Every time that the darkness lifted, waves of heat and pain surged over him, burning his arm and his leg once more, seemingly in even greater fire and agony. In the brief intervals between darkness and pain, Van caught a vision of lines of energy around and through him, and sheets of light that he could only have called translucent flowing down on both sides of wherever he lay.
He tried to concentrate, to bring the images into greater focus, but each time he attempted such intensity, the misty cool darkness surged back over him, and he dropped into the endless blackness.
Then…he woke. For the first time, he could feel specific pain—not a wash of agony, but areas of pain. His left arm was on fire, and so was his right leg. His lower rib cage throbbed, even as shallowly as he was breathing, and his lower abdomen felt as if it had been cut into small pieces with an ancient sword, then sewed back together with a large and dull needle.
A thin medtech or doctor stood beside the medcradle. “Commander? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” Van had to struggle to croak out the word.
“Good.” The woman nodded. “I’m Dr. Calyen. I’ve been working with you for some time now, not that you’ve been fully aware of it. We need to run some tests on you. These are of the kind that require you to be awake. It’s likely to get somewhat painful before it’s over, but the longer you can remain alert, the more we can do for you.”
“Go…ahead.” Van’s throat was so dry, or so unused to talking, that he half gagged on the second word. He could hear a low rumbling, then saw another tech pushing a cart toward the medcrib.
“Once the equipment is set up, I’m going to ask you some questions. Some you can answer with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Others may take a short sentence. I may also ask you to think about something—or to try to visualize an object or a color.” The doctor’s tone became sharper with her next words. “This is important. The harder you work on this test, the better your recovery will be.” There was a pause. “Do you understand that?”
“Yes…going to be…a struggle. If I don’t…work hard…I’ll be hurting more…later…”
“Exactly.”
“Doctor…how long…have I…been here?” Van struggled to get the words out.
“You’ve been in the crib for almost six months.”
“Six…months…?” Van couldn’t keep the amazement from his rusty voice.
“You’re fortunate to be alive. You had severe injuries and systemic trauma. You took laser wounds, disc-gun slashes, and a heavy explosive slug through one shoulder, another through the side of your abdomen, and a third through your leg. Even so, we could have dealt with all that in a few weeks, no more than three months. But you also were shot with what we believe was an outlawed biotech slug. It contained a number of SAD nanites…”
“Sad nanites?” Van had never heard of nanites being sad—or happy.
“Acronym,” Dr. Calyen explained. “Search and destroy nanites. The RSF believes that they were intended for the Scandyan premier, not for you. You were fortunate that we had just received and installed some advanced equipment from a Coalition manufacturer.” She smiled. “We were all fortunate. You were the test case, and the results were so good that we’ve been able to save a number of others with what we’ve learned.”
“How long before I’m up…around?”
“That may be a while yet.”
“Permanent injuries?” Van had to wonder with all the areas of pain.
“It doesn’t look that way,” Dr. Calyen said cheerfully, “but your muscle tone is almost nonexistent, and you’ll need patterning to integrate your new arm and leg…possibly some biofeedback for your right ear. We need some baselines…that’s what these tests are for…”
There was a period of silence while the equipment, whatever it might have been, was positioned beside Van’s medcrib.
“Say your full name,” the doctor requested.
“Van…Cassius…Albert.”
“When were you born?”
“Seventeen Novem, 1094 New Era.”
“Where were you born?”
“Bannon, Sulyn…”
“Would you try to picture a blue box?”
“…a yellow sphere?”
The questions and requests seemed to go on and on. Then they stopped. Van had no idea what sort of baseline the doctor had been trying to establish, and he was so tired that he wasn’t certain he cared.
“Commander…”
Van blinked his eyes open.
“Thank you. You did very well.”
Van hadn’t done much, but then, he wasn’t certain he could have done more, either.
“There are messages on the console beside the crib, and some handwritten missives as well. We’ve saved them until you were well enough to appreciate them.”
“Thank you.” Van could see the doctor’s smile, but her words seemed to fade in and out.
“…you’re too tired now. Just rest. They’ll be there when you wake…”
The next time he woke, the pain was less—but it was still there, in the arm and shoulder, the leg, the ribs, the abdomen—and in his right ear and his “good” hand. He still didn’t recall all the wounds that Dr. Calyen had enumerated, but that could have been because he’d been in shock. Anyone with those wounds should have been in shock. Still…he wondered. He shivered. For some reason, he felt cold.
Even as he shivered, he could feel heat radiating into him from beneath and from above.
“That should help.”
Van turned his head slowly, his eyes focusing on a medtech, a man who looked too young to be either tech or doctor.
The young man consulted a screen before him. “Good. You’re doing very well. You’ll be on a regular schedule from now on. Your midday meal will be here in about a halfhour. Dr. Calyen thought this would be a good time of day to bring you out.”
“Out? Out of…what?” Van realized his bed/crib had been inclined so that he was resting in almost a sitting position.
“You’ve been in a low-temp coma. You had some severe brain swelling…those bioweps, you know. But you don’t need
