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  BRIEF GLOSSARY

  Alet (ah LEHT): ”friend,” but formal, as one would address a stranger. Plural is aletsen.

  Arii (ah REE): ”friend,” personal. An endearment. Used only for actual friends. Plural is ariisen. Additional forms include ariihir (“dear brother”) and ariishir (“dear sister”).

  Dami (DAH mee): ”mom,” in Tam-leyan. Often used among other Pelted species.

  Fin (FEEN): a unit of Alliance currency. Singular is deprecated finca, rarely used.

  Hea (HEY ah): abbreviation for Healer-assist.

  Kara (kah RAH): ”child”. Plural is karasen.

  Tapa (TAH pah): ”dad,” in Tam-leyan. Often used among other Pelted species.

  Chapter 1

  It would be just his luck to begin his residency by reporting to the hospital as a patient. Jahir Seni Galare, nascent xenotherapist, Eldritch noble and apparently complete lightweight, sat on a bench just outside the Pad nexus that had delivered him to the surface of the planet Selnor. He had his carry-on in his lap and was trying to be unobtrusive about using it as a bolster until the dizziness stopped. When he'd left his homeworld for the excitement and multicultural adventure that was the Alliance, he'd been unaware of how much gravity affected physiology until he'd begun suffering from Seersana's greater weight. While there he'd undertaken an acclimatization regimen... but apparently the capital world of the Alliance was even heavier than Seersana. Much more so, if his body was any indicator.

  At least the dizziness gave him a reason to stop moving. He'd been traveling for the better part of six days now. Had he been inclined, he could have prevailed on his Queen to arrange direct transport from the world where he'd been studying to the world where the final phase of his education would commence, but he hadn't wanted to trade on his family connections. Instead he'd chosen to make the journey the way one of his... friends... would have, had they gone, by a series of vessels and shuttles. He'd used the time to enjoy the culture—was that not why he'd left his world in the first place?—to see the varied aliens at their lives, so busy, so prosperous. And he was glad he'd had the chance to experience the Alliance's transportation system, because only now could he truly begin to understand just how vast the Alliance was. So many worlds. So many destinations. So many people. Compared to his homeworld, it was overwhelming. That he would have a good ten centuries to become inured to it did not lessen its impact now.

  "Excuse me, alet," said a gentle but professional voice. "Do you need assistance?"

  Jahir looked up and found two Pelted standing a polite distance in front of him. One was Tam-illee, humanoid with vulpine-influenced ears and tail and fur the color of champagne, dressed in the port's light gray and blue uniform. The other was a race he'd yet to meet, one of the winged Malarai, and it was she who'd spoken. She wore the same uniform, but with a sash over it, white banded in red, with a caduceus.

  Jahir cleared his throat and said, "Thank you, aletsen. I should be fine, given some time."

  The Malarai exchanged a glance with her companion, who flicked his ears sideways and backed away, leaving them alone. She was beautiful, with a human's face, almost devoid of fur save for streaks of felt leading back from her limpid eyes. There were felid ears hidden in her black hair, but one barely noticed them beside the wings that rose past them. The Malarai could not fly—could not walk well either without corrective surgery, if Jahir remembered his studies. Their wings had been engineered as decorations for the masters who'd wanted them as pets. His class on mental diseases of the Exodus had devoted an entire sub-chapter to the Malarai... but this woman seemed utterly at ease.

  "A species rarer than mine," she said with a smile. "May I sit? On the edge of the bench. I won't come close enough to touch."

  "Of course," he said.

  She perched there, easy, one leg tucked under herself. "I'm Patience. I'm part of the port's medical response team. We keep an eye out for passengers who might need help. You don't need to discuss your situation with me, but would you be distressed if I stayed here until you felt well enough to move on?"

  "No," he said. "In truth, I have some notion of what ails me and what must be done about it. And I am bound anyway for Mercy Hospital, so I can discuss it with them there if necessary."

  "Ohhh," she said, smiling. "Let's see, spring's just ended... that means you must be a new resident, yes?"

  "Yes," he said, startled.

  She nodded. "Mercy takes its probationary residents at the beginning of its slow season... for us in Heliocentrus, that's summer, when the government moves to Terracentrus. A lot of the city's transients go with it, which means less volume goes through the medical system until the seat moves back here in the northern hemisphere's winter." She smiled. "I went through the Mercy residency myself."

  "Did you?" he said. "Have you any advice, then?"

  "Oh." She shook her head after a moment. "No. They're going to work you within an inch of your life. Try to rest, eat, take care of yourself in the moments you get." She glanced at him, canted her head. "What's your specialty?"

  "Xenopsychology."

  "Ah," she said. And laughed. "An Eldritch therapist! There must be only one of you in all the worlds."

  "Very probably," he agreed. He studied her. "You went through the program, but did not stay?"

  "Oh no." Patience laughed again. Her wings shivered when she moved; he found himself staring at them. "No, I wanted the best education I could have, and that was it. But once I was done, I wanted something a little less hectic." She lifted her chin, nodded her head toward the passing stream of people. "This is good. I like seeing so many people come and go. I love the bustle of the port. The people aren't here because they're sick, they're here because they're going somewhere. They're excited, or hurried, or rushed, but even at their worst they're looking toward something. People in a hospital are...." She paused, then suggested a ball with her hands and crushed it inward until her two fists met. "They're... folded up into themselves, involved in their own healing or sicknesses. It was a good place to learn but I didn't want to live there." She smiled at him. "But we all have to make that choice. Mercy can't take on all the people that want to work for it. It's a big name, huge advances happening all the time. Very exciting science. If that's what you want, it's one of the best places to be in the Alliance."

  "Then I should go about my way," he murmured. He thought he could manage standing and the need to be done with traveling, to be somewhere instead of in transition, was powerfully in him.

  "If you're certain?" she asked.

  "I am, and I thank you." He proved it by standing, and if he remained weary at least he was no longer dizzy. "And for the talk, also."

  "My work," she said with a smile. "Good luck with the residency."

  Despite his best intentions, however, Jahir's first view of the inside of Mercy Hospital was its walk-in clinic. He arrived listing to one side, grateful to be upright at all and with no memory of the journey from the port to his destination. He'd walked some part of it, he thought, but….

  "Rough time, ah?" the Tam-illee nurse said while studying his diagnostic read-outs.

  "Something like."

  The foxine nodded. "Wait here… the doctor will see you in a moment."

  "I assure you, I am not going anywhere."

  The nurse chuckled. "No, I don't imagine you are. Just lie back… on your side is better, it will keep you from feeling like you're suffocating. There, that way. You're fine, all right? Nothing's going to happen to you here."

  "Thank you," Jahir murmured, and did as he was told. It would be ironic if he couldn't withstand the simple physical rigors of the residency when he'd agonized so over choosing it. All the factors he'd thought would deter him—the famed difficulty of the program, the stress of adapting to a new city
and culture, the regret of leaving behind friends—had seemed far more obvious dangers than the one he hadn't even thought to evaluate. And which he should have, as Seersana had been heavier than his homeworld, and he'd had a problem like this before.

  Jahir closed his eyes and strove not to sigh.

  "Jahir Seni Galare. Did I say that correctly? No, don't get up."

  He opened an eye and found an older woman studying her data tablet. Hinichi, he thought; there was a look to the wolfine race that differentiated them from the fox-like Tam-illee despite how often their animal attributes were limited to a set of ears and a tail. She looked at his bed's data, then at him and lifted her brows. "Well, then."

  "Let me guess," he said. "I am the first Eldritch you've seen."

  "That too," she said, and pulled up a stool. "I was more admiring your physique, which tells me close to everything I need to know. Just how light is the world you're from?"

  "I confess I have not the first notion." Rousing himself, he added, "Seersana was heavier, however. That was my last place of residence."

  "Ah? For how long?"

  "Two years," he replied. "I am…" He stopped, then did sigh. "I am here for my residency."

  "Here? At Mercy?" She shook her head. "You must be embarrassed."

  "A touch."

  She chuckled, but it was a kind one. "Don't let it bother you. Selnor's on the heavy side of the Mediger scale. You're not the first case of this we've seen. But if you were on Seersana for two years…" She glanced at the data tablet, thumbing through it. "Looks like you've had the adaptation regimen before?"

  "How did you—"

  "Know, since you don't appear to have any medical records?" she asked with a wry smile and one sagging ear. She nodded toward his legs. "You've got unusual muscle for your frame. Not necessarily conclusive, but there's evidence of strain where it was pulling on your skeletal system before the bone density built to support it." She tilted her head. "Any reason you have no medical records?"

  "None I can share," Jahir said.

  "So I assume if I make notes on this case…" She stopped at his tiny head-shake. "And if I mark you in the system as having a medical condition, will that vanish as well?"

  "I don't know," he admitted.

  She wrinkled her nose. "All right. Better safe than sorry, then. I'll issue you an old-fashioned medical bracelet—you'll wear it, right?—so that people will know you have a condition that might need aid. Let's talk about treatment options, which have been somewhat complicated by your having had the regimen already." She set the tablet on the table and folded her hands on one knee, crossing her legs. "We could administer it to you again; that's your first option. That will solve the problem completely."

  "And the issue with that option?" Jahir asked.

  "That in a small but non-zero segment of the population, multiple courses of the adaptation regimen have a paradoxical reaction," she said. "The growth regulation mechanism self-sabotages and you start building muscle too fast for the metabolism to feed, including the heart muscle. The process will scavenge from every other available system, including your bones and visceral organs, to keep going, and you end up back on a bed again, except this time in one of our operating rooms where we rebuild you system by system. It's expensive and uncomfortable and you'll end up worse off than you started."

  "How small is this small percentage?" Jahir asked, dismayed and, he hoped, hiding it.

  "About six percent."

  "And my other option?"

  "You learn to live with this," she said. "And we put you on a medically supervised diet and exercise program. With some coaxing, your body will do the work it needs to do. But it will take time, and you'll have to keep to the program religiously. No cheating. That includes mechanical assistance, so no handy leg frames."

  "Or—"

  "Or you sabotage your own progress," the Hinichi finished. "Not as explosively as the adaptation regimen would if it failed, but you're going to feel every ounce of your extra weight every day. And if you're here as a resident, it's going to be up to you to manage the needs of the program with your work, and I won't lie—that'll be hard. You'll probably take two steps back for every step forward for a while."

  He did not like feeling this weak. But the idea of trusting a medical system, no matter how advanced, with intervention during a catastrophic failure of his body when they had absolutely no medical literature, training or resources on Eldritch physiology… "If I try the latter, I can always fall back on the adaptation regimen if it fails, yes?"

  "Of course."

  "Then let us begin with less harm," he said, with a quirk of a smile. "And proceed to more if absolutely necessary."

  "Wise of you," she said. "I'll go work up a schedule for you and get one of the bracelets. And by the way—" She smiled, brows lifted. "Welcome to Mercy."

  The nurse who discharged him gave him directions to the hospital housing, where he'd been assigned a room. His acceptance packet had included a map of the surrounding blocks and the apartments available there for those who wanted to live off the grounds, but he had not thought himself up to negotiating the Alliance's winter capital on his very first day… and that was before he'd discovered how much effort merely standing would be. The building he wanted was across a small park, but given its usual visitors it also included a slidewalk. He leaned against its rail and let it carry him, and there was a taste in the air like a storm: hot and wet as the breeze sifted his hair. He lifted his face to it and felt anchorless, a thing set adrift and yet unable to move.

  He had wanted to know if he could handle a medical psychiatry career at its most difficult. Had in fact let Vasiht'h convince him of the wisdom of that course. He knew now that Heliocentrus would be all that it had promised. Two years of this and he would know, without doubt, whether he belonged here.

  The thought of Vasiht'h clung to him as he checked into his new room. It was smaller than the apartment he'd shared with his Glaseahn roommate, but this one was his alone… was, in fact, the exact sort of room he'd been hoping for when he'd first arrived at Seersana University, wanting to preserve his solitude and his sanity by building a wall between his ability to read thoughts and feelings and the aliens he'd been so fascinated by, and so wary of.

  Now that he'd spent two years living with one of those aliens, he felt the emptiness of this room too deeply. It reminded him of hollow places in his life, once filled by unexpected friends, now separated by several days of interstellar travel… and in one special case, by the veil of death, a death that would visit all of his alien companions centuries before it came for him.

  Vasiht'h would have had one look at this place, declared it barren, and started making cookies. As a prelude, he'd say, to thinking about how to decorate it.

  Jahir's smile faded quickly. He set his bags down and went to the too-clean desk to begin sorting through the orientation materials. Tomorrow morning he was expected for duty, and the day after that for a meeting, apparently, with his new personal trainer. At least they would keep him busy.

  "You're leaving!" Kuriel asked, ears flattening. She twisted in his lap to look up at Vasiht'h. "You're leaving?"

  "I'm leaving."

  The two human girls sitting on the mat across from him glanced at one another. Amaranth said, "It must be super important. You wouldn't go otherwise."

  "What happened?" Persy added.

  "Nothing's happened," Vasiht'h said. And then, more gravely, because he knew they would both understand and approve of the solemn confidence, "I'm going after Jahir."

  "Yes!" Persy crowed, and bumped Amaranth in the shoulder with a fist. "I knew it!"

  Amaranth grinned. "Yeah, but I agreed with you!"

  "And how long have you known?" Vasiht'h asked, bemused.

  "Since he left." Persy wiggled her toes. "Ever since he left, you've been… nervous."

  "Antsy," Amaranth agreed. "Like someone with something on his mind."

  "And we remembered what you told us when he fell
asleep during that story—"

  "—it was about the moth," Kuriel murmured against him. "The bright green moth who didn't look like the grey moths he lived with."

  "Yeah, that one." Persy continued, "Anyway. You told us during that story how much it upset you that he was leaving, and you were so worried about him. I got to talking with Amaranth and we figured you weren't going to stay behind. You're going to be his best friend forever! Right?"

  "Right," Vasiht'h said, firmly. The plan was perhaps a little more nebulous than they were assuming, but then again, did it really need any more granularity than that? As the Goddess Herself would say, the point was not to dictate the future, but to shape it. Friendship was a thing that shaped, if it was good. And what he'd had with Jahir had been too good to allow to pass out of his life.

  "Will you write us?" Amaranth asked.

  "Will you come back," Kuriel muttered.

  Vasiht'h looked down at the Seersa in his lap. Her tail-tip and fingertips had been dyed bright pink since he'd seen her last week, no doubt in response to a flare-up of the disease that had seen her put in All Children's Hospital's permanent resident ward with the others. She'd confessed once that she feared she'd be the only one left in her room... and gentle little Nieve had died, and Kayla and Meekie had gone to Selnor into the care of a specialist. No doubt this felt like another step toward that fate. He squeezed her and said, "I don't know the future, Kuriel-arii. I'm going to Heliocentrus to help Jahir, but I don't know what that help will look like. I'd like to come back here, though." He looked at the two human girls watching him. "I'll certainly write you all, and Hea Berquist too."

  "And you'll visit Meekie and Kayla?" Amaranth asked.

  "We've had a letter," Persy added. "But knowing more is better!"

  "If I'm allowed, I would love to see them," Vasiht'h said.

  Persy leaned forward and tugged on Kuriel's tail lightly. "Aww, Kuri. Don't be sad. This is what Nieve was talking about when she kept saying there's magic in the world."