“He has lost a lot of cartilage. Rebuilding the nose will be difficult.”
She gestured for a probe from Janir. Gently, she examined the boy’s cheek.
“The damage to the left cheek is severe. Immobilizing it while it heals will be a major concern.” She continued her examination, adding, “Fortunately, there is no sign of damage to the underlying bone.”
She sighed and looked at the boy’s chest wound. “The chest cavity is intact-that is good. It is a flesh wound. We will have to leave it open and irrigated to ensure that there is no infection.”
She turned her attention to the boy’s arm. “Some of the muscle has been removed here,” she said. She looked at Janir. “You will irrigate with saline solution and bandage here, too.”
“Him? What about you?” Purman asked, sitting up on his bed.
“We need three units of blood,” Wind Blossom repeated in answer. “You will give the first.”
The door opened, and a competent-looking young woman entered the clean room, bringing with her the faint smell of starsuckle, the Pernese hybrid of honeysuckle.
“Emorra”-Wind Blossom nodded to the woman, and Purman was struck by their resemblance-“will donate the second unit, and I, the third.”
“But-” Purman objected.
Wind Blossom silenced him with her upheld hand. “I will stitch his facial wounds before I give the blood.” Her lips curved up in a shadowy grin. “It is fitting. Kitti Ping’s daughter and granddaughter should help Tubberman’s son and grandson.”
“And,” she added as Purman started another objection, “she and I are the only other two suitable blood donors available.”
“You are too old, Mother,” Emorra objected. “I shall donate two units.”
“Who is too old?” Wind Blossom snorted. “What do you know? You never studied medicine.”
“You know better,” Emorra corrected. Carelly arrived with a tray and a cup of tea.
“That was genetics, not medicine,” Wind Blossom said. Emorra’s eyes flashed.
Purman and Janir looked askance at the two women. “Please,” Purman said anxiously. “My son.”
Wind Blossom spared one more moment to glare at her daughter. “Always a disappointment you were to me,” she muttered before she bent over the boy. She worked quickly, starting with the lacerations of the forehead. Gently she teased the open wounds together.
She stitched the dermis and subcutaneous fat together with polydioxanone-a synthetic absorbable suture-and closed the epidermis with synthetic polyester sutures. She made her stitches small and as few as she could; there was even less suture material than she had feared.
Janir monitored the boy’s vital signs, while Latrel supervised the direct transfusion of first Purman’s and then Emorra’s blood.
When both units had been transferred to the boy, Wind Blossom said, without looking up from her work, “Carelly, take Purman and Emorra out of here, make sure they both have wine and cheese, and take some rest.”
An hour later, Wind Blossom laid aside her tools and walked wearily to the other bed. “My turn now, Latrel.”
Janir and Latrel exchanged worried looks. “The boy is-” Janir began.
Wind Blossom cut him off. “He needs the blood. I don’t.”
Latrel pursed his lips. “Emorra may not have studied medicine, but I have. A unit of blood at your age is not a good idea.”
Wind Blossom looked up at the young intern. “Latrel, there is nothing more I can teach you to do with the supplies we have left,” she said slowly. “The boy’s wounds came from a watch-wher, my ‘mistake.’ If it’s to be, then nothing would suit me more than for my blood to redeem my error.” When she saw that the intern still looked unconvinced, she added, “And it’s my choice, Latrel.”
“Very well,” he replied, his tone resigned but his face showing his worry.
Wind Blossom winced as he inserted the needle into her vein. As her blood began to flow into the mutilated boy, she sighed, and remembered nothing more.
It was always the same dream.
“How could you say that the Multichord songbird of Cetus III is my greatest success?”
That honors had been heaped upon Kitti Ping for her work in developing the hybrid, which had so neatly averted the worst ecological disaster of the Nathi Wars, was not answer enough.
“When are we done?” Kitti Ping prodded when Wind Blossom would not answer her first question.
“Never,” Wind Blossom heard herself dully repeating.
“Why is that?”
“Because today is the mother of tomorrow,” Wind Blossom said, spouting another of her mother’s sayings.
Kitti Ping’s eyes narrowed. “And what does that mean, child?”
“It means, my mother, that our work today will be changed by what happens tomorrow.”
“And only those who anticipate tomorrow will find rest in their labors,” Kitti Ping concluded. She sighed, her symbol of utmost despair in her daughter. “The Multichord was nothing compared to the leechworm.”
Wind Blossom schooled her face carefully to hide any trace of her thoughts: Here it comes again. Aloud she said, “I consider the Multichord the obvious representative of the entire symbiotic solution you created, my mother.”
Kitti Ping allowed her gaze to soften-a little. “You are in error. The leechworm, the ugly eater of unwanted radiation, was the true solution to the problem. The Multichord was a felicitous symbiont embodying both a guardian for Cetus III’s pollen-spreading systems, and a suitable predator for the leechworms, allowing us to quickly concentrate the deleterious radioactives in a controlled sector of the biosphere.”
Wind Blossom nodded dutifully. Behind her eyes she remembered the awards citing the Multichord of Cetus III as the First Wonder of the Universe. They had been such an elegant solution to the radiation left by the nuclear horror that the alien Nathi had rained down upon Cetus III in their attempt to eradicate all humanity-an attempt that would have succeeded if not for Admiral Benden.
Wind Blossom remembered the marvelous multitonal choruses that had thrilled the night air and brought smiles to all the survivors of that horrible war, the sheer beauty of the rainbow-colored birds, built upon the original hummingbird genotype, as they flitted like the little bees they protected from one plant to another, pausing occasionally to eat any stray leechworm that threatened to transport radioactives into those areas already reclaimed.
The dream changed. “Why did you make the watch-whers?”
Mother, Wind Blossom thought, you know why I made the watch-whers. They were part of the original plan.
“Why did you make the watch-whers, Wind Blossom?” The voice was not Kitti Ping’s: It was deeper.
Wind Blossom opened her eyes. Sitting beside her was Ted Tubberman’s son, Purman.
She sat up slowly. She was in her room. Purman was seated beside her bed, looking intently at her.
“Your son, how is he?” she asked.
Purman’s eyes lightened. “He is recovering. Your Latrel had to dose him with fellis juice so that he wouldn’t talk and dislodge the sutures in his cheek. His chest and arm wounds are healing nicely.”
Wind Blossom raised an eyebrow.
“You have been unconscious for nearly two days,” Purman told her. “You really were too old to be a donor.”
“My daughter?”
Purman’s face took on a gentler expression. “Emorra did not leave your side until she collapsed into sleep herself. I had Carelly take her to her rooms.” His expression changed. “I think you treated her harshly. Was Kitti Ping like that?”
Wind Blossom examined his face before slowly nodding. “It is a great honor the Eridani bestowed on us.”
“It’s a curse,” Purman growled. “This whole planet’s a curse.”