“Do not touch my patient,” said Merthon, torn from his lab work to help take care of the survivors.
“I’m fine,” said Jolo, pretending to be annoyed, though happy to have Katy concerned about him.
“You’ve got a few cracked ribs, a facial laceration which will undoubtedly win you some points with the pirate contingent, and a few deep bruises,” said Merthon. “Otherwise you came through nicely. I’ve given you a pain killer and—” but then Katy cut him off.
“Nicely? He looks like he was whacked with a hammer a hundred times. I thought the suit was gonna protect him,” she said in an icy, accusing voice. And now Merthon, the greatest creator the galaxy had ever know, last of his kind, felt the wrath of the former trash hauler pilot. Jolo couldn’t help it--a big grin broke out on his face.
Merthon took a deep breath and tilted his head, staring down at the girl. “It did,” he said, and walked out.
Jolo started laughing and suddenly sharp stabs of pain shot through his side. And then he was sort of crying and laughing all at once and it came out like a strange howl. “Merthon,” Katy yelled down the hall. “Is he okay?” But the Vellosian kept walking away, his back to them both. He waved his hand and continued towards his lab on the lower level.
“So you were worried about me?” said Jolo.
“Of course. I care about you,” said Katy.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” She stared at him and her smile faded.
He shrugged and stared down at the dirty floor.
“When you gonna learn?” she said. “I don’t care what anyone says. I know you are a good person. I know what’s in here.” And she tapped on his chest right on a bruise. He took a deep breath and another sharp jolt to his side and he grimaced, hoping Katy would go back to being worried about him, but her expression, kind of sad and concerned all at once, didn’t change. “You’re gonna have to grow up, Little Boy, and let somebody in at some point,” she said, and walked out.
Jolo sat on the table alone, the med bots tending to the other patients, trying not to breathe too deeply.
“You never did know how to talk to a woman,” said a soft, raspy voice. Jolo started to turn and look behind him, yelled out in pain, then eased off the table and gingerly walked over to Barthelme’s bed. He stared down at the old man and for the first time since the harvester, the one-armed man looked like the engineer he once knew, the man who found him in the dirt on Duval almost a year earlier. Though it seemed like ten years.
“You look like you,” said Jolo.
“I suppose that’s a good thing, Captain.”
“I ain’t your captain. I’m not the man you knew.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I’m sorry you saved me,” Jolo said, and suddenly he couldn’t look Barth in the eyes. “I have no idea what you thought to gain. But I’m so sorry you lost your family. Just to save me.” Jolo stopped, looked back at the door to make sure no one was there, and continued in a whisper. “I’m not even the Jolo you knew. I’m just a synth, or at least half a synth. Only part of the Jolo you knew is left. I have a computer chip in my head. And now I’m just a pirate stealing Fed rations and ship parts.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for the Federation.” Jolo shook his head. Barth put his hand on top of Jolo’s and squeezed it. “Did you find the girl,” he said. Jolo nodded, yes. Barth took a deep breath and smiled, then started coughing. The med bot came over to monitor his vitals. “There were four, in the beginning. She used to speak then, used to smile occasionally.”
“I got her. But I don’t know her name.”
“Thank you.”
“Get some rest,” said Jolo. “I’m glad you are back. We need you.” The med bot came over to check on the old man and Jolo put his shirt on.
“Misha,” said Barth. “Her name is Misha.”
Jolo stood over her bed and watched her breathe. She’d been given a bath and suddenly had changed from a dirty trackhead on a BG harvester to a beautiful little girl with dark hair. She looked even smaller somehow laying in the med bay. Jolo wondered how old she was. Seven? Eight? How had it come to this? Without the grime and track wheel grease, Jolo could see she had the smooth, perfect skin of a child. Her body would recover, he thought. But he hoped she would eventually talk and play like other kids.
On Merthon’s orders, Jolo went to bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He just stared at the big picture frame on the wall that showed a rotating video of the topside landscape right above Marco’s. Usually it was just a wide swath of orange earth then blue sky above, but all day small boats shuttled back and forth: the tower busters resupplying.
Jolo didn’t know what to do with down time, especially when the planet was going BOOM in a little over three weeks. Finally, after watching the umpteenth hover craft, weighed down with heavy charges and riding low, racing across the flat, Duval landscape, across his picture frame, he put on his clothes and went up to the staging area. His head was pounding and his mouth was dry. George was there with a thin screen
