I flinched and got Wren to bring the metal tin labeled ‘regen’ from the overhead bulkhead. I got her to smear a generous dose on my throbbing stump. I cried out in agony as the thick orange paste made contact with the exposed bone and the nerve ends. But the glopping goo did its work. A stinging pain, like pepper spray applied to an open wound, then a sizzling of flesh, as it cauterized the flesh and bone. Then came a flood of warm, tingling sensations, as small bits of tissue rebuilt themselves, and I was in heaven—momentarily.
The flesh-regen was good for rebuilding small tissues like a missing ear, damaged tongue or even major skin damage, but not, I knew, for regenerating bones. Ligaments or complex nerve tissue would need a level of regen I did not have. But the orange paste would keep the tissue primed if there was any hope for a new hand—which I seriously doubted at this point.
I began to drift away, my eyes dilating, swinging back in my skull like a church bell, with the loss of blood and Wren slapping my face. She began mouthing words, anything that would keep me from fading into non-existence. I remember a garbled story, out of sync with the words coming from her lips. She was probably trying to keep me from succumbing to shock and bleeding out, despite the regen.
“Stay with us, Rusco, you stupid sod.” Slap, slap. I blinked. “Think of my daughter before you think of dying. I lost Kela and I was a broken, empty doll. No purpose or direction. The manner of her death messed me up most, Rusco, brought me nightmares every sleepless night. I tucked myself into some safe harbor, away from them, away from harm, knowing that those scumlord sadists were out there hiding in the shadows with their machetes and ships and guns, waiting to rape and torture and wring every bit of goodness out of me and everybody else—my kin and friends. So, I hid like a feral animal, just like what we’re doing now, and went back into a deep, dark place, like the sand dervishes, hiding under rock, dunghill, every piece of broken metal, a dirty, scavenging castaway killing anything that threatened us with my sawed-off rod. Once when the thing refused to fire, I used it to beat off two grimy, hooded lowlifes with lust and murder on their minds. Another time four had tried to gang rape me, pulled off all my clothes, bloodied me up, broke my fingers. This one never healed right—” She held up her left hand and in my delirium, I saw how the index finger had been twisted and crooked. But I knew that already, didn’t I?
“They failed, Rusco. Not too far off from what the scum tried to do to me today in that storeroom, but they got a surprise.”
Her voice faded in and out, as we neared Gainor and she took our earnings from the stash box where I kept the phaso and I mouthed the combination in her ears, not TK’s, as I didn’t trust the man despite his recent heroics...
I sat there, my mind hallucinating as if I were on psychedelics with the regen and the Myscol.
The next series of events passed in a dream, with a strange bliss punctuated by snippets of conversations and figures I knew must be medics. Concerned faces peered at me. Men and women dressed in white coats, objects of whimsy and perplexity. Echoes of endless speculation and questions arrowed at me. I blinked like a dumb mule, opened my mouth, unable to fire up my vocal chords.
When I came out of the anesthetic, I realized Wren had taken me to some black market shop. A raw ache trickled down my right side. Fingertips alienated from fingers, fingers alienated from hand, hand alienated from wrist, alternating from a dull numbness to rabid agony.
I grunted, rolled over with a curse.
“Careful, sir,” the female attendant said. “The circuits will need time to adjust to the nerve signals. I know it is disorienting.” I looked down at my duck hand and flexed the mechanical fingers. Pain, lots of it; the effort to get them to flutter, even the minutest, was staggering.
“Therapy will be in-depth and intense,” she said. “Two weeks you should have most of your motor control back, but not strength. We installed a Trinbal T4 circuit limber in your wrist. It was within your budget.” The orderly’s remark seemed to be almost an afterthought.
I flashed Wren a sallow grin. Step right up, kids—JR, mechno man coming through!
I got back to the Starrunner, and we made for the nearby world. I didn’t know which one nor did I care. So began the first day of a long series on a road to depression. The worst had finally caught up to me. Maimed for life.
But now was not the time for self pity. I gathered TK and we scoured the bridge. At last we found that tracking bug hidden under the console. Like a tiny black parasite. Raez’d taken a panel off. It was a clever plant; TK’s previous searches for the phaso had not found the tracker. I motioned the old man’s hand away when he reached to pull it off and destroy it. “No!” A part of me was still Jet Rusco, the cunning fox that never gave up. I knew that miserable device would come in handy one day. “Can you disable it?”
“Probably.”
“Do it then.”
TK complied without a grumble. An hour later it was done and
