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25

The compressed schedule meant that I was going to be paired up with another trainee, and for my first day back on the job it was a relief to see a familiar face waiting for me in the hangar.

“Bjorn!” I dropped my gear to the deck and instinctively gave him a hug, which he awkwardly accepted.

“Hello, Melanie.” He studied me at arm’s length. “It is good to see you again.”

“I kind of missed you in isolation. Were you busy filling my slot in the schedule?”

He seemed evasive. “Not quite. I wished to visit you, but could not risk exposure.”

“Oh.” I backed away. Stupid me hadn’t realized why he was so awkward. “Oh crap. You’re susceptible, too.”

Bjorn smoothed down his jumpsuit. “I am.” He placed a hand on his chest. “Like you, we have similar evolutionary pathways to those of the Cetans, with similar vulnerabilities.” He turned apologetic. “Doctor Xeelix kept me under observation after your exposure. It was forbidden to visit you during isolation.”

“That’s okay, it wasn’t your fault. If anything, it was mine. I should’ve been more careful.”

“You were doing your job. My task is to act as your chaperone during your transition to an independent Union resident. I should never be far from your side.”

I laughed and shouldered my bag. “No offense, but the most fun I’ve had here has been entirely on my own. I’m a big girl.”

Bjorn followed me as I headed for our waiting ship. “You are acclimating quite well, I must admit. More than any of us expected, in fact.”

I hopped aboard and began stowing my gear. I glanced up toward the pilot’s station, and Needa greeted me with a curt nod. “You guys didn’t notice that I tend to jump into things headfirst? That should’ve been obvious from the beginning.”

“Perhaps you are correct. If anything, I now have a better understanding of your attraction to this service. Sometimes our preconceptions can blind us to reality.”

“Then we have more in common than either of us thought,” I said. “Must be in our DNA.”


The day started off slow, which came as a relief after being out of the game for over a week. Of course, that’s when you know something big is sure to drop. I was settling down to catch up on my studies of Med Corps regulations (it’s easy to procrastinate on that topic) when Xeelix popped his head out of the ambulance door and waved for us.

“Come, collect your gear from the ship. We have a call.”

We hopped up and climbed aboard. Xeelix had already shouldered his own bag and was headed back out. We both looked at him in confusion. “Where are you going?” I asked, then noticed the lack of alarms and warning beacons. “You said we got a run.”

He held up his crystal. “We have. It is local, here on station. Meet me at the equipment locker behind bay four.”

My mind raced to remember which specialized gear was stowed in which lockers. My eyes widened when it came to me. “That’s for confined-space rescue.”

“Correct.” Xeelix waved for us to hurry. “I believe you have some expertise in that discipline?”

I grinned and snatched up my go bag. “You bet your pale gray ass I do.”


The confined-space gear wasn’t all that different from the stuff we used on Earth. It was mostly recognizable, if considerably more advanced. There was a folding tripod with motorized winch, which housed a carbon-filament cable that looked impossibly thin. Retrieval lanyards, body harnesses, air pumps, and helmets were all light as a feather. We piled everything into a repulsor-lift cart and headed for the nearest elevator.

Xeelix briefed us on our way up. “Part of a tunnel collapsed beneath the biodome, in the Gliesan sector. Most were able to climb out through a ventilation shaft, but several were left behind with injuries which are preventing their escape. Two remained to stay with the injured.”

I gulped. “Gliesans?” We were about to climb down into a tunnel full of insectoids. Yay. I tamped down the creep factor by focusing on the job ahead. “What can you tell us about the tunnel?”

Xeelix swiped at his crystal and a topographical map appeared to float above it. “The Gliesans live beneath the surface in their sector of the biodome, where they’ve carved out a rather elaborate system of tunnels and chambers. I’ve never been, but understand it to be quite impressive. I can only presume they were in the process of constructing another chamber.”

I rotated the hologram with my hands. It looked like a whole underground city. “That explains why I never saw any of them inside our building. Did see a few scurrying around in the dome, though.”

“Quite so. It is a close approximation of their natural environment on Gliese II.”

“Not close enough.” A more troubling thought occurred to me. “How much can they dig down there without putting the whole dome at risk of collapse?”

“The Gliesans constructed the dome, including the grounds and foundations. They understand its limitations better than most.”

“Their underground structures are continually evolving,” Bjorn interjected. “However, all plans are supposed to be cleared by the infrastructure ministry.”

“Plans are just that. Reality eventually has a say.”

Xeelix’s mouth slit turned down. “Quite.”


We emerged from the lift in the Gliesan sector, and it wasn’t hard to find the accident scene. A swarm of them were gathered around in a circle, skittering back and forth and crawling over each other in a writhing mass of agitated insectoids. A few on the edge of the mob spotted us and scurried over, excitedly scraping their forelegs together. They communicated through a complicated system of tapping and clicking, much the same way crickets chirped. This being my first up-close exposure to them, my translator lagged a beat as they chittered away.

“. . . quickly. Many of us are hurt. Please hurry.”

Another focused on me, his eye stalks reaching up to my level. He seemed to be sizing me up. “You assist the doctor?”

I hoped his translator was working as well as mine. I held my hand to my chest. “Yes. I’m here to help.”

“Good. Come with us. Hurry.” He nudged me with his mandibles, and believe me when I say it took every ounce of self-discipline to not bolt. I defy anyone to not run away screaming when confronted by a giant bug with jaws that could snap you like a dried twig.

These two must have been some kind of leaders in their collective hierarchy, because the teeming mass of insectoids drew themselves apart for us like Moses parting the Red Sea. Their noise was like a forest full of cicadas in high summer. I couldn’t hear a thing over the cacophony of chirping and chittering.

The two leaders reared up on their back legs, waving their forelegs at the crowd to give us room as we arrived at the mouth of the air shaft. It looked perfectly natural, as if it belonged there, and I made a mental note to watch my step in Gliesan territory. There could be hundreds of these holes all over their grounds.

As we began unloading our gear, I took a look at our access point. It wasn’t big, maybe two feet across. “Going to be a tight fit.”

Xeelix had slipped on his safety harness and craned his elongated neck past me for a look. “Quite.”

While Bjorn set up our tripod winch above the opening, I climbed into my own harness. Other than being made of gossamer-thin material, it wasn’t much different than something we’d have used on Earth. The straps automatically tightened themselves to the point of being uncomfortable, which satisfied me they were secure enough.

I pulled a helmet from the gear box and slipped it on. With a quick press on either side, its liner gel molded itself to my head. I clipped my bag to a ring on the bottom of my harness, then let Bjorn hook me up to the cable.

I tugged hard at the wire, as it wasn’t much thicker than monofilament fishing line. None of our gear seemed stout enough to do the job compared to what I was used to. “This is going to be enough to hold me up?”

“More than enough,” he assured me. “It’s graphene, a material your own people have been trying to mass produce for some time. It could hold up our transport if need be.”

I peered down the hole. “I’ll take your word for it.” I was ready to rock. I’d done this before back home, on a run to a cave system in southern Indiana where a bunch of amateur spelunkers had gotten themselves into real trouble. I kept telling myself this was exactly the same thing.

Without realizing it, my instincts had kicked in and I’d kind of turned myself into the on-scene commander. I was issuing orders, laying out our plan without even realizing that I was probably stepping on Xeelix’s toes, but he seemed content to let me run the show.

“First things first: nobody goes near this shaft without a full body harness secured to a winch.” There wasn’t much danger of Bjorn falling in, but we also couldn’t be too sure about the integrity of that shaft.

I looked to Xeelix as I shrugged on a rebreather pack. “We mask up before we go down the hole. Bjorn, we’ll signal you when we’re ready for you to feed the ventilation hose down to us. Air’s got to be getting close down there.”

“Correct. The Gliesans exchange air beneath the thin walls of their carapaces,” Xeelix reminded me. “Trachea are distributed along the inner surface. They are dependent on air movement. We will need to begin ventilation as soon as possible.”

The two insectoids with us were in a hurry. “Come. We will lead you.” With that, they scurried down the hole. They hadn’t gone very far when the shaft began to glow with a pale light.

Right. Bioluminescent. That’ll help. I sat on the lip of the shaft, slipped on the rebreather mask, then tugged on the graphene wire to reassure myself it wasn’t going to snap as soon as I put weight on it. I gave Bjorn a thumbs-up. “I’m ready.”

Bjorn stood by the winch. “Ready.”

I pushed off and steadied myself with my arms. “Let’s go.”

***

Bjorn was appropriately cautious with the winch, which meant it felt like an eternity to get down there. The two Gliesans had scurried well ahead, and the only light came from the glow pad on my helmet. The shaft walls were perfectly smooth, not the roughed-out passage I’d expected to be carved by giant insects.

After a time the shaft filled with dim light from beneath. I had to be getting close now. “Almost there,” I called over the helmet comm. I felt my feet dangling free, and soon after I was through the shaft and hanging above the chamber.

My eyes still had to adjust to the bioluminescent glow, but I could tell the chamber was huge. It had to be at least fifty yards across, a dome of rock beneath the surface. As my eyes adjusted, I could begin to discern patterns in the walls curving away from me. Intricate serpentine arches, spirals, and curlicues belied an artful attention to detail which, once again, I didn’t expect. At the very least it was more comforting than being lowered into a dank cave with a mass of giant alien bugs.

Not much farther to go. The floor beneath me was smooth, with a clear area for me to drop in amongst them. The two healthy Gliesans scurried around their injured comrades, who were lined up against one side of the chamber in a faintly glowing mass. Their luminosity dimmed with injuries, as if their body chemistry recognized there were more important matters at hand. Their shells were like built-in vital-sign monitors.

I felt the ground beneath my feet and took a moment to steady myself. First things first: assess the scene.

The ground was firm, but the far end of the chamber was a pile of rubble. The elegant arches and bas-relief sculptures were broken and crumbled into a heap on the floor, blocking their exit. I hoped none of their group had been trapped beneath it.

Under the light of my helmet, I scanned the rest of the dome for any signs of cracking. Everything looked to be in place, but it was best to stay as far away from the wrecked side as possible. If there were any more impending structural failures, that’s where they’d be likely to start.

Next, check my oxygen flow. The rebreather controls on my wrist showed it was working. With solid ground, clean airflow, and a mostly stable ceiling, I unclipped the tether and called up to Bjorn and Xeelix on my helmet comm. “I’m down and okay. Scene is secure, but we’re going to need some structural braces brought down here. I’m beginning triage.”

“Very good,” Xeelix answered. “I am on my way. Bjorn will begin lowering the braces after me.”

I looked back up the shaft at the glow from his lamp high above as Xeelix began his way down. He wasn’t wasting time. Good. I grabbed my bag and headed for the two healthy Gliesans, who were scurrying back and forth among their injured companions like mother hens. If I felt out of place, they didn’t seem to care that this strange-looking human would be tending to them.

The first one they led me to looked to be in bad shape indeed. His forelegs were canted outward at odd angles like bent twigs, with chartreuse-yellow goo leaking from the cracked exoskeletons. That would be hemolymph, the insectoids’ approximation of blood. They didn’t have blood vessels like humanoids; instead, this fluid circulated throughout their bodies in direct contact with tissue.

This guy had at least two compound fractures, but his eye stalks were what concerned me the most. One of them was completely gone, sheared off in the collapse. His companions had packed the opening with what looked like mud to stop the bleeding. The transducer showed me his vitals were thready, and the lack of air movement wasn’t helping matters. I tapped my helmet comm. “Bjorn, we’re going to need that ventilation hose down here stat.”

Xeelix answered. “I have it right behind me. We’ll start air flow as soon as I reach ground.”

Even better. My first impulse was to begin rendering aid to this poor guy right now, but triage doesn’t work that way. You have to assess each patient before deciding who’s going to be first in line. There could be others who were even worse off but it might not be immediately obvious. The mud pack was crude but it worked. He wasn’t gushing hemolymph, and while his vitals weren’t great, he wasn’t in imminent danger of crashing quite yet. Unless one of the others was even worse off, this guy would be first.

The next one was more straightforward. All but three of his ten limbs had been broken like the first patient’s, and one of his mandibles was hanging loosely from his mouth. Vitals were steady, but he had to be hurting. A quick swipe of the transducer didn’t show any internal injuries, so after giving him a dose of painkillers it was on to the next one.

It was obvious the third Gliesan was going to be on the short list for immediate treatment, and a good example of why we do triage. He was lying in a puddle of hemolymph after his shell had been crushed in multiple locations, with more of the vital fluid still oozing out through the cracks. My first thought was that he looked like a bug on a windshield, which felt wildly inappropriate and “species-ist” in context. One more example of instincts I’d have to unlearn.

His vital signs were in line with what to expect from massive blood loss. Without veins and arteries to carry the blood along, there’s no measure of systolic/diastolic pressure like we’d see in a typical BP cuff. It was supposed to remain in a constant range of acceptable levels, and his was on the verge of bottoming out. I called up to Xeelix.

“We’ve got one who’ll need a hemolymph infusion, or we’ll lose him. Carapace is crushed in multiple locations, with signs of internal injuries. Right now he’s our priority.” I might have been jumping the gun, but I reasoned that if anyone had even worse injuries then they’d already be dead.

Xeelix emerged from the shaft, ventilation hose in tow, as I was finishing up with the last few victims. They were in good shape, considering the circumstances. Lots of broken legs, injured eyestalks, and cracked carapaces, but nothing immediately life-threatening. I had already moved to our crush victim, and was pulling compression bandages and hemo-packs from my bag when he dropped down at my side.

He seemed particularly interested in the patient’s eye stalks and shined a light on them. “Sluggish. Typically they are quick to respond to sudden changes in illumination. You are correct, this one must have priority.”

I pointed to the first victim nearby. “He’s not far behind. Compound fractures like everyone else, but his left eye stalk is sheared off above the ocular tendon. Looks like they packed it with mud or something.”

Xeelix nodded. “A common practice among their kind. It is a sufficient first aid response, but you are again correct in your assessment. Hemolymph flow is considerably higher in that region.”

Made sense, as that’s where their brains were. I laid out the compression wraps and began calibrating the infusion pump. Normally this would call for an IV but there were no veins to inject into. We’d do a direct infusion of hemolymph, but it had to be carefully managed. Too much in one place could create as many problems as it solved; it needed time to evenly distribute through the patient’s body and at this point it wasn’t clear we’d have enough time. None of this would matter if it kept leaking out his crushed carapace, and his injuries were too extensive. We had to get Humpty Dumpty’s shell back together first.

Once the pump was ready, I placed the wrap alongside our patient and tried to talk to him. It. Whatever. “Hey there. I’m Melanie. What’s your name?”

“They don’t have names,” Xeelix said. “Not in the sense we are accustomed to. They have a collective consciousness. They only identify by clan.”

“Got it. No names.” That kind of small talk was normally for the patient’s benefit, to calm them down. In this case, it was as much for me as it was him—remember, giant insect with yellow slime oozing out of every crevice.

He clicked his mandibles weakly and scratched at the floor with one foreleg. The translation was equally shaky. “We are Chitherii clan.” He turned an eye stalk toward me and scratched out more words. “You are different.”

On top of being creeped out, now I was self-conscious about it. “I’m new. Not from around here. My home is called Earth.”

He grew agitated, his ten limbs twitching along with his eye stalks as if he wanted to get away. “Earth? We know of Earth. You are Gideon clan.”

There was that name again. Whoever this Gideon was, he didn’t seem especially popular around the Union. That was when I realized they were acting as wary of me as I was of them. “I don’t know anyone . . . any clan . . . called Gideon. My clan is called Mooney.”

“Moo-ney,” he pronounced awkwardly. “A happy name.”

Used to be, I thought to myself. Or at least I’d been, a long time ago. It was nice to know it sounded happy to somebody from a completely different evolutionary tree.

He clicked his mandibles. “Hurts.”

“I know, and I’m sorry but we can’t give you anything for the pain yet. You’ve lost too much blood. Do you understand?”

“Blood . . . hemo. Yes.”

“Good.” I held up the compression wrap for him to see. “I’m going to coat this with a gel that will fill in the broken parts of your exoskeleton, okay? We’ll wrap it around you good and tight. When the gel hardens, we’re going to start replacing your lost hemo.”

“Then you can give . . . pain . . . killer?”

I smiled, not knowing if the gesture meant anything to him, but that’s how we humans roll. “We’ll see, okay? Once the gel wrap sets, you may not need it.”

Xeelix handed me the first wrap and gently lifted the injured Gliesan on his side. “We cannot use the repulsor lifts for this one,” he said. “The localized gravity field might do even more damage.”

I nodded silently and went to work, being careful to not put too much pressure on the shattered parts of his exoskeleton as I smoothed the bandages in place. It was like trying to fix a cracked eggshell with masking tape, and the delicacy of the task took my mind off of any lingering revulsion. Because, once again, giant insect.

We had to work quickly, not only because we needed to replace his hemo fluids quickly, but because the wraps themselves threatened to do more damage. Hairline cracks began to emerge from beneath the bandages as the underlying gel hardened. It was vital to get him wrapped up from head to tail before the fragmented shell could spill its way out from under the compress. Xeelix gently rocked him from side to side, giving me space to work.

Soon we had a freshly wrapped Gliesan. I ran a hand across him, testing where I knew the worst damage had occurred. “Feels like the gel is setting.”

Xeelix did the same, but with a transducer. “It is. Pressure is still low, but consistent. Stable. He is no longer losing hemo volume.”

I grabbed the infusion pump. “That’s good. What about internal organs?”

“Bruises to his alimentary canal and . . . Malpighian tubules.” The translator stuttered over that last one, as it was a purely human term. Malpighian tubules were an insect’s excretory system, named for the scientist who discovered them. Whatever they called it, it meant our patient was going to be on a liquid diet for a while.

It could’ve been much worse. Even better, it meant there was nothing to keep us from starting the infusion. I placed the infuser by our patient. “The gel has hardened enough for us to get started. This pump will replace your lost hemo. You should start feeling better soon.” I held up two clear tubes, each with needles on their ends. “We’ll insert these lines beneath your shell and start the infusion. It’ll pinch a bit.”

Xeelix took one of the lines and moved opposite me. “We must do this together. Trust me.”

In unison we plunged the needles into his skin, just beneath the lip of his shell and beneath his eye stalks. His mandibles snapped reflexively, and it was all I could do not to pull away in terror. He still had enough strength to snap one of my arms clean off.

Xeelix placed a firm hand on the Gliesan’s back. “Good. Keep moving,” he coaxed me. Together we watched the leads on our visors as we pushed them along. As they approached the joint between the prothorax and mesothorax, Xeelix relaxed his grip and motioned for me to do the same. “Hold here. You can begin the infusion.”

I tapped the control screen and the pump began whirring quietly. “We’ve got flow . . . no backpressure.” Our visors showed the hemolymph fluid begin to distribute itself beneath the bandaged shell. “Looks like his exoskeleton is holding together.”

Xeelix rocked back on his knees with relief and made one last check of vital signs. “Patient is stabilized. Excellent.” He tapped on the floor to get one of the healthy Gliesans’ attention, and motioned him over to our freshly swaddled patient. “We require your assistance.” He pointed to the infusion pump’s monitor and the two graphs tracing their way across its face. “This trend line is ambient fluid pressure, the one beneath it is backpressure.” There was a solid line between the two. “This is baseline pressure. It does not change. If either one of these values approaches baseline, let us know right away. Do you understand?”

The Gliesan bobbed his eye stalks. I assumed that meant yes.

I stood and moved to the next victim on our triage list. We had been so busy with patching up our first patient that I hadn’t noticed Bjorn had already lowered a pair of structural braces. “I will get these into position and secure the first patient for lift,” Xeelix said. “You tend to the next one.”

“Aye, captain.” I snapped off a half-assed salute and got back to work.


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