Hospital Ship (The Rim Confederacy #5) (6 page)

He ignored the drip of water that had gotten in the elbow end of the cast. Getting it taken off in the next hour was a good thing—and then the itch grew worse. He went back to the closet as he'd seen hangers hanging there when he'd gotten the whites to wear, and he pulled down a cheap wire hanger.

Undoing the twisted end, he bent and slowly straightened one side into a long, very skinny wire, and with his left hand, he carefully inserted that end up into the cast beginning at his wrist. He twisted and pushed and twisted and pushed trying to get it up about halfway and—and yes, that was the spot. He pushed and pulled it back and forth easing the itch and then he smiled.

How crazy can one be if you can solve an issue like that
, he wondered.

Sighing, he slowly yanked out the hanger, leaving it on the bathroom counter, and he left the room and went out to the escalator to go down to meet Maddie.
Time to get this damn cast fixed once and for all ...

####

Up on Deck C, near the far left end of the main corridor, the CPR Cafe was busy today for lunch. Known for having the best food on the Hospital Ship was one thing—but finding room for everyone in an hour or two was another matter. It was owned by an ex-patient, Nathan Ward reminded himself, but that meant doctors got the best seats and tables.

Us
, he thought,
we research types generally get put at the big communal table and have to sit with and among others.

"Heard enough about the latest vids, the latest tunes, and the latest gossip for a lifetime," he said to himself, "but the food was so good, it was a small price to pay." He nodded to the wave of the hostess who nodded back and said, "Big table for one," to him, and then she turned to the people behind him in the lineup to ask, "For how many?"

He made his way past the deuces and four-tops and the few larger tables that were all full of patrons in scrubs and lab coats and even a military uniform or two as well. He had to pause to let a server go by who had a huge tray of Pad Thai—six steaming plates with those big peanuts and sprouts laid out on top. He smiled. Pad Thai here was excellent; he hoped the cooks had made a lot of the daily special.

At last, he was at the big table, which seated almost twenty diners, and he looked for a row of three seats so he could take the middle one and have an empty seat as a buffer between him and anyone else at the table. No luck, but down at the far end, there was a single seat left empty. “And oh—it was that Navy girl,” he said to himself and smiled. He moved down the long row of diners facing the banquette seats, and at the last one, he stopped. He squeezed his touchstone casino chip.
Hey, good luck charm don't fail me now.

Looking down at the woman, he smiled and gently tapped her on her left shoulder.

"Would this seat be free, I wonder?" he said as he smiled down at her, turning on his charm.

She looked up, putting a hand over her mouth as she continued to chew, and nodded to him. The Pad Thai on her plate was too good, he knew, for her to stop eating and speak to him.

He nodded to her, slid in beside her, and picked up the menu. She slid her chair over an inch or two to give him some space. She finished chewing, leaned back a bit, and said, "Try the Pad Thai ... it is so good here!" Her voice was delightful.

As he acknowledged her suggestion with a "thanks," he noted she had blonde hair, was about thirty years old or so, and judging by her uniform, a lieutenant in the Barony Navy.
Don't know enough about the various badges and ribbons that appear on display on her chest either, but the chest itself is nice enough to glance at.
Her smile was bright and her no-makeup look was refreshing too. He waited for his chance to interrupt her, and when she put down the fork to pick up her large glass of some kind of a blue juice, he cleared his throat and smiled at her.

"I wonder, Lieutenant, if I could ask something a bit unusual?" he asked, and his voice was low so she'd get the impression he was trying to ask something unusual.

She tilted her head to one side and slowly put down the plas-glas. She nodded and waited.

He looked across the table at the other diners, who were close but paying no attention, leaned toward her a bit, and said very quietly, "Does the Pad Thai always come with peanuts?" He smiled even more, and his eyes sparkled as they crinkled up. He burst right out into a full laugh.

She stared at him frozen for a full second. She clapped him on the arm and burst right out into a full-on laugh!

His attempt at humor had somehow worked.
Who said research scientists were boring?
he wondered, as he laughed right along with her.

When they settled down, he smiled once more and held out his hand to introduce himself.

"Research Associate Nathan Ward—nice to meet you," he said and as she shook his hand, she nodded back.

"Lieutenant Nancy Irving, Barony Navy officer, on the
Atlas
. Currently here with ear issues," she said.

"I said, I'm Nathan Ward," he said much louder, and they both smiled again, as she picked up her fork.

"Listen, Lieutenant, don't delay, dig right in and—" He stopped as a server had appeared behind her and held up her pad with a look on her face that said, "What do you want?”

He touched the lieutenant on the arm with a single finger to show he was pausing and looked behind her.

"If the special is the Pad Thai, I'll take it. If it's not, I still want Pad Thai. If there is no more, then I'll wait 'til there is some, and some of that blue juice stuff too."

The server nodded and said, "There's lots left, always a big lunchtime seller, eh?" She moved away to put his order in.

The lieutenant looked down at his forefinger that pressed down on her forearm, and he quickly took it off.

"Sorry, I just meant to say that, yes, when my own comes, you'll have to do the talking. Okay?"

She nodded as she placed another forkful of noodles and sprouts into her mouth. Chewing slowly, her eyes narrowed a bit as she looked at him, and then moments later she drank more of that blue juice.

He toyed with his fork, and the server placed his drink between them He spent the next few minutes talking about nothing really. The latest big 3D movie he'd seen up in the theater was a topic, but he honestly couldn't even think of who had been in it. Don't follow the vid world, he added and hoped not knowing the stars of the big movie of the month wouldn't label him as too much of a science geek. He went on about other things like the new Throth ward that was under construction and the scuttlebutt that there were cost over-runs already. He was just trying to fill up some time, and before he knew it, she dropped her fork on her plate and pushed it away from her. She nursed her juice for a moment and then looked at him as the server dropped his heaping plate of Pad Thai in front of him and he picked up his fork.

While he dug into his lunch, he remembered to take smaller forkfuls than he'd do if he wasn't sitting beside such a desirable woman, and he found a chance almost all the time to quickly swallow so he wouldn't talk with a mouth full of food. He kept up his end of the conversation and was glad to know she too hadn't known who starred in that vid movie. She shared that the scuttlebutt on the Throth ward was that it was so dang expensive because they were all children who needed top pediatric healthcare staff. More than 9,000 of them, she had said, and that was surprising until he remembered these children had all been asleep for more than 1,600 years. Geriatric doctors may have been a better choice he offered, and they smiled and chuckled again.

He figured that a great lunch might lead to something more.

"Nancy, I do have to go as I've a meeting soon—but can I ask? Would it be okay to ask you out for a dinner? And I promise to like the peanuts if they're served, and by then I will have the names of those vid stars so we can both dis them too?" he said, very matter-of-factly. No pressure. Just a simple query.

She looked at him for a moment, then a moment more, and finally she nodded.

"I'd love to have dinner with you, Mr. Research Associate, anytime you ask," she said.

He smiled widely and then laid a soft hand back on her forearm.

"Then how about tomorrow. I can come and get you in your quarters or we can meet down in the lobby near the walkway ... or whatever is easiest for you," he said and then waited.

She looked like she was weighing her options—and then smiled one more time.

"Please come by my quarters—nothing fancy for a lieutenant, but it is my own bachelorette apartment up on Deck F at F-144. See you then, say at 1900 hours—would that be okay?" and she laid a hand down on top of his.

He nodded and they both smiled. Date asked for and accepted.

What a day
, he thought, as he took the escalator down to the lobby, splurged on a big drink from the Juice Bar, and made his way back to the left and into the long corridor to go back to the Research Labs. Even the thought that work was so boring with the process of changing into the full spacesuit, a quick jump, and losing the spacesuit just to get to work didn't bother him.

Not now.
He smiled and gripped that casino chip even tighter in his pocket as he ambled away.

####

Trying to get comfortable in the chair in the outpatient clinic in the Psychiatric Ward, Tanner was shifting his weight every few minutes from one cheek to another when he felt a soft touch on his left shoulder.

He looked up and smiled.

"Lieutenant Irving—what a nice surprise! How are you?" he said and then he remembered her hearing might not be good, and he turned away from the robo-doc on his right to face her as best he could.

She came to attention, snapped him a salute, and then grinned at her captain.

"Sir, I can hear you fine ... partial new ears, compliments of the best Barony surgeon they have here," she said and her smile was a mile wide.

He remembered the injury to her ears over on Ghayth had been a result of the Ansible attack and the poor luck she had of being on that station at the time. The Ansible load of incoming data had blown right through the Atlas's Ansible system—as well as through Lieutenant Irving's eardrums. That had only been a couple of months ago, so the news that she had surgery and had been fixed up was good news, and Tanner grinned back at her.

"Good to know—but tell me, any issues with the new ears or hearing," he said.

She shook her head negatively. "Not in the least, Captain. They told me that the new inner eardrums and all were grown here in the—er—well, in the research lab they have that's sort of a secret. The replacement tissues work perfectly—and only a couple more procedures, but I can hear pretty good right now and that's great!" she said, and they both smiled widely.

She came around to the front and pointed down at the robo-doc with its clear glass front showing his bare right arm lying inside on the appendage bed. Lights inside were a dull red in color, and a green line was slowly expanding on his arm starting at his wrist; it had grown now to halfway up to his elbow. After almost an hour, the process of healing his broken ulna was about halfway done, and he was about fed up with sitting here doing nothing.

"Broken bone, Sir?" the lieutenant asked.

"Aye, Lieutenant, one of the two in my forearm. Once it's healed, I'll be fine."

"Will you be returning back down to the
Atlas
, Sir?" she asked, and he could tell by her tone that she had no idea as to why he was on the Hospital Ship.

He looked down at his shoes, the new running shoes he'd never worn before, and noticed that although they had been white just an hour ago or so, now there were a couple of scuffs on the left toe that showed a stain. "So much for clean around here," he mumbled to himself.

"Lieutenant, it's a long, long story, but I would like to let you know why I'm here to be honest. It's not a nice story, but I'll be here for a few months. Could we make a time and place and say get together then to talk?" he asked, keeping his voice flat in tone.

She nodded and said yes, and they quickly worked out a date for a mid-morning meet-up in the big cafeteria over in the middle of the ship.

They parted and he looked down to see if the green area had grown any more on his forearm, and he couldn't tell as the green healed section moved so slowly. Looking around, he was the only one here in the small robo-doc area this late in the day, but from his seat, he saw a couple of caregivers in white standing around one of the full body robo-doc units over in the far corner.

He wondered what that was all about, but he couldn't get up to go and see.

For another hour almost, he sat there and the chimes from the robo-doc caught him by surprise.

From around a corner in the clinic, a nurse came to his side. At least he thought she might be a nurse, but as they all wore white scrubs with only name tags that were too small to read, he didn't know for sure.

She put down her tablet on the side of the robo-doc and then looked at him.

She smiled down at him as she hit a few buttons on the control panel of the robo-doc, and he watched as the red lights and the now big green areas of light turned off and the top slid to the right to allow him to move his arm. He slowly lifted up his right arm, flexed his fingers, and was happy to discover there was no residual pain.

Everything seemed to be okay,
he thought.
My arm is fixed ... wonder if my brain could be fixed so easily
. He shook his head since he knew the answer to that was negative.

The nurse noticed his head shake and looked at him.

"Still have pain, Captain?" she asked as she poised a finger over her tablet, which she'd just picked up.

"Sorry, not at all ... um ... nurse," he said and the question was there.

"You guessed correctly, Captain, yes, nurse is correct. Call me Nurse Sam—Samantha but everyone calls me just Sam. And good to hear that the arm is fine too, right?" she said, her tone questioning.

He simply nodded and she made a notation on her tablet.