“Well, he never actually told me his name but he said he was a colleague of yours. Oh, and he had the most horrible metal teeth.” She shivered.
Six frowned. He had been certain for a moment that she’d had an encounter with Two. But Two didn’t have metal teeth. Could it have been another Enhanced One close to the Collective? Those in the upper echelons of the Enhanced society were often at the barges and though metal dental enhancements were rare, they weren’t unheard of.
“Anyway, he said I would have to get an emotion damper but then I told him I was getting a dispensation,” Mei-Li continued. “And he told me not to let it run out, whatever that means.”
“An emotional dispensation is only good for a limited amount of time,” Six explained as they began walking toward the lift again. “If you stay past the allotted time, you would automatically be considered guilty of Feel-crime.”
“Feel-crime, huh?” She frowned. “Guess I’d better be careful not to overstay my welcome.”
“I suppose not.” Again Six pictured himself taking her home, back to Earth and again he felt the familiar heaviness in his midsection. But perhaps it was for the best. Despite Yipper’s reassurance, the strange physical symptoms he’d had when he touched her had been…troubling.
Truly, the sooner their Claiming Period was over the better.
Chapter Fifteen
“Are you ready, are you ready?” Yipper looked at her anxiously and Mei-Li nodded.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said grimly. “I guess if I have to get an enhancement, this is the best and least obvious one.”
“The best, the very best!” the hairy little Tolleg assured her. He had already explained the procedure to her in detail thought Mei-Li sort of wished he hadn’t.
Apparently he was going to stick his tongue in her eyes—not something she was looking forward to.
But Yipper and Six both had assured her that this was how surgery was done here and the Tollegs were excellent surgeons who never lost a patient. Their saliva was a natural anesthetic and antiseptic and their tongues had the ability to morph into any instrument they needed to do the job. Mei-Li supposed if they could take off somebody’s leg and replace it with a robot one, fitting a pair of permanent contact lenses ought to be a snap. She hoped, anyway.
“And you’re sure these will work for me?” she asked for what was probably the fiftieth time. “Because I can’t wear contacts back home on Earth—they dry my eyes out too much. And what if my prescription changes? What if my eyes get worse?”
“The magnaflux lenses will automatically correct for any changes your eyes go through, yes they will, yes they will,” Yipper said patiently. “All will be well.”
“I hope so.” Mei-Li was lying on a pure white table while the little Tolleg, who was perched on a stool, leaned over her. As he got closer, her toes curled inside the new boots Six had given her and the weird, bland garn she’d eaten for breakfast felt like a lump of lead in her stomach. She was glad at least that the white shirt he’d given her to wear had long sleeves because she was suddenly freezing. It felt like the temperature had dropped about fifteen degrees. Was that standard procedure for an operation here or was it just her nerves?
Mei-Li didn’t know and she honestly didn’t really care. Mostly she just didn’t want to get poked in the eye. God, I wish it was over already! I wish I didn’t have to watch! She got this same, squirmy feeling when she went to the dentist but at least with the dentist she could close her eyes and wait for it to be over with. With this procedure she had to look on as Yipper’s long, prehensile tongue dipped down into a small glass dish containing two shiny iridescent lenses. It was blurry since her glasses were off but she could still make it out well enough to see—
“Stop.” Six suddenly came up to the table on her other side.
Yipper pulled his tongue back. “What is wrong, what is wrong?”
“She is in distress, just as she was last night.” Six was frowning at her in a way Mei-Li might almost have thought was worried if she didn’t know he was incapable of feeling worried. “Her heart rate and blood pressure are severely elevated. This level of stress cannot be good for her physiologically.”
“Mei-Li is simply nervous, yes she is, yes she is,” Yipper said. “If you will hold her hand during the procedure it will eliminate a good deal of her stress.”
“Hold her hand?” Six looked as though this was a foreign concept—which it almost certainly was, to him Mei-Li reminded herself. “What purpose would that serve?”
“It will calm her nerves, as it did last night when you picked her up,” Yipper said patiently. “Many Feelers find touch comforting during times of stress. Yes they do, yes they do.”
“Oh, of course.” Six nodded as though he was finally getting it and reached for Mei-Li with his non-metal hand. He didn’t seem to know quite how to manage, though. The night before he had gathered her into his arms instinctively and a little while ago he had cupped her breast with no problem but now he seemed uncertain of how to touch her. Or maybe he was just feeling awkward because of all the touching and kissing they had done earlier—Mei-Li knew she was still a little uncomfortable, even though she was trying to put it out of her mind.
“Like this,” she said and entwined their fingers. She had a moment to notice that he had beautiful, well-shaped hands for a man—long, artistic fingers with short, clean nails—and then Yipper was leaning over her again.
“Now just hold still, hold still,” he told her, reaching for the glass dish with the lenses again. “This will only take a moment…”
“Okay,” Mei-Li squeezed Six’s hand tight and felt an answering pressure in return as Yipper maneuvered one of the tiny iridescent disks onto the end of his tongue. “Only I don’t know how I’m going to keep from blinking. I can never—”
There was a flicker in the air above her face, too fast to follow and suddenly everything she was seeing with her left eye came into focus.
“Wow!” Me-Li gasped. “That was so fast! I didn’t even—” There was another flicker and suddenly she could see clearly from her right eye too. Mei-Li blinked and looked around the room in amazement. Everything had sharp, defined edges from the rack of prosthetic parts at the end of Yipper’s Enhancement Area to Six’s face with its stern angles as he bent over her.
He was looking right at her, his steel gray eye filled with what she would have sworn looked like concern though she knew it couldn’t be since concern would be an emotion. Still, Mei-Li looked back, hear heart pounding as she focused on his gaze.
Suddenly it was as though he had come closer—or his eye had, anyway. Mei-Li started seeing much more detail—noticing each separate eyelash and seeing the tiny, almost imperceptible flecks of deep blue in his gray iris.
“What in the world?” she whispered, tearing her gaze away. How had she been able to see such detail from where she was? It was almost as though she had seen his eye under a microscope. She lifted her hand—the one that wasn’t still clutching Six’s—and stared at it as well. When she concentrated she could see every tiny wrinkle, fold, and crease in the lifeline that bisected her palm. Then the individual whorls of her fingertips came into view, fascinating in their complexity…
Suddenly she realized she was lying there staring at her own hand like some kind of stoner on a really good trip.
“What the hell?” she whispered, tearing her eyes away and looking at Yipper. “What did you do to me? How can I see so much?”
“The magnoflux lenses enable microscopic and telescopic sight. Yes they do, yes they do,” Yipper said happily. “Do you like the effect? You will be able, just by concentrating, to see things that are normally too small or too far away for your feeble original eyes to manage.”
“Seriously?” Mei-Li looked at him, not sure if she liked this. Her vision had never been sharper or clearer so she guessed she shouldn’t complain. But still… “Uh, how do I turn it off?” she asked. “If I want to, I mean,”
“It wi
ll only happen when you concentrate deeply and will it to happen,” Yipper explained. “During the course of your normal everyday life, you will not have the effects unless you want them.”
“Well…okay.” Mei-Li started to sit up and Six helped her.
“Are you well?” he asked, looking at her. “Are the enhancements comfortable?”
“Completely.” She blinked and was surprised when she felt absolutely no movement from the lenses. The problem with normal contacts was that they slid all around in her eye and never quite stuck right which made her tear up and then dry out. After a short time, it always felt like someone had stuck a piece of sandpaper in her eye. With Yipper’s lenses, she didn’t feel anything. It was as though there was nothing in her eyes at all. “This is amazing,” she said cautiously. “I mean, I want to see how they wear for a little while but if it keeps up like this I’ll be very happy.”
Yipper nodded approvingly. “Naturally you must stay a bit, yes you must, yes you must. I will want to check the fit once more before I let you go down to the surface of Z4.”
“Speaking of that, would you please install Mei-Li’s emotion dispensation counter in a most prominent place,” Six said. “Her feelings are very strong and I do not want there to be any confusion as to her right to experience them.”
“What? What are you installing in me?” Mei-Li asked, discomforted all over again. “I thought the dispensation was something I would carry with me—or a sign I would wear or something. Maybe a piece of jewelry like a medic alert bracelet?” she finished hopefully.
“The counter is nothing painful or invasive,” Yipper assured her. “It is simply a timer to show that you are allowed to have emotions without committing Feel-Crime for the exact length of your stay on Zeaga Four. Six is correct in thinking it should be in a prominent place, yes he is, yes he is.”
“Well…if it doesn’t hurt any more than the lenses…” Which hadn’t hurt a bit.
“It will not be painful in the least,” the little Tollege assured her and Mei-Li found she believed him.
“All right, go ahead then.”
Six was frowning as he looked at the chronometer slash communicator on his wrist.
“Forgive me but if we are to be punctual in meeting One on the surface, I should go prep the ship. Will you be all right if I go or would you prefer that I stay and soothe you with my hand?”
Mei-Li nearly choked. “Um, no,” she finally managed to get out. “I think I’ll be fine. I don’t need any, um, hand-holding for this.”
“Very well, I will return for you shortly.” Six nodded at her and left the Enhancement room with quick, economical strides.
Yipper watched the big Kindred go, then shook his head.
“Ah, Six, he is one of my greatest successes. Yes he is, yes he is.”
“He is?” Mei-Li said. “You’re the one who did his implants, right?”
“Yes I did, yes I did but I wish he had not asked for them in the first place.”
“What? Why not?” Mei-Li was intrigued. “I thought everybody had implants here—it’s the law, isn’t it?”
“For those who choose to live on the planet’s surface, yes it is, yes it is. But Six is not like the other Dark Kindred.” Yipper shook his head and busied himself with setting some supplies on a rolling tray.
“He’s not? How is he different?” Mei-Li propped herself up on one elbow to look at the little Tolleg. “Does he…does he secretly have emotions?” She didn’t know if she wanted that to be true or not but after that kiss they had shared…
“Certainly not.” Yipper shook his head, his long floppy ears swaying with the motion. “I saw to that myself when I gave him his emotion damper, yes I did, yes I did.”
“Oh…” Mei-Li tried not to feel disappointed. Although why should she care? It wasn’t like she wanted the big Kindred to have feelings for her. That would make leaving him at the end of a month much more difficult. “Is the implant good forever or does he have to get a new one every once in a while?” she asked, having a new thought. What if her month staying here was just at the time when Six was due for a new implant and while he had it out—
“It should last his lifetime, yes it should, yes it should,” Yipper said, killing her idea before it could even fully form.
“Oh, well that’s…good.”
“It is indeed considering that he was an adolescent when he came to us,” Yipper said.
“So everyone else gets their implant put in when they’re just a baby?” Mei-Li tried to imagine an emotionless baby. Probably it would never cry a bit—but it wouldn’t laugh either and there was nothing cuter than a baby’s laugh. What a sad world Z4 must be!
But Yipper was shaking his head. “No, no—the organic life forms on Z4 are grown to adulthood in incubation tubes. We implant the emotion damper just before we release them from their tubes. But this was not the case with Six as he came to us from outside the Z4 system.”
“So…everybody down on Z4 is a test tube baby?” Mei-Li asked. “But…who socializes them? How do they learn how to talk and walk and interact with others?”
“We implant the knowledge of basic social conventions in their brains using a chip. Yes we do, yes we do.” Yipper frowned. “It works better with some than others.”
“Un-huh,” Mei-Li muttered. “But you’re saying Six wasn’t grown in a tube?”
“No he wasn’t. Which was what made the implantation of an emotion damper so tricky. But it has lasted well so far, yes it has, yes it has.” Yipper frowned. “Although he did come to me earlier with some concerns…”
Mei-Li’s heart started beating harder. “What concerns?”
“Oh dear, I’m not supposed to say. No I’m not, no I’m not!” Yipper shook his head, looking worried.
“Say what? What he was concerned about?” Mei-Li prodded. It was definitely wrong to be poking into Six’s business but since she had to live with him for the next month, she wanted to know as much as she could.
But the little Tolleg only shook his head. “I cannot tell, no I can’t, no I can’t.”
“All right.” Mei-Li sighed. It had been worth a try, anyway. But she couldn’t help wondering if the passionate kiss they had shared and the way he had touched her afterwards had worried Six as much as it had worried her. Had he gone running to his doctor to find out if something was wrong with him? If he did, it makes you sound like the symptom of some deadly disease, a little voice muttered in her head. Great going, Mei-Li. You made him think he might have caught feel-itis or cancer of the emotions or something.
“Here we are, here we are.” Yipper pushed the rolling tray to her side and climbed back up on the white stool he used to reach the operating table.
“What’s that?” Mei-Li looked at the plain black strip uncertainly. It was about three inches long and two inches wide and looked like a miniature bumper sticker.
“Your dispensation counter. Now let me see…where should we put it? Where, where?” Yipper murmured, scanning her with his big brown eyes. “Perhaps your forehead? That would be most prominent—yes it would, yes it would.”
“I don’t want anything stuck permanently to my forehead,” Mei-Li objected quickly. “Absolutely not!”
“Oh, it’s not permanent. No it isn’t, no it isn’t,” Yipper said. “You will come back here to have it removed in one lunar month when your Claiming Period is over, yes you will, yes you will.”
“Oh…right.” Mei-Li cleared her throat. “Because this is all just an assignment for Six—he got me on orders from his boss and he’s going to take me right back again after it’s all over.”
“No,” Yipper said patiently. “It has nothing to do with One's orders. You will be going back home because a Dark Kindred cannot bond with a female—not with his emotion damper still in place. It inhibits the formation of a soul bond, yes it does, yes it does.”
“A what?” Mei-Li frowned.
“When a Kindred and his mate have bonding sex, their two minds join, yes they
do, yes they do. That is a soul bond.”
“Oh, I see. That’s…weird.” Mei-Li shook her head. “You know, you hear all kinds of things about the Kindred on my home world but I didn’t know they formed a 'soul' bond with their wives—whatever that means."
“It is not nearly as invasive as it sounds. Bonded males are much happier and healthier, yes they are, yes they are,” Yipper lectured. “All Kindred desire to be bonded—it completes them. Which is why I tried to convince Six not to get his damper but to wait until he was ready and try to find a female instead.”
“Why didn’t he?” Mei-Li almost whispered. Yipper seemed to be in a sharing mood again and she didn’t want him to remember he wasn’t supposed to be sharing.
“Because getting an emotion damper meant he could place his troubling memories in a cache and forget about them. There they could cause him no more pain, no they couldn’t, no they couldn’t. Ah…” The little Tolleg sighed mournfully. “So sad, so sad, I didn’t blame him for not taking my advice. No I didn’t, no I didn’t.”
“So sad? What happened to him?” Mei-Li asked.
But Yipper only shook his head. “Never mind, never mind. He will be back soon and we need to have your counter placed. So where do you want it?”
They finally settled on the inside of her left forearm which would hopefully be prominent enough to satisfy Six without making Mei-Li feel like some kind of a freak.
She was a little apprehensive about its placement but it turned out to be even easier than the lenses. Yipper simply licked her arm and pressed the patch to it. As soon as it made contact with her skin, it flashed once and then three sets of glowing green numerals appeared—00:00:00.
“What does that mean?” Mei-Li asked, frowning at the counter. As with the lenses, it was completely without sensation. It was as though the black strip had become a piece of her skin. Only regular skin didn’t have glowing green numbers on it.
“It won’t start counting until you reach Z4,” Yipper explained. “Then it will give the exact amount of time you are allowed to spend on the planet. Be very certain that you’re back here on the medical barge when the counter zeros out again. If you’re not, you will be subject to punishment by the full extent of the law. Yes you will, yes you will.”