Wanderlust (Sirantha Jax 2)

“He’s fine,” Doc says. “Just try to relax. You’re up next.”

Whether that’s the truth or a platitude, the guy relaxes his grip on me and fades out. I hope he isn’t dead. The gadget reassures me he’s stable for the time being, and I move on to the next patient.

Soon, we get into a groove. I see why they needed me now, or at least another pair of hands. I choose the next patient, based on need, Doc does patch work, and then Rose finishes up, sealing wounds and incisions. There’s also a clansman doing transport, moving patients from the hospital into the recovery area.

By the time we finish, I’m aching from head to toe. People who say being on the med team is easy ought to be shot. Of course that would just make more work for us, so maybe I could let ’em go with a warning.

Before I head back to the tent I share with Vel, I ask, “Why me?”

“You’re not clan,” Doc says quietly. “Do you really think I could ask someone who knew these men to help decide who lives and dies?”

I never thought of that. But yeah, the little gadget had determined two of the soldiers wouldn’t make it, regardless of treatment, so they got bumped to the bottom of the list. Rose shot them full of painkiller, and they died quietly, which was all we could do for them. I try to imagine someone who knew them, who had lived, worked, fought, and possibly loved those men, being asked to watch them die. My heart seizes up into a Gordian knot.

“I’m glad I could help.” My voice sounds rusty. “But I’m busted. I’ll be back in the morning if you need me again.”

“If you could.” He looks so damn tired, too, but he’s not leaving.

We find heroes, not on battlefields, but in hospitals that tend the injured. Sometimes I think it’s easier to fight than it is to heal. I check the recovery area one last time, making sure nobody needs anything.

Dina has finally come around. Thanks to her rugged constitution, they’ve developed an antivenom for those who survive Teras attacks. She can’t walk yet, but they’re hopeful. She doesn’t want me around, though. Dina isn’t unfair enough to lay all this on me, but she’s a bitchy patient, and I seem to rub her the wrong way, no matter my intentions.

I spend the fourth day working in recovery, changing bandages, fetching this or that, and generally entertaining crotchety soldiers who are convinced the war will be lost if they don’t get off their cots. March avoids me, and my heart breaks by millimeters. I should confront him. I will. When I work up the nerve.

And on the fifth day, Doc takes me aside.

“Things have slowed a bit, so I’ve had a chance to take a look at your test results, some of the data I couldn’t interpret before.”

“Oh?”

The bustle of clansmen going about their business muffles our words somewhat. In the distance I hear the discharge of weapons, echoing oddly through the tunnels. I’ve never been surrounded by war, not like this. It’s a precarious feeling, and I’m itchy with the need to get the hell out of here.

“I’ve got good news and bad news, Jax.”

I brace myself. “Bad first.”

“If you want to live, you have to stop jumping.”

Of all the things he could’ve said, this shocks me the most. We all know jumping will kill us someday; it’s sort of a given. “Yeah, I get that.”

Doc shakes his head. “No, I don’t think you do. You know how you’re receiving daily injections to combat that inexplicable bone condition?” I nod. He’s already told me that such diseases are rare in young people. “Let me try to put this in laymen’s terms. A normal human brain suffers irrevocable damage after repeated exposures to the stress of grimspace. You’re no exception to this. But you differ from other navigators in a DNA . . . mutation that permits you to cannibalize other physical resources to heal the damage you take.”

It takes me a few moments to process that. “When I pass out for three days after a bad jump—”

“That’s the unique metabolic process at work. But in order to heal, the resources must be taken from elsewhere,” he says with a grave look.

“So my body breaks down my bones to fix my brain, so I can keep jumping. And there’s no cure?” I can’t look at him. My gaze roves the crowd behind him, watching a man assemble shocksticks and taser pistols from spare parts.

“How could there be? I’ve never heard of a jumper who could do this, and I’ve studied thousands of medical records.”

He doesn’t need to spell it out for me. The next time I lapse into a near coma, there’s no telling what system might be ransacked in order to regenerate my brain. Vascular or respiratory pillage might kill me on the spot.

“There’s no way to regulate it?”

Doc shrugs. “Perhaps. This is uncharted territory, Jax. I might eventually be able to develop an implant to control what systems are tapped, defaulting to the less vital ones.”

The rest goes unspoken. That would require time and facilities, and right now, my welfare simply isn’t at the top of his list. He has a whole clan to care for, new wounded coming in daily, and a war raging around us. In the meantime I shouldn’t jump, or it will just get worse. I’ll die, just not like most jumpers.

So how the hell are we getting off this rock? I exhale shakily.

“What’s the good news?”

“Over time, we can repair the degeneration to your skeletal system,” he tells me. “Maintain the treatments as prescribed, and you won’t always be so—”

“Breakable?”

“That is not a word I’d apply to you.” He smiles faintly.

Well, he can’t see inside me. The man I love risks his life on an hourly basis, and he drifts further away with every heartbeat. Though I can’t articulate the impression, I’m losing him. Kill by kill, someone else trickles in to eclipse the light where he used to be.

He needs to walk away from this war. But March cannot excise his sense of obligation to Keri, springing from his inability to repay Mair, Keri’s grandmother, for everything she did for him. I remember his words, back on the water-logged world of Marakeq. I’d asked him why he was always in my head.

“It means our theta waves are compatible,” he’d said. “It’s almost always a one-way feed. I get impressions from other people, what kind and how deep depends on how disciplined their minds are and how much I want to know. Used to be uncontrollable, couldn’t shut it off.”

“How did you—”

“Mair. She wouldn’t teach me the higher forms, but she saw what a mess I was and taught me how to quiet my mind. Shut out the noise through meditation.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Before she took me in hand, I wasn’t even human, Jax. You have no idea how many people I’ve ended. Broke minds to set an example, for the hell of it, or just because I needed a quiet kill. I spent years on Nicuan, feeding their endless wars. By the time I stole a ship because they shorted my pay, there was nothing left. Mair rebuilt me, brick by brick.”

Oh, irony, you’re such a bitch.

“Thanks,” I tell Doc then. I think he reads something in my expression, but he doesn’t ask, thank Mary. “I’ll let you get back to work. I know you’ve got people a lot sicker than me to deal with.”

“I’ve prepared sixty days’ worth of your treatment, Jax. Just inject yourself once a day, and you should start to see some improvement.”

As long as I don’t jump. Fuck that, it would be kinder to kill me outright. I make myself smile and thank him. Turning, I lose myself in bodies going about their business. The clansmen are tough, stolid as rocks, and they seem to have adapted well to this lifestyle.

Sometime later, Jael finds me as I sit mechanically assembling weapons I’ll never use. This isn’t my fight; I’m just caught in the middle of it. But if I ever need to, I can get work on low-tech worlds where they make use of cheap human labor.

Part of me acknowledges that’s an exaggeration. I still have my post as ambassador, unless Tarn has washed his hands of me. I wouldn’t know at this point. They can always hire another jumper to ferry me from place to place, but that option rouses a sick, miserable feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“You look like your best friend died,” he says, dropping down beside me.

Given our current situation, that seems particularly tactless. I just shrug. I don’t feel like talking, particularly not to him. I can’t let myself bond with someone who reminds me so much of Kai.

He misinterprets my gloom. “Look, they seem to think Dina’s going to make it. Cheer up, won’t you?”

“Is it mandatory?” I’m not ready to share my prognosis with anyone. It’s bad enough that I have to haul a med kit around and shoot up like a chem-head.

“Nope. But this might help. We’re getting out of here. Two days, tops.”

“How?”

“Your Bug friend has some astonishing resources in that bag of his. We’ve been monitoring enemy transmissions, and they’re discussing a fallback, as the tunnel war isn’t going well. When they retreat, we’ll sneak out and head for the surface.”

“And be left wide open for Teras to pick off? Or any McCullough men that happen to be in the vicinity?” That might be the worst idea I’ve ever heard.

Jael sighs. “Give us a little credit, will you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I don’t have much faith left, I’m afraid. This scheme sounds stupid, dangerous, and highly likely to get me killed, full of adrenaline-inducing moments, and the hot rush of risk. Which means I should be all for it. Haven’t I always said I didn’t become a jumper to die old and gray? I stop protesting.

“It means we have a plan. I will get you out of here, Jax. You have my word.”

I manage a smile, but I don’t believe much in promises anymore either. “What about Dina? She’s not going to be ready to run in two days.”

If he suggests leaving her, I’ll punch him in the eye. I am not the woman from the vids. People are not disposable to me.

“That’s going to pose a bit of a problem,” he says. “But we’ll figure that out, too. I need to get back to Vel. Did you want to be in on the brainstorming?”

My brittle smile softens into something close to real. “Yeah. I would.”

He tugs me to my feet. “Well, let’s do it. Forget this,” he adds, sweeping an arm to indicate the dim, grungy encampment. “Soon it’ll seem like a bad dream.”

Sure enough, I have plenty of those.

* * *

CHAPTER 32

We’ve made our plans.

In four hours, we’re out of here. Vel and Jael have fashioned a back harness, and they’ll take turns carrying Dina. Now we just need to say good-bye to Doc, quietly, and collect March, not necessarily in that order. It goes without saying that I’m in charge of the latter.

He’s probably in some meeting, so I leave the other two and go looking for him. Chemical stoves emit a burnt polymer smell as I weave my way through the tents. This nomadic encampment has taken on certain clan characteristics by this point. They’ve allocated a training circle where the rehabilitating men spar to keep from killing each other, and the women occupy themselves across the way devising new uses for old rubbish.