alonewiththemoon | Awakenings

Waking up the crew has not gotten off to a good start.

I start with Melville, because she’s the one with medic training. Besides, I’d call her my friend in addition to being my crew, and if even my friends will turn against me, I should know that from the start. My back has not stopped seeping blood since we entered the military zone a few hours ago, and I’m feeling some dizziness. I do not know why we have not been pursued; the radio picks up nothing, but then I am not sure that it still works. After breaking through the border I slept briefly on the floor of the bridge, a sleep filled with images of smoke and sparks and blood. I awoke with a start as a rivulet of blood from my back snaked along my side.

So, Melville. I stand over her pod, checking vitals, using thoroughness as a means of delay. She is moderately dehydrated, which is only to be expected after last night’s partying, but otherwise fine. My hands shake as I open a stimpack, and I take several deep breaths to calm myself. No good puncturing a vein or artery now, is it. This is it. Waking her up means I have to try to make sense of all this to someone else, and I can’t make it make sense to me. All I have is the conviction that it is what I need to do. That, and the underlying threat I’d sensed earlier. Mustn’t tell them about that though, mustn’t make them afraid, mustn’t give them more reasons to lock me up and turn back.

I press the needle against her neck and the stimpack releases its contents with a slight hiss. Melville shivers slightly and without opening her eyes mumbles something endearing about it not being time for school yet. I touch her shoulder gently and her eyes blink open, head turned from the light. “JesusMohammedan’Buddha, turn those damn lights down… hey, you look like shit, what the hell happened? You’re bleeding!” She rolls out of her pod and squints at me, eyes adjusting and assessing. “How far out of Lunar Prime are we? You need a doctor. Shit, you’re bleeding all over the place! What happened?”

“I didn’t strap in so well and I think I got tossed around some. I hurt my back. Can you look at it?”

Melville helps me over to the medic area, and I realize what an enormous relief it is to have someone to lean on, just the sensation of human contact holding me up and the knowledge that someone will keep me from falling. I should enjoy it while it lasts. “Okay, sit here, turn around, I’m going to peel your shirt up and it might hurt…”

It does hurt. “A lot” is not a satisfactory means of description. And from Melville’s gasp, I’d guess it hurts to look at, too, because she’s pretty hardened to the often gruesome injuries fishermen collect on the job. Her voice is shaky as she says “Okay, this is a, a--I don’t even know what this is, Badriya, what happened here? There’s something embedded in your back but it sure as hell doesn’t look like anything we have just lying around the ship. Did you go getting modded at some hacksaw bonedoctor’s? Why the hell would you be so stupid? Is that why you don’t want a doctor at Lunar Prime? You know better than this--” She comes around to face me and stops speaking for a moment, looking into my eyes. I’m too hurt and scared to try to make up any stories.

“I didn’t go to a boneshop. Melville, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t even know what you’re seeing back there. It hurts and I’ve been bleeding for hours. Stop it from hurting and I’ll tell you what I can.”

Melville looks at me for a moment, nods and turns to the med cabinet. As the anagesic spray washed over my back I relax slightly. The pain’s not gone, but it’s background noise now. “All right,” says Melville, “Whatever is embedded in here, it doesn’t belong. Looks like some bone that doesn’t come with your basic issue skeleton, but you said no modding, so I believe you. Remember when Stevo took that flensing knife in the leg and I pushed it out from underneath with the plastiflesh sealer? I think that’s what I’m going to have to do now. Now I know you’re tougher than Stevo but this is still going to smart a little…”

I’ve known Melville long enough to know that she’s chattering to distract me from the moment when she starts pumping in the plastiflesh, and sure enough, it comes with no warning. The pain in my back is excruciating, but it is nothing compared to the storm that is unleashed in my brain, the crystalline melody turned harsh and cacophonous. I think I clap my hands to my ears and start screaming. Through a thousand trawler engines I hear Melville trying to calm me, and as she lays a hand on my shoulder I my screams turn from those of pain to those of rage and I pivot upwards and outwards, striking her away from me with all the force I can find left in me. Taken by surprise, she is flung backwards, stumbles up from the floor and faces me. Her mouth is open to speak but she has no words and neither do I as I catch sight of myself in the med cabinet’s mirrored panel. My eyes are feral and my teeth bared and I look like a maenad from some long-forgotten myth, bloody and shirtless, hair come unbraided. But that is not the disturbing part. That is not what renders both of us speechless.

The sound of Ehrengard’s engines fill the vacuum as we both stare at the bony spires projecting from my back. Soft tendrils unfurl along the spires, forming a long fringe as my blood drips on the floor around me. I draw a deep shuddering breath, and the tendrils curl and flex in synch with my lungs.

I hear a thud. Looks like I have to wake up Melville all over again.