the sideways tug of the gravity field of his cabin deck as it interfered with that of his grav bunk. He hesitated for an instant, wondering how he’d gotten back to his cabin, wondering why everything seemed so normal. Then he tore frantically at his shirt, exposing his bare chest. The skin there was pink and healthy.
He threw back the covers, found to his great relief that his right leg was still whole, with no indication it had ever been missing. He wiggled his toes and they felt fine.
It had all been a dream, an insane dream. Trinivan . . . the embassy . . . the chaos on Hangar Deck. It had all been just a dream.
He reached for the controls next to his bunk, cut the gravity field back to a few inches, and with years of practiced ease pivoted and landed on his feet as he dropped to the deck of his cabin. The field of the grav bunk held the covers pressed tightly against the wall.
He pressed a senor on the opposite wall and a sink folded down out of the bulkhead. That was one of his few perks, a small fresher in his cabin—not much to show for twenty odd years of service. No toilet—he had to make command rank for that—but it was more than a typical junior officer’s quarters. As a lifer he was more than a junior officer, less than a senior officer, and never to be promoted.
The sink settled into place with a soft click. York touched a sensor over the tap, and as the water flowed he touched another sensor to adjust the temperature to near scalding. He started to bend toward the sink, but before he got there he caught a momentary glimpse of his face in the mirror, and he froze half bent over the sink.
His left eye was a chrome-plated metal ball that reflected his own image back to the mirror, with a featureless black spot in the center that served as a pupil. On the skin surrounding the eye socket a starburst of bright, pink scars radiated outward in jagged lines; up his forehead, back along his temple, down his cheek.
He straightened up and looked again at his chest, still could find no trace of any scars there. He folded a chair down out of the wall, sat down and reexamined his right leg, discovered that if he looked closely he could just detect the last residues of scar tissue around his knee where his own skin joined that of the prosthetic. He wiggled his toes again; they felt like real toes.
It all came back to him now, though it seemed hidden behind a mist of confusion and drugs and fear. He had awakened in sickbay the day before, brought slowly out of electro-sedation by the technicians there. He had to struggle to remember what Alsa Yan had told him. “. . . accelerated-healing . . . rapid regrowth . . .”
York closed his eyes, leaned back in the chair, listened to the water running in the sink. “You almost bought it, York. Your leg’s gone just below the knee. Your knee was a mess too but I managed to reconstruct most of it and regrow what I couldn’t. Below that, however, the leg’s a cyber-prosthetic, and I don’t have the facilities to clone you another so you’ll have wear it until we get to Dumark. But don’t forget, the skin on that thing is as real as your own; it’ll bleed if you cut it and it’ll hurt, and it’ll get infected.”
“Dumark,” York said aloud into the emptiness of his cabin. That would please the crew; they could get in some good R’n’R.
What else had Alsa said? “. . . That rotary shattered your chest plate and your visor, filled your head and chest with splinters and fragments of the rotary shells. I pulled your lungs and heart, stuck ‘em in regrowth for a couple of days. They’re pretty well healed now so I stuffed them back into you yesterday. I pulled the eye too and put it in regrowth, but it’s scarring up on me. I think I’ll be able to repair it, but it’s going to take some time, so you’ll have to be happy with the cyb I installed.”
York looked in the mirror above the sink: the scars, the chrome-plated eye. “. . . I
He threw back the covers, found to his great relief that his right leg was still whole, with no indication it had ever been missing. He wiggled his toes and they felt fine.
It had all been a dream, an insane dream. Trinivan . . . the embassy . . . the chaos on Hangar Deck. It had all been just a dream.
He reached for the controls next to his bunk, cut the gravity field back to a few inches, and with years of practiced ease pivoted and landed on his feet as he dropped to the deck of his cabin. The field of the grav bunk held the covers pressed tightly against the wall.
He pressed a senor on the opposite wall and a sink folded down out of the bulkhead. That was one of his few perks, a small fresher in his cabin—not much to show for twenty odd years of service. No toilet—he had to make command rank for that—but it was more than a typical junior officer’s quarters. As a lifer he was more than a junior officer, less than a senior officer, and never to be promoted.
The sink settled into place with a soft click. York touched a sensor over the tap, and as the water flowed he touched another sensor to adjust the temperature to near scalding. He started to bend toward the sink, but before he got there he caught a momentary glimpse of his face in the mirror, and he froze half bent over the sink.
His left eye was a chrome-plated metal ball that reflected his own image back to the mirror, with a featureless black spot in the center that served as a pupil. On the skin surrounding the eye socket a starburst of bright, pink scars radiated outward in jagged lines; up his forehead, back along his temple, down his cheek.
He straightened up and looked again at his chest, still could find no trace of any scars there. He folded a chair down out of the wall, sat down and reexamined his right leg, discovered that if he looked closely he could just detect the last residues of scar tissue around his knee where his own skin joined that of the prosthetic. He wiggled his toes again; they felt like real toes.
It all came back to him now, though it seemed hidden behind a mist of confusion and drugs and fear. He had awakened in sickbay the day before, brought slowly out of electro-sedation by the technicians there. He had to struggle to remember what Alsa Yan had told him. “. . . accelerated-healing . . . rapid regrowth . . .”
York closed his eyes, leaned back in the chair, listened to the water running in the sink. “You almost bought it, York. Your leg’s gone just below the knee. Your knee was a mess too but I managed to reconstruct most of it and regrow what I couldn’t. Below that, however, the leg’s a cyber-prosthetic, and I don’t have the facilities to clone you another so you’ll have wear it until we get to Dumark. But don’t forget, the skin on that thing is as real as your own; it’ll bleed if you cut it and it’ll hurt, and it’ll get infected.”
“Dumark,” York said aloud into the emptiness of his cabin. That would please the crew; they could get in some good R’n’R.
What else had Alsa said? “. . . That rotary shattered your chest plate and your visor, filled your head and chest with splinters and fragments of the rotary shells. I pulled your lungs and heart, stuck ‘em in regrowth for a couple of days. They’re pretty well healed now so I stuffed them back into you yesterday. I pulled the eye too and put it in regrowth, but it’s scarring up on me. I think I’ll be able to repair it, but it’s going to take some time, so you’ll have to be happy with the cyb I installed.”
York looked in the mirror above the sink: the scars, the chrome-plated eye. “. . . I
Similar Books
