Chapter 4: Small Steps

It took three days for Kaisha to return. The nurses tended to him in the meantime, and he did his leg exercises, passing the time by sleeping or watching the insipid station entertainment channel. They wouldn’t show anything too violent or stimulating. Apparently, television did not exist on Borealis, and action movies made the aliens too excited. One of the more talkative nurses had explained that after an incident where a pack of recruits had destroyed the Pinwheel’s movie theater, demanding the head of a fictional villain, anything above a PG rating was no longer allowed to be broadcast on public channels.

His eyes lit up when Kaisha ducked into his room through the door, then he tried to make his expression more neutral, not wanting to look too desperate for her company.

“Welcome back, Doc.”

“How are you feeling, Lieutenant?”

“Ready to start walking!”

She chuckled, tapping on her signature tablet computer as she walked over to the end of his bed.

“All in good time, I need to check your progress first. If your leg hasn’t healed enough, we’ll have to wait a little longer.” She pulled back his sheets and tapped the metal rod that protruded from his stump with her stylus.

“Does this hurt?”

“No, but I can feel it. How odd.”

She leaned in and examined it through the clear gel, taking notes.

“Color looks good, there’s no foul odor present.” She walked up the bed and placed her large hand over his forehead. She was inhumanly warm and her soft, downy fur tickled his skin. He began to blush and tried to suppress it.

“No sign of fever or infection, no rejection of the implant. I think you’re good to go, Lieutenant.”

He nodded, and she hooked her arms under him, lifting him out of the bed with ease and placing him in his chair. She wheeled him out of the room and down the hall. Moralez was starved for conversation and felt confident enough to ask her some more probing questions as they turned a corner, Kaisha rolling him down a ramp towards the exit to the torus.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, how is it that a Borealan ended up training to treat human patients? Wouldn’t it have been far easier for you to treat other Borealans?”

She hesitated for a moment, had he crossed a line? No, she was preparing her reply.

“Well, humans outnumber Borealans a million to one in the UNN. It is primarily a human organization, with other species serving mostly as auxiliaries. If I was going to become a doctor, I knew I would be treating humans almost exclusively.” That made sense and he should probably have guessed as much. “I’ve also had ... somewhat of a fascination with humans and their culture since arriving on Earth.”

“Is that so?” he asked. She sounded embarrassed, like she was admitting some secret rather than simply stating a fact.

“You’re probably not aware of my people’s history, but we are refugees from a region on the homeworld, one of the planet’s frozen poles. A few months ago, my Matriarch met a human ambassador who was stationed on Borealis at the time. Through him, she was able to secure a sovereign territory for us on Earth, in the Siberia territory. We founded a Republic there, and we’re still in the process of relocating the population.”

Ah, that must be why they looked different from the conventional Borealans that he had seen, they were adapted to cold climates. It was obvious now that he thought about it.

“I had never left the polar territory before, I had never even ridden in a vehicle. At first, I was afraid. But seeing my own planet, my birthplace from space, really changed my perspective. The Galaxy was bigger than my frozen tundra, there would be more to do than just subsist. I was afraid, but I was excited too.

“I remember the first time that I saw Earth from space, there’s a name for it, the Overview Effect. It changes your attitude, you realize how fragile your home is, how petty local conflicts seem when viewed from a million miles away. It inspired me to join the UNN and become a Marine.”

“Yes, I can understand that sentiment. When I arrived on Earth with the other colonists, the environment was so different. It was a paradise compared to where we had come from, and we owed it all to this tiny, ape-like alien. No offense,” she chuckled, placing her hand on his shoulder.

“None taken, we are technically apes.”

They exited through the main door of the hospital and into the torus, the perpetually blue sky hanging above them.

“That this human would do so much for us, for no apparent reason, confused me. We weren’t part of his pack, we did not live in a territory he called home, and even his obvious infatuation with our Matriarch didn’t adequately explain his actions.” Moralez began to blush, this was the first he had heard of humans and Borealans courting.

“Is that ... something that happens?”

“It is becoming more common, yes. This man loved my Queen, and he was precious to her. Not merely because of everything that he had done to emancipate us, she seemed to enjoy his company. I got to know their relationship intimately, and I suppose I developed a certain ... fascination.”

“And that’s why you became a doctor?”

“In a way, yes. It inspired me to learn Russian and later English, to interact with other humans, to consume human media and learn about your history and culture. Earth was my home now, after all, and I briefly considered becoming a historian. Your past is fascinating, you know. So tumultuous. Vessels made of iron that float on oceans, humans who ride wild animals into battle, aircraft made from canvas and wood that weave through the air. Our own martial history seems stagnant in comparison.”

Kaisha avoided a lumbering Krell, turning around it as it marched past them, the odd poncho that it wore over its shoulders was dotted with pockets and pouches that looked like they might contain tools.

“I found the work of a historian less than stimulating, so I decided to join the Russian military and become a medic in the hopes of being stationed with humans. As it turned out, I had an aptitude for medicine, and I eventually ended up here.”

“Is it how you imagined?” Moralez asked, looking back at her to see that she was beaming

“Oh, I love it here. The work is challenging, and Miss Raz has been teaching me what she knows about humans, she’s somewhat of an expert.”

“That woman we met, with the recruits?”

“Yes, that’s her job. She trains new recruits as part of the integration program, along with her human mate. You should ask her about it if you ever meet her off-duty during your stay, the story is quite fascinating. The two of them practically saved the program together.”

It was becoming a theme, did every Borealan of note take a human mate? Was it some kind of ritual? A cultural thing? Did humans offer them something that other Borealans couldn’t? He didn’t dare ask her.

Why did he care? He liked Kaisha because she was nice to him, because she talked to him. It wasn’t anything more. He couldn’t see himself in a ... relationship with one of the aliens, not after what Azi had done. The thought had never seriously crossed his mind, had it? It was stupid to dwell on such things, not every relationship with the opposite sex had to be romantic. Besides, why should she be interested in him? He was a ruin.

He brightened up as the printing facility came into view. Kaisha pushed him through the automatic doors, and Kurtz walked up to meet them, wiping some kind of fluid off his hands with a rag.

“Welcome back, Lieutenant. Is he all set, Kaisha?”

“No rejection, his body is taking well to the implant,” she replied. They followed Kurtz over to a workbench that was scattered with tools, components, and loose wires. The engineer brushed some of the mess away, picking up a rough, black box. The surface was detailed with fine machinery and cabling that Moralez couldn’t identify. Kurtz knelt in front of his wheelchair and lifted his stump by the metal rod, slotting the blocky device onto the end of it. Moralez felt a click that passed up through his bone, making him shiver. Kurtz then lowered his leg and appraised the apparatus.

“Good fit, hang on.” He turned and picked up his tablet computer, opening a protective cap on one side and pulling loose a long wire. He knelt again and plugged it into a port on the device that was now connected to Moralez’ leg. “This will hurt ... a lot.”

“What do you-”

He felt a tingling in his stump and looked down to see a thousand tiny, fine wires winding up the metal rod from the top of the boxy device, like worms the width of a hair. They sought out the gel seal, penetrating the semi-transparent material and digging towards his healing tissue. He became alarmed and began to protest, but Kaisha placed a heavy hand on his shoulder, comforting him.

“This is normal, it won’t take long.”

The tingling became a prickling, then the prickling became the stabbing of a hundred needles. The tiny wires were boring into his flesh. He gritted his teeth against the searing pain, it felt like a toothache, but compounded. It became too intense, and he started to shudder, a groan rising in his throat.

“Fuck, it hurts, turn it off!”

“Almost done,” Kurtz muttered, his eyes fixed on his tablet. “Hold on.”

Moralez couldn’t stand it a second longer, but just as he reached his limit, the pain abated. It was replaced with an odd buzzing sensation, as if some ghost limb had fallen asleep.

“What was that?” he panted, that was some of the worst pain he had ever felt.

“When I took the scan of your leg, the computer noted the locations of every severed nerve,” the engineer explained. “These wires are programmed to seek them out and to make a connection. Now your brain can communicate directly with the prosthetic. Give it a try.”

Moralez looked down at the box that was now firmly affixed to the rod. It was true, he felt ... something. He sent the signals that would move his now absent leg, trying to flex it, and the box moved! It bent double, motors whirring. It was a knee joint.

“Good!” Kurtz exclaimed, clapping his calloused hands together. “That’s the hard part over with. Now I can add the rest of the limb.”

He disappeared for a moment, Moralez experimenting with his new knee in the meantime, flexing it. There was feedback of a kind. It didn’t feel exactly like his knee had, but there was an awareness that he had lacked before, as if his brain had corrected the map of his body and this one leg now extended a little further than it had that morning.

Kurtz returned with an armful of machinery, dumping it unceremoniously on the workbench.

“Let’s see, this goes here ... this here ... das ist störend, scheisse...”

He turned back to Moralez and knelt again, slotting a long, polymer rod into the knee joint. Moralez recognized it as the artificial tibia, with the battery pack hanging beneath a protective cover about where his calf muscle would have been. Kurtz wired it up to the knee, then rose and turned back to the bench, assembling more of the prosthetic. After a moment he returned with a heel that was similar in design to the knee joint and connected it, wiring it up to the battery pack. Now all that was left was the foot, a stylized, curved piece of carbon fiber that was flexible and springy to absorb impacts and push back realistically when he walked. It had no mechanical parts and simply slotted into the heel joint.

Kurtz took a step back, admiring his work.

“Okay Lieutenant, give it a try.”

Moralez strained, raising his leg. The motors gave off an audible, electrical buzz as he extended the new limb. It wasn’t quite ... right. It was not a replacement leg, it didn’t feel like a leg. There were no toes, no muscles, there was no skin. It didn’t respond in the way that he had assumed it would. Yet as he lowered it to the footrest on his chair, there was tactile sensation, he felt the new foot impact the plastic. He understood now why he would have to re-learn to walk, this was not a replacement, it was an entirely new limb that he would have to get used to.

Kurtz knelt and squeezed the carbon toe of the foot attachment between his thumb and forefinger.

“Feel that?”

“I do! How is that possible?”

“The whole system is wired up to your nerves, it will do its best to approximate realistic sensations. It won’t be exactly the same as a real foot of course, but if you kicked a football or stubbed your toe, you’d be able to feel it. Stand up, see how it feels.”

Moralez looked to Kaisha, and she hooked her hands under his armpits, easing him out of the wheelchair. She supported him, making sure that he didn’t put too much weight on the new leg, and he balanced precariously on his intact limb.

The floor was cold under his artificial foot, it was so odd to him that he could feel that. The sensation was diffuse, almost as if his foot was one giant, mutant toe. He put some weight on it and winced. The gel seal pressed against his healing tissue, hurting him. Kaisha steadied him as he took a tentative step, then caught him before he collapsed.

“Yeah, I think this is gonna take me a while,” he laughed.

“That’s expected. Nobody thought that you’d just get out of your chair and start running,” Kaisha replied, helping him back into his seat.

“When you’re up and walking we’ll move on to the arms,” Kurtz added. “I’m holding you to that handshake, Lieutenant.”

Moralez nodded, thanking Kurtz profusely before Kaisha wheeled him back out into the torus. He could even feel the vibrations of the wheelchair through the prosthetic. His stump still hurt, but the pain was waning now, and he was sure that in time it would vanish entirely.

“So? What do you think?” Kaisha asked, peering down at him as she pushed his chair.

“It’s amazing, Doc. It’s not at all what I expected, but I like it. When can we start the rehab program?”

“Soon, the small wounds from the nerve link should have healed by tomorrow, and then we can get started. It might take a long time. Don’t rush it, you won’t be done until it feels as natural to you as your old leg did.”

They walked in silence for a while as Moralez tested his new limb, moving it around and kicking it against the side of his chair. His knee worked about the same way as his natural one had, as did his heel. Trying to flex his toes didn’t seem to do anything, and none of his muscle groups responded to commands. He could even feel through the polymer tibia, tapping it against the metal support produced the same sensation as it might if it were a real shin, the same went for his knee motor. It was a marvelous device.

After a while, they passed the hospital, and Moralez turned to look up at his ward.

“We’re not going back to the hospital?”

“Not just yet, I thought we might take a detour. I have a little free time before I have to see my next patient. We can celebrate your progress.”

Positive reinforcement? Or did she actually want to spend time with him? Kaisha was a trained psychologist, it was part of her job and he never really felt sure if her words and actions were genuine, or if it was all part of some carefully engineered program designed to improve his mental health.

After a short walk, they arrived at what almost looked like a plaza, the decorations here were somewhat more lavish. There was more foliage, potted plants and shrubs were placed strategically around the space, and more effort had been taken to make the structures that extruded from the hull of the station look like quaint storefronts. Kaisha wheeled him next to a bench, then lifted him out of his chair, placing him on it gently. He could almost be in an upscale mall somewhere on Earth, or the shopping area of a large spaceport. The illusion wasn’t completely convincing, but he appreciated the attempt.

“Time for human food!” Kaisha’s reflective, blue eyes lit up, and she pointed to one of the buildings with her clawed finger. “I like that place, they sell coffee, but it’s bitter and tastes bad. I like their sandwiches though, they’ll make whatever you want. Meat, ham, tuna, beef, pork, bacon. What do you like?”

She was so excited, practically bouncing on the spot, and he thought better of mentioning that half of those ingredients were the same thing. He considered for a moment.

“I like tuna and mayonnaise.” Kaisha smiled and nodded as if he had just said something very wise, then started to walk off. “Hey, wait, Kaisha. Sorry, Doc. I don’t have any money on me...”

“They aren’t expensive,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Consider it my treat.” She started off again, then paused and turned back to him. “You can call me Kaisha, everyone does.”

He blushed again as her back turned and she entered the store, ducking under the colorful awning that read coffee shop in stylized print. This station just got weirder and weirder the more he saw of it.

She returned a couple of minutes later with two long sandwiches wrapped in paper, the one meant for her was almost two feet in length. She sat down next to him, the wooden bench creaking under her massive bulk, and she unwrapped one end of each. She held the smaller one in her fluffy hand, keeping it at head-height relative to Moralez so that he could take bites of it. She dug into her own sandwich, juice and fat leaking through the bread and staining the fine, white fur around her mouth and on her hands. Her sub seemed to be entirely meat, were Borealans carnivores?

The bench was far too small for her eight-foot frame, she looked like an adult sitting on a seat made for a child, her knees up near her chin and the foliage of the shrub in the planter behind her brushing against her hair. He didn’t look any more dignified with one metal leg and no arms. What a pair they made.

They ate in silence for a while, then Moralez felt the need to speak up.

“I ... I really appreciate the things you’ve been doing for me, Kaisha. Every other doctor I’ve ever met just wanted me out of their hair as soon as possible. You don’t seem like that at all.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she mumbled through a mouthful of sandwich, “it’s part of my job!”

His heart sank, so this really was all part of her work then? He took another bite, trying his hardest not to look dejected.

“Besides,” she swallowed heavily and licked her lips with her long, rough tongue. “I kind of like spending time with you.”

He almost choked on his tuna, she really did like him! She was going out of her way to spend time with him, did that validate the way he felt about her? How did he feel about her, exactly?

She confused him. He enjoyed her company, he liked talking to her, but did he want to be more than just friends? Would she be up for that? Questions swirled in his mind as he tried to figure out his own unfamiliar emotions, the sandwich hovering in front of his face.

She startled him, wiping a stray blob of mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth with a tissue.

“You look concerned, Lieutenant. Don’t worry, you’ll have your new arms before you know it, then you’ll be able to hold your own sandwiches.”

They finished their sandwiches, then Kaisha took him back to his hospital room, leaving him alone to continue her duties. He had enjoyed their short jaunt to the plaza, it had been the only real moment of levity since he had arrived on the station and it helped him forget about his situation. He switched on the television with a voice command, channel surfing absent-mindedly while he thought about Kaisha. She had said that she enjoyed spending time with him, and practically every time she had gotten a break from her work, she had taken advantage of it to hang out with him. He wondered what she really thought of him. She had mentioned two different peers who had taken human mates, was that intentional or was he just overanalyzing casual conversation?

He decided that he liked her, he liked the way that she made him feel. The way that he missed her when she wasn’t around, the way that he eagerly awaited her return, the way that she tried her hardest to cheer him up. Azi had rattled him, but Kaisha was different, and not just in terms of her appearance. She was kind and considerate, caring, where Azi had been ruthless and callous. Maybe it was a racial distinction, hard to speculate with so little information.

He could feel the fabric of the bed sheet on his prosthetic leg, he could really feel it. The weight of it, the texture of the fabric, it was surreal. If the hands were anything like this, and they would be more accurate than the leg with individual fingers, then perhaps one day he might be able to actually reach out and touch her. Feel the texture of her fur and the warmth of her body.

No, it was too early to imagine such encounters. He would wait, bide his time and see if the buxom alien did not simply lose interest in him.

He had exerted himself more than usual that day, and so quickly fell asleep to the drone of the station programming.

“Try taking a step, don’t put too much weight on the limb at first.”

Kaisha released him, the harness that held him upright digging into his armpits, strapped tightly around his chest and attached to a robotic arm that descended from the facility ceiling. It followed him around the room as he stumbled awkwardly. He was in the rehab center, a large gym in the hospital that contained all of the necessary equipment to rehabilitate wounded soldiers. The arm would keep him from toppling over as he tried to walk. Kaisha watched him attempt to lap the room, her arms crossed.

It was so damned difficult, much harder than he had expected it to be. The leg just wouldn’t do what he wanted it to. The messages that his brain sent to it were garbled and poorly interpreted because the muscles and tendons that they used to command no longer existed. The prosthetic was a far simpler system, he would have to learn to block out all of the superfluous noise that was no longer necessary to drive it.

He tried to focus on placing one foot in front of the other, but his prosthetic buckled and he stumbled, the arm preventing him from falling to the floor.

“It hurts,” he complained.

“It will hurt, even through the gel pack. The limb is pressing against scar tissue. Over time the pain will lessen, but it might never go away entirely. Focus, Lieutenant. The leg works perfectly, and there’s nothing wrong with your brain, you just have to learn to speak to the leg in a way it can interpret.”

The robotic arm righted him again, and he took another tentative step, the prosthetic jerking unnaturally as he tried to make it walk.

“Come on you stupid thing, do as I tell you!”

It buckled, and again he fell, the arm catching him in the harness. He hung there, rotating slowly, his face reddening with anger and frustration. Kaisha walked over to him, sitting beside him on the floor. She was almost at head height to him despite her seated position.

“Nobody expects you to get it down all in one day, this is hard, it will take a while. Take your time. If it takes you a month or a year, then that’s how long it will take,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Maybe we should have started with my arms...”

“What makes you think those will be any easier?”

He rose again, trying to will the leg to obey him. He managed a few steps, then toppled over.

“That wasn’t too bad!” Kaisha said, trying to encourage him. “Let’s try something else though.” She walked across the room and retrieved a large exercise ball, placing it before him. “Try to kick this ball.”

He screwed up his face, concentrating hard on moving the joints in the prosthetic limb. No muscles, no tendons, forget the way the old leg worked. Just focus on the knee and heel. He drew back the leg, bending it at the knee, then tried to kick. The motors whirred, and the carbon foot tapped the ball gently, causing it to roll away from him.

“Good! Good! Not quite a kick, but those were the correct movements.”

“I have to concentrate so hard, think about everything that I try to do. Will it always be like that?”

“No, over time you’ll adapt, and it will feel completely natural. Some days you’ll forget that you even have a prosthetic.”

He doubted that, but it was just like learning to operate any new machine. With enough practice, it should become second nature, just with the added difficulty of being operated by his goddamned mind. There was no manual, nobody could tell him what to do, he’d just have to figure it out for himself.

“If you get too tired, take a break,” Kaisha added. “Remember, you’ve been in a hospital bed for over a month, you’ll be out of shape.”

He resumed walking around the circumference of the gym, staggering and falling after every few steps, but he persevered. This wasn’t any harder than basic had been, no harder than fighting a battle. He could do this, he could win.

Every day, Kaisha would take him to the gym, and every day he would work himself to exhaustion. Sweat stained his shirt as he marched, suspended by the gyroscopic arm. The pain in his stump was intense, but he worked through it. He only showed a little improvement at first, but as the days dragged on, small steps became strides and he started to understand the way that the prosthetic expected him to think. He began to tailor his commands in a way that it could interpret, finding a rhythm, a gait. On what must have been the second week of trying he managed to lap the room without falling, and Kiasha stood, clasping her hands to her chest.

“Yes! You’re doing it, Lieutenant! Don’t stop!”

He laughed through his fatigue, pride swelling in his chest as he completed a second lap. Then he missed a step and the leg crumpled under him, leaving him dangling from the chest harness. Kaisha trotted over to him, making his heart skip as she lifted him off the ground, embracing him in a powerful hug that squeezed the air from his lungs.

“You did it! I’ve never seen a patient take to a prosthetic so quickly!”

She put him down sheepishly, realizing what she was doing, and Moralez interrupted her before she could apologize.

“I get it now! I understand. It isn’t perfect yet, it will take more time to get used to it, but it was just a matter of figuring out what muscles and tendons do what now. I mean, I don’t have any muscles or tendons anymore. But the nerves are still there, and they’re hooked up to the limb. It’s as if someone scrambled your keyboard, and you had to learn to type all over again. You just have to figure out where the keys are and get used to the fact that G is now V, and F is now O, if that makes sense...”

“Yes, I understand.”

“I’ll be able to hug you back in no time.”

“I’d like that,” she replied with a warm smile. He started off again, his pace brisker now, the leg really was behaving the way he wanted it to for the most part. The heel was springy, the feedback realistic. He just had to iron out the kinks.

Moralez walked beside Kaisha unaided. He felt like an old man, limping slightly. His pace was slow, but he was doing it. She hovered nearby, ready to catch him with her cat-like reflexes if he should stumble and fall. The motors droned softly as they powered him forward, and he noted that he could feel the texture of the floor beneath his foot. Maybe he’d need to buy another shoe.

They arrived at the printing facility, and this time Moralez stepped through the automatic doors under his own power.

“Well, look at you! Du bist hoch! I didn’t realize you were so tall, Lieutenant.” Kurtz walked over to greet them, appraising Moralez as he stood unsteadily on his prosthetic. The engineer crouched to examine the leg. “Good synchronization, you are taking to it ... how do they say ... like a fish to water.” He stood and turned to Kaisha. “And you, fräulein, how did you manage this? Have you developed some Borealan rehabilitation technique that we humans aren’t aware of?”

“Not at all,” she beamed, steadying Moralez with a hand around his waist. “He did it all himself, I’ve never seen anything like it. He hardly set foot outside of that gym until he got it done.”

“Da, a soldier to his core. Now, I assume that you’re here for the next step, so to speak? Come with me.” They followed him back over to the scanning machine, and Moralez stood, what was left of his arms outstretched. The flexible arm on the machine examined his stumps with its sensor, scanning the healing tissue through the bandages, and again the 3D models appeared on the adjacent monitor. Kurtz examined them, a frown darkening his face.

“Kaisha, please come and look at this.”

The two stood by the monitor with concerned expressions, using medical terms Moralez didn’t understand and pointing at an X-ray. He waited patiently for Kaisha to explain what was happening. After a couple of minutes, she gave him a sideways glance, seeing that he was becoming worried and walking back over to him.

“There may be a complication. When we first operated on you, we tried to save as much of the original limbs as possible, that’s standard procedure. The problem is that what’s left of the humerus on your left arm, the bone above the elbow, has not healed well. There are micro-fractures in the bone, the stress of attaching a prosthetic to it would likely shatter it.”