“Ah. I see.”
Both Carl and Alec’s lips twitched, trying to hold back their amusement so as to not offend the chief medic.
“If you’ll just follow me,” he said, spinning on his heel. “Just Alec, please,” he called over his shoulder, “You two can wait for him here. I expect this to take a couple of hours.”
“We’ll be here,” Carl said after them, then turned to look at me. “How about we check on my furniture delivery and come back?”
“We can check on it from here,” I pointed out.
“I meant check in to see how the unpacking is going and put stuff where we want it. We can ask Xero to let us know when the doc is almost finished so we have time to come back before he gets out.”
“Alright.” That did sound much more efficient than sitting around in the waiting area, where the ill and injured would come in.
“Cool.”
We returned to our quarters and saw they’d already brought the grav pallets there and were unpacking boxes and reassembling furniture. After asking Xeranos to let us know when to leave so we could arrive on time, we began directing where the furnishings were to go and helped unpack the boxes.
“Just remember if we use any of the pots, pans, or dishes, to not recycle them,” Carl said, putting away a stack of bowls that he’d once told me were called Butterfly Gold or some such. “I’d hate to try to have to replace any of Meemaw’s Corelle or Pyrex from halfway across the galaxy someday, never mind now. Handwash only!”
“I’ll remember, and I’m sure Alec will too. Not that we cook much ourselves,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, replicated food is so much easier, but we should make the effort to try to cook at least once a week, maybe twice. It’s something we can do together, and the food will be made with love.”
I smiled at him, loving sappy Carl as much as I did mischievous Carl. I scratched an itchy spot on my forearm before grabbing a box marked flatware.
“It really sounded as if the doc was certain he could program those micro-nanites to cure Alec,” Carl said, hanging the matching Butterfly Gold rimmed mugs on cup hooks placed under the cabinets. “And aren’t all nanites like super small?”
“Yes, but micro-nanites are even smaller. They mimic genetic materials rather than entire cells. It’s a rapidly advancing field of medicine. It’s quite exciting that we have a chief medic who is knowledgeable in it.”
“Wow, so new even for Mylos, huh?”
“Only about twenty of your years, yes.”
“Wow.”
“Pardon me for interrupting, but the Chief Medic is completing final checks on the nanites he’s given Alec,” Xeranos said.
“Still makes me jump a little when he just speaks up like that,” Carl murmured. Then louder, “Thanks, Xero.”
He hung the last mug, and I shut the drawer holding the flatware.
“Time to go get our man,” Carl said. “It’ll be great news, for sure.”
The way his hand brushed mine, I knew he sought reassurance that this was true. I slid his fingers through mine, ignoring the return of that itch on my forearm.
“Of course it will be,” I replied as we exited our quarters. “We’ll be back shortly,” I told the warrior unloading yet another piece of disassembled bookcase from a grav pallet in the corridor.”
He nodded. “We know where you want these, and should have just finished putting them all together and placed into position by then.”
“Guess we’ll unpack the books and the rest of the games next,” Carl mused.
“Sounds like a plan.”
26
ALEC
“How are you feeling?”
