When I awoke, I lay on a soft, smooth surface. I opened my eyes and took in my surroundings. Above me, there was a soft white expanse as far as I could see and to the sides as well. On the far wall were a door and a communicator panel. To my right was a large bank of strange equipment, but I was too tired to think on what it could be. I lay on a white bed, the mattress soft and pillowy. I closed my eyes and luxuriated in the feeling of comfort. I had not felt that since Clint and I had -.
CLINT!
I sat up straight, memories rushing back. I remembered the rock fall, the shard, the … plasma cutter. I had cut off Clint’s hand. I could still see the smoke, curling around itself as it lifted from his burned stump, the stump I had given him. I could taste saliva in my mouth and my stomach rolled. I kept it down with effort. My sudden motion must have triggered an alarm of sorts, because an Ioern nurse burst into the room, door swinging behind her.
“Are you alright, sir?” she asked, her purple mouths twitching, seeing that I was awake.
“My friend, Clint, the one I brought here, he was injured. Where -” I stammered, words tripping over each other as they spilled from my mouth.
“Sir, calm down. Your friend is fine. He made it through the night,” she said in a calming tone. I collapsed back against the pillow. He was alive. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. I threw back the blankets on top of me and swung my legs over the edge. The nurse rushed to my side and put a restraining hand on my shoulder. I was so weak, she kept me seated.
“I need to see him,” I protested. She nodded comfortingly.
“I’ll go get a doctor. Let’s see what he says. In the meantime, stay here,” she ordered and walked out of the room. I waited a few seconds and then forced myself up and to my feet. The sudden movement pushed blood to my brain and I swayed, my vision going black for a moment. It cleared and I forced myself out the door. I stood in a long hallway stretching for hundreds of feet, doors set into the wall every ten feet.
I stumbled down the hall, holding on to the wall for support. I didn’t know where I was going but in my weakened, delirious state, I assumed I would just wander into the right room. I didn’t and ended up crumpled on the floor, chest heaving and limbs shaking. They found me like that, the nurse and the doctor she brought with her. Gripping me tightly by the underarms, they half-lead, half-dragged me as we made our way back to my room. They set me back down on the bed.
“Sir, you’ve been through a great ordeal. When we found you, you were nearly dead from exhaustion. Your muscles had failed and your heart was on the way out. We stabilized you and you should be fine, but what were you doing to get you in such a state?” the doctor asked me. His voice was gentle, like a breeze, and calming, just like the nurse’s. I wondered if they practiced that voice. I guess they did.
“I carried my friend through half a mile of hell, then flew here at speeds that couldn’t have been healthy,” I answered. I was out of breath by the time I finished. That ordeal must have put a great strain on me. The doctor’s eyes widened.
“You carried him? He must be nearly three times your weight. I’m surprised you could even lift him,” the doctor said, in a voice that said he was shocked. He might have been but he was a Cthyn and I was never very good at reading the squid faces. He pulled one of those little sticks with the light and the viewing glass on the end out of his pocket and shined it in my eyes, holding my eyelid open with his free hand. I struggled to get up the whole time, but the light pressure of the nurse’s hand was too much for my weakened body to overcome.
“Listen, doc, I’m fine,” I said, despite the fact that we both knew that I was very far from it. “I just need to know where my friend is. If you could point me in the right direction, I would be grateful.”
“You’re not going anywhere for a while,” he said, still looking into my eyes with his light. My face twisted in anguish and he must have noticed, because he relented.
“Alright, fine. I’ll take you to see him, but only if you sit still and let me finish this exam.” I nodded in agreement, ceasing my struggles, though honestly, they would have stopped soon anyway. I had no more strength left. The doctor continued his examination.
Running his hands over the muscles in my arms, he said, “How did you manage to carry him? You are not nearly big enough to lift someone of that size and density.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “All I knew was that I could not fail him, and so I just did it.”
The doctor paused his prodding of my chest and looked at me with an incredulous look in his eyes. “Sheer force of will? You managed the impossible through sheer force of will?”
I laughed. It turned into more of a wheeze, but it got my point across. “I’m half convinced that Clint manages to do the things he does purely by force of will.”
“Clint? Is that your friend’s name?” the doctor asked, swinging his little rubber hammer at my legs, making them jump. I nodded. The doctor finished with testing my reflexes and stood. He nodded to the nurse and they lifted me up by my underarms. They walked my over to a wheelchair in the corner, one I hadn’t noticed until then. They set me in it and rolled me out the door.
“He was in a sorry state when you brought him in. He had lost nearly half of his body’s capacity for blood. We didn’t have any of his species blood on hand, so we had to make an artificial substitute. What species is he, anyway? I’ve worked in this profession for thirty years, and I’ve never seen anything like him,” the doctor said, keeping up conversation as we rolled down the hallway in the opposite direction that I had run off.
“I doubt you’ll ever see anyone his like again. I’ve travelled with him for nearly two years now, and he’s the only human I’ve ever seen,” came my reply, delivered in short choppy chunks as I struggled for an adequate amount of air.
“He is an impressive sight, even with all of his injuries. It took twelve times the normal dosage of anesthetic to get him out, and by all rights, he shouldn’t even be alive right now. His body was put through a tremendous trauma, the shard near his lung and his hand.” The doctor looked at me, asking silently for an explanation. I gave one to him.
“We were caught in an earthquake on Fusidk, and the cliff decided to fall on us. He was trapped under a boulder and … I couldn’t move it. That shard was already in his chest and I had to get him to help, but I couldn’t move it and there was a plasma cutter nearby and…” I trailed off. The doctor nodded in comfort.
“You saved his life,” he reassured me. “He would have died without medical attention. What you did was necessary.” Then why did I feel like I had killed him? Clint Stone was no longer whole because I had removed his hand. He wouldn’t be able to do the things he had before. Charging into death defying situations is difficult enough with two hands. He would have difficulty fighting, half of his body open to attack.
I sat consumed by dark thoughts as they wheeled me through the halls, turning several corners and up a system of ramps. The color of the walls changed from a pale white to a very pale shade of blue. The doctor attempted to speak to me again, but I merely grunted in reply and he soon stopped.
“We’re here,” he announced. I looked up and saw a white door, identical to the rest. He pushed me forward and the door swung open. In a room identical to mine, but with a much larger bed, lay Clint Stone. His eyes were closed and several tubes ran from his body to the large bank of machines to his right. Elevated slightly, his head rested on a plump white pillow. His cheeks were a rosy color, one I had learned meant he was alright.
His arms lay to either side of his body, on top of the white blankets. His right was mottled with black and blue bruises, caused by the falling cliff. His left ended abruptly past the elbow, wrapped in stark white bandages. I glanced away quickly.
“Has he been awake?” I asked the doctor. He shook his head.
“No, he’s been unconscious since you brought him in. It’s not dangerous, so we left him in it. We find bodies heal best with rest.”
“Can I stay here until he wakes up?”
“Certainly. We’ll leave you here. That red button on the wall is for emergency assistance and the green one is to call for a nurse.” They backed out of the room and I settled in to wait. Clint was motionless except for the slight rise and fall of his chest. I sat there for a long while, alert for any change, but my eyelids soon drooped and I slid into sleep.
“Tedix?”
I jerked awake, sitting upright in my chair. Clint looked back at me, his bright green eyes looking at me with concern.
“What happened?”