Fic: The Summer Intern (Conclusion)
Jun. 8th, 2011 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalA second troop transport arrived to fly Nan to the admin village hospital, where she was moved into a private room in the small section set aside for non-ferin. She floated in a grav bed three feet above the floor, the occasional ghostly tug from the micro-tractors against skin keeping her centered in the field. There had tests and tests, but few answers beyond carefully neutral expressions on the doctors and nurses and conferences out of her earshot. She'd had to look at the clock realize it was nearly midnight, the long, extraordinary day nearly over. How could it have been both so fast and a thousand years long?
“Sir, she’s probably asleep by now, Allah be merciful,” she heard Nez’s voice whisper out in the hallway. “Can’t it wait until morning?”
“No,” came the First One’s reply, flat and not brooking argument. “Would you want to wait for that kind of news?”
“I’m not asleep,” Nan called out.
“Bismallah, why not? I’m exhausted,” Nez said entering the room along with the First One. Somewhere along the way she’d showered and changed clothes, though she was clumping along like she dearly wished she was in bed, her tail dragging on the ground.
“Hello there, Nan. How are you doing? They been feeding ya?” the First One greeted. He too looked tired as well, though not as bad as Nez. Maybe he was just more used to late nights, or more likely had been sneaking hard candies to keep his ferin metabolism charged up.
“I ate about four hours ago,” Nan said. She waved her splinted wrists. “There were three doe nurses arguing over who would get to feed me. I finally told them they could take turns with the entrée, dessert and my tea.” She looked them over. They both looked grim, but the entire day had been grim, their weariness masking any other expressions. “What’s the news?”
“Didn’t the doctors tell you anything?” the First One asked.
“They were speaking Medicalese the whole time,” she said, eyes rolling in frustration. “I only understood one word in five and none of it sounded like ‘Sure, she’ll walk again.’”
Nez glanced at the First One, who made an after you wave of his hand. She took a deep breath and said, “Your tail bone was already cracked before the crash. Afterward it broke completely and sliced about halfway through your spinal cord. You’ve pretty much lost all but about ten percent function in your legs, ditto your tail. There’s also the usual complications with your renal system with the loss of lower body functions.”
Nan felt her stomach sink. “What about…?”
“That too,” Nez said carefully, her face masked behind whatever wall physicians used when they delivered bad news. “The good news is, Dr. Pouncer thinks there’s a chance with neural bypass surgery and therapy, we can restore about ninety to ninety-five percent function in all areas in about a standard year and a half.”
Nan let out her breath. “You could have told me that part first, Nez.”
“No, because it’s just a chance. A good one, but it all depends on how well your body responds to therapy. The odds are in your favor though.”
“I’ll take it,” Nan said. “At least I’ll have something to tell my mum and da when I get a chance to call them. Oh, Holy Den Mother bless me, this is going to send them into a whirl.”
“They already know,” the First One said. “I called them personally to inform them of the situation once I’d managed to untangle myself from… everything.” He made a vague gesture in the direction of the main administration building, which Nan supposed was having an all-nighter trying to coordinate the fallout of the slavers’ capture and the rescue of the two ferin troupes. “They’re on their way here now to see you and should arrive in about five day’s time.”
“They’re coming here?” Nan asked, astonished. “They can’t afford to tickets to travel outsystem on short notice! Not unless they begged a loan from our local lord.”
“They’re not paying for anything,” the First One said. “I leaned on one my Navy contacts and got them a berth on a military fast courier.”
“Oh,” Nan felt her face flush, suddenly feeling like she wanted to cry. “I… Thank you, sir.”
“I owe you, Nan,” he said quietly. “Every ferin in both of those troupes, every free ferin period. We all owe you.”
“Thank you,” she said again, sniffing. Nez pulled out some tissues from a box beside the grav bed to help her wipe her eyes and blow her nose. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think to ask. What else has been happening? Is Skyler going to be all right? What about the other ferin? What’s happened to the slavers and that maniac Greycoat?”
“Skyler is going to be fine,” Nez said first. “Turns out he got a hairline skull fracture and a concussion, but the conduits leading from his bion organ to his spurs weren’t damaged. He’ll be released from the hospital in a couple of days. Right now he’s just cursing because he’s got to have his spurs immobilized while his scalp heals.”
“Oh, good,” Nan said, feeling relieved.
“I’ve promised him that if he’s a good boy, he’ll get a new pair of mirrorshades,” the First One said, smiling sardonically. The mention of the mirrorshades reminded Nan of Greycoat’s cold silver contacts, and she shivered.
“What about the ferin that were rescued?” she asked, trying to distract herself.
The First One’s amusement faded. “Scattered deep into the forest, all of them. They’re probably going to avoid contact with the rangers from now on, even if we just send ferin officers. It was all I could do t’ hold them back long enough get official statements from them about what happened. Now they’re gone. They’re not going to want t’ have anything to do with ‘civilization’ for a long, long time.”
“I’m sorry,” Nan said.
“Not yer fault,” he said. "I'm going to have work like hell to make sure that bastard's poison doesn’t spread to the other troupes tough. I want them to be cautious, not paranoid."
"Speaking of Greycoat, what's going to happen to him and the slavers?" she asked.
"The slavers will be dosed up with interrogation drugs until we squeeze out what corps they were going to bring the ferin back to."
"Are you going to try to use them on Greycoat?" Nez asked, sounding concerned. While there were interrogation drugs compatible with vulpine physiology, Nan knew, they usually ran the risk of inducing a heart attack or stroke as the person being interrogated had their blood pressure shoot up to dangerously high levels.
“Lord Greycoat is currently in custody at Ranger HQ, awaiting trial,” the First One said. “He’s clammed up and is demanding a solicitor, since he wasn’t really happy to realize that Autonomous Region is effectively my fiefdom, and that justice is entirely up to me. Oh, and I want to thank ya, Nan, for giving your deposition while the doctors were poking at ya. Between you, the ferin he’d captured and the other slavers, I’ve got enough evidence t’ do whatever I want with him.”
“What about Count Brokentoe?” she asked. “Greycoat is leigesworn to him. You can’t just do whatever you want to a commoner without his lord’s permission. Can you?”
The First One nodded at the truth in this. “Count Brokentoe has exercised his discretion and allowed the matter t’ be determined entirely by me. Along with lots of apologies and reassurances that none of his other commoners are as nuts as this one.”
“I thought he wasn’t a commoner?” Nez asked, then yawned widely and sat down on the large lounge chair put there for relatives of patients, rubbing her eyes. “Isn’t a lord or something?”
“Well, he is now. He renounced his status as a Farmer Noble,” Nan said.
The First One rubbed the side of nose with his thumb thoughtfully. “That’s an interestin’ twist on this whole mess. Seems that someone passed along to Count and Countess Greycoat that their darlin’ cubling was arrested for murdering a child, among other things. I just got off the horn with them a few minutes before checkin’ up on you. They contacted me to let me know that they’re a bit frantic t’ see that their prodigal son doesn’t get bion blasted by an angry old ferin ready t' mete out justice.”
"So what are you going to do?" she asked. In the lounge chair, Nez began to snore softly. The First One grabbed the side handle with his tail and pulled it forward, propping the sleeping wazagan's feet up and lowering the back.
He shrugged, "They're on the Naval Appropriations Committee. I'm gonna see if I can get 'em to play ball with me and re-activate a battlecruiser from the boneyards and have it crewed exclusively by ferin. It's an idea I've been trying to push for over fifty years, but I think this incident is going to be the best bit of leverage I could have asked for to establish greater ferin autonomy. In return I might give a bit leniency on their son's sentence, maybe putting him in a nice soft nuthouse the rest of his life, rather than a prison cell.
It took Nan several seconds to process this, her mind fuzzy from fatigue and pain meds. Finally she burst out, "You're going to use Greycoat's crimes for political gain>?"
He frowned at her, his face darkening. "You're damned right I am. I have to. This incident with Greycoat makes it more urgent than ever."
"I don't understand," she said.
The First One began to pace, tail whipping about in agitation. "Nan, you vulpine are good people. Decent people. Frell, you're so damned decent ya make my teeth hurt sometimes. I owe y'all a debt, starting with Melika, who raised my up and showed me what life in a sane family might be like before I got hauled off by Mavra Chan to be trained as her pet assassin. Then there was Rufus, who shoved himself back into politics, as much as he was allergic to it, to make sure that the ferin were granted a place of safety in Vulpine space. Then all the others that came after, including Freya and you, who see ferin as people, not as animals or slaves. I'm grateful for that. Every ferin born in the Region or on Vulpine Prime, everyone from the outer systems that have been rescued to find shelter here, is. But if the ferin are to be free, we can't stay here."
"'Can't stay'? Sir, Greycoat was insane, you know that. The ferin are safe with us. No vulpine true to the Holy Den Mother's teachings would ever enslave one!"
"No," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean we're treated as equals. For all the grand talk about vulpine and ferin forming a symbiotic society, the plain fact of the matter is that the ferin were designed to be slaves. Slaves and power sources to serve a bunch of decadent green-skinned, horned immortals who'd grown too lazy to work anything themselves. We were meant serve. We have to serve. We want to serve. Frell Nan, you're trying to restructure vulpine language to get around that, so no ferin snaps around and does something just because a vulpine he knows and respects tells him to. Every vulpine knows it, even if you don't say it out loud."
"So what are you going to do?" Nan asked. She wanted to the First One that what he was saying wasn't true, that the vulpine respected and honored the ferin as equals. Then she thought of Skyler, denied his dream of commanding a squadron of his own, and kept her silence.
He paused in his pacing, lifting his arm to point at the ceiling and the stars far above them. "We have to find a world, far off the star lanes, far from anywhere. A green world no one has ever seen nor ever heard of, preferably metals poor and with an atmosphere just crappy enough that you wouldn't want travel out that far to live. Someplace no one would care about, unless they have a need to get far from everyone else. A world for ferin, and only ferin, where if anyone else wants to set foot on it they have to ask our permission. We had a start of something like that here in the Autonomous Region, but we're still on a vulpine world under Farmer Lord law, however lightly it applies here. We need to get away from everyone, anyone, who can give us an order. That's the only way we can ever be free."
"Do you think you'll be able to do that?" she asked.
The First One sighed and rubbed a hand through his silky, graying hair. "I don't know. It's not gonna to happen in my lifetime. If I can't find a worthy successor, another buck with my will, and hopefully a lot more smarts, it might never happen. But if I can get a ship of our own t' command, to prove t' the Farmer Lords and the rest of the galaxy that the ferin are going to be treated as equals, whatever they really think of us, it'll be a start."
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
He grunted. "I was just going to say, with Freya's death, I've got a bit more immediate problem. She was a ranger but she was also... I ain't sure what you'd call it. Not a secretary, or a personal assistant exactly, but she helped me keep on track with the important stuff and watched over what I thought needed looking after. I need somebody like that, to help keep me going."
Nan gulped. "That's a big job."
The First One shrugged. "Not as big as you might think. And ya can't tell me it's any scarier than tryin' to deliberately crash a ship when a nutcase has a gun to yer head."
"Well, there is that," she admitted.
"And I'm not expecting ya to start up right now. Give yerself a couple of months to heal a bit."
"Thanks," Nan said dryly. She cleared her throat. "Are you really serious though? I haven't even finished getting my advanced degree."
"I expect ya can get any degree ya want so long as you're working for me," he noted.
"Okay then." She cleared her throat. "Well, if I'm going to work for you, especially when I'm probably going to be spending over a year at least wearing an exo-frame clamped to my hips to walk around in, I want a couple of things in advance first."
The First One nodded. "Name 'em."
"For one thing, I want you to install a damned grav tube to get into your tree house. If I end up falling and breaking my back twice, just because you insist on everyone without a spade tail using that damned rope ladder, I'll be peeved."
"Fair enough," he said, chuckling. "It'll be there by the time yer out of the hospital. What else?"
"I want a pony," she said suddenly.
"A what?" he asked, non-plussed.
"A pony, it's a Terran quadruped used for riding."
"I know what it is, I just don't why you'd want one," he said, a bit peevishly. "What's wrong with a grass chaser? They're native to Vulpine."
"Ponies are herbivores, so I can ride one without worrying about getting bucked off and eaten if it's feeling peckish," she pointed out. "Besides, I always wanted one when I was a cubling and my parents could never afford it."
"Fine, you'll get a pony too." He looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled and said, "No, you'll get yerself one. It'll be your first job when you get out of the hospital. Mind you, I don't thing there's a single one of the whole of Newspring. So trying to get one shipped her and past the agriculture review board will be a neat trick. If you can make it happen, you can consider yerself hired on a permanent basis."
"Thank you, sir," she said, grinning despite herself. "Oh, and one more thing, First One. Could you call me Nan, please? I'm getting tired of 'College Vix.'"
"Fair enough, Nan," he said. His expression turned serious again. "You can call me Terinu."
Nan's ears flicked back in surprise. "I can?"
"All my friends do."
The End
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 02:54 am (UTC)Thanks, Royce!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 09:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 07:35 am (UTC)Great one...
A pity it is over *hopes for a sequel* :)
It would be interesting for them to really find a planet like that (maybe the Ferin's homeworld?)...
The poor Ferin that were captured - I hope with time they can trust the Vulpines again...
It would be interesting to know how Teri's plans work out - with the ship etc.
mjkj
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Date: 2011-06-09 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 03:16 pm (UTC)...as is the quest for a ferin-only planet...
I sure hope they will finally find one :D
mjkj
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Date: 2011-06-09 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 10:22 pm (UTC)Go find something to write that you can sell... :)
...but that starship Freedom sounds nice, too...
*shuts up for real now*
mjkj
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Date: 2011-06-09 07:24 pm (UTC)I had better things to say but that's all that came out. I mean, my eyes even teared up a little at Terinu's "find some unknown planet" plan. But Nan wants a pony.
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Date: 2011-06-09 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 10:25 pm (UTC)