by C. V. Walter
She liked his neck, she decided, and his broad shoulders. The way he watched her was nice, too, especially since he seemed to be trying to learn her body language while the translator worked on her verbal language. While she watched him, she became aware of the heaviness in her eyes and realized just how tired she was. Surely, she hadn't been awake long enough to tired yet, had she?
Molly didn't want to sleep but the need was becoming overwhelming and she was strangely comfortable. She wished she could roll over on her side so she could keep watching him while she drifted off.
*
Mintonar watched as his patient fell asleep then turned his eyes to the monitor. She was healing rapidly, much quicker than the table could account for, and he hoped that meant he would soon be getting good information from her nano's. He was tempted to put the pain cuffs from the table back on her to help the temp ones along but refrained for the moment as she didn't seem to be unduly uncomfortable.
The way her body worked was fascinating. So much of it was similar to his own that he was tempted to treat her like one of his own people but he knew that could be dangerous. They'd made so many strides in their own medical treatment but there was so much they still didn't know; he could hurt her through ignorance.
His personal comm vibrated on his arm and he looked down at the message scrolling across. Some of the people in Engineering had been working on her suit and they had some things they thought might be useful for him. He should come down to the lab.
He glanced over at Maw-lee and replied.
Pulling up her vital signs from the last few hours, he found the conditions that seemed to be her waking up. He set an alarm to let him know when she showed them again and left for the lab.
Chapter 5
Mintonar made his way to the engineering lab, hopeful the people tasked with taking apart the outer suit Maw-lee had been wearing when they pulled her in had made more progress than he had. He'd been very careful to remove it once they'd realized there was a living being inside and that it was, if just barely, still alive.
He knew they were still repairing the hull breech from hitting whatever it was they'd hit. With Maw-lee directly near their cargo doors, he suspected they'd hit a vessel of some kind, though it was unlike any he'd ever seen before.
His comm chimed at him with a reminder that he'd been on duty for nearly twenty hours. He silenced it and tucked the thought away that he really should sleep soon. Maybe a nap after he'd seen what Engineering had for him.
The Engineering lab wasn't far from the medical bay, and Mintonar had hit the door chime before he looked in the window to see the suit stripped down to its component parts. Alvola looked up and waved at him to come in just before hitting the command to unlock the door.
"You look like you've been having fun," Mintonar told him, looking around at the piles of parts. "Was it necessary to take the whole thing apart?"
"Not really, no," Alvola said with a grin. "But it's been fascinating to see how all the pieces fit. I'm certain there are some that were damaged in the crash because it looks like there are things designed to connect to other things that aren't here."
"Do you know what it did?"
"A little. I wish I could ask her more about it, actually, because it doesn't look like it was designed to be used in hard vacuum but she survived."
"Barely."
"Better than not at all," Alvola countered. "And I'm sure she'd agree. I just don't know how her people did it."
"What do you mean?"
"The technology is all crude but it looks like they developed some of their systems the way we did because a lot of this looks like things we've got just not as good. And it shouldn't work the way it obviously did so they've managed to over build something to the point it kept the person using it alive when they shouldn't be. If I knew what it was used for, I'd have a better idea of why they made some of the design choices they did."
"Well, I still can't quite understand her so that's going to have to wait until we have the translation finished. I'm getting partial words but I'd really like to be able to have her describe things and I can't do that until she can leave the table."
"How's that going?"
Mintonar shrugged. "She's healing faster than I thought possible but that means it's actually taking the nano's longer to learn her body's systems than they would otherwise. They're doing cleanup work more than damage repair at this point and that's just getting rid of obvious waste rather than reading the DNA to figure out how something works."
"That sounds frustrating," Alvola said. "I bet you'd like some more information, wouldn't you?"
"You said you found something that might help. I'm assuming it's some kind of diagram or an explanation of different systems that's simple enough or has good enough pictures I can figure it out."
"Some of that, yeah," Alvola told him. "There are data packets in the suit I'm feeding through the translation algorithm so that might actually help."
Mintonar nodded. "Likely."
"There's also this," Alvola said, handing him a large, plastic bowl with various components attached to the inside.
"And what," Mintonar asked. "Is this?"
"It's part of the inside of her helmet," Alvola explained. "That crack is where she hit it with her head when she was hurled out of her ship."
"You're sure it's a ship?" Mintonar asked. "I didn't think we knew what it was yet?"
"Has to be something capable of some kind of travel, right? As far as we've been able to tell, they don't have folding technology to it's got to be propelled in some way."
"Unless it was built here," Mintonar countered. "Might be an outpost from someone else who was planning to build on the planet."
"Still has to be able to move at least a little to stay in orbit and generate gravity. I'm calling it a ship until we figure out something else."
"Fine," Mintonar said shortly. "Why do you think this will help?"
"Ah," Alvola said. "Because of this." He pushed a button in the helmet and a light turned on, along with what sounded like a badly distorted voice.
"What is it?" Mintonar was getting irritated.
Alvola took the helmet from him and turned it over to shone the light on a blank wall. It showed one of the aliens performing a task that he couldn't quite make out, stopping at certain points to gesture at the things around him. From the cadence of the voice, it sounded like it was narrating the actions.
Mintonar was fascinated. "Are there any more of them?"
"I haven't figured out the interface yet but I've seen a handful so far. Almost all of them look like structural repair instructions but I came across one that looked like it was about how to treat a medical emergency."
"Was that one narrated, as well?" Mintonar looked at the helmet, speculation in his eyes.
"They all are, I think. There's files that are just audio, as well, and they have a slightly different cadence. Some of it's music and that's been very interesting. So much variety that, as far as I can tell, has been randomly presented."
"This is fascinating," Mintonar said, taking the helmet. "I wonder if she could show me how the interface works. If she'd be willing to show me the ones with the medical information. I could cross reference with the nano's and-"
"How long has it been since you've slept?" Alvola asked suddenly.
"What?" Mintonar asked, his head jerking up.
"How long has it been since you've slept? You were at the airlock when we pulled her in and I know you're the only medical officer with vaccine protocols uploaded right now."
"How do you know that?" Mintonar asked. "I would have thought everybody would have gotten them before we set out."
"The planet was assumed to be long dead. Or at least, not inhabited by anything large enough to cause problems, so the vaccine protocols were considered voluntary. You've been busy so the entire medical staff has been bothering my programmers for uploads. They haven't figured out all the changes you made for an alien planet, by the way, so nobo
dy has had the vaccination protocols uploaded yet."
Mintonar shook his head in disbelief. "I read the early discovery reports. There was life on the planet. It wasn't intelligent at the time and there was a planet-killer incoming but there's never a guarantee that they'll destroy everything. In fact, they hoped it wouldn't. They wanted to allow enough time for vegetation and small animals to repopulate. If there was enough life on the planet for that, there was always the chance that something that could kill us could grow."
"Only you would think like that, Mintonar," Alvola said. "Most of the people on this ship assumed the planet-killer did its job and we would be mostly starting from scratch."
"If it's healthy enough for us to terraform, it's healthy enough to cause us problems," Mintonar said, then sighed. "And that's why I'm the only person with the qualifications to work with the alien."
"And why you haven't slept in over twenty hours."
"A detail. This is more important. The more information I have, the better I can understand what's going on and how to help her."
"Mintonar, you need to sleep. What's she doing right now?"
"Sleeping. It's to be expected, really. Her body is going through some serious trauma and healing which takes a huge amount of energy. She's going to be sleeping a lot for a while, I should think. Even when she's able to get off the table."
"Then maybe you should take the opportunity to get a nap," Alvola said. "The helmet's portable. Take it with you and see if you can get her to show you how it works. That shouldn't be too hard from a prone position, right?"
"Right," Mintonar agreed. "I just..."
"You just what?" Alvola asked.
"I don't want to leave her. It doesn't feel right."
Alvola frowned at him. "What do you mean by that?"
Mintonar shrugged. "I don't know. She was terrified when she woke up and fought until she was going to hurt herself to make me take off the pain cuffs."
"Why would she want them off?" Alvola asked. "With the damage she had to have taken, especially with the condition her suit was in, she must have been in extreme pain."
"She was. You could see it when she tried to move. I put some of the temp cuffs on her and that seemed to help. I wonder if it was being attached to the table that set her off. Waking up in a strange place after being badly injured and not being able to move had to be terrifying."
"You feel bad that she was scared?"
Mintonar thought about that. "I do, actually. There wasn't anything I could do differently and given the options I had, I'd do it again, but it hurt me to see her in so much pain. I've never felt that kind of sympathy for any of my patients."
There was more to it than that but he didn't want to tell Alvola about the recognition yet. It wasn't supposed to be so strong and he wanted to look further into it before saying anything. But, the longer he was away from the medical bay, the more anxious he felt about her. It was a distinctly uncomfortable feeling.
Alvola shook his head. "Well, I don't blame you. I like my machines more than I like most of the crew. Stands to reason that you, as someone who was very prepared for there to be life on an alien planet, would like the aliens more than the rest of his species."
"You are probably more right than you realize," he chuckled. "And I will take your advice. If I'm to be the only one to assist our alien, I should be in the best shape I can be. I'll take that nap and have her show me how this works when she wakes up."
"That's the best idea I've heard today," Alvola said, clapping him on the back and steering him towards the door. "If you get anything useful about the helmet, let me know. Even better if you can record it and send it to me so I can use it to go over the rest of the suit."
Mintonar nodded and stepped through the door when a thought occurred to him. Turning, he asked, "How long have you been working on the suit, Alvola?"
Alvola hit the controls to slide the door shut and waved cheerfully at Mintonar before heading back to his work bench.
Chapter 6
Maw-lee was still asleep when Mintonar returned to the medical bay. Her monitors showed continued progress in her condition and he thought she might be able to sit up for a little bit the next time she woke up.
He set the helmet down on the table he'd pulled over so he could share his dinner with her. It had been a strangely satisfactory experience. She'd taken such delight in the food, he couldn't help but give her as much as she could stand just to watch her enjoy it.
He hadn't been sure, at first, if she'd be able to eat anything on the ship. It had concerned him after he'd gotten her stabilized, her nano's injected and working, and her pain levels down enough to keep her system from shutting down before she could heal.
Then, he'd been focused on learning everything he could from the scans he'd gotten and the reports from the nanos. Her body was fascinating in a strictly intellectual way and he could spend days examining it. He'd been prepared to do just that except for one thing.
She woke up.
Hours, days even, ahead of schedule, she opened her eyes and tried to get away from everything he was doing to help her. It had frustrated him at first, made him want to force her to stay where she was so she could get better. He'd never had a patient heal so fast and he wanted to see what else she was capable of.
And then he'd touched her.
Holding her shoulder where she was covered by the fabric she wore under her suit had been pleasant. He'd tried not to think about it too hard, aware that he needed to be detached from her so he could be objective, and put it down to a pleasant feeling fabric over soft skin.
Then he'd actually touched her skin and the recognition had hit him like a lightning bolt. When he touched others of his species, it was like a pleasant warmth, maybe as much as a slight tingle where their skin connected. He'd heard others describe it in much the same way with an indication that it greatly enhanced their pleasure when they were together.
But Maw-lee... she set his nerves on fire. And it seemed like he did the same to her.
It wasn't, strictly speaking, unpleasant. In fact, if he had met her at any number of the mating gathers his mother had held over the years in an attempt to convince him to settle down and give her some grandchildren, he'd have dragged her away to a convenient alcove and announced their impending marriage when they emerged. Several days later, if the rumors about how the recognition could enhance a mating were true.
With her there on the recovery table, however, that wasn't an option. In fact, he was disgusted with himself for thinking about it as much as he had.
But the way her eyes had danced when he'd said her name called to him. The pleasure on her face when he fed her promised ecstasy he'd never before thought possible. At least, not for him. He was devoted to his work in spite of all his mother's attempts at matchmaking and he'd been very happy in that condition.
He snorted. And now, Maw-lee was his work and he was still very happy for that to be the case.
Wiping his hand across his face, he looked at the monitors next to her head. She was still asleep and likely to be so for a while longer. He should go to his quarters and get his own sleep.
Instead, he pulled out a spare cot and rolled it over next to Maw-lee's recovery table. He locked the wheels and made sure the legs were solidly attached to the floor before he climbed in. It took him a moment to get comfortable, feeling strange that he missed the barely perceptible sound of the anti-grav on his own bed, but he eventually drifted off to sleep.
Several hours later, he woke to a hand on his shoulder shaking him. Groggy, he blinked his eyes open to look up at the distressed face of Maw-lee.
"What are you doing up?" he asked, bolting up off the cot. "How did you get up?"
She was bouncing gently and pointing at the monitor. The screen it was displaying showed the status of a number of things, the most urgent being her need to-
"Oh, I am so sorry," he said. "There's a facility just around the corner from the door. I'll take you."
He gestured to the exit and she started walking with slow, halting steps. She was obviously still in pain and he could only guess how long she'd struggled with the ankle bands. He'd check the monitors when he had a chance.
She was muttering as she moved, the effort obviously taxing. When he went to put an arm around her to help, she flinched, and he pulled away abruptly. Her glare was enough to remind him of what happened when they touched and an indication that she wasn't in the mood for that kind of thing just then. Frustrated, he looked around until his eyes fell on the blankets on the side of the room.
He left her side long enough to grab one, unfolding it as he came back to her making her halting way to the door. Putting it around her shoulders, he was gratified to see it made it almost to her ankles just before he picked her up, making sure the blanket was a solid barrier between their skin.
Maw-lee cried out in surprise then looked up at him. He refused to look down at her, certain he'd forget what he was doing. She clutched at the front of his shirt while he strode to then through the door as it slid open to let them pass. Down the hall, around the corner and through the next door that slid open from a signal from his comm.
She looked at the room, confused for a moment, then her face brightened. He made the mistake of looking down and meeting her eyes. A shiver rolled through him that he could barely suppress before he made himself put her down. With the blanket over his arm, he supported her to the waste processor and waited while she looked at it. Then, she looked at him with obvious expectation.
"You sit there," he said, pointing to the bowl. That portion of their anatomy was similar enough, at least from what he'd been able to deduce, but maybe her people had different ways of doing things.
