“Let me confirm this with some tests,” Baker said. “I believe Anitonen, but it would be very valuable to have some independent confirmation.”
Juna translated for Anitonen, who nodded. “Let me know when you would like to be healed.”
“Thank you,” Dr. Baker said. “And thank you for linking with me. I have learned a great deal. It was wonderful to see my body like that, to feel directly so much of what I have been taught and observed indirectly. I wish I could share that with my colleagues and students. If such a resource had been available to me in medical school…” He shook his head and smiled.
“I’m glad I was able to help,” Anitonen said when Juna translated his words. “And I hope that this will help you too, Eerin. Perhaps now your people will let you out of quarantine.”
“It will take time,” Juna replied with a shrug. “Though it may take less time now. I think that Dr. Wu’s heart attack has changed things.”
Chapter 30
Wu s heart attack did change things. Four days after it happened, Bremen called Juna into a staff meeting.
“After discussing the situation with doctors Wu and Baker, I have decided to lift your quarantine, and remove your security escort. I think you’ve proved that you are not a danger to the rest of the crew. I understand that Captain Edison has already assigned you a cabin. You may move into it immediately.”
Juna was stunned. “Th-Thank you, sir. I appreciate this,” she managed to say.
Bremen smiled. “I apologize for making you wait so long, Dr. Saari, and I thank you for your patience and understanding. You are released from duty for the rest of the day so that you can get settled in your new quarters.”
Juna spotted Dr. Baker as she emerged from the meeting.
“Dr. Baker,” Juna said, “I wanted to thank you for helping to get me released from quarantine.”
“It was no problem. There’s absolutely no evidence that you pose any danger to the crew. Actually, Dr. Saari, I’m the one who owes you some thanks. I had that spot on my bladder biopsied. It was a very small precancerous lesion, so small they had trouble finding it. They burned it out with a laser, and I wanted to ask you to thank Anitonen for me.”
“Of course, Dr. Baker,” Juna said. “I’d be happy to. I’m sure she’d be glad to check and make sure that the laser surgery got it all.”
“If you could ask her to do that, I’d appreciate it. This allu-a is a fascinating phenomenon.”
Juna went back to her quarantine quarters. Laurie stopped by as she was bundling up her few possessions and helped her carry them up to her new cabin. It was a large, airy room with two wide windows looking out on the coastline. Captain Edison had given her a cabin in the quarters reserved for high-level staff.
“Please thank the captain for me,” Juna asked Laurie.
There was a knock on the door. It was the captain.
“Looks like you get to thank her yourself,” Laurie said, slipping out the door. “See you later.”
“Captain,” Juna said. “I appreciate the room assignment.”
The captain shrugged. “This was one of the few cabins with a bathtub,” the captain told her. Dr. Baker mentioned that you suffered from the lack of humidity aboard ship, and I thought this might alleviate it somewhat. Besides, I thought you’d like the view.”
Juna smiled. “I do. Thank you, Captain Edison.”
“Good,” she said. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”
Getting settled took only half an hour. She had very little to arrange: a few clothes and toiletries, the holograms her father had sent her, a polished na seed from Narmolom, a bamboo knife, and her computers. There was almost no material evidence of the time she had spent among the Tendu. The only changes were in her body and mind.
The bathtub was a Japanese-style ojuro, small, square, and deep enough for the water to reach up to her neck. With a sigh of relief, Juna started the water running, slipped out of her clothes, and stepped in. She turned a clear, bright turquoise as the hot water embraced her. Juna relaxed in the hot water and spent the next hour contemplating the joys of indoor plumbing and hot water.
It was nearly dinner time when she emerged from the tub. Someone had delivered a fresh set of uniforms while she was bathing. Juna hung them up, pausing, as she always did, to admire the deep forest green and black dress uniform of the Interstellar Survey. She decided to wear it to dinner, in celebration of her release from quarantine.
She put it on and appraised her reflection in the mirror. The deep green of her uniform clashed oddly with the yellowish celadon of her skin, and her bald head seemed naked and out of proportion to the rest of her trim, neatly clad image. Her features were leaner than she remembered, and her eyes seemed huge without her eyebrows. She looked delicate and fey. She darkened her skin till it was close to the shade of her original, brown skin. It wasn’t bad, she decided, just different.
A chime sounded, announcing that the mess hall was open for dinner. Juna closed the wardrobe door, and tugged the sleeves of her shirt out from under the cuffs of her jacket. She was looking forward to sharing a meal with other human beings.
Everyone in the mess hall stood and applauded as Juna walked in. She looked around in amazement.
“Thank you,” she said, as the applause died down. “Thank you very much. It’s good to be out of quarantine.”
She turned and joined the line waiting for food. Laurie came up beside her.
“We’ve saved you a seat,” she said, “over by the window.”
“Thanks,” Juna replied. She loaded her tray and followed Laurie to a long table near one of the windows. Bruce, Kay, Marguerite, and Patricia were there.
“I’ve been getting all kinds of requests for time with you,” Patricia told her. “Everyone on the ship has questions. Perhaps you should schedule some seminars with various divisions.”
“We’ll work out some kind of schedule tomorrow,” Juna decided.
The talk turned to shipboard gossip. Juna listened intently. She knew very few of the people involved, but it felt familiar and the sheer human-ness of it was comforting.
She turned to Bruce. “Tell me more about your nephew,” she said.
They spent most of the meal talking about their families. Like her, Bruce came from one of the satellite colonies. His family lived in one of the colonies clustered in the L-4 region. His parents had died in a shuttle accident, and his sister had married into a line marriage. His in-laws had adopted him as part of their extended family, and he spent most of his leave with his sister’s spouses and their children.
Juna told him about her father, how her mother died, how the harrowing experience of the camps had made her feel like an outsider among the sheltered children of the colony. She had joined the Survey, drawn by the thrill of new discoveries as well as the chance to be an outsider among other outsiders. Bruce was here because the pay was good. After another couple of trips, he would have enough saved up to buy a place in one of the better colonies, and maybe even enough for an extra fractional child-right, enabling him to become the father of two children.
Juna smiled wistfully. She had wanted children, but her marriage hadn’t worked out. She had been gone too often and too long. Bruce nodded, his warm brown eyes glowing with understanding.
Dinner was drawing to a close when Captain Edison and Dr. Bremen rose and walked to the podium at the front of the mess hall. The crowd grew silent.
“Dr. Saari, would you please come up here?” Bremen asked.
Juna rose and walked to the podium. She felt the weight of the Survey crew’s gaze on her, and was suddenly glad that she had chosen to wear her dress greens.