At the break of dawn, nothing save myself and my uneasy insides stirred in the corridor. In the shared bathroom, I had ample time to ponder the wisdom in swallowing the 'gynoaugmentive' tonic.

My jaw ached, and gums tasted of blood. Presumably that was the medicine doing its business to remove the last hints of masculinity from my face. I shuddered in feverish fits, and my heart ran at a mad gallop. The unease reached into the skin of my chest as prickling heat.

Fortunately the shower had water that wasn't unfiltered sludge straight from the canal. However, it was unheated. Shivering, I hurried back to our compartment.

The chirurgeon remained asleep. A hint of his smile lingered as a sign of pleasant dreams.

I hurried to hide inside an armour of makeup and voluminous fabric. The swish of dressing up didn't wake the man, so I poked his shoulder. "Hey."

The violence of his awakening sent me a step backwards. His bleary eyes stared at me in confusion.

"Good morning", I said.

"Right." The man replaced his drooping oculars, then removed them off his nose and hid them in his shirt pocket. "Good morning."

"I'm going to get some breakfast. Want any?"

"Yes. Wait." He yawned his huge ribcage full, sat up and took his coat. "Breakfast is free with the booth." He handed me the compartment ticket. "Here. They should give you two meals, when you ask. Bring both, if you'd be so kind."

On my way to the kitchen container, I kept my eye for any sign of the pair pursuing me, but there was none.

The kitchen matron gave the two meal cases at the sight of the ticket. "Just let them skitter back here after you are finished. Good appetite, miss."

The fried yeast-yolk surprised me with its pleasant structure, but the porridge was rather stale. Nevertheless, the meal was superb for a tiny kitchen working at such high volume. Most importantly, my hunger had been thoroughly satisfied before I was halfway through, but perhaps the corset squeezed my appetite.

"Do you want the rest?" I asked Vesija.

The man didn't hesitate taking my meal case. "Thank you."

"All that construction equipment must take plenty of fuel to maintain. Unless your tonics merely generate hot air to fill your muscles."

He laughed. "You need not fear that I float away. A fit body is great advertisement for my articles. Though I tend to imply the concoctions help more than they actually do."

"Oh. Do you perform feats of might to attract customers? Like picking up girls with one arm, perhaps."

"I travel in medicine show. Maybe we can try that later."

My smile must have looked giddy. I wiped it away.

When he was finished, I let the meal cases out of the door to patter away on their tiny feet.

"How large shall these grow?" I pawed my chest while examining the man's reaction.

Faint blush indicated warmth in his cheeks. I shared it myself.

"It depends on large variety of conditions. You can expect them to grow larger than they were initially. Do you want to avoid that?"

"No." I bit my lip. "As an artist and a professional, what's your assessment on the suitable size for me?"

"Open cleavage has been fashionable for quite some time, which requires something to fill it with. Additionally, your torso isn't from the daintiest side. Not that there's anything unpleasing about it, mind you." Vesija's eyes veiled the suggestion of hunger. "I'd recommend letting your chest grow unimpeded."

The tension in my lower half strengthened to the point that I had to cross one leg over the other. "How easy would it be to shrink them again?"

"Without surgery, it will take a couple of weeks, at the shortest. It is considerably easier to encourage the human body create tissue than is to force its removal. At least, if one expects the patient to remain healthy through the procedure"

Any wait hiding in a hotel room would be inconvenient, but then again, with my remittance in hand I wouldn't have anything but time in Tankai.

"Is it possible to be done with the process before the trip is over?" I asked. Obviously I was curious about the 'finished product', but I couldn't wait to deal with a growing chest at our destination.

"Yes. I could give you injections", he said. "To speed up the change. I don't usually offer this to customers, as it should only be done under careful observation of a professional."

I owed him to help with his product testing, even if his chief motivation wasn't research. This was an opportunity to experience having a bosom. To bear the weight, to see how the lusty gaze of men burned on my skin, perhaps even to have a man's touch in pliant flesh. In the essence, to feel like a woman, even if it was in a superficial vulgar way.

That feminine fancy had to be tamed and excised, at the root. The ghastly Conglo romances were at the source of my curiosity. That grotesque tendency had blossomed into my participation in the 'Tainted Honeydew', but the play hadn't satisfied me. Nobody in the audience had seen me as a girl. They saw the female character and the male actor playing her as separate entities. With physical changes, I wouldn't have to act. I could just be.

My shallow breath strained against corset. The lamps of our compartment struggled again, though the same deficiency extended to the sun. I collapsed in the corner.

Vesija was next to me. His arms wrapped around my constrained torso. My lips opened, as his face lowered close to me. He pressed the control lump through my clothes. The creature strangling my torso relinquished its hold. I gasped my lungs full.

"You shouldn't wear the corset this tight." Vesija smiled. "It's understandable that you might want to reach your former measurements as soon as possible. But it's not worth the discomfort. Besides, I have injections to speed up the adjustment."

"You have an injection for anything."

Maybe he'd have one to make me a real female. Or better yet a proper Jaan man without a menagerie of shameful inclinations. Alas, the chirurgeon purveyed medicine, not miracles.

Vesija returned to sit next to his suitcase. "Assistance with ribcage training is common enough request among fresh citizens, who adopt the Jaan fashion."

"Seems unpleasant to drive around the grassland in one of these." I gestured at my torso.

"A lot of my people live in towns."

"'Your people'?"

Vesija's smile didn't falter, but it ceased reaching his eyes. "I'm Narshurian. From one of the 'native Jaan' tribes, even if most of us aren't eager to embrace the citizenship so graciously forced on us."

Demographic policy was hardly a polite topic of discussion in mixed company. I tried to brush the matter away with a compliment: "Truth be told, I would never have guessed."

"That's good." He grinned. "When I tell about my origin, in people's eyes all this city sophistication melts away. It's as if I suddenly wasn't a Poalin-educated physician, but a witch of the steppe."

I leaned forward. "So you went to Poalin." It was a respectable academy, even if its admission policy veered towards the liberal. Still not permissive enough to let me in. The times certainly had changed from that of my grandparents.

"Yes. Once I was done with my apprenticeship, I went to Poalin, to get a wider perspective in medicine and applied archaeotechnology."

"Then there's little doubt of your competence." I breathed in deep. "Those injections you mentioned do sound good. If they aren't expensive, I promise to pay this time, eventually."

"The substances themselves aren't valuable. The real expense comes from the required visits over the week. That isn't an issue with us, so let us ignore the subject of money." Vesija stood. "First, I need equipment from my trunk in the cargo."

He left, but unluckily I wasn't given enough time to reconsider my feeble wisdom. The chirurgeon returned with another box of apparatus and peculiar vials. I watched him work, out of curiosity rather than any real attempt at learning. He worked fast, yet his hands never erred.

Vesija filled four tiny ampoules with clear liquid and two with purplish sap. "These are for hyperactivating the dormant mammary tissue and guiding the tissue generation. Those bosom enhancer machines work through the same principle. But while they are designed to be fool-proof, thus slow and safe, I'll set the dosage to the reasonable limit of safety."

"Wait, wasn't this supposed to be only speeding the natural growth?"

Such a mischievous smile from a physician should have alarmed anyone with a functional brain, yet my lips were caught in the jest. I said: "If the chirurgeon considers it necessary."

"I do recommend it", Vesija said with affected solemnity. He squirted pale red liquid into a larger vial. "This is for the waist. Now, please, bare yourself from the navel upwards."

Rationally, I had no reason to hesitate. So caught up was I with the charade that only after I reminded myself that Vesija was a physician did my sudden bout of modesty ease up.

I unlatched the seam below my neck and pulled my shoulders free. The air wasn't warm, yet the flesh below my skin was a furnace. My tonic regimen had done little to the masculine upper torso, even if the narrowed waist and wider hips created an elusive suggestion of femininity.

The chirurgeon's eyes concentrated on his medicines. The mild privacy gave me the courage to peel the gown off my torso. With the corset pressing it up, the soft tissue on my hairless chest gave an impression of a tiny bosom. Unfortunately, that didn't last the corset's removal. My unenhanced upper body was painfully boyish. Even the original modest muscularity had been more aesthetically pleasing.

"This will sting." Vesija didn't waste time examining the unremarkable sight. He rubbed numbing saliva around my areola and stuck all the needles into me in quick succession. The liquid spread into my flesh like fire.

My throat constricted, though I did note the girliness of my agonised gasps.

The merciless physician prodded at my ribs both with fingers and the injector. A burning itch spread underneath my skin. Breathing turned uncomfortable, then torturous. Any shred of upper class composure disappeared into snivelling whines and soaked eyes.

"Drink this." Vesija handed me a vial. "A rapid mild sedative."

I grimaced and took the medicine. The man held my hand, while I fought against panic, until the cold relief spread through me.

"Why didn't you tell me it'd hurt?" My voice was a slurred croak.

"I'm sorry. You experienced an unusual allergic reaction." He stood up and opened my bed from the wall. "Put on the corset, if you can at all tolerate it, and lie down to rest."

My skull floated, and I found no reason to disobey the good physician. I pulled the corset back on and pressed the lump to have it squeeze me. I giggled, when my ribcage gave in like young wood.

I woke to a compartment illuminated solely by a stinging reading light on Vesija's shoulder. He reposed on his bed with the tiny oculars on his shapely nose. In his hands was a thick booklet of weather-proof paper.

"What are you reading?" I asked.

"Oh. You are awake. How do you feel?"

"Sick. As if my pectorals and flanks were sprained."

Vesija sat up and pushed the booklet under his pillow. "Do you need another dose of the sedative?"

"No. I'm unpleasantly groggy as it is. Did I really sleep all through the day?"

"It's still afternoon."

"Oh. Do you think they'll have any warm dinner left?" I made an attempt to stand, which turned into a pitiful failure. "Could you get me a bite?"

He smiled. "Sure. It's only fair I return the favour."

Once the man's steps had disappeared from the container, I stumbled to his bed. Infinitely rude of me to be nosy, but the signs of embarrassing reading material had been obvious.

Instead of a salacious novelette I myself might have hidden, under the pillow I found a booklet with the utilitarian cover print: 'An Assessment of the Campaign Endurance of an Armoured Marksmen Regiment of the August Motherland Army under the Supervision of the Executive Directory of the Sacred Commonwealth of the Jaan'.

A quick glance inside revealed that the material didn't get any less hefty. It was all tightly packed military intelligence, filled with jargon that spun my dizzy head, dated to the current year. Based on the warning, that the booklet was to never leave the headquarters at Haaksa at the threat of military tribunal, no half-foreign bloodletter should be in the possession of such a document.

I replaced the booklet and hurried back to my bed. This type of affair was best ignored. Tomorrow, I'd be convinced that I had merely dreamed the seditious implication. My humoral system was addled, after all, and I did suffer from an unhealthy imagination.

However, the matter refused to be pushed out of my mind. A travelling chirurgeon would be a great cover for a spy. Having a girl around dampened suspicions, which arose from surreptitious behaviour. There was the loaded gun, and his build could be from soldiering. Maybe Vesija had been an auxiliary in the steppe regiments before turning his metaphorical coat.

But a spy wouldn't be as clumsy as to leave evidence so openly available. Maybe the booklet was a test, to see if I was a liability.

I jerked up to go for the gun but stopped myself. To fell such a man required lethal accuracy, which I would had with an unclouded mind. He on the other hand could pop my skull off my shoulders with his bare hands. But he didn't need violence to end me. Just carefully mixed medicine. Poison to drive my heart until it wrenched free from the aorta, just like it was already about to do in its crazed pace.

The door slid open. In the steam of the meal pack, loomed a colossal form draped in shadow.

"Are you alright?" the shaped darkness asked.

"My chest hurts."

The chirurgeon startled me with his swift burst of motion. He placed the meal case on his bed and knelt in front of me. Instead of strangling the life out of me, one of his hands grabbed my wrist into a gentle hold, while the other pushed my back so he could place his ear on my chest.

A frantic heart squirmed inside my squeezed torso. Each of its beats was a hammer strike into my ribs. The man held me in place for an all too brief eternity.

"Your pulse is elevated", he said. "But there's no irregularities I can hear. When your allergic reaction began, I should have stopped the procedure. But the stuff in those vials was too volatile to wait even a moment."

My arms wrapped around the man without any conscious volition from me. Let Vesija be this kindly physician and not a villain, who'd get himself and everyone around him ventilated. The man stood and guided me to lie on the bed.

"Are you light-headed still?"

I nodded.

"Do you have toothache?"

"A little."

"Figured as much. The tonic has already begun to fix your jawline. I'll get you something mild for the pain."

'Fix'. Not alter, change or ruin. But to repair.

Vesija placed pillows to prop me up, so I could eat. The hefty spices struggled to make the dry fleshy tissue palatable. I didn't dare to ask what it was. Presumably meat from a broken machine.

For the rest of the evening, Vesija made no move to resume reading from his illicit booklet. I lacked any desire to bring up the subject.

The landscape slipped past along with the days, both without variance. The train had a tiny library of stained books with thoroughly crumpled pages. The quaint novels of floundering courtship and prolonged but unseen wars failed to grab my attention with their rather tame subject matter, but I endured from the lack anything better to do. Vesija had apparently read most of the books available on his numerous trips back and forth, but he could entertain himself with his medical arcana.

His utter concentration was fascinating, in modest doses. Fortunately, I usually managed to coax him into explaining, what he was doing. Vesija was an entertaining orator, though perhaps on the exaggerating side. I could listen to him jabber on, even if most of the jargon was only elaborate syllables in my ears.

"Am I not boring you?" he asked.

"Do I look bored?"

"You repose motionless with your eyes tightly closed."

"But I need to rest, don't I, physician? Your voice is very conducive of calmness." I yawned and stretched my frame. "Can you sing?"

"Somewhat, though I wouldn't dare to impose it as entertainment to anyone else."

I turned on my side to emphasise my hips. "Do indulge me, please."

"It would be embarrassing. But if you want music, I can play the fiddle well enough."

"Oh. Sounds wonderful. I'm starved for a melody other than the groans of this container."

"Let me fetch it then."

His 'fiddle' wasn't anything any reputable establishment would have allowed on the stage. In place of its neck curved long stiff tendrils without any strings. With its round soundbox the instrument appeared to be carved from one unfortunate creature. Vesija applied the bow to the tendrils, eliciting a long hollow screech. The grating din mellowed into a morose but tantalising wail.

The man burst into a stiff chant in a distantly Jaanish language. The verses droned indomitable, like a brutal lullaby. I let the subtle overtones carry all consciousness into the dark calm recesses of my mind, where shame had no power. For the moment I was a smitten girl, enjoying the howls of a powerful male.

When the song ended, I swallowed my disappointment and showed my approval with hard claps.

"Oh. I thought you were asleep."

"Just deep in enjoyment. That was very novel, at least for me, and certainly not in a bad way. What were the lyrics about?"

"You couldn't understand? Even though my mother tongue is merely a dialect of Jaanish. At least according to the official classification."

"The bureaucrats must be more talented in languages than I."

"Yes. That must be it." The chirurgeon folded his fiddle. "Why did you come to Narshur, if you don't mind my curiosity? It can't be from mere embarrassment."

I couldn't possibly tell that my only goal was the money to continue wasting away in my indolence. "After my travels here and there, it'll be interesting to witness Narshur."

"How will you support yourself? I'm not asking out of rudeness, but because..." Vesija looked at the flat scenery. "I travel with a medicine show. To accompany us is a good opportunity to see the continent."

My heart leaped, but I couldn't agree. The disguise was under threat even without the lack of privacy on the road. And I couldn't possibly risk missing my remittance payments. Father might figure that I had found gainful employment or that he was rid of me for good.

"What purpose would I serve in a medicine show?"

"If nothing else, you could be my assistant."

"Let me think about it."

Vesija nodded with a smile, but his expression was uncomfortable. My refusal had hurt.

Boredom pushed me to venture out of our compartment. In public, I had to suppress the shivers, but my composure held. Nobody in the train sneered at me or called me out as an impostor. Many of the men even smiled, as if they enjoyed paying attention to me as much as I luxuriated in their attention. Soon the demure manners I affected came naturally enough.

Only the big Jaan eyes granted grace to the unfortunate homeliness of the girl. At least the face was mostly symmetric, with a slighter jaw and narrower nose than before.

Each morning I woke up early to examine my altering body in the bathroom. The chirurgeon's tonics were as drastic as their side effects, yet they didn't work magic. As I had feared, little to nothing had happened to my shoulders. They were compensated by the distinct waist and ungainly hips, leaving me with the broad structure suited for women's work at a plantation.

Overall, my body had changed more than I should have hoped for, but wish for more I did. Except on my chest, where the burgeoning flesh had stretched the skin into pale gauze, which revealed the flared blue veins. At times pale liquid trickled from the engorged teats. It served to emphasise, how those glands would never serve their natural purpose.

At my groin, the humoral femininity failed to subdue the patently masculine signs of arousal, even if the intensity was dampened. The regular swelling lacked in rigidity, and possibly even length, though I wasn't one for exact measurements.

"Is the miss or mister in there done?" a man's voice asked behind the door.

I pulled on my gown and hurried out. In the aisle an older gentleman in a bathrobe gave me a polite nod with a wide smile. Perhaps the sight of me in state of considerable undress brightened his morning, even if it didn't do so to mine.

Tall outcrops of pale stone broke from the steppe. We neared Tankai. Stone arches twisted like acrobats, and boulders balanced on brittle supports, as testament to the artistry of either the wind or the mad whims of the ancients. The formations mimicked the silhouettes of mighty cities, yet after the first impression faded, only molten heaps of limestone remained.

If inner Narshur had been the high realm of the Vaddites, little remained of it on the surface. Both the great works and signs of mundane life had been cleansed away by weapons, which required pompous religious terms to describe.

The train liner slid into a wide crater lake. 'Tankai' was not one continuous settlement but the collection of walled compounds perched on the hilly shores. Our train swam straight past fortlings into the main port.

Downtown Tankai rested in between two steep hills. Both peaks were crested by fortresses with their sturdiest walls towards each other. Whatever feud had smouldered between the two citadels was long past all memory. Only crumbling heaps of bombarded coral remained.

A thick palisade of young wood circled the town everywhere save at the harbour. Most of the buildings had the characteristic ramshackle look of old tents that had overgrown into permanent structures. A few of the houses did have the look of respectable architecture, but even they suffered from tumorous expansions.

For Vesija and I it was time to get off. The chirurgeon let his suitcase follow behind us, but carried the large trunk on his shoulder. I interpreted the show strength as an attempt to impress me, which it did.

The inhabitants of Tankai differed little from the town we had left, beyond the thicker furs and more elaborate headgear. Vesija guided me to the small provincial bank, even though I could have just followed the sole telegraph line to my destination.

"Here our ways separate", I said, with false chirpiness in my voice.

"Right. I'll be in town for few days more. Even if you won't change your mind, Neru, we could have a drink together."

"Well, I must owe you that much."

The man smiled. "I'm easy to find. Just follow the noise of our show."

I hugged him. "Thank you for your help and company." My chest squeezed against his bulk. I made sure to push the sensation into my memories. Soon having a bosom would again be inexplicable and beyond reach. The embrace of the man's firm arms distracted me from the uncomfortably wistful thoughts.

We parted with sparse words and short waves. It was a shame that we wouldn't meet again. 'Nerutaara' was about to disappear into the haze of falsehood that had given birth to her.

The clerk stared at me askance.

"What?" I demanded. "Did I recite the pass number wrong? Look, I have it in here on the paper––"

He lifted a hand to stop me. "No, no, miss. It's just... Never mind. The deposit isn't linked to any one person." The clerk handed me a box. Inside was only an envelope.

My hands surged to what I assumed was my remittance, but the bundle was much too thin to contain more than a few banknotes. Puzzled, I withdrew into the side room and ripped the paper open.

Contents of the envelope included no money at all. Only a letter.

'Dearest Son,

We are pre-emptively glad that you have managed to travel to the vanguard of Jaan civilisation. Men of your breeding are dearly needed, if we as a nation are to tame that awful, awful land.

You might note the lack of liquid assets included with this letter. That is because we are worried about your spend-thrifty habits. In order to make sure you live up to your undoubtedly immense potential, we have forwarded the allowance to the chief intendant of the office of Geographic Survey at Tankai. You have a commission awaiting there, one suitable to your status and comportment.

Fret not about loss of means, Son. You shall have both the salary and the last allowance, at the chief intendant's prudence, of course. We wouldn't want you to have any further cause for indolence.

You might remember the chief intendant, your old friend Tema Motsa. We are sure he shall help you make your family proud.

With warm Regards, your loving Mother and Father.'

Mother's elegant handwriting spun in my eyes. The situation would have been dire even without Motsa's involvement.

We had ran in the same 'youth clubs', which were little more than armed gangs aligned with defunct political parties. They roamed the streets of the capital, getting into brawls, faking shoot-outs to prop up their fame among their peers, wearing extravagant drapery and being a general nuisance to the productive members of the society. I hadn't been sorry to leave that life behind, and neither had Motsa, yet our reasons had differed greatly.

The tonics to forge myself back into Luttami required money, as did the necessary lodging. Crawling back to Vesija was out of the question: I'd have to tell him what I was. He should remember me as Nerutaara and not this utter failure of a man.

With despondent sigh I stood up. I had to face Motsa, even if it proved all he had claimed of me.