TAKING CARE
by
Michaele
Jordan
She went first to Grimly,
because he was her favorite. (What's there in a Frozen to favor, her colleagues
asked, but that was why she walked the Frozen—she cared.) He was active today,
busily turning his head this way and that, in earnest desperation, as if
seeking salvation. Sometimes she almost wondered if he were trying to warm. Not
likely. No one had ever seen a Frozen warm, but there were rumors. She absorbed
his signs. The sugars in his nutrient draw were high.
Nothing she could do about
it,
but it was interesting to note.
She wondered if the others
would
be active, too. It had seemed to her lately that they all grew active about the
same time, as if they were communicating. But that was so ridiculous, she’d
never dared mention it to anybody. Still, just in case, she continued to take
notes.
Next was Mollusk—her
second
favorite, because she was so symmetrical. No activity there; she was curled up
tightly like a little clam. Mollusk never, ever moved. But Ticker was
fidgeting, and Brown and Rock had high sugar draws. She made a few more notes.
After the Frozen, she approached
the Unreachables. They were not restrained, and moved about according to their
own inscrutable whims. Some would not keep still enough to let her take their
signs. Jerglish, for example, darted about as if he were trying to escape. When
she finally managed to slide an arm around him he shivered and shrank into
himself. She really believed someday Jerglish would be reached—he took such
pains to avoid her, so he must know she was there.
She met Cheer first, and
took it
as a happy omen (even though there were no such things as omens). Cheer was a
ray of sunlight. Nobody would ever reach her—her attention was forever focused
on something too wonderful to look away from.
Sugars were high in several
Unreachables, and several seemed to be more active than usual. But there was no
way to measure it, so she couldn’t be sure. She would have to devise some
parameters later, in her spare time.
“Keeper Mauve of Ashworks.”
She
jumped a foot and then turned in circles looking for a speaker. No one was
there. The voice must have come from her link. It had been so long since she’d
used the link that she’d forgotten all about it. She flicked it open, and the
voice continued, “Please report to Answering and Reflection.”
She’d never been summoned
before. Did she have to go immediately? It was a long way to Answering and
Reflection. Or could she finish up here first—she still had some things to do.
She was still debating it when Rickety flew by, spinning in circles so fast he
could not see where he was going. He crashed into a wall and fell over sideways
to lie twitching on the ground, emitting soft, bewildered cries.
She sighed. The link had
not
actually said it was urgent. She picked up Rickety, and steered him gently
toward the buffered zone, where he flung himself instantly into more mad
circles. Then she finished up, a little more quickly and less carefully than
usual perhaps, but completely enough that she could walk away with a clear
conscience.
Answering and Reflection
was
elegant and clean. No waste had ever been tracked onto those perfect, sparkling
floors. Mauve wished she had taken the time to polish her armor. Not that it
would have made any difference. She hadn’t upgraded it in years—armor was just
a formality in Ashworks. But compared to all the sleek, modern designs gliding
through the corridors of A&R, she felt distinctly dowdy. No one looked at
her, but she was sure there were snickers behind her back.
“I am summoned,”
she announced into
the electro-magnetic haze hovering over Directions and Destinations. The
spectrum shifted around her and she was elsewhere. That was new; the tech team
had been busy. She sighed. She’d been good at tech once, long ago.
"Enter, Former Keeper
Mauve." The voice was not coming from her link, but she still saw no one.
She checked to the right, and to the left. Nobody there. But straight ahead,
some distance away, in front of the data storage in the back, she saw. . . a
faint flicker. There was a distortion, a wavering of the image, like a heat
shimmer. Had they mastered invisibility fields? The tech team HAD been busy!
She adjusted her implants to an extreme visual wavelength. Yes, there was
somebody there.
Whoever it was, they surely
outranked her, so she transmitted a doubled
acknowledgement/acknowledgement-of-acknowledgement before entering. "Why
do you address me as Former Keeper?" she queried. "Is my service
deleted?" She advanced to a spot facing the cloaked figure. "I hope I
have not failed in my obligations."
There was a pause. The person
in
front of her moved to the left, and she turned to follow. There was a hiss and
a flash, and the cloaking faded. It was a test, to see if she would spot the
cloak. She wondered if she had passed or the tech team had failed. Whichever,
she found herself face to face with a tall male in armor that had to be state
of the art.
"Your service has been
exemplary," he assured her. "You are designated Former because you
have accumulated rank. You are hereby appointed Provisioner and will be
assigned to Second-from-Front-Lines Care, Cold-Sector." She struggled not
to gasp. Provisioner! And Second-from-Front—the very heart of Care! Everything
there was state of the art. She really would have to upgrade her armor. The male
was still talking. "What name shall I transmit to your associates?"
She froze. Simply froze.
She
could feel herself inwardly twitching. Surely she was transmitting distress.
"You do not have a name
selected?" he queried, almost gently. "That is unusually modest. Most
persons are better prepared for promotion."
"I always hoped to attain
Adjustor," she admitted. "I thought I might call myself Severly. But
. . ."
He snorted with amusement.
"Not appropriate for a Provisioner. Very well. I will simply tell your
team they are being assigned a new member. Be prepared to identify yourself
when you report for duty." He transmitted coordinates.
She was careful to accept
them
without comment, although she noticed she had been left little time to prepare.
She only responded, “Query permitted?”
“Permitted.”
“Who will replace
me in
Ashworks?”
There was a long pause.
“Purpose
of query?”
That startled her. “To
report
on/advise, re: ongoing conditions. Offer updates if useful.” Surely that was
obvious.
“Unnecessary. Ashworks
is
stable. No change has been reported in six cycles. A replacement should not
require support.”
‘A replacement’
he had said?
Suggesting none had been assigned? As of yet, surely. But . . . Translation all
the way from Keeper in Ashworks to Provisioner in Second-from-Front—the war
must be going badly. Very badly. No skilled replacements would be available for
Ashworks. Her replacement would be a Handler at best. Poor Grimly, poor
Rickety. No one would check their sugar draws. “If I may be excused to
prepare,” she murmured.
Armoring was busy. There
had
been troop movements, triggering a flurry of armor upgrades. And maybe a
difficult battle, generating numerous repairs. She waited in line, perusing
specs. So many designs and strengths! But there was no need to choose. She
summoned an image of her new unit to survey the models in use by her superiors,
her peers and her subordinates, then calculated an appropriate upgrade. Even
so, installation was a time-coming process. (Also a painful one. Apparently,
she had grown soft in Ashworks.)
By the time she emerged
she had
selected a name: Dark. She rolled it over in her mouth and spelled it out to
herself, reveling in the fit. Mauve had been pale and soft. But now she was
Dark, a bearer of sleek armor. She transmitted the upgraded name to her new
superior, in an intent-to-report, quickly, before she could second-guess
herself out of it. An intent-to-report was not actually required, since she
would be reporting shortly anyway, but it was a courtesy, and reflected respect
for tradition.
The response was immediate,
indeed, almost simultaneous. "Documentation processed. Scanning for your
approach. Accelerated arrival requested." Dark stiffened.
Second-from-Front should not need to be so eager. The war must be going even
worse than she had feared.
"In transit," she
responded, and submitted a transport claim. She was lucky. Traffic coming in
was heavier than traffic out, and she was assigned a slot promptly. The vehicle
was over-heated and smelled bad, which was, of course, irrelevant. When she
debarked, a small secondary vehicle labeled SECOND FROM FRONT LINES was already
in place, waiting for her, driven by a short male in battered armor. He did not
greet or acknowledge her, but transmitted—so quickly that the signal from the
closing door garbled his identification—"Surgery in progress. Stabilize
yourself." He took off at a speed that did, indeed, require stabilization.
She was not taken to her
unit's
Office/Shelter, but to a landing field, organized to receive wounded. Surgery
was not immediately visible, but may have been on the other side of triage,
where her guide deposited her. She had intended to signal thanks for the
escort, but he was gone before she had requested acknowledgement of arrival. No
acknowledgement arrived. Instead, a rack of injured appeared before her. She
designated three as minor, marked two more as Critical/Initiate Stasis, and
focused her attention on the sixth—he was too badly damaged even to survive the
stasis-prep. The rack had numerous stored tools, but no extra hands to assist,
not even a lowly Server.
She tried, but she lost
him. Her
first day—no, her first hour—at the new post and she had already lost a
patient. A very bad omen. Ashworks had left her ill-prepared for losing patients.
But she had no time to waste on such reflections. She dispatched the casualty's
armor to Recycling, and another rack of injured appeared before her.
A lesser creature might
have
lost track of the number of racks that appeared before her, but Dark took pride
in her lineage. Seventy-three racks were presented to her, the last only half
full. One hundred thirty-nine of the passengers required only minimal first
aid. With coordinates (which she had to request) and a tracking beam they could
convey themselves to the safety of Medical Shelter. Sixty-seven more were only
barely mobile if at all, and completely incapacitated, but not in immediate
danger. These she stabilized and set to rest on the outskirts of the landing
field to await transport.
There were two hundred thirteen
critical injuries. She thought it ironic that these were by far the easiest
patients to treat, since she lacked the equipment to address most of their
wounds, and had only to prep them and initiate stasis.
Fifteen were DOA. As such,
she
did not feel responsible for their deaths. Subtracting them from the arrivals
left a total of 419 living patients treated, of which she had only lost one.
Only 0.23866348448687 percent. Surely that should balance out the misfortune of
losing that one so quickly. There were no such things as omens.
"Greetings, Dark."
She whirled to find a tall
male
in white armor. "Greetings acknowledged and returned, Commander."
There was no mistaking the rank encoded in the transmission identification,
although this was not the commander she had expected to report to.
"Second-from-Front does
not
meet your expectations," he observed. "Perhaps you consider our
internal communications to be minimal and erratic."
She hesitated. He was correct,
but it would be disrespectful to say so. She glanced around the landing field
where many injured still awaited transport. "Emergency conditions override
details of protocol."
"Exactly so." He
advanced until he was immediately in front of her. Inches away, in fact.
"Lower your armor's frontal plating."
"But wh. . ." She had
not even finished her query when his transmission of compulsory compliance
slammed into her. The front of her armor opened at his command. His was
apparently already open—his penis had penetrated her before she could frame a
protest. His ejaculation was painful, but over quickly.
"I dislike
copulation," she informed him when he withdrew.
"Get used to it," he
replied. "There are very few females this close to the front."
"The regulations do not
specify any obligation on my part to submit to mating."
"The regulations specify
that you obey a superior officer. All male officers will command you to mate
any time they get close enough. If you stay close to me, you can probably avoid
servicing most of the others." He chuckled. "I would prefer that. I
like copulation very much. And if I succeed in fertilizing you, we will both be
transferred away from the front." A transport appeared over the horizon.
It bore scars of hard usage, and its flight path was slightly erratic, as if it
were overloaded. On reflection, she had to admit, getting away from the front
sounded good.
Getting away from the front
sounded better every day. Back in Ashworks, she had never registered just how
close Second-from-Front was to actual fighting. The Medical Shelter was within
earshot of explosions and barrages, and was routinely called upon to relocate
on short notice. She grew accustomed to injuries more horrific than anything
she had ever seen before. She ceased to see bad omens in casualties, and
instead counted herself fortunate when she succeeded in saving a few patients.
True to his word, the Commander
raped her several times a day. She ceased resisting, since whenever she strayed
from his sight she was tracked down by some other officer and raped anyway. The
food—unpalatable emergency rations—was insufficient. Luxuries were nonexistent.
Only armor and weaponry were plentiful—recycled equipment rarely made it back
to Central Distribution. She could not rest nights for the noise, and the reek
of blood and latrines which permeated the Shelter. Each morning, she stifled
her exhaustion with stimulants and reminded herself that memories of Ashworks
were unproductive. She remained productive. She was proud of that.
Nobody ever said so but
they
seemed to be losing the war, judging by the steady series of retreats. The
occasions when they were required to relocate grew more frequent, and the
notice they were given grew shorter. One day they received no notice at all and
an explosive crashed down onto the west end of Medical Shelter.
Dark stared at the sparking,
smoking mess, and for several entire seconds her mind went utterly blank. She
had never experienced such a thing before, and when she became conscious again
she was reminded uncomfortably of certain patients in Ashworks. Then she darted
forward, transmitting a broad band call for damage to be assessed and
casualties to be located. Almost immediately she spotted a damaged Handler,
spinning in disoriented circles.
Fortunately, most transports
were stored in the east hangar. But personnel reports were erratic. Until such
time as some higher rank reported in, Dark assumed command and directed the
uninjured to form teams: one to load materials and supplies for immediate
relocation, one to comb the wreckage for casualties and one to load casualties
onto racks for transport. She took personal charge of the team searching for
casualties.
Many of their highest rankings
had been clustered among the data-mech in Evaluation and Consensus, so a
disproportionate number had been caught in the blast. Two Commanders were
unrecognizable, their armor past recycling—only their implants identified them.
Four of her fellow Provisioners were also dead, plus five Adjustors. (Four more
Adjustors had survived but were badly injured.) Five Keepers were critically
injured, and four seriously so. A lot of the Handlers had been supervising a
patient rehabilitation session. Only eleven were injured at all, and only three
of those seriously. The servers had fared well—most had been rehabbing the
transports.
Several persons were still
unaccounted for. The area where the meeting had been held was flattened. It was
possible that some remains were so completely pulverized that they were reduced
to dust and effectively invisible, but that could not be proved, so further
search was indicated. But time was short, as enemy follow-up would doubtless be
arriving soon. Dark designated a short interval during which she and her team
would spiral out from the epicenter, searching the debris along the perimeter.
She nearly missed him. He
was
buried in rubble with only the tip of his transmitter emerging. She would have
dismissed it as a twig, except it did not tip over when a nearby rock was
dislodged. And just beside it, her searchlight glinted off something bright
white. She cleared some of the ejecta away, and there he was. His armor was
crushed to a point that suggested mortal injuries. His frontal plate had been
torn half off, taking a great deal of flesh with it. Blood had spilled out in
enormous quantities, and several of his organs were visible. Including his
penis.
She looked at that penis
and
found herself glad he was dead.
Or rather, almost dead.
He
looked at her. He transmitted to her. "If you had just gotten pregnant,
like I told you, we'd both be home by now." She stared at him. Was he
attempting humor? Or manipulation? And what did he mean by home? No matter. She
reached down, and broke off his transmitter. A slot containing his Command disk
was exposed immediately beneath it. She plucked that out and inserted it behind
her own transmitter.
She noted a thin line of
blood
continuing to trickle from beneath the remains of his frontal plate. She picked
up a rock and threw it straight down hard. When she was satisfied he was dead,
she transmitted as widely and loudly as she could, "Commander located,
assistance required." The retrieval team arrived with a rack, designated
the Commander as deceased, and stripped his armor for Recycling. "Conclude
search," she called out. "Enemy follow-up imminent. Move out."
She hopped onto the rear of the rack, and they sped to the transports, which
were already firing up their engines.
En route to a safer location,
she reflected on the late Commander's words. 'Pregnant,' he had said. A very
peculiar word choice. It was so old-fashioned that she thought to check the
array for archaic language. She also found the word, 'Home' there. It meant the
place a person belonged. Had Ashworks been her home? The way to get home, he
had said, was to get fertilized. She checked the regulations section of the
array, and found that he had been correct. A fertilized female was routinely
transferred to Safe Haven, in some cases along with the male that had
fertilized her.
The Commander had last raped
her
shortly before the attack. She might be harboring surviving sperm. Later, when
relocation of Medical Shelter was complete, she shut herself up in Chemical
Intervention and opened her own frontal plate. It took some time, and all the
dexterity she could muster, but when she was finished, she was reasonably
confident she was fertilized.
When she reached Safe Haven,
she
took the name Greenly. She had to face a Judgment Panel, of course, but she
could honestly report that she had never voluntarily consented to mating. She
was able to add (even under Truth Scrutiny) that the late Commander had
deliberately intended to fertilize her in the hope of escaping the front lines.
He was posthumously censured, demoted and shunned. She, on the other hand, was
absolved of all blame or taint of cowardice and offered Honorable Revocation of
Duty.
She declined, saying that
she
would prefer productive work, even during the enforced inactivity of a long
incubation. Perhaps, she suggested, a return to Ashworks? The request was
denied, since it would have required a demotion back to Keeper. She was offered
instead a promotion to Commander in charge of Central Care, which included
Ashworks, Hopeworks and Remembrancing. The former Central Care Commander had
never been replaced after his promotion to Second-from-Front, Bridge-Point
Sector.
She visited Ashworks more
often
than her duties technically required, training the Handlers to function as
Keepers, checking sugar draws and searching for activity patterns. Sometimes
she just rested, watching Rickety spin and wondering what explosion had left
him so permanently disoriented. She often transmitted to Grimly—just as if she
thought he could hear her—that he need not struggle to warm, he had earned an
Honorable Revocation of Duty. It seemed to her that his head turned more slowly
and his face grew less stern when she did so. And many, many times she followed
after Cheer, hoping that the embryo within her might manage to perceive
whatever it was that Cheer was so inexplicably happy about.
The End
