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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 105: Kondor 246
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 271
Kondor and Zeke worked for what seemed quite a long time--over half an hour, he thought. At one point Zeke had shifted something that loosened a potential avalanche, but Kondor realized that he had that force shield and managed to place it above the victim and hold it while Zeke cleaned up the fallen debris. Eventually they were removing the last of the rubble from above the trapped bird, and while Zeke slid a pipe out of the way Kondor carefully raised the bird and floated it to the ground next to him.
There was a rustle of applause which he ignored as he opened his medical bag and began examining the bird. “He’ll need clean water,” he said to Zeke, who rather quickly produced this and carefully gave it to the patient.
“I’m a doctor,” Kondor sang in Parakeet, a phrase he had by now learned. He had to set a broken wing, and there were quite a few wounds that required attention, but it took less time to treat the bird medically than it had taken to remove him.
“Can you walk?” he asked, and then realized that the bird wouldn’t understand that, so he found its speech center and tried again in its language.
Hesitantly it responded, “I think so.”
Turning to the birds, he said, “Someone get this patient to a comfortable bed so he can rest, and get him some light food.” Birds responded, and soon the patient was on its way elsewhere.
Turning toward Zeke, he brushed his hands together as if he had actually gotten them dirty digging through the rubble. “Let’s hope,” he said, “that what we just did builds their confidence in us, and doesn’t create fear.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Zeke replied. “So, what next?”
Looking around, Kondor said, “They’ll get that dead parakeet out when they’ve cleared the rest of the rubble. For the moment, I think we should try to find whether there are more survivors who need our aid.” Then spotting the Clerkess he shifted to parakeet and asked her where else they might be needed.
They retired to the train hungry and tired as the skies were darkening.
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 #493: Verser Engagements. 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:
