Chapter 8
I spend the days until our arrival on Earth developing a prosthesis for Shazuul.
The Sethari is the only one, who does not accept my self-imposed isolation. I hide in my room, because the blue lines are spreading further and further over my whole body, and because the side-effects of the virus are getting stronger. The kitchen boy drops a tray off in front of my door three times a day, and he is the next one in whose head I land. His knocking wakes me up, after a short and restless sleep, and before I know what is happening, I am seeing the world through his eyes. It is like an irresistible pull, throwing me into him for less than a blink of an eye. Fear of the scientist’s daughter, curiosity about why I am keeping my distance from everyone else, but also a perverse satisfaction at disturbing me in my seclusion – all of these rush over me. And then I am myself, shivering and wondering if I will ever be able to be among humans again. From that moment on, I make sure that I am awake when the time to eat approaches.
While everyone else keeps their distance from me, Shazuul remains stubborn. He comes over again and again, knocks on my door and tells me in his choppy way what the crew is up to, and what Hazathel and Johar are doing to keep busy (they are spending most of their time in the training room thrashing at each other – no wonder Shazuul would rather be with me.) It is strange, but I find his company to be pleasant. Maybe it is because the two of us are now outcasts. He with his stump of a sucking snout and I with the virus in my body, and everything that it brings with it. We communicate using hands and feet, and the few bits he knows of my language. When we are talking, I can almost forget that he is a Sethari and feeds on energy. Do I pour my heart out to him, because of his limited knowledge of my language?
At some point, I ask him how he is able to get nutrition, and he shrugs. “Left overs,” he says with his squeaky voice. I look at him questioningly. “Depot,” he clarifies and pats his stomach. I understand: Sethari are able to store the energy they suck in for a certain time. “How long …,” I ask and his little eyes narrow. He raises his hands in question. “One month, two,” he answers, and I gulp.
“I am sorry,” I blurt out, but at that moment I have an idea. I am a certified surgeon, just like everyone else on my father’s team, and I have performed amputations in the past. Why couldn’t I create a body part, instead, to switch things up? I can’t stop thinking about it, and the next day, I ask him if I could examine the rest of his sucking snout. I try to explain my plan to him, without giving him too much hope, because there is a real possibility that I will fail. His gratitude and trust, both of which I haven’t earned, are reason enough to make me want to try.
I have no idea if Shazuul will reject the new organ. It is one of the risks, and I try to explain everything to him in detail. “I don’t even know if it will work,” I tell him and try to find the right words. “You could die, or your body might attack the new organ. Do you understand me?” He looks at me questioningly, and so I try to explain it a different way. At some point, he loses patience and grabs my hand. He puts it on his forehead, and after a short, instinctual moment of disgust over his rubber skin, I give in. Then … he somehow opens his mind and asks me to come in. I don’t know how to explain it. I feel the pull, but it feels more controlled and slower. And when I am in his head, it is different, too. He knows that I am there, and is trying hard to relax. His thoughts are foreign, but not nearly as frightening as the thoughts of a human who has no idea that I am there. Maybe this is because Shazuul is censoring his thoughts and only letting me see certain things that won’t scare me. The strongest feeling is his hope. He wants to live, and wants to be healthy and free again. If it were up to him, he would not want to see any members of his race again. I start to panic when I realize that I have no idea how to get back out of his head. He gives me a gentle push – at least, that is how it feels – and I am back inside my body, in my head.
Shazuul seems to be excited, because he repeats two words over and over: “Cassie” and “practice.” This time, I recover more quickly from having been somewhere else, and ask him what he means. “Are you trying to tell me that I should practice this …” I flail my arms, because I have no words for these scary abilities, “stuff? With you? With Cassie? But Cassie isn’t here. She is on Earth.”
“Practice,” he repeats and puts my hand, which I turn over to him willingly, back on his forehead. I have to turn away, because I am more than touched. He is a Sethari, and other than Johar, he is the only one who has shown me any kindness. I double my efforts and work through every night, so the surgery will be a success.
We still have fifteen days until our arrival on Earth. I need to figure this out before then. I decide to take advantage of the nighttime and sneak into the unused and unguarded sick bay. I prepare the operation, look in the transplant boxes, which are stored on board, for something that I could use, and experiment feverishly with human skin and a layer of fat that will give the whole thing its shape. Finally, I build a structure that has nerves in it and is sufficiently stable. Four days before our arrival on Earth, I run a test to see how the anesthetic will affect Shazuul’s body. Surprisingly, the anesthetic works the same as it would on a human of the same weight and age, and this gives me new food for thought. Humans, cyborgs, Sethari – maybe they resemble each other more than I have always been led to believe.
While Shazuul is lying on my bed, anesthetized, I wonder feverishly if I should let Johar in on my plan. Do I need someone to assist me during the operation? Better safe than sorry, so I knock on his door. He opens it and raises his eyebrows in question when he sees the gently snoring Sethari. I wait for him to ask me what I have gotten myself into this time, and brace myself for his probing questions. Once again, Johar proves that he is completely unpredictable.
“You really want to give him a new sucking snout?”
“How do you know that? Who told you? Is it impossible to hide anything from you?”
He raises his hands in a gesture that probably means “peace,” as my questions hit him. He grins, and my heart jumps. How long has it been since I have seen him smile? Too long, much too long. I would operate on Shazuul a hundred times, what the heck – a thousand times, just to see that smile again.
“He told me himself,” my cyborg says. Something that looks suspiciously like appreciation is shimmering in his eyes, and I grow dizzy. This time, it isn’t nausea making the world spin, but pure happiness. At the same time, I hate myself for allowing his appreciation to make me so insanely happy. Not because he is a cyborg, but because he is a man, and I have always thought of myself as an independent woman. “I assume you need my help with the transplant?”
“That would be nice,” I admit. “You would need to assist me, hand me swabs, needle and thread – things like that. Do you know your way around an operating room?” I want to bite my tongue off, because of course he knows his way around an operating room. He has been on the operating table often enough, himself, and since one assumes that cyborgs cannot feel pain, probably without any narcotics.
“It’s okay,” Johar says when he sees my horror. “Of course, I will help you. When do we start?”
“Tomorrow,” I reply and am surprised how easy that was. We look in each other’s eyes silently for a minute, and my cyborg is the first to say something.
“There are a few things that I cannot explain to you, even if I would like to. Not because I don’t trust you, but … it isn’t my decision alone.” He cuts my questions off, by continuing on quickly. “I have actually told you too much already. Can you be patient, long enough until we find Cassie Burnett?”
I hesitate; much too long, obviously, because his eyes darken. He raises his hand, as if to reach for me, but I evade his touch.
“It comes down to whether I trust you or not,” I say. He must have read the answer on my face, because lowers his hand and smiles.
“Trust me, Mara,” he says and, with those words, he leaves me and the snoring Shazuul behind.