Act Three
Adrift
Part II
They pulled him out of the escape pod, burbling and babbling, his eyes wide, his skin burnt, his uniform charred and dirty, the remains of his uniform gone from ultramarine blue to almost black, his blue eyes wide and staring. All the while, he was muttering to himself, speaking nonsense words none of his rescuers could understand.
Omar-3 watched the man babble as the doctors surrounded him. Even as his genetically engineered mind took in details – the clothing was the remains of an officer’s uniform, not an enlisted uniform, and what little of his skin that wasn’t burnt was pale pinkish-white, suggesting human – he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of good old-fashioned human revulsion at the extent of the injuries.
“Will he live?” he asked the first medic.
The man only shook his head, waving the question off – either unable or unwilling to give a definitive answer. Omar-3 sighed, watching as the man was taken away by the medical staff.
I’m going to have to report this to the Captain, Omar-3 thought, frowning. He followed after the medical staff as they reached the cargo lift.
“I want a full radiation scan on this man,” one of the medics was saying, “and stand by a round of repair stimulants. We’ll need to regrow a lot of the tissue.”
Omar-3 looked at the babbling man, those wide blue eyes still staring out at nothing.
“IamamnotnothereIamnotwaitwhyhow…”
“I do not know who you are,” Omar-3 said to him, trying to sound comforting, “but our medics will -”
The man’s charred hand shot out, grasping Omar-3’s arm, sitting up slightly. Omar-3 blinked in surprise.
“Why?” the man rasped, his eyes meeting Omar-3’s. “Why?”
He released his grasp on Omar-3’s sleeve, and then slumped back, lying against the stretcher trolley with wide, staring eyes.
***
“The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Omar-3 reported to Dyjar an hour after the man had been pulled out of the pod.
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“No clue at all?” she asked, frowning.
“They’ve run a number of scans, but no,” Omar-3 replied, shaking his head. “Dr Thaan was still waiting on results from some of the tests when I left the Medbay, but…”
Dyjar was scowling. “How can that be the case? There must be some sign of what happened.”
“All Thaan was able to determine is that, among the more obvious injuries, he’s suffering from a kind of radiation poisoning, Captain,” Omar-3 clarified, “but the exact kind of radiation in question is… unfamiliar.” The implied meaning behind that word lay heavy in the air between them. “Thaan seemed optimistic when I spoke with him: he believed that, once they nail down some parameters, they can modify a radiation purge system to remove the poisoning, but it will take them some time.”
“How much time?” Dyjar asked.
Omar-3 sighed. “Well, the best estimate is that it will take a month at maximum speed to get him to Station One Eighty-Three, which has the best medical tech in reasonable distance. Dr Thaan said something about hopefully being able to purge his system of the radiation in two to three weeks.”
“Weeks,” Dyjar repeated. “Won’t that mean he’s dead by the time we get there?”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” Omar-3 said with a sigh, shaking his head. “Thaan says that the radiation poisoning is likely the cause of the patient’s… instability. But it doesn’t appear to be actively killing him.” He grimaced. “Not yet, at least.”
Dyjar shook her head. “That’s not good enough, nylssake.”
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Omar-3 said quietly. “There’s only so much we can do about our speed. I’ve been running calculations to cut the time down, but even then, I can’t imagine we’ll save more than a few hours.”
Dyjar sighed, sitting back in her chair. “Any word on who our patient is?”
“We ran a gene-scan, but the radiation is still causing interference in our scans,” Omar-3 replied, his expression still downcast. “Almost certainly a member of the crew, human, male. They’re running the dental records now.”
“His injuries were that bad?” Dyjar asked.
“They were,” Omar-3 confirmed. “Bad enough that he might still not pull through.”
“By Vydallik,” Dyjar murmured. “What in the hells was the Babel even doing out here?!”
“I wish I could tell you, Captain,” Omar-3 said, pursing his lips in mild consternation. “I did send a request for information to the Admiralty, but they didn’t send anything but the standard ‘beyond your clearance level’ message.”
“I could try?” Dyjar suggested, though in her heart she knew that it was likely to be far beyond her clearance level as well.
“Frankly, any information we have would make me feel better, Captain,” Omar-3 said, looking more concerned than Dyjar had ever seen. “This is… unsettling.”
On that, Dyjar and Omar-3 were in complete agreement.
***