DANA LOMBARDY looked up from the patient to Mishima Takamura with pure bafflement in his expression. “I gotta tell you, Doc, I’ve never seen anything like this in all my born days,” the doctor said, holding an examination light between three fingers, his stethoscope dangling from his short neck. “I think it’s safe to say that no one here has, Dr. Lombardy,” said Takamura. “Now please proceed with the examination.” They were in the sick bay. Lieutenant Timothy Linden lay on a table before Dr. Lombardy, securely strapped and thoroughly knocked out by drugs. His shirt and his pants had been removed, revealing the scaly, shiny epithermal covering that had set in over all his body. Takamura found it difficult to take his eyes off the beginning of an arm—a vestigial hand and wrist, rather like that of a thalidomide baby—protruding from the side of Linden’s chest. Wrapped around the man’s arms and legs were sensors, leading to a central diagnostic machine, quivering with readings.
