Plague of Memory Read Online Free

need of remedial instruction or special guidance, I ask that you provide it so that I may better serve." There, that sounded almost humble.
    "You were never like this," he muttered. "Never. You were brilliant and headstrong and so quick to act I thought you might someday drive me insane." At my blank look, he added, "Forgive me. I speak of your former self. In all the years that I knew her, I followed her lead. She taught me. Now ... "
    "You might repay her by providing some guidance for me," I suggested.
    He seemed surprised, and then nodded slowly. "In the future, if Dapvea or any patient expresses a desire to self-terminate, please do not note it on the chart, but relay it to me privately. It is an old Jorenian custom, one that we are obliged to honor, but I wish to discourage it. I know this is a confusing request, but life is a finite resource. We cannot squander it."
    I did not have to understand the reasons he had for giving me an order. I only had to know precisely that which he wanted me to do. "It will be as you wish."
    "Excellent." He picked up a medical scanner and
    PIAGUE of MEMORY 21
    came from behind the desk. Due to their singular lower limb, Omorr hopped rather than walked, but he had a very graceful bounce. "We shall conduct rounds together this morning, and then convince Dapvea Adan that wearing prostheses is more desirable than killing himself."
    Two
    Rounds in the Surface's Medical Bay were not very different from those I had performed in the battlefield hospitals on Akkabarr. It was true that the patients were kept much cleaner, and their surroundings even more so. Ensleg technology and medicines proved much better than what we had been able to salvage from the wreck stores, and the nursing staff worked without fear of male retribution. No one on the ship suffered from malnutrition, snowbite, or fleshrot, as so many of my people had during the rebellion. Still, the sick and injured here were not healed by any magic means. Here as on Akkabarr they needed constant monitoring and evaluation of their conditions, which required Squilyp and me to examine them daily.
    Our inpatient ward held four patients, and we went to evaluate the youngest first.
    "Knofki Adan," I read from his chart before I looked at his smiling face. "How do you feel this morning?"
    "I am well, Healer Cherijo." Like Marel's teacher Thalia, Knofki was not a Torin, but one of House-Clan Adan, which had sent several of its people to serve as crew for the Sunlace. The Adan were allying
    themselves with the Torin for some reason too complicated and Jorenian for me to fathom. The boy fidgeted too much for my liking. "Why do you squirm like that?" Knofki went still and grimaced. "My new toes itch."
    Our youngest patient had been involved in an engineering accident that had also injured our other three patients. The young male had been visiting his father, one of the ship's senior engineers, to watch him at work. This was some sort of thing the Jorenians did to expose their young ones to various occupations. A work crew had been refitting the shell on a large piece of equipment and had not judged the weight correctly. The hoisting equipment had failed, causing the shell to fall atop those observing from the deck.
    The edge of the shell hitting the deck had neatly amputated five of the six toes on Knofki's right foot, which had been directly under it. Fortunately the boy's sire had jerked him back at the last moment, or he might have been cut in two.
    "Nurse, please remove the dressing," Squilyp said to the Jorenian female attending to the boy. I gave the Senior Healer the chart and took Knofki's vitals, which were at acceptable levels. "Have you tried to move your toes, ClanSon Adan?"
    Knofki nodded. "That makes the itching stop."
    I examined the foot when the nurse clipped away the last of the gauze strips covering it. The boy's severed toes had been crushed by the falling shell, too badly to consider reattachment and regeneration therapy.