The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Becky Chambers (books to read to get smarter .txt) 📖

somebody here isn’t. I—’ Stars, where to begin with summarising the who and what and how? ‘I don’t have time to explain. There’s a kid in trouble. Medical trouble. I need to get back there, I just needed food.’

‘Holy shit. Okay. What—’

Speaker’s eyes widened, and she cut Tracker off. ‘You have comms. Tracker, you have comms.’

‘Well, yeah, I – Oh. Of course, you don’t know. Comms up here are fine, we just haven’t been able to contact anybody planetside. Signal traffic has been a clusterfuck since the temporary satellites were deployed, but I made some tweaks and was able to punch through.’

Never in Speaker’s life had she wanted to hug her brilliant sister’s head so hard. ‘You can contact the TA orbiter?’

‘Uh, yeah, absolutely, I—’

‘I need to you to flag emergency services. We haven’t been able to get a signal through.’

Tracker immediately got to work, punching commands into her control panel. ‘Stars, you’re gonna make me speak Klip. What are the details?’

‘Laru child. Age seventeen. Went into olotohen after asphyxiating—’

‘Went into what?’

‘It’s like a coma.’

‘Do you seriously think I know how to say coma? Or fucking asphyxiating?’

‘Just tell them there’s a Laru child who needs a doctor, and give them the coordinates. Can you say that?’

‘Uh – yeah. Yeah, I think so. I can say Laru and need doctor, at least. What’s child?’

‘Breggan.’

‘Breggan,’ Tracker repeated in her thick accent. ‘Ugh. Okay, you go help, I’ll call.’

‘Tracker?’

‘Yeah?’

Speaker looked seriously at her sister. ‘I miss you so much.’

‘I miss you, too. And this is a shitty thing to say, but I’m so glad you’re not the one I’m making this call about.’ She made a shooing motion. ‘Go, go. I’m on it.’

The screen switched off, and Speaker raced back toward the airlock. She grabbed an armload of protein bars on the way.

PEI

The doctor took an hour to arrive, but it was obvious she’d made the best time she could. Her skiff came tearing across the empty desert, and had barely come to a stop before its lone Human occupant jumped out and headed into the airlock. She hustled up to where Pei waited for her outside of the shuttle, wearing an exosuit and carrying a medical bag. She pulled off her helmet, and Pei found herself facing a petite young woman with black hair shaved short around the sides and cascades of piercings encrusting her ears. Her expression was friendly, but her eyes hinted that she was not in the habit of screwing around.

‘I’m Dr Miriyam,’ the Human said. ‘Where’s the patient?’

The words hit Pei’s implant, and she warmed immediately to the crisp, clipped consonants of an Exodan accent. Ashby’s accent. ‘Come on,’ Pei said, leading her inside.

Dr Miriyam followed. ‘Are you the kid’s guardian?’ she asked.

‘No, I’m just – a friend.’ She hurried through the hallway to where the others were waiting in an anxious huddle.

‘Ah,’ the doctor said as she saw Ouloo. ‘You must be—’

‘I’m Ouloo,’ she said, her fur fluffing. ‘I’m Tupo’s mother.’

‘Tupo, got it. I’m Dr Miriyam.’ She reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a bundle of printed cards. ‘I’ve got my medical licences here if you’d like to take a look.’

Ouloo was confused. ‘Oh – I don’t need to see any of that. I trust you.’

Dr Miriyam paused. ‘Oh.’ She looked at the cards for a moment, then put them back in her pouch with an expression of quiet surprise. ‘Usually people ask.’

‘I get that,’ Speaker said.

‘Hmm,’ Dr Miriyam said, throwing her a knowing look. ‘I bet you do. All right, where’s—’ She looked to her left, saw the med room door, and headed straight in. ‘Oh, boy. Hey, Tupo. Let’s sort you out.’ She wasted no time in examining her patient. Ouloo joined her in the room; everybody else crowded around the door. ‘How long has xe been in olotohen?’ the doctor asked.

‘Six hours, maybe,’ Pei said. ‘We’re not entirely sure when this happened, but it couldn’t have been much longer than that.’

‘Okay. And what was the trigger?’

‘Xe boarded my ship without a suit,’ Speaker said.

Dr Miriyam apparently knew exactly what that meant, because she turned her head toward the Akarak with a dumbfounded expression. ‘Without a suit? Why?’

‘I think, um … xe was trying to bring me some cake.’

The doctor blinked twice, then shook her head. ‘Kids, kids, kids,’ she sighed. ‘So! We’re dealing with severe oxygen deprivation, which—’ She noticed the air mask, buried into fur matted with sealant. ‘What is going on with this?’

‘I had to glue it,’ Speaker said. ‘The air wouldn’t flow without a proper seal. I know it looks a mess, but—’

Dr Miriyam studied Speaker’s handiwork. ‘No, that’s fabulous,’ she said. ‘Honestly. Kids like xyr can get by without breathing for the first few hours, but getting xyr nose open and some oxygen in xyr blood probably bought more time. That’s great.’

Ouloo stood on two legs at the end of the med bed, holding Tupo’s back paws in her forepaws. ‘Is xe going to be all right?’

‘If we’re talking six hours, probably, yes, but I need to look at a few things before I can say for sure.’ She looked around at the furniture. ‘Is this … a chair?’

‘That’s a chair,’ Pei said.

‘If you say so.’ The doctor unsnapped her exosuit, stepped out of it, tossed it into a corner, and sat down, looking mildly perturbed as the chair shaped itself around her. ‘Well, that’s weird,’ she said in a flat voice as she pulled the bot scanner her way. She stared at the colour screen swirling back at her. ‘Right. I’m gonna use mine.’ She opened her medical bag and began pulling out various tools. ‘Anything on xyr scans raise any flags in the last few hours?’

‘Not that we noticed,’ Speaker said. ‘But we don’t really know.’

‘Neither of our fields of expertise,’ Pei said.

‘Well, you did the right thing by keeping an eye.’ Dr Miriyam pressed her own scanner against Tupo’s wristpatch, entered a flurry of commands, and studied the results closely. Ouloo began to