Chapter Chapter Fourteen

All Rim World Conglomerate and military personnel will refrain from intimate inter-species unions of any kind.

RWC MANDATE 5A The Second Visitor Brother Ortega leaned back against the wall, the bench’s faux-marble seat beneath him cool and unyielding. Yes, much better. The pain in his back lessened somewhat. He let out a long sigh. Maybe I’m getting too old for this, he thought. Many men his age in the RWC had already retired although sixty-three wasn’t that old and some of the newer regen treatments promised a longer, healthier life. In any case, the hospice provided a handsome retirement package for its employees. This wasn’t the first time he had thought about getting out though, in general, he was fit and in good shape.

“Why don’t you go to your quarters and get some sleep?” Sister Marsha had admonished him earlier. “That martyr complex will be the death of you! The orderlies and I can cover.”

Which, at this moment, seemed like good advice. He didn’t particularly care for the midnight shift anyway. He was only filling in for Brother Michael who had gotten sick. Some Senitte bug or something, nothing life-threatening. Some native foodstuffs still didn’t agree with the Terran intestinal microbes. Michael, no doubt, had forgotten to take his monthly allergy injection (Ortega would have to talk to him and Nicolas. Their lapses of late had certainly caused enough problems for him for one night! Ah, youth).

Ortega knew, a strict adherence to interstellar health regulations affected more than just this hurting nurse/attendant. As silly as it sounded, Contact had almost failed before the local food allergies had been brought under control. He grimaced at the memory of eating burra fruit when he had first arrived here three years ago. Without his injection or the eventual natural immunity which would develop, he had gotten quite sick.

Serves an old man right, he thought with a smile. Who am I to chastise Michael?

Oddly enough, the natives had remained perfectly healthy, their own metabolisms unaffected by any Terran, and most other off-world, foods. In fact, the Senittes had developed passions for certain ‘delicacies’ like pasta, rortin, and yogurt. Alpha-Seni had proven all the usual Contact predictions, assumptions, models, and workups wrong.

Right there, in Ortega’s opinion, was a reason for a permanent scientific presence on the planet. Possible immune system enhancer research, cures for still-prevalent diseases, longevity matrix studies. Why not? But New Terra and the other allied worlds had deemed Alpha-Seni a port-of-call, a stopping-off-point for the outer rim worlds which held more profit and trade. Alpha-Seni was essentially a tourist attraction in the Rim World Conglomerate and, for the most part, nothing more.

The only saving grace in Ortega’s mind was Alpha-Seni wouldn’t be exploited on a grand, organized scale, its resources ravaged. At least not yet. Ortega thanked God for little favors as he once again tried to reconcile his mixed feelings on the subject.

Never mind. That was past and, though Ortega tried to keep up on current events, he wasn’t really a political animal. For the present, he had more immediate matters to consider.

He was tired and still shaken. The attack by Arshelle had unnerved him not so much for its ferocity but rather for the immediacy of it. He could have been killed, just like that, by one of his patients, no less.

No, patient wasn’t the right term. ‘Interest’. That’s how Sister Marsha had referred to Arshelle. It was true. Ortega had been intrigued by this case. Initially in a coma, the woman had recovered enough to lapse into periodic states that were once described in the popular lexicon as ‘certifiably insane’. Babbling, incontinent, alternately hyper-violent and morosely sullen. Her thought processes during these ‘spells’ were frighteningly primitive.

Her only family, a sister and a recently deceased father, could not afford any other treatment and, so, as is the case with such fringe types, the hospice took Arshelle in. “Please. Just try to make her comfortable,” the sister had said. “In time we may be able to afford better medical treatment.”

Arshelle’s sister, Behoola, had said Arshelle had been involved in an accident, had hit her head. But Brother Ortega, with his medic and nursing training, didn’t think that was the case. Some trauma had been involved, yes, but he had a feeling something more drastic had caused Arshelle’s condition.

His eyes wandered to the second floor, curious. For two years (Senitte years, he reminded himself), he and the other members of the staff had made Arshelle ‘comfortable’. The money kept coming in, as much as the family could afford. Up to this point, it had been enough to keep Arshelle fed, bathed, cleaned and, now with her periodic attacks, medicated, and the Brothers and Sisters of Mercy had done their job. But, aside from Behoola, Arshelle had received no other visitors.

Until tonight.

A short time after Behoola left, a man had come to the door, a fellow Terran. Brother Ortega, despite the aching in his back and head, had answered the bell. The man looked somewhat disheveled in T-shirt and trousers, but had been polite and soft-spoken. “Is there an... Arshelle Chaut here?” he had asked. He held his shade-hat in his hands, wringing it ever so slightly.

Still not fully recovered from the attack earlier this night, Ortega must have conveyed his surprise by the look on his face. “I’m an old friend,” the visitor had quickly added. “I’ve, ah, been away and just heard.”

Fine. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary surely.

“Yes, well. I’m sorry to say Arshelle isn’t in the best of health.”

The man nodded. “So I’ve gathered.”

“Would you sign our register please? And, you understand, an orderly will have to accompany you into the room.” At the man’s questioning look, Ortega shrugged. “Regulations. Our patients’ welfares must be protected. Plus, some of their conditions could pose a threat to visitors. Arshelle is one of these, unfortunately.”

The man’s eyes flickered upward to the front door camera as he signed the visitors’ register. “Of course,” he said. “I understand.”

Yes, nothing suspicious. Yet now, as the door to Arshelle’s room opened and the man emerged, hat still in hand, eyes downcast, glancing back quickly at the orderly/guard following him from the room, Ortega thought his movements and manner something other than normal.

Caramba, I’m tired, he thought, rubbing his eyes. This has been an unusual night.

The man descended the stairs and paused at the door. “Are there cameras in all the rooms?” he asked tentatively over his shoulder.

“Only certain ones. Those are assigned for our, umm, problem patients.”

Almost as an afterthought, the man turned toward Brother Ortega, his features grim, his manner shaken. “Brother,” he said. “Is there any chance of recovery?”

Ortega slowly got up and took a couple of shuffling steps toward the man. “Yes,” he said. “In a more comprehensive facility, with the correct treatments. Of course. As for now...” He shrugged, too tired to give any false hopes. The Hospices were never intended to be any more than an intermediate healthcare step. They and their adjoining clinics were not designed and maintained to be complete medical facilities. But, for what they did do to strengthen the healing processes, both mental and physical, their success rate was eighty-nine percent. Not bad, considering.

Yet, there was that other eleven percent. He’d have to reevaluate Marsha’s assessment. Maybe Arshelle should be locked up. Her outbursts were too dangerous and unpredictable, to herself and others.

The visitor nodded thoughtfully. “Money,” he said softly. “I see. Thank you, brother.” He paused then and winced. Like Ortega, the man seemed to have a problem with his back.

“We have a clinic next door which is now run under our auspices,” Ortega offered helpfully. “If you’re having a problem...”

“Thank you, brother,” the man said, not turning around. Goodnight.” With that, he turned and walked out the door.

Brother Ortega gingerly touched his own back. Yes, maybe he would go to bed. No need for the clinic’s services; he had refused them earlier. There was a med he could take for the pain which would also help him sleep and, by morning, he would be fine. Sometimes pain helped him to reestablish his purpose with the hospice. He remembered from reading historical and archival texts that such discomfort was an old custom among the devout. Self-flagellation, scourging, or abasement, something like that.

Don’t be ridiculous. He realized he really could be a ‘stiff old turd’ as Marsha had called him. Sometimes the religion he had turned to in his youth could overwhelm him.

Despite his convictions, Ortega was still open to other possibilities, however. His mother had been a bruja, a worker of magic, while he grew up on the Beta Omatedon colony. Though he had renounced most of that superstitious upbringing (in fact, his mother’s ‘profession’ had been a deciding factor for him to enter the more ‘rational’ career as an attendant/nurse), as a child he had seen his mother perform certain acts that defied explanation. There were times even now when he wondered what was real and what was not.

It irritated him to realize that such childhood experiences still mattered to him. Tonight wasn’t the time for such ruminations, though. He was tired, his emotional guard down. Tonight, he would confer with Marsha, take the back med and forget all about what had happened with Arshelle. First, though, he thought. I’ll ask Michael if anything unusual transpired while our visitor was with Arshelle. Not exactly per regulations but...

He paused with a quick, unexpected smile. It has been quite interesting tonight, he thought. Despite everything, quite interesting indeed.