Chapter One

HERMETICALLY SEALED

JILL UREGLIMI
THE COMFORT

 

The Comfort was constructed to be the supreme teaching hospital. Before conquest, it travelled at limited velocity from one human planet to another. Students resided on the ship focused on nothing but medicine.

 

After conquest I requested the Comfort be in orbit around the planet of Zechia as it contained the most advanced technology. The humans aboard were removed, I don't know to which planet they were transferred. The 'crew' was replaced with ZerShaz.

 

ZerShaz had no hospitals. On a war ship, there was a medical unit on par with a Terran 1800 field hospital overseen by a 'Tubka'. This was an elder or injured ZeSha who could no longer be a soldier was taught procedures to deal with injuries.

 

In ZeShaz culture no imperfect ZeSha was to live. The idea of an artifical arm, a heart transplant, was an anthema to them. I was hoping to change that. Hoping the hospital I had built on the planet of Zechia could be used to train ZeSha and ini in procedures they had never imagined.

 

I had over three hundred ZeSha retrived from the planet of Argale who were in pitiful to horrendous condition and needed professional care. Most had been enslaved suffering from poor diets, over work, untreated injuries and disease. They would have died if it wasn't for that 'ageless' water which probably had other medical properties.

 

Those who had escaped slavery lived in a cave. Their poor nutrition and lack of medical care made them slightly better than the slaves. It was these 'Freedom Fighters' as we called them, who would be my 'test cases' my 'teaching opportunities'. Hopefully, If could get ZeSha willing to become 'Medical Technicians', (avoiding the derogatory term 'tubka') it would give me a permanet impact on Zershaz medicine.

 

I had selected a particular 'Freedom Fighter' as my first surgery. This is because iDrhort trusted me, believed I could restore his legs.
I had him transported to the Comfort for surgery. He had been injured on Argale and the bones in his legs never healed properly.

 

I could not tell him what I intended to do. Being ZerShaz with all their rules and metaphysical comprehension, he would refuse. I led him to believe I was going to reset the bones in his legs, not utilise calplas to create new bones.

 

As he lay in the I.C. Unit on the Comfort I imaged his legs, gained perfect replicas of what existed, morphed them into what I wanted. The technology of the Comfort was fantastic. The calplas would actually imitate broken bones, properly healed. I fooled my staff into thinking I was getting extra tissue.

 

As it was a long surgery I decided to commence it tomorrow.

 

The next day, after I'd breakfasted, I summoned my Aides to begin the surgery.

 

I put iDrhort to sleep, clamped the blood flow to his legs, inserted him into extra rich gel, and made the incision on his right leg. I had my 'Aides' watch the monitors so they would not see me remove his bones, replace them with calplas dups, use a skin zipper, and close.

 

I let them view when I zipped the skin, and they stared as if I performed miracles.

 

I deadened feeling in his legs, had him placed on the ward in a half pod, so his legs would be in traction, his wastes removed. I instructed one of the Freedom Fighters who was interested in becoming a Medi-Tech to inform iDrhort that he was not to fear emptying his bowels In pod.

 

In about twenty four hours he was to be removed from the pod. Food and drink given as desired.

 

I left the surgery, washed up, went for a nap, then another interesting meal, and more relaxation. As the only doctor on a planet I had to be at top condition at all time.

 

Chapter Two

 HOW LIFE LIVED

CAPTAIN ROBERT O'BANION
ISLET

 

I 'supervised' the building of my new house on the islet of this planet of Zechia. Actually, I stood and watched the ZeSha and ini create it.

 

Ref, who I'd always called 'Kit', was sitting on a stone in front of his house, while his wife combed his hair. I didn't know if it was a private moment, so remained where I was, peripherally watching them.

 

How lucky he was! To be lost for twelve years, come home to find his wife waiting, just as much in love with him today as when they married. I would never see my wife again. She was on Earth and Earth had locked its atmosphere, nothing in nor out. If she survived, she would be living underground...

 

I shook the thoughts from my head, tried to think of Mary Sloper, my 'Apple Wife'.

 

When we were lost, unsure if we would return or not, with five ZerShaz Observors aboard, the idea was to create marriages to avoid possibility of ZerShaz male/Human female intercourse.

 

Some of the 'marriages' worked, some didn't. Mine didn't because I had made Mary know it was a marriage in name only. She accepted that. Which is why here, on Zechia, I do not look for her. I  learned, on the Apple, not to look, for I wouldn't like what I'd see.

 

I turned back to my house, the house I would share with Mary. It seemed a temporary shelter, not sturdy, but quick to build.

 

I glanced again at Ref and his wife, she'd finished. They placed their foreheads together a moment, then he rose and came towards me.

 

In the days or weeks we had been here, years had fallen from him. I'd have matched him to fifty when we'd met. Now, he seemed less than forty. He smiled a lot, and I knew he was really happy. Happy as I may never be.

 

As Captain, I could maintain dignity in the worst of times, so, I maintained it here. We greeted and discussed the island. He took a stick drew a map.

 

Our island was shaped like a pear. The larger end faced due south, the narrow, north.

 

Ref proposed limited housing, leaving most of the land for planting and a verodyne, a circular theatre for diversion which would be attended by both our peoples.

 

I agreed, of course. He considered some of his people should intermingle with mine on the East Coast, and I agreed. He indicated that the Green Beach was off Limits, as is an area to the north west of the islet.  I knew that. Their god/king, Ki-ZerShaz had built two houses, one in a tree, the

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Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 17.04.2022
ISBN: 978-3-7554-1199-4

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