Colonization by Scott McElhaney

Author:Scott McElhaney [McElhaney, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Superluminal Publishing
Published: 2015-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

Sarai Stark

Chapter Eleven

“Either this place smells nice, or you smell nice,” Zane said, his head turned to me.

Although he was lying stiff as a board and completely immobilized from the neck down with the exception of his arms, his bed was raised at the head and lowered at the feet by about forty-five degrees. I sat in the chair next to his angled bed.

“It’s probably me. The doctor wouldn’t let me see you until I showered and changed,” I said, “And once I started washing off the smell of KMA, I couldn’t stop. I washed my hair three times in a row.”

He laughed, “I can’t wait to bathe as well, though it sounds like it might be a while. What do you think of the doctor’s report?”

“First of all, she saved your life by draining your lung and fixing where the rib had punctured it, so I think she’s pretty awesome. And the kidney? We have no choice but to get that done. They can clone a kidney in a lab in about a week she said. And the hip…”

“Yeah, the hip,” he groaned, “All the other damage can have me back to normal in less than a month. The nanos can heal the bones in less than two weeks.”

“Are you telling me, Zane, that you’re upset that you will have to be off your feet for up to eight weeks? She confirmed for certain that you would have died within the next week. For certain,” I said, feeling my pulse rise in anger, “If not from the injuries, then definitely from pneumonia or infection.”

“I know it sounds silly,” he said, “There’s so much more that we need to do. I’ve got enough work to last me until I’m eighty.”

“And I told you what the Secretary of the Navy said!” I stated, rising from my seat so I could see him more head on, “By the time you and I even return, it’s going to be a whole new world. That work you needed to do? It will be obsolete. Do you think the awesome furnaces you built will even be there anymore? The shuttles husks will even be obsolete. Let’s both step back and let the colony get the little boost we so much deserve.”

“But can I… Can we still return while I’m laid up?” he asked, “Those are my people, Sarai. Those are our people.”

“I know,” I sighed.

I knew exactly what he was saying. This ship represented a life we both had fully resigned ourselves from. This ship represented pain and suffering. It represented the deaths of half the people we knew. Zane and I were no longer “Navy” and we had consoled ourselves that we would never see the inside of a ship ever again. We had grown to love our new home, in spite of all the bad. We had grown to love the people and those people were family.

“I support you one hundred percent in returning to the colony as soon as it’s medically permitted.

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