Shockwave
I hadn’t bled this much since I’d been stabbed.
“Head wounds right?” I said.
My medic of multiple months now was leaning over the chair I was sitting in, carefully trying to clean my wound. We were in his medical ward. Oh, that probably wasn’t good. I didn’t entirely remember getting here.
“What in the vast cruel void of space is compelling you to open your mouth right now?” Dyn said sharply.
“Well, it’s probably the blood loss,” I replied, a little slurred, “you know, because of the head wound?”
I reached up to point at the back of my head. Dyn slapped my hand down.
“Don’t touch it!” he hissed. “I’d forgotten what a rotten patient you are.”
“I’ve been your patient for months now,” I protested. “How could you—”
“You haven’t had any wounds to treat for months either,” Dyn corrected. “At least back when you weren’t fluent in Starspeak you paid attention to what I was doing…”
“I am paying attention,” I frowned.
“You keep ignoring me when I tell you—" he slapped my hand away from the contusion on my head again, “—to not touch your wound! I think you might be experiencing some memory loss.”
Huh. That was an interesting idea actually. I wonder if physical head injuries would affect my psionics? I thought about rummaging around the psionic corners of my mind and seeing how any of it changed, but Dyn snapped in front of my face, getting my attention.
“Mm,” I hummed, “what’s up?”
“Dira… you need to focus Caleb, if your brain is actually injured, then we could be in a bit of a tight spot,” Dyn said tensely. “You’re not entirely cogent, and I’m worried.”
“It’s probably a [concussion],” I said honestly.
“Explain.”
“Umm…head injury, obviously. It’s just like a…[bruise] for your brain. Wait, what? How have I not learned the word for [bruise]?”
I waited for him to grumble at my English, but he was focused on what was in front of him. Dyn’s reaction to how casual I was being about this gave me pause. He wasn’t reacting at all to my use of English. In fact, he was listening with rapt attention, his expression demanding that I further explain the word.
I flipped my mental switch and tried to get a little more serious. (Caleb, table the idea of making an actual psionic switch for now, it can wait for later…) I sat up a little straighter.
“A [bruise]…it’s, well I’m pretty sure it’s bleeding. Small blood vessels close to the skin being ruptured.”
“This is more blood than just ‘small vessels’, or diraksi I hope not…”
“The bleeding on the outside?” I asked.
“What? Outside?”
“Yeah, a [concussion] is under my skull, it’s not the same vessels as the ones outside the skull.”
“So your brain is actually bleeding right now?”
“Only a little,” I said. “…I think. Let me look at my eyes again.”
Dyn held up a mirror for me to look at my pupils, “Now shine a light in my face,” I said.
We had done this before because Dyn didn’t ask me why, only flashing a penlight right in front of me. I forced my eyelids to not blink and watched as closely as I could at my eyes. Both my pupils shrunk quickly and together. That was a good sign right?
“You did that before, why?” Dyn asked, voice still deadly serious.
“It’s a test to see how badly my brain is hurt. If my pupils don’t…huh, I don’t know the word for [dilate] either. Contract, if my pupils don’t contract or if one of them stays more open, then there’s some damage to the nerves…I think.”
“A reflexive test,” Dyn surmised. “And the result you observed was…?”
“Positive,” I said. “Or, at least positive for me. If this is a concussion, I don’t think it’s a bad one.”
“Your behavior is not normal,” Dyn insisted, “you are far too at ease about a potentially life-threatening injury.”
“Huh,” I grunted. “Nai said something similar before she blasted me through a wall.”
“Caleb!” Dyn protested.
Right, right. Stay on topic. Try to be more engaged.
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told her; it’s out of my control. I’m pretty sure it’s out of your control too, so let’s just do what we can and not worry about options we don’t have,” I said.
“Okay, then stay with me. Because I don’t know what we can and can’t do. What you’re describing is probably a yappa. In Farnata, they can last several weeks if they’re bad enough. Medicines exist for them, but I wouldn’t risk any of them on human biology. So…”
“So, it’s important to avoid adding stress,” I said. “It might look like I’m not being serious, but I am cogent enough to know I got sent through a wall. In lieu of any better options, I’m keeping my voice down…I’m breathing as steadily as I can…trying to keep my heartrate easy…”
“Okay, point taken,” Dyn said, returning more of his attention to my bleeding head wound. “But even so, your reaction to this is very…odd.”
“In context, my reaction to this whole situation is odd,” I retorted, leaning back in the chair. “But my options are limited, and I’m trying to stay level-headed about it. ‘Roll with the strikes’, as they say back on my planet.”
Dyn looked at me, utterly aghast.
“That idiom might not translate so well,” I conceded.
With no warning, the physician sprayed what had to be rubbing alcohol onto my wound and it stung.
“AGH!” I cried, “A little warning?”
“Just wanted to make sure you were still capable of outburst…” Dyn said.
Okay, that was fair. Maybe I was trying a little too hard to stay ‘zen’.
“Yes, I am perfectly still capable of pain and frustration. It’s just this morning looked me right in the eyes and made sure I knew exactly why I made the choices I did. My mood is willful, not a symptom. I promise.”
“It’s just earlier, you said you weren’t sure if you remembered getting here after talking with Nai…” Dyn said.
“Oh. I didn’t realize that had been out loud,” I said. “Alright, maybe it's a little bit of a symptom. I got thrown through a wall, give me a break.”
“Well, I’ve gotten all the pieces of the wall out of your scalp, so it’s your turn to be ‘doctor’,” Dyn said, even using the English word.
I grinned, even if I had no clue what he meant. Hearing aliens speak any English at all was incredible.
“What am I doing?” I asked.
“Unless you want me to trim away the hair around the wound, you need to seal the wound instead of me. I can't get a bandage in place with that tangled mess on your head.”
“Is my hair really that bad?”
“It’s caked with blood and grime and what I can only hope is sweat,” Dyn said wryly.
“Sorry about that,” I said, “I was interrupted before I could take a shower after exercising…” I trailed off for effect. “…you know…on—”
“Yes, on account of being thrown through a wall,” Dyn said, exasperated. “What did you do anyway?”
“I’m actually not entirely sure,” I admitted. “She and I were having a very tense argument, but it seemed like things were fading back to normal. And that’s when I got blown through a wall.”
“You mentioned the argument was about ‘something similar’?” Dyn prodded.
“[Yeah], Nai thought I was immature and childish. Which is fair. But she seemed to think I wasn’t trying very hard to return to my homeworld.”
“I think all three of us know that’s not true,” a new voice spoke.
Tasser walked through the door into Dyn’s sick bay. “The trouble is,” he continued, “It’s not so easy to recognize from outside the three of us.”
“Wait!” Dyn said, “before you distract him more Tasser, help me coach him through patching.”
Surprise flickered on Tasser’s face, “He did it on his own last time.”
“The wound is wider this time, and I don’t want to wait for it to happen on its own,” Dyn said. “All this bother is pointless if he gets an infection.”
“Patching?” I asked slowly, seeing if I got the pronunciation right.
“Yes,” Dyn said, “it’s the foundation of Adept medicine.”
“Is that medicine for Adepts or by Adepts?” I asked.
“In this case, both,” Tasser answered. “You already know about meta-microbes?”
“Ancillary immune support,” I confirmed.
Dyn glanced at Tasser and mouthed the word ‘ancillary’ in disbelief.
It wasn’t the first time the vocabulary Tasser, and I went over had seemed odd to other aliens, but hey what did they know?
It was, however, the first time Tasser winced in response.
“Yes, but you don’t have to intend to create them,” Tasser said.
“I can’t not create them,” I pointed out.
“Yes, the critical element here being: your body is capable of making exotic creations autonomously.”
“So, patching…?”
“—is when your body autonomously repairs itself with exotic materials.”
“You said ‘last time’, that I did it on my own.” I said.
Dyn nodded, “Your body Adeptly sealed your stab wounds, not unlike ordinary scabbing, but much more precise and higher quality.”
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“You probably didn’t notice because we bandaged them up anyway, but if you’d looked, the scabs would have been very pale,” Tasser added.
“Okay, this all sounds automatic, so what do I have to do now?”
“’Understanding what you make’, remember?” Tasser said, “this is important.”
I nodded.
“Dyn, you explain the medical side of it, I can’t really visualize this.”
The Farnata nodded, flipping over a paper chart to draw on, “Okay, so think about a cut, a gouge. Even if it was made by a sharp blade, the blade itself is still hundreds of cells wide and that’s going to gouge away your flesh and tear it away. So even if from our view, the cut looks very thin and narrow, from a cell’s perspective, it’s a gaping chasm.”
He drew a facsimile of a sharp ‘V’ shaped wound cutting deep into something.
“Almost immediately though, blood oozes out, filling the gap. Clotting happens, normal biological functions that millions of lifeforms use to cope with injuries. But Adepts can do it better. Because your body can only repair itself one ‘layer’ at a time, starting from the remaining healthy cells and closing the wound bit by bit for weeks. From the outside edges of the wound, healing toward the middle.”
Patching. I think I could see where this was going.
“But Adepts don’t have to do it one layer at a time?” I asked.
“Yes, your body substitutes the cells that were gouged away with exotic versions and uses those temporary exotic cells as a…’scaffolding’ to heal faster. Instead of healing one layer at a time, replicating cells can propagate into the whole volume of the wound simultaneously. Wounds that would heal over weeks, get healed in days instead. There’s a whole slew of advantages, internal pressure, retaining function even while injured, but what you want to focus on are the traits of the exotic cells you want to patch your head wound with. Normally, this happens automatically, but with really wide wounds like this one, that scaffolding doesn’t always cover the area it needs to if you’re not helping it along.”
“So, this is a bit like grafting skin?” I asked, “Only, I’m making it myself.”
Dyn gave Tasser another glance for the word ‘graft’, but otherwise nodded.
“So my only concern then, is that I have no idea what the inside of a cell is supposed to do. If I’m only supposed to create things I understand, then doesn’t this fall outside that boundary?”
“The difference is your body makes these exotic cells autonomously, you’re just… pointing your body’s attention in the right spot. The exotic cells are usually inert too, they’re just there to promote blood flow, limit swelling, and keep out infection. No biochemistry required,” Tasser told me.
“So,” I said, “just to confirm, I have to create a patch of fake flesh to go over my bleeding head? And ‘my body already knows how’?”
“…Yes.” Dyn said.
“Okay, just wanted to make sure I had that correct.”
I shut my eyes, focusing on my wound, and tried to tactilely cascade through my own wound. The minute details were far too small for me to make out, but I got a rough approximation of the size and shape of the wound.
I tried to imagine little fake cells popping into existence to cover the wound, but before I could begin to reach for the creation, Dyn spoke up, “Nice! A patch makes me feel a lot better about the bleeding.”
“What?” I asked.
“You’re good, all patched up.”
“But I didn’t make anything.”
“Like I said, it happens autonomously, the process just needed a little focus to cover the whole area.”
“…I really do need to talk to Nai more,” I said.
“Probably not the best idea right now, considering,” Tasser said.
“Maybe to you, but if we can’t hold a conversation without one of us storming out of the room, it’s going to be slow progress learning Adept stuff.”
“Speaking of her though,” Tasser pulled up a seat and sat down next to me, “Dyn, would it be too much to impose on you to go talk to anyone who saw Caleb’s injuries happen? I was just talking with the Ase and he wants to make sure we don’t miss any details that turn out to be important later.”
I raised my eyebrow. He sounded almost like a robot.
Dyn mulled the thought over with a reluctant grunt, “Not the worst idea…are they all in the same place?”
Tasser nodded, “It’s the morning rotation’s mealtime for another couple minutes. If you’re swift, you could catch them all in the same place.”
“I’ll find them in the mess. Just keep an eye on him, and yell if there’s any sudden changes.” Dyn ducked out of the ward leaving Tasser and I alone.
Silence reigned for a full minute as I looked at my alien friend.
I was dumbstruck at how he was speaking. Tasser had an uncommon grasp of sarcasm among Casti, but I’d still only heard him speak so…formally.
“I knew this was serious, but did the words ‘would it be too much to impose’ really come out of your mouth?”
“Caleb,” Tasser raised a hand to stop me. “This is serious.”
I considered my friend’s expression and was surprised to find that he wore guilt behind his eyes. Tasser was the only alien I’d actually spent enough time around to read when he was hiding something from me.
“Let’s not drag our feet then,” I said. He’d gotten Dyn out of the room, he clearly had something to say.
“This…is not an easy topic for me,” Tasser began, “but it’s a punishment of my own making. It’s my fault Nai attacked you.”
“Oh, I very much doubt that…” I replied. But at the same time, Tasser wasn’t the type to cover for Nai if she made a mistake. So, he genuinely thought he was at fault. “…but, you’ve said stranger things to me before and turned out correct.”
“I’m technically here under orders to mediate and make sure you’re comfortable and not dying,” Tasser said.
“Just a small…[rats] Dyn told me the word for [concussion], to my face, not five minutes ago. I’m fine , or I will be.”
“I know how this happened, even if the Ase doesn’t want to take me at my word. So even if I’m under orders, I feel the need to… support Nai, even if I think she was very stupid this morning.”
“You’re friends, I understand.”
“Between us?” Tasser said, “It’s dira hard to be able to see the whole field like this. I know why you confronted her, I know why she attacked, and I think both of you made mistakes in the process leading up to it, but—” He sped up as he talked, becoming more and more frantic.
Wow. Tasser was taking this hard.
It was my turn to raise my hand and cut him off.
“Breathe, Tasser,” I said. “Breathe…and be…”
Tasser gave a stifled laugh, “If you say stuff like that, no wonder Nai thinks you’re not engaged.”
“That’s the [spirit],” I said, “Your girl blew me through [cinder blocks], and it seems like you’re the one needing medical attention. I’m worried you’re about to hyperventilate in front of me.”
Tasser nodded and collected himself, “I feel like I’m nervous to talk about this. I’m never nervous to talk about anything. Anything.”
“It’s been a different kind of day. For everyone involved,” I reassured him.
“I won’t pretend I’m not surprised how calmly you’re treating this. Ase Serralinitus thought you might not talk to me because I’m friends with Nai.”
“Well, it’s fairly easy to take well. I can’t be totally sure, but in the look I got of her right after it happened, she seemed shaken up about it too, that goes a long way,” I said.
Not for the first time in this conversation, Tasser winced at what I said.
“You’re not angry at her?”
“Oh, I’m mad,” I assured him, “But I’m not really that hurt, so I’ll get over it. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve said my piece. How things change from here is in her hands, and she’s a big girl. I’m honestly more curious why it happened when it did, than I am upset.”
“That depends on what you mean,” Tasser said. “Are you curious about how she acted the whole conversation, or what precisely set her off to attack you?”
That was twice now that he’d implied he knew precisely why Nai had snapped. It felt to me like Tasser was avoiding that detail, but I didn’t mind. I’d known it wouldn’t be easy on him for his friends to fight, and I was used to the way his thought process moved around the periphery of a subject before moving to the core.
“Both, I guess,” I told him, “I probably started the argument, because I was [fed up]. The whole exchange was tense. But at the end, it felt like, even if we still didn’t see eye to eye, we’d both at least said something we thought the other needed to hear. It seemed like it was over, and then…”
I pantomimed hitting one hand with the other.
“I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s not so easy,” Tasser said. “I meant for Nai specifically. She doesn’t have the same experience interacting with you as me, or even Dyn does. When you cut in a word in English, I can usually guess at least close to what it means by context, but part of that context is knowing you better than she does. Facial expressions, body language, all the other parts of communicating besides words? She hasn’t done it as much.”
“I’ve lived among aliens for months now,” I retorted, “they aren’t that hard to pick up. Even the ones I don’t have any frame of reference for, like the tongue-clicks you guys do, it only takes a few times to learn them.”
“And for any one behavior, you’d be right. And probably are, but it’s when you come to the ones she’s never seen before, that she’s always going to struggle with them until she’s seen them a few times. In a way, she’s not communicating with the same alien I am. You learned to pick up more of our nuances, because every single person you come across is an alien. Whereas Nai only has you to learn from…and she just hasn’t spent the time to get used to you.”
Tasser alone probably constituted more than 90% of my exposure to aliens, and including Dyn probably covered at least another eight percent. They were just guesses, but the amount of exposure any other alien had to me just paled in comparison.
“[Southpaw]?” I asked.
Tasser started to object, but I nodded before I let us get off topic even more.
“Even if she doesn’t have the same amount of experience, she avoids me as much, or more, than the reverse. I don’t think it’s just that she hasn’t spent any time getting used to me. It’s that she spent her time teaching herself how and why to be hostile.”
“I know she can be difficult,” Tasser said. “But I really do think she means well, ultimately.”
“You know I tried to make peace? I told her that even if she didn’t want to be friends, we didn’t need to be enemies either,” I said.
“Let me clarify what I’m talking about, there’s two parts of Nai’s behavior I wanted to talk about. I wanted to at least explain on her behalf about the first one: why she doesn’t interact with you as easily as Dyn or I do.”
“The second is why she blew me through a wall?” I guessed.
He nodded.
“If not for the first part, I don’t think she would have been in the state of mind to follow the impulse of the second,” Tasser said.
“Let me hear it then,” I told him.
“So, you know how we were looking to talk to other people about subjects more complicated than language?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Because I’m not an expert in any field of education, and it’s only my fluency in the language met with my impressive tolerance for monotony that made me ideal to be your educator.”
“And the fact that you were the one to bother finding out my name,” I said.
“Yes, rapport too. My point is, I’m not a teacher. I don’t have the experience necessary. The consequence of that is: we haven’t talked extensively about science, math, or most crucially today…history.”
I frowned. I didn’t like where this was going.
“I spoke with her already,” he said, “The reason I don’t think it’s Nai’s fault is because she thought you spoke with the knowledge of what you were implying. You did not.”
Tasser took a deep breath, “Caleb, do you know the name of her homeworld?”
“…No, you only taught me Nakrumum,” I said.
“She was born on a planet called ‘Farnata’,” Tasser said, voice barely a whisper. “Nai was born to a race of people called the ‘Kiraeni’.”
Every word he spoke was deathly quiet and it clicked why he’d made sure Dyn left the room. It had been for his sake, not mine.
“One day, the Kiraeni’s planet died. It still floats around their star, with billions of dead upon its surface still. Those that remained changed what they called themselves, so no one could forget their home.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Nai…she watched it happen, Caleb. She was young, just a kid. All she could do was watch as her planet went from home to husk in a matter of hours.”
My gut seized as I realized the full weight of what I’d said.
“Caleb, there isn’t a Farnata alive who didn’t lose family on their planet. Her homeworld is a difficult subject to hear, even for non-Farnata…”
“[Oh God],” I rasped, “I…I told her she knew…”
“I know,” Tasser said. “That is why I think it’s my fault. I never told you. I never thought to tell you. There was always…something else, pathetic as that sounds.”
I got up from the chair, pulling on my mask, and pushing my way out of the oxygen bubble the machine had made. Nai had helped fix that. I felt disgusted with myself. I’d thanked Tasser, but not her.
“Caleb, wait!” Tasser put his hand out to stop me.
“I have to apologize!” I said, “I didn’t know, I—”
Tasser pulled me back toward the chair, “Later,” he said. “Not now, not like this.”
“I didn’t know…” I murmured.
I felt sick. Angry, even. At myself for thinking I couldn’t have done anything wrong. At Nai, for not having said something sooner.
“I didn’t know.”