Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle Read online

  Shima tentatively reached up and felt her face. She was right. There were bandages holding pads of some soft material over her eyes. Her face felt numb. She couldn’t feel her fingers touching her head.

  “I can’t feel anything.”

  “That’s good,” Sharn said. “The nannies are still working. The surgery went well, Shima. The Human healers are very pleased with you. They told me the nannies help with the swelling and pain, but will expire soon.”

  That’s right. The healers had explained the process. Nannies were the surgical nanobot machines they had used to cut her optic nerves and then connect them to her new eyes. She had new eyes! She wanted to rip off the bandages, her hands shook with the need, but she restrained herself.

  “You swear it; on your honour you swear all is well?”

  “All is well as far as we can tell, Shima. I swear it,” Chailen said. “Sharn, call Healer Devaraja.”

  Shima heard Sharn leave. She reached a questing hand toward her sib. Chailen took the hand and squeezed. “Did you see them, my eyes?”

  “I saw. They’re your eyes still, Shima, don’t worry. They look the same. They are the same but cured.”

  That is what the Humans promised. They said they would be identical down to the genetic level, but would be modified to remove the defective genes that caused her poor sight. She had trusted, but to hear from her sib’s own lips that all was well did reassure her. Her imaginings painted some strange pictures in her head. She had imagined her face with alien eyes peering out at the world, Human eyes with their odd colours and round pupils. To see again, she would have accepted even that, but to have her own eyes restored was a dream come true.

  The harmonies warned her that Sharn was returning with a Human in tow. Shima squeezed her sib’s hand, and then let go. The door opened and she turned her attention to the healer.

  “How are you feeling, Shima?” Devaraja said. “Any nausea or pain, any light headiness?”

  “Nothing like that, healer. My face is numb, and my scalp is just starting to tingle a little.”

  “Ah! Good good. That means the nannies are beginning to expire. Feeling will return to your face quite soon. This is the third day since the surgery in case you wondered. Everything went as expected.”

  Three days asleep! She hadn’t thought to ask how long she’d been under. She’d just assumed it was the next morning.

  “Lights, two percent illumination!” Devaraja ordered and the room darkened. “I’m going to loosen the bandage but I don’t want you to move. It’s dark in here now, but there’s enough light to see by. I’ll uncover only one eye for now.”

  “I understand,” Shima said, hardly able to contain her excitement.

  “Don’t move now, and keep both eyes closed.”

  Devaraja eased the padding away from her left eye. She felt the cloth stick a little, but he was very gentle and it was finally uncovered. Shima felt the healer gently touching her face around the eye, pressing very gently, manipulating the flesh.

  “The swelling has reduced very well, Shima. What there is should go down as you heal naturally. Keeping your right eye closed, can you open the left?”

  Shima swallowed and tried.

  At first, the lid didn’t want to open, but she rolled her eyes and the moisture seemed to unstick the lid. The eye opened and she saw something without the aid of the harmonies for the first time in well over a year. The room was very dark. She blinked a few times and turned her head toward Devaraja and Chailen. Sharn was on the other side of her bed, on the right. She focused upon her sib. She was as beautiful as she remembered.

  “Glad to see you again, my sib. It’s been a long while.”

  Chailen covered her mouth and burst into tears. Sharn rounded the bed to comfort her, and Shima smiled. They looked so right together. She looked up to find Devaraja beaming a happy Human smile down upon her. Toothy smiles weren’t aggression in Humans, she knew that, but it was still startling seeing those very white but blunt teeth so easily displayed. Shima reached a hand up, he did likewise, and she pressed her palm to his.

  “Thank you.”

  Devaraja took back his hand and inclined his head. “You are most welcome, Shima. We have learned a great deal about Shan physiology doing this for you. If payment had been necessary, you have more than covered any cost. It has been a fascinating journey, simply fascinating.”

  “I’m glad,” Shima said in amusement. “Can I try my right eye now?”

  Devaraja shook his head. “In a few minutes. Let me examine the left first.”

  Devaraja used a device he had in his pocket to measure the dilation of her eye as he raised the level of light in the room. He was very careful to ask if she was in discomfit at every stage, but Shima wasn’t and just wanted the test over with. Finally the healer uncovered her right eye, and tested dilation in the same way before pronouncing himself satisfied.

  “Congratulations, Shima. You have twenty-twenty vision... that’s another way of saying your eyes are perfect. They’re pretty too!” He said and chuckled as her ears flicked in surprise. “I’m sure Chailen can find you a mirror later, but for now, you’re free to go. Contact me if you have any problems. Any at all, all right?”

  Shima flicked her ears and then nodded in the Human manner, though Devaraja was familiar with Shan by now and understood. Shima suspected her people would develop and combine mannerisms more and more as time went on to deal with the Humans. Already she used nods and headshakes with them without thinking most of the time.

  “Thank you, healer, I shall do that,” Shima said as she climbed off the bed and joined her sib. She couldn’t wait to get outside. “Chailen will make sure I do.”

  Chailen and Sharn laughed, their drop jawed laugh making Devaraja grin. Humans for some reason found Shan laughter fascinating and contagious.

  No longer needing Chailen’s arm, but still needing her to show the way, Shima navigated the sprawling tech centre’s corridors listening to them discussing events. They were happy together, and Shima was happy for the first time since her blinding. All was right in her world for the first time in so long. She wanted to get outside and run, and just revel in the light.

  “...and Varya made it sound perfect for our people. Kazim let me see some of his recordings, and you know how he can be about that. He hates letting anyone see his work unedited.”

  “Wait, what’s that about Kazim?” Shima said.

  Sharn answered. “He and Varya are out exploring the colony sites they chose. Gina went with them.”

  Shima flicked her ears in acknowledgement. She had known they were getting ready to go, but they must have left while she was in surgery. That hurt a little. Surely Kazim had wanted to know she was all right? Well why should he wait? They weren’t family or clan to each other. Still, she would have waited if their places had been reversed.

  “Hmph. He could have waited for me. I would’ve liked to see too,” Shima grumped.

  “Don’t be angry with him, Shima. Tei’Burgton asked Gina to begin right away. He’s very eager to start building, and it will be two or more seasons just to get word to the elders and their answer back.”

  “I suppose,” Shima grumbled, but it did make her feel less aggrieved with Kazim for going without her. “And we didn’t know my eyes would work, not for sure.”

  “True,” Sharn said. “But we did trust the Humans to make it work somehow. Viper eyes are amazing technology. It must be like having a microscope in your head.”

  Shima laughed. “Trust you to find good even in disaster, Sharn. I don’t want a microscope in my head, just working eyes.”

  Sharn hugged her. “And now you have, but I don’t think the warriors back home will change your title at this late date.”

  Shima growled.

  “Don’t tease her, Sharn,” Chailen said. “You know how she feels about this Blind Hunter business.”

  “Foolishness,” Shima growled again.

  “You need to get passed that,” Chailen warn
ed. “It’s done now and nothing will change it. Besides, it’s proven useful already. You don’t think Kajetan would have given permission to just anyone to come here do you?”

  Shima had to admit that was true. Kazim was famous back home and an ideal candidate because of that. Varya had been chosen because he was a warrior and for his work with vipers during the war, but The Blind Hunter was the people’s choice. Famous, a heroic figure during the war, and tragic. It made Shima feel sick, but Chailen was right. The title opened doors that might never have opened without it. She would try not to spit when people called her a hero.

  When they reached the doors leading to the outside, Chailen and Sharn dropped back without discussion to allow Shima her moment. Shima appreciated the sentiment, but the greatest moment had already past—opening her new eyes to see light for the first time. Still, this was a first of another kind... sort of. It was the first time she would step out into an alien world and see it with her own eyes.

  Shima paused only briefly before opening the doors and advancing into the open. The first thing that surprised her was the time of day. The sky was purple edging toward black. The second thing was the sky again. So beautiful the stars, but Snakeholme had rings! The band of silvery light was amazing, and she gasped at the wonder of it.

  Chailen and Sharn joined her. Chailen hugged her, “Amazing isn’t it?”

  Shima flicked her ears in agreement. She gathered Sharn in with her spare arm and the three of them stood there watching the sky as it turned completely black and the ring brightened until it blazed in the heavens.

  “Gina told me the larger moon is called Gabriel,” Sharn said. “Its reflected light makes the ring shine so. The little moon is Uriel. There are stations up there for tracking and defence. She says there used to be three moons, but millions of years ago Gabriel smashed it to bits. The ring is made of the dust and debris from that cataclysm.”

  Shima could imagine the disaster. There would have been meteor showers and strikes for centuries after the event. Anyone living here back then would have been in extreme peril, but of course no one had been.

  “It’s beautiful,” Shima said.

  Chailen flicked her ears in agreement. “Let’s go in. Are you hungry?”

  Shima was. “I could eat a Shkai’lon, hooves and all!”

  Sharn laughed.

  They made their way home, though home was the wrong word. They had a small house on the base normally used for viper officers. It was a comfortable dwelling, not designed for Shan of course, but Gina had helped them furnish it to make it a better fit for them. They had plenty of cushions to sit upon, and the table had been lowered close to the floor as was proper. Carpets were thick and extravagant compared with the bare polished wood floors used at home. Shima secretly liked them while pretending that such luxury was decadent. When alone she often abandoned her sleeping mat or her cushions to recline upon the carpet, but she would never tell.

  Chailen hurried away to prepare food. She sometimes used the Human machine called autochef when they were in a hurry, but this time was a special day and they had nothing more to do. She chose to cook the food herself. They had brought supplies with them, but a surprising number of Human foods were edible by Shan. They tasted exotic and Shima enjoyed most of them, and wished she could try some of the meat animals on the hoof as it were, but they didn’t live wild here. They were all raised on farms, and it just wouldn’t be the same hunting on a farm. Not very... sporting? Was that the Human term? Whether it was or not, she was a hunter not a butcher.

  “Whatever shall we do tomorrow and all the tomorrows ahead?” Sharn said. “Now that you’re well, Shima, what will we fill our time with?”

  They were in the cooking area, what the Humans called the kitchen. It was well supplied with foods and the appliances used to prepare them. Shima busied herself with setting the table while Sharn peeled and washed vegetables, following Chailen’s instructions.

  “I don’t know,” Chailen said. “We can’t go home until Varya is ready, and even then we must travel on a Human ship. I don’t know when one is due to leave.”

  Shima flicked her ears in agreement. She would have to ask about that. She supposed it was time to decide many things. Now that the vipers had given back her life, she should be thinking about the future. Her life before the war had been all about her work. She was a scientist, and her life had been research into new variants of food crops. She had been an agricultural geneticist working at the centre for agricultural research on Child of Harmony near Zuleika when the Merkiaari attacked. As far as she knew, the centre was still there, safely sited among the farms used to test their ideas. The Merki had been uninterested in molesting it. No vermin to kill, Shima mused. In Merkiaari minds, any non-Merki species was considered vermin and must be exterminated.

  Research had been her life, and what she was trained for. It was the one thing she knew beyond doubt or question she was qualified to do, but it no longer drew her heart and soul. It was important work still, but it didn’t feel as important as it used to. Perhaps that was due to so many losses back home. Shima knew that it would take many orbits for the population of both worlds to fully recover. New efficient farming methods, though still useful, were no longer a priority in the elder’s opinion—in hers too, Shima thought glumly. With so much happening and with the Merkiaari on the move again, there were too many other things to think about.

  Was that the answer then? Should she consider the unthinkable and ask to change caste? It was rarely done, and those who did so were considered... flighty. If they needed to make a change, it must mean they were not properly schooled, or hadn’t properly considered the options and had made a hasty decision. Flighty.

  The choice of caste was a huge deal to a youngling; it was choosing the path your life would take. In her case, joining the caste of scientists and engineers had been a given, and not because her mother and father had been of that caste. She had always known where she was going, always planned to be a scientist, and had chosen her studies based upon her future choice of caste. Now she didn’t have any idea where she should go, and that was very unsettling for someone such as her. She liked having a goal and knowing how to achieve it. She had always been that way. Chailen could tell stories about her so serious sib that would have an entire house full of people rolling around in laughter. Yes, this decision should be about goals not profession, she realised. She needed a goal. Only then could she consider methods of achieving it.

  “Well as for tomorrow and other tomorrows,” Shima said. “I plan on going hunting. I’m out of condition and need to run. Do you want to come?”

  Chailen flicked ears in the negative. “You know me; I’ll trip over my own tail.”

  Sharn laughed and hugged his mate. “You’re not that bad!”

  Shima chuffed. Chailen was that bad actually, but only because she never practiced. All Shan were natural hunters, but it was still possible to be clumsy. Not honing one’s skills and instincts did have that effect. A case in point was Kazim. He’d been a real trial to Shima back on Child of Harmony when she tried to lead him to safety. Gina would call him a city boy, and Shima would have to agree. She doubted there could be a more urbanised Shan than Kazim.

  “I can teach you, Chailen. I swear I can teach you to equal father if you would apply yourself and give me time.”

  Chailen waved that away, her tail weaving in the complicated gestures that meant maybe you could, but I’m not going to let you. She always said that or similar when this came up. It was a polite way to acknowledge the offer and agree that Shima was skilled enough to do as she said, while at the same time declining it without giving offense. Chailen just had no interest in hunting. She was healer caste, and preferred saving life over taking it, even if the prey was a non-sentient food animal in the wild. For fun, she preferred caving with Sharn.

  Shima thought for a moment. “We could go exploring then. There must be caves.”

  Chailen’s ears pricked with interest. “The H
umans have lived here less than two hundred orbits. I don’t think they’ve explored everything yet.”

  Shima couldn’t understand that. From what she knew of them, Humans had an insatiable curiosity, always poking into things and wanting to know the reasons behind everything. Why wouldn’t they explore their world? All she could think of was that they had other things to do, like make war upon the Merkiaari. She could understand that, but their war until recently had been over for almost two hundred orbits. They’d had the time for other things, hadn’t they?

  “They’ve built cities here,” Sharn was saying. “They must have explored the areas near them.”

  “Maybe so,” Chailen said. “But there aren’t many of them. I saw the maps they gave Varya. Most of the planet is still regarded as wild and untouched.”

  Shima felt the pull of that. To hunt and explore the wilds would be such fun! But, Chailen would not enjoy that. Perhaps they could explore some caves until Chailen had her fill and Kazim returned, and then she could take him off into the wilds to teach him how to hunt.

  “I’ll ask about caves then,” Shima said. “I’m sure we can borrow supplies. We’ll need ropes and lights at minimum.”

  “We’ll have better than that,” Sharn said. “Gina told me that some of the vipers went climbing together after they became vipers. They wanted to test themselves on the mountains near here. It’s not the same as caving, but they’ll have everything we need.”

  Shima was sure they would, or if not, the vipers could have them made. Snakeholme had a small population, starting as it had from the families and friends of the original vipers based here, but it was a modern world with modern industry. Petruso City had shops; Chailen had visited most of them a time or two, and Humans enjoyed sports of all kinds. Shima had no money of her own here, but Gina said everything was free for the vipers and that extended to their guests. It wasn’t really free of course. The regiment paid for such things and considered the minor cost a tiny but important part of its budget.