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When Nemik wakes up, both his legs are gone below the mid-thigh, Skeen is dead, and Vel looks like she’s on the edge of going screaming off into the night.
“We can’t get you proper prosthetics here,” Vel says, shoulders tense. “Dr. Quadpaw’s not set up for something like that. You’ve got nerve damage.”
Nemik nods, but everything feels very slippery. “Where – where’s –” he grasps.
“Cinta’s where she’s supposed to be,” Vel says, reaching for his hand and gripping it in hers. Nemik can feel that. She’s got a very tight hold. “And Clem’s –”
“Here,” a voice says.
Nemik moves his head. He can do that. That’s good, he thinks. Clem’s standing by the door, face slightly shadowed.
“Alright,” Nemik manages.
Clem sits down on Nemik’s other side, opposite Vel. “Go back to sleep,” he says.
Nemik’s body obeys before he has the time to think about it.
It’s morning again, Nemik thinks, when he wakes to a door sliding open. He blinks against the light flooding in behind Clem, his ears processing Clem’s footsteps strangely, for a moment.
Nemik’s not where he woke up before, but in a proper bed. He doesn’t remember being moved.
That ought to frighten him, but what’s worse is the strangeness of trying to sit up – his center of balance feels off. The med clamps on his stumps must be circulating something because instead of pain, he feels a faint numbness.
“Slowly,” Clem advises, coming closer. He’s got a rucksack slung over one shoulder. “You lost blood, during the . . . surgery.”
“Right,” Nemik says, slowly leaning back to rest his head against the wall. “Taramyn’s dead, isn’t he? I didn’t imagine that part?”
“He’s dead,” Clem says, sitting down heavily at the edge of the bed, dropping his bag to the ground. “Are you having trouble with your memory?”
Nemik shakes his head. The wall is stone, and very cold. “No. I, uh, remember. It’s just the . . . the med stims. And the pain. It’s all a bit –” There aren’t words for it and that’s the most frustrating part. How can he not have words for it?
Clem nods though, looking down. “You still got us out. That’s the part you should remember,” he says.
Nemik’s not sure that’s true, but it’s kind, in Clem’s own strange, closed off way. So he just nods back.
“I came to tell you – I have to go,” Clem says. “I need to see my mother.”
“Oh,” Nemik says.
Nemik would like to see his mothers. The ones who raised him and read to him and who knew he was lying when he called to say he was only taking a break from school to go on pilgrimage but who let him go anyway. He’d like to see his clan mothers, too, who gave him his clan-name at ten and blessed him when he left home at sixteen, to go to the Core, to seek knowledge that would free his planet and take him yet further from it.
If he could still go home, he would, too.
“You’re alright now,” Clem says, staring for a moment. “Vel’s back, from the drop-off. She won’t just leave you, anymore.”
Nemik wants to say Vel wouldn’t have anyway, but he’s not sure that’s true. He thinks maybe that bothers Clem more than it bothers him. But then, Vel and he swore oaths, and meant them.
“I’ll be fine,” Nemik says. “We knew there might be . . . complications.”
“A lot of complications,” Clem says, his mouth pulled in sourly.
Nemik takes a deep breath in, out. It makes his ribs ache and he winces before being aware of it. “Yes,” he agrees.
Clem sits there, staring at the ground. He works his jaw. Nemik waits.
“You saved my life, back at the garrison. When you shot that guard,” Clem finally says. “Where I’m from, that means there’s something owed, between us.”
“Seems like you helped save my life,” Nemik offers in return. "Surely that pays off any debt."
Clem’s eyes are shadowed. Nemik had assumed he just had the ability to sleep on command, the way medics and doctors seem to. Maybe not.
“Alright. Then think of it as a gift,” Nemik says, when Clem stays silent. “Reciprocity, between us. I saved your life. You saved mine. So we’ve built something, together. And one day, we’ll do it again. For each other, or for someone else. Not just because we owe one another, but because we’re bound together, now. All of us in the struggle are.”
“You should write that down,” Clem says, tipping his head to the side, a hint of a smile briefly appearing on his face.
Nemik realizes, abruptly, that maybe in another circumstance, Clem might be charming. It makes him laugh.
“I should,” Nemik agrees, as Clem brushes his hands over his legs and stands. “That’s not actually not a terribly original idea, but people forget sometimes, how much we’ve already figured out. Though, that reminds me –”
He casts his gaze around quickly, searching – and then he finds his data pad, close at hand, sitting on the small table at the left of the bed.
Vel’s kept next to him – he thought she would. “Here. Take it,” Nemik says, grabbing his data pad and holding it out to Clem. “You can read it, on your way wherever you’re going.”
Clem eyes it, doesn’t touch the pad. “I thought you were still working on it,” he says.
“I am,” Nemik agrees. “But I want you to have it.”
“You should finish it,” Clem says, bending to sling his rucksack over one shoulder. “I can read it then.”
“It’s not my only copy, you know. I’ve got a back-up. I’m going to keep writing. But every writer hits a point when they need another set of eyes,” Nemik says, holding out the datapad again. “I don’t know when I’ll stumble across my ideal reader again.” Clem still looks unconvinced, so Nemik takes a final gamble. “Besides, maybe your mother will be interested in some light reading.”
Clem looks down at the floor, huffs, and then holds out his hand. Nemik passes over the data pad.
“You can tell me your thoughts when we see each other next,” Nemik says.
Clem tucks the pad into his jacket’s internal pocket. “Don’t know when that will be,” he says.
“It’ll happen. I feel that,” Nemik says, because that’s the truth. “The rebellion’s coalescing.”
“Bound together, huh?” Clem says, his eyebrows so slightly raised.
“Yes,” Nemik agrees.
“Then maybe try not to die until I’m around to help save your life again,” Clem says.
“I’ll do my best,” Nemik says. “I hope you will, too.”
Clem nods, squeezes Nemik’s shoulder once, and then he’s gone, the door sliding shut behind him.