Eradicate (Manipulate, Book 3)

Chapter 6

Spo Embassy

Planet: Selta

Basher was glad to see Claire so happy. She was clearly thrilled to be done with her arm cast. She vigorously scratched her newly released arm, working all the way down and starting up again at the wrist. She paused while the Spo doctor wiped her sticky arm with a damp towel, and started scratching again as he went to wash his hands.

"The itching is annoying," Basher said.

Claire snorted. "I've been abducted by aliens – twice – shot in the leg, and broken an arm; so I can honestly say that itching is the worst."

The Spo doctor returned to examine her arm. He had her carefully rotate her wrist, and then had her stand and raise her arm shoulder height. He flexed her elbow, and then tried to push it sideways.

"Ouch, nope. Doesn't go that way," Claire said. "Never did."

The doctor flushed with embarrassment. "Of course! I know that, but my mind was wandering." He rotated her arm even more carefully after that, and paused to ask if she felt any discomfort.

He was stooping to touch her arm, and his eyestalks were only inches above her face. The smell of the Spo, bleach-like and intense, surrounded her, and his front set of legs, bent forward at the knee, nearly touched her.

"Amazingly, I feel almost entirely comfortable," Claire told him.

Basher smiled, and Claire was sure he knew what she meant.

"They do grow on you," he said, slapping the doctor on his bony shoulder.

The Spo ignored him and finished his exam. "You seem to be almost entirely recovered. I wish we could have gotten a Crosspoint to you, to assist the bone attachment, but this primitive method seems to have worked." He shook his head slightly. "The stiffness in your wrist and fingers is merely from inactivity, I would suggest stretching them several times a day."

Claire smiled at him, he really wasn't so different from the antiseptic-smelling pediatrician she remembered from her childhood.

On the way out of the medical room, Claire glanced at Basher. "Do the Spo still keep the ink here? For the tattoos?"

Basher instinctively looked at the tattoo on Claire's cheek. She'd gotten it during her brief time in the Spo cadet program. It was the same type of tattoo he had on his wrist, ink embedded at a cellular level by a Crosspoint, which essentially changed the melatonin of the affected cells. Such a tattoo was supposed to be a stamp of authentication, proof that the person wearing it was human. The ink to make the tattoos was a controlled substance, or at least, it used to be.

Until Claire helped her Rik friends steal the supply here. Now there were an unknown number of Rik, probably more than a hundred, with perfect tattoos.

Basher gave her a perfunctory glare. He knew she wasn't at all sorry that the Rik had gotten it. "No, the ink is not here anymore. The new supply is kept in storage." He lifted her hand as he said it, tapping his thumb on the smooth skin of her inner wrist. "You should get it as soon as possible, just to avoid confusion."

Claire pulled her hand away and rubbed it against her leg as they started up the stairs to the second level. Basher tried not to think that she was trying to wipe him off, but it sure looked that way.

Shara joined them at the second level. "There you both are. Listen, I want to go out, I'm getting stir-crazy in here, and Sam needs to exercise his trouncer. Basher will you take us out?"

"That would hardly be smart. You know how dangerous it is for Rik on Selta."

"But we could take Sam's trouncer," Shara repeated. "That would scare most Merith off, and besides, I know you would protect me." She smiled up at him adoringly.