It was Riyu’s voice that reached him next. “We can’t just let him die. He saved us.” Her voice was small, muffled, as if she’d been crying continuously and gone hoarse from it.
“Well, what if he wakes up?” Jesi asked. “If we give him the med-kit, can he do it himself? Would that be OK?” By the sound of it, they were all gathered in the corridor just outside the cargo bay, huddled together and whispering about the best course of action, frightened, anxious, and far too loud. Iris desperately wanted to know exactly how he got back to the cargo bay, but hearing Ishtan’s and Riyu’s voices was enough to settle him. He had done something right. Jesi and Tev were there too, and safe. He relaxed into the moss with a sigh.
“Fuck it.” There was Yan. “I’ll do it. He already hates me. What else is he going to do anyway? Just give me the med-kit.” A wave of muffled protest erupted in the corridor.
“I really would advice against this,” Ishtan’s voice rang out above the others. “Yan, he won’t be—”
Iris sprang upright, but a blistering stab of pain in his shoulder sent him right back down with a wheeze. He stared at the ceiling in utter horror for what was to come. Even with the thick moss cover, Yan’s heavy footsteps reverberated through the corridor and into the cargo bay. The door slammed, and the engineer drew closer. Silently, Iris cried out for VIFAI, but it wasdormant, completely spent from their joint fight. The footsteps stopped beside him.
Yan knelt by Iris’s side wearing what could only be described as an apologetic expression. “You’re awake. OK. That complicates things. Look, you don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this,” he said, eyes looking just to the left of Iris, just far enough that he wouldn’t be accused of staring. “But if I don’t bandage you up, you’ll probably get an infection and die.”
Still staring directly at the ceiling, Iris said, “I do appreciate your concern, engineer Yan, but I assure you, I can take care of this on my own.”
“No, you can’t. You haven’t seen your left side. It’s a bloody mess.Literally.”
Iris closed his eyes and with a hiss, propped himself up on his right elbow. “Engineer Yan, I understand you are not a practicing man, but you must understand that for someone like me, vows are sacred. You must understandprofessional integrity.”
“I understand more than you give me credit for, Vessel. Heard enough of your kind’s vows at temple to last a lifetime.” Yan opened the med-kit and began setting out gauze and scissors on the moss. He didn’t give Iris the space to interject. “I also know you saved Riyu’s and Ishtan’s lives—all of our lives in a way. There might come a time soon enough that you will need to do it again. You have a responsibility to the Starlit, I understand, but now you also have a responsibility to these people.” Yan was using the same tone with Iris as he had in the maintenance room. He was being calm, collected, and a hue patronising.
If not for the tone, Iris might have agreed to be helped. “My responsibility is to the dead,” he blurted out with latent rage.
“There it is.” With a solemn nod, Yan cut a piece of gauze and soaked it in iodine. Without a warning, he pressed thegauze to Iris’s temple where the skin was split. Iris recoiled with a hiss.
“So much for that monklike discipline,” Yan laughed and pressed the gauze to Iris’s temple again, this time, locking Iris’s head in place with his other hand. “Stop flinching, it will only take longer.”
The last hand to touch the nape of Iris’s neck in such a way had been Mother Nova’s, but even that had been years ago. After another failed attempt to rid himself of his physical condition, she had brought Iris’s lips to a bowl of water as she muttered soft mantras under her breath. Her skin had been hot against his, soft and comforting, nothing like the calloused fingers now forcing their way on him. A white-hot anger ignited in the pit of Iris’s empty stomach. “I will tell you just once, engineer Yan,” Iris pushed past his clenched teeth. “Do not touch me.”
“Fine,” Yan said in the same patronising, level tone and sat back on his heels. “Show me that you can bandage your own shoulder, and I will leave you to your demise.”
Gaze unwavering, Iris forced himself upright, crossed his legs, and reached over his chest towards his left shoulder. He made it as far as his clavicle before his skin stretched too much, and he doubled over with a small cry.
“Amazing.” Yan reached into the med-kit and produced a small can of bio-sealant. Applied to a wound, the sealant expanded and bound to the organic tissue to promote healing. A medium-sized wound could be healed in a matter of days. Every med-kit stocked at least two cans. “If you stop flinching, and I stop having to explain myself, we can have this done in a few minutes. Then I’ll leave you alone to brood for all eternity and will never speak to you again.Deal?”
Iris gave a begrudging nod.
Yan would have to be the one to undo his robes. This would be fine. It was all fine as long as Iris didn’t think about it at all. He found a particularly white skull in the pile of bones and focused on it. All of this could be managed with some controlled breathing and emptying his mind. Iris wasgoodat meditating, at managing panic. He could do this. When Yan’s hands reached for the first knot, Iris stopped breathing completely. To his relief, the engineer worked fast, and soon, the outer layer of the robes lay discarded. Iris took a long, shuddering breath.
“Stop talking,” Yan ordered.
“I am as silent as the space between planetary systems, engineer Yan.”
“You are reciting the Dying Twin-Star Sutra like a broken record.” Yan undid the top button of Iris’s collar. No longer caring, Iris resumed reciting the sutra through clenched teeth. He unwound the mala from his wrist and mechanically passed the beads through his fingers. The rising smell of sandalwood did little to settle his nerves. Then, without any warning, his skin was brushed by the humid air of the cargo bay. Iris stared right ahead and braced himself, falling as silent as the aforementioned space between planetary systems. The very exchange of oxygen between his cells ceased in that moment.
But Yan continued to work silently, just as he’d promised, saying nothing about the pale splotches of scar tissue spanning the entirety of Iris’s back. He said nothing of their ugly shape, nor their prominence, nor how they curved around Iris’s shoulders, how they climbed just above his cervical spine, and how they trailed below the band of his trousers. The only indication that the engineer had noticed anything at all was the slight trembling of his hands as he carefully peeled the undershirt away to reveal the jagged-edged wound just below the shoulder blade, still oozing blood.
Without a word, Yan filled the wound with the bio-sealant, pausing only to let the mixture settle. Then he placed a large, square patch to cover the sealant and gently ran his fingertips along the edges to activate the adhesive. When he was finished, Yan draped the undershirt over Iris’s shoulders. He didn’t have to. It wasn’t standard procedure to dress a patient after one was finished tending to a wound. “Done. You’ll have to check it for infection periodically, but I won’t torment you anymore. You can do the checks yourself.”
Iris nodded. He passed the mala beads between his fingers, back and forth, back and forth. The skin Yan had touched pulsed to the rhythm of the mala beads. No words came to him.
Yan packed up the med-kit but left it on the ground. “In case you need anything.”
Iris nodded again.
Without another word, Yan disappeared into the corridor, shutting the door, and Iris allowed himself to fall apart for the first time in twenty years.
9
I want to go home.
