Indentured (Book 2 of the Dana Halliday series)

FRANKEN-STURV. A GHOST STORY. TALK ABOUT A CRAPSHOOT.

The old truck ground its way admirably along the rest of the day. The mountains still appeared to be about fifty bajillion miles away, but now I could make out the snowcaps, glowing rosily in the combined sunset and Naiccora-rise.

We decided to stop in a modest depression in the desert, almost deep enough to hide the truck. The sky remained obstinately free of rescue ships, but Dross seemed determined to stay jolly.

There were bleached-out remains of tree-like vegetation ringing the depression, so there had been water here at one time. We didn't have much water of our own, but I didn't let myself worry about it. I had a surgery to do, and quickly, before the rest of the light faded.

"All right," I said to Phim as I pulled up a huge syringe of local anesthetic. "This is going to hurt-a lot-but then you won't feel anything for a few hours. You'll be brave?"

The Winged girl had been gazing in apprehension at Liti, who was carefully unwrapping one of my surgery packs. I'd boiled the instruments back in my zoo cottage, old-school style.

Phim looked at me and squared her muscular shoulders. "Of course. I am a Princess of the Golpok."

And she was brave, at least as much as any creature I'd ever tortured with a local. The rest of the escapees made an interested audience as I injected the edges of the tear in her wing, working my way from the outer edge up to where it started near her elbow. Phim didn't move, but she did curse a lot; at least, I assumed it was cursing based on Dross's snorts of laughter. Tem swatted Hul when she noticed him stifling a smile.

Liti and I scrubbed the edges of the skin, and I began the laborious task of debridement-trimming the scar tissue from the edges with scissors, until blood was flowing-and then placing what felt like nine thousand stitches, both under and on top of the skin. It was full dark, and Liti was holding the weakening flashlight for me, when I tied the last knot.

Phim stood and extended both her arms, her wings unfurling like a pair of flags. "Oh, thank you!" she cried, and I saw her eyes welling with tears. "It looks almost perfect!"

I smiled, adjusting a crick in my neck. "I hope so."

The wound had come together well, although there were areas where the edges had puckered and shrunk. The wing now had a quilted, Franken-Sturv look to it. I'd used all but my last few packs of suture, cursing a lot myself as I fought to tie the final knot. Thank Hippocrates for Jack Goodwin's lessons in not wasting suture.

My audience gave me an eclectic round of applause, claps and stomps and hoots. Even Rav joined in. I just hoped Phim wouldn't crash like Icarus when she tried to take off the first time, and cautioned her to wait until it was well healed.

Uis had dragged several of the woody carcasses down into the depression and had a fire going. I was glad of it by that time; once the sun started going down, the temperature followed. One by one, my fellow refugees settled down for the night.

"We need a ghost story," I said, gazing into the fire.

"A what?" Dross asked.

I grinned, poking at a log with a stick. "Tradition. You have a campfire, you tell spooky ghost stories. And toast marshmallows."

"Marsh...mallows?"

"Sugar on a stick. If you really want to taunt your pancreas, you can make s'mores." My stomach whimpered. I'm not a fan of s'mores, but a king-size bar of chocolate would have been heaven.

Uis asked the pirate to translate, which he did, in a couple of concise sentences that probably left out the marshmallows.

The I'une was quiet for a moment, then he said, "My people had a story-telling tradition as well."