Sergei Lukyanenko - The Genome

Alex gazed into the sky, and it was irregular.

Unprecedented.

“I never thought it would be beautiful,” he said. “It looks as though an enormous dragon, with moss-covered scales, is hanging above the planet.”

Only a vending machine near the hospital gates could hear these words. The bright little face of a holographic advertising screen frowned in puzzlement. Even if there were any moss or scales for sale, the electronic vendor prudently didn’t offer them.

The quiet hospital lounge was as cozy and peaceful as any human hospital would be. The walls were painted in soft colors, the floors covered with a thick rug, the lights dimmed. Japanese or Japanese-style engravings depicted scenes from the life of the first planetary colonists.

Having approached an info-terminal, the pilot entered his identification and the goal of his visit.

“Alex Romanov, you are allowed a brief visit,” politely reported the terminal. “Please wait to be escorted…”

“Jenny!” he cried, not listening to the rest of the robot’s sentence. A woman, walking down the hall in an olive-colored robe, stopped, looked at the pilot in surprise.

A smile of astonishment lit up her face.

“We’ll discuss this later, Yoko,” she said to her companion, a very young girl with the features of a surgeon-spesh. The girl, not hiding her curiosity, looked the pilot over, lifted her eyebrows with a gentle, scoffing sound, and continued on her way.

“Alex? What…” The woman stopped short, then nodded, understanding. “She’s quite all right. Our best doctors have been working on her.”

“Maybe I’ve come to see you, rather than the Zzygou?”

“Very funny.”

She shook her head, came closer to him.

“Honest.”

“If you knew that I’d returned to the hospital. But I’ll bet you didn’t.” Dr. Watson cocked her head. “Well, even if you did…”

A kind of awkward silence followed. The rainbow-colored streams of the fountain in the middle of the lounge sparkled. The water murmured softly. Two stern female nurse-speshes with expressions of deep concentration on their faces passed as quietly as ghosts in their soft shoes. A stretcher holding a moaning patient from the trauma ward rushed silently by. A young paramedic, sitting on a small collapsible side chair, was saying something soothing to the patient.

If this world had a less appropriate place for mutual teasing, it would surely be hard to find.

“Of course, I didn’t know that. Forgive my bad joke.” Alex bowed slightly and spread his arms in a gesture of apology. “Did you really get tired of being a detective’s aide?”

Touching his hand, the woman softly prompted the pilot to follow her.

They had to submit to complete decontamination, even though human diseases were no threat to the patient. They were allowed to enter the ward only after a five-minute cycle and a thorough disinfection control. This patient was so special that the planetary government preferred to play it safe.

The naked body lying in the intensive care pod still resembled a human. Even the middle pair of limbs seemed to be some sort of practical joke, a trick of some unknown prankster. The wounded arms and legs looked normal already, though complete regeneration of the plasma-burnt sinews would, no doubt, take a while yet.

The Zzygou opened her eyes and looked at the visitors.

A barely noticeable semblance of a human smile appeared on her face. She probably was really pleased to see them. Or maybe the former companion of the princess just kept imitating human emotions?

“I’ve been trying to come see you for three days now. As soon as they let me out of the isolation room, I came to the hospital.” Alex bowed apologetically.

“Fank you,” said the representative of the alien race, perhaps the only one in the human territories now. Her tongue had already undergone a restoration course, but speaking remained difficult for her. “Zhe ozher appreciay you vizhi, shervan…”

Her smile turned the last word into bitter irony.

“We’re always happy to serve you, Sey.”

This was the name she was destined to go by, now that she had lost her senior companion. And probably for the rest of her life. She also would have to forsake the thought of an eventual return to the fold of her own civilization. The youthful “bees” always chose their life’s direction and their companions once and for all. This was, perhaps, the very root of the strength, as well as the weakness, of their civilization.

Softly pushing the pilot aside, the former detective-spesh’s aide silently walked up to the patient, checked a monitoring device, and nodded with satisfaction.

“Would you like me to tell you about what happened to the rest of the crew?” Alex somehow hoped that this would be an appropriate topic for conversation. “Are you interested? Well, the navigator, um, the male human with a braid and a painted face, has already got a job on another ship… and not alone, but with our female doctor.”

Alex was glad to see a shadow of emotion on her weary, pain-wracked face.

“Shavage woma…”

Though barely able to move her tongue, she did, nonetheless, manage to express the strength of her feeling.

“Yes. That is, if we forget that she has saved your life.”

“You’re correkch, huma.” Sey gave a feeble nod. “I harbor go anger. Zhe Ozherzh were her arch-foe. But she overpower hershelf… Och everyong ish capabuh of zhach.”

“O’Hara left in an unknown direction, having bought the criminal’s body.”

The alien wasn’t interested in this fact, which meant so much to Alex. The young fighter-spesh, as well as the piece of meat into which the murderer had been turned, were already a past stage of Sey’s life.

That is what always happens. Alex thought that between two individuals, even if they belong to the same race and culture, the names and words which are crucial to one person mean nothing to the other, and vice versa. It’s such a peculiar thing—speech. After all, you can express anything orally, or on paper… But the probability is high that you will be misunderstood.

Only a thin thread of words connects all intelligent beings into one whole, allowing them to understand each other. And what a shame it is when you try, over and over, to say something really important, but meet no understanding. The truth is always different for each person, so that a trifle of a joke might lead others to pay attention and take interest, while your pain and sorrow remain unaddressed. There are exceptions, of course, but they are monstrously rare.

“She became your firsh pashio, but way choo laich…” said Sey unexpectedly, half-closing her eyes. “We ofchen have zhach happeh, choo…”

“I don’t know how you came to understand that, but thank you,” the pilot replied. And then the former detective’s aide bestowed a look upon him, the likes of which he had never known before. “The only person I don’t know anything about…”

“Morrison went off to the sea, I’ve made my inquiries.” Dr. Watson kept her surprised and intrigued eyes fixed upon him. “It may sound odd, but the pilot-spesh has decided to get into aquanautics. There is demand for dolphin herders, bathyscaphe drivers, and foresters to care for the lotuses. A very strange thing for a pilot to do… there was even a news report about it.”

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent. That is, if his first name is Xang. Well, let’s go, no need to tire out our guest—she’s already dozing off…”

Quietly leaving the ward, they entered the hallway. Moved aside to let the same stretcher pass, carrying its patient.

“Eh-eh-eh…” mumbled the unconscious patient, and the paramedic was whispering into the walkie-talkie, “Yoko, please meet us in surgery room number seventeen, immediately. The patient’s in serious condition…”