A gentle breeze blew through the flowers and grass in the garden. The movement of the bell arconen flowers created the lovely ringing sound they were named for as their lustrous pink blooms waved in the wind. Their powerful scent was accompanied by that of the calistans, small pink and spherical, and the cardon in bold red, whose scent though sweet, was the weakest of all. Awbil inhaled deeply of the rich air. She sank deeper into the sponge-like powder blue grass that cradled her as she lay on the ground. Above her, the sky was, as always, filled with thin clouds that blocked most of the bright pink sky and diffused all light from the sun to a soft ambient light pink glow. 

It was a perfect moment that felt suspended in time, and Awbil closed her eyes to fully appreciate it with her much stronger sense of touch. Her limin, small receptors all over her skin, moved with each minuscule vibration from the sound of the bell arconens. They shivered in the wind and hummed with the feel of the grass on her back. A variety of pleasant sensations spread through her body, driving her into a state of pure bliss and heightened awareness that all Orlians experienced when all their limin were fully activated, a limin-aura. The tingling started from the base of her neck, spread all over her scalp, then began making its way through her arms, down her back, past the waist, and to her legs. The sensation halted there and abruptly terminated. Her limin deactivated from her aura state and returned to normal levels of perception.

Awbil opened her eyes, quickly wiped the tears away from her face, and smiled. She sat up, looked to where the limin-aura had been terminated and stared at her left leg. Unlike the rest of her soft, pale pink skin, the flesh on the lower half of her left leg was hard, rubbery, and had turned a sickening yellow-green. All the limin on it were petrified, and so she would never be able to achieve a full limin-aura experience again. Awbil’s hand shook as she stroked the dead limb. It felt like plastic on her hands, and the leg itself was numb to all sensations. She stroked it harder, dug into it, pinched it as hard as she could, and still nothing. The limin on her hands spread the pain on her fingers up to her elbow, but there was no reaction from the leg. Dead flesh was all it was. Her first of many limbs, she expected to fall to the petrification sickness.  

She snatched the hand away from her leg as the limin on her back picked up a subtle vibration. Soon a shadow fell over her, and she looked up to face Ivol. His shiny metal body reflected the green energy that connected his disjointed hands and unique iclaxian feet, which looked like small cylinders. Awbil gave him her brightest smile and greeted him.

“Hello, Ivol. It’s good to see you today?”

“Sof. Awbil, you are late for your appointment. As usual.” His voice projected from his small gray head, and his one green eye squinted. 

Even with Iclaxian’s typical lack of emotional intonation, Awbil was certain Ivol was irritated with her. “Oh! I’m so sorry. You know how bad I am with keeping time when I’m among the flowers.” She said, making sure her tone conveyed exactly the right level of unapologetic cheer she knew would push his annoyance. “I hope you’re not upset.”

“I am not. Do you need help standing?”

Awbil said nothing. She’d hoped for a slightly stronger reaction. After all, this was the twelfth time he’d had to come find her for her check-up. Well, she’d have another chance tomorrow. “No, thank you, I can get up myself.”

She picked up the crutch at her side and stood up. She still had three functioning limbs, and she would use them to their fullest while she was able. “So what are we testing today? A pill? Lotion? Scrub?”

“Today, we will attempt to treat the petrification with a topical solution developed by Cal’elcoran. The result in the lab shows effects against the petrification samples. As we have found, with all our previous attempts, the disease seems to behave differently on live subjects compared to our samples, so we can only guess the effectiveness of this solution. As always, we are grateful for your cooperation in testing.”

Maybe she was reaching, but Awbil thought she heard some sarcasm in his last sentence, and her smile grew “Of course, you’ve all come to an insignificant planet like Orl to help try to cure the disease, this is the least I can do.”

Awbil limped her way to the med center entrance while Ivol floated beside her, moving at her pace. The gracelessness of her limping walk was made more pronounced by the smoothness of Ivol’s movements. Damn Iclaxians, Awbil thought and smiled softly. Their feet didn’t even touch the ground. They just hovered. Neither of them spoke again until they reached Ivol’s treatment room. Without being prompted, Awbil limped over to the bed floating slightly above the ground at the center of the room. She leaned her crutch against the wall, then threw herself on the bed. 

She glanced to see Ivol’s reaction, but he’d already turned away and was looking at data on the info-server. Awbil scrunched her nose, then leaned into the bed. Her limin hummed pleasantly at the subtle textures on the surface. She sighed and allowed herself to lean into the calming sensation. From the corner, one of the auto-servers, with its cylindrical body and small rectangular head, hovered over, carrying a sealed package. Ivol barely glanced at it as he collected the package and flicked his fingers over the glyphs to open it. Inside was a see-through bag filled with bright yellow liquid.

“Tell me that’s not what you’ll be putting on me.” Awbil wrinkled her nose in distaste.

“It is,” Ivol replied and moved toward her.

“It’s yellow.”

Ivol glanced at the bag. It looked more orange to him.

“Sof. Ivollllllll…” Awbil groaned.

“Your disgust is understandable, but treating you is my priority… lay back down, please,” Ivol said as she attempted to reach for her crutch.

Awbil groaned again and slumped on the bed. “Just get it over with,” she closed her eyes.

It must have seemed silly to him, but for orlians, yellow was associated with only two things. One was the galctus birds which, at the beginning of the year, started a long migration from the island of Glacfuna. They flew in a full circuit around the globe to return to the island after a year-long trip. During their flight, the horrendous creatures released a nauseous yellow fluid called cardon that fell like rain to the ground. There was no feeling as unbearable and repulsive as the feeling of cardon on limin. All orlians had unique preferences regarding limin sensations, but universally, the feel of cardon was viscerally disliked. The second yellow thing on Orl was the petrification disease.

Ivol flicked a finger, and a set of tools from the table beside the info-server floated over. Awbil was used to the Iclaxians’ casual use of telekinesis, but it was still interesting to watch. He held her leg and carefully took off her shoes. She couldn’t feel his hands, but she knew from experience that although they were metal, they were warm but far too smooth, so they felt uncomfortable on her limin. He plucked one of the floating tools from the air and turned it towards her leg. It was shaped like a large bean, and once he turned it on, it shot a stream of green sanitizing light toward her leg. Ivol moved the light upwards from the tip of her toes to the point where the petrification ended. 

After that, he allowed the tool to float upwards, then held his hand beneath the green light. The tool floated back to its place, then Ivol flicked his fingers, and a pack of gloves flew toward him. Awbil noticed that the gloves were designed to make the tips of his metal finger feel blunter. It wasn’t like she would feel it either way, but she appreciated the thought. He put the gloves on, then opened the package of the sicking yellow substance. He scooped out a substantial amount, then began to massage it into her leg. 

“Is it cold?” Awbil asked as she watched him meticulously apply the creme, inch by specific inch. 

“Yes. The solution must be chilled.”

“Hmm, sticky?”

“No.”

“Grainy?”

“Slightly.”

Awbil nodded in mock understanding. “I’m glad I can’t feel it. How long before we start to see results?… if there will be any.”

“One week, and I’d like to apply it at the same time every day, so please make an effort to be on time.”

“I’ll consider it,” She said, then laughed. She knew he was annoyed, and his bringing it up again made it all the more amusing, causing her to laugh harder. 

“Sof. Awbil, stay still.”

“Sorry, it’s just so fun when you show some emotion.”

Ivol squinted his eye but said nothing. He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, as he hadn’t really felt any emotions during their conversation, but he chose not to dampen her joy.

Awbil calmed down, and Ivol continued the application. “You know, I’ve never asked what you think about all this. You’ve all been here for three months now, trying everything to cure this disease. I guess Iclax had to do something as it’s our parent planet, but what do you feel, personally?”

Ivol made a humming sound that Awbil had come to associate with him thinking, then answered. “It is a parent planet’s duty to aid its colony planets. Those are the standard practices cited in the Expansion Accountability Accords.”

Awbil rolled her eyes, then rolled them again to make sure he saw. “Ivol, I know you know what the word personal means. Why did you volunteer to come here?”

Ivol took another scoop of the goop, then began to apply it to her ankles. “This was an assigned role. Not voluntary. I, along with many of the other medics and researchers, were simply selected based on a variety of criteria as the best options to produce results with the cure development for grifal.”

“Oh… that must be awful. Forced to leave your work and come all the way here, only to have your patient late to each appointment.” She laughed, but the sound felt flat.

“We all had the option to decline the assignment. A few did.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It had been a while since I’d dealt with purely protein-based sophonts. I thought this would be a good way to get back into it. I was also curious about the way grifal spread.”

Awbil said nothing for a while. She was the one who asked, so she should have been ready for whatever answer he gave, but the offhanded way he spoke and the monotonous tone and cadence of his voice grated on her nerves. She sighed and looked away. He’d finished applying the creme, so he took off the gloves, tossed them in the combustion bin, then held his hand under the sanitizing light again.

“If you hadn’t worked with organics for a while, why were you chosen?”

Ivol tilted his head to the side. “You have a lot of questions today, Sof. Awbil.”

“Facing my own death seems to have made me more curious,” she said with a smile. She should have stopped there, but more words spilled out. “I’ve always been content to stay on Orl. I love our flower fields, the way the grass molds to my body, the soft ambient light, and the singing of the Kewl as they fly in the night. I’ve been to Ugwan to feel the fuzzy wind of the moss desert.” 

She remembered how the light pink moss stretched to the horizon, and when the wind blew, it carried microscopic spores that buzzed against her limin in the most pleasant way. She’d stripped down completely to fully indulge in one of the most fulfilling limin-aura’s she’d ever experienced. “It was incredible, but all I’ve seen is this planet. There’s a whole galaxy out there, and the first time I meet another race, it’s because I’m dying. Now, I’m so curious about iclaxians, winforans, and all the other sophonts.”

“If one of the treatments works, you will get to see all those things.”

“‘If.’ My sister said ‘when.’ ‘When we get better, I’ll take you to all the planets I’ve been to.’ You know what happened to her?” Ivol said nothing, and Awbil smiled. It looked like a smile reflected from a broken mirror. She leaned into the bed and rolled her shoulder into it to allow her limin fully rub against the fibers. She exhaled slowly. “Anyway, I’m just curious.”

“Before returning to Iclax 23 years ago, I spent 356 years on a small planet called Fimal near the Lond system. During my time there, there was an outbreak of a disease similar to grifal. Fimalians’ bodies are normally gelatinous. The disease caused their bodies to become brittle and crack. The situations are not exact, but the overseer must have decided that that experience would be valuable.”

“Makes sense… were you able to cure the Fimalians?” Awbil sat up, swung her right leg down, then lifted her left leg over the edge. The bed floated down, and she stood up, then grabbed her crutch. 

“Their ailment was caused by an infection from a mutated version of a silkan. It’s a common insect on Fimal. Once the cause was identified, a cure came soon after.”

“Well done.” 

“I wasn’t part of the team that developed the cure.”

Awbil threw her head back and laughed. “You could have just said thanks… but you’d never do that.” She sighed. “Well done for taking care of your patients, and thank you for taking care of me.”

“If you are grateful, be here on time tomorrow.”

Awbil laughed as she limped out of the room.