Death in Winter - Michael Jan Friedman [16]
It was a corny joke, the kind her husband Jack might have made. Strange-it had been so long since his death. When did it stop seeming like yesterday?
She was still pondering the question when the door directly in front of her swung open, affording the doctor a glimpse of swirling, diamond-dust snow. Then a couple of Kevrata came in and pulled the door shut behind them.
It’s them, Beverly thought, as she saw the colors of their coats. One was a rich blue with silver highlights, the other black with red patches. Though there were others in the tavern wearing the same colors, there weren’t many-and none of them, as far as Beverly could tell, had walked in together.
No, these were her men-or rather, her Kevrata. She would have staked her life on it. In fact, she added musingly, I will be doing just that.
For their part, they had been told to look for a female of their species, one who would be unremarkable except for the color of her facial fur. Whereas most Kevrata were pure white, a few had brown or black streaks mixed in. Beverly’s streaks, which were black as pitch, were located just under her eyes, making it look as if she had been crying black tears.
She thanked Macrita Helleck, her immediate predecessor at Starfleet Medical, for coming up with the subdermal holoprojector technology that allowed field personnel to impersonate a different species without undergoing surgical alteration.
Until a few years ago, anyone who wanted to go unrecognized in an alien milieu-either to study it or spy on it-had been forced to go under the laser scalpel. In the course of Beverly’s Starfleet career she had been on both ends of the procedure, performing it as well as having it performed on her.
She hadn’t liked it in either case. It was a time-consuming operation, and the surgically implanted prosthetics never felt quite right. That was why assignments that entailed surgical alteration had become such objects of dread among the rank and file. And though the patient’s original features were restored when the mission was over, that required surgery as well.
Now, Beverly was pleased to say, it was different. All one had to do was come up with an alien image, and a network of projectors the size of dust motes, strategically inserted under the skin, did the rest. And they didn’t just create an appearance; they generated a tangible surface, using electromagnetic fields.
The basic technology wasn’t new. It had been employed in holodecks for nearly twenty years. But Helleck had miniaturized the emitters, making the idea a practical one.
Good thing, Beverly thought, as she considered her reflection in the rounded surface of her mug. Building brow ridges was one thing. Fur implantation was quite another.
And it wasn’t just the fur. It was the obsidian skin underneath it, invisible except under close inspection. Surgically altering her to look like a Kevrata would have been a nightmare for one of her colleagues, no question.
It took the males in the blue and black coats a few seconds to pick her out from the crowd. Once they did, they waddled purposefully in her direction, jostling a dozen or more of their fellow Kevrata on the way.
No one seemed to mind. But then, the Kevrata liked physical contact. Beverly had learned that a long time ago.
The males stopped in front of her, pulled their hoods back, and sat down. Like all their kind, they had sloping foreheads and wide, flat noses with gaping nostrils.
But it was their eyes that drew Beverly’s gaze. They were riots of color, their irises dark purple at the fringes, green farther in, and a ruddy gold around the pupils.
Just like the eyes of the Kevrata who had crash-landed on Arvada III. Beverly could still see Jojael peering imploringly at her through the haze of her illness, begging her for something she couldn’t give them.
But with a little luck, she would be able to give it to these Kevrata. That was why she had come all the way from Earth, wasn’t it? To do as an experienced physician what