Chapter 19

Pan woke slowly, his consciousness rising from sleep in stages. Pain came first, but distant, hovering at the edge of his awareness. It was like the pain you feel in the memory of a recent injury.

Then came the voices, but they were indistinct, as if they were in another room. There was movement around him and he felt a soft breeze flow past his face.

His eyelids were strangely heavy, but when he finally forced them open, all he could see above him was a bright bar of light that hurt his eyes.

Memory returned next and Pan gasped, expecting to feel the agony of his crushed leg and the sharp, cutting pain of his broken ribs. He concentrated and he could feel pain in both places but it was a dull, general ache.

Pan tried to move his legs and couldn't. His arms wouldn't move either and it was several minutes before he was able to add two and two together and realize that he was strapped to the bed. Concentrating, he could feel a third strap across his chest

He felt light headed, his thoughts sluggish. Pain killers would do that, would dull the pain, cause his mind to wander, he supposed.

He was alive. Whether he had been rescued or captured didn't matter as much the realization that he was not going to die alone on some forsaken game trail in the forest.

More sounds of movement, closer this time, made Pan open his eyes and turn towards the sound.

"Ah, awake I see! You gave us quite a scare. You were in pretty bad shape when you were found." The man speaking to him was dressed in the typical surgeons' garb, a set of pastel-colored scrubs with a skull cap and wearing a surgeons' mask of the same material. His eyes, above the mask, were a bright and inquisitive blue. He was leaning over; bringing his face down to Pan's level and Pan could smell the man's cologne, overlaid with the ubiquitous hospital scent of alcohol and antiseptic soaps.

"Do you know where you are?" the man asked, raising his eyebrows.

Pan shook his head and tried to speak. Nothing came out and Pan belatedly realized that his throat was dry and raw. He tried to swallow but couldn't even produce enough saliva to wet his tongue.

The surgeon nodded, as though reading his thoughts, and turned to pick up a small tray from a table by the bed. "Here, take this." The man, his hands covered by thin, translucent gloves, reached into the tray and pulled out an ice chip, sliding into Pan's mouth.

The ice felt wonderful on his tongue and melted quickly. The cool liquid soaked in to his taste buds leaving behind a slight chemical tang, a little bit of the melted water trickling down his tortured throat. The surgeon repeated the action several more times until Pan could feel the tissues in his throat relaxing a little, his tongue moving normally again.

"Where am I?" Pan croaked, his voice sounding strange in his own ears.

"Ah ha! He speaks!" Pan could tell the man was smiling by the subtle movements under the cloth mask and by the crinkling lines at the corners of his eyes.

"You, my lucky friend, are aboard Lujan, the finest ship in our fleet. I am Doctor Bagley, the senior Medico and, lucky for you, a very talented surgeon as well. I am going to be your host for the next several weeks, at least, until we can get you a little healthier. Now, can you answer a couple of questions for me?"

Pan, his mind edging towards full function, felt the beginnings of panic set in. Unless he knew where he was and to whom the Lujan owed its allegiance, wasn't sure what story to tell.

Better to be hung for a thief than as a spy. Pan nodded at the doctor.

"Fantastic! Ok, first things first, can you tell me your name?"

"Tony Depres, prospector out of Clerc but originally from Wontai in the Pon-La system." Pan lied, giving the cover he had landed on when landing on Clerc.

"Ok, Mr. Depres," Bagley continues, not giving any indication whether he cared one way or the other. "Do you know the date?"

Pan shook his head. He gave the doctor the date of his crash, explaining that his chrono had been lost in the accident and that he has spent a long time crawling through the woods, feverish and injured. He had no idea how much time had passed.

"Yes, we saw the report of the crash and that they never found the pilot. Your injuries are certainly consistent with that kind of accident, though I, for one, am amazed that you survived. You crawled four and a half kilometers in the six days you were in the woods. You are one tough and determined character, Mr. Depres!"

Bagley stood, and rubbed his gloved hands together.

"You are progressing nicely, Mr. Depres but we don't want to overdo it, now do we? I am going to give you something to help you sleep. The more rest you get, the faster your system will recover and, to be honest, we still have a lot of work to do on you. I have given you a pain blocker for now so that you can rest and I will be back to check on you in a while."

Bagley turned and Pan could hear him clicking away at a desk terminal. In a matter of seconds, the world around him began to fade and he slipped into sleep again.

The next time Pan woke, the room was dim. He felt clear headed and his aches had faded to a dull throb in the right side of his chest and his left leg itched something fierce. He was still strapped down to the bed and he surmised it was to keep him from tossing and turning, re-injuring himself.

Raising his head to look around, the room looked exactly like it should. It was a ship-board hospital room, complete with blinking lights, monitors for his vital signs and an IV bag that was dripping some fluid or other into his left arm. He felt drained and still tired, but otherwise surprisingly well. He was also hungry, which any mother would tell you was a good sign.

His mouth and throat were dry again, but not as dry as the last time he woke up. In the clinical part of his mind, he supposed that the ordeal he had suffered had left him, among other things, weak and severely dehydrated. Since he had been here a while, though how long, he had no idea, he could only assume that they had fixed that issue.

He licked his lips and called out.

"Hello? Anyone there?" Pan listened intently, hoping for a response. "Hello?"

He heard a click, and then a voice coming from a speaker somewhere behind him.

"Mr. Depres? I'll be there in just a second." Even though distorted by the speaker, the voice sounded cheerful enough, and female.