Omega Games (2 page)

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” As a proper Iisleg woman, that was not something I should have said, but my speech patterns were changing. In fact, since regaining memories of my former self through an intense mind link with my husband, I never knew
what
would come out of my mouth. I ignored Squilyp’s sharp look as I stripped off my gloves and signaled a nurse. “Prepare the surgical suite.”

“Surgery?” Tarveka took a step toward the patient’s berth, as if to protect her from me. He also seemed to regain instant control of his lung function and speech center. “How do you intend to treat dermatitis with surgery?”

“The rash is a symptom, not the cause of her condition, ” I said. “My abdominal scans show a foreign mass lodged in the primary pyloric sphincter, restricting the passage between the lower chamber of the stomach and the small intestine.”

“It sounds like a gastric bezoar.” Squilyp took my datapad and reviewed the scan results. “Why is the scan so indistinct?”

“The mass is reflecting it.”

“I cannot believe this rash to be the result of a concretion in the GI tract,” the Jorenian healer said. “With all due respect, Healer Torin, an accumulation of unabsorbed fiber or food is not uncommon among those of us who travel offworld for the first time.”

“Synthetics and alien foodstuffs can be difficult for them to digest,” the Omorr agreed. “Are you sure it’s not the scanner malfunctioning? It shouldn’t be this fuzzy.”

“It is not a foodball,” I said, trying not to clench my teeth, “or a hairball. Nor is the scanner at fault. It is a—”

“Whatever its composition, we should begin with a gastrointestinal probe, to determine what formed the mass,” the Omorr said, giving me a disapproving glance. “There are any number of nonsurgical treatments we can use for dissolution or removal. Enzymatic disruption, gastric lavage—even pulse lithotripsy.”

I had to disguise a shudder at the thought of anyone using focused-light lithotripsy on this patient.

“That would be extremely unwise.” I tugged back the linen sheet and raised the edge of the patient’s gown, exposing her abdomen. “Observe how densely the rash covers her torso. Here”—I indicated the median area beneath her sternum—“the dermatitis disguises a recent vertical cell displacement measuring two-point-three centimeters. A puncture wound, likely inflicted by a sharp object, perhaps a bladed weapon. It ruptured the small intestine, and although the peristalsis has prevented any leakage, peritonitis is imminent.” Among other things.

“She was stabbed?” Tarveka murmured, aghast and furious. Jorenians were extremely protective of their kin, and would eviscerate anyone who even threatened to hurt them. “Who could do such a thing on Joren and escape ClanKill?”

“Healer, should I not prep the patient?” the nurse wanted to know.

“I thank you, but I will do that.” I went to a diagnostic unit, cross-referenced the forensic database, and entered all the information I had discovered from my scans. The unit compared the data to all such devices known to the Jorenians.

Device not found.
Just as I had suspected.

“What are you looking for?” Tarveka came to my side. He looked distressed and still slightly affronted. “Permit me to assist you, Healer.”

“I prefer drones in the operating room,” I lied. I thought of the communications center, located on the lowest level of the hospital. Sending him there would get him out of my face. “Would you be so kind as to go and inform HouseClan Torin that my return to the pavilion will be delayed?”

“Of course.” Hiding his irritation with the exquisite manners of his kind, the Jorenian made a complicated hand gesture of regret and respect, and left the ward.

Squilyp put a membrane on my arm as soon as the Jorenian was out of earshot, and said, “You are not being completely candid. Why do you want a shielded container, and why won’t you let a nurse prep her? Why are you accessing the weapons database? You have
never
liked using drones in surgery.”

“I will not know for certain until I open her up.” The look in his dark eyes made me add, “Don’t become alarmed, Senior Healer, but the abdominal wound smells of destabilized arutanium.”

His gildrells straightened into stiff, white spikes. “You can
smell
that?”

“During the rebellion, we would always check casualties for the odor,” I admitted. “Our wounded were sometimes used by the Toskald that way. I will not know for certain until I open her abdomen.”

“But Jarn, for there to be traces of destabilized arutanium—”

“Someone had to plant an explosive inside her body,” I finished for him. “One that has yet to detonate. Which is why, when I go into surgery, you must evacuate everyone from this facility.”

Squilyp wished to argue with me, but he now knew why we did not have time to debate my decision to operate. He did, however, insist I activate the transmitter in my vocollar and keep the channel open as I worked on the patient. A training monitor in the surgical suite would provide a visual feed for him to observe the entire procedure.

“You may need something,” he argued, “and you will not be able to send the drone out to retrieve it for you.”

I was not enamored of the idea of being monitored while I worked, but he was right. It would also allow me to quickly relate exactly what I found inside the patient’s body, and how much danger it presented to the facility and surrounding area. “Very well.”

While I made the adjustments to my vocollar, the Omorr instructed the nurses to begin moving the patients, and then came over to give me an earpiece.

“Tell him that I am working,” I said as I injected the patient with neuroparalyzer and secured her body with motion restraints. I rolled the berth over to the surgical suite, but I didn’t transfer her onto an operating platform. I couldn’t take the chance of jarring her and possibly triggering an explosion.

Squilyp stayed with the patient while I donned a surgical shroud, and then stopped me as the drone surgical assistance unit rolled its instrument tray past us and into the suite. “I cannot allow you to do this alone. I will stay and assist.”

The Omorr could be very male when it came to situations like this. He would also die along with the patient if the round exploded while I was operating. Thanks to my bioengineered physiology, I would not.

“You’ll get out of here and keep me on remote monitor, or I’ll signal your mate and tell her what you’re doing,” I told him as I fastened a surgical mask over the lower part of my face. “Then I’ll signal mine.”

“You would not dare.”

I looked at him over the edge of my mask and let Cherijo’s words answer him. “Try me.”

“Of course you would.” He sighed. “Very well, Doctor. If you change your mind—”

“I won’t.” I swept a hand toward the ward exit panels. “Get out.”

When Squilyp had left, I grasped the edge of the gurney and eased the patient through the air lock and into the main surgical suite. The drone had followed its programmed instructions and set up for an intestinal laparotomy while I scrubbed.

“Initiate sterile field.” As the containment generators created an envelope of clean air around us, I administered the appropriate prophylactic antibiotics and instructed the drone to commence anesthesia before I spoke to Squilyp. “Senior Healer, is the channel clear?”

“It is,” the Omorr said over the earpiece as I used a lascalpel to make the midline incision. “This is madness, you know.”

“It is a routine procedure with potentially hazardous complications,” I corrected. “Cherijo’s first surgery after leaving Terra was much like this.”

“You remember that bowel obstruction?” Like everyone who knew my former self, Squilyp still hoped I would recover the memories of that life.

“No, I read about it in her entries on Kevarzangia Two. And it was a strangulated colon.” I did not personally recall the procedure, but thanks to Cherijo’s journals and my husband’s telepathic abilities, I knew many details of my former life. “She did not mention if the surgery was a success.”

“It was, barely,” Squilyp said. “Another physician named Rogan had misdiagnosed the patient, you told me, and you had to remove the entire bowel, which had turned putrid. She nearly died.”

I felt an odd shift in my mind as learned memories blended with my own. “Strangulation obstruction carries a twenty-five to thirty percent mortality rate if surgery is delayed more than thirty-six hours after onset of symptoms. The patient lived. Did I clone a new colon for her?”

“She was an Orgemich,” Squilyp said. “That species has twin bowels.”

Once I had cut the patient’s abdomen open, I performed a visual inspection of the stomach and small intestine. Jorenians had the same basic digestive system as most humanoids, with a few exceptions caused by adaptive evolution, such as their dualchambered stomach, which allowed them to digest their food in stages.

“Color is normal, with some arterial pulsation. I see a considerable amount of distention in the valve, but the tissue appears viable. Thermal scanner.” I used the noninvasive instrument to pinpoint the exact location of the mass. “The obstruction is still partially lodged in the pyloric sphincter adjunct to the secondary chamber. That is causing the bulge.” I noticed an unusual, dull yellow discoloration around the insertion point in the sphincter, and felt my heart skip a beat.

“Use an isotonic lavage,” the Omorr suggested. “You can introduce it through the esophagus and force the blockage to move down into the small intestine.”

“Not this time,” I said as I studied the scanner readout, although the yellow discoloration already told me exactly what had been shoved into the gut of this female. “The obstruction is a pulse grenade, modified with a contact trigger.”

“That’s impossible,” the Omorr snapped. “Jarn, if she had that sort of grenade in her belly, she would have exploded the first time she took a deep breath or bent over.”

“The grenade is encased in an organic material that quickly decays and dissolves once it’s placed inside the body,” I explained. “The process creates a significant echogenic arc of air around the grenade.” I didn’t bother explaining the trigger. If I did, he would insist I leave.

“If you bleed the air pocket or touch the grenade with any instrument, it could blow,” Squilyp said.

“No.” Memories from the rebellion rushed through me. Acrid smoke hanging in frigid clouds. Wet, red ice. Kneeling beside a rebel who had bitten through his lips to keep from screaming. Like all Iisleg men, he believed that if he showed bravery, he would be given a second chance to live. He had died three minutes later. “I know what this is. What it does.”

“Then you know you can’t remove it,” he added. “Close the patient and get out of there.”

“I don’t have to touch it.” I held out my glove. “Mesentery clamp.”

"Jarn.”

“We’ll have to think up a new name for this procedure, Senior Healer,” I said as I clamped off the segment of bowel I intended to vivisect. “What do you think of gastric grenade bypass?”

“I think I should be addressing you as Cherijo,” Squilyp said sourly. “You’ve become as reckless as she was.”

“Gastric suction tube. This is not reckless. You should have seen how often we were forced to remove live ordnance from the wounded during the war. Sometimes we had to use blades and our hands, right there on the battlefield.” I made a tiny incision, inserted the tube, and constricted the upper chamber of the stomach. That evacuated the contents of the lower chamber. “The patient should be scheduled for gastric reconstruction as soon as she is stable. I will perform the procedure.”

“Stop her from blowing us all to the moons,” Squilyp said. “Then we will worry about who rebuilds her “Indeed. Bypass setter.” I applied the large, viselike instrument to the division between the divided stomach, and tightened the grip until it effectively clamped off the lower chamber. “Fill the specimen container with suspension gel,” I told the drone as I brought down the lascalpel and adjusted the beam. Before I made the final cut, I asked Squilyp, “Has everyone left the facility?”