferred it when his experimental subjects cooperated. It never seemed to happen often enough.
“Did you just get this?” She asked, laying back, her eyes tracking the ring that detached from its base at the head of the machine and began to spin around her and the bed she lay on.
“I’ve recently expanded my studies to include medical sciences. I needed the correct equipment if I was going to do that effectively.” His heart started thudding with excitement as the scan began appearing on his console.
A full 3D holo representation of Holly. He could peel it back, layer by layer. See the blood pulsing in her veins. Watch the firing of her synapses. Admire the flow of hormones.
“Aren’t medical sciences for healers to study?”
“Scholars can study it. Healers learn medical sciences then apply it in a practical fashion. A great many medical advances were done by scholars, however.”
She was beautiful. Inside and out. He could see the telltale markings left behind by Donivi when he had healed her mind before.
He wanted to ask about it, but he was going to save all his questions for later when he had time to compile them into one list so he could keep his thoughts straight.
For now, it was just enough to admire her body as it was recreated before him.
Clothes and all. Though he could remove that layer easily.
Later. It was one thing to look at her internal organs, another thing entirely to look at her skin. She hadn’t given him permission for that yet.
“See anything interesting?” Holly asked as he watched her heart beating.
“You have only four chambers in your heart,” he said. “You only have two circulations?”
“Er, I guess? You’d have to ask Scarlet. I’m not really that up to date on my medical knowledge,” she laughed, watching him watch her. “How many chambers does your heart have?”
“Six.”
“What, really?” She laughed.
“Hm. That explains why you only have two beats to your heart. Our circulatory system has three different components. Lungs, organs, and muscles. It appears that your musculature and organs all share the same system.”
“If you say so.”
He gave her a brief smile before returning to exam her body.
The scanner automatically flagged an area of possible damage.
On her arm. The bruising caused by Valorii.
He could do nothing to repair it as his scanner did not have repair capabilities.
Since he wasn’t a healer and couldn’t put his medical knowledge to practical use, it hadn’t been an option when he purchased it.
He disliked that he would have to leave her injured.
Especially when he saw just how traumatic the mark truly was.
Valorii had broken multiple vessels as well as capillaries.
The blood hadn’t yet had time to darken into a bruise, but the bright red he saw would soon change colors as her body began to heal the mark.
And as interested as he was in her color changes, he didn’t want to see her injured for the sake of his research. And knowing that Valorii hurt her made him angry. Angry enough to want to track her down and challenge her for the threat to his vakara.
He forced the urge down. Holly wasn’t his yet. He couldn’t challenge someone in her name. And if he wanted to actually harm Valorii in turn, it would have to be a proper challenge and not just a common scuffle.
Instead, he focused on more of Holly’s body as it was revealed. Her intestines had multiple patches from Donivi. As did her bone marrow and thymus. More questions for later. Then, finally, he got to what he had really been interested in all along: her reproductive organs.
Her womb was so thick. Strong. She had two ovaries, barely attached to it by long, thin stalks. A cervix with a small hole. A tight cunt. An entire organ for her pleasure that, to his surprise, emerged outside of her hole.
Fascinating. What was that there for? It was like she could be stimulated without even needing to penetrate her. What purpose did that serve?
“Er, Romi,” her soft voice pulled his eyes away from his investigation.
Her cheeks were that adorable pink again. He quickly averted his eyes to examine her holo display, so he could see just what was happening when her face did such a thing.
He examined her internal workings carefully.
Thoroughly. When she swallowed. When she took in a deep breath then coughed because she accidentally inhaled some dust from the nest material he had used for the curanik eggs.
She shifted her weight and the interplay of muscles that occurred with the motion was pure poetry.
So much to see. A lot of it familiar. She wasn’t so dissimilar from most sapient species. Though her body was smaller, weaker, than standard. Except her womb. That was thicker than average. Stronger and more resilient.
Perfect. She was perfect.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, admiring her, but he realized with a start sometime later that it had to have been the better part of a half mark. All the while, Holly had just laid there, content to let him investigate her without a hint of impatience.
Clearing his throat, he saved the recording of her scan to peruse later before powering down the machine.
“Forgive me, Holly. I got carried away.”
She gave him a smile as she sat up. “It’s all right. I don’t mind. See anything good?”
“All of it was good.” He offered her a hand to help her down. “I saw multiple spots where Donivi healed you in the past.”
“Yeah. I had a bunch of health problems that he repaired for me.” She gave him a half grin. “I don’t really have the best genetics, I guess.”
“You are safe and healthy and there was nothing irreparable. That’s all that matters,” he said, keeping her hand in his.
“Pretty amazing from my viewpoint,” she said, staring at their clasped hands. “Er, I didn’t interrupt anything important when I came here, did I?”
He had a report to prepare for Atem, data to consolidate and approve, the curanik eggs needed to be misted, he had a whole file of assignments from his students to grade-
“No. Nothing important. I was glad I got to scan you.”
“Anytime,” she shrugged carelessly.
“Really?” He perked up immediately. “Do you mean that?”
She laughed at his enthusiasm. “Yeah, of course. I don’t mind being scanned. It’s kind of relaxing. Just make sure you tell me if you see something wrong so I can get Donivi to fix it.”
“A more than fair trade. In that case, you have a bruise on your arm.”
She laughed. “Besides that.”
“I would like it repaired.”
“I’m not going to the healing center over a bruise.”
“You should.”
“You’re as bad as Atem,” she chuckled, pulling her hand from his.
She returned to wandering around now that his curiosity had been sated.
For now. Her fingers trailed over his machines.
Never touching any buttons or threatening to turn them on or adjust the settings.
Just touching. Like she couldn’t help but be part of it.
“Atem is your brother,” he frowned, not sure he liked the comparison.
“I mean, yeah, I guess,” she laughed. “It’s still a bit weird to me that siblings can be adopted.”
“Can they not on Earth?”
“No. I mean, you can love someone like a sibling, but you can’t just, like, do paperwork and adopt a sister. That’s not really a thing.”
“Odd,” he murmured, following after her. Loving to see her touching his stuff. It felt like she was touching him in a strange way. He also got to see her ass move and that was a hypnotic sight he couldn’t pull his eyes from.
“What’s this?” She asked, stopping in front of one of his many computer banks.
“That’s the computer searching for your planet, actually.”
“What? Really?” She whipped her head to him then immediately back to the display. Not that there was anything to see. “What’s it doing?”
“Going through the complete Coalition database on known solar systems to try to narrow down potential matches.”
“How long has it been running?”
“I finished setting the parameters and creating the search program yesterday. So, only a few marks. There’s a lot to go through. It won’t be finished for some time yet.”
Holly stumbled back. “You… You made a whole program just for that?”