Quetzalcoatl's surgery was once a kitchen, Hiobi guessed as he looked around it. It was one of the sandstone houses along the canal, and the windows had neither glass nor hide panes. They were simple cut-outs in the wall. There were shelves along the walls which held various instruments, jars, and vials. A strange-looking metal table took up most of the center of the room, but there was still a comfortable area to walk through, especially for Hiobi's smaller body. The hearth was used to boil water for sterilizing instruments, but it seemed like Quetzalcoatl cleaned it regularly, because there wasn't a speck of ash anywhere he could see. Unlike most of the homes in the Ochre Dockyard, this one even had central lightning– there was a battery-powered wall-mounted spotlight of sorts above the table.

And the belemoid.

Quetzalcoatl placed her hand gently on Hiobi's shoulder. "Darling, are you sure you'd like to observe?"

He swallowed hard and took a deep breath at the same time. "Um," he said, shifting slightly. "Um. Yes. Yes, I'm sure. I'm very sure, I promise. I'm sorry. I've just… I've never seen a dead body before? And I'm, um, somewhat confronting my own mortality right now."

She nodded and stepped away to continue getting dressed for the autopsy. "I understand. It can be upsetting, even if you're used to it."

"I think I may be slightly thanatophobic," he continued. "And, um, nauseous."

Quetzalcoatl was polite enough not to laugh at him, which he appreciated. She took a moment and thought about that before looking at the belemoid on the table. They had cream-colored fur and spots. "For some people it would be helpful to think of her as a cadaver. A shell that once contained a person, an empty body that we now have the solemn duty of taking apart so that we can figure out why that person was lost."

Hiobi couldn't stop staring at her. The truth was, he was young and didn't like the idea that he could die– but more than that, there really was a deep sense of dread like a lead weight in his belly. It made his heart race and if he could sweat he was sure his palms would've been wet. There was just something… wrong about her, in a way that made him feel sick. She looked like she was sleeping, but her side didn't rise and fall. Hiobi knew that if he touched her, she would be stiff and cold. "I don't think I'm that kind of people," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Quetzalcoatl nodded. He watched her as she put on a white tunic that buttoned around her back, and white socks, and then a plastic sleeved apron, and then a paper one. She put on shoes and paper booties and then she moved to a basin with a bowl of steaming water beside it to wash her hands. "Some people," she continued, "would be helped by thinking of her as slightly still alive."

"Still alive…?"

"Well, sort of." She had a bar of caustic soap, too. The smell stung his nose from all the way on the other side of the room, so he imagined it had to sting– but she showed no reaction. "She can still tell us a story. She can still be a teacher to us. She is going to help me teach you about the inner parts of a belemoid, yes, but she is also going to try to tell us what happened to her and why she died. She just can't do it with her voice anymore."

Hiobi didn't like thinking of her as still any amount of alive. Part of him was terrified that if he touched her, she'd suddenly spring to life and start screaming, or grab him and drag him with her to wherever dead people's peopleness went.

He dragged his eyes away from the belemoid and looked up at Quetzalcoatl. "Which one helps you?"

She was finished washing her hands now. She dried them with a clean towel and put on a pair of latex gloves. She kept her nails cut very short so that she didn't puncture them, Hiobi noticed. That would've made it hard for her to scratch someone if she needed to defend herself, but then he supposed that this was also one of the marks of a healer– no need for scratching. Who would attack a physician?

Quetzalcoatl smiled at him, comforting but maybe a little sad. "The first, mostly. This is how I think about it: she is gone. Something took her away from her family. Her friends. She won't get to try new things anymore, or learn new things. I'm the one who wasn't able to help her get better. Now, not that I blame myself that she died," she said, approaching the table. "I know that I did everything I could to save her. Absolutely everything I could have done. But… I couldn't do enough. Her family wants to know why, and so do I." She carefully adjusted the belemoid on the table like she was still alive and just sleeping. "Her family have trusted me with finding out why she died so that they can have closure, and so that I can see if there's a way to prevent anyone from dying this way again."

Hiobi nodded slowly. "I think… I understand." He clasped his hands together and squeezed them. "Um… I'm still… nervous. I still don't like being so close to someone dead, but… less." His ears laid back. "But, would it be silly to… talk to her?"

"Not at all," Quetzalcoatl said.

Hiobi took a step closer to the table, looking at the belemoid's face. "Thank you for helping me learn," he murmured. "And for helping both of us know how to help other people."

Quetzalcoatl smiled and turned her attention to the belemoid. "Alright, dear. This is Kitty. The first thing we are going to do is take detailed notes about the outside of her body. For example, what does she look like? How tall is she? How much does she weigh? Does she have any birthmarks or visible scars? What are the condition of her claws, her paw pads, her teeth? Is she missing any toes, or any teeth, or any other pieces of her body?" She pointed out various parts of the body as she talked. "I've already done all of that, but why don't you tell me three things you notice about her that might be unusual or distinguishing and what they might mean?"

Hiobi looked at her carefully and walked slowly around the table. "She has a scar on her lip," was the first thing he said. "And… I'm not close enough to really see, does it go over her face, too?"

"Yes, it does."

"It looks old though," he continued. "Um… her pouch is really flat against her belly. I've only seen that in belemoids who've never taken care of whelps before."

Quetzalcoatl nodded. "It can also mean that it's been many years since she's last had them. In her case though, her age indicates she's probably never had any of her own, yes."

Hiobi finally returned to his original spot. "Her claws are in bad shape, too. They look… cracked, and brittle. A couple of them are even chipped looking."

"Very good. That is a symptom of her illness." Quetzalcoatl took Kitty's elbow and bent it gently. "You should also check for rigor mortis at this stage. Kitty has already left that stage since she passed a little over three days ago."

Hiobi made a face. "This is a very rude question, but shouldn't she smell by now?"

"I have cold storage beneath the house," Quetzalcoatl told him. "Most physicians who do autopsies– in this case we will call me a pathologist– have some way to store bodies for a few days before they are examined or buried. Normally you would also look for lividity, or the pooling of blood, at this stage to try and determine when someone has died– but in Kitty's case, we already know that."

Quetzalcoatl reached towards two dangling… implements, of some sort. Hiobi couldn't identify them. She adjusted their height with buckles and then as she carefully raised part of Kitty's body, their purpose became clear: they were to hold the limbs on the right side of her body up.

"She looks… exposed, like that," Hiobi said.

Quetzalcoatl made a sympathetic noise. "She's about to be a lot more exposed, dear." She reached for a scalpel and with her non-dominant hand, pressed her finger at a spot on Kitty's armpit. "This is called the axilla. You'll insert the scalpel here," she said, demonstrating, "and then pull it along towards the cranium– the head– staying just to the right of the midline, the center of her body. You'll go up to her chin and stop here," she said, pressing her finger ahead of the stopping point. "Then you will extend your incision caudally– toward the tail– until you reach the top of her pouch." Quetzalcoatl took the pouch carefully in her opposite hand. "Belemoids are tricky in this regard because their pouches are very tough, but we need it out of the way. My preferred method is to make a cut along the bottom of it to open it up…" she demonstrated. "This way, it'll be easier to hide the incision when you stitch her back up. After you've lifted the flap of the pouch, you'll continue your cut until you reach the perineum, the space just above the cloaca."

Hiobi was a captive audience. "I knew dead people didn't bleed, really, but it's so strange that she's not bleeding at all."

She nodded. "Most of the blood is in the bottom half of her body, the part she's been laying on. We'll have to drain most of it soon, though. Now, I am going to examine her jugular veins, the ones in her neck. They carry blood to and from the brain."

"Do I have jugular veins?" Hiobi asked, touching his neck and feeling the tendons more than any blood vessels.

"Yes, you do." Quetzalcoatl felt along them carefully. "I don't have any reason to believe there's anything wrong with these, of course– but, you should always check everything. Only skip a step if the patient's family has explicitly asked you to or if you must for your own safety."

"Now," she continued, "I am going to reflect– or peel back– these pieces of skin I've made."

The two of them continued in that manner for several hours. By the time Quetzalcoatl was finished and Kitty had been sutured back together, the sun was setting. They had found the cause of her death and illness– an autoimmune condition that had been attacking various organs, including her heart and liver. Hiobi was quite a lot less rattled than he had been at the beginning; once two or three steps were done, she had stopped looking so much like a person to him and more like a medical diagram. Although, that did feel to him like quite a cold way to think of this person.

Quetzalcoatl was cleaning up now. She had already rinsed Kitty's fur clean and transported her back into the cold storage to await being picked up by her family, so all that remained was to thoroughly scrub the surgery. "It's very, very, very important to keep your space clean. Dead bodies can carry a lot of nasty bacteria that could hurt a sick person very badly. Boiling water, not just hot. Very strong soap. As many times as you can manage, but I always do at least three and ideally five. And I use a separate table for autopsies and surgeries! Not every physician has that luxury." She gave Hiobi a fond look. "Although, if you continue on this path, you'll become a colony physician, and that is an enviable position to be in. Colony physicians get much better quality of tools than those of us who are unaffiliated."

Hiobi frowned. "Why wouldn't the DPIP share?"

She could have told him something about expense, or convenience, or lack of resources– but she had long pondered that question herself, and none of those answers were satisfactory. She had her own conclusion that she'd drawn… but it was a bit heavy to place upon the shoulders of a child, so she fixed Hiobi with a sad look and said, "I don't know, Hiobi. I'm sorry."