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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 23: Brown 250
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 165
Zeke carried Morach back to the Brown home, and called back a simple, “Where?”
“The bed,” Joe answered. They had been there often enough that they knew where that was.
His head ached and he was a bit woozy, but he wanted to protest that he was fine. But Joe was already there talking to him.
“Sit up, and let me get a good look at you. Look at me.”
He did so, and was rewarded with a light shining in his eyes, each in turn. I should have expected that, he thought. Joe was making unintelligible hums and grunts, turning Morach’s head to look at the wound from several angles.
“I’ll need a pot of hot tap water and a clean washrag, please,” Joe said, and Vasthi nodded and left the room. “Any idea what did this?”
“I think it was a hammer.”
“Mm-hmm. Any other injuries?”
“Probably. I was hit in the back with a spar, tripped over a toolbox I think, and am pretty badly battered otherwise. But I managed to turn into Ferris and then Morach and to fly quite a distance and fire several needles at them before I really started to feel it.”
“Adrenaline,” Joe said. “From the anger. So you were Derek when most of this happened?” Morach nodded. “Can you get back to being Derek?”
“I think so. Give me a minute.”
He hesitated. In some worlds it was easy to go smaller, but going larger required a major intake of energy foods.
“I haven’t actually tried it yet in this world; I wasn’t really thinking when I transformed into Morach; I just wanted to catch the guy.”
With that, he closed his eyes and thought about being Ferris, and in a moment his body grew into Ferris. His shoulder and head both hurt as he did this, but he took a deep breath, thought about being Derek, and grew back into being Derek.
“Let me check your pupillary response again. I don’t work with many shape-changing patients.” Again the light flashed in each of his eyes. “Good, good. Now, let’s clean this head wound.” Using the water and washcloth Vashti had provided, Joe gently washed the area.
“I’m going to spray this with an immunity booster just to be safe, and use a bit of wound packing. I don’t want to use clotting agent, because that’s dangerous around the brain, but the wound packing,” he said as he finished with it, “will help seal the injury. Now, let me see the rest of you, starting with your back.”
Derek slipped out of the magical suit that sized itself to fit him when he changed. Joe looked at his back, prodded it a bit.
“Ouch,” Derek said.
“Sorry. I don’t think it’s broken. We haven’t given them X-rays--I don’t think any of us actually know how to make those--but I’m pretty confident. It’s going to bruise, a nasty bruise I expect, and be tender for several days, but should not be a problem. How are your ribs?” He ran his hands down them, feeling each one.
“A bit sore, but nothing too bad.”
Nodding, Joe said again, “Good, good. Anything else?”
“Yeah, he stabbed me in the leg with a talon.”
“Ouch. That sounds like a potentially dirty wound; I probably should have looked at it first. Let me see it.”
Joe examined the leg, again washing it gently with the rag. “It’s pretty deep; you’re lucky, because I don’t think the damage is severe, but I would be careful of it for a few days.” He sprayed it with something. “This again is the immunity booster, and I’m going to use a bit of the clotting stuff to get it to seal. Stay off it for today, and be gentle with it until you’re sure it’s better.”
“I need to get back to work,” Derek objected.
“Personally, after this afternoon I don’t care if the entire planet is destroyed, as long as we don’t lose you before that happens.”
Derek grinned. He thought maybe it was the nicest thing Joe had ever said to him.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #478: Character Conflicts. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
