by Ilsa J. Bick
But she gave a regretful shake of her head. “That’s not true and that’s not what I meant. You know that. Now, I know that you’re not Kornak, or Jabari, or any of the Outlier tribes. You’re…different. Then there’s the matter of your suit. And that uniform you were wearing.”
“My…?” he began, then stopped. She meant his environmental suit. He tried thinking of something that would explain the suit away and his uniform but couldn’t. So he said nothing.
She waited for a moment, maybe to give him time to think of some new lie. Then she nodded as if confirming something for herself. “Right. Thanks for not insulting my intelligence.” She paused. “You’re not…from here.”
He was silent.
“At first, I thought maybe you were a mutant. But I discarded that. See, by definition, most mutants don’t work well. Like a machine where the blueprints get all mixed up, so that what you finally build doesn’t work very well. But you work. You’re injured, and it’s pretty serious. But your body’s healing. Everything in your body, from your organs to your chemistries…they all work efficiently, neatly. And your brain’s even better than that. So you work.”
He said nothing.
“Right,” she said. “And then there’s the not-so-little matter of your anatomy. Your skin color, your heart, that left lung of yours. Your blood, like you’re used to and require a lot more oxygen.” She touched the ventilator by his bed, and there was a tiny click and a whirr because, he saw now, her left hand was artificial, too. “More carbon dioxide as a respiratory trigger, too. That threw me. You were having trouble one day and I hyperventilated you, blew down your carbon dioxide level and you flat-out quit breathing. That gave me another big scare.”
“Another?” he whispered.
“Yah. You tried dying in my emergency room, and very actively I might add. Then I realized that your central respiratory system needs a higher set point of carbon dioxide to initiate breathing. Anytime I tried going for what’s normal—what’s normal for me and everyone else here—your body tried to die. So you’re different, Julian Bashir. You are very different.”
He said nothing.
“That’s right.” She inhaled, let the breath go. “Like I said. Different. Not one of us. So, I think we need to talk about this, Julian Bashir.” She cocked her head to one side. “Don’t you?”
TO BE CONTINUED…
About the Author
ILSA J. BICK is a child, adolescent, and forensic psychiatrist, and a latecomer to fiction. Still, she’s done okay. Her other Star Trek work includes “A Ribbon for Rosie” in Strange New Worlds II, “Shadows, in the Dark” in Strange New Worlds IV, “Alice, on the Edge of Night” in New Frontier: No Limits, the Lost Era novel Well of Souls, focusing on Captain Rachel Garrett and the U.S.S. Enterprise-C, and the previous S.C.E. eBook Lost Time. Her short fiction has also been published in Writers of the Future Volume XVI, SCIFICTION on SciFi.com, Challenging Destiny, Talebones, and Beyond the Last Star, and she has written novels and short stories in the MechWarrior universe. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband, two children, three cats, and other assorted vermin.
Coming Next Month:
Star Trek™: S.C.E. #56
Wounds Book 2
by Ilsa J. Bick
Trapped on a strange world, Dr. Elizabeth Lense finds herself aiding the Jabari freedom fighters as their new medic, working with equipment she finds primitive on people wounded in their fight against the Kornak. All the while she hopes that her crewmates on the da Vinci might rescue her—and not blame her for the death of Julian Bashir….
Unknown to her, though, Bashir is alive, recovering in a Kornak military facility, where he becomes the focus of a power struggle between the medical and military personnel in the hospital. When the Jabari attack the hospital, Lense and Bashir find themselves on opposite sides of a conflict that can only end in tragedy….
BONUS FEATURE: Wounds Book 2 will also feature an updated Star Trek: S.C.E. time line!
COMING IN SEPTEMBER 2005
FROM POCKET BOOKS!