Duty calls

KJ called me. Said it wasn't an order. Not exactly. And it was my personal life and everything, so I could say no. But could I please stop Cia melting down in alliance?

She was gibbering on the alliance channel. Vikarion, her old corpse. her original corpse. He was me, so who am I? Really losing it.

So I flew to Lustrevik. Knocked on the door to her hangar, and asked to see her. They took my weapon and let me in. Some of her crew know me, and they seemed glad someone had come. Like they were worried for her but couldn't do anything.

Cia was sitting on her couch. Rocking and moaning. So I gave her a hug. It seemed to help. And she told me what had happened.

It was her body. The one that Vikarion killed. She's sick. Maybe dying, and her original body might have clues as to what's going on. She asked for it back. Vikarion said he'd give it back if she met him at a particular bar. She showed up, and Vik was there, wearing her corpse as if it were a jump clone.

Cia freaked. She's not entirely stable at the best of times, and seeing herself seemed to have upset her. She remembers the Cia-Copy that her father made, to make her what he wanted rather than who she was. Maybe she's not the Real-Cia, just a bad copy who thinks she's real, and that's why she's sick. Identity issues.

She got anxious and started having difficulty breathing. A lot of difficulty. I called her med team, and Nerila showed up with a couple of medics and gave her a transfusion. Cia wasn't very cooperative, but I held her hand and talked her into it. I also talked her into accepting a monitor so Nerila could tell when she was having difficulty next time. From what Cia said, she's getting transfusions every day, and that they're getting less effective. Cia wasn't very grateful to Nerila, worryingly hostile actually.

Nerila left reluctantly. I stayed a little longer to see how she was doing.

She apologised to me, about us. She said she hadn't treated me very well, and she wanted me to know she knew. It was like she was making her peace or something. I helped her to bed, pulled the covers over her as she fell asleep. I looked down at her wondering. Why was I there? Why was she happy to see me? What did it all mean?

I kissed her forehead, wished her sweet dreams, and left her sleeping.

I made my way out of the hab-unit into the rest of the hangar. I headed for Nerila's lab. I asked some questions.

Cia's not got much time. Her marrow isn't producing blood cells, and transfusions are putting clean blood in, but something in her system is damaging the cells very quickly, and the spleen is filtering them out, so she needs new blood every day. Nerila's a surgeon, not a geneticist, and Cia's ordered her not to tell anyone off ship. I'm not sure why she was telling me. Nerila's following orders to the letter I think, and for some reason I wasn't covered at that point.

Nerila told me that if she got a tissue match for a donor, then she could do something to Cia's system that would buy her years. Long enough to find the problem. But finding the donor soon would be a good thing.

Her best hope of a donor is her family. They've tested Camille - not close enough. The rest of her family is in hiding.

Time to go looking.