Sometime later, I woke up lying on a decently equipped medbed of some sort. Anoush was lying beside me on her own bed, looking peaceful as she too woke up.
“You made it,” she said.
“You did, too,” I said. I made a feeble effort to look around, “Only us?”
She answered, “As far as I can tell. … Gosh, this medbed is sure keeping me placid.”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Trapped by the HX. Our alien partners dead. Our friends ripped to shreds before our eyes. Here I am, feeling quite mellow.”
I looked at her and smiled. “You got anything planned for later?”
She giggled back.
The lights went out again.
The next time I woke up the euphorics were way down. Physically, I wasn’t feeling too bad; mentally, I was again being hit with what’d happened. I discovered I could move my legs around on the bed, but there were braces on my lower legs and feet. I sat up and tried slipping my legs over the side of the bed. When I did, two things happened: Some kind of alarm sounded and I went lightheaded. Whoa! I pulled back onto the bed and lay back down to recover from the lightheadedness, which turned off the alarm.
Then someone came in—someone I recognized from the HX video, Milly LaFarge. She looked at me with curiosity, but she didn’t touch. She was apparently not here to nurse. “I see you are feeling better, Mr. … ?”
“Fesch,” I said slowly. I shook my head. The lightheadedness wasn’t going away. Something had changed! I must have started to look scared.
“Don’t worry. Your gravity field was lowered,” said Milly. “The bed thinks you might try to stand. It wouldn’t be bad idea, but be careful when you do. Your ankles are broken and the braces can do only so much.”
I looked around for Anoush. She was on the only other bed, still sleeping.
“Is she OK?”
“She’ll be fine, too. But it will take longer. She suffered a lot more damage.”
A Secbot came in, a quite different style than those that attacked us, with its edges all rounded, and its colors muted. It was kind of pleasing to look at.
Still, I stiffened when it came in. It trundled up to Milly and stopped beside her. She put her hand on it. The bot said, “Do not be afraid, Mr. Fesch. We will not harm you further and we apologize for harm done already. The security bots of this … HX ship, or being, would be the proper terms in your language; they have had little experience with humans.”
The bot’s pacing and enunciation were very good, and its accent matched Milly’s.
“You aren’t the bot that was handing out gifts,” I said.
“Ah, you got some of those? Good. This next phase will probably go fairly easily for you then. Those gifts were handed out by the security bots of this ship to humans that they scanned be compatible with their systems and requirements. Their techniques are not well refined, yet, but it’s a good sign.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Milly’s security bot. We are from another ship. We work together closely. You’ll be getting a security bot, too, Mr. Fesch, if you continue to be compatible.”
“What if I don’t want one?”
“Well … that would be you weren’t compatible, I suppose. An interesting question. You see, this is the first time we’ve attempted to domesticate a wild human who didn’t volunteer. We are learning as much from this experience as you are.”
“Don’t think you’re going to learn much!” I said. I was getting cranky. I didn’t want to be domesticated any more than I had been already by various family members and lovers. I did want to stand, but the floor looked a long way down, and I worried about the braces on my feet, which were still tender when I swung them a bit. I slipped over to the foot of the bed, where I could brace myself. Milly and the bot just stood there watching. Anoush lay smiling but obviously unconscious on the next bed.
As I slid down to the floor, it was like I was in an elevator going down, but more so. By the time I touched the floor I was a featherweight. There was only a modest pain in my ankles as they took up the load.
“Whoa! That doesn’t feel bad … but it sure feels strange,” I said.
“You don’t have gravity adjusters where you come from?” said Milly.
“What?” said the bot.
“No,” said I at the same time. I didn’t mention that I’d never met anything like this in an HX before, either. It was interesting that the bot hadn’t thought twice about gravity.
“You may find considerably beneficial living here,” Milly said.
“Uhmm,” I said, and tried taking some small steps. I wanted to walk and think. I patted Anoush’s hand as I passed her.