The Vastalimi Gambit Read Online Free PDF Page A

It stemmed, so the story went, from the days when humans carried knives or swords, and demonstrated that the dominant hand—usually the right one—was empty. And with the dominant hands thus occupied, the ability to draw a weapon was also hindered.
    Vastalimi had killing claws on hands and feet, were generally ambidextrous, and there was no ritualistic greeting that would convince anybody they were unarmed or incapable of a killing response—because both assumptions were demonstrably false. If you knew somebody well enough for face-licks, you trusted them, and usually that meant family.
    Family was different. There was seldom danger from family.
    “My sibling speaks well of your abilities, Doctor Wink.” He spoke Basic.
    “Good of her to do so.”
    “Would you like to see some of our afflicted? We have several in various stages of the malady.”
    “Of course,” Kay said.
    “This way.”
    He turned and walked away. They followed.
    When they walked into the room, Kay had a visceral reaction to the feel of death in the air. It had been a while since she had been around dying Vastalimi, and the three strapped to the beds here were certainly close to expiration. There was the smell, of course, but something else, something . . . wrong about them she couldn’t quite pin down.
    She had been a skilled Healer, but it was
intuicija
that had set her apart from most other Healers; that sudden, unexplained, in-the-blink-of-an-eye knowledge, a certainty of what was wrong with a patient. Some Healers had it when they entered the profession; some achieved it along the way; some never had nor got it.
    It was, she had learned, both blessing and curse . . .
    She had never been able to control it, to summon it. It happened, and there seemed no reason in particular why it did or did not. Of a moment, when it occurred, she simply looked at a patient and knew what their problem was. Over the years, it had come to her hundreds of times.
    And when it happened, it had never been wrong.
    Her brother knew that, and he looked at her, waiting. Hoping.
    She shook her head. “Not for sure. But there is
some
thing . . . It seems . . . unnatural.”
    “How so?”
    “I cannot say for certain. Whatever the cause, it feels wrong. Not like any disease I know.”
    “Ah.”
    Wink said, “May I examine one of the patients?”
    “You are not worried about contracting the condition?”
    “Have you determined that it is contagious?”
    “No. We have no idea what it is. We haven’t seen a vector pattern.”
    “Well, even if it is contagious among Vastalimi, chances of interspecies jumping to humans are small.”
    “Small might still be fatal,” Droc said.
    “Everybody dies, Healer. A comet might fall on us tomorrow.”
    Droc glanced at Kay, and gave her the barest hint of a smile.
I like this human,
the expression said.
    Kay nodded and ghosted the smile back.
They have their moments.
    Droc held one hand up to indicate the nearest patient.
    Kay followed Wink to where the ill male lay.
    Even if you knew little about Vastalimi physiology, it would have been easy to see that the male was distressed. Wink Doctor had experience with a number of aliens, including Kay herself. He would bring a fresh and objective viewpoint. Maybe that would help.
    Kay would examine the ill, too, but she suspected that the cause would not be found that way. Maybe something she had learned in her time among humans would help. And maybe Wink Doctor would have some ideas, for he was one of the best medics among them in her experience.

THREE
    Jo and Gunny and Gramps went to see the head of the farm co-op that focused on the
difrui
crop. It wasn’t too far from where CFI had set up camp, a few minutes by hopper.
    They had PPS direction and sat imagery, so Jo wasn’t expecting to find an adobe hut at the end of a dirt road, but even so, it looked more impressive than the images had suggested.
    The place was probably four or five thousand square meters under a