by C B Williams
“Don’t be too grateful. I have no idea if they’re still alive. You probably know more than I do about what happened, and Eloch tells me you’ve been off planet.”
“Don’t know much. The spin will never be the truth. I do know Gem and Echo are with the MacMichaels Kin now. They’re not allowed to say more than that they are there and they’re okay.”
“They’re alive,” Wren said with a gusty sigh. “That’s good news.”
“It’s hard. The not knowing.” Aiko said.
“Very hard.”
“Ma’am? The leg? Sooner the better.” Genji said.
“Right. Genji, you think you could manage it back on board Stardust?
Genji glanced at Wren. “She’d do better at a MedLab.”
“Not a choice I’ve got,” Wren said.
“True,” Aiko said. “The Martials are saying you’re dead and they’re very happy about it. They haven’t painted a very pretty picture of you.”
“Didn’t think they would.”
“Genj?” Aiko said. “You up for it?”
He nodded. “I’ll do my best,” he told Wren. “I’d have to see it out of the casing before I know for sure.”
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Wren asked.
“You could lose your leg, but that’s not really so bad when you think of what they’ve done with the animateds.”
Wren snorted. “Not only not in my budget, but I like my own leg and want to keep it.”
Eloch put a hand on Wren’s shoulder. “It will be fine, Wren.”
She glanced up at him with a small smile. “Come with me?”
“Of course.”
Aiko clapped her hands together. “That’s settled then. We’d better move. It’s getting dark. Anything either of you need before we go?”
Eloch shook his head and looked at Wren. “You?”
“Not really. I doubt we’ll be gone for long. Got my crutch, so I’m good to go.”
“Let me bank the fire, then,” Eloch said to Aiko. “I’ll be right there.”
He watched them help Wren to the shuttle and then focused his attention on Little Sister, explaining what was happening. He felt her pleasure at the prospect of being able to stay and hunt longer. If he concentrated, he could feel her lying on cool grass. His stomach fluttered. Must go south to see for myself.
Eloch hurried to catch up with the others and climbed into the craft. As it banked, he looked south. As far as he could see, it was all Rubble. How far had Little Sister traveled?
The Stardust was small, but to Wren it was a palace. “This is the most beautiful piece of equipment I’ve ever seen!” she exclaimed as The Stardust’s hatch closed, swallowing the shuttle.
Aiko huffed as she berthed and shut it down. “Then you’ve never been on a ship before.”
“Well, no, I haven’t. I’ve never even been off-planet before. But my words stand.”
Eloch glanced at her and smiled. When she learned Aiko’s ship was docked off-planet in an orbiting space station, Wren had been like a child, barely able to contain herself.
“I’m pretty pleased with her,” Aiko said. “I own her outright.”
“But you’re part of the Ring Colonizers, right? I didn’t think anyone owned anything.”
“Pilots are special. We put in a certain amount of time and, if we’re still up to piloting, we can buy our own ship and work on consignment. It’s cheaper for the Colonizers that way. Once we own a ship, it’s up to us to maintain it to code and pay the crew, even though they still assign them to us. We don’t get to choose our crew.”
“Doesn’t sound like such a good deal to me,” Wren said.
“It is. I’ve got my own bird to fly. I know her inside and out, all her sounds, quirks, what she can do, what she can handle. Makes it much easier when I take her through the wormhole jumps.”
“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to fly through one of those things.”
“It’s like nothing else. Genji, do you need any prep time?”
“An hour at most.”
“Then why don’t I find you some clothes that fit, Wren, and you can freshen up? I’m sure a hot meal would be welcome as well.”
“Not until she’s out of surgery,” Genji said. “I need her to have a fairly empty stomach.”
“Fine. Eloch, you still attached to those skins you wear, or would you like to see if I can find something for you, too? I’m warning you, the pants may be short.”
“I prefer my own clothes.”
“Well at least let me get them cleaned for you. Follow me, you two. Genji can button up the shuttle.” Aiko glance at him, her eyebrows raised. “Have time?”
“Sure I do. I’ll see you in an hour, then,” Genji said to Wren.
She swallowed and nodded.
Wren hobbled to catch up with Aiko as she led them through the shuttle bay doors and to the elevator. “Sick Bay is two floors up, and there’s a room on the same floor you can use,” she told Wren.
“I’d like a room as well, if I could?” Eloch asked.
“Of course. Sorry, I assumed…”
“He found me, that’s all.” Wren said.
Aiko glanced between the two of them. “If you say so.” She hid her grin.
Silence filled the elevator after the doors hissed shut.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Wren asked suddenly.
Aiko glanced at her. “You took care of my people. They were actually happy. That’s saying a lot for someone living in Sub-City. I’d heard you’d gotten out and then went back. Became a KinLord.”
“You heard right.”
“Why’d you do it? Go back down there I mean?”
Wren shrugged and leaned heavily on her crutch as the elevator bobbed to a stop. “Ouch,” she said.
“Sorry. One of the ship’s quirks I was telling you about. This way.”
They exited, Aiko leading the way.
“There’s Sick Bay,” she said, pointing at a double door they passed by. “Two doors down is for you, Eloch, and here,” she said when she halted in front of another paneled door next to the Sick Bay, “is yours, Wren.”
The door slid open to reveal a standard recovery room.
“Behind that curtain is a shower. Need any help?” she added as Wren hobbled into the room, making a beeline for the shower.
“Nope, I’m good, thanks.”
“Sure about that?”
Wren laughed. “Tell her, Eloch.”
“She has learned to manage my bath and shower creation, and this will be much easier. Her only complaint was she couldn’t take one more than once a week. It’s been taking the water longer to heat. I offered to heat water for her over the fire and carry it to her while she bathed, but she said she’d wait.”
“Modest, are we?” Aiko asked.
“Modest we are.” Wren answered. She didn’t like people to see what her parents had done to her.
“Well, I’m very impressed that you managed to bathe at all.”
“Don’t be,” Wren replied. “I’ll do anything to be clean.”
“Then I won’t try to stop you. I’ll be back in twenty with some new clothes. Enjoy that shower.” Wren was already getting ready when the door slid shut.
“This way,” Aiko told Eloch and started down the corridor. “She doesn’t like to talk about herself, does she?”
“She’s wary,” Eloch said, thinking again how much Wren reminded him of Little Sister.
“I wouldn’t expect less of a KinLord.”
“What is this KinLord? She hasn’t mentioned it. She talks about her Kin. She grieves for them and worries, although she doesn’t know I know. She doesn’t talk much about what she did in Sub-City.”
“From what my brother and sister described when I managed to see them, Wren is not the typical KinLord. KinLords are usually monsters, evil and greedy. Sub-City is divided into at least twenty KinLands, each ruled by a KinLord. There are lesser Lords as well. Quite a hierarchy down
there. To become a KinLord, you would have to challenge and destroy the current KinLord. Which is what Wren did. Then she started making changes. Had Kin meetings. Let people say what was on their minds. Was known to be tough but fair. And never turned anyone away.”
“Wren has killed? She doesn’t have the look of a killer.” But he thought again of Little Sister.
“She’s killed. Many people. She has a reputation to go with those skills. Before she went back to Sub-City, she made her living as an assassin. She made a very good living at it as well. Dangerous woman. Even I’ve heard of her, and I never ran in those circles. I hung out strictly with the Ring Colonizers.” She glanced at him. “This bothers you?”
“How can I say what is right or wrong? I am not Spur’s Champion. Back home I have killed. Never a human, but I have taken life, and to me, that is the same.”
They reached the room and paused as the door slid open.
“Look familiar?” Aiko asked.
“My same room.” Eloch said with a nod.
“I never bothered to return the clothes I lent you and you never wore. So wear them now, and we’ll get your leathers off to sanitation. Leave them on the bunk, and I’ll have one of my crew collect them while you’re with Wren and Genji.
Eloch nodded. “My thanks.”
Aiko studied him. “You look good, Eloch,” she decided. “More settled, I guess I’d say. Welcome aboard.” She smiled. “And now I’ve got to go. A ship doesn’t run by itself. Most everyone’s on shore leave, but Stardust is due for her overhaul, and nobody touches my bird unless I’m right there with them. I’ll stop by later to see how well Genji did with your Wren’s leg.”
“Oh, the Gods,” Genji exclaimed, trying to keep down the bile when he finished removing the medical casing from Wren’s lower left leg. “I don’t see how she survived this.”
Eloch hissed and swallowed hard. “Why isn’t it healed?”
“A wound like this needs to be changed quite frequently. Has the casing ever been changed?” Genji asked as he gingerly sprayed the area with a sanitation ointment. “This has got to be excruciatingly painful.” He glanced over at Wren’s unconscious face. She had put up a fight before she allowed him to put her under. It wasn’t until Eloch promised he wouldn’t let them take her leg that she complied. “I sure hope you won’t have to break your promise,” he said looking up at Eloch. “You okay? Want to sit down?”
“I’ll be okay in a minute,” Eloch said and took a steadying breath. “What promise?”
“That her leg would still be here when she wakes up.”
“You can’t fix it?”
Genji sighed and shrugged. “It’s oozing, but it’s not bleeding. That’s a good sign. But if I move it in the slightest, I’m afraid it might just fall apart. It should have been changed and aired out on a daily basis, cauterized, grafted, lasered, or removed. This poor limb. How she must have suffered.”
Eloch flinched. “Can you laser it closed now?”
“Let me think about this for a little while,” Genji told him. He draped sterile gauze over the wound. “In the meantime, we can let it air and not have to look at it.”
Eloch looked at the white gauze already showing signs of pinkish orange. “Won’t the wound stick to that?”
“More than likely if we leave it on too long,” Genji checked Wren’s vitals. “She seems to be doing fine. Would you tell me how she got this and what you did to dress it?”
Eloch nodded and stroked Wren’s hair. “A sniffer caught her by the leg and tried to drag her back into a tunnel.”
“There must be more to that story. I’ve never heard of anyone surviving a sniffer attack. They’re vicious and hungry. Trained to kill.”
“Wren survived,” Eloch said simply. “I only had the medical kit you left with me. Used a whole can of the sanitation ointment and then a whole can of the liquid bandage. For the fever, I gave her all the antibiotics I had.”
Genji nodded. While Eloch spoke, he applied a surgical mask and lifted the gauze to study the wound again. “You did what you could, and the fact that she’s alive tells me you did exactly the right things. Too bad you didn’t cauterize the wound.” He fell silent and bent closer to Wren’s leg. “If I laser it closed, it still might not heal. Not if her wounded cells aren’t getting enough oxygen to them. If I remove it and she gets an Animate for the lower leg, she’d almost be as good as new. That’s the route I would take.”
“But you’re not Wren.”
They both stared at the leg for a few moments. It oozed sluggishly.
“Can you laser it closed and then let Wren decide what she wants?”
Genji scanned his patient again. “Could do. I suppose it could be removed later. I’m going to try to mend any involved arteries as we go. Other than the lack of blood to the cells, the biggest concern is to get her wounds closed so they can heal without infection. She’s been lucky. Very lucky under the circumstances.”
He reached for the laser pen, then set it down on his table of tools. “She’s too pale. I’m going to give her a blood transfusion. And while I’m doing that, you put a mask on and then go sterilize your hands and glove them as you saw me do. I’m going to need you to help me keep it blotted so I can see what I’m doing. This is going to take some time. Need to go slow.”
It took four hours. But when Genji finally parked the laser and re-bandaged the wound, all the ribbons and tears had been closed and the leg looked more like a leg. “The scar tissue will have to be massaged so the muscles and bones don’t stick to the skin,” Genji muttered. “Think you’re up for that?”
“She can’t do it for herself? She hates being touched.”
“Unfortunately not. If she wants to keep the leg, it’s going to be a painful process. But,” he said as he took off his mask and stripped off his surgical gloves, “at least it won’t get infected. And it was in better shape than I thought. Many veins were severed, but not major ones. The calf is still attached to the bone. Time will tell if she’s getting enough blood to the cells. And if she’s not, then the limb will have to go.”
He checked Wren’s readouts. “She should be waking up soon. You staying here? I want to go wash up at my cabin. Here, I’ll take that.” Genji reached out for the mask and gloves Eloch had taken off.
“Thank you. Yes, I’ll be here when she awakes.”
“Have some water handy. She’ll be thirsty. I’ll be back a little later.”
Eloch watched Genji sweep through the surgery doors. Then he drew up a chair to begin his vigil.
She looked pale. The dark circles under her eyes stood out, and he wondered if she had felt anything during the procedure. The leg must have been painful, not just the procedure, but to have been using it continuously. All this time. All that pain. She hid it well. He had blocked their empathic connection so he could be strong for her. But now he understood how it must have been. Such stoic determination. He reached out and pushed her curls off her forehead.
Such a little thing, fierce and proud. He thought about what Aiko had told him about being a KinLord. Fierce, proud, intelligent, fair. He’d had to change her clothes when she was fevered. He’d seen the scars. He added survivor to his list. He thought of their conversations and added curious and open-minded. And funny. She made him laugh. He liked her. He liked her very much. Maybe even too much. Three friends, now, on Spur. Aiko, Genji and Wren. And he should add Little Sister. Four friends.
Eloch went to the sink he’d used to wash and sterilize his hands. He filled one of the cups in a container over the sink with water and by the time he had returned to his chair, he noticed her eyelids were fluttering. “Wren?” he whispered.
“Eloch,” she mumbled, still with her eyes closed. “I’m afraid to look.”
“Your Sausage is still there. How are you feeling?”
She opened her eyes and immediately closed them, her hand coming up to her head. “Bright.” She opened her eyes again and squinted up at Eloch, her hand shielding her eyes. �
�So he didn’t cut it off. I’m glad. Oh,” she groaned. “I hurt all over.”
Eloch held out the cup. “Water?”
She reached for it and Eloch helped her sit up. She leaned into his strength and sipped the cool liquid, feeling it glide down her throat. “Mmm. Good. Thanks.”
“More?”
“No, I’m good.”
Eloch helped her settle down again and tossed the cup into a waste receptacle.
“How do you feel now?”
“I’ve felt better and I’ve felt worse, but I’m feeling more awake. So the Sausage is still with me. What did he do?”
“He lasered it closed. He said it was a miracle it hadn’t become infected.”
“I’m glad it’s over. I’m glad it’s all closed up. Hurts like a sonofabitch. More than before.”
The sick bay’s doors swooshed open as Genji and Aiko entered the room.
“She awake?” Genji asked as he came around the curtain to where Wren lay.
“She is,” Wren answered for herself. “Thanks for leaving my leg.”
Genji shrugged. “I wanted to take it. You would heal much better with an Animated attached.
“I prefer my own parts.”
“There’s still a chance you’ll lose the leg.”
“But there’s a chance I’ll keep it, too.”
“Either way, it’s going to take a lot of rehab.”
“How long?”
“A couple of months if you work it every day. I can affix a permanent brace, which should help speed your recovery. It will require another surgery.”
“When?”
“In about a month.”
Wren looked at Eloch. “I’d be keeping you from your purpose.”
Eloch opened his mouth to answer, but Aiko interrupted. “You can stay with us, Wren. We’ve got equipment to help you regain your strength. We’ve got the medical if you need it.”
“But wouldn’t I be in the way?”
“Not at all. We’re docked here for the next couple of months while Stardust gets her overhaul. Got a skeleton crew on board. You couldn’t have picked a better time.”
Wren looked at Eloch, eyebrows raised.
“It is your choice, Wren.”
