the subject at all or even remotely diverted her from the truth, I forced out a croaked, “Can’t ever get sick?”
Surral shrugged. “It’s a myth.”
“What if it’s not?” I whispered, suddenly light-headed.
What the hell did Susan know that I didn’t? Was it a coincidence? Or had she somehow set this up?
“Not a myth?” Surral looked at me and understood all too quickly from what must have been my huge eyes and probably ghostly pale face. She dropped the pair of scissors in her hand, this woman who had never fumbled anything in her life.
She stared at me. “Are you telling me that my nurses are currently shooting my kids up with Mornavail blood?”
My heart thudded. I didn’t know. Was that bad? “Maybe?”
Surral bent down and picked up her scissors.
“Would that be okay?” I asked, my upper lip starting to prickle with sweat.
“Okay? It’s brilliant!” She threw her head back and whooped. As far as I knew, she’d never done that in her life before, either.
Holy shit, this was huge.
“But what if it really is just a myth?” Or something else entirely, as I’d thought from the book?
“I assume you tested it in some way.” Her dark eyes shone with excitement, glittering with hope. “Why else would you think it would cure the kids?”
“Yeah. Of course.” It had been a lifelong test in this case. And a few incidents had proven just how well it worked.
My mind raced with a thousand questions as I stretched out on the examination table, bringing my legs up with a wince. Wiggling to get more comfortable, I kept my arms at my sides and turned a little inward to hide any lingering needle marks.
“Where did you find it? Them? What are they like?” Surral asked.
“Um…” Nervous heat stole over me. “Can I not answer any of those questions?” This was a safe place for everyone. She wouldn’t push.
Surral nodded, respecting my wishes despite her curiosity.
With her scissors, she cut my undersuit in half from my right thigh straight up to my neck. She peeled the material away from me, leaving me in only a bra and underpants. I must have looked pretty bad, because her mouth pinched, and she started grumbling.
“You just came off a spacewalk?” Clearly, she recognized the now-ruined garment for what it was.
I nodded, lifting a little to help her get the undersuit out from beneath me. Surral tossed it in the garbage.
“With a…” She bent over and examined me for a moment, gently prodding my bruised and bloodied side with her gloved fingers. “Massive contusion and hastily stitched-up gunshot wound?”
“Well, the bruise really only happened after. During the spacewalk.”
Her stink eye was spectacular. “How many times am I going to have to patch you up?”
“Probably until I’m dead,” I answered.
“That’s not funny.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
Frowning, she took my messed-up stitches out. She didn’t offer me any numbshot, probably because she was pissed I hadn’t taken better care of myself.
Mareeka’s voice came through the communications bracelet on Surral’s wrist. “They’re settled at their ship, and I’m back in my office. Have Tess swing by here quickly before she goes.”
Surral confirmed through the link.
Not looking up from her work again, she said, “Don’t break Mareeka’s heart.”
I swallowed, knowing she really meant both their hearts. For a second, I felt guilty, because I loved them both more than I loved my actual mother, who was just a distant memory now. She was a good memory, though, which was what mattered, and what I would always hold on to.
Surral unlocked an expensive-looking laser-healer thing from a rolling cabinet and started patching me up with what I liked to call magic medicine. It worked, but I didn’t know how. Other than a slightly uncomfortable heat, it was much less painful than good old-fashioned stitches—and worked a lot faster, too. In mere minutes, I was as good as new.
“We pray for you daily,” Surral said, running a warm, wet cloth over my now-healed side to clean off the dried blood.
I smiled, despite my own lack of spirituality. I could just imagine those who chose to pray bending their little heads over their dinner plates and chanting out thanks to the Sky Mother, Her Powers, and to Tess.
“You’re giving me too much credit,” I said.
“You bring health, and no one here forgets that.”
“I haven’t brought much of anything lately, and I was almost too late.” For nine kids, I had been too late. I didn’t dare ask who we’d lost. Right now, I didn’t think I could