Metal Boxes - Rusty Hinges (32 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Stone wanted to shout at the doctor, but the man outranked him. He said, as quietly as his temper could manage. “Sir, Private Anne is an enlisted marine. Regulations state that all marines get combat nanites for rapid healing.”

“Ensign Stone, I recognize that Major Numos enlisted your drascos.” He glanced up at the newly minted Corporal Jay towering over him. His nervousness was evident, but he held his ground. “That enlistment has yet to be vetted by marine higher command. It might not be. However —”

The doctor waved a hand stopping Stone’s interruption. “— However, I have explicit instructions from my command. The medical corps is leery of putting human-designed nanites into non-human species. We just don’t know what can or will happen.”

Stone said, “But Anne is healing so slowly. The nanites would get her back on her feet quicker.”

The doctor exploded, “Slowly? Slowly? Good gracious, young man. Her healing is a dozen times faster than any normal human. That leg and those shoulder bones were shattered into a hundred tiny pieces. A human would spend a month in traction as those bones reknit. It’s only been about four weeks or so and my patient —” he emphasized the words — “my patient is already stumping around in a cast. I will admit that a marine would be back on their feet in half the time, even less if we were at a fully outfitted hospital, but this bucket is barely outfitted with more than an aid station.”

Stone asked, “So maybe when we get back to Allie’s World, you can see about getting her leg fixed?”

The doctor shook his head, “Oh no. We jump … hopefully … back into human space in a few hours. You’d have to rejump to Brickman’s station. That is a quick jump, but then you’d have to take Private Anne on to Lazzaroni Station before you found a hospital that might, and I stress might, have an examination room large enough to examine a drasco, assuming the marines will claim her as one of their own. And she’ll be healed by the time you get her there.”

Stone said, “That makes my point, Doctor. The combat nanite the marines authorized will heal her even faster.”

Speaking as if to a child, the doctor said, “Son, your own medical files tell us about the dangers of mixing drasco DNA with human designed nanites. No, don’t interrupt. I know about the changes your body had gone through. We still don’t know if those changes are done yet or if they’re transferrable to your children.”

Stone froze. That was something he hadn’t thought about. The subject of children was something he was going to have to discuss with Allie. They’d barely started discussing marriage, both mentioning that they wanted children. Well, Allie wanted them. Stone knew Grandpa expected him to produce an heir to the family fortunes … eventually.

He’d never thought about the word “eventually”. It’d always been a long time off in the future, but what if he shouldn’t, or worse, couldn’t have children?

The family would shift to the next heir. That was what their numbering system was all about. Grandpa was one. Mother was dos. Stone was trey. Both mother and Aunt Ruth would abdicate when the time came. So would his cousin Brenda as she was well on her way to becoming a medical doctor and wouldn’t give that up. His cousin Jim Jr. was next. Jimbo was a goof — no, he’d been a goof as a kid, but they were no longer children.

He didn’t know what Jimbo wanted, but somewhere along the family line, the right heir would be found. The Stones were a large family, especially when you began counting distant cousins. Someone to run the family fortunes was always available and that would be someone who didn’t desire the money or the power, but had the ability to manage their vast enterprises without losing themselves to the lure of wealth.

But would Allison Vedrian still want to be his wife if children were off the table?

The doctor said, “What changes would be wrought in a drasco with nanites? You don’t know and neither do I. I’m a doctor trained to treat humans, but I find myself assigned to a bastardized ship that has humans, both civilian and military, with drascos and piglet vent runners. Did you know that Commander Butcher took a page from Major Numos’s book and enlisted the vent runners into the navy?”

Stone hadn’t known that, but it made sense. He smiled at the thought. Piglets in the navy would make vetting the drascos into the marines less of a challenge.

“Don’t smile, young man. That makes me responsible for the piglet’s medical care, so I’ve studied everything I can find about them, as little information as that is. They’re navy so I have to keep them healthy, even if I don’t know what I’m doing. The drascos are marines, so I’ve read every file on them I can find, just as I’m more than conversant about your own none-too-standard medical history.”

“But, I’m healthy, Doc. More than ever.”

“Yes, you are. And I will admit that none of the changes in your body is beyond human capability. I mean, you can’t fly can you? You don’t have X-ray vision, do you? You can’t shapeshift into a tiger, right?”

Stone shook his head. He hadn’t thought about trying to fly. He didn’t have wings, but if he had a set of stable manufactured wings, he might get off the ground. He hadn’t tried to shapeshift either, but he doubted it was a good thing to try when he was inside his combat suit. He didn’t have xray vision because he’d tried using it when Allie was in the shower and he’d failed miserably, having to go into the gazebo and stare first hand.

“But, all of your changes are beyond the norm. Some humans have good vision, but I don’t have a record of any human with vision as sharp as yours. Some humans have great hearing, but I don’t have a record of any human with hearing as great as yours. Some humans have sensitive olfactory receptors, but I don’t have a record of any human with a nose as extremely refined as yours. And some humans have an exceptionally tough epidermis, but I don’t have a record of any human with skin as thick and tough as yours.”

“But, still human?”

“Still human, for now, Ensign. But that’s my point about giving nanites designed for humans to drascos. What is normal for a drasco? Would giving Private Anne a full range of marine combat nanites force her body to change into a male? We’ve got enough problems on this ship without a rampaging male drasco tearing through our corridors.”

Stone hadn’t thought of that possibility. He nodded, “I withdraw my request to give Anne nanites. I’ve met a male drasco and it isn’t something I want to do again.”

The doctor chucked, “I’ve seen the video of that encounter. You were lucky and stupid both, but can you imagine how much harder that would have been if it had been a male trained for combat by marines?” He looked pointedly at Anne.

Anne took the hint and typed into her translator, “I’ll be fine, Mama. It doesn’t hurt … much.” Her eyes took on the unconvincing look of pain. “Maybe you could bring me some more ooze next time. That might make me feel better.”

Jay said, “Greedy little pig. I’ll bring you two bars later, but you be careful or you’ll get fat and lazy just laying around doing nothing.” Her voice was soft regardless of the words.

Stone’s dataport blared. “Ensign Stone to the bridge. Jump into Allie’s World in a hundred twenty minutes.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Stone raced onto the bridge. Two hours gave him plenty of time to get from medical to the bridge, but he liked to run. Sliding to a stop, he slid into a seat next to Doctor Wyznewski. He smiled a greeting to Major Numos and Doctor Emmons.

Butcher said, “Glad you could finally join us, Ensign.” There was a hint of humor in the man’s sarcasm.

Numos asked, “Private Anne doing okay?”

Stone nodded. He wondered how Numos knew where he’d been. “She’s healing quickly, sir. Not as quick as she would with the nanites, but fast enough.”

Numos nodded, “I stopped by earlier to check on her. What? That shouldn’t be a surprise. She’s part of my command now, right? I dropped off a bar of that ooze they eat up like candy this morning and she seemed good, not ready to return to duty, but good.”

Smiling, Stone nodded. Anne was turning into quite a little con artist at getting people to bring her the ooze. He wondered if she was eating it all, storing some for later, or even selling some to her sisters.

Butcher pointed at the time display hanging over the conference table. The time was counting down to the jump. “We’ve read and re-read the Rusty Hinges database on the jump from the piglet homeworld into Allie’s World. Their initial jump into the piglet home system was met with a repulsar mine that threw them back into hyperspace. We know how much time they spent in hyperspace because their database automatically recorded the time spent. Whizzer’s team has confirmed that information.”

Stone was aware of the double jump. How the Hyrocanians had found Allie’s World by accident was common knowledge on the ship. He and Danielle Wright had found Allie’s World the first time by accident as well.

Butcher continued. “The Hyrocanians jumped out of hyperspace and spent an undetermined amount of time in normal space before jumping into and out of hyperspace again to find Allie’s World. The time between the jumps is unknown, but the time in hyperspace is well known to us.”

Gupta said, “Both of the shuttles we sent back earlier with data followed the double jump pattern exactly, retracing the Hyrocanian’s trip. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard back from either shuttle.”

Butcher nodded. “I have decided the Rusty Hinges is going to make the trip as a single jump, combining the times of both hyperspace jumps. Our computers, our civilian scientists, and our astrogation team has assured us that they don’t know if it will work or not. But, they can’t tell us if a double jump works either.” He smiled and clapped his hands in excitement. “I like a good surprise, don’t you?”

Stone wasn’t sure he was as fond of surprises as Butcher. The decision wasn’t his. He was a lowly ensign whose whole responsibility was as a staff advisor to the ship’s captain on the bridge. Advising the captain on a decision that he’d already made didn’t make sense, so he held his tongue. Not that he would advise the captain to make a double jump instead of combining the times into a single jump, but both methods involved timing and avoided the problems of jumping into and out of hyperspace without using known and tested navigation points. He’d done that before and almost crashed into a space station.

He glanced at the time display. The time seemed to have barely moved from the two-hour mark. He was beginning to hate time — the accumulation of it, the passage of it, and that stupid thing where time in hyperspace didn’t count in real time and went away.

As a freighter’s kid growing up, he was well aware that making friends with children on space stations was a waste of time. From their perspective, he might have been gone only a few short months, but in his time, because most of a freighter’s time was spent in hyperspace going from one space depot to the next, he could have aged a year or more. People aged in hyperspace, but normal time didn’t exist in hyperspace, so people aged without normal time passing.

No time passed in hyperspace was because there wasn’t anything in hyperspace: no light, no heat, no energy, no matter, no length, depth, width, height, or even any time. Nothing was nothing. Time was something, even though time itself was weirdly flexible in normal space. Speed effected time, causing strange dilations. Gravity effected time, causing the rate of time to change. Watching the time display, Stone wondered what was causing the countdown to seem like it was slowing down until it was barely creeping by.

Stone looked up. Everyone had something to do. Numos was wrangling a pile of reports on his data port. Doing double duty as the marine company commander and the Rusty Hinges third watch commander, he had twice as many reports to fill out. Butcher and Gupta had their heads together, working on some personnel issue. The bridge crew all seemed to be turning this dial, punching that button or tweeking some display. Even Dr. Wyznewski had Dr. Emmon’s neck to nuzzle while she was writing another of her interminable behavior reports on someone.

He felt useless on the bridge. Still, if he wasn’t here, there wasn’t anywhere else he had to be. He had initially been assigned to watch over the piglets. The vent runners were navy now and no longer his responsibility. The piglets from the space commander’s family, on their way to Allie’s World to colonize the land he’d offered them, didn’t need his oversight. They were at home farming and managing the various gardens, hydroponic and otherwise, scattered around the ship. A few of them decided they liked ship life much better than planets and had announced they weren’t leaving the ship no matter how nice Allie’s World was.

His drascos were marines now, but he still felt responsible for them. They were too intelligent and becoming too mature to require his babysitting services. In fact, he’d seen so little of them lately he had to go looking for them when he needed some drasco time.

Navy officers all over the ship had duties to attend to. Thinking about it, the only gap in the Rusty Hinges officer contingent was the officer in charge of waste systems. The NCO who’d taken charge of the systems when LTSG Missimaya was ordered confined to his quarters was running them more efficiently than Stone could or Missimaya had. If he had more time, he might go down to the kitchens and see what Tim Dollish was up to.

But there was that time thing again. He had time, but didn’t since he was supposed to be here. The time display slowed down further, barely clicking forward second by second. He wanted to pull out his own dataport and verify the accuracy of the clock on the display. He didn’t. He sat watching Doctor Wyznewski and wondering where Allie was and what she was doing. He let his mind drift.

“Navigation, sir. Sixty seconds to jump.”

The phrase snapped Stone back to awareness.

“Sixty seconds.” Butcher acknowledged. “Navigation, you have the con. Take us out of hyperspace on your mark. Tactical?”

“Tactical, sir. We’re squawking IFF on all freqs. Loud as we can, sir.”

Numos reached across the conference table and changed the display from the countdown clock to the ship’s external view. He settled back into his chair to stare.

The monitor showed the gray of nothing.

A glare of light replaced the gray.

“Navigation, sir. Translation successful.”

“Tactical, sir. Minefield dead ahead.”

Butcher shouted. “Helm, dead stop.”

“Helm, sir. Aye, aye, dead stop.”

“Tactical, sir. They’re human mines and responding to our IFF. We’ve —”

“Astrogation, sir. Star charts match Allie’s World.”

“Tactical, sir. We’ve got navy ships massing across our front. Their shields just went up. Weapons are spinning up hot —”

Butcher said, the calmness in his voice infectious. “Comms open.”

“Comms, sir. Aye, aye, comms open.”

“Tactical, sir. We’re squawking IFF loud and hard on all freqs. They should be —”

A navy admiral flashed onto the monitors. He smiled and said, “Welcome home, Rusty Hinges. We were just about to come looking for you.”