The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers (best novels in english .txt) 📕

rub her toepads against Tupo’s fur nervously, her breath tight and halting.

Roveg tapped Pei on the shoulder with one of his legs. ‘Captain, if I may?’ he said, indicating that he wished to enter the room. Pei let him past, and Roveg walked up behind Ouloo. He wrapped his thoracic legs around her shoulders and torso gently, holding her steady, letting her know he was there. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘The doctor’s here.’

Ouloo took a deep breath, bobbing her neck in acknowledgement. She reached a paw toward her shoulder and patted Roveg’s toes.

Dr Miriyam nodded her head up and down as she read from her own scanner, and Pei knew this to be a promising gesture. ‘Okay,’ the doctor said. She looked up at Ouloo, her eyes serious but kind. ‘I’m going to need to conduct a full tip-to-toe exam once xe’s awake, but so far, this is looking good.’

‘Oh,’ Ouloo gasped. ‘Oh, that’s – oh, good.’

‘We’re not out of the woods yet,’ Dr Miriyam cautioned. ‘But the procedure I need to do won’t take long. I’ll be using xyr imubots to kick xyr brain back into gear. From what I’m seeing, there’s low risk of complications here. But … you may not want to be in the room for this.’

‘Why not?’ Ouloo asked.

Dr Miriyam pressed her lips together. ‘Xe’ll likely twitch while I’m doing this. Might thrash around, make some involuntary sounds.’

‘Will it hurt?’

‘Mmm, that’s hard to say. It probably does hurt, but xe either won’t be conscious enough to register it, or xe won’t remember it afterward. But it does look … upsetting. So, if you want to step out—’

‘Like hell,’ Ouloo huffed. She glanced back at Roveg. ‘Will you stay, too?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said, squeezing her shoulders.

‘We’ll all stay,’ Speaker said.

‘Thank you,’ Ouloo said timidly.

Dr Miriyam looked around, still processing her surroundings. ‘Do you have a bucket? A large bowl? Anything like that?’

Pei was not keen on where this question was going. ‘I think so, why?’

The doctor made an apologetic face. ‘Our friend here will probably, ah, purge xyr stomach contents once xe wakes up.’

‘I saw a bucket in the storage closet,’ Speaker said. ‘I’ll go get it.’ She walked her suit down the hall.

‘And actually, on that note,’ Dr Miriyam said, ‘we should get that mask off before we start. Don’t want it hurting xyr if xe wakes up hard.’ She dug around in her bag and pulled out a pair of oddly shaped scissors. She looked around the remaining group, and pointed at Pei’s hands. ‘Do you think you can hold these?’

‘Maybe,’ Pei said. She took the scissors, which were made for five fingers, not four, but she found she could manage (a bit uncomfortably, but whatever).

‘Can you work on the mask while I get this procedure lined up?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Pei scootched past and leaned over Tupo’s limp, lifeless head. ‘Sorry about this, kid,’ she said as she began to cut hunks of fur away, exposing the dark skin beneath.

‘So you’ve done this before?’ Ouloo said.

Dr Miriyam paused in typing out her imubot commands. ‘I’ve done this in sims,’ she said frankly. ‘But this will be my first time with a live patient. I can’t say I’ve ever had a call for olotohen before.’

The bit of calm that Ouloo had managed to scrape back visibly evaporated. She didn’t make a sound, but her whole body tensed.

Roveg’s eyes shifted in their hard sockets. ‘Doctor, just out of curiosity, what sims did you train on?’

‘You mean the title?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Sapient Scholar Medical Training Suite. Version eight, I think.’

‘Ah!’ Roveg said. He patted Ouloo’s shoulders and leaned his head closer to hers. ‘I know the head of the studio who makes those. Delightful Aandrisk woman. Her team has a very good reputation in our industry. I hear their medical sims are practically indistinguishable from the real thing.’

The fur around Ouloo’s ears lowered just a touch. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor, I’m just—’

‘It’s okay,’ the Human said. ‘I know it’s been a stressful night. But we’re gonna fix that soon.’ She entered in one more command and sat back. ‘All right, that needs a minute to compile, and then we’ll be ready to go. How are we doing with that mask?’ She got up and took a look. ‘Nice, good stuff. Want me to take over?’

‘If you don’t mind,’ Pei said, relinquishing the scissors and shaking out her cramping hand.

Dr Miriyam pushed up her sleeve and got to it. As she did so, Pei noticed an ornate tattoo on her inner forearm, white ink leaping off of brown skin. The image was in the shape of an Exodan homestead ship, with a sentence in Ensk woven around it. Most of it meant nothing to her, but Pei picked out the words for fly and … and death? Not death – there was something else added to the word that she couldn’t parse. Stars, she needed to learn more Ensk.

‘Which homesteader are you from?’ Pei asked.

‘Hmm? Oh,’ Dr Miriyam said with a glance at her arm. ‘You know what this is.’

‘I do.’

The doctor smiled as she worked. ‘I’m from the Ratri.’

Pei smiled blue. She knew the name. ‘I have a friend from the Asteria.’

The Exodan gave her a quick look and a wry smile. ‘Our waterball team is better.’

The blue in Pei’s cheeks freckled with green. ‘He’d fight you on that.’

‘Yeah, well, he’d lose, just like his team does under pressure.’ She gave one final snip and pulled the mask free. ‘Sorry about your new look, Tupo, but it’ll grow back.’ Pei agreed with the doctor’s assessment; the kid now had a wide, patchy border of bare skin circling xyr nose. It looked like xe’d stuck xyr face into a hedge trimmer.

Speaker returned to the room, carrying a maintenance bucket in the suit’s hands. ‘Will this do?’

Dr Miriyam took the bucket with a nod. ‘It’ll do,’ she said. She set the bucket on the floor next to the bed, then turned her attention to