Free We Are Both Mammals by G. Wulfing Page B

learned that the two small,
lightweight clamps on the hose function to limit the fluids that
flow between us. This was initially so that Toro-a-Ba did not have
to share, through my fluids, the huge quantity of drugs and
nutrients that I was receiving; a quantity which for him would be a
dangerous overdose. The clamps also house tiny computers that
record such things as the temperatures of the fluids in the hose,
the pressure, quantity and flow of individual fluids through each
of the hoses, the composition of those fluids, and so on. This
information can then be accessed and copied by a handheld device
that relays the information to the clinic’s computers and stores it
in a database: a record of all the activity that passes through the
hose between Toro-a-Ba and me. Surgeons Suva-a and Fong have not
said as much, but I gather that, to the medical practitioners and
scientists of this world, that record is a goldmine.
    According to the surgeons who worked on me
and Toro-a-Ba, we need not concern ourselves with the readings from
the hose: our own bodies, plus the technology of the hose itself,
should keep things in balance; however, if anything were to go
wrong, the surgeons would need that record and those tiny computers
in order to restore us to health.
    As I learned of what had been done to me, it
occurred to me that I had been the recipient of so much technology,
so much effort and expense and skill, that it was, in a sense, an
honour. I was no one important; merely a laboratory technician, one
of thousands on this planet. Yet all this value had been poured
into me. My very existence was a marvel of medical science, and my
survival almost miraculous. My body is a wonder, simply because it
is alive.
    One morning, as I read one of the papers
describing one of the many aspects of the surgery, something caught
my eye. I had read these words before, but this time I realised
something different about them. They described my and Toro-a-Ba’s
blood types and composition.
    “ Toro-a-Ba,” I said aloud,
“this says that our blood types and compositions are
compatible.”
    “ Yes,” the thurga agreed.
“They must be, or I cannot keep you alive. Our bodies would reject
each other if our bloods were incompatible.”
    “ Did you know that when
you volunteered?”
    “ Yes.”
    I sensed that he had misunderstood my
question, which had been, I realised, ambiguously worded. “No, I
mean: did you know that our blood types were compatible when you
volunteered?”
    “ No.”
    “… But you volunteered
anyway.”
    “ Yes. The necessary tests
would need to be performed before we could know that your and my
bodies are compatible, but there would be no point in performing
those tests if I was not willing to volunteer myself for the
surgery.”
    I thought for a moment, remembering what
Toro-a-Ba had said about wanting to help people, to do something
good and great with his life, and how when Suva-a had proposed the
surgery that would join us Toro-a-Ba had ‘felt a great shout go up
within him’.
    Then I asked slowly, “What would you have
done, Toro-a-Ba, if we had been incompatible?” I looked at him,
awaiting his answer. “… Would you have been disappointed?” I
hazarded.
    Toro-a-Ba blinked his moist dark eyes at me,
in – as best as I could tell – a contemplative
expression.
    “ No.”
    I was about to ask if someone else might
have volunteered in his stead; my understanding had been that there
were no other volunteers, but perhaps that had not been the case;
when Toro-a-Ba continued, in his deliberate manner. “It is
difficult to explain, Daniel. I do not know whether you believe in
such things, for humans hold a great many differing opinions, but I
believe that some things are fated. Do you know what I mean by
that?”
    “ Yes, I know what ‘fated’
means,” I confirmed quietly.
    “ Do you remember my saying
that I felt a great shout go up within me when Surgeon Suva-a
proposed the surgery?”
    I nodded. “I