"Okay, just one more minute," Apollonia said. "I'm almost done."

The man merely made a strange noise that echoed through the tube down his throat.

He was Zef, one of their engineers who had been sent out to check a line. Along the way, he'd fallen on some sort of huge, fat mushroom. People said it had deflated like a whoopie-cushion, which amused her.

But the huge quantity of spores that had been mushed out of it were less amusing.

They were not colonizing the man, thankfully. Human make-up just wasn't an acceptable surface for Ko's life to live in. But the Zef had vomited from how gross it all was, and pulled off his mask, breathing in a huge lungful of spores.

It was his allergic reaction that had been the problem. Even if the spores couldn't root, human lungs did not like breathing in lots of tiny junk. Not only was breathing extremely difficult, but he'd become paralyzed.

A medical drone had kept him alive, but his body was strongly rebelling against that notion, and so he was here. And Apollonia was taking care of him, even as his body continued the other normal processes.

Dr. Zyzus had thought it would take about three days for him to regain the use of his limbs. He was breathing via the artificial respiration system inserted into his lungs, but the medications were making him groggy and confused.

His rear end was . . . well, doing what that part of the body did. It seemed excessive, and the system kept telling her whenever it was imminent, so she was able to keep him clean. But it was a lot of work.

A gummy arm had, thankfully, been brought down, and could help her roll him. It was not a fine manipulator, though, and while it could safely move people in even the worst of shape, it could not clean them.

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She had never realized just how difficult to move an actually-helpless person was. This man couldn't control his body at all, and she did not think she could even do this while trying to prop him up on his side by herself.

She had a headset on, with a screen an inch from her face. It was oddly distracting and tended to get knocked slightly askew, causing the overlay to look slightly fuzzy. It would adjust after a second, but it was just kind of a pain.

The man breathed out, and a puff of the toxic spores came out through the tube. Not one stuck to its sides. She was glad not just that it was contained in the tube, but for her mask. The last thing she wanted was to breathe in mushroom farts.

That was part of the process; machines smaller than a cell were laboriously cleaning out every tiny part of his lungs, removing the spores. When enough were gathered, they'd be brought out through an exhalation.

In the meantime, an external machine was acting as his lungs, working the exact mix of oxygen in and carbon dioxide out that a person needed to live.

There. She wiped him again and it came back clean. Her eyepiece also pinged that her cleaning was sufficient.

"Okay, we're rolling back onto your back," she told the man.

Dark, he had to be so scared, she thought. Being helpless. And even though there could still be a crinkling of lines around his eyes, he looked very calm. Maybe the meds? He seemed almost peaceful - accepting.

Once he was rolled over, she stepped over to the wall. There were two sets of rings in it, one that she stuck her arms in to put on the skin-sheathe gloves, and the other to remove them. The coverings peeled off of her hand in one piece as she put them in, up to the elbow. Then, sticking her hands into the slightly-translucent other side, she got a new, unsullied covering applied.

Couldn't keep using the old one, which was contaminated, she told herself. Infection control was now indelibly stamped into her brain.

Going back to the engineer, she made sure he at least looked comfortable, stuffed a foam wedge under one side to roll him slightly on his side, and stepped back. Yep, her checklist in her visor was all green.

"Rest well," she told him, removing her latest skin-sheathe gloves, and turning off the light as she left.

Looking to her schedule, she was directed to another room, where Hawa was currently resting. She'd broken a toe, and it would take the night to repair it properly. In the meantime, Apollonia had to keep going in and getting her what she needed so the woman didn't get up on her own and set the healing back by hours . . .

After that, she'd take her break - an hour for some food and digestion, then back to work.

She could study in that time, she thought, while she ate. She had more studying to do after this shift was over, but it couldn't hurt to look over things even if one was also eating . . .