Book One – Chapter 19

Yu pushed a stool to the back door, barely noticing the rasp of wood against stone. The thing had no back or arm rest, so he needed to hold onto the seat with his stumps and then crouch-step on. He held on all fours until the wobbling stopped, and then stood himself up. As he rose, the metal door threw him back with his own reflection; one eye ringed in black feathers, then white mess all around, distorted and stretched thin. The mirror self rose with him until he reached the window slit. The glass did not reflect. It became a gap where his eyes should be.

Yu held a breath. Then he leaned forward.

The room beyond swam into focus.

Bubs was there, hunched yet steady, his small frame bent over the limp figure. Yu caught fragments only, but filled the gaps with reasonable guesswork — pieces of bone pressed back into place, a twisted knee wrenched straight, metal and cloth bound tight, a splint lashed on. Deltington stood at his side, passing instruments arranged in a neat rows, amongst them rods, hooks, and pincers.

For a moment, Yu’s gaze shifted, pulled toward the far door, to the answering slit that opened to the sickbay. There was no movement. No shadows. From the distance, all he could discern was the steady glow of orblight caught on the blank glass.

So he watched.

Bubs worked with unsettling delicacy. His thin fingers moved with the exactness of a watchmaker or a silkweaver; hands made for fine mechanisms now dissecting flesh. The splint was fixed, but beneath it ran a fresh cut, straight from the knee all the way to the ankle, with the skin folded back and pinned in place. Under all the blood, it almost seemed like a display, as if to showcase all the layers down to the bone. On a tray lay a scatter of white fragments, bone shards like teeth and splinters. Bubs plucked out more with each pass, some so small that Yu could not even see them as the pincers moved back and forth between the wound and the tray. Meanwhile, Deltington applied gazes and pressure to keep the bleeding at bay. Their movements were so composed and coordinated, that the operation seemed not the medical mending of an emergency, but a display of deliberate construction and delicate craft.

It was wrong. It was wrong to see such unnatural grace applied to living flesh. It was wrong how this mechanical patience looked so much like cruelty. And wrongest of all, Yu thought, most out of place in this whole scenario, was the human herself.