Massoud (Massoud Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  The doctor held himself motionless, deliberating intently for several long minutes. The others were hushed, preserving his concentration. “Perhaps not first principles exactly,” he said hesitantly, “but maybe ancient medicine holds the clue. Massoud has a major infection. I can’t heal the infection. Therefore, her own body must overcome it. I can assist that process by reducing the volume of pathogen in her body. It was what physicians did historically. They didn’t heal; they supported the body’s own healing process.”

  Suddenly the doctor was moving—issuing instructions, demanding supplies, and eliciting hope. Walsh and Evans began to boil water over the campfire, lots of it. Chrostowski sought out the first aid supplies that the doctor had requisitioned from each pod when they had first landed. She pulled out the remaining antibiotic treatment, first aid treatment and sterile dressings. Detzler found the sewing kits, tucked into a nook in each escape pod. They were useless things since no spacefarer had ever seen a needle used and were considered to be enigmas. However, following the doctor’s instructions, she inexpertly threaded six needles with short stretches of filament and then completed three more, just in case he needed them. Takei disassembled an old-fashioned multi-tool which had been a novelty gift from his wife, removed a blade and sharpened it by working it against a rock. The doctor walked back and forth, driven by nervous energy. He ran his hands through his nubby hair while refining his instructions and planning his approach, detail by untried detail.

  The blade and the threaded needles were placed in boiling water. An unused rescue sheet was found, still clean, and it was placed over a humped rock which was considered reasonably well lit by the cloud-filtered sun. Johnson fetched a lantern light in case it would be useful. Massoud was carried out of a shelter by Speck, and gently draped, face down, curving over the rock. Following the doctor’s instructions, Chrostowski removed Massoud’s upper clothing, leaving her back bare. The crew was appalled by the ugliness of the swollen red wound on her back, yellow near the lacerated flesh and angry red further out. Chrostowski used some of the water that had been boiled, and then allowed to cool, to wash Massoud’s entire back. The doctor meticulously washed his hands in another of the containers of cooled water.

  “That’s good Chrostowski. It’s an old-fashioned idea, but we have to remove any contaminants manually, to prevent the entry of further pathogens into the body. We must stop them at the skin. We have no means of stopping them elsewhere. From this point onwards, we must be obsessed with external hygiene.”

  The pot, or rather hat, which contained the blade and threaded needles, had been allowed to cool. The doctor reached in, removed the blade, and swiftly cut a deep line along the length of Massoud’s original wound, releasing a viscous yellow liquid. One or two of the crew left at this sight. One or two more left, when the doctor started manipulating the sides of the wound, forcing more of the revolting substance from the woman’s body. He did this until the excretions turned clear and then bright red as blood flowed from the incision. He irrigated the wound with more of the cooled water. He washed his hands again in warm water. Taking the remnants of the group’s antibiotic treatment, he squeezed it into the wound. He removed a threaded needle from the pot and forced the sharp point into one side of the wound, pulling it through the other side and tying it off firmly. More of the crew left, unable to watch. He repeated the process five more times. It was something he had never done before, and had only seen once, as a boy, when his grandfather had treated an injured hound while they were out in the wilds and far from help. The nineteenth century physicians he was emulating would have been dismayed at their protégé’s workmanship, but the deed was done. The infection was released, and the wound sealed. The doctor’s hands trembled upon completion. He had never done anything so barbaric in his life.

  “Chrostowski, wash your hands and apply the dressings,” he instructed as he wiped a hand over his ashen face, but Chrostowski was gone, green-faced some distance away. Detzler was the only assistant who had stayed, and she willingly plunged her hands into the water and completed the task.

  A new and clean shelter had been prepared for Massoud, using the rescue sheets that Garcia had never needed. She was carried there by Detzler and Speck, and a fresh sheet was placed over her to keep her warm. The doctor sat down by the opening, empty and shaken.

  “Will she recover, Doctor?” asked the captain, his face expressionless.

  “It’s hard to tell. It’s up to her immune system now. She’s otherwise healthy. That will help. We have to nurse her very carefully though, to improve her odds. I’ll spend as much time with her as possible. Every effort must be made to maintain hygiene, but it will be difficult here.” He cast his eyes despairingly around the earthy camp.

  “Whatever the result, Doctor, you have done well. Your thinking was innovative,” the captain responded. “Detzler, do you think you are capable of assisting with the commander’s care?”

  “Yes sir,” was her prompt reply.

  “Then that is your new duty. It takes priority over everything else. The doctor will instruct you. I am sure you will do well.” The captain retired to rest.

  For two days, Detzler spooned water into Massoud’s mouth to keep her hydrated. She washed her charge’s body frequently to help counteract its feverishness. She hardly slept, so terrified was she that some dreadful consequence would occur if she was not fully attentive.

  Massoud finally awoke and was lucid. Her nurse leaned in to hear her whisper, “I’m hungry.” The girl lit up with joy, rushing from the tent to share the news. The doctor returned with her. He, too, had been an apprehensive caregiver, and wanted to personally investigate the change in his patient’s condition. Together they lifted Massoud’s head and offered her a thin solution of rations, encouraged her to drink, and praised her for pulling through as though it was a result of a conscious effort on her part. Massoud was worn out by these simple ministrations, and craved rest. She was returned to her makeshift bed.

  The fever was gone. The news spread rapidly through the camp. Massoud’s illness had given the crew a unified focus, a crisis to work through together, tangible and more comprehensible than the incalculable dangers of their own predicament.

  Massoud woke again later that day, wanting to pee somewhere outside, and requesting aid from the attentive Detzler. Detzler said no, she must pee in a hat, the doctor needed to see everything that came out of her body. Massoud looked a question at her companion but did not ask it aloud. She would enquire later. She took a little more food and water and it gave her almost instant energy—enough to stay awake and have a brief conversation.

  “Have you been taking care of me, Detzler?”

  “Yes, for two days now. You were pretty bad. The doctor cut the infection out of you. Do you remember that?”

  “No. Was I conscious?”

  “Not really. You were really loopy—saying things that didn’t make sense. I can’t remember half of them. Doc said you were delirious, and you weren’t all there.”

  “I’m not sure I’m all here now,” Massoud responded weakly.

  “Actually, you have no idea how much better you are today. It’s nice to hear you make sense.”

  “What did I talk about—before?” Massoud asked, both warily and wearily.

  “Oh, something about being off the farm. Your brother was in trouble—big trouble apparently. You said your apartment’s walls need new color, and you talked about being a bad cook or maybe a bad crook. You asked for the captain a few times. I don’t think you realized he had gotten you back here. You must have thought you were still on the trail.”

  “You were with me all the time?”

  “Most of it. I did go eat, and wash, and stuff.”

  “Thank you, Detzler, so much, for taking care of me.” Massoud let herself drift back to sleep.

  Massoud woke again, unsure of how long she had slept. Detzler encouraged her to take more food and water. The girl seemed more confident and sure of herself than Massoud re
membered. Detzler was authoritative with her patient, despite the marked difference in their rank. Massoud could accept this; she had no energy to assert herself and was content to have the burdensome decisions of everyday life managed by another: Eat now. Drink now. Cover up now. Rest now.

  Massoud lay down but remained awake, questioning Detzler about the crew’s experiences on the planet. Detzler hesitated at first. She had received instructions not to upset or excite the patient. Massoud bluntly asked the question she desperately needed answered.

  “Who did we lose, Ditzy? Who died?”

  Detzler shifted in her cross-legged posture, unsure of how much to say.

  “I’ll go mad if you don’t tell me,” Massoud said. “It’s best to tell me straight away.”

  “Well, we never even saw Leo, Chen or McKenzie down here, on the planet. Garcia arrived in one of the pods, but it was almost an hour after we landed that we found him. He was in horrible shape. He hadn’t been secured in the impact seat at all. Park found him. Actually, I was in the same pod as Park. He was great. I was all panicky and stuff, and he reminded me of the whole escape pod protocol. I know I’d been trained in it, but you forget all that stuff in a panic. He told me just what to do, as if he’d been through it all before, which of course he hadn’t. I mean it’s not something that every service

  member goes through, is it?

  “Anyway, Park was the first to get to Garcia. He was in a pod by himself, somewhere over there. First thing I knew, Chrostowski was running and shouting for the doctor and asking if the doctor had made it. The doc had made it just fine, and he went to look at Garcia, but it was bad. He told us all to get our med kits...first aid kits…whatever you call them. We all went running for them like crazy. When I got back there, I couldn’t see what was going on because all the others were in front of me, but I think I was lucky. I saw his body after I helped dig his grave and it was really nasty. The doc said he had massive internal injuries and there was nothing he could do. We all understood, but I think the doc was all shaken up by it. I mean who dies when they’re young? Doctors are supposed to stop that, aren’t they? But the doc didn’t have a sick-bay and all that equipment, did he? Just stupid little med-shots. ’Course he couldn’t do much. Garcia was just too badly hurt. The doc was really broken up about it though; he really was.

  “So, then we kinda just drifted about the next day, after we buried Garcia of course. We got that done, at least. Walsh and Evans built a fire that night. I think that was good. We all sat around it and talked about what we should do. We saw a beacon from another pod had been recorded—that would have been your pod, I suppose—and there was a big argument about whether we should go after it or just stay put. At last, Chief Takei said what should happen. I hadn’t really figured out that he would be in charge with you and the captain gone. ’Suppose I really thought you two were dead. I thought maybe the pod was empty or had one of the other three in it.

  “Anyway, the chief said that it made no sense to split up and maybe lose more people, and that if the person in the pod was walking to us, we could miss them by a wide margin. That’s how he said it, and I understood what he meant, a wide margin. We could veer one way and the other person could veer the other way and we would miss each other. And then what? Things would be worse than ever. He said it was best for the group to stick together and not run the risk of losing more people. It made sense to me, but some people didn’t like it. You know how they are, and I think they didn’t like taking orders from the chief. You know how he likes to talk through his reasons, and then make a decision. Makes it sound like he’s not really convinced, even when he is. It’s just his way. But I saw his point. And you two got back here under your own steam. We would have missed you, if we went looking for you. So, I think he was right.

  “So, then we all talked about what to do next. But it felt like we were all coming up with our own ideas, and maybe missing something important. I mean some of the ideas were good. Walsh went off to find plants we could eat. He actually found some plants with these fat roots. They taste like nothing at all, but they are food. And Chief Takei started working on the pod sensors to extend the life of the power cells. But most of us didn’t really know what to do with ourselves. We were getting snippy, is how my Ma would say it. Snippy and it wasn’t good.

  “So, the next thing we know, Speck is running to the camp; says he’s seen a smoke signal. He was one of them that wanted to send out a search party, you see. So, he and Evans and Painter just ran off. Takei looked so happy when I told him. So almost everyone went after Speck then. I couldn’t believe it was the captain and you. I really thought you two were gone. We heard the captain giving orders from the bridge right until the end. We thought that’s where he was and that he was dead. They said you ran to the bridge too.

  “But you looked bad, really bad, when you got here. I saw the doc turn white. I think the business with Garcia had turned his stomach, and he had less stuff to use on you than on Garcia. So, when he cut you open to let out the infection—that was disgusting by the way—some of us thought he had gone a little nuts. But the captain just stood there, all quiet like he normally is, saying ‘Your plan is based on reason, doctor,’ and the rest of us just accepted it. It was nice to have someone just say what was right and then do that thing, you know.

  “Anyway, since then you’ve been delirious, just out of it, and I’ve been taking care of you—the doctor too, of course. I think he’s his old self again. I think he needed to do some good, as a doctor, I mean, to feel right again, after Garcia. So, I think he feels better. And the captain has given us all something to do. He sent some out with Walsh to search for edible plants and help bring them back to camp. He has others planning a better shelter. He says that this place, near the pods, could be ‘subject to flood’, and there are signs of ‘prior water flows’. So, he has people scouting out better places to build and collecting stuff to build with. He says we might not need it, the shelter or the edibles, if we get rescued soon, but he said that it is best to be prepared and that we would be more comfortable anyway, if we didn’t have to worry about stuff like that.

  “He sent Yuma to help Takei with the sensor work. Yuma doesn’t know what the chief is doing really, but she’s happy just to go and fetch things and stuff. Also, we have rules now about using the stream so that we don’t contaminate our drinking water. We get the water up high, and wash and stuff down low. We should have been doing that anyway, I suppose. But we just hadn’t gotten it organized. It’s good to have the captain back. He knows what he’s doing. He even has Speck building a bonfire so that rescuers can spot our heat signature easier. I thought that was stupid. There’d be no problem spotting us anyway, if they were really looking. But then Long said it wasn’t about building the bonfire, it was about keeping Speck busy. So, then it made sense to me.

  “So, I think that’s all the big stuff that happened. Hope the doctor isn’t annoyed with me for tiring you out. You okay?”

  “Yes, thanks for telling me all of that. I would have worried otherwise. I’m glad we found some food. I’m sad about Garcia and the others, but I knew someone had been lost. I needed to know who.”

  “Yeah, I never knew anyone who died before. It’s really hard.”

  “Yes, it is. I think I’ll rest now, if that’s okay.”

  On the fourth day after arriving at camp, Massoud wanted to be outside, and Detzler helped her sit on a bank and wrapped her up in a rescue cloth like a cocooned caterpillar. Massoud surveyed the scattered shelters and the clustered pods that had become their little village. The crew came by, one by one, with kindly words to share, obviously cheered to see their comrade on the road to recovery. The captain did not come by and, although she had no right to feel so, Massoud felt painfully rejected.

  The doctor continued to hover over his patient, examining her incision daily, even though it was healing satisfactorily. The doctor had never seen a wound undergo a natural healing process, and clearly found it fascinating.
He took 2-D images of it with a slate. He joked that she would have an ugly scar and that he was the cause of it but, clearly, he was proud of his outmoded medicine and its unexpected success.

  Day by day, Massoud found she could do more and more, although each simple activity took an inhuman effort to complete. Self-care was her primary objective. She appreciated, but did not want, Detzler’s help with her toilette. As time progressed, her ability to take care of her own bodily functions and bathing improved, although Detzler still fetched her food and washed her clothing.

  Massoud now joined the crew by the evening fire, at which Walsh’s edible roots were boiled or roasted. Walsh had also discovered a few herb-like plants that added flavor and nutrients to the bland root. For entertainment, Park had taken to singing half-remembered songs in an imperfect but pleasing voice. Chrostowski told fairy tales, enhanced with some very adult details. Long told amusing ghost stories, to howls of skittish laughter. Massoud remained quiet, worn out by the simple act of sitting during these evening gatherings. However, she would not have missed them. It was clear that her recovery encouraged the crew and gave them heart. Still the captain did not speak to her, and she missed him so.

  The new shelter, a quarter kilometer away, was taking shape, constructed from tree-like lumber obtained from plants discovered in a valley west of their location. Large leaves, from the same plant, were shingled into walls and placed on the ground as a kind of flooring. Rescue sheets were used to form the roof. The shelter was situated on a hillock somewhat higher than the original camp, and out of the water courses into which the streams and rivulets would overflow during the heaviest of rain.

  Daily, Massoud sat by the fire or outside the tent she shared with Detzler. She watched her comrades work, feeling very inadequate and rather useless—although there was no hint that the crew thought of her as a burden. Despite her accessibility, the captain did not speak with her.