by H. E. Trent
At least someone was calm.
“Damn.” Jasper forced a swallow down his tight throat and tried to open both eyes again. Big mistake. Pain shot through his temples as if there were an elf playing Ping-Pong in his skull. “What’s wrong with my head?”
“You fractured your skull, amongst other things,” Dorro said. “I administered a painkiller to you about fifteen minutes ago, figuring you’d wake soon. Within the next half hour or so, you should regain more functional use of your limbs. The first doses of the formula deploy in a somewhat aggressive manner, but the side effects will taper off. You’ll need to keep on-schedule with the doses. One per hour for the next six hours, and then we’ll see where we are.”
“Dude, I can’t even open my eyes long enough to see a clock right now.”
“That’ll change, too. Give yourself a few minutes. You’ll become a little more tolerant to the medicine, and the headache’ll go away. I was hesitant to use Jekhan medicine on you, but the painkillers you Terrans prefer really are poorly formulated. I can’t wait to fellowship with some of your scientists. I’d really like to ask what the hell their thought processes are.”
“Most develop drugs for companies that will sell them for obscene profits. They’re not motivated to save the world, one pill at a time.”
“Pity.”
“Yeah. So, where am I?” Jasper dragged his tongue across his dry lips and tried again to swallow. “And where’s the guy I was tracking? He shouldn’t be on the planet. He needs to be removed.”
“No worries. He was even more battered than you, so I suppose you really ‘stuck that landing,’ as you Terrans might say.”
“Bad terrain for a chase.” Jasper let out a breath and gave his right fingers an experimental flexing. He could almost feel the tips. That had to be a good sign.
“Indeed. Anyhow, I patched Mr. Fleming up enough to make him stable for transport, and one of your Jekhan counterparts is relocating him to the detention center in Buinet as we speak.”
“Oh, that’s good. I’m glad they got the bastard.”
“Yes. His capture should quell some of the recent unease. People will feel more free to travel now.”
“Hope so. These folks have things hard enough already. The last thing they need is fear of another Terran regime putting down roots.” When he’d last talked to Lil, before she’d boarded a ship headed to Earth for a brief sabbatical, she’d expressed that Jasper should keep an ear to the ground about those sorts of concerns. And he had been. His job was made infinitely easier by the fact that most of the Jekhans he knew were willing to talk to him about what they’d heard. That hadn’t been the case when he’d been working in Buinet.
“I believe there are enough Terrans on the planet right now who are invested in that not becoming the case,” Dorro said. “They like things the way they are, and I agree with them for the most part. We’re a work in progress. There’s much to be done before we can reclaim all of our hope. You’re at the Beshni farm, by the way.”
“Beshni farm?” Jasper furrowed his brow, or at least thought he did. His face was numb. “Why here? By my last estimate, I was at least fifty kilometers away from Little Gitano.”
“You were, but there’s no clinic closer than Little Gitano, so your cohorts brought you here. Unfortunately, the clinic in Little Gitano is undergoing some long-overdue renovations and we couldn’t carry you there. Edgar appealed to your hosts, and Courtney said to bring you here. You’re in a room in The Tin Can, though I imagine Courtney and Erin will be looking after you.”
“Ugh. They shouldn’t have to do that. The peacekeepers will set something up.” He didn’t want to be anybody’s burden, unless those anybodies were the reason he’d gotten his body fucked up in the first place.
“The peacekeepers will reimburse the Beshnis for any expenses, so don’t worry about that. By the way, any suspicious noise you hear is almost certainly Edgar and Marco trying to torch the place. When I saw them last, they both had blowtorches.”
“They’re gonna set the place on fire with me inside.” Jasper scoffed and flexed his fingers again. A little less numb. Improvement was good.
“Well, you know how they are.”
“Yeah. The company will be nice, I guess, as long as they keep those blowtorches pointed away from me.”
“Lonely?”
“Yep. And long past the point where I’d deny it.”
“Why would you?”
“Because that’s what men do.”
“Men where?”
Jasper was about to say “Everywhere,” but maybe that wasn’t the case. Men on Jekh were different. They were more intimate and told each other things Jasper would have never let come out of his mouth back on Earth.
I’m lonely or I’m scared or I made a big mistake.
There were so many things he wanted to tell people. So many things he wanted to be consoled and forgiven for. What did it matter who did the comforting? He didn’t have the luxury of being picky.
Edgar heard zipping, and then Dorro’s chuckle. “I’m putting your next few doses here at the bedside. Swallow what’s in the smaller of the cups as soon as your head stops throbbing enough for you to sit up. Then, set a timer to take the next ones hourly. I’ll be back when you run out.”
“You skipping out on me already? You haven’t told me my diagnosis yet. What’s wrong with me? I can’t feel shit, Doc, so I can’t tell how many pieces I’m in.”
“Skip doses of your medicine, and you certainly will. And no worries about your pieces—you’re salvageable enough.”
Jasper snorted. “That diagnosis doesn’t give me the warm-fuzzies.”
“You didn’t break your neck or spine, or puncture any internal organs. I call that a victory, given how far you fell and what you fell on. Your skin’s a bit of a mess, but I’ll leave some salve for you to apply once you’re up to doing some grooming. You shouldn’t look too worse for the wear by the time the scabs fall off.”
“Ugh. Not my skin. My abuela would fall to her knees in disappointment.”
“Don’t worry about your beloved grandmother haunting you. I’ll get you mended so you’re like new, or better. Also, you broke your left elbow,” Dorro continued, “dislocated your left shoulder, and—”
“What about my hip?” Jasper cringed. “I remember there being a hellacious crack before I passed out. I landed on my hip.”
“Well, yes, as I was going to say, you shattered your hip. Right now, the bone is being held together with some medical mesh. That should be removable in a few weeks, but I can’t make any promises as to how you’ll heal. If all goes well, you’ll be back on your feet and walking without a limp, but you have to aid the process. There’s only so much medicine can do. Your body has to do the rest.”
“Fuck.”
Jasper’s vision was clear enough for him to see Dorro’s ruddy figure looming over him, looking down with concern. “I wouldn’t do any of that if I were you.”
Ha ha.
“Of all things, Doc, my goddamned hip. I used to have nightmares about that all the time when I was first in the service and going through basic training and shit. My grandma had a bum hip. Kept having to have surgeries so she could walk a few yards when she needed to. I saw how much that joint hobbled her and worried that’d be me some day.”
“Oh, you’re young. I’m certain your body still has some surprises left for you.”
“I’m damn near forty. Any surprises that come out of me aren’t necessarily going to be welcome ones.” Jasper’s head started spinning in that drunken, nauseating way again, so he closed his eyes.
“Like I said, try not to worry. I’ll keep a close check on you.”
On the other side of the room, there came a creak and a groan—the sound of a door being pushed inward. Again, Jasper tried to bolt upright to no avail. His torso was completely immobile.
“Ah, Sera. Thank you,” Dorro said.
Sera? Oh shit.
Sera was there, and he was l
aid up like a barbecued pig at a luau.
“I believe he’ll be needing that in about fifteen minutes,” Dorr said. “His stomach will demand some buffering from all the medicine.”
“I’m happy to bring the food,” she said. “I needed the walk. So…how is he? Courtney wanted an update.”
Oh shit.
Sounded like Sera personally wanted an update, too. There was a lot of curiosity in her voice, and it wasn’t the secondhand kind. He’d learned the difference between primary and secondary concerned with the old church ladies back at home.
Jasper screwed his eyes closed tight and wished for smothering via pillow.
The best he could tell, he wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing, and he wasn’t entirely sure his body was completely hidden beneath the covers. Sera was probably getting a hell of a view, though likely a pathetic one.
“You can tell Courtney that he’s got his wits about him and hasn’t yet complained about the accommodations,” Dorro said. “Anything else of import, I’ll fill her in on when I return later.”
The floor creaked under Dorro’s weight. He laid a hand on Jasper’s shoulder. “Sera’s brought your breakfast,” Dorra said.
“Breakfast?” Ignoring his shame for the time being, Jasper tuned into the frequency of his stomach. He couldn’t tell if he was hungry, only that he had a stomach somewhere inside him. Whether or not it was empty, he couldn’t tell. “What time is it? How long was I out?”
“Nine in the morning, and you slept for about fifteen hours.”
Jasper groaned. “To be perfectly honest with you, I could do with a few more hours.”
“That’s the medication. The grogginess will taper off soon as well. Anyhow, I must leave you now, but I’ll check on you tonight. I need to go see if one of our newcomers in town is ready to be released from quarantine.”
“Quarantine? That’s new.”
Dorro grunted. “Yes, but necessary. We have a few families in town who migrated from the Barrens, and many from the area seem to be carriers of a hard-to-treat virus. Nothing deadly, but extremely contagious. If such a thing were to spread through town, we could all be on our backs for seven days wishing for the hereafter.”
“Yeah, no thanks.”
Dorro chuckled and, judging by the sound of the creaking floor and the snick of the door catch, he took his leave.
Soft footsteps padded near him, and then there was the clatter of metal against metal, and some shuffling near his ear.
Jasper forced his gaze toward the table again.
Using one hand, Sera was rearranging things on the top of the little table next to the bed, but for once, her left arm wasn’t in its sling.
“Hey. Where’d your sling go?” he asked.
“I…misplaced it,” she said haltingly. “I’m sure it’ll turn up soon. I haven’t bothered to get a replacement.”
“Had to get used to doing without one before you came home, huh?” He closed his eyes again, and life became eighty percent better upon him doing so.
“Yes. I made do without one.”
“How’s your shoulder, though?”
She sighed, and there was more movement on the table. Perhaps her setting down utensils. “To be perfectly honest, the whole arm hurts more than I tend to let on to Dorro. I saw him at the main house earlier and he took a look.”
“What’d he say about you not wearing the sling?”
“He assumed I’d been doing my exercises.”
“Have you?”
“No. I haven’t made the time.”
“Uh-huh.” I don’t have time was that same crock of shit his abuela used to feed him when he asked her about her physical therapy.
“You sound skeptical.”
“No, no.” With a great deal of effort—and more pride than he’d felt for himself in a solid sixteen years—Jasper slung an arm over his eyes and inched his other hand downward to see where the covers were.
Yeah, his dick was out, and he was showing off an indecent amount of thigh. He tugged the sheet up as best he could and looked over to find Sera studiously looking away. With his vision being so poor at the moment, he wouldn’t have bet she was blushing, but she seemed to be a little redder than usual.
“Sorry,” he said. “I usually only flash my junk to people who ask me to.”
“I…didn’t see much.”
He furrowed his brow.
“Oh! I mean, not that there wasn’t much to see. I meant that I didn’t see it for long. There was plenty to see.” She cleared her throat and, rubbing her weak forearm, turned her back. “I… Well, I—”
He laughed. “It’s all right. I’ll have to give Dorro a stern talking-to later for setting me up for such shame.”
“He’s probably immune to flashes of nudity. He sees so many bodies.”
“You’re probably right.” He wished she didn’t turn her back. He didn’t have anything to hide. In fact, he wanted her to look. Maybe she’d decide she liked what she saw. “I remember my abuela saying the same thing after her hip went bad. She was busy, true, but…you know. Priorities.”
“Yes. I know.” She pivoted ninety degrees and fussed over the food tray. “Getting function back in my arm should be a priority.”
“But?”
“Pain isn’t.”
“Ah.” He certainly understood that. He was probably in all kinds of pain and simply couldn’t feel it. “Dorro didn’t offer to give you anything to take the edge off?”
Running her fingertips along the edge of the bedside table, she shifted her weight guiltily. His abuela used to do that, too. “I don’t like the idea of being dependent on a drug for so long. The worst of the therapy would take months.”
“But the sooner your start, the sooner you can be done.”
“Yes, well. Perhaps I’m not self-motivated enough.” She sighed again.
“I’ll help you. I mean, when I’m capable of sitting upright again.”
“Kind of you to offer.”
“You make it sound like I’d be in for a huge hassle.”
She scrunched her lips to the side of her face and then shrugged her good shoulder. “The regimen is quite detailed.”
“And I can’t think of a better way to spend my free time. Helping you would be my pleasure.” He wanted to show her he could be useful to her. Gentle, but tough when he needed to be, like abuela had taught him. “Show the right face at the right time,” she used to say. “Be what’s needed when it’s needed, or don’t bother showing up.”
He was trying to show up for her, for Sera.
She looked at him then, albeit somewhat obliquely, and smoothed her hands over her belly. So pretty when she parted her lips that way. “I… Well, I’ll let you know.”
“Okay,” he said calmly. He didn’t want to sound too eager. Far too often, eagerness was a hallmark of trouble, and he was trying not to be that.
“If you’re not quite up to eating yet, the food will keep for a couple of hours. Ara or Erin will likely come to bring you lunch. I’m heading out to the fields before the rain starts.”
“Rain or rain-rain?”
“If by ‘rain-rain’ you mean a major weather event, perhaps the latter. The forecast suggested several days of heavy rainfall.”
“Jesus.”
She tilted her head curiously. In his many years of Jekh, he’d come to learn the body language for, “What’s that?”
“Religious figure,” he explained. “Technically, what I said is an example of blaspheming, so don’t repeat the name around any Terrans you don’t know the religious inclinations of.”
“Blaspheming is offensive?”
“Potentially.”
She nodded slowly, scrunching her mouth to one side in a ponderous way. “Then I won’t repeat it. Thank you for the lesson. I try not to offend people.”
“Nice that you do. Most people don’t bother trying anymore.” He hadn’t thought it’d be possible for him to like her any more, but he’d been wrong. She was unpredict
able in the best sort of ways—the ways that made his heart warm. Or probably made his heart warm. He’d know better if he had more sensation in his chest.
“The rain here is scary sometimes,” he said playfully. “Makes a guy want to build an ark just in case shit gets out of hand.”
She snapped her fingers and pointed at him, and there was a hint of a smile in her eyes. “I know that reference. Noah and the ark.” She gave his reclining form an assessing scan, and cringed. “I suppose The Tin Can will have to be your ark for now.”
“I look that bad? Tell me the truth.”
She pulled in a deep breath.
Yikes.
“Never mind. Don’t answer that. I’ll find out soon enough, apparently. Damn good thing I don’t have anywhere to go, I guess.”
She nodded, and her dark red hair swayed heavily around her face and down her back.
Down.
Her hair was never down.
“Hey.” He wished he could sit up and see her from the correct angle. “I’ve never seen you wear your hair down.”
She put her right hand to the fall of hair that landed over her breast and looked at it as if she’d forgotten it was there.
Long. Her hair hung down her back to where her bra strap would have been, if she was wearing one. He wasn’t sure what Jekhan women did for undergarments. He’d been on the planet for going on two decades and he hadn’t once made love to a Jekhan woman.
Her clothing was different than usual, too. She wore a tunic, sort of like what Jekhan men tended to wear, but more fitted, along with a pair of leggings. If not for her typically Jekhan coloring, she could have passed for Terran. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but seeing her long legs so clearly outlined and a swath of her cinnamon flesh exposed over the low neckline made his breathing halt.
“Jesus.”
“What?” she asked, canting her head.
“Well, nothin’. I was…gonna jokingly ask if there’s a such thing as paid sick leave on Jekh, but I’d rather know who dressed you today.”
She smoothed her right hand across the hem of her tunic and frowned as she looked down.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t mean that as an insult at all. I’m just wondering if Court and Erin and them are rubbing off on you. For all I know, you dress like that all the time and I hadn’t had a chance to see before now.”