chest and abdomen. Dave wasn’t sure why, because apart from feeling hungry, starving in fact, he was fine. None of the other people in the room gave him any clue about what might be wrong. The orderlies were still there and still glaring at him. Nurse Fletcher scurried about trying to anticipate the doctor’s every need. And a new navy guy stood in the corner with his arms folded, regarding Dave like he was some sort of unexploded bomb. Whenever he caught the eye of this new guy, which he tried to avoid doing as much as possible, Contrite Dave could not help himself.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered.
The new navy guy said nothing. He leaned against the door frame, his body a huge brick of compacted muscle that somehow gave the impression of fluidity. His face was a mask behind his sunglasses, neither hard and angry nor open to debate. For all Dave knew the man could have been meditating.
Dr Pradesh finished his examination and straightened up, looking at Dave, or rather at his injuries, with obvious disdain.
‘Somebody has made a very stupid mistake,’ he said. Dave figured the doctor had studied and worked most of his life in England, because his accent was pure Oxford. Or what Dave assumed to be Oxford on the basis of some old movies on the TV he’d fallen asleep in front of. He was not a guy to be crossed and Dave didn’t trust himself not to say something stupid and offensive. He had history against him. ‘This man has not been injured at all,’ the doctor said. ‘I don’t know how he ended up here, but he is taking up a bed that could be used for one of the other casualties. We are overwhelmed by them.’
That finally caught Dave’s attention and pulled him out of his one-man pity party.
‘Casualties, Doc? Or, Professor, whatever. How many casualties, how bad?’
Pradesh dismissed him with a sniff.
‘A lot worse off than you, young man,’ he said. It had been a long time since anybody had called Dave Hooper ‘young man’. One of the reasons he’d hired two whores from Nevada was so that one could spray a big whipped cream ‘37’ on her chest for the other one to lick off. Man had to have something to look forward to on his birthday, after all.
‘But, Doctor,’ the nurse protested, ‘I saw and dressed his wounds myself. He had second-degree burns to forty percent of his torso. A greenstick fracture to his right ulna. And a deep laceration running from his right armpit most of the way down to his navel. The sutures will still be in him.’
Pradesh looked at her with an expression hovering somewhere between pity and contempt.
‘Then show me the stitches, nurse,’ he said. ‘They won’t have dissolved yet. Or the burns. Either would be satisfactory. This man is fit and healthy. And from evidence of the trauma done to the naval officer, his little nap in our much-needed bed has returned to him whatever strength he lacked when carried in here. From the smell of his breath, I would imagine he was passed out drunk.’
Hooper observed the exchange between doctor and nurse as though watching a tennis match, his head turning to and fro. Nurse Fletcher was not backing down. Whatever deference she had paid to the doctor’s exalted position before had been withdrawn in the face of his lack of respect for her professional judgment. If she said Hooper was burned and lacerated . . .
But he wasn’t, was he? Dent had said he was fine, too. He shifted about, turning his shoulders this way and that, trying to feel the tug of fresh sutures in his skin. Or the deeply unpleasant sensation of burned meat on his own body. Second-degree burns, the nurse had said. That was gonna hurt.
But nothing. How could that be?
The last thing he remembered was . . . No, best not to go there. He was still trying to sort out his memory of landing on the rig platform from the drug-addled dream of the orcs. He didn’t know what his last memory was.
You dare not do this.
He remembered swinging the splitting maul. No, he
‘Sorry,’ he muttered.
The new navy guy said nothing. He leaned against the door frame, his body a huge brick of compacted muscle that somehow gave the impression of fluidity. His face was a mask behind his sunglasses, neither hard and angry nor open to debate. For all Dave knew the man could have been meditating.
Dr Pradesh finished his examination and straightened up, looking at Dave, or rather at his injuries, with obvious disdain.
‘Somebody has made a very stupid mistake,’ he said. Dave figured the doctor had studied and worked most of his life in England, because his accent was pure Oxford. Or what Dave assumed to be Oxford on the basis of some old movies on the TV he’d fallen asleep in front of. He was not a guy to be crossed and Dave didn’t trust himself not to say something stupid and offensive. He had history against him. ‘This man has not been injured at all,’ the doctor said. ‘I don’t know how he ended up here, but he is taking up a bed that could be used for one of the other casualties. We are overwhelmed by them.’
That finally caught Dave’s attention and pulled him out of his one-man pity party.
‘Casualties, Doc? Or, Professor, whatever. How many casualties, how bad?’
Pradesh dismissed him with a sniff.
‘A lot worse off than you, young man,’ he said. It had been a long time since anybody had called Dave Hooper ‘young man’. One of the reasons he’d hired two whores from Nevada was so that one could spray a big whipped cream ‘37’ on her chest for the other one to lick off. Man had to have something to look forward to on his birthday, after all.
‘But, Doctor,’ the nurse protested, ‘I saw and dressed his wounds myself. He had second-degree burns to forty percent of his torso. A greenstick fracture to his right ulna. And a deep laceration running from his right armpit most of the way down to his navel. The sutures will still be in him.’
Pradesh looked at her with an expression hovering somewhere between pity and contempt.
‘Then show me the stitches, nurse,’ he said. ‘They won’t have dissolved yet. Or the burns. Either would be satisfactory. This man is fit and healthy. And from evidence of the trauma done to the naval officer, his little nap in our much-needed bed has returned to him whatever strength he lacked when carried in here. From the smell of his breath, I would imagine he was passed out drunk.’
Hooper observed the exchange between doctor and nurse as though watching a tennis match, his head turning to and fro. Nurse Fletcher was not backing down. Whatever deference she had paid to the doctor’s exalted position before had been withdrawn in the face of his lack of respect for her professional judgment. If she said Hooper was burned and lacerated . . .
But he wasn’t, was he? Dent had said he was fine, too. He shifted about, turning his shoulders this way and that, trying to feel the tug of fresh sutures in his skin. Or the deeply unpleasant sensation of burned meat on his own body. Second-degree burns, the nurse had said. That was gonna hurt.
But nothing. How could that be?
The last thing he remembered was . . . No, best not to go there. He was still trying to sort out his memory of landing on the rig platform from the drug-addled dream of the orcs. He didn’t know what his last memory was.
You dare not do this.
He remembered swinging the splitting maul. No, he
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