Ancient Thought by Viola Grace (literature books to read txt) 📗

pressure broke two ribs and cracked her pelvis. She was helped through medical, and one of the attendants kept looking at her chest.

She wheezed as she laughed. “What is it? Haven’t you ever seen anyone wearing them vertically before? Horizontal is for snobs.”

The medic on her right laughed out loud, and the younger one looked confused.

They helped her up the steps and settled her as they spent their time with scanners looking for a vein.

“If it helps, I can chug a bottle of water.”

The medic gave the order in a different language, and someone came in with a container of water. Sitting naked in a roomful of strangers was amusing rather than embarrassing. She took the bottle handed to her and slammed it back. “Give it a few minutes. See if you can find any obvious ones.”

He chuckled and inserted her catheter. She made a face. “Charming. I thought you were the nice one.”

The water soon did its work, and her veins inflated enough to get the lines in. Once she was wired and the sedative they shot into her arm had been administered, it was time to drop into the tank. Minerva had explained it, and Alyla had explained it again. She needed to drop in and start breathing. With the broken ribs, it was going to hurt, but hopefully, the healing would start quickly.

She fell into the warm fluid and looked out through the warped and distorted display of the inside of the tank, she breathed in deep for the first time, the second, and then, the sedative began to creep in through her veins.

She sucked the air in and exhaled slowly, floating as the fluid suspended her with no pressure on her body. As her awareness darkened, she decided that hovering naked in a tube was something worth remembering.

She woke up several times in the following weeks. Her body was definitely changing. Her skin had changed texture, and there was a low-grade ache in her body from whatever else was going on. The most delightful thing was that her hair turned dark blue around the third week.

Her skin turned a peculiar ecru pearl. She lost all body hair below the neck, and the filters whisked it away. That was certainly new. She had never been waxed in her life, but there was no way her body could be confused with that of a child.

Libby noted that her breasts were ratcheting back into the original launch position, and her squared waist was resuming her curves. She was a little more spread out than she was before, and her hands couldn’t encompass her breasts. Her position in the tank change as well. She had gotten more than the single foot of height that she had been after.

A tall man approached her during one of her waking moments, and he inclined his head.

She heard a voice reverberating in her mind. Greetings, Elizabeth. I am not surprised you have woken. How are you finding the accommodations?

She pressed the curved surface. Slightly cramped, a little exposed. What is happening now?

You will be given languages, and then, you will be removed from the tank. Once you are verified as genetically stable, we will be orbiting near the Mathlu Monastery, and you will be delivered to the surface by dropship.

That sounds ominous. What is that?

He smiled, and he displayed sharp teeth. A box is arranged with cushioning and life support, and we drop you out of this shuttle. As an Alliance Protectorate, we are not allowed to put a shuttle on the surface. We will make sure that there is someone to retrieve you on the surface.

Somehow, your wife didn’t mention that.

Ah, Minerva is canny. She tells folks what they need to know but not everything. It is a system that works.

How tall am I now?

Imperial measurement. Seven feet. The ancients you are dealing with are from a race that began as tall and turned to giants. You should appear suitable to the monks.

How am I talking to you? I am not even trying to speak.

Ah, our conversation is taking place in a few seconds. The speed of thought. They will be coming with the language uploads soon. It was good that we got those from the monastery. They are very restrictive with what they consider to be essential information.

Well, information is their purpose, is it not?

He inclined his head. “Just so.”

He turned and left her, and she took in the thick black feathers that he had in place of hair, the tattoos running down his face that morphed and twisted as he spoke, and the grey skin had slight markings around his eyes and forehead. The endless swirling black in his eyes reminded her of what Minerva had told her about reaching for another mind. No touching.

The medics who had loaded her in beckoned her to the front of the tank, and she lined up her eyes with the monitor that was giving her instructions in English. She moved her head, and the moment she was lined up, there was a series of rapid flashes, and she fell back, covering her eyes. Her thoughts were scrambling around, and then, she leaned back and let the darkness have her while she sorted herself out.

Libby woke up when there was activity around her. The tank above her that controlled the light and monitors on her was shifted aside. She floated up and purged her lungs on the way up, inhaling deeply when she entered the air again. She flopped to her belly, coughed, and vomited out the tank fluid. It wasn’t the worst thing she had ever coughed up.

As she lay like a beached dolphin, the techs began disconnecting all the cables attached to her. She started bleeding, but they massaged her back and waited until the coughing stopped before the three medics moved her down the steps and over to a med bed.

She was nearly too large for the bed, but they didn’t have any issue sealing up the wounds from the