The next eight-day was the worst eight-day of Coloratura’s life up until then.

The first two days only med-droids were allowed inside her sealed room. They took blood samples, ran a variety of tests, some of which were uncomfortable, but none were painful.

The painful part came when she nerved herself up to update her Final Letters, the letters in her personal file that would be transmitted when the Fleet returned to the Homeworlds, but only if she died.

Mom:

I’m so afraid.

I wish you were here.

My body, no, my mind is no longer working right.

I’m insane.

Not all of the time, but enough of the time to make me dangerous.

I have flashes of terrible rage and I want to do horrible things. They have me locked up. I can’t hurt anyone except myself, and I am not suicidal.

Yet.

If you are reading this, I am dead . . .

Coloratura paused. She stared at the computer screen for a long moment. Then she deleted the message. She breathed deeply and started again.

Mom:

If you are reading this, I am dead.

You probably know more about what happened to me than I do now, so I won’t dwell on my situation.

Don’t blame yourself for having me genegeneered. Even the Master did not predict whatever went wrong with me, and I have very much enjoyed my life.

You have given me a great gift, a wonderful opportunity.

It is nobody’s fault things turned out poorly. They are treating me very well here. If it is possible, they will cure me, and you will never see this letter. If I die, what they learn from me may prevent this from ever happening again.

I love you,

Coloratura

She looked at the letter for a long moment before she saved it.

She began to write another letter to another person she loved and feared she would never see again.

People were allowed to visit her on the third day, but they were all wearing hazmat suits. Pien was first, and he brushed off her stammered apology.

“Heh, don’t be silly, Coloratura! You couldn’t help it and every female Maker in the Fleet along with some of the males has propositioned me because of my heroic behavior. I never thought I would ever have to turn down attempts to seduce me, but there are just not enough hours in the day! But enough about my rich and satisfying sex life. Let’s talk about the War Birds!”

They spent four hours happily going over schematics. They argued about whether they should upgrade the War Birds using new parts from Factory and risking unpredictable strains on the War Birds or simply keep replacing the old parts as they burned out. They eventually agreed on upgrading some systems and waiting a few eight-days to evaluate the stresses before upgrading the rest.

On the fourth day they gave her limited access to the Fleet Intranet. She spent happy hours looking through a remote and kibitzing as Pien began the modifications to the War Birds. The doctors still would not permit her to control a remote or a repair droid out of fear of her suffering a sudden fit of homicidal rage.

At the end of the fifth day the two doctors in charge of her case visited her.

“Good news, Coloratura!” said the Singer doctor. “We have discovered what is wrong with you. We can easily fix it!”

Coloratura was by no means a skilled medical professional, but she would have found that statement to be far more encouraging if Doctor Contre had not been wearing a hazmat suit.

Doctor Bucacis, an older female Maker, (who did not wear a hazmat suit) scowled up at her Singer colleague. “You overstate the case, Contre! We know what is causing her problem, but we only believe we know how to treat it! We will not be certain for several days, until after we see how Coloratura responds to our new treatment!”

Contre gestured airily. “No need to be pessimistic, Bucacis. I am confident my, I mean our procedure will be a total success!”

Coloratura, for her part, was quite confident that, even had she not been a Golden, she would still have liked Bucacis far more than she liked Contre.

Still, both doctors outranked her. She would not be released until and unless they both certified her harmless. She took a deep breath and, as humbly as she could manage, said “What is wrong with me?”

Contre nodded wisely. “It’s really very simple, Pilot-Commander. You had unanticipated hormonal surges which temporarily affected your personality . . .”

Bucacis’ scowl deepened. “You went into heat.”

“I what?”

Contre glowered at the smaller doctor. “Crudely put, but accurate. The drugs you females use to suppress your breeding cycles worked on you, but only to a point. The modifications we . . . I mean that the Master made on you rendered you sensitive to Maker pheromones. After you were exposed to a large amount of female Maker sex pheromones, your reproductive system believed there were other females in heat in your area. Your ovaries went into overdrive and your drug dosage became inadequate. That is because of an evolutionary development which ensured all the fertile females went into heat at the same time . . .”

“Wait! Wait! You mean my jealousy, my rage is normal? You mean before we had the anti-heat drugs every fertile female became a homicidal maniac at the same time?”

“Well, yes. It must have been very awkward for them. The Master speculates this is the reason we only developed an actual civilization a few thousand years before zie came here, even though the fossil record shows our species has existed unchanged for several million years. Naturally, a real civilization would have been impossible to create if half of the population periodically tried to kill each other. But that was a long time ago. It is not a problem anymore.”

Coloratura stared at him in disbelief. “It was a problem last eight-day. A bad problem!”

Contre gestured airily again, a habit Coloratura had quickly come to detest. “Not at all, Coloratura! You were able to bring yourself under control and check yourself in here before anyone was more than startled by your display. No harm done. And we are adjusting the medications on the other Golden females to avoid a repetition of this embarrassing incident.”

Coloratura opened her mouth to protest that if Pien hadn’t taken the suicidal risk of trying to stop an insane Singer twice his size and far, far stronger than him, she would have killed at least one female Maker, along with any other perceived rivals. It would have been a lot worse than just embarrassing!

Then Coloratura snapped her jaws shut.

Like Mother always said, “Never argue with a fool.”

Especially a fool who could keep her in isolation for as long as he wanted.

“So you think I will be released soon?”

“As soon as the tests show your hormones are in balance again. Probably in a day or two.”

“Thank you very much, Doctor,” she said, as gratefully as she could manage.