Earthbound by DM Arnold (read book .TXT) 📕

“You're not dreaming, Suki. You're alive and you're awake. You're in a hospital on my homeworld.”

She pulled away from Nyk, looked at him and at the treatment room. The walls were lined with shelves loaded with equipment, instruments, syringes, catheters and bottles of chemicals. On one side of the pallet stood a device with a reservoir containing a dark green fluid. Attached to it was a coiled-up length of tubing terminating in a heavy-gauge needle.

On the other side was a cart holding the helmet-like neural inducer, tethered to its control equipment by an umbilicus of wires. Vidisplays flashed readings in Floran characters. Announcements in Lingwafloran came over the P.A. system and attendants and staff chatted in the corridor. “Oh, my God!” she gasped. “What do you want of me?” She gasped again, clutched the hem of the drape and held it under her chin. “What are you going to do to me?”

“We're going to heal you. Then, I'll return you to Earth.” An attendant entered and began to hold an instrument to Suki's forehead. She recoiled and shielded her face with her hands. “It's all right. No one's going to harm you. These people are trying to help.”

“People? You all look so ... human.”

“We are human -- we originated on Earth. You and I are the same species.” Suki put her hands down. The attendant recorded the reading on a portable vidisplay, smiled and headed for the door. “That wasn't so bad, was it? These are doctors and nurses who want to make you well.”

“You originated on Earth? How?”

“My past begins in your future. Two hundred years from now, a starship named the Floran will depart with the intent of forming Earth's first interstellar colony on a planet orbiting a neighbor star. Something went wrong - - something will go wrong -- and the explorers will be hurled backward in time. The colony was formed, but on a different world than intended.

“Five thousand Earth years have elapsed since the Floran and her company of a thousand colonists emerged from the warp jump accident. The seed they planted has grown into a great, interstellar polity, a hegemony with a population exceeding twenty-four billion, inhabiting a dozen planets. I am a citizen of that hegemony.”

“Twenty-four ... billion?”

“Twenty-four billion men, women and children who work and play, love and hate and birth and die very much as on your world.”

“Then, why were you on Earth?”

“In order to survive, we need contact with our planet of origin. We need genetic samples to keep our food and fiber crops healthy. So, a few of us walk the surface of your world, covertly and benignly, to gather those samples. I am an exobotanist, a specialist in Earth plants.”

“The cultures in the lab!” She eyed him. “Do you collect ... other genetic samples?”

“Do you mean human genes? No, Suki -- that is something we will not do. I'm sorry I couldn't divulge this to you before now. I didn't want to deceive you -- but would you have believed me?”

She shook her head. “No way, Nick. I'd have thought you were delusional.”

“Do you believe me now? I never deceived you about this: I do care for you, and I do cherish you as a friend. Do you trust me?”

“I think I do.”

“Florans can't approach Earth overtly, because any knowledge of us could alter the outcome of that mission, two hundred years in your future but five thousand years in our past. Altering that mission could result in our civilization simply ceasing to exist. We are absolutely forbidden to reveal our true nature to the Earth population. Can you understand why?”

“Yes, I ... I think so.”

“Trust me, Suki. We mean no harm to your world or people. I love Earth, and I love its marvelous diversity of life and people and cultures. We couldn't harm you if we wanted. We have no weapons. During the past five thousand years we have eliminated disease, poverty, war, and hunger. We have no racial differences, national jealousies, or religious strife. We're lovers, not fighters. We hope, one day, to make contact with your world -- to extend our hands in friendship, and to open our arms and embrace our cousins and progenitors. That can't happen in my lifetime.” He extended his arm. “But I can offer my hand to you. Do you still accept me as your friend?”

She looked up at him and smiled. “Of course, Nick.”

Nyk took her hand and sat beside her again. “I took an enormous risk bringing you here, but not doing so would've been disastrous. I had to save you -- and I knew of no other way. You must promise me you'll never reveal what you know of our world to another Earth person. Now, promise me -- it's a matter of life and death to me and countless others.”

“I ... I promise. Why so important to save me?”

“It's because you're a crucial figure in the events leading up to the founding of our world. Remember, your future is my past.”

“How could I be crucial? What possible role could I play?”

“I mustn't describe it further, so please don't press me. I was sure your only hope for survival was treatment by our doctors. You lost nearly ninety percent of your blood. They've replaced it with a synthetic. Look at your hands.”

She held up the back of her hand. “My skin's grey.”

“Yes, and you'll have green urine until your body displaces the synthetic with your own blood. You must remain here while you convalesce, for a few days at least. Then, I'll take you home to Earth and face the consequences with my boss.”

“Oh, Nick, it's too much to process.”

“You might as well call me by my real name. Call me Nykkyo. Nick's the Earth name I use while I'm there. You can call me Nykkyo on Earth, when we're alone together.”

“Nykkyo Kane?”

“Close enough.”

Suki stroked and examined her wrists. “Your medical technology is amazing. I can't believe these cuts are healed so quickly, and I can't believe how little scarring. If I'd been taken to an Earth hospital, my wrists would look like they belonged on Frankenstein's monster.”

An attendant walked into the treatment room carrying a portable vidisplay. “Bon'noka, Sukiko,” she said looking at the display. “Mu noma Vilka es. Mi dev zu kor ekzamin.”

Suki looked toward Nyk. “Her name's Vilka. She wants to check your heart.”

“Okay, Vilka,” Suki replied. Vilka glanced at Nyk and he nodded. She grasped the hem of Suki's drape to fold it down. Nyk stood and started to leave the room.

Suki touched his forearm. “It's okay,” she said, “please stay. You saw me naked while I was ... unconscious. I don't mind you seeing me uncovered, now.”

He resumed his seat, fixing his gaze on the floor. Vilka took an instrument from a shelf. Nyk could hear Suki's heartbeats. “Zu kor bone sonen hav,” Vilka said.

“Your heart sounds good,” Nyk said. “It's a beautiful sound.”

“Bone.” Vilka covered Suki with the drape and pressed the instrument to the vidisplay's scanpad to record the readings. Then, she produced a pair of meal packages, handed one to Nyk and set the other on Suki's lap. “Mi va x'eltir,” she said pointing to the feeding tube and gestured she would remove it. With a tug she pulled out the tube. Suki swallowed. “Bon'noka ... okay?” Vilka smiled, gave Suki a little wave and left the room.

“She was sweet,” Suki said. She looked around the pallet. “Does this thing raise? I can't find a control.”

“Certainly. Kaja, lev.” The pallet began to assume a sitting position. “Kaja, halt. You just have to speak its language. Is that all right?”

“That's fine.” Suki removed the cover to the meal package and looked at it. “I guess hospital food's the same everywhere in the galaxy.”

“Except that's not hospital food. That's what we all eat every day.”

She examined it from several angles. “What is this?”

“It's a wheat-rice-lentil pilaf and a mixed fruit puree. Ninety-nine percent of our food comes from Earth plants.”

She scooped some. “This could benefit from some seasoning.”

“Now do you see why I reacted as I did to your Indian dinners?”

She ate about half the meal. “I'd have to be much hungrier to finish that, I'm afraid.”

Nyk picked up a package, removed an object and handed it to her. “Try this.”

“What is it?”

“It's a sweet snack wafer.”

She took a bite. “That's much better.”

“Only by comparison.”

An older woman entered the room. She looked at Nyk. “Nykkyo es- zi?”

“Ji, mi m'es,” he replied as he stood to offer her his chair.

“Bon'noka, Nykkyo. Kil bon'noka dir-zi vave?”

“Good evening.”

She looked at Suki. “Sukiko, good evening. Mi doktor Krulla es.” She pointed to herself. “Mi psykomedika es.” She smiled and took the seat near Suki's pallet.

“Hello,” Suki replied.

Dr Krulla took Suki's hand and patted her forearm. She opened her palm and pressed it against Suki's.

“That gesture's a Floran sign of friendship and openness,” Nyk explained. “If you accept her offer of friendship, lace fingers with her.”

Suki looked into the psychomedic's eyes and smiled. She spread her fingers and the two women held hands.

Dr Krulla looked at Nyk. “Zi niva per ni zitraduk.”

“Ji, mi va mitraduk.” He pulled up another chair near the pallet.

“Please tell me how you're feeling, now,” the doctor asked Suki via Nyk's interpretation.

“I'm feeling fine,” she replied and Nyk translated.

“Do you wish to die?”

She shook her head. “No, I fear dying.”

“Do you recall how you felt as you cut your wrists?” the doctor asked, examining her scars. She turned Suki's hand over and stroked and patted the back of it.

“Yes, I remember vividly. I wasn't afraid. I was calm and at peace. Now, it's as if it never happened. Except I know it happened. I can see the scars and I'm here.”

“Have you tried to kill yourself before this?”

“Yes -- once,” Suki said, looking at the floor. She looked up. “But I didn't want to die. I did it to punish my father for an argument we had. I must've been about twelve. I swallowed a bottle of aspirin, and then told my mother what I had done. They took me to the hospital to have my stomach pumped.” She looked down again. “It didn't work. My father wasn't punished -- I was.”

“Have you desired death before?”

“No. Yes. I don't know. Isn't it normal to think of death from time to time?”

“Normal enough,” the doctor said, gazing into Suki's eyes.

“I do think of death and even suicide,” Suki continued. “I've always dismissed it. Maybe it's racial. My father has an antique hara-kiri dagger hanging on the wall. Maybe something about being Japanese draws us to suicide. But this time, I was so afraid. I felt so rejected when I learned I'd been let go. I knew I had no place to live -- nowhere to go. I felt hopeless, then a calm came over me and I...” She began to cry.

Dr Krulla stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. “You don't desire death, now?”

“No, not now. I'm afraid of dying, now.”

The doctor sat back and began poking the handheld vidisplay. “Denke. Bon'noka... good evening, Sukiko.” She stood and left the room.

Nyk sat near Suki and held her hand. She spread her fingers for him. He stroked her forearm. “Suki, I want you to understand something.” He looked into her eyes. “I love you. I tried not to, but I couldn't help myself.”

“You tried not to do what?”

“I tried not to love you.” He brushed away a tear. “Florans aren't supposed to fall in love with Earth people. Suki, I fell in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you. I love you