Chapter 27: The Distance Between Voices

Daniel’s first attempt to stand lasted eleven seconds. ER counted. Daniel knew because ER announced the number after Neris lowered him back onto the medical berth.

“Eleven point four,” ER said.

Daniel lay with his eyes closed and waited for the room to stop moving.

“That sounded judgmental.”

“It was a measurement.”

“Measurements can be judgmental.”

Neris remained crouched beside him, one paw at his neck and the other resting against the portable support frame they had assembled from farm tubing, a section of Takuhai’s emergency rail, and two rubber grips taken from an old wheelbarrow. Her tail had been braced behind Daniel’s hips while he stood. Now it curled around one leg of the frame as though preventing the device itself from escaping.

“Your blood pressure fell too quickly,” she said.

“I stood up.”

“You attempted to.”

“My feet were on the floor.”

“Your body was vertical for six seconds.”

“Eleven point four.”

“The remaining time involved returning you to the berth.”

Daniel opened one eye.

“Whose side are you on?”

Neris’s ears tilted. “The side preventing you from collapsing.”

ER said, “The committee remains unanimous.”

Daniel looked toward the ceiling. “I used to walk without a committee.”

“The committee formed after you demonstrated poor structural integrity,” Neris replied.

ER added, “The vote was immediate.”

Daniel let his eye close again. Three days had passed since the accident. Three days since the auger housing had struck him. Three days since Neris had decided that an ambulance would arrive too late. Three days since alien machines entered his body and refused to leave. He could breathe without active lung support now.

That qualified as progress. He could sit upright for nearly forty minutes before dizziness forced him down. More progress. He could move his right leg freely, his left in a controlled range, and his arms without threatening the stabilized ribs.

ER used phrases such as functional recovery trajectory and acceptable metabolic response. Daniel used different words. Slow. Painful. Humiliating. Alive. The last one made the others difficult to complain about for long.

Neris watched his face.

“Pain?”

“Four.”

“While lying still?”

“Three and a half.”

“You previously said four.”

“I’m revising.”

“Pain does not become lower because you dislike the number.”

“That’s not how human scales work.”

“It is exactly how scales work.”

ER said, “Daniel’s current analgesic level should reduce resting pain to approximately three.”

Daniel opened his eyes. “See?”

Neris narrowed hers. “You are both impossible.”

“Household trait.”

Her expression softened despite herself.

She stood and adjusted the support frame. The device was ugly. Daniel had said so when ER first displayed the design. The ship’s reduced fabrication array could no longer produce a full mobility system, and Daniel had refused to let Neris dismantle more of Takuhai for one. The compromise stood beside the berth now: farm steel, alien joints, wheelbarrow handles and two wide feet cut from an old stall mat.

It looked as though a livestock gate had developed medical ambitions. It worked. Mostly. Neris checked every joint again.

Daniel watched her. “You’ve checked that four times.”

“Three.”

“ER?”

“Four.”

Neris looked toward the nearest speaker. “The first was an inspection during assembly.”

“That is still checking.” Daniel smiled.

Her tail flicked once against the floor. “We try again after you eat,” she said.

“I ate.”

“You consumed half a bowl of porridge.”

“More than half.”

“Fifty-six percent.”

Daniel looked at the ceiling. “Why does this ship measure everything?”

“Because approximation nearly killed you,” ER said.

Neris sat on the edge of the berth. Her paw settled over Daniel’s hand. The medical display above them showed his recovery in colours he had begun to understand. Green for stable. Blue for nanite support. Amber for structures still vulnerable. The pelvis remained mostly amber. Three ribs had shifted to blue. The damaged lung showed a thin green margin around a larger field of blue repair activity.

Daniel looked toward the hatch. “What’s it like outside?”

“Cold,” Neris said.

“Specific.”

“Minus fourteen degrees, light wind, with snowfall ending before dawn.”

“The lane?”

“Cleared.”

“By you?”

“Yes.”

“Using the tractor?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

Neris’s ears lowered. Daniel squeezed her paw. “I’m asking, not criticizing.”

“You criticize through questions.”

“Only when worried.”

“That does not improve the experience.”

ER said, “The lane was cleared without incident. Neris maintained appropriate speed, loader height and turning radius.”

Daniel looked toward the speaker. “Did she ask you to say that?”

“No.”

Neris’s tail moved behind her. Daniel knew the answer was yes. He let it go.

“What about the cattle?”

“Fed, waterers checked, the heifer’s gait is normal, and Mabel struck the gate seven times.”

“Only seven?”

“Her behaviour may reflect Daniel’s continued absence,” ER said.

Daniel looked away. Neris’s paw tightened around his. He had not seen the yard except through cameras. Had not felt the cold. Had not stood among the animals and heard the quiet sounds they made while feeding. The farm continued without him. That was what he wanted. It also felt like a betrayal of gravity.

Neris leaned closer. “You can return to the house today if the next movement trial succeeds.”

Daniel turned back. “ER agreed?”

“I approved controlled relocation under conditions.”

“Conditions,” Daniel repeated.

ER displayed the conditions. Continuous telemetry and supported movement kept Daniel inside the farmhouse unless Neris and a remote medical link accompanied him; stairs, machinery and lifting remained off limits.

Daniel read the list. “No stairs?”

“The bedroom is upstairs,” he said.

Neris looked at him. The discharge plan moved Daniel from Takuhai’s medical berth to the farmhouse’s downstairs office, whose twenty-year-old sofa bed ER judged acceptable chiefly because it was horizontal and could accommodate the portable medical relay. Daniel’s objections to the broad prohibition on machinery immediately expanded to include the coffee maker, wood stove and kitchen mixer.

The exceptions were almost insulting in their specificity: coffee while seated, wood stove managed by Neris, and no loophole broad enough to turn ordinary appliances into a farm-work argument. Daniel looked at Neris and realized she had helped write all of it. “Betrayal.”

Her paw settled against his chest. “You are leaving the medical berth.” Daniel called it armed escort; Neris pointed out that she was not armed. The claws complicated his argument only slightly. Neris touched her muzzle briefly to his cheek. Daniel’s complaints ended.

They had slept together every night since the accident. First on the widened medical berth. Once ER allowed Daniel to spend longer periods reclined instead of fully supported, they moved to the broader rescue bed in the adjacent compartment. Neris always arranged herself along his right side. Her paw over his heartbeat. Her tail across his legs.

Daniel had learned that she could sleep while monitoring three medical readings, two external alerts and every change in his breathing. He had also learned that she denied doing so. Their nights did not feel like hospital nights anymore. They felt like theirs. Interrupted by alarms. Modified by pain. Still theirs.

Neris drew back. “Food,” she said.

“Movement first.”

“Food.”

“Compromise?”

“No.”

“Coffee?”

“After food.”

Daniel looked toward the speaker. “ER.”

“Neris’s recommendation is medically sound.”

“You’ve both become authoritarian.”

“Your survival appears to require governance,” ER said.

The porridge arrived on a tray carried by one of Takuhai’s manipulators. Daniel examined it. “Is there sugar?”

“No,” Neris said.

“Then this is livestock feed.”

“You ate livestock feed voluntarily yesterday.”

“That was oatmeal.”

“This is oatmeal.”

“Different presentation.”

Neris handed him the spoon. He ate. She watched until the bowl was empty. The second standing attempt lasted thirty-four seconds. ER counted that one too. Neris stood to Daniel’s right with one arm around his waist. Her tail braced behind his pelvis, broad enough to provide support without pressing against the healing injury. Daniel gripped the frame. The first lift felt manageable. Weight reached the left side of his body. Pain spread through the pelvis in a deep, nauseating line. He stopped and tried to breathe through the worst of it. Neris did not tell him to continue. She did not tell him to sit. She waited.

Daniel shifted one hand along the frame. “Step,” he said.

“Small,” Neris replied.

His right foot moved first. The frame followed. His left foot moved less than the width of his hand. The medical display flashed amber. Daniel froze.

“Structural load acceptable,” ER said. “Continue only if dizziness remains below level three.”

“Four.”

Neris studied his face. “Three.”

“Three and a half.”

“You are bargaining with symptoms.”

“It’s a human specialty.”

The second step was worse. The third felt impossible until it was finished. The medical bay hatch stood less than four metres from the berth. Daniel reached it as though crossing a field in spring mud. His arms trembled. Sweat cooled beneath his shirt. Neris’s body remained firm against his side. Her tail moved with each step, adjusting pressure before he asked.

At the hatch, Daniel stopped. The corridor beyond seemed absurdly long. He looked back at the berth. A distance he once crossed without noticing. Now it held the shape of a journey.

“That’s enough,” Neris said.

“I can reach the wall.”

“You have reached the wall.”

“The next one.”

“No.”

Daniel wanted to argue. His knees decided otherwise. Neris guided him backward into the waiting chair. ER lowered the support beneath him. Daniel sat hard. The room dimmed at the edges. Neris crouched in front of him, both paws on his knees.

“Look at me.”

“I’m looking.”

“You are staring through me.”

“That’s more efficient.”

Her expression did not change. Daniel took a slow breath. The dizziness eased.

“Thirty-four point eight seconds,” ER said.

Daniel closed his eyes. “Almost respectable.”

“It is a substantial improvement,” Neris said.

He opened his eyes again. She meant it as a measurement of change, neither praise for effort nor consolation. Daniel placed his hand over hers.

“House today?”

“If the telemetry works.”

The portable medical link had taken most of the previous evening to assemble. ER had reduced one of Takuhai’s auxiliary medical sensors to its core components. Neris integrated it with a farm radio, Daniel’s phone and a compact nanite-control relay.

The outer case came from the ship’s weakened fabrication array. It emerged thick, uneven and slightly warped at one corner. Daniel called it ugly. ER called it operational. Neris called it necessary.

The unit fitted around Daniel’s lower chest with a broad strap and soft inner padding. A smaller band circled his wrist, tracking circulation and motor response. Neris fastened the chest unit. Daniel looked down at it.