Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Eight, Part One

 Notes: All's well that ends well! Or at least, all's not hopeless and everyone is still alive, so...yay?

Title: Cloverleaf Station, Chapter Eight, Part One

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Chapter Eight, Part One

 

In the quiet of the infirmary, Kieron glanced at Elanus’s vitals for what felt like the hundredth time since he’d gotten the man in here. Stable. Normal. His brain function was fine, his blood chemistry was fine…looking at him now, you’d never guess that less than an hour ago, he’d been on the verge of a fatal hematoma to the brain after suffering two broken ribs. Apparently one of them had come perilously close to puncturing one of his kidneys.

Great. Just great. Kieron had nearly killed his boss. Fan-fucking-tastic.

The urge to sink into a familiar well of despair called to him, but he fought it off and used his implant to query the larger computer database. He directed the results to be sent to his tab—reading for too long inside his own head made him dizzy—and began to read up on humanity’s issues with Regen and how they could manifest.

The most common issue with Regen was total rejection, either in the form of simple allergies or a perilously complex inability to use the technology at all. The allergies could be cured with time and a lot of genetic exposure therapies, but people who couldn’t use Regen at all—dubbed Naturals—were shit out of luck. They didn’t get the benefits of Regen, the slowed aging and increased health and massive boost to healing. They simply lived like humans had lived for hundreds of thousands of years before Regen existed, and they died that way too.

Elanus wasn’t a Natural, that was clear. In the modified Regen tank, his body was taking the therapy very well, if in a highly targeted way. The healing fluid was only allowed in contact with the parts of his body that had been damaged—everything else was left alone.

Okay, that was a clue. Kieron did a little more winnowing. Not an allergy…probably not the result of a strange drug interaction…probably not the result of the guy getting on the bad side of an organ harvester…gah. There were just too many results to go through. The universe was a big place, and the reasons for Regen to fail were growing all the time thanks to new generations of genetic modification and—ah.

AI, show Gania-specific, population-wide, Regen-related diseases.

Aha, there it was, right there at the top. An autoimmune disorder expressed by five percent of the male population of Gania, point-two percent of the female population.

Elfshot Disease. That’s a fanciful name. Ganians, Kieron was slowly learning, were a strangely fanciful people. At least Elanus was.

Back to the description. Random internal attacks…weakening of cell structures…periods of intense decline and equally intense improvement…inability to undergo full Regen submersion… Oh god, the pictures of the Ganians who had been fully submerged in Regen were hideous, their bodies growing out of control as their capricious immune systems took “healing” as “assault.” When the therapy was targeted and carefully controlled, though, the Regen worked exactly as it was meant to. Apparently there was a damage threshold in there somewhere, although the text said it was different for every one of the afflicted.

Kieron was grateful he hadn’t gone over it. Bad enough he was going to be tossed out into space after assaulting his boss so badly the man had to get fucking Regen for it, he’d really be dead if—

No. He needed to calm down. There were extenuating circumstances, and those were firmly on Kieron’s side. Elanus had been out of control, so focused on finding Catalina that he hadn’t cared about the damage the Lizzie was taking. Much deeper into that asteroid field and the ship would have been too damaged to make it back to Cloverleaf, and then they’d have had the distinct displeasure of dying of radiation together once the Lizzie’s shields failed, if they weren’t pulverized by asteroids first.

Kieron could argue that to a court. He had visuals, he had data, he had the ship itself as evidence. He can’t get rid of you yet. It should have felt reassuring, but sitting there watching the purplish-blue bruise he’d put on Elanus’s temple slowly vanish under the effect of the Regen, all Kieron felt was guilty.

He hated that he felt emotionally invested enough to feel guilty, but there was something about Elanus that seemed to sweep Kieron along with him. He was so…lively, and to a person who’d been expecting to spend nearly half a standard year by himself out here on the station, that liveliness was both obnoxious and thrilling.

“You stare as loudly as you speak,” Elanus said.

Kieron startled right out of his chair. He’d been so wrapped up in his own head that he’d missed the signs that treatment was ending. His pulse raced, and half a dozen questions fought their way toward his lips. What the hell was going on out there? Why didn’t you tell me you have Elfshot Disease? Do you realize you could have gotten us both killed?

In the end, “How do you feel?” was the one that came out first. Kieron was a little disappointed with himself for that.

“Practically perfect in every way,” Elanus quipped, staring down at his body, so carefully arranged in the modified Regen tank. “It looks like you did an adequate job of getting me back to fighting fit.”

“Your ribs won’t be a hundred percent for another day,” Kieron said without inflection.

“Ah, well, ribs. Always a little tetchy, those.” Elanus turned his head to look at Kieron and smiled. “Calm down, would you? None of the terrible things you’re thinking about are going to happen.”

What?

Fortunately, Kieron didn’t have to ask that question out loud. Elanus seemed to read it right off his face.

“Look, this was my fault. I get that. I went too far out there, and because I hadn’t told you about my condition, your reaction ended up causing a bit more of a mess than it needed to.”

“A bit more of a mess?” Kieron echoed. “I almost killed you. You were bleeding into your brain, you—you had two seizures on the way back to the station, you could have had a stroke, this could have been fatal.”

“I’ve almost been killed over fifty times since I was first diagnosed,” Elanus said blithely, detaching the headpiece and sitting up in the tank. “Once more doesn’t really qualify as an emergency at this point.” Liquid sloshed around him, and he blinked down at his body. “You kept my shorts on.”

“I wasn’t about to strip you naked,” Kieron retorted.

“Aw, too bad. Anyway, the point is, I should have been more forthcoming about myself, and I wasn’t, and for that I’m sorry. But look!” He grinned at Kieron. “Here we both are, no worse for wear, with several mysteries solved and a firm goal ahead of us. I’d say the day has been a complete win.” He held up a hand. “And before you think about hitting me or grabbing me or anything else again, I ask that you remember I’m a fragile flower in need of gentle treatment.” His eyes sparkled. “Two near-death experiences in one day is a new record for me, after all.”

You…I…this…

Kieron startled himself by laughing. He hadn’t intended to. A diatribe about personal responsibility had been right there, on the tip of his tongue, and instead he was laughing so hard he was almost gasping, laughing like he hadn’t laughed for years. It was the relief. The stress. It had to be—Elanus wasn’t that funny. But whatever it was, Kieron welcomed it. He didn’t even flinch away from Elanus’s feather-light touch to his shoulder.

“There you are,” he said with satisfaction. “Now, move so I can go clean up and get into some fresh clothes. Then we’ll talk. And eat, I’m starving.”

Kieron wiped his eyes, fighting down the urge to hiccup. “I’ll get out a pizza,” he said.

Elanus’s mouth dropped open. “You told me there were no pizzas!”

“I lied.”