Despite my best efforts, it looks like Silver has already started changing. She has silver scales on her skin in the same places I have black ones, except hers also expand up to her face.
It makes little sense.
"But I was the only one who touched her and only briefly compared to how much contact the two of us had before my changes started. Not to mention your scales are black."
"I don't know enough about what causes it to say."
I huff out a breath. "There must have been enough of your DNA on me already to transfer over to her. Or I already had mixed DNA, I dunno. But why did her metamorphosis happen so fast?"
He thinks for a moment. "I suspect it's because of the constant cycling of nanites to keep the chamber running."
I sigh. "I'm sorry, Silver. So many changes and you haven't even woken up yet."
She might have many more changes ahead of her if we can't find a way to isolate her before her chamber stops working.
I really have no sense of just how much my own body will change. I'm glad at least she'll have someone else to talk to about it. I'd like that too.
Not that I can't talk about it with Thivoll, but it would be nice to be able to commiserate with another human.
"Well, the damage is already done. I want to check her eyes to see if her concussion has improved."
He nods at me, then opens the chamber while I hold my hands at the ready. After it snicks open I quickly pull back on her eyelids.
Her eyes are less dilated, which is an enormous relief, but she also now has silver irises to compliment her light green sclera.
I pull my hands back, rubbing at them to relieve the ache. "Ok, go ahead and close it."
"You don't want to see if she will wake up?"
I consider it. "No. I would rather let the chamber keep working and her nanites have more time to heal her."
Thivoll nods and engages the controls, his face betraying his own conflicted feelings about that decision.
I let out a big sigh after it closes. None of this is ideal, which is of course fucking obvious, but I'd really like to feel like I'm using my experience and skills instead of hoping tiny robots keep doing all the important work on a planet that destroys technology.
Or power sources, I suppose, though the distinction doesn't make me feel any better.
All I've done since arriving here is convince other people to do the work I should be doing.
An image of Szhe'ka floats up, his mangled wings twitching behind him. His feet crisscrossed with so many wounds no amount of treatment I could give him would have helped as he bravely walked away from us and the relative safety of numbers.
And yet I let him just disappear into the forest by himself because I needed him.
A sharp pain makes me double over and rest my hands on the top of Silver's chamber.
Staring at her face doesn't give me the same sense of peace it did on the ship. Maybe because then I was the clear victim and now I've blurred the line with my own actions.
Who am I becoming on this god-forsaken planet?
47
Thivoll
I can tell she still feels the heavy weight of responsibility for her Silver, even after all we have done to protect the female.
She looks lost and depressed and I know I need to help distract her from whatever it is floating around in her overly-protective mind.
I doubt she would agree to any naps in the sun or laying under our covers.
