We Are Both Mammals (9 page)

The array of things that had been done to me
to save and rebuild my body was dizzying. The list of procedures
and processes filled four sheets of paper. Pins, grafts,
transplants, reconstruction of this and that, synthetic organs and
parts, sutures and tubing and hoses and drains … The list of drugs
and solutions that I had been given to aid and control my recovery
filled another one and a half pages. Much of it I did not
understand. Some of it Toro-a-Ba could explain to me, and for the
rest he and I questioned the surgeons. Never had I imagined that I
would learn so much about human and thurga digestive systems or
surgical procedures.

The hose was state-of-the-art: made of
synthetic materials, it is transparent, extremely flexible yet
almost impossible to squash, even if a tractor drove over it; and
durable – it was designed to outlast both Toro-a-Ba and me. It
is malleable: it can swell or shrink according to the volume of
fluid it is holding, which is necessary to prevent pressure
discrepancies, vacuums, or gas bubbles developing inside it.
Different fluids pass between us at different rates, so the hose is
insulated so that the fluids do not cool whilst they are in the
hose. The hose needs to behave like an organic part, because it is
functioning as one.

The hose enters Toro-a-Ba’s and my sides
almost seamlessly, and under our skins the smaller, internal hoses
disband immediately, being inserted into or running past various
organs. If I run my fingertips over my skin, I can feel a slight
bulge where a few of the hoses go their separate ways, and now that
the puffiness of my flesh – a side-effect of all the drugs
– has subsided and my muscle tone is returning, if I stretch
my torso I can feel, in a couple of places on my abdomen, small
ridges caused by the tiny tubes as they lie in their courses around
my body.

I finally learned that the two small,
lightweight clamps on the hose function to limit the fluids that
flow between us. This was initially so that Toro-a-Ba did not have
to share, through my fluids, the huge quantity of drugs and
nutrients that I was receiving; a quantity which for him would be a
dangerous overdose. The clamps also house tiny computers that
record such things as the temperatures of the fluids in the hose,
the pressure, quantity and flow of individual fluids through each
of the hoses, the composition of those fluids, and so on. This
information can then be accessed and copied by a handheld device
that relays the information to the clinic’s computers and stores it
in a database: a record of all the activity that passes through the
hose between Toro-a-Ba and me. Surgeons Suva-a and Fong have not
said as much, but I gather that, to the medical practitioners and
scientists of this world, that record is a goldmine.

According to the surgeons who worked on me
and Toro-a-Ba, we need not concern ourselves with the readings from
the hose: our own bodies, plus the technology of the hose itself,
should keep things in balance; however, if anything were to go
wrong, the surgeons would need that record and those tiny computers
in order to restore us to health.

As I learned of what had been done to me, it
occurred to me that I had been the recipient of so much technology,
so much effort and expense and skill, that it was, in a sense, an
honour. I was no one important; merely a laboratory technician, one
of thousands on this planet. Yet all this value had been poured
into me. My very existence was a marvel of medical science, and my
survival almost miraculous. My body is a wonder, simply because it
is alive.

One morning, as I read one of the papers
describing one of the many aspects of the surgery, something caught
my eye. I had read these words before, but this time I realised
something different about them. They described my and Toro-a-Ba’s
blood types and composition.

“
Toro-a-Ba,” I said aloud,
“this says that our blood types and compositions are
compatible.”

“
Yes,” the thurga agreed.
“They must be, or I cannot keep you alive. Our bodies would reject
each other if our bloods were incompatible.”

“
Did you know that when
you volunteered?”

“
Yes.”

I sensed that he had misunderstood my
question, which had been, I realised, ambiguously worded. “No, I
mean: did you know that our blood types were compatible when you
volunteered?”

“
No.”

“…
But you volunteered
anyway.”

“
Yes. The necessary tests
would need to be performed before we could know that your and my
bodies are compatible, but there would be no point in performing
those tests if I was not willing to volunteer myself for the
surgery.”

I thought for a moment, remembering what
Toro-a-Ba had said about wanting to help people, to do something
good and great with his life, and how when Suva-a had proposed the
surgery that would join us Toro-a-Ba had ‘felt a great shout go up
within him’.

Then I asked slowly, “What would you have
done, Toro-a-Ba, if we had been incompatible?” I looked at him,
awaiting his answer. “… Would you have been disappointed?” I
hazarded.

Toro-a-Ba blinked his moist dark eyes at me,
in – as best as I could tell – a contemplative
expression.

“
No.”

I was about to ask if someone else might
have volunteered in his stead; my understanding had been that there
were no other volunteers, but perhaps that had not been the case;
when Toro-a-Ba continued, in his deliberate manner. “It is
difficult to explain, Daniel. I do not know whether you believe in
such things, for humans hold a great many differing opinions, but I
believe that some things are fated. Do you know what I mean by
that?”

“
Yes, I know what ‘fated’
means,” I confirmed quietly.

“
Do you remember my saying
that I felt a great shout go up within me when Surgeon Suva-a
proposed the surgery?”

I nodded. “I remember.”

“
Daniel, I knew, when
Surgeon Suva-a said that all that was needed for the surgery was a
volunteer, that I was to be that volunteer.”

There was a pause.

“
And … what if our bloods
had not been compatible?” I asked soberly.

Toro-a-Ba blinked at me again. “They would
be,” he said simply. “They are.”

“
But … I mean
…”

“
It was fated,
Daniel.”

“
Oh.”

I fell silent, realising in that moment that
I would receive no further explanation, because no further
explanation could be given; and that this conversation illustrated
a great deal about Toro-a-Ba.

The surgeons had collaborated with dietary
specialists to draw up lists of things that Toro-a-Ba and I should
and should not do to care for our new bodies. There were foods that
we should avoid for a long time to come because they might be too
difficult to digest; we should eat very healthily and ‘cleanly’
from now on; we should chew our food thoroughly to make digestion
easier; drinking large quantities of water would become vital to
our mutual health; and if I drank even a modest amount of alcohol,
it was possible that Toro-a-Ba, with his much smaller body and the
thurga-a’s natural intolerance for alcohol, would become drunk; so
the surgeons recommended that we eschew alcohol altogether. This
saddened me slightly, as I had always enjoyed certain beers and
liqueurs; but the thought of giving the thurga beside me alcohol
poisoning was not acceptable. Using the clamps on the hose to
ensure that what I ingested did not reach Toro-a-Ba was strongly
discouraged by the surgeons: the purpose of the clamps was to
restrict the flow of fluids between us only when necessary, such as
when I was receiving drugs the quantity of which would harm
Toro-a-Ba, or if one of us ate something poisonous. After all, the
whole point of the hose was to enable Toro-a-Ba’s organs to support
mine: strangling that support would not be healthy. Teetotal I
would have to become.

“
Remember, Avari-Ba,”
Surgeon Suva-a – a thurga with an unusual smudge of blonde fur
above the left side of the bridge of her nose – told me one
day, “that your physical capacity is far more massive than
Toro-a-Ba’s. I do not speak here about your size, for you are fully
aware of that; I mean your capacity. You are recovering from
near-lethal injuries, now, but when in time you are more thoroughly
healed you must remember that Toro-a-Ba cannot cover the distances
that you can cover; he cannot tolerate the amount of sound that you
can tolerate; he may not be able to jump as far or as high as you
can jump; and so on. Furthermore, his body is working harder than
normal in order to support yours. It is as though he is pregnant:
his organs are giving life to yours. If he becomes fatigued and
sickly, your body will suffer also.”

I nodded slowly, considering this.

Surgeon Suva-a continued, “We would not have
attached Toro-a-Ba to you, Avari-Ba, if we did not think that he
could keep up with you. However, he is not human. His needs are
different, his capacity is different; and I believe that in your
life together each of you will learn more about the other’s species
than you thought there was to learn.”

I blinked.

“
Toro-a-Ba,” the surgeon
addressed him, “you must always remain as healthy as possible, and
get plenty of sleep. You are pregnant with a creature larger than
any our species has ever borne.”

I am, as I have said, not expert in reading
thurga-a facial expressions, but as far as I could tell, when
Surgeon Suva-a said these words she was completely earnest.

But she voiced nothing that had not already
occurred, in one way or another, to me.

Eventually, I was allowed to sit up
straighter and straighter. When I could sit almost bolt upright,
and all other tubes and hoses had been removed, I was allowed to
sit on the side of my bed. The hospital bed was lowered so that my
feet could touch the floor to avoid putting any strain on my
abdomen. It seemed like a milestone: my long, long days in this
room in this clinic would, after all, come to an end.

Toro-a-Ba crawled carefully out of his bed
and walked over the covers to sit beside me. The hose lay on the
bedclothes between us: an innocuous, inanimate object that would
rule our lives forever.

Now that I could sit safely, the nurses
offered to take me and Toro-a-Ba outside, in a wheelchair. I was
lifted bodily into the wheelchair, while Toro-a-Ba walked carefully
but with relative ease down a small ramp that the nurses placed at
the side of my bed so that he would not have to jump and thus jar
the hose. At first every second day, but then every day, they
wheeled me slowly through the clinic and outdoors, into the car
park, with Toro-a-Ba walking carefully alongside. The clinic was
not designed for long-term patient recovery, so there was no
garden; but just to be outdoors again, after so long; to feel the
breeze and the sun and the fresh air, and to see plants again, and
the sky, felt like a relief; as though all of these things were
reassurances that I would survive. One way or another.

It made me think about the future.

–––––––

One morning, after breakfast, it dawned on me: now
that I was mobile, I – we – would at some point be
leaving the clinic.

Leaving to go … where? Home, presumably. The
image of my apartment flashed into my head. I had thought little
about it: I had been so focussed on dealing with what had happened
to me and my new circumstances that I had not thought much about my
living quarters. The nurses had assured me that my landlady had
been informed of my accident and was keeping an eye on my
apartment. Having more pressing concerns on my mind than whether
the yoghurt in my fridge was spoiling, I had been content to let
the matter rest at that.

But where was ‘home’, now?

I could go home to my apartment … but
Toro-a-Ba would have to come with me. Toro-a-Ba could go to his
home … but I would have to go with him.

And it suddenly hit me that I
could never go
home
again.

‘
Home’, with my old life,
my old independence, without even a pet to consider, was closed to
me. My ability to go ‘home’ – to return to my own space, my
own life – was gone. My home would now have to be with
Toro-a-Ba.

I felt like a man who had married and, on
returning from his honeymoon, had realised that his old life as a
bachelor was gone. That independent, solitary season of his life
was ended. From now on, his home would be in a new location, and it
would have to be shared. The food in his fridge would no longer be
only his. The milk, the remote controls, the cleaning supplies,
would no longer always stay where he left them. Someone else would
be sharing his furniture, his shower, his towels, even his bed; and
the table would have to be big enough for two to sit at it.

Of course, if I had married, the person
sharing my everything would have been a person of my choice, and of
my own species.

‘
Home’ was gone, my life
was gone, and whatever happened now would have to be negotiated
with someone who was still little more than a stranger to
me.

I wept.

–––––––

From what Toro-a-Ba had told the psychologist during
our sessions, I knew that his family consisted of parents, a sister
and brother, and two uncles, and that they all lived in the Goto-a
region, which lies next to Suni-ku, the much smaller region in
which Surgeon Suva-a’s clinic is located. Toro-a-Ba had left them
to come to live in the city of Kivi-a, near the clinic, so that he
could train as a nurse. That, however, was all that I knew. He
might have said more, but I had not been listening with much
dedication.