Well, that’s just damned annoying.
The sound of his room door sliding open was followed by a shift in the light beyond his closed eyelids, and Pennington blinked as he raised his head, squinting to clear his vision. Beyond the foot of his bed, a silhouette moved against a curtain of white illumination, which disappeared as the door closed once more. The room returned to its dim scales of gray, though he still could discern the figure as it moved toward him.
“Hello?” Pennington called out, noting how raspy his voice sounded.
“So, you’re awake,” replied a deep voice he recognized as belonging to Ezekiel Fisher even before the physician moved closer to the right side of his bed. “Take a drink. You’ve been asleep for quite a while.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.” Pennington leaned toward Fisher and the small cup the doctor held in his hand, grasping the tip of its thin straw between his teeth. The water flooded his mouth with cool relief, prompting him to take several gulps of it before releasing the straw. Leaning back, he felt the liquid’s chill as it coursed down his throat.
“How are you feeling?” Fisher asked, an almost paternal expression gracing his weathered features as he set the cup on a stand next to the bed.
“My arm hurts,” Pennington replied.
Fisher smiled. “I heard you the first time. That’s why I came in.” He paused, glancing toward the middle of the bed. “Which arm?”
“That’s not very damn funny,” Pennington said, scowling.
Holding up a hand, the doctor shook his head. “I’m not trying to be, son. It’s a legitimate question given your situation. Do you remember our last conversation?”
Pennington paused for a moment, attempting to sift through his grogginess and pain in order to recall when he might last have spoken to the physician. “I think so. It was after I was shot.”
“Yes, it was,” Fisher said, nodding. “You were brought to the hospital from the docking platform, near the Orion ship.”
Memories came flooding back into Pennington’s consciousness, accompanied by another series of dull throbs in his shoulder. “You took my arm.”
“I did,” Fisher said, his eyes now betraying a hint of sadness. “I took your arm.”
Closing his eyes, Pennington swallowed as his throat once more felt dry. “I remember.” He turned his head, opening his eyes again as he looked to his shoulder. The arm, which had been in enough discomfort to awaken him—and in which he still felt that odd, constant ache—was gone. His shoulder seemed oddly misshapen to him, a sensation enhanced by the fact that the empty right sleeve of his blue hospital tunic appeared to have been tucked neatly behind his back.
“The disruptor bolt damn near destroyed your shoulder,” Fisher said after a moment, “and damaged a great deal of the surrounding tissue. There was no way I could regenerate or repair what you would’ve needed fast enough to save your arm. I had to make a choice. I’m very sorry.”
“No, Doctor,” Pennington said, perhaps a bit too quickly. “No apologies needed. I’m sure you did everything you could to patch me up.” He shrugged. “This will just take some … getting used to, is all.” As he spoke the words, he realized his gaze remained fixated on his right shoulder, and the space where his arm should be resting beside him on the mattress.
“This doesn’t have to be permanent, you know,” the doctor said. “Despite the damage, you’re a perfect candidate for a bio-synthetic replacement. After some extended sessions with our dermal and muscle tissue regenerators, it’ll definitely be an option worth exploring.”
“Of course,” Pennington said, his voice drifting as his thoughts turned to the memory of a veteran reporter he had known at the start of his Federation News Service career. Despite the elder journalist’s byline of Garold Hicks, the news staff had called him “Old Dane” for reasons Pennington never did learn. Old Dane had been as spry and resourceful as reporters one-third his age, and among the tales he heard Hicks relate time and again was how the man had lost his left arm and leg while covering a conflict on a planet being considered for Federation member-ship—an application that subsequently was denied once Old Dane’s reports went live on FNS feeds. He regaled every new member of the bureau staff with his account, ending it each time by saying, “That piece cost me an arm and a leg—but it cost that planet a hell of a lot more!” Pennington never noticed Old Dane’s replacement limbs slowing him down, and that remembrance now seemed to offer a measure of emotional comfort, if only for a moment.
As for physical comfort, Pennington admitted to himself that he could use that, too. “Right now, Doc, I’d be happy for something to ease this pain.”
Fisher offered a knowing nod. “I understand, but the best I can do is to give you something to help you sleep. The pain you’re feeling isn’t real. It’s all in your head.”
Wincing at the words, Pennington lolled his head back on his pillow. “You think I’m just imagining this? It hurts like hell.”
“That’s not what I meant,” the doctor replied, his tone one that Pennington recognized as intended to soothe him. “Your neurological circuitry is adapting to your loss. It’s attempting to rewire itself—to work around what it can no longer control. Now, we can try a few sessions with a neural neutralizer, or I can go in there with a cortical stimulator and desensitize a region of your thalamus, but I don’t want to try any of those solutions before you decide whether you want to try biosynthesis. You might feel better, but you need all the synaptic activity you can get if you want that new arm to work.”
Despite a momentary wave of disappointment he felt sweeping across him, Pennington accepted the explanation. “Okay, you got me.” Then, forcing a smile, he added, “I mean, I can’t bloody well type with just one arm, can I?”
Fisher chuckled at that. “You input your stories manually?”
“Sometimes,” Pennington replied, shrugging again. “When the mood strikes, or I’m not in too much of a hurry.”
“Well, don’t be in too much of a hurry here, either,” Fisher said. “It’ll take a little time, but not as much as you might think. We can begin some of the scanning work as soon as you feel up to it, and when you want to sleep some more, I can give you more for that, too.”
Pennington once more glanced down at his arm, or where his arm should have been. Was it odd that he seemed to feel no resentment at having lost the limb, either as a consequence of the firefight or due to Fisher’s inability to treat the injuries he had suffered? Part of him felt as though he should be angry and should be wanting to lash out at something or someone, but as quickly as such thoughts manifested themselves, they seemed to dissolve of their own volition. Was he in denial about what had happened to him, or had he already begun to accept it without so much as a token protest or outburst at the unfairness of his current situation?
Beats being dead, I suppose,he conceded. At least now, the doc can fix me. Most of me, anyway.
“Any chance I could get something to eat?” he asked, almost without thinking as he felt a rumbling in his stomach. How long had it been since his last solid meal?
“Done,” Fisher said. “Also, do you feel up to visitors? Strictly your decision.”
Pennington was somewhat taken aback by the question. “Really? Somebody’s come to see me?”
“They’ve actually been waiting quite a while,” the doctor replied. “Hang on a minute.” He left the room, leaving Pennington to wonder who might be calling on him. Admiral Nogura? Vanguard’s commanding officer would be too busy. Perhaps T’Prynn had—against all of her Vulcan logic—taken pity upon him and opted to drop in? Maybe Allie from Tom Walker’s place? There was always Lieutenant Ginther from station security, he supposed.
And don’t forget …
His thoughts were interrupted by his room door sliding open once again, followed by a gruff voice.
“Um, hi, Tim.”
“I’ll be damned,” Pennington said, feeling a surge of satisfaction at the sight of Cervantes Quinn standing in his doorway. Unable to resist, he offered a small smile. “‘ Tim’? I get a bloody ‘Tim’ from you? I must look a hell of a lot worse than I thought.” He watched as the haggard-looking trader entered the room without any actual invitation being extended, shuffling more than walking as he made his way to the side of the biobed. To Pennington’s sleep-weary and drug-hazed eyes, Quinn still appeared unkempt and downtrodden, and appeared to be battling all manner of inner demons even as he put on a brave face.