enough to climb. Pendt thought about giving up, about letting the pain take her, but the temptation to fix herself was too much.
Pendt smashed through the wall. It took everything she had, and she dropped to her knees. Her hair withered against her scalp and her skin felt raw and dry. On the other side of the wall was her fingernail, whole and new. Pendt put it on her hand, wincing as the new growth cut over the forming scab.
Her blood rushed through her, and now it all stayed in her veins like it was supposed to. This was what it felt like do magic. This was how her aunt felt when she touched the stars. The cruelty of her denial stung even more now that Pendt felt what she was missing. It was euphoric. It was incandescent. It sparked through her like fire and whispered to her soul like smoke.
It was the last thing Pendt thought about before she collapsed on the floor of the galley, the pristine food trays ready for lunch and the carnage of her accident spread out around her.
* * *
• • •
“—has to control it!” Arkady was raging. Pendt stayed very still, her eyes firmly shut. “We can’t have her growing fingernails every time she hurts herself. She’s wasting too much energy.”
Without seeing, it was hard to tell where she was. Everywhere on the Harland smelled the same, thanks to the air recyclers. There was a quiet beeping sound, just loud enough for Pendt to hear. That meant she was in medical.
“She can’t help it, Captain,” Morunt said. Definitely medical. The doctor rarely went into the mess, much less ate there. “Instinct took over the moment her pain centres overwhelmed her logic. She’s too young to let herself hurt when she knows how to stop it.”
“Then stop her,” Arkady said sharply. “Your caloric allowance only goes so far, Doctor. You might as well help her to avoid extending yourself.”
Pendt drifted out again, and when she woke up, she was alone. There was an IV in her arm, dripping calories into her body at a truly astounding rate as she recovered from the stress of what she’d done. Her hand was fine; the nail looked exactly like it had before she’d injured it. Her head was cold, and when she touched it with her free hand, she found that she was bald.
“You took all the energy you had,” Dr. Morunt said from nearby. “It killed the roots of your hair. They weren’t exactly gentle bringing you down here, and most of it fell out by the time you arrived.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Pendt said. Her head felt like it was stuffed with insulation and her whole body ached, but she knew that was she alive because Morunt had done her job. Then, because this was all the sympathy she was likely to get, she added: “I don’t understand what I did.”
“You used your gene-sense to regrow your fingernail when you tore it off,” Dr. Morunt told her. “You must be very careful to avoid injury. You’re too young to react sensibly to it, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to bring you back again.”
Morunt looked pale, and Pendt understood from what she’d heard Arkady say that the calories pumping into her body had come out of the doctor’s own rations. Pendt was glad she’d been unconscious for the part where her mother and aunt debated whether or not she was worth treating. There were things about her family she didn’t ever need to know.
“I won’t do it again,” Pendt said. “I don’t want to burden the Harland in any way.”
There were more calories in her IV than Morunt could afford to give. They must have come from somewhere, and Pendt didn’t want to know. She’d find out if her cousins cut it out of her skin later, she supposed, or when she was punished for what she’d done.
“I can show you, if you like?” Morunt said. “I can help you dull the instinct to use what you have.”
Pendt was still young enough that all adults were considered old. For the first time, she realized how much older than her mother Dr. Morunt was. Surely a doctor would have a family somewhere, and yet here was Morunt, indentured on a generation merchant ship.
“You’re stronger than I am, little cat,” Morunt said. “In every way, I think. You’ll be better at all of this than I was.”
Morunt gave her needles that dulled the call of her power