"S. L. Viehl - Stardoc 05 - Eternity Row" - читать интересную книгу автора (Viehl S. L)

For my sister, Kimberly Anne,
who knows all about making peace,
and has walked in beauty
every day of her life.
I’m so proud of you.
I love you.
Stay with us, sweetheart.

PART ONE
Contentions

CHAPTER ONE
The Sunlace

… and [I] will abstain from every voluntary art of mischief and corruption, and further from the seduction
of females or males, bond or free…
-Hippocrates (460?-377? B.C.)

Hippocrates must have never gotten the wife in the family way, I thought as I felt something tickle
my foot. Or he definitely would have covered baby-sitting in the oath.
“Okay.” I gazed around my operating table. “Who forgot to secure the door panel?”
That startled the sapphire-skinned Jorenian nurse manning the prep tray beside me. “Your
pardon, Healer?” Although her eyes were solid white-no pupils or irises-she wasn’t blind.
Neither was I. I pointed down.
Everyone looked down.
A fold of white surgical linen twitched, then someone small and unauthorized giggled.
The whole team tried to keep their blue faces straight, but if there weren’t big grins under every
mask in the room, I was a Hsktskt.
Serving as a thoracic surgeon on board the star vessel Sunlace, crewed by my adopted Jorenian
family, HouseClan Torin, was never dull. Squilyp, my boss and the ship’s primary physician/surgeon, had
alternated shifts with me and two senior residents so he could devote more time to training the junior
residents and interns on staff.
And usually, that wasn’t a problem. Usually.
Stuff like this never happened to my boss, of course. If the Omorr had been attending, the
patient would already be cut open and the procedure half done. That was because Squilyp was still a
bachelor and didn’t have to deal with inquisitive progeny sneaking in during his operations.
For me, it was the third time that week.
“Marel.” I crouched down and flipped up my eye lens to stop my cortgear from recording.
“Come out of there.”
Another fold moved. “Doan see me. I dibisibow.”
I sincerely hoped not. “I have to work now, baby. You can be invisible for me later.”
A perfectly perceptible blond head popped out from under the linen. Like me, she was small,
Terran, and used to getting her own way. “Be dibisibow now.”
I heard a suspicious, choking sound, and whipped up my head. My team became instantly
preoccupied with studying the upper deck.
“This is surgery, people, not day care.” I lifted the edge of the drape. “Marel, come out of there.
Immediately.”
She crawled out, stood up, and tried to see over the edge of the table. “Who dad? I see,
Mama?” She stretched up her arms. “Me up!”
“No touching.” Her small, eager hands were the reason I’d had all the laser rigs raised another