The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Read online

  Roveg would never forget the sound Ouloo made when she ran into Captain Tem’s shuttle and saw Tupo.

  He couldn’t call it a scream. A scream was sharp and shrill. This sound was curved, liquid, moaning. It was a frightened sound, a mourning sound. If blood could speak as it was spilling, that was the sound it would make.

  ‘Xe’s alive,’ Captain Tem said. ‘I don’t know how, but—’

  Ouloo started speaking, but her words weren’t directed to any of them. She spoke to Tupo in Piloom, her cooing words at once pleading and angry. Roveg did not need translation to understand her meaning.

  ‘Did you flag emergency services?’ he asked.

  Speaker, who was in the middle of – what was she doing? gluing something to the little Laru’s face, it seemed – threw him a pointed look. ‘My signal won’t go through,’ she said. ‘Too many people are trying to use comms.’

  ‘Idiots,’ he said. ‘What else – what’s the point of an emergency channel if you can’t—’ The sentence trailed off before he could remember where he’d been leading it. Stars, why had he drank so much?

  Captain Tem noticed his trouble. She stuck her hand into a wall, grabbed something, and tossed it his way without a word. He fumbled the catch with his first leg, but recovered with the second. A packet of SoberUps. Thank goodness. He consumed the distasteful stuff without delay.

  The Aeluon crouched beside Ouloo, putting her hands on the Laru’s forelegs. ‘Ouloo, I need you to listen to me. I’m not a doctor, and neither is Speaker, but we’re going to help as best we can. I need you to answer some questions. Can you do that?’

  Ouloo trembled, but waggled her neck in vigorous assent. ‘Anything.’

  ‘Okay. I don’t know much about your physiology. My scans say that Tupo is alive, but not breathing, and everything internally seems to be kind of … shut down. Speaker’s trying to get some air into xyr, but xyr nose is … it seems to be closed up. I don’t—’

  At this, Ouloo made the sound again, quieter this time. It was still enough to make Roveg’s frills twitch uncomfortably. ‘It’s olotohen,’ she said, and wailed once more.

  ‘I don’t know what that is,’ Captain Tem said.

  Roveg bent his torso lower. ‘Breathe, Ouloo. You can do this.’

  Ouloo took a breath. ‘It’s a … oh, stars, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s a – a protective sort of … sleep? Not sleep. Shit, I don’t know the word.’

  ‘Torpor?’ Speaker offered. ‘Coma?’

  ‘Yes, something like that. It’s a – a reflex our kids have when they’re – when they’re in danger.’ Her voice broke. ‘I would’ve thought xe was too old for that, but I guess – I guess some things about xyr are still little.’

  Captain Tem squeezed her hands around Ouloo’s legs. ‘Tell me about this thing. Is it … common? How does it work?’

  ‘It’s not common. I’ve never seen xyr do this before. It never happened to me. It’s – it’s only a – a last-ditch sort of thing.’

  ‘And what will happen? How long does it last?’

  ‘I – I’m not really sure. I know you’re supposed to go straight to a doctor if it happens, but other than that, I don’t know.’

  The SoberUps were working fast, and the clearer his head became, the more Roveg found himself desperate to be of use. ‘Ouloo, do you know the remote access code for the reference file node in Tupo’s museum? I know the password, but—’ What was needed was a proper medical crew, but in lieu of that, they could at least know what they were dealing with.

  ‘Oh, um – yes, yes. It’s, um, 239-23-235-7.’

  Roveg turned to the Aeluon. ‘Captain Tem, may I use your comms panel? I don’t have my scrib with me.’

  ‘You won’t be able to read it,’ she said.

  ‘You can use my scrib,’ Ouloo said. ‘It’s set to Piloom, but you can—’

  ‘Everybody, quiet,’ Speaker said. She set down the tool in her suit’s hands and bent the vox below her cockpit close to Tupo’s face. A breathing mask – that was what she’d attached to xyr. Speaker muttered something to herself as she made the suit pick up the air canister. The words were in her own language, and these, too, etched themselves into Roveg’s memory. The high-pitched sounds were unsettling to him, but he could feel an uncanny sort of kindness behind them. A plea, maybe. Perhaps a prayer.

  No one in the room spoke as the air from the canister began to hiss, forcing itself forward into the mask. Tupo’s eyes remained shut. Xyr limbs remained motionless. But after a few seconds, the little Laru’s nostrils shot open, and xyr mouth gulped with a primal gasp. Xyr chest rose, and fell, and rose, and fell. The motion was painfully slow, and disturbing without any other hint of consciousness, but Tupo was breathing. Tupo was breathing, and in that moment, everybody present remembered how to do the same.

  Feed source: Galactic Commons Reference Files – Local Access/Offline Version (Public/Klip)

  Node path: 239-23-235-7

  Node access password: Tup0IsGr3at

  Selected file: Olotohen (medical reference)

  Encryption: 0

  Translation path: 0

  Olotohen is a cryptobiotic state unique to prepubescent and preadolescent Laru children. This defensive reflex is triggered by extreme environmental danger (high or low temperatures, prolonged underwater submersion, oxygen deficiency, etc.), severe illness, or extreme mental/physical stress. When in olotohen, the patient’s internal functions almost entirely shut down. Breathing and heartbeat are impossible to perceive via physical examination, and may temporarily cease until the patient is placed in an ideal environment. Brain activity will appear minimal in standard imubot scans, and may flag a false positive for brain death.

  A patient can safely remain in olotohen for up to eight GC standard hours without suffering any adverse affects beyond fatigue and increased thirst/appetite (these conditions typically dissipate within two to four days, depending on the patient). Beyond this point, the risk of brain and/or other organ damage increases exponentially. After thirteen hours, death is almost certain.

  Patients who have entered olotohen must be given medical attention as quickly as possible. As this is an unconscious state, a patient may remain in olotohen even after the danger has passed. While xe may wake up on xyr own without intervention, this outcome cannot and should not be taken for granted. Always err on the side of caution with olotohen patients.

  Patients who are in olotohen can be brought back to full consciousness and homeostasis by any medical professional who has completed a GC Medical Institute-certified training course in multispecies emergency medicine. This is a neurological procedure involving non-invasive imubot treatment, and takes about ten minutes to complete. This procedure should under no circumstances be attempted by those without certified medical training, as operator errors are likely to result in nerve or brain damage.

  The GC Medical Institute recommends the following care for olotohen patients while awaiting professional medical help:

  –Remove the patient from the dangerous/threatening environment.

  –If the patient is wet, dry xyr fur. If water is present in xyr mouth, open xyr mouth and empty it as much as possible by gently tipping xyr neck in a vertical fashion with xyr head pointing toward the ground.

  –If the patient was in an extremely cold or freezing environment, bundle xyr tightly with blankets, warm clothing, or any other insulating material.

  –If the patient was in an extremely hot environment, cool the room to fifty GC standard degrees. Do not use blankets, clothing, etc.

  –Provide clean, filtered air, if possible.

  –Avoid an environment with harsh or bright lights, if possible.

  –Avoid an environment with loud or sudden noises, if possible.

  –Set up an ongoing imubot monitoring scan and watch closely for any of the following signs:

  •sudden drop or cessation of heart rate, after heart rate has resumed

  •sudden drop or cessation
of brain activity, if brain activity has previously been detected

  •hyperventilation or cessation of breath after normal breathing has resumed

  If any of these signs occur in a situation in which a medical professional is not immediately available, place the patient in a medical stasis chamber, if possible. This should only be done as a last resort, as medical stasis can create serious complications in olotohen patients.

  SPEAKER

  As things stood, there were two good possibilities: Tupo could wake up before the eight-hour mark, or their signal could get through to emergency services. If neither of these came to pass, then they’d have no choice but to put Tupo in medical stasis, and then … then they’d have to see. There was no way to make the good possibilities happen, no way to know if they’d happen in five minutes or five hours or never. So the only option before them was to wait, without any idea of which reality they were waiting for.

  Speaker stood with the others in the common area, where they’d stepped out to discuss what came next. It was doubtful Tupo could hear them, but nobody wanted to scare the child on the off-chance that some of their words were drifting through xyr unconscious state.

  ‘Well, we’ve got the scan going, at least,’ Captain Tem said. ‘I’ll keep an eye to make sure none of those warning signs pop up.’

  ‘And I’ll keep trying with the comms signal,’ Roveg sighed. ‘There’s not much I can do about jammed traffic, but I can set the scrib up to automatically send a flag every five minutes.’

  Speaker glanced at Ouloo. The Laru’s eyes weren’t focused on anything. She was rubbing her forepaws together, over and over and over. Speaker turned the suit to face her. ‘Ouloo, I know this sounds impossible, but you should rest. We might be here a while.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Ouloo said.

  ‘You can use my bed,’ Captain Tem said. ‘She’s right; your body’s going through it right now, too. You should take it easy so you can jump in if … well, if it’s needed.’

  Ouloo continued to rub her paws. ‘I do like Aeluon beds,’ she said quietly.

  Captain Tem smiled blue. ‘Mine’s really good, too.’

  Ouloo looked around the group. ‘You’ll come get me, right? If any – if anything—’

  ‘Of course,’ Speaker said.

  The Laru bobbed her neck, and let Captain Tem lead her away.

  Roveg sighed and flexed his legs. ‘Not quite the evening we were expecting, hmm?’ He rubbed his face with his top-most toes. ‘Stars, I need some water. I should never drink with Aeluons.’

  ‘I saw a kitchen on the way in,’ Speaker said. ‘Or at least, I think it was a kitchen. There was food in it.’

  Roveg leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Every Aeluon room I’ve ever seen looks exactly the same,’ he said in an unimpressed tone. ‘So your guess is as good as mine.’

  The room Speaker had seen did turn out to be a kitchen, but they couldn’t find a damn thing. Both she and Roveg put their respective appendages on the walls here and there, trying to figure out where the cupboard openings were.

  Captain Tem appeared in the doorway after a few futile moments. ‘What … is going on?’ she said.

  ‘Captain, where the hell do you keep your drinkware?’ Roveg said.

  The Aeluon made an amused expression. She walked up to a spot on the wall that looked like every other, pressed her palm on it, and opened the panel. She removed a small bowl and held it toward him. ‘Will this work better for you than my cups?’

  Roveg chuffed irritably at the wall he’d failed to open. ‘Yes, thank you. Water, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Is Ouloo lying down?’ Speaker asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Captain Tem said. She filled the bowl from a dispenser of some kind. ‘I doubt she’ll sleep, but …’

  ‘I don’t see how anybody could,’ Speaker said. She shook her head as if drying herself off. ‘I can’t imagine how she’s feeling.’

  Roveg took the bowl of water from Captain Tem, but he didn’t speak, and he didn’t drink. He stood silent, staring at nothing. ‘I can,’ he said.

  Speaker and Captain Tem both looked at him, and the room grew heavy.

  The Quelin took a long drink of water and shifted his eyes. ‘I have four sons,’ he said quietly. ‘I carried their eggs on my shell for a standard, and they all hatched on the same day. Their mother and I were friends, nothing more. It’s a common arrangement – two friends who both want to have children and haven’t found a romantic partner to do so with. I enjoyed her company. I cared about her, but I did not love her. But my boys …’ His mouthparts clicked with a fragile sound. ‘I never knew what love was until I saw them for the first time. I remember them stumbling around, unable to speak. I tried to clean them off – they were all wet, and covered in eggshell, but they didn’t understand to hold still. They couldn’t speak. They didn’t understand what they were, what anything was. But they understood me, somehow. Each one of them, in turn. They stumbled, and they tripped, and by chance, they saw me. And once they saw me, they stumbled right at me, deliberately. They shivered against me, as if they – as if they knew I was the one thing that would keep them safe.’ He took another sip from the bowl. ‘So, yes. I have some idea of how she must be feeling.’

  The weight in the room increased. ‘That must be so painful,’ Speaker said, ‘to have been sent away from them.’

  ‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ Roveg said. ‘Please don’t. I knew the stories I was telling might get me into trouble, and I did it anyway. I was stupid and cocky and thought I wouldn’t get caught, but I understood the risk. It wasn’t enough, though. The risk of robbing my boys of their father wasn’t enough to keep me quiet. And I know. I know that makes me a selfish person.’

  ‘You’re not,’ Speaker said.

  ‘Of course I am. I put my work above them.’ Anger entered Roveg’s voice; Speaker could hear its sharpness facing inward. ‘And the worst part is, I still don’t think that was the wrong thing to do. I hate having left them. It kills me every day. But I also couldn’t have kept pretending to believe in something I didn’t. I cared more in the end about telling the truth than I did about being a father. I wish I regretted that more than I do.’ He turned his gaze to the ground. ‘And I’m sure you all think I’m a real bastard now.’

  Captain Tem’s face shifted colour pensively. ‘The friend I’m going to see is named Ashby,’ Captain Tem said. ‘He’s a tunneller, and he’s Exodan, and he’s my …’ The talkbox went quiet. ‘We’ve been coupling for about four standards now.’

  Roveg turned his head to her, his eyes glittering. ‘My, my, Captain. I never would’ve guessed.’

  The Aeluon gave him a sharp look. ‘Does it bother you?’

  ‘Not in the slightest,’ he said. ‘I just wouldn’t have bet on you being so subversive.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said with a flat laugh. ‘Or at least, I never thought I was. I wasn’t trying to make a statement, like you were. He was just … just this person I liked.’

  ‘A person you still like, I gather.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He studied her face. ‘You like him a lot.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, then frowned. ‘You know, it’s really annoying that you can read my face but I can’t read yours.’

  ‘It’s not my fault you can’t detect my pheromones.’

  ‘Yeah, well, anyway.’ She went to the cupboard to fetch a cup for herself. ‘It’s gone on for so long that I’m having trouble stomaching it. Not him, I mean. I mean the secrecy. I don’t mind us spending time apart. We have different jobs, different lives. We’re usually both on a long haul. That’s just how we are. But pretending that he doesn’t exist … do you know how it feels to be with your friends and talk about your life and cut an entire piece of it out?’

  ‘Yes,’ Roveg said. ‘I do.’

  ‘But you did the risky thing anyway. So maybe you are selfish. I don’t know. But even if you are, I think you’re brave. You’re braver than me, for su
re. Because I’m hurting him. I know I’m hurting him. But I haven’t stopped hurting him, because I’m too afraid. And sometimes fear is good. Fear keeps you alive. But it can also keep you from what you really want. And that’s my problem – I don’t know what I want. I want to keep both halves of myself, and I want them to stay exactly as they are. But—’

  ‘But you can’t do that forever,’ Roveg said. ‘You can’t split yourself like that without feeling each side begin to fray. I know.’ His spiracles pulsed. ‘And even if you do choose one over the other, the one you abandoned is never really gone.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Roveg drained the bowl. ‘One of my sons wrote to me earlier this standard. Boreth. I have no idea how he found me. I was honestly afraid when I got his message, because whatever pathways he took cannot be legal. I admit, part of me was proud of that. I think perhaps he’s turned into a troublemaker like me.’ He set the bowl down on the counter. ‘We have a ceremony – the First Brand. It’s a coming-of-age ritual, performed when you’ve stopped growing and your shell is the same size it will be for the rest of your life.’ Speaker could hear the sorrow in his voice at this, the grief over years he had not seen. ‘It’s happening for my boys in two tendays, and he asked me if I would apply for the entry permit so I could come. I thought they’d hate me for leaving. Maybe the rest of them do, I don’t know. But Boreth wants me there, so …’

  ‘So that’s why you’re going back,’ Speaker said softly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you going to make it?’ she asked.

  Roveg pulled himself together. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, stating simple fact. ‘At this point … I don’t know.’

  ‘There has to be something you can do to get your permit,’ Captain Tem said. ‘Some kind of strings you can pull.’

  ‘Not for someone like me,’ he said. ‘In GC space? Sure. I could call a friend, line a pocket, whatever it took. But in Quelin territory, I’m nothing. Worse than nothing. I’m a dangerous something, and all they need is the slightest of excuses – one box unchecked, one toe out of place – to not grant me any favours.’