[Splat]

I shall not gild the lilly since I'm sure (at least I hope) you want to know what happens next.

Scary stuff ahead. (And technobabble. Lots and lots of technobabble).

Chapter 16

Anni writhed in agony on the floor of a small, bare room – little more than a cupboard. She clawed and smacked her skin as it burnt, as if tearing it off would lessen the pain. She screamed and screamed and screamed and all the time, Nova’s screams echoed in her mind, though her ears could no longer hear her. She thrashed and scratched and sobbed, for hours and hours. She cried out the name of her friend. The sight of Nova trapped beneath those shelves was emblazoned across her mind as if it were photographed on the inside of her eyelids. The sight of the crushed scrab they had pulled out from beneath the fallen cabinet. Even the pain as her skin burned could not compete with her terror.

* * *

Doctor Emlech was seated at his desk when someone banged on the door. Before he could invite the person in it burst open and a slig practically leapt onto his carpet. “Sir, there’s been an accident in one of the labs! Those two mud girls of yours have been hurt.”

There was no lack of urgency in the slig’s voice. Emlech was on his feet and hurrying to the door before he had time to ask, “What happened?”

The slig looked terrified. He was one of the two who had been guarding the lab where the accident had taken place. He had gone off to have a cigarette, leaving his partner to be lured away so the muds could get in through the door. “They snuck into a lab where some vykkers were doing a big project together,” He answered as they hurried down the hallway, “I don’t know what happened exactly ‘cus I was outside the door, but I think one of the live scrabs they were using got free of its cage and ran into a big cabinet, which fell over. They both got a lot of chemicals spilt on them and one of them was crushed beneath it.”

“Is she dead?” Emlech asked quickly.

“Not when I left, but the vykkers told me I should tell you that it hit her below her stomach so I guess it could’ve hurt her somewhere down there.” The slig didn’t know much about physiology, and he certainly didn’t know that the two mudokons were potentially fertile, so he failed to recognise the significance of this statement. Emlech, however, realised what this could mean. He quickened his pace. “Which one got crushed?”

“Uh, the smarter one, Nova – they’re down this way sir, in the med-rooms.”
A few minutes later Emlech hurried into the room the slig had shown him. It was empty apart from three vykkers.

“Sir! Nova’s just being x-rayed, and then we were going to do a sonograph.”

“Her injuries?” Emlech asked quickly.

“Chemical burns to her skin, severe fractures to the pelvic and leg bones. She was bleeding heavily from her legs but we treated that with a crystallic compound and it’s slowed to a safe level. It’s likely we’ll have to amputate one or both of her legs, depending on the results of the x-ray. Then of course there may be organ damage which we will scan for once the x-rays are done. The slig told you where she was struck?”

Emlech nodded stiffly, “Where’s Anni?”

“We shoved her in one of the security cells while we treated Nova: we needed her out of the way, and it was close.”

“Her condition?”

“Severe external chemical burns but nothing dangerous. She’s in a lot of pain and the pigment in her skin will probably be permanently affected but she’ll live.”

Emlech nodded. “We’ll go and see her.”

* * *

Emlech took one of the vykkers and they headed to Anni’s cell. His companion unlocked the door and they stepped in. A moment later the vykker gasped and stepped back. “Go and get a sedative,” Emlech told him softly. The vykker nodded and hurried away.

Vykkers were of course no strangers to injuring others, but self-mutilation was something else altogether. Anni was on the floor of her cell, looking at him wildly. Blood was weeping from innumerable scratches on her skin and was smeared on the floor and walls. The tips of her fingernails were red.

“Anni,” Hissed Emlech in a calm voice as he approached her, “How could you hurt yourself like this?”

Anni ignored the question and whispered, “Nova?”

“Nova is alive, though badly hurt. She’ll probably survive, but it’s likely she’ll never be able to walk again,” He replied. Any let out a sob and lowered her head. Tears mingled with her blood. “It was a very foolish thing you did, breaking into that lab,” Emlech told her as he knelt down, “You could both have been killed. Nova may be seriously hurt.” Anni raised her arms to hide her head. He took one gently in one of his hands. She was trembling. “Here, I will inject you with this to ease the pain. Try and stay still.”

She jerked, as if her instinct was to try and escape, but stopped herself. She cringed and kept her arms up but didn’t move, except from her constant trembling. He raised a syringe he had been holding in a free hand and injected it into her arm.

The door opened behind him and he glanced over his shoulder. The other vykker was back, holding another syringe. Emlech waved him over and took it from him. He checked the label to ensure it was suitable and then injected Anni with it as well.

Several seconds later her body sagged onto the floor. Emlech stood up. “Get an intern in here to clean up this mess,” He said disgustedly. “Then stay in here until she wakes up. Come and let me know how she’s doing.”

* * *

When Emlech returned to the theatre where they were treating Nova, the room was crowded with vykkers. Nova herself lay unconscious on the table in the centre of the room, her legs strapped in metal braces.

“Sir!”

“How is she?” He asked sharply.

“The x-ray results just came through; we should be able to save her right leg from the knee upwards. The left will have to be amputated completely though.”

He looked at her unconscious form. Her breathing was heavy and uneven, suggesting further damage. Her legs were held straight by the braces and wrapped in bandages, which were turning pink in places. “Is she still bleeding?”

“No, she’s stopped now. It took a while for the compound we used to take full effect.”

“And the sonograph?”

“Just preparing for it now, sir.”

A few minutes later a pair of interns came in wheeling the machine. They plugged it in and one of the vykkers hurried over and began entering the necessary data.

“You should have been doing this when you were x-raying her,” Emlech said disapprovingly. The other vykkers in the room all made themselves look busy and no one answered.

A few minutes later the machine was ready and Emlech took over, smearing gel over Nova’s belly. He took the scanning device, a small, conical object with a light on the flat end and a wire which attached it to the sonography machine, and pressed it into the gel. Instantly a black-and-grey image of Nova’s insides appeared on the screen.

“That’s her intestine,” Emlech stated unnecessarily to the vykkers crowded behind him. “Increase the frequency by a fraction.”

The vykker at the controls twiddled a few dials and the image shifted slightly.

“It’s damaged, but I can’t tell how badly from this image,” Emlech stated, shifting the device in his hand around against Nova’s skin. The images on the screen moved to match. “I think we’ll have to cut into her to be sure.” He moved the device up a few inches. “Duodenum looks fine. Increase the frequency.”

A few seconds passed while the vykker at the screen shifted the focus. Emlech gestured once he was happy and slid the scanner around. “Right kidney, looks fine.” He squirted some more gel onto the left side of her belly with two of his hands and smeared it around with a tissue held in his third. Then he dragged the scanner across her chest. There was a murmur of noise from the other vykkers; Emlech spoke calmly, “Left kidney is damaged. Never mind; she’ll live a while with just one. We could try and grow a replacement; it’ll give you all something to do. Increase wavelength.” He moved the scanner while the vykker at the controls busied himself. “Try and bring that into focus… The pancreas is fine. Probably cushioned by the intestines.” He slid the scanner down and to the left, pausing en-route to add more gel. “Left ovary,” Emlech swore.

The other vykkers stepped back as if he’d shouted at them. For the disconcertingly level-headed Emlech, curses were rare and always signified trouble.

Emlech quickly regained himself however, and went on in his level voice, “Increase wavelength by a fraction. Stop.” He very slowly moved the scanner to the right. The room had very gone quiet, very tense. If both of Nova’s ovaries were damaged then she would be unable to produce eggs; she would be useless and the last four years of raising her would have been wasted. “Right fallopian tube… Looks undamaged. Right ovary…” Emlech laughed. The tension broke. “Right ovary is fine; cushioned by the intestines.” A few of the other vykkers in the room chuckled with relief. A low level hum of chatter emerged from the silence.

“Almost done now. Then we can cut in and see how bad the intestines are. Decrease wavelength and refocus the frequency.” He loosened her loincloth to make room for the scanner and added some more gel. Then he drew the device downwards a few inches. “Uterus; decrease the wavelength a little more.”

The vykker at the controls did as he was ordered, talking quietly to the vykker beside him as he did so. When he looked up at the screen the words caught in his throat. It was as if sound had been sucked out of the room. Emlech opened his mouth to complete his commentary but no sound came out.

The uterus was where eggs developed before being laid. Nova’s was sliced open, either from the impact of the cabinet crashing on top or from being struck by one of her broken bones.

“Could we build a replacement?” Whispered one of the vykkers.

Emlech shook his head. “We don’t know enough about her anatomy to replace or repair it.”

“Maybe we could extract the eggs produced by the ovary and develop them artificially?”

“Not without knowing her anatomy better, and constantly operating would weaken her.”

Silence descended on the room once more as the impact of the disaster sunk in. Nova’s reproductive system was damaged beyond repair. Keeping her alive would mean amputating both of her legs.

She was useless.

* * *

It was two hours later and Emlech sat alone in his office. All was quiet except for the loud, rhythmic ticking of his clock. It occurred to him every few minutes that he should check on Anni, but for once in his life he couldn’t be bothered to do what had to be done. For once he wasn’t doing everything that needed doing and then looking for more work. There was a knock at the door.

He sighed; work, it seemed, was looking for him. “Come in.”

A vykker stepped into the room and tried to look respectful, “Sir, I have been talking with some of the other scientists and we decided to ask, well… I mean, Nova has caused us a lot of trouble of the years, and we felt that…” The look Emlech gave him told him to hurry up and finish what he was saying if he intended on leaving this office with all of his limbs. “We hoped you would allow us to take Nova as a test subject, since she is no longer of any use.”

Emlech sank back in his chair. So this was what they were bothering him for? He sighed and gave a dull “Yes, yes,” and gestured for the vykker to leave.

The vykker made a respectful motion and left the office.

Emlech sank deeper into his chair. All around him work was demanding to be done. For once, work could wait.

* * *

Anni had woken up to find herself alone in her cell. Since then she had sat huddled up in a corner with her head low. Her skin gave her a dull pain but remembering Dr Emlech’s orders she resisted the temptation to scratch; it was nothing to the pain she had been in before, anyway. The wounds she had inflicted upon herself were scabbing over. What wasn’t covered in scabs was mostly covered in fierce red sores.

The door opened and she looked up. A vykker approached her and said softly, “Anni, my dear, we need your help. Nova’s badly hurt and we need to you to come and help us heal her.”

Anni’s breathing quickened. She stood up quickly and moved over to the vykker. If Nova needed her help she would give anything!

The vykker smiled, “There’s a good girl. Now come with us.”

Another vykker and a pair of sligs were waiting for her outside of the cell. She was glad the sligs were there as they made her feel more comfortable.

They led the way down some stairs to the lower levels of the facility, and ushered her through a pair of double doors into a lab. There was a computer console in a corner and two operating tables, separated by some machinery. “Get up on here,” The vykker said quietly, gesturing to one of the tables. Anni climbed on quickly and lay down. The vykker smiled, an unpleasant smile, but Anni disliked most expressions she saw the vykkers using so she thought nothing of it. “Good girl. Now wait here a while. We’ll be back soon.”

The vykkers and sligs left the room, leaving her alone. She looked around, from her position on the table, at the computer and the machinery, but couldn’t understand them. The bed she lay on had metal hoops at the sides and the far end. She was not so naïve that she didn’t know what they were for, but she knew the vykkers wouldn’t have to use them. They wouldn’t have to strap her down if it would help Nova. The walls of the room were dark grey, much darker than those of most of the other rooms she had been in. They didn’t reflect things like the other rooms either.

A different vykker entered and hurried over to her, “Listen Anni,” He said, “We’ll be bringing Nova in soon and she’s very sick. She’s shouting lots of things that aren’t true so if she says anything to you, don’t listen to her. It’s because she’s so sick; she’s dreaming things that she thinks are real but aren’t.”

Before she could reply he hurried out again.

A few minutes later she heard a distant, muffled shouting and then the doors were opened by a pair of interns and it became clearer. She recognised the voice. “Nova?” She sat up.

The vykker from before appeared in the doorway and said loudly over the sound of the shouting, “Remember, she’s very sick. She’s dreaming and she thinks it’s real.”

She heard Nova’s voice shout, “No, he’s lying!” And then more vykkers appeared by the door, leading a table on wheels. Nova was lying in it, her legs trapped in some big metal cage. “Nova!” Anni cried, a mix of joy at seeing her friend, and fear at how sick she looked.

Nova’s eyes fixed on hers. For a moment she froze and then screamed, “Anni! Get out of here; they’re going to hurt you!”

“Remember, she’s dreaming,” Shouted the vykker as the interns holding the doors open let them close and came over to stand near Anni’s bed.

“He’s lying Anni! Run; get away! He’s going to hurt you!”

Anni sat up. “What’s going on?”

“RUN AWAY!”

Anni moved to slide off of the bed. She wanted to see her friend properly.

“Restrain her,” Ordered a vykker and the two interns suddenly grabbed her arms and forced her down onto the table. She screamed.

“Please, not her! Hurt me but not her! Anni, GET AWAY!”

Terror pulsed through her and she struggled to get free of the interns, but click! Her wrists were strapped down. Click! Her ankles were trapped. “NOVA! NOVA!”

“Anni, run! Run!”

Anni struggled, tears poured down her face, “Help, HELP, HELP!”

“Please, let her go! It was my fault! My idea! Let Anni go!” Anni couldn’t see Nova anymore. The vykkers had taken her to the other table and the machine was between them.

“NOVA?”

“Anni-” Nova was cut off as she screamed suddenly, like she had when the cabinet had fallen on her, and suddenly Anni was screaming too, over and over again, screaming the name of her friend.

Vykkers were crowding around her; she couldn’t make out their faces. It was all a blur until Nova stopped screaming, and then Anni cried out her name.

Nova was begging, “Not Anni, please, not Anni! Hurt me! Do anything to me but leave Anni alone!”

Anni felt a pain on the right of her forehead, like a bee-sting, and then another on the left side, and then Nova started screaming again. “Nova-AARGH!” Pain suddenly gushed through Anni like a flood. She tossed and she shrieked until her throat felt raw. The pain stopped and Anni stopped screaming. She realised that Nova had gone silent as well. “Nova?” No answer. “NOVA?”

And suddenly the pain was back, twice as bad, and Anni found she couldn’t move, she couldn’t scream. The pain was obliterating all thought, all sense, all memory from her head. Her mind was numb. She didn’t know who she was, or where she was, just that it hurt so much that she wanted to die. She heard a bang like two trains crashing at high speed, and then a voice shouting from a great distance, “What are you doing? Stop it, stop it!”

And then oblivion.