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The shuttle that’s waiting for us is the one that has webbing that goes over the seats to hold the humans in place. I could put Ratthi in a seat, cover him with the webbing, and sit next to him. He’ll probably be safe enough that way, and about as comfortable as he’s going to be with that massive wound on his right thigh and all the other, smaller injuries he gathered over the course of being kidnapped by complete bastards for four hours, thirty-seven minutes, and fifteen seconds.
I sit in one of the seats, on top of the webbing, and arrange Ratthi so he’ll be as comfortable as I can make him, and then just hold on to him tightly. Because he might be a little more comfortable outside the webbing. And also because Ratthi was kidnapped by bastards for four hours, thirty-seven minutes, and fifteen seconds, and they shot him and injured him in various ways, and he’s probably traumatized and needs someone to hold on to him.
And also because Ratthi wasn’t alone when he was kidnapped, and Three is settling itself across from me, holding on to Gurathin the way I’m holding on to Ratthi. Gurathin wasn’t shot -- he was just beaten up until his eyes swelled shut and his lips split and his jaw got puffy and his nose was smashed across his cheekbone and something vital controlling his augments got knocked loose so he can’t see even if his eyes could open, which they can’t, because they’re swollen shut. And they beat him while he was tied to a chair and helpless, and there’s raw welts on his arms from where the rope rubbed his skin off. And he’s badly concussed and passing in and out of consciousness in a way that’s starting to get really stressful.
Did I mention that Ratthi had to watch Gurathin get beaten up, because the Kidnapping Bastards were trying to get Ratthi to give them information that didn’t even exist, and the more he tried to explain that to them, the worse they were to Gurathin? Because that also happened.
So yeah, Ratthi’s traumatized. And no, I’m not letting go of him before I have to.
Tarik closes the shuttle hatch behind us, and Gurathin stirs. His face moves like he’s trying to open his eyes, even though his eyelids are too swollen to move anymore. “Wha ‘sthat?” he mumbles.
His voice is more slurred than it was the last time he tried to talk. Which is not a good sign.
“It’s okay, Gura,” Ratthi says. Ratthi has a weird ability to sound almost completely unworried when all his vital signs are indicating moderate panic. “It’s just Tarik closing the door.”
Gurathin’s face moves again. Tarik makes his way past our seats, kneels down and starts rummaging through one of the lower hatches. “Back again?” he asks, a little clearer now. “Hiding?”
Ratthi swallows hard. “No,” he says. Hesitant. Finally, he says, “We’re on the shuttle. We’re going back to Perihelion.”
Shuttle hasn’t been a great word to say around Gurathin for the last fifteen minutes or so, but he doesn’t get upset this time. “Other shuttle,” he says.
I can feel Ratthi relaxing against me. “That’s right, Gura. The others came and got us, and we’re on the other shuttle now. We’ll be back on Perihelion soon.”
“’N go to Medical,” Gurathin says, and Ratthi tenses up again.
“Are you all right?” he asks. “Do you need Medical? Do you need --”
If Gurathin were capable of rolling his eyes, he probably would. (He might, actually, and we just can’t see it behind his swollen eyelids.) “You need Medical,” he says. “They shot you.”
Gurathin’s voice always gets clearer when he’s talking about how Ratthi got shot.
“Working on it,” Tarik says, pulling out the emergency medical kit and setting it on the seat next to me. “Can’t fix it here on the shuttle, but we’ll make sure he’s stable, Gura. How about you? How are you feeling right now?”
The shuttle accelerates smoothly away from the abandoned station, which means Iris is actually piloting and not ART. Tarik barely has to brace himself on the seats to keep stable. Gurathin still tenses up at the feeling of movement, which makes Ratthi tense up watching him. “Might vomit,” Gurathin warns.
He’s already vomited once, mostly on himself (although he was convinced he’d vomited on Three, and spent a solid forty-seven seconds mumbling apologies about it). “It’s all right,” Three tells him, and holds him stable. “I won’t be upset. Would it help if I held your hand?”
Gurathin takes so long to answer that I almost think he’s passed back out again. “Maybe,” he says, finally.
Three shifts him a little closer, and wraps its right hand around his. “There you go,” it says.
Gurathin makes a soft humming noise and doesn’t say anything else.
With the initial burst of acceleration over, Tarik shifts to kneel in front of Ratthi (and also me by default), a pair of scissors in his hand and a large bandage pack on his lap. “Sorry if this gets awkward,” he says, glancing in the general direction of my chin. “I’ll try not to touch you too much.”
“It’s fine,” I tell him, because it is. Ratthi’s an injured, traumatized client in need of assistance. Helping him through a medical procedure is not a problem. Even if it was, Ratthi is also my friend and I’m going to help him whether it’s a problem or not.
“Ratthi, I’m going to adjust your leg a little. It’s going to hurt, but then we’ll get you cleaned up and get the bandage on, and it’ll start to feel better, okay?” Tarik keeps a hand on Ratthi’s ankle, watches his face, waits for him to finally nod. “Gura, you still with us?”
“Help Ratthi,” Gurathin says. It’s the clearest thing he’s said for a long time. “’m all right.”
Tarik smiles a little. “Fine,” he says. He sounds relieved. “Be that way.”
Then he turns his attention back to Ratthi. “Okay,” he says, gentler. “Brace now.”
Ratthi tenses up a little. I hold him as steady as I can, as carefully as possible.
Tarik takes hold of Ratthi’s right leg and pulls it towards himself, straightening it slightly, and Ratthi’s vitals all spike at once. He makes a soft, pained noise through gritted teeth.
“’Sokay, Ratthi,” Gurathin tells him. “Be all right in a second.”
“Well, everything except these pants,” Tarik says. He starts cutting around the burnt section, widening the hole so he can have better access to Ratthi’s wounded leg. I can smell burnt hair, scorched skin, and it does something really awful to my organic parts. Not just because it’s disgusting, but also --
It’s Ratthi.
The whole point of keeping Ratthi on the shuttle is that things like this aren’t supposed to happen to him.
I am probably going to have to have an emotion about this at some point but this seems like a bad time to do that, so I shove it back.
“Hope they weren’t your favorites,” Tarik continues, still cutting. I can’t tell whether or not he’s shoving an emotion of his own back, but he and Ratthi had a sexual relationship once and still seem to like each other, so he probably is. “Because I don’t think the recycler’s going to be able to salvage these.”
“I have more,” Ratthi says. His voice is still tight with pain; he’s not hiding it so well this time. Heart rate and respiration are still high, and his temperature has managed to drop a little somehow. I up my body temperature to compensate. “I don’t know, though. I’ve seen the recycler fix SecUnit’s stuff, and that’s usually pretty bad.”
Because I’m usually the one getting patched up on the shuttle, because I’m usually the one who gets hurt. I’ve never actually wanted it to be the other way around. And I was right not to want that, because this sucks.
I hold Ratthi steady and don’t shift him closer to me even if I sort of want to.
Tarik sets a large strip of fabric aside. “Okay,” he says again. “Antiseptic. This will probably be the worst part. Ready for it?”
“No,” Ratthi says. “Do you have anything I can bite down on, maybe?”
Tarik makes a little huffing sound that I think is supposed to be laughter. “Closest ear is SecUnit’s. I think it’d prefer you leave it attached, though.”
Ratthi also makes a little huffing noise, and I feel him bracing again. “Never going to live that down, am I,” he says.
“Don’t worry, we’re all very proud of you for that.” Tarik grabs the disinfectant spray. “I’ll work quickly. Brace.”
At the last second, I shift Ratthi just enough to grab his right hand with my right hand, and he freezes completely for a second. Then the disinfectant spray hits and his hand tightens hard around mine, enough to almost hurt. His jaw clenches tight and he makes another pained noise, louder this time. His vitals spike sharply.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “You’re okay.” Because it’s not, and he isn’t, but it’s what he needs to hear right now. And he’s better than he was, anyway.
“’Sokay, Ratthi,” Gurathin echoes.
The hissing noise of the spray goes silent. Ratthi stays rigid for a few seconds, then starts softening by degrees. He doesn’t let go of my hand, but he stops trying to crush it so hard.
(He’s not actually trying to crush it. Ratthi wouldn’t deliberately try to hurt anyone, unless they’d already hurt someone like Gurathin. In which case, he’ll bite their ears off, and they’ll deserve it. And we’ll all be very proud of him.)
“All done,” Tarik says, and sets the spray aside. Ratthi’s breathing hard, but his heart rate is starting to settle. His muscles keep relaxing bit by bit. There’s a 13.6% possibility he’ll pass out for a few minutes when the adrenaline finally crashes, which means we’ll have to talk Gurathin through that if he’s still conscious (and if he’s not conscious either by then, I guess we’ll all just sit here.) “Last part is the bandage. Should help with the pain.”
“Thank fuck,” Ratthi breathes.
Tarik tears the bandage packet open without preamble, and lays it carefully over the giant open wound on Ratthi’s leg. It adheres itself to Ratthi’s skin. His breathing starts to slow down, get easier. He gets so relaxed he’s almost completely limp. “Fuck,” he says again, even softer.
“Better?” Tarik asks, watching Ratthi with worried eyes.
“Yeah,” Ratthi says. “Yeah, it’s better. Thank you.” He looks up at my chin. “SecUnit. Thanks for…”
Tarik smiles. “Our pleasure,” he says, so I don’t have to try to find a good reply to being thanked for doing my job. Which is nice of him. “All right. Gura, I can’t do much for you, but I can get you cleaned up a little. Want me to try?”
“Sure.” Immediately, Ratthi starts tensing up again. His grip tightens around my hand, and I could pull away, but I don’t.
“Okay.” Tarik goes back to the emergency med kit, and pulls out a small bottle of antiseptic liquid and some fabric pads. He settles down in front of Three, who carefully arranges Gurathin so Tarik can dab antiseptic on Gurathin’s split lip and split eyebrow. “Do you want me to try to reduce the swelling on your eyelids, or do you want to wait until we’re on Perihelion again? I can do it here, but it won’t be fun.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Gura says. His voice is still pretty clear, all things being considered. “Can’t see anyway.”
“Because of your augments, right.” Tarik grabs a small tube of something, squeezes it out onto his fingers. “This might help the pain a little. Out of curiosity, do you remember when you lost your augments? Was it immediate, or was it gradual? All at once, or --”
“Slower, I think.” A pause. Tarik keeps daubing ointment on Gurathin’s face. “After… Second time, I think? Is when it started.”
Ratthi’s still really tense. I guess I can’t blame him for it.
“Second time?” Tarik asks. “The second time you got hit, or --”
“Second time I…” Gurathin goes quiet. “Can’t think of the word. It went black. Sort of… Passed out, but not for… For a reason. Not just…”
“Second time you got knocked unconscious.”
Ratthi’s grip on my hand tightens. I can tell Iris is listening in the pilot’s seat. I can tell, too, that ART is listening, its presence suddenly very heavy.
“Doesn’t sound right,” Gurathin complains. “But sure. I guess.”
Tarik puts the little tube back in the emergency medical kit. “Ratthi said you had bruised ribs,” he says. Presses gently on Gurathin’s ribcage, and he hisses. “Did they hit you there as well?”
Gurathin makes a little aborted gesture with his head, like he wants to nod and keeps forgetting that he can’t. “A few times, yeah.”
“Anywhere else they hit you?”
“Knee,” Gurathin says. “Didn’t do much. Bad angle, I guess. Stepped on my foot, but I think that was just being clumsy. Nothing else, really.”
Tarik takes Gurathin’s left hand in both his, very carefully. “Ropes took some skin off you.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll clean those up for you. It’ll hurt.”
It looks like Gurathin shrugs, or tries to. “Already does,” he says.
Ratthi squeezes my hand again. Tarik just chuckles. “Fair enough,” he says. He keeps going with the liquid antiseptic, rather than the spray. But he’d have to move Gurathin’s arms around to get the spray everywhere, and he probably doesn’t want to do that. “Do you know about how many times you were knocked unconscious? Sounds like it was at least two.”
“Was three.” Ratthi grips my hand so hard he actually successfully starts to hurt me a little. Which is fine. It was starting to feel weird, being on the shuttle and not being in any pain. “Once before. Twice after.”
“Before?” Tarik wraps a bandage around Gurathin’s left wrist, and he sighs in relief as it settles.
“When they hit me,” he says. “I’d look at Ratthi. Sort… So he could see. I was fine. Then they got mad and told me not to. Said they’d kill him if I kept doing it. So I stopped.” He rolls his head so his face is pointed in Ratthi’s general direction. His face twitches like he’s trying to open his eyes again. “That was the worst thing they did, I think.”
“It was,” Ratthi says, very quietly.
Tarik doesn’t ask any more questions for a while. He cleans Gurathin’s right wrist carefully. To the best of my knowledge, Tarik and Gurathin have no interest in a sexual relationship with each other, but they’ve already become friends anyway. Tarik definitely seems to like Gurathin a lot, and Gurathin smiles at him most of the time. Also, Tarik was the member of Perihelion’s crew most likely to take all the injuries before ART started acquiring rogue SecUnits, and I think he likes watching other people get hurt about as much as Three and I do. Which isn’t much. Getting hurt is our job.
Finally, he gets the bandage in place, and gives Gurathin’s hands back to Three for holding. “So they knocked you out once before the threat, and then twice after.”
Gurathin does that weird little aborted nodding gesture again. “Yeah,” he says.
“And the second time was when your augments started failing.”
“Yeah.”
Tarik nods and starts packing the emergency medical kit back up. “Was there one that felt like you were out longer than the others?” he asks.
“Last one.” Gurathin and Ratthi at the same time, in perfect unison.
Ratthi’s not clutching my hand so hard anymore, but he’s slumped against me in a way that is weirdly upsetting. Ratthi usually likes touching people and being touched by people and part of me holding on to him is that I’m trying to make him feel better. I’m not sure whether I’m just not helping him, or whether I am helping him and he’d actually be worse than this if I had him in the protective webbing. The idea of Ratthi being more upset than he already is makes my organic parts do something deeply uncomfortable.
Again, this is why we keep Ratthi on the shuttle.
Except we can’t do that anymore, because the shuttle got stolen with him on it, so now we have to figure something else out.
ART seems like the safest bet, but then ART’s been stolen once too, so I’m not really sure what we’re supposed to do.
“Last one was the worst,” Gurathin says again.
Ratthi swallows hard. “I thought you were dead,” he says. “You went so limp and I…”
“’M okay,” Gurathin says, immediately. “’M okay, Ratthi.”
“It just felt like it took forever for you to come back.” Ratthi swipes at his eyes with his free hand. “And they were starting to panic. I could tell they were… I mean, they were kind of already panicking from the start. I don’t think they were very good kidnappers.”
Gurathin stops himself from nodding again. “Amateurs,” he agrees.
Tarik goes to put the emergency medical kit back in its hatch. “And they thought they could kidnap Peri? Like it was human, somehow, and they could --”
“Very insistent about it,” Ratthi says. “I think… Again, I think by the end, they’d started to realize I wasn’t lying. That someone had lied to them, maybe, but it wasn’t me. But they weren’t going to…” He can shake his head, so he does. “I don’t know that they were ever going to let themselves admit it. I don’t know…” He swallows hard. “I don’t know what they would have done if you hadn’t shown up when you did.”
We should have been there sooner. I don’t say it, because no one wants to hear it.
Tarik says it for me. Sort of. “I wish we’d been there sooner,” he says.
Ratthi just shakes his head again. “They cut us off from Peri. I don’t know how. I don’t know if they knew how. It was just… We were on the shuttle, and it was fine, and then it wasn’t, and there was a weapon pointed at Gurathin’s head, and I didn’t know what to do. I just didn’t want them to hurt him.”
“’M fine,” Gurathin says. It is the most incredibly blatant lie I’ve ever heard in my life, and I’m honestly kind of impressed at how sincerely he says it. “I’m fine, Ratthi.”
“I know.” Which is probably the second most blatant lie I’ve ever heard in my life. Or a very close tie for third, at least. “I know. I was so afraid, though.”
He’s still afraid. Even with the bandage delivering its payload of painkillers, his vitals keep spiking and never fully settling down. Every time Gurathin does something, his heart rate jumps up.
“Was a noise,” Gurathin adds, after a moment. “When the shuttle… Before. Something hit us. I remember the noise.”
Which is when ART chooses to finally tap me in the feed. Just me, no one else. Seth has the repair drone you and Three noticed. It’s fully disabled and on the shuttle. If there’s any information on it, I’ll have it within a cycle.
It isn’t hope exactly, but it’s something. Good.
And then we’re going to find whoever is responsible for this.
It doesn’t go so far as to say that we’re going to cause them immense amounts of pain, but I can tell by the tone that it’s meant to be implied. Good, I say again.
“Went dark then,” Gurathin says. “And then…” He goes quiet for a little too long. “Bad intel,” he says, finally. “They didn’t know.”
Tarik sits down next to me, on the side where Ratthi’s feet are hanging over my arm. He rests a hand on the ankle of Ratthi’s uninjured leg, holds on to it. “Didn’t know what, Gura?” he asks.
“Me.” Gurathin sighs. “Thought Ratthi would be alone. Didn’t know what to do with me. I figured… Ratthi can talk. People listen, most times. Better than me at it. Wasn’t trying to get myself killed. Just giving Ratthi time to talk. I had a plan.”
I have plans a lot of the time. Mine don’t usually work so well either.
“Really wasn’t trying to get killed,” Gurathin says again. “But. Amateurs. Erratic, you know. Gave them too much credit.” He sighs. “Wouldn’t help, I guess. They had to hurt one of us. Wasn’t going to be Ratthi.”
“Gura,” Ratthi says, quietly. He doesn’t say anything else.
“Sorry,” Gurathin says. “But I couldn’t, Ratthi. I couldn’t.”
We’re about to dock the shuttle, ART tells me. Do you want me to deploy a gurney for Ratthi? I already told Three it could carry Gurathin to Medical if it wanted to.
It wanted to. Three doesn’t know Gurathin that well, but it seems to like him. They both like documentaries, and Gurathin sends it the abstracts to scientific articles sometimes if it’s topics he thinks it might be interested in. They are, sort of, friends.
I don’t need a gurney.
Because Ratthi is my friend. Because Ratthi is my friend and he hasn’t been concussed as many times as Gurathin has (hopefully not at all, although I want a second opinion on that) but he’s still been through a lot.
“Anyway,” Gurathin says. “You saved us, so. Even, right?”
“Wouldn’t have made it far without you,” Ratthi says. “You were my legs.”
“And you were…” Gurathin sort of shrugs, as best as he’s capable. “Eyes. Brain. Everything, pretty much.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
I think Gurathin is smiling. I think he’s trying to smile. I think I’m going to have to push aside another emotion about this.
“’S how I remember it,” Gurathin says. He’s definitely trying to smile.
Ratthi squeezes my hand because he is also pushing aside an emotion. “Well,” he says, finally. “Maybe you remember better than I do, then.”
“I remember.” Gurathin’s face falls. Now we’re all having emotions. “You fought them.”
The shuttle shakes as we dock. Three tightens its arms around Gurathin.
“You don’t like fighting people.” Gurathin is apparently still too upset about Ratthi having to fight to notice the shaking. “Don’t wanna hurt people.”
“I had to get you out of there.” Ratthi says it calmly enough, but he’s still squeezing my hand and I’m not sure why. Maybe that’s just what it takes for him to say things calmly right now. “Talking to them wasn’t working. So I did what I had to do. Anyway, they hit you first.”
And second. And third. And… They hit Gurathin a lot. Gurathin’s mostly right about Ratthi not wanting to hurt people, but everyone has a limit. If I had to guess, I’d say Ratthi hit his sometime between the first and second time Gurathin was knocked unconscious.
“We’re back on board,” Iris says, from the pilot’s seat. “Gura, Ratthi, we’re going to get you to Medical now, okay? Get you taken care of.”
“’Kay,” Gurathin says. Then, “Might pass out when we get there. Trying not to, but… ‘S hard. I’m tired.”
“Once Three’s got you to Medical, you can pass out whenever you need to.” Iris passes between the seats, goes back to open the hatch. “Just hang on a little longer, okay?”
“’Kay.”
“I’m going to stand up now,” Three tells Gurathin. “I’ll try to be careful. It’s all right if you get sick again. I won’t be upset.”
“I will,” Gurathin mutters.
Three shifts him in its arms, rises very carefully. Stands in place for a moment to let Gurathin’s vertigo settle.
“’M fine,” Gurathin says, after a moment. They start moving.
Once they’re almost to the door, I stand up with Ratthi. I don’t think he’s going to be conscious much longer than Gurathin. He’s almost limp in my arms, his head resting on my chest. If he wasn’t gripping my hand so hard, I’d think he was already gone.
“Probably ready to set me down,” Ratthi says, softly.
“No,” I say, too fast. “I mean.” The problem is that I’m still too busy pushing away emotional responses to have the energy to lie. Again, this is why we keep Ratthi and Gurathin on the fucking shuttle. I don’t know how to handle this. “Not really.”
“I’m fine, SecUnit,” Ratthi says. “You don’t have to --”
“He’s not fine,” Gurathin calls, from a few steps ahead of us. “He was shot.”
Ratthi’s grip on my hand tightens. I step off the shuttle and into ART’s broad corridors.
“I’m taking him to Medical, Dr. Gurathin,” I say, because it’s all I really can say. “He’ll be taken care of.”
“You’ll take care of him?” He sounds hopeful.
“I’ll take care of him.” Then I add, “You can’t pass out yet, though. You’re not in Medical yet.”
“Oh.” Gurathin’s quiet for a few seconds. “Wasn’t going to.”
This is not his most convincing lie.
He’s close enough that I’ll be able to help no matter what, ART reminds me, which is true, but I have to think about Ratthi and Ratthi is very traumatized right now.
He’ll upset Three, I tell ART, which is probably also true. I don’t think it’s ever had a client be tortured before.
Have you?
I have not. Bharadwaj was partially eaten but I managed to save her. Volescu was traumatized but physically unharmed. Tapan got shot but ART helped. Miki died. Mensah was kidnapped and held captive and was traumatized, but they didn’t actually hurt her physically. Amena (and Ratthi, come to think of it) got hurt because of ART, but I had to let that go because ART’s humans were gone and maybe dead and it panicked and honestly I wouldn’t have been much better. Ras died. Eletra was damaged by the alien remnant implant, but she survived, more or less. 2.0 and Central died. The Adamantine colonist who got turned into TargetContact is probably still alive under a whole bunch of rubble which is something that I really just can’t think about too much.
And a lot of things have happened to me, but those are all different because I’m myself and not one of my clients.
No, I admit, finally, because I’m too busy pushing emotions away to lie.
ART doesn’t say anything for eight seconds. Finally, it says, Seth and Matteo have contacted Station Security for the nearest occupied station. Someone will be coming for the kidnappers shortly. They’ve been immobilized until then.
Okay. Three turns right. I follow it.
They’re bringing the disabled drone to me now.
Okay.
We won’t let this happen again.
Even if we don’t, there’s other things that can happen. Just like the alien remnant colonists that killed ART and took its people. Just like today. Someone’s always finding new ways to hurt our humans.
But the only way to not have that be a problem is to not have any humans, and I like mine too much to give them up now.
We won’t.
It isn’t true. ART knows that. I know that.
Sometimes we still have to say it anyway.
Martyn is waiting for us outside Medical, looking about as stressed as everyone else feels. He touches Iris’s arm as she passes him, then falls into step with Three and Gurathin, leading them towards two platforms. ART has reconfigured the space so that those two platforms are next to each other, almost close enough for the patients to reach out and touch each other if they needed to. Which is thoughtful of it.
“How are you feeling, Gura?” Martyn asks, as Three finally sets him down on the platform. Gurathin doesn’t quite relax into it the way he ought to – he stays propped up on his elbows (which has to hurt, after all that time tied to a chair), listening intently, even as Three takes off his shoes.
“Martyn,” Gura says. “We’re… We’re back. Perihelion.”
“That’s right.” Martyn looks a little relieved that Gurathin knows where he is. Not a lot, but a little. “Do you want me to try to take your sweater off, so the MedSystem doesn’t have to cut it off for you? I don’t know if we can mend it for you the way you’d want.”
“Maybe.” Gurathin lets Martyn and Iris help him sit all the way up. “Ratthi?”
I should set Ratthi down on his platform. I should start taking off his shoes, his shirt.
Gurathin’s going to be unconscious for a while, I say to ART. It’s sort of a question, but not really.
Depending on how bad the intracranial swelling is, it could be well over a cycle. Three or four cycles isn’t out of the question.
I carry Ratthi over to Gurathin’s platform and set him down so he’s more or less standing. I have to hold him up with an arm around his waist, but he’s upright and his hands are free, so it’s good enough. Iris budges over to give us room.
A handful of medical drones whiz over to us, hovering anxiously. Most of them focus on Ratthi’s injured leg, but one of them keeps scanning me, like it doesn’t understand that I’m not hurt. I can’t blame it. I’m not used to this shit either.
“I’m right here, Gura.” Martyn and Iris pull the sweater over Gurathin’s head. Ratthi reaches out to fix Gurathin’s hair when they’re done. Gurathin tips slightly into his touch, balancing on his hands so he doesn’t have to move his head.
“Your leg,” Gurathin says, frowning slightly.
“It’s fine,” Ratthi says. It isn’t really, but we can give him five minutes. I want to give him five minutes, so we’re doing it. “SecUnit’s holding me up anyway, so I don’t have to put weight on it.”
“Oh.” Gurathin’s still frowning. “Thank you, SecUnit.”
I don’t need to be thanked for doing my job, but Gurathin’s concussed, so I let it go. “You’re welcome.”
“One more shirt, Gura,” Iris says, softly, and Ratthi drops his hand, and I pull him back a step. Gurathin shifts forward a little, lifting his arms off the bed and holding them out to his sides.
Martyn and Iris pull off the long-sleeved blue shirt Gurathin was wearing under his sweater. Ratthi flinches when Gurathin’s torso is exposed, and I don’t blame him. The bruising is bad – reddish-purple, swollen, on both sides of the ribcage and going up to his chest. A medical drone whizzes anxiously around him.
Then Martyn and Iris lower Gurathin back to the platform, and I help Ratthi cross the necessary two steps for him to reach out and take Gurathin’s hand.
“How bad’s it?” Gurathin asks, quietly, as Three starts removing his pants and socks.
“It’s not good.” There’s more bruising on Gurathin’s thighs, and one of his knees is swollen. Ratthi brushes the hair off Gurathin’s forehead. “It’ll be okay, though. Peri’ll take care of you.”
Gurathin does that thing where he tries to nod and then stops himself. He has bruises on his neck, too, along the sides and the top of the shoulders. It doesn’t look like someone tried to choke him – you can see handprints when that happens. This is something else.
Ratthi thought Gurathin had whiplash. I’m not completely sure what that means. I’m not used to working without a MedSystem to help me. I should probably download some articles to help with that, but I haven’t yet. That’s what ART’s been for.
It would explain the bruising, ART tells me. So, okay. That does help.
I think.
“Should let Peri take care of you,” Gurathin grumbles, but he doesn’t let go of Ratthi’s hand.
“I will in a minute.” Ratthi reaches out to touch Gurathin’s hair again.
I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little weird for me to have to hold Ratthi upright so he can touch Gurathin’s hair while Gurathin lays there in only his undergarments. On the other hand, Gurathin doesn’t have clothes on because he needs medical treatment, and he’s my client, so it can’t be too weird. And I really doubt Ratthi is thinking about sex with Gurathin while Gurathin is covered with bruises. Some humans might, but Ratthi wouldn’t. He’s being affectionate with Gurathin, but that’s his default state with most of his friends, and also Gurathin’s hurt. So. It’s a little weird. But only that.
I can deal with weird.
“Scared?” Gurathin asks.
Ratthi takes a deep breath – I feel his ribs move and his stomach pushing out, then collapsing back in. “Yeah,” Ratthi admits, finally. “Yeah. A little.”
“Peri’ll take care of me,” Gurathin reminds him. “Be fine, Ratthi.”
“I know,” Ratthi says. He sounds uncertain even to me. “Just… I don’t know.”
“Just scared,” Gurathin says, and runs his thumb over Ratthi’s knuckles. Ratthi has scabs there, fresh ones. I hadn’t noticed them before because he took an energy weapon blast directly to his thigh and it was really distracting for me.
“Yeah.”
Gurathin doesn’t nod. He does sigh. “Maybe Peri’ll give me augmented jaws,” he says.
This is the second time augmented jaws have come up in conversation during the course of this rescue, which seems strange to me. It doesn’t to Ratthi, though, who actually relaxes a little. “So you can bite people’s fingers off?” he asks.
Gurathin doesn’t shake his head. “Bite their throats out,” he says, and Tarik makes a choking noise. “Faster that way.”
I can feel ART’s approval through the feed. ART would like that.
You can’t, I remind it.
I wasn’t going to, it says, but I’m not sure I believe it. Maybe if he wasn’t concussed, but he’s in no state to consent to that right now.
Okay, I believe that.
“You’d bite someone’s throat out for me?” Ratthi asks. He sounds amused, weirdly touched, and concerningly unsurprised.
“Bit someone’s ear off for me,” Gurathin says.
This is true. This is also forcing me to reassess my general impression of Ratthi’s willingness to bite other human beings. I had generally put him towards the bottom of my “will bite if provoked” rankings, below Mensah and only provisionally above Bharadwaj. I’m starting to think he might be a lot closer to Amena, or even Pin-Lee.
“Well.” It takes Ratthi another deep breath to keep going. “Maybe we’ll both get augmented jaws, then. Just so you have backup.”
“Maybe.” Gurathin smiles again, sighs. Waves one hand in the air like he’s shooing us off. “Let SecUnit take care of you,” he says. “’M all right. Be all right.”
“I know.” Ratthi touches Gurathin’s hair one more time, then pulls back. “Get some sleep, Gura.”
Gurathin makes a humming noise. “SecUnit?” he asks. “Good to sleep now?”
I’m probably going to have to have an emotion about that at some point, too. “You can sleep now, Gurathin.”
“Just checking.”
Ratthi squeezes Gurathin’s hand more carefully than he ever squeezed mine, then sets it carefully on the platform. “I’ll be here when you wake up,” he says. “Love you.”
“’Kay,” Gurathin says. Then, “Fuck. I mean. Love you too. Sorry.”
I have a drone near Ratthi’s face but there’s no way I’m actually monitoring the cameras to see what his expression is doing. “Don’t be sorry. Get some sleep, Gura.”
Gurathin takes a deep breath, lets it out, and relaxes into the platform.
I help Ratthi take two steps back, and the cradle comes up around Gurathin, closing itself around him. Ratthi takes a deep, shaky breath and lets it out slowly.
“Thanks, SecUnit,” he says.
Ratthi is not concussed, but he is traumatized. So I let that one go, too. “You’re welcome,” I say. And then, “I’m going to carry you over to the platform now, okay? It’s close to Gurathin’s. You’ll be able to check on him once MedSystem’s taken care of you.”
“Okay,” he says. And, “Thank you,” again.
I scoop him up and carry him over to his platform.
Martyn’s waiting for him there, to help me get him settled. “He’ll be all right, Ratthi,” he says.
Iris comes over as well to help get Ratthi’s jewelry off. There’s blood on his bracelet, on his ring. Some of the beads of his necklace are missing.
I start taking off his shoes.
“I know,” Ratthi says. It doesn’t sound convincing. “I know. It was just…” His voice gets choked towards the end. “I couldn’t make them stop. No matter what I said, no matter how hard I tried. It was never right. They wouldn’t stop.”
Martyn wraps an arm around Ratthi’s shoulders, presses their heads together. I take Ratthi’s socks off.
“I’m sorry, SecUnit,” Ratthi says, and I don’t want to look up at him, but it feels like he needs me to, so I do. He’s looking at my chin so I don’t have to make eye contact with him. He looks like he’s about to cry, but he’s trying not to. “I knew I shouldn’t bite someone when they were holding an energy weapon on me. I didn’t have a lot of time to think.”
He didn’t. Human processing speed is slower than mine. It wasn’t his fault. “You did what you had to,” I tell him. “I’m not mad at you, Ratthi.”
“I was trying to push it down to the floor before he could pull the trigger,” Ratthi says. There’s scorch marks on the left leg of Ratthi’s pants, which means he at least got singed on that side. Again, it’s hard to notice these things with that much of his right thigh gone. “My timing wasn’t great, I guess. But I did try to use what you and Tarik taught me. I really did.”
“I know.” I’m going to have to let MedSystem cut his pants off. I’d have to move his leg around too much otherwise, and I don’t want to do that, even with the bandage pack on. “You did a good job. Did you want me to take your belt off, at least?”
“Okay.”
I move forward, unbuckle his belt, pull it out of his belt loops. Martyn and Iris still haven’t taken his shirt off, probably because Martyn still has a hand on his shoulder. “Gurathin’s not wrong, you know,” I say, with my eyes still on the hem of Ratthi’s shirt. I think it’s more for his benefit than mine, but I could be wrong about that. “Getting out of there when you did saved both your lives. It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t bit that person. And they probably would have shot you anyway. You did what you had to.”
Ratthi sniffles. “I could have done it sooner,” he says.
He doesn’t sound like he means that, either.
“You needed a distraction first,” I tell him. I might not have, but I can handle getting shot by energy weapons a lot better than Ratthi can. “ART gave you one. ART’s good at distractions. I’m going to take your shirt off now.”
Martyn steps back, lets me take the hem of Ratthi’s shirt, pull it off. It’s just the one – Ratthi doesn’t get cold as easily as Gurathin. Once it’s gone, I can see some more places Ratthi got hurt. Ratthi has darker skin than Gurathin, so he doesn’t show bruises as well. But there’s still bruising on his arms where they held him back, and bruises around his ribs where they hit him a few times.
It’s too late to kill them now? I ask ART.
They might die waiting for someone from the inhabited station to come get them, it tells me. But likely not. Anyway, they might have some information we need.
We really do need information this time, too, which feels unfair. I’d rather just kill them.
I have to stay with Gurathin and Ratthi, though, so I guess they get to live. For now.
I make myself look at Ratthi’s face again. He isn’t looking at me, but I guess that’s not very surprising. “You did a good job,” I tell him. “Both of you did.”
I might not like that they both got hurt. But they did both survive. I’ve had a lot of clients who wouldn’t have been able to pull that one off.
Ratthi nods. He wipes at his eyes with one hand. There’s a bruise on one of his cheekbones.
He’s traumatized and I have to be careful what I say so I don’t make it worse. “You’ll feel better once Gurathin’s conscious again,” I say.
Ratthi nods again. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Just…” He turns, looks over at Gurathin in the MedSystem cradle, perfectly still and motionless as it scans him. Ratthi takes a deep breath. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’ll be okay.” He turns to look at my chin again. “Thanks, SecUnit,” he says.
I’m not sure what he’s thanking me for this time, but I say, “You’re welcome,” anyway.
Then I take a step back, and Ratthi finally lays back on the platform.
Tell him --
I don’t need ART to finish. I already know what to say. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Ratthi thanks me one more time as the cradle closes around him.
I brought your favorite couch in, ART tells me. It’s against one of the walls, in easy visual distance from the MedSystem platforms that are currently treating Gurathin and Ratthi. Do you want to watch media?
Not MedCenter Argala, I tell it. The assassin with the augmented jaws is only in three episodes, but it’s still a lot right now.
It starts episode 206 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon instead, which doesn’t feel pointed at all.
(It isn’t wrong. But still.)
“Mind if I sit with you?” Tarik asks. He looks worn out. He looks like he’s been pushing emotions away for a long time and they’re about to catch up with him.
“Go ahead,” I tell him, and he sits a careful distance away. Iris immediately collapses next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.
Three looks at us for 1.6 seconds. Then it folds its legs and sits on the floor by the couch, because Three is still a little weird about sitting.
Gurathin and Ratthi are both stable and I am monitoring their condition, ART tells us on the main feed. Seth and Matteo will be back soon, at which point we can start analyzing the damaged repair drone and find out who attacked us. I have preliminary reports from the shuttle about how the initial attack occurred. The nearest occupied station has sent a shuttle to collect the kidnappers. It should reach them in one cycle. They will not be comfortable in the meantime, but they will survive. We have tentative permission to interrogate them once they are in custody.
“Thank you, Peri,” Martyn says. He is standing between Ratthi and Gurathin’s cradles, monitoring them closely. “That’s excellent news.”
It is, mostly. It will be. When Ratthi and Gurathin are conscious again, when MedSystem has fixed them and they’re up and walking around and can see each other and remember words and everything. Then it’ll be easier.
We’re not there yet, though. Which is always the hardest part.
ART gives me access to Ratthi and Gurathin’s vitals, which helps a little. I can watch their hearts beat slow and steady, and their lungs breathe in and out.
Tarik wraps an arm around Iris’ shoulders. “We should get to work,” he says, and doesn’t move.
“You should take a minute,” Martyn says.
“Dad’s right,” Iris says. “That was a rough one. It was easy, maybe, but. It was rough.”
It really was.
ART and I watch Sanctuary Moon, and I watch Ratthi and Gurathin’s hearts beat on the MedSystem monitors, and I’m not sure what Iris and Tarik and Three are doing, but at least I know where they are.
And we wait for Seth and Matteo to return.