Experiment (Hybrid Book 2) (9 page)

The councillor unhurriedly rose from her chair and poked her head round Chesara’s door. She certainly looked better dressed in standard federation shirt and trousers. Even though she was still clasping her knees on the bed, the rocking had stopped.

“Was your shoulder ok with washing your hair?” The nod was quicker and firmer this time. Connor couldn’t stop the wide grin spreading across his face, she’d made a great deal of progress today.

“Do you still want to go back to your quarters today? You know it’s quite a long way through the corridors?”

“Yes please.”

“I’ll get it organized and come back to you, I’ll lock the door behind me ok?” and with another smile she started to close the door.

“I
s Connor here?” The councillor came back into the room, and sat down, talking and asking questions was real progress.

“Yes he is. Do you want to see him? He’s been worried about you, but we thought girls only for a while might help.”

Chesara nodded. She’d had a vague impression of his presence when she’d first woken up, but that period was very foggy, she needed to confirm she hadn’t imagined him.

“Ok, do you want me here while he’s visiting?”

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A
fter a hesitation, a slight shake of her head could be seen.

“I’ll send him in while I sort out the transfer, don’t worry I’ll make sure he knows not to overstay his welcome, see you in a while, just press your buzzer if you want me or the nurse back in here.”

Chesara caught herself starting to rock again as the councillor left, and stopped herself. She couldn’t live in the med bay forever, and although it scared the living daylights out of her, she had to start thinking about her future. A future away from the Federation and Connor, and probably any other people as well.

“Hey, Kittycat.” She looked up to see a drawn and pale Connor standing by the door. She managed a small smile for him and waited while he moved gently to the chair and sat down.

“Good to see you up and around, I hear you’re going back home later, that’s good.” The silence stretched.

“I can’t stay here,” she spoke so softly he had to turn his head slightly to hear her.

“You don’t have to Kittycat, the councillor is arranging the move now,” he smiled encouragingly as if she was as fragile as a snowflake.

She sighed and placed her forehead back on her knees, hiding from the hurt she was about to cause him.

“I mean I can’t stay with the Federation. They’ll have no use for a healer who can’t heal.”

“Kittycat, we haven’t found any reason you won’t be able to heal again, don’t worry about it at the moment, it’ll come back.”

He didn’t get it.

“No I mean I won’t use it again. Ever.” She looked into his bewildered eyes.

“But..” He looked so bewildered, but it was better this way. The sooner he understood, the sooner he could start planning his life without her. Tenset had suffered because of her, he might even be dead. At the very least he’d lost everything his family had worked for over the last few centuries, all because of her. And that boy was dead.

“I killed a man Connor. I ripped the vessels of his heart wide open, and I felt him die. I won’t do it again, I want this ability gone.”

Connor looked as if someone had thrown a bucket of water over her.

He took a step towards her and she pressed herself backwards.

He looked as if she’d physically assaulted him as his hand dropped to his side.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to stop him doing whatever he did to you. I promise I’ll never hurt you.”

A tear slid down her face. “I know you’d never hurt me, but I could hurt you.”

His eyes flicked up where the camera was sited. There was something he desperately wanted to say to her, but he didn’t want to be overheard. It didn’t matter. She’d made up her mind.

“You know they won’t let you stay on board the Apollo if you refuse to heal? That they’ll probably reassign me? That they’ll probably return you to the clinic and...” he trailed off, looking a little sick.

She gave him a sad little smile. “I can’t risk hurting anyone else.”

Chesara watched as her best friend, the man she loved but couldn’t admit to it, opened and closed his mouth for a while, like a landed fish.

He finally managed, “But that wasn’t your fault, I killed a man too, he was trying to hurt me, it was him or me, we both needed to defend ourselves.”

“The young man I killed was called Thompson, he was only a youngster. He had his whole life ahead of him, he made a mistake, he wasn’t trying to kill me till I hurt him.”

The look of panic on Thompson’s face, his fear as he realised he was dying came back to her and unconsciously, she started rocking again focusing in on forcing the memory out of her mind.

A hand on her shoulder, made adrenaline shoot through her, and she scrabbled away from the contact as fast as she could.

“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked at him.

“Chesara, I’d never hurt you, you know that.”

“I’m not frightened of you, I just don’t want to hurt anyone else.” And she replaced her head on her knees facing away from him. She heard him leave a few moments later.

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C
hesara wasn’t surprised it took several hours to arrange to have all the corridors between her and her quarters clear of personnel. It was nearly two in the morning ship time before the councillor knocked quietly on her door and came in.

She looked tired and a little frayed. Before all this had happened, Chesara wouldn’t have hesitated to give her a little energy boost to thank her for her help, but now, even the thought made her shiver in revulsion.

She felt her legs twitch as she fought the urge to pull her knees up and hug them again, but she successfully resisted the impulse.

“Everything’s set; the corridors and transit tube will be totally people free in about five minutes.”

The councillor frowned as Chesara drew her knees up onto the bed.

“Chesara, honey, it’s really a good idea that you get back to your normal surroundings, but I don’t want the move to upset you. You seriously must be getting fed up with sitting here like an invalid.”

Dr Henderson’s eyes unfocused for a moment and tapped her com implant. Chesara could imagine just what was being said. ‘Hurry up, I can only give you a few minutes,’ or something along those lines.

“Right then, would you like to walk with me, or would you rather Connor went with you?” At that second, Connor appeared at the door.

“Hi Kittycat, let’s go see if you remembered to pick up after yourself, although knowing you there’ll be coffee cups in the sink and dirty clothes on the floor. I’ve got some chores to do as well.”

He sounded upbeat, but he still looked tense, and he’d certainly lost weight since they’d taken that shuttle down to Kalzir. It seemed like so long ago.

She knew Connor could see her apprehension via the implant, that couldn’t be helped, but she swallowed hard and stood up.

He smiled and held out his hand to take hers. Hunching over, she folded her arms to avoid the proffered hand. When she got to the door or the room, she checked the reception area was clear, moved to the med bay door. When it automatically opened, she froze, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

There were people out here, hundreds of people, any or all of which she could kill with just a touch.

She jumped as she heard his voice coming from right behind her.

“Come on Kittycat, take a deep breath and go for it, there’s nobody out there. I’ve seen you tackle a room full of VIP’s, you can do this.”

She looked back at him, his eyes conveyed his confidence in her, his love for her. All of which she could never return. Nevertheless, she could still make him proud of her, just a few more times.

“On three ok?  We can take it as slow as you like.” He got as far as ‘one’ before she took off down the corridor at a run, one hand on her healing ribs. She heard him following a few moments later, but he’d never been able to catch her.

The transporter tube doors were closing on her as he got to it, and he thrust a hand between the doors so he could get in as well.

She pressed herself up against the back of the small circular area, as far away from him as possible.

“Bloody hell, I forgot how fast you are. What’ve they been feeding you in there, turbo fuel?”

His grin turned into a fully fledge smile at the slight twitch of her lips.

“You’ll have to give me a head start when the doors open.”

He grinned as she hesitated when the doors opened, but he set of down the corridor, with her in pursuit.

A man appearing almost right in front of her had her back-peddling so hard she ended up on her backside on the beige floor of the corridor.

When the man who had just stepped out of his quarters, reached a hand out to her, asking if she was all right, every alarm bell in her body went into overdrive. She scrabbled backwards frantically, fear clawing at her heart.

“Stop, right now. Back up slowly and go back into your room, do not touch her.” The measured voice of Connor had the crewman freezing and doing exactly what he’d been told.

Connor approached her slowly, holding his hands out to the side and not making any sudden movements, as she plastered herself against the wall of the corridor. He looked as if he was trying not to frighten a skittish animal, not a sentient being.

A quick look up and down the corridor showed it was totally empty, and just as boring and harmless as every other beige corridor on any one of the hundreds of thousands of Federation ships throughout the galaxy.

“Up you get Kittycat, we’re nearly there. You can do this.”

Connor looked so concerned as he looked down at her that her heart went out to him. She was causing him even more pain than she had to do with the decision she’d made.

Although the man had really startled her, she was now starting to feel a more than a little daft sitting on the floor in the corridor. This was Connor, he wasn’t scary, not in the least, and if she couldn’t trust him, she’d be in real trouble. She’d hurt that man in an unconscious reaction, Connor would never startle her like that.

Forcing the fear back down to a more manageable level she slowly held out a hand for him to help her up. She smiled slightly as his eyes widened and he stepped forward, taking her hand gently he pulling her to her feet and against his chest. She pulled away instantly.

“Don’t push it, turnip head,” she said, before turning and running to the VIP section, across the plush carpet and into her quarters, leaving a surprised Connor stumbling in her wake.

After a few moments, she heard the expected knock at the door.

“Kittycat? Do you want to talk?”

“Go huddle with Doctor Henderson, I’ll see you in the morning.”

She could almost see the broad grin on his face as she imagined him hurrying off to discuss things with the Councillor. She knew they were only concerned about her, but as she was starting to function again, it was becoming more than a little irritating. She’d noticed the healing cut above his left eye, but hadn’t felt able to ask him about it yet. Wounds meant talking about healing, and she genuinely wasn’t ready for that.

Alone in her quarters, she felt safer than she had in the med bay. But it no longer felt like home. The familiarity of the scent, the purple and cream colour scheme, the large, comfy sofa in the living area facing her entertainment centre were just a gilded cage.

The desk with her papers and computer reminded her of her job, which wasn’t quite so welcome, as it reminded her that she was considered just as much a piece of property as the computer.

The room in the med bay hadn’t helped. She had been well aware of the number of people that had access to that room, and she’d been constantly terrified someone would walk in, and those bloody lights were painful. Besides being constantly reminded about healing, only reinforced what she’d done.

The access to her quarters were set to allow only unrestricted entry to herself. The only way anyone else could get in was to use emergency security access. Dropping her clothes on the floor of her bedroom, she climbed beneath her clean, deep purple silky sheets. She closed her eyes and telling the lights to turn off, she lay in the dark to consider the last few days and her future.

Up until around two days ago, she had to admit things had been really foggy, recollection of how she’d got back on board, or how much time had passed just weren’t there.

Packing ‘Kalzir’ into a little box, she stuck it on a shelf in her mind, maybe she’d open it sometime, maybe she wouldn’t.

She started to consider a nameless ‘patient’ who had exhibited exactly the same symptoms as herself, without dwelling on the causes of those symptoms. It didn’t really matter what had cause an injury, it mattered what form that injury had taken.

Her first thought was that ‘the patient’ had been drugged to induce a medical coma for the purposes of healing, but the almost continual presence of the councillor told her that at least the Apollo staff thought that the ‘patient’ was in need of psychiatric help.

Running through possible psychiatric diagnoses, she decided that ‘acute stress reaction,’ fitted the symptoms. She’d certainly experienced an initial constriction in her field of consciousness and a withdrawal from her surroundings. The anxiety, disorientation and confusion that she’d experienced in the last day or so definitely fitted the diagnosis.

She decided to look up the treatment options in the morning, as mental illness wasn’t something she’d had a lot to do with. “talking therapy’ was still a popular option and she wished Dr Henderson luck in getting anything out of her. Yes, she’d opened up to Connor, but he was different and he’d caught her at a low ebb.

This wasn’t his problem, and keeping him at arms length from now on was the only kind thing to do. If she carried on encouraging him, it would only make it worse when she was sold off or sent back to be a lab rat. Just because she wasn’t free to do what she wanted, it didn’t mean he had to be tied to her forever.

She was also adamant that she wasn’t going to repeat the experiences that had caused her stay in med bay. The only way to avoid both hurting people and her embarrassing arousal issues was to avoid skin to skin contact. Permanently. Unfortunately, she’d already touched Connor. She resolved to make it clear to him that it wasn’t going to happen again.