"How are you today, Fox?" Kavi asked as she helped him out of his shirt.
"Well, I didn't wake to someone having a seizure this morning, so that's good," he joked. "But then I spilled most of my coffee on my shirt." He gestured at the shirt. "I guess I will eventually have to get used to using my left hand."
"Why?" Kavi asked.
Before he could answer, an older healer told her to get a move on. It was would be a long session as it was. Fox had no clue why. He had a small rash on his left thigh, but otherwise he felt good. He wasn't even sure why he had to climb into a tank for this healing session. But he couldn't see his own internal organs, and they apparently could.
He pulled down his pants, trying to get them off without Kavi's help. He felt embarrassed but she ignored his nakedness as she helped him climb into the tank.
His embarrassment spiked as Nara, the woman from the other morning, came walking in. He had, hesitantly, mentioned her in his bunk last night. Almost predictably Clower and Davies had both thought she was a lesbian. She was butch. He didn't deny that. That one braid that hung down the right side of her head, that was a kurgara thing, wasn't it? And they were lesbians, or at least the four bodyguards that served the princess appeared to be.
"Hey there, Fox, isn't it?" Nara said as she came up.
Lesbian or not, she's a fine looking woman. Fox sighed and let it go. He had a history of falling for strong women and more than once he had fallen for a woman only to discover she was a lesbian. He sank down in the tank, and returned her smile sheepishly. "Hey, Nara, right?"
"I'm going to be helping the healers out today," she said. "This is a tricky operation. I know Kumar," she nodded at the middle aged man, "has done this but I think this is Kavi's first."
"It is," Kavi agreed. Kumar pulled the black patch from Fox's stump. The stump started to burn almost immediately. Fox looked at it. It was red and raw.
"In the tank with it," Kumar said. As soon as the stump was covered in goo it felt better.
"What operation are we doing today?" Fox asked, alarmed.
"We are going to inject nano bots," Kavi said. "Spiders in slang. They will attach to your nerve endings and feed the information to that." She gestured as two healers approached with a cart. On the cart was a black skeletal metal arm.
"What is that?"
"Your new arm," Kavi said. "We've got it sized and you are pretty stable so sooner is better than later, right? No more spilling your coffee," she joked.
"Umm, so you said something about nerves?"
"Yes the nano bots relay nerve signals to the arm and vice versus. Once we've got it grafted and attuned it should work like a regular arm."
"Will it be covered, or will it always look like that?"
"In time, we will regrow the soft tissue over it and it will look and work like any arm."
"How long will that take?"
"Months, I'm afraid," Kumar said. "We could potentially regrow the bone as well, but who wants to go months without an arm? Or a leg? This provides the best results. People can get back to their life faster, stay active while they are regrowing the soft tissue."
"Yeah, yeah, okay, let's do this," Fox said.
"That's the spirit," Nara said.
Kavi had the nano bots, invisibly small, in a set of three syringes. They injected each into his stump and they waited. Once the nano bots had "migrated" to the correct place they started the grafting process.
Grafting the device to his bone turned out to be a relatively short process. It stung at times but never really hurt. Attuning it was the long part. The nano bots attached to nerves, but they had no way of knowing what those nerves did. So they used an interface and tested the nerves.
Kavi hit a button. "Ow, pain," Fox said, "my thumb."
"Please show us," Kumar prompted. Fox pointed to the spot on the artificial arm and they adjusted the settings. Then Kavi poked that spot on the thumb and to Fox's surprise the metallic thumb hurt just like a real thumb.
And so it went. It took most of the day to attune everything. They kept him in the tank for most of it. Apparently, there was always a danger that they would activate a nerve bundle that would send him into shock. Thankfully that didn't happen and the day was uneventful.
Nara left around lunch time and brought him back a tray. She stayed and talked to him most of the morning and into the afternoon. Then she was called away on another assignment.
######
Cheyenne woke in the tank, or she thought she woke. It was hard to tell, the line between the real world and the dream world was vague. This world, this supposedly real one, felt surreal to her. Was she really on board a spaceship, suspended in some sort of medical tank? It seemed too impossible.
Mackenzie's face still swam in her mind. The accusation in her voice. "Mom, you said you would come home."
"Are you awake?" Lana's voice interrupted.
"Yeah," Cheyenne said. "I think so. I was having a dream."
"A good one?" Janda asked.
"I wish."
"The attack?"
Cheyenne shrugged. Unsure if they could see her, she went on. "No, about my kids."
"You have kids? How many?" Lana asked.
"Two, Mackenzie is eleven years old, James nine."
"The oldest is nearly tri-dek. An exciting age," Lana said.
"What's tri-dek?"
"I'm sorry, you don't count deks?" Cheyenne shook her head. They must have seen, since Lana went on. "In the Consortium childhood is divided into three seven-year deks. The first seven years you are an infant, the second you are a child. Third dek is growing into adulthood. Where are your children now?"
"On earth," Cheyenne replied and then realized that was pretty obvious. "I mean with my mother, their grandmother."
"The father?"
"He's... Do you have divorce in your world?"
"The word translates. We have perfected many technologies, human nature still alludes us. Not every relationship is meant to last, I guess."
"Anyway, we are divorced. He's, not around much."
"I am sorry to hear that," Lana said.
"I don't care about him," she said. "It's the kids. I miss them so much."
"In time," Lana reminded, "you'll get back to them."
######
Dan brushed a stray hair from his shoulder as he entered the lunch room. He should probably just get it shaved clean. He'd lost several patches in the shower after this second blue treatment and that was likely to get worse before it got better, like his stomach.
As if in response, his stomach grumbled loudly at him. It hurt, but he couldn't tell if it was hunger or pain. He wouldn't know until he tried eating, and if he was wrong he'd likely spend a good portion of the afternoon puking. He sighed. I lived, he reminded himself, and this will pass in time.
He was not the only one going through radiation sickness. Their servers had adjusted the food to accommodate them. Dan gratefully accepted a bowl of noodles that was more broth than anything, a drink and some crackers.
"Hey, look, we found a channel that shows earth news," Madsen greeted him, waving him over.
It was one of those all news networks, one that wasn't too biased either, in Dan's opinion. "Is that?" he said as he sat down.
"Yup," Kleppie said at Madsen's other side, "that's our ship, the Cambridge."
"When?"
"About three hours ago," Madsen said. The screen showed a veritable giant of a space ship hovering over a listing battleship. Workers in thick space suits to protect them from radiation, were swarming over her, attaching cables. "They lifted her into space about an hour ago. Probably broke the atmosphere by now, but it was a slow rise, so who knows? Anyway, they are going to fling her into the sun. Fitting end for the old war bird."
"Drop her on Bejing, I say," a voice grumbled down the table. "Serve them right."
"The Consortium would never do that," Dan said.
"Are you sure?" the man challenged.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Dan said.
The news had flipped to showing teams of United States Diplomats at the United Nations. "America's talking to China, negotiating a cease fire," Kleppie said. "America. They won't talk to the Consortium."
It was a small, face-saving win, but it felt good. Dan had to admit that. It felt good.
Dan sipped at his broth. It tasted good but made his stomach growl again. Best to take it slow until he was sure how he was going to react.
The news went to commercial. It felt good to see an honest earth commercial for once. The latest craze to hit the consortium was Quicksilver cookware. It was a sort of malleable metal. The commercials were as cheesy as the product was amazing. In one, a man arrived home with a pile of vegetables that was nearly twice as a big as the pot the woman held out for them. Their frustration quickly turned to smiles as, at the touch of a button, the pot grew and shifted into a small wok.
When the news came back, it was Sarasvat again. She made news everywhere she went, and already she was something of a media darling. In an effort to quell growing concerns that the media was scripting the message of Consortium intentions, they had decided to give random news reporters free reign to ask her anything. The reporters were to be chosen at random, so no one could complain it wasn't fair, and they were allowed to ask anything they wanted.
One of the first winners of the lottery was a reporter for a small creationist press. "Many people feel," he had began, "that this planet is so beautiful, so complex that it must be the work of an intelligent designer."
Dan groaned, knowing where the reporter was heading with this.
Sarasvat merely smiled, a mischievous glint in her eye. "Yes, indeed," she purred. "It was my uncle, Shaiva. He will be delighted to know you enjoy his creation."
The report cut off with the reporter still fumbling for a response. The newscaster on the network had a good laugh at the reporter's discomfort.
Dan exchanged a look with Madsen. "What was that all about?" Dan said.
"Shaiva," A healer said as she took a seat across from them, "is Sarasvat's uncle. He is a professor of physics back home and one of the leading researchers into the divine language. He was project lead for the terraforming of this planet."
"But that was millions of years ago," Madsen protested.
"The Vatari live long lives," was the answer.
Dan shook his head and pushed the bowl away.
"You okay?" Madsen asked.
"Yeah, just wiped," Dan said. "God, it isn't even noon and I am wiped. All I can think about is taking a nap."
"I know what you're saying," Madsen replied.
"You guys are in day two of radiation quarantine," the healer scolded. "It's to be expected. You should both go take a nap this afternoon."
"Well you know what Captain Lannister said," Dan joked, "we got obey her."