An interminable time later, the doctor returned to feed him. Sort of.
She touched a control to raise the head of his bed, saying chattily, “Let’s try out your new stomach, my friend.”
Friend? Was he? He needed a friend, no question.
“Sixty milliliters of glucose solution—sugar water. The first meal of your life, so to speak. I wonder if you have enough basic muscle control to suck on a straw yet?”
He did, once she touched a few drops of liquid to his lips to get him started. Suck and swallow, you couldn’t get much more basic than that. Except that he couldn’t drink it all.
“That’s all right,” she rippled on. “Your stomach’s not fully grown yet, you see. Neither were your heart or lungs. Lilly was in a hurry to have you awake. All your replacement organs are a bit undersized for your body, which means they’re going to be working hard, and won’t grow as fast as they did in the vat. You’re going to be short of breath for quite a while. Still, it made it all easier to install. More elbow room for me, which I appreciated.”
He wasn’t quite sure if she was talking to him, or just to herself, as a lonely person might talk to a pet. She took the cup away and came back with a basin, sponges, and towels, and began washing him, section by section. Why was a surgeon doing nursing care? dr. R. durona, read the name on the breast pocket of her green coat. But she seemed to be doing a neurophysiological examination at the same time. Checking her work?
“You were quite a little mystery, you know. Delivered to me in a crate. Raven said you were too small to be a soldier, but I picked out enough camouflage cloth and nerve disrupter shield-netting, along with the forty-six grenade fragments, to be quite sure you weren’t just a bystander. Whatever you were, that needle-grenade had your name on it. Unfortunately, not in writing.” She sighed half to herself. “Who are you?”
She did not pause for an answer, which was just as well. The effort of swallowing the sugar water had exhausted him again. An equally pertinent question was, Where was he, and he was peeved that she, who must surely know, didn’t think to tell him. The room was an anonymous high-tech medical locale, without windows. On a planet, not a ship.
How do I know that? A vague picture of a ship, in his head, seemed to shatter at his touch. What ship? For that matter, what planet?
There ought to be a window. A big window, framing a high hazy city-scape with a rapid river cutting through it. And people. There were people missing, who ought by rights to be here, though he could not picture them. The mix of generic medical familiarity and particular strangeness tied his guts in knots.
The cleaning-cloths were icy, grating, but he was glad to be rid of the goo, not to mention all the disgusting crud stuck in it. He felt like a lizard, shedding his skin. When she was done, all the dead white flakes were gone. The new skin looked very raw.
She rubbed depilatory cream over his face, which seemed redundant, and stung like hell. He decided he liked the sting. He was starting to relax, and enjoy her ministrations, embarrassingly intimate though they were. She was returning him at least to the dignity of being clean, and she did not feel like an enemy. Some sort of ally, at least on the somatic level. She cleaned his face of cream, beard, and a good deal of skin, and also combed his hair, though unfortunately, like his skin, his hair too seemed to be coming out in alarming clumps.
“There,” she said, sounding satisfied. She held a large hand-mirror up to his face. “See anybody you recognize?” She was watching him closely, he realized, noting his eyes focus and track.
That’s me? Well … I suppose I can get used to it. Red skin stretched over its frame of bones. Jutting nose, a sharp chin … the grey eyes looked bizarrely hung-over, their whites solid scarlet. His dark hair was patchy, like a bad case of mange. He’d .really been hoping for something much better-looking.
He tried to speak, to ask. His mouth moved but, like his thoughts, too disconnectedly for coherence. He puffed air and spittle. He couldn’t even swear, which made him want to swear even more, which rapidly degenerated into a gurgling snarl. She hastily took the mirror away and stood staring at him in worry.
Steady on. If he kept thrashing around, they’d probably hit him with another dose of sedative, and he didn’t want that. He lay back panting helplessly. She lowered the bed again, dimmed the lights, and made to leave. He managed a moan. It worked; she came back.
“Lilly called your cryo-chamber Pandora’s box,” she murmured reflectively. “But I thought of it as the enchanted knight’s crystal coffin. I wish it were as easy as waking you with a kiss.”
She bent over, eyelids fluttering half-closed, and touched her lips to his. He lay very still, half-pleased, half-panicked. She straightened, watched him another moment, and sighed. “Didn’t think it would work. Maybe I’m just not the right princess.”
You have a very strange taste in men, milady, he thought dizzily. How fortunate for me… .
Feeling hopeful of his future for the first time since recovering consciousness, he lay quietly, and let her go. Surely she would come back. Before, he had passed out, or been knocked out; this time natural sleep came to him. He didn’t exactly like it— if I should die before I wake—but it served his body’s craving, and blotted out the pain.
Slowly, he gained control of his left arm. Then he made his right leg twitch. His beautiful lady came back and fed him more sugar water, but with no more sweet kisses for dessert. By the time he compelled his left leg to twitch, she came back again, but this time there was something terribly wrong.
Dr. Durona looked ten years older, and had grown cool. Cold. Her hair was parted in the middle and hung down in two smooth wings, chopped off at jaw-length, with threads of silver gleaming in the ebony. Her hands on his body, helping him to sit up, were dryer, colder, more severe. Not caressing.
I’ve gone into a time-warp. No. I’ve been frozen again. No. I’m taking too long to recover, and she’s pissed at me for making her wait. No … Confusion clogged his throat. He’d just lost the only friend he had, and he didn’t know why. I have destroyed our joy… .
She massaged his legs, very professionally, provided him with a loose patient gown, and made him stand up. He almost passed out. She put him back to bed and left.
When she came back the next time, she’d changed her hair yet again. This time it was grown long, held back tightly bound in a silver ring on the back of her head, and flowing down in a blunt-ended horse-tail with wide silver streaks running through it. She’d aged another ten years, he swore. What’s happening to me? Her manner was a little softened, but nothing so happy as at first. She walked him across the room and back, which drained him totally, after which he slept again.
He was deeply distressed when she returned once more in her cold, short-haired incarnation. He had to admit, she was efficient getting him up and moving. She barked at him like a drill sergeant, but he walked, and then he walked unassisted. She steered him outside of his room for the first time, to where a short hallway ended in a sliding door, and then back.
They’d just turned for another circuit when the door at the end hissed open, and Dr. Durona came through. She was in her horsetail morph. He stared at the wing-haired Dr. Durona beside him, and almost burst into tears. It’s not fair. You’re confusing me. Dr. Durona strode up to Dr. Durona. He blinked back the water in his eyes, and focused on their name tags. Wing-hair was Dr. C. Durona. Horse-tail was Dr. P. Durona. But where’s my Dr. Durona? I want Dr. R.
“Hi, Chrys, how’s he doing?” asked Dr. P.
Dr. C. answered, “Not too badly. I’ve just about worn him out for this therapy-session, though.”