Chapter 4

I woke up quite abruptly with the sound of someone knocking on my trailer door. It wasn't a simple knock or two either, it was insistent and regular, completely impossible to ignore.

Rolling over and squinting at the red glowing numbers of digital alarm clock on my bedside table showed me that it was almost 7 am. Meaning, I'd gotten around seven straight solid hours of glorious, restful sleep. More than good enough - I was feeling downright spoiled.

"Mister Ford, are you awake?" I heard a strangely accented voice call out from somewhere outside.

"Just barely." I yelled in response, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "I'll be there in just a few minutes."

Levering myself up off my bed and up onto my feet, I couldn't help but smile. I felt just great. Maybe I was a bit sore around my ribs, which were still rapidly knitting together thanks to advanced Marsubaran medical technology, and a few other choice spots. But I was without a doubt, feeling much better than a man who had been seriously beaten and stabbed in the chest not that long ago had any right to feel.

After getting wounded and losing a piece of my lung in combat, I'd spent months in hospitals recuperating, but after getting beaten and stabbed by aliens, Feng and my new Marsubaran friends had completely patched me up in just four days.

Working for these aliens might be dangerous, but they had one hell of an excellent health plan.

Apparently, though the ship's AI was locked down due to the Theissss's illegal takeover, it was still silently and impartially monitoring the entire situation. As soon as it had detected the neutralization of the threat to itself and its legal proprietors, it had reactivated itself, as well as all of the ship's dormant systems. It then contacted Feng, the senior available medical officer on board, about the medical emergency on the bridge – i.e., me unconscious on the deck, rapidly bleeding to death. He in turn rushed to my aid, while contacting the rest of the Marsubaran crew, telling them the good news of their liberation and asking for their help.

I was pretty happy, and understandably surprised upon regaining consciousness. I had been pretty certain that I was a dead man. As it turned out, though I could have easily died without immediate medical attention, I wasn't that seriously wounded. I had a series of broken and fractured bones, a slight concussion, and some internal bleeding, but the most dangerous condition of all was actually the major blood loss.

Apparently, Theissss saliva has a slight natural anticoagulant in it.

Even if I had died, Feng assured me that they could have easily resuscitated me and fixed me up, as long as I arrived at the ship's medical bay quickly enough. Nevertheless, I'm pretty glad that I never had a chance to test that possibility out.

As it was, I was rushed back to the ship's medical bay, operated on for roughly two hours, and given a few liters of artificial blood - specifically designed for human biology. Thank God the Marsubarans believed in being prepared. The intervening time was spent on simple bed rest.

Ugg. Whether in a regular hospital on Earth or in the high-tech medical bay of an alien spaceship, being stuck in a hospital bed is still being stuck in a hospital bed.

On the bright side, they'd also used my downtime to fix up a lot of those little ailments, aches and pains that had been bothering me, leaving me feeling like a much younger man.

Almost thirty years of intense physical exertion, and the occasional pounding and intense trauma of combat had all left its mark on my body, inside and out. Not counting my missing piece of lung, I had some degenerative damage to almost a third of the joints in my body, various strained or damaged muscles and tendons, some slight loss of my eyesight (which I honestly had no idea about until they had told me), and a bit of hearing loss in one ear due to prolonged close proximity to gunfire and explosions. All of that was gone now, with just some severely diminished scar tissue and rapidly fading aches left behind attesting to their existence.

Truth be told, I think that I was now in better health and physical condition than I had ever been. According to Feng, with time I would actually become even better. No, I would never reach anything close to super-human level, but the treatments would heighten my body and mind to the very pinnacle of its potential capabilities. I'd literally be the very best that I could possibly be. I was really looking forward to finding some exercise machines and weight sets to test myself and get back into fighting shape.

And that was just a small taste of what they were willing to give me, in their immense gratitude, for saving them.

They had some sort of advanced genetic screening treatment that would identify and then eliminate all of those pesky genetic predispositions, disorders and congenital defects that humans tend to suffer from. In other words, with a few trips to my friendly neighborhood Marsubaran doctor, say goodbye to diabetes, cancer, hypertension, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, as well as dozens, upon dozens of other maladies and conditions.

Just imagine the serious chunk of cash that they could take away from the world's pharmaceutical companies. That's certain to make for a few CEOs real unhappy.

Oh yeah, and of course it would certainly benefit all of humanity. That's sort of important too.

Obviously.

Of course, I accepted, and after a half dozen short and painless visits to the ship's medical bay, spaced out over the next few months, I would soon be one of the healthiest humans which have ever lived. So would any of my kids for that matter, if I ever decided to sign up for that particular punishment.

But maybe best of all, their bio-lab could grow a new, whole lung for me. The surgery would be relatively simple for them, with little risk and a reduced recovery time, and using a sample of my own DNA would ensure that there would be little to no risk of rejection. The lung would take over a month or so to grow and mature in a bio-tank, so that would certainly have to wait.

I almost kissed Feng on his furry little head when he explained it to me. To be honest, I was just as surprised as he was at my reaction – I guess that my injury had affected me in ways that I hadn't realized.

Feeling inordinately good about myself and damn confidant about the future, I unhurriedly visited the head to drain my bladder and splash some water on my face.

Looking in the mirror I noticed a few small pieces of what looked like blue tinted plastic wrap stuck on my chest, my shoulder and on my forearm, right over where I had been stabbed, slashed and bit.

It was the remnant of something called "medical gel", the same thing that I had seen on Merin - Feng's mate - when she was unconscious in the medical bay. You just spray it out evenly over a wound and in seconds it thickens and expands, sticking to your skin better than any adhesive. The outer layer hardens, sealing and protecting the wound against liquids, gases and any possible contaminants as the gel underneath is gradually absorbed into the patient, providing rapid regeneration, mostly of the soft tissues. It also has a built-in dose of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, clotting agents, light painkillers and a whole other slew of medical-sciencey goodness.

I can't really be certain of the rest, seeing as my eyes sorta glazed over once they started dropping complex chemical names, several syllables long. I'm just glad that it had been specifically designed to be compatible with a great number of different species with amazingly diverse biologies.

I easily pulled the filmy residues off and washed them down the sink, revealing fresh, pink scar tissue underneath. Really impressive and effective stuff. It'll eventually be a big hit with emergency responders and combat medics on Earth.

After pulling on some semi-clean clothes, I walked over to my trailer's front door and opened it to greet my visitor. I recognized him right away by his fur's distinctive striped pattern, as the same bewildered Marsubaran that I had crossed paths with in the ship's lounge as I was taking out the young Theissss, Navess. Minus the slack-jawed expression of surprise and the armload of dirty dishes, of course.

I have to say that it's really amazing how quickly I had become accustomed to the presence and appearance of the Marsubarans. And them to mine, I guess. For two unique species which evolved on different planets, light years away from each other, we seemed to get along surprisingly well.

Hopefully, the rest of our respective species would be able to get along just as well, if only for their own survival's sake.

On the other hand, I couldn't exactly say that I was used to my newfound surroundings. For the past couple of months, living out of my trailer and traveling the country, I'd awoken and opened my door to a diverse array of beautiful and sometimes even stunning natural environments – national parks, abandoned farmlands, sandy beaches with crashing waves, and the occasional campground and trailer park. Now though, I found myself in a very large room with metallic white walls, there were no right angles whatsoever, and a gentle light was coming from the entire ceiling. Beyond those walls, I knew that I was on an alien space ship (an actual flying saucer, for Christ's sake!), and further beyond was the cold, airless expanse of space.

In order to guarantee my comfort, and seeing as they didn't have any facilities or furniture designed for human comfort on board, the Marsubarans had gone back down to Earth to find my silver Airstream trailer and pickup, abandoned near the Arches National Park in Utah, while I was still recovering in the ship's medical bay. They had then set them both up in this cargo hold, going so far as hooking the trailer's power, clean water and sewage disposal up to the shipboard utilities. Even the ceiling light was set to perfectly simulate natural sunlight on Earth.

Considering my situation, it certainly was nice having this small, but comfortable and familiar space to relax in.

"Morning Tigger. Come on in and take a load off." I said with a smile, waving inside.

That wasn't his name, of course. After telling me that his name was Tig, and given the unique pattern of his fur, I just couldn't help but saddled him with that nickname. He wasn't offended; in fact he seemed honestly pleased and amused by it. I liked him, seeing as he seemed a bit more relaxed and less formal than the others, but his enthusiasm and curiosity did grate my nerves after a while.

It didn't help that he was young (barely out of the Marsubaran teen years) and pretty damn impressionable. I'm pretty sure he was suffering from a severe case of hero worship.

"Thank you Mister Ford." He answered with a smile of his own, after giving me a slight and reverent bow. He then climbed up into the trailer and took a seat at the small dining table. "I'm here officially to remind you that they're going to have the planning meeting in the ship's conference room, in around an hour."

"And unofficially you're here to fill your empty gut." I said knowingly with a smirk, as I walked into the kitchen. He could have easily sent me a message over the ship's comms, so I knew that he came here in person for another reason.

The only fresh food stored on board the ship had belonged to the Theissss, comprising mostly of a type of extremely salty and very oily fish jerky and algae cakes, so the Marsubarans had been forced to survive on their own basic food rations for quite a while. Despite being able to fulfill all of their dietary and nutritional needs, as well as having an extremely long shelf life, the food wasn't exactly gourmet. In fact, standard issue military MREs – better known as Meals Rejected by Ethiopians - were almost preferable by comparison.

Almost.

The good news was that they had a lot of it, enough for several months, without rationing.

The supplies came in three distinct varieties – there were chewy ration bars, crispy wafer chips, and a type of creamy porridge. Not a one was in any way visually appetizing. The only up side was that there were dozens of different flavor additives – sweet, bitter, salty, fruity, spicy - which could be added to them. With a bit of creativity and mixing, I was told that you could simulate just about any food or meal imaginable.

At least they could attempt to simulate. Not many actually succeeded, according to the Marsubarans.

So, being the neighborly type, I'd made the contents of my fridge and pantry available to the crew. I even cooked a bit for them. They didn't eat meat – more by choice than any dietary requirements – so they dove into my supply of fruits and vegetables, fresh, frozen and canned. They enjoyed experimenting with pasta and rice, and freshly baked bread was an absolute sensation. Dairy products (at least those from Earth) caused them some serious intestinal problems though, so milk, cheese and butter were big no-nos.

"Well ... I'm led to believe that to be a good human host, one should offer his guests refreshments." He answered with an alien equivalent of a cheeky grin.

"Here's my last apple. That's all you're getting for the immediate future." I said tossing him the fruit off of the kitchen counter. He caught it easily. "You're all eating me out of house and home. I should ask you guys to drop me off in my pickup near a grocery store so that I can stock up on foodstuffs."

"That's a very good idea," he answered enthusiastically, his mouth already full. "I'll tell everybody to put together a shopping list."

I'd been joking, but Tigger had clearly taken me seriously. Oh well.

I didn't stick around to watch him eat. I already knew that Marsubarans had no problems eating the whole fruit with gusto - core, stems and seeds included. It was ... a strange sight to behold. Instead, I started brewing a pot of fresh coffee (just for me, the Marsubarans were strictly tea drinkers) and removed a large pack of pre-prepared bread dough from the fridge. After dividing the dough into half a dozen balls on an oven pan, I then slipped them into the oven to bake.