Conflation —Part 7
May. 18th, 2006 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
secret_historyGreetings, faithful readers!
Here is the next instalment of Conflation. Hope you enjoy it. :)
*****
7- Sanctuary
It was nothing to carry the captain through the narrow corridors of the ship to the sick bay, and he signalled to the medic, a very short Chinese woman who seemed to scowl perpetually, that it would go faster if she were to let him bear the burden alone and simply lead the way. She seemed to understand readily enough, and walked briskly ahead of him, pausing a few times to make sure that he was still following and not having any difficulty.
"Put him there," she ordered curtly when they arrived, pointing at a metallic table.
His stomach lurched as the image of a similar metallic table flashed through his mind, but he forced himself to remain calm, found his centre of balance again, and put the now-unconscious captain on the operating table. Something told him he was not in danger here, and he trusted the instinct which guided him. For now, at least. He focussed on the medic, watching her as she worked. Efficient. Professional. She had Vanya already hooked up to a monitor, and was setting up the anaesthesia for surgery. Old equipment, but functional, he noted, filing it away for future reference. He wasn't surprised. Everything thus far told him he was in the company of mercenaries at best, possibly pirates. Possibly worse. Probably not, but he couldn't discount anything. The sick bay was clean. Spotless, in fact. His eyes flicked from one pristine surface to the next, and felt reassured that, at the very least, there was nothing slipshod about how this ship was run.
"Don't stand there gawping. Open that dispensary and take out a surgical tray. Go on. You'd better get this straight now. On this ship, when I say 'Jump' you say 'How high?' got it?"
He nodded and moved to obey. It was easy to find what he was looking for: she had organised her dispensary in textbook fashion, Imperium-style. By the time he'd pulled out a sterilised tray and wheeled it on a trolley to the operating table, the anaesthesia had taken effect, and she was disinfecting her hands. She jerked her head at the bottle of disinfectant.
"Okay, I want you out of those clothes. You saw where we keep the surgical scrubs, so grab yourself a pair, and disinfect your hands."
He stripped, rinsing the blood off his hands and arms, then pulled the scratchy surgical scrubs over his head. He winced as he applied the disinfectant to his burned hands, but said nothing, and the medic appeared not to notice. His feet hurt like the very devil, but common sense dictated to him that he should help the people who held his survival in their hands.
The ship shuddered, and he guessed that they were under enemy fire. He ignored it, as did the medic. She barked at him to hand her a scalpel, and he complied readily, standing by to hand her whatever she might need. She worked quickly and cleanly, though her technique was unorthodox to his eyes. She couldn't understand him, and so he kept silent even though there were countless questions he wished to ask about what she was doing. He was not a surgeon, but just as he'd known instinctively how to escape, how to fight, how to defeat his enemies, he knew that at some point he had been taught the rudiments of battlefield medicine. Enough to keep himself or someone else alive.
He found he didn't need to concentrate. It was easy to listen with only part of his mind and to give the medic whatever she needed, while the rest of his mind switched to focus on his own situation. He was still unsettled by the fact that he couldn't seem to make himself understood. Everything he knew told him that he should be able to communicate effortlessly with these people, and yet the reality of the situation flew in the face of his certainty. His interrogators on the station had been able to understand him, and this suggested to him that, whatever had been done to him to make him incomprehensible, it must have been done by his captors, and not whoever had sent him on the mission to begin with. Whatever his mission might have been.
Now that he was relatively safe, he probed experimentally to see what, if any, memories would return to him. He tried the checklist again.
Name? Still unknown.
Mission? Still unknown.
Status? Undetermined.
He was safer than before. Minor physical injuries. Possible neuro-psych damage. That nothing was coming back to him suggested that the compartmentalization he'd suspected was extremely resilient. Why couldn't he speak to these people? Before he would have sworn that he had no translator installed, and that it therefore couldn't be a malfunction, but now he was not so sure. He had thought he could speak the language, but perhaps that was simply a result of a malfunctioning bit of hardware. He had no idea, he realized, just how many modifications he had undergone. He simply had an instinctive knowledge of his own abilities, and now he was learning that he could no longer rely on that instinct.
The medic swore under her breath and extended a blood-stained hand. "Clamp." Blood was oozing under the fingers of her other hand where a vein had been severed by a bullet.
"Is he going to make it?" he handed her a clamp and watched as she expertly began to stitch along the tiny laceration that was bleeding so profusely once the clamp was in place.
"There's a lot of bleeding, if that's what you're asking, but I've treated far worse in my time. Once we get him patched up we'll shove him in trank for a few hours and he'll be good as new. He's like an old boot this one –tough and durable, even if he isn't much to look at."
He nodded. "I don't suppose you can actually understand what I'm saying?"
"The tank isn't in here. It's down the hall, because it just takes up too much room in the operating theatre. I keep all the beds in there as well: easier to keep an eye on things when I've got more than one patient, which isn't often, thank God. We're just about done, so I need you to shut up now while I finish this."
He bit back a sigh of frustration and fell silent, holding a large wad of gauze in place as she worked, and ignoring the pain as sweat ran in small rivulets into the burns he'd sustained in the maintenance shaft on the station. He didn't even know which station it was, nor did he have any idea which sector of space they were in. He could be anywhere, and the thought came dangerously close to depressing him.
"Okay, good. You can take off those gloves now, and flip that switch there to unlock the wheels on this thing. Now, follow me, and try not to jostle him, got it?"
"I got it."
"Good man."
They wheeled the whole table, Vanya and all, down a narrow corridor, and she motioned to him in a vaguely irritable fashion to move away while she worked.
"Find yourself a seat. You've been useful, but you can't help me with this. I'll get to you in a few minutes."
He found himself a perch on one of the hospital beds on one side of the room, letting his sore feet dangle off the side of the bed. The soles were burned bright red and black in a few places, and were weeping clear fluid, as were his hands and several spots on his arms and shoulders. He'd ignored the pain up until now, simply shutting off the access to those parts of his brain that were registering the pain, but he couldn't sustain the effort indefinitely, and the strain was beginning to tell. Now he simply stopped trying, and was startled by the force of the pain. He felt momentarily dizzy and sick, and swayed where he sat, closing his eyes against the sudden feeling of nausea.
"Whoa there," the medic was at his side in a flash. "You've been holding out on me." She grabbed his wrist and turned his arm around to inspect it. "Lie down for me, so I can take a look at the burns on your feet. Come on, now, make it snappy. You've got a higher tolerance threshold than I thought," she said as he obediently stretched out, on his side so that the burns on his shoulder blades wouldn't come into contact with the bed.
"I was okay up until a minute ago."
"Can't understand a word you're saying. By the look of these, I'd say you were extremely lucky. Whatever burned you, it doesn't look too bad. Or, more precisely, it's nothing I can't fix. I don't suppose you can tell me what it was, can you?"
"Heated metal, but you won't know that even if I tell you."
"There's got to be a way to talk to you. Do you have a translator?" He winced and hissed with pain as she swabbed the soles of his feet with an antiseptic pad, then shook his head. "Damn. Well, maybe we can find a language in common. You can't tell me which languages you speak, so I'll just try the ones I know, and we'll see if that works. Hold still, damn it."
A few minutes later she shook her head, just as frustrated as he. "I don't get it. I know you can understand me when I talk, so why the hell can't you answer?" She glared at him, though he had the impression it wasn't meant personally. She pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "Okay. My name is Xiao Mei. I want to you just say those two words."
"Xiao Mei."
Xiao Mei stared long and hard at him. "Right. I want to run some more tests."
*****
Here is the next instalment of Conflation. Hope you enjoy it. :)
7- Sanctuary
It was nothing to carry the captain through the narrow corridors of the ship to the sick bay, and he signalled to the medic, a very short Chinese woman who seemed to scowl perpetually, that it would go faster if she were to let him bear the burden alone and simply lead the way. She seemed to understand readily enough, and walked briskly ahead of him, pausing a few times to make sure that he was still following and not having any difficulty.
"Put him there," she ordered curtly when they arrived, pointing at a metallic table.
His stomach lurched as the image of a similar metallic table flashed through his mind, but he forced himself to remain calm, found his centre of balance again, and put the now-unconscious captain on the operating table. Something told him he was not in danger here, and he trusted the instinct which guided him. For now, at least. He focussed on the medic, watching her as she worked. Efficient. Professional. She had Vanya already hooked up to a monitor, and was setting up the anaesthesia for surgery. Old equipment, but functional, he noted, filing it away for future reference. He wasn't surprised. Everything thus far told him he was in the company of mercenaries at best, possibly pirates. Possibly worse. Probably not, but he couldn't discount anything. The sick bay was clean. Spotless, in fact. His eyes flicked from one pristine surface to the next, and felt reassured that, at the very least, there was nothing slipshod about how this ship was run.
"Don't stand there gawping. Open that dispensary and take out a surgical tray. Go on. You'd better get this straight now. On this ship, when I say 'Jump' you say 'How high?' got it?"
He nodded and moved to obey. It was easy to find what he was looking for: she had organised her dispensary in textbook fashion, Imperium-style. By the time he'd pulled out a sterilised tray and wheeled it on a trolley to the operating table, the anaesthesia had taken effect, and she was disinfecting her hands. She jerked her head at the bottle of disinfectant.
"Okay, I want you out of those clothes. You saw where we keep the surgical scrubs, so grab yourself a pair, and disinfect your hands."
He stripped, rinsing the blood off his hands and arms, then pulled the scratchy surgical scrubs over his head. He winced as he applied the disinfectant to his burned hands, but said nothing, and the medic appeared not to notice. His feet hurt like the very devil, but common sense dictated to him that he should help the people who held his survival in their hands.
The ship shuddered, and he guessed that they were under enemy fire. He ignored it, as did the medic. She barked at him to hand her a scalpel, and he complied readily, standing by to hand her whatever she might need. She worked quickly and cleanly, though her technique was unorthodox to his eyes. She couldn't understand him, and so he kept silent even though there were countless questions he wished to ask about what she was doing. He was not a surgeon, but just as he'd known instinctively how to escape, how to fight, how to defeat his enemies, he knew that at some point he had been taught the rudiments of battlefield medicine. Enough to keep himself or someone else alive.
He found he didn't need to concentrate. It was easy to listen with only part of his mind and to give the medic whatever she needed, while the rest of his mind switched to focus on his own situation. He was still unsettled by the fact that he couldn't seem to make himself understood. Everything he knew told him that he should be able to communicate effortlessly with these people, and yet the reality of the situation flew in the face of his certainty. His interrogators on the station had been able to understand him, and this suggested to him that, whatever had been done to him to make him incomprehensible, it must have been done by his captors, and not whoever had sent him on the mission to begin with. Whatever his mission might have been.
Now that he was relatively safe, he probed experimentally to see what, if any, memories would return to him. He tried the checklist again.
Name? Still unknown.
Mission? Still unknown.
Status? Undetermined.
He was safer than before. Minor physical injuries. Possible neuro-psych damage. That nothing was coming back to him suggested that the compartmentalization he'd suspected was extremely resilient. Why couldn't he speak to these people? Before he would have sworn that he had no translator installed, and that it therefore couldn't be a malfunction, but now he was not so sure. He had thought he could speak the language, but perhaps that was simply a result of a malfunctioning bit of hardware. He had no idea, he realized, just how many modifications he had undergone. He simply had an instinctive knowledge of his own abilities, and now he was learning that he could no longer rely on that instinct.
The medic swore under her breath and extended a blood-stained hand. "Clamp." Blood was oozing under the fingers of her other hand where a vein had been severed by a bullet.
"Is he going to make it?" he handed her a clamp and watched as she expertly began to stitch along the tiny laceration that was bleeding so profusely once the clamp was in place.
"There's a lot of bleeding, if that's what you're asking, but I've treated far worse in my time. Once we get him patched up we'll shove him in trank for a few hours and he'll be good as new. He's like an old boot this one –tough and durable, even if he isn't much to look at."
He nodded. "I don't suppose you can actually understand what I'm saying?"
"The tank isn't in here. It's down the hall, because it just takes up too much room in the operating theatre. I keep all the beds in there as well: easier to keep an eye on things when I've got more than one patient, which isn't often, thank God. We're just about done, so I need you to shut up now while I finish this."
He bit back a sigh of frustration and fell silent, holding a large wad of gauze in place as she worked, and ignoring the pain as sweat ran in small rivulets into the burns he'd sustained in the maintenance shaft on the station. He didn't even know which station it was, nor did he have any idea which sector of space they were in. He could be anywhere, and the thought came dangerously close to depressing him.
"Okay, good. You can take off those gloves now, and flip that switch there to unlock the wheels on this thing. Now, follow me, and try not to jostle him, got it?"
"I got it."
"Good man."
They wheeled the whole table, Vanya and all, down a narrow corridor, and she motioned to him in a vaguely irritable fashion to move away while she worked.
"Find yourself a seat. You've been useful, but you can't help me with this. I'll get to you in a few minutes."
He found himself a perch on one of the hospital beds on one side of the room, letting his sore feet dangle off the side of the bed. The soles were burned bright red and black in a few places, and were weeping clear fluid, as were his hands and several spots on his arms and shoulders. He'd ignored the pain up until now, simply shutting off the access to those parts of his brain that were registering the pain, but he couldn't sustain the effort indefinitely, and the strain was beginning to tell. Now he simply stopped trying, and was startled by the force of the pain. He felt momentarily dizzy and sick, and swayed where he sat, closing his eyes against the sudden feeling of nausea.
"Whoa there," the medic was at his side in a flash. "You've been holding out on me." She grabbed his wrist and turned his arm around to inspect it. "Lie down for me, so I can take a look at the burns on your feet. Come on, now, make it snappy. You've got a higher tolerance threshold than I thought," she said as he obediently stretched out, on his side so that the burns on his shoulder blades wouldn't come into contact with the bed.
"I was okay up until a minute ago."
"Can't understand a word you're saying. By the look of these, I'd say you were extremely lucky. Whatever burned you, it doesn't look too bad. Or, more precisely, it's nothing I can't fix. I don't suppose you can tell me what it was, can you?"
"Heated metal, but you won't know that even if I tell you."
"There's got to be a way to talk to you. Do you have a translator?" He winced and hissed with pain as she swabbed the soles of his feet with an antiseptic pad, then shook his head. "Damn. Well, maybe we can find a language in common. You can't tell me which languages you speak, so I'll just try the ones I know, and we'll see if that works. Hold still, damn it."
A few minutes later she shook her head, just as frustrated as he. "I don't get it. I know you can understand me when I talk, so why the hell can't you answer?" She glared at him, though he had the impression it wasn't meant personally. She pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "Okay. My name is Xiao Mei. I want to you just say those two words."
"Xiao Mei."
Xiao Mei stared long and hard at him. "Right. I want to run some more tests."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 11:49 pm (UTC)Xiao Mei sort of sprung (sprang? Suddenly I can't speak English anymore) fully-formed from my head as I was writing Part 6 and bullied her way into my plot.
The ship wasn't even supposed to have a medic, and then she just showed up and announced she was taking over my scene. *shrug* Go figure.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 11:57 pm (UTC)Where did you get the impression she was Imperial?
Don't get me wrong: I have no idea yet about most of the crew's backstory. I'm curious to know what it is about Xiao Mei that makes you think she's Imperial.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 12:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 11:58 pm (UTC)Thanks.
Actually (*hangs head in shame*) I will confess to glossing over the tests. I am no good with technology and even worse with technobabble. ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-28 10:06 pm (UTC)t!
no subject
Date: 2006-05-29 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-29 10:39 am (UTC)t!
no subject
Date: 2006-05-30 04:43 am (UTC)I'm attempting to convey the fact that a *lot* of what happens in conversation takes place in body language and intonation. Essentially, he's speaking the same "language" that Vanya and his crew speak, except that his verbal component is garbled for some reason.
So there's a fair bit of comprehension overlap.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 10:31 am (UTC)But do note the implicit compliment that I'm taking nothing for granted when a normally-incomprehensible character speaks and is immediately understood by a new character.
t!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 07:07 pm (UTC)*goes back to reading*