Peter Watts - Firefall

Another terminus—this one innocent of shrapnel or wreckage, just a U-turn and a ledge around an open hatch festooned with a bit of signage:

Now they were through. Now he was free, floating in a hab like the one he’d just escaped. Bulkheads, panels, gengineered strips of photosynthetic foliage. Coffin-size outlines, subtly convex, on the bulkhead: pallets like the one he’d awakened on, folded into the wall while not in use. More of those ubiquitous cubes, stuck and stacked high enough to turn half the compartment into a burrow: a spectrum of colors, a riot of icons. Brüks recognized some of the symbols—power tools, fab-matter stockpiles, the stylized Aesculapian staff that meant medical . Others might as well have been scribbled by aliens.

“Catch.”

He turned, flinched, brought his hands up barely in time to grab the box sailing toward him. It might have held a large pizza, judging by size and shape; maybe three of them, stacked. Scasers, adhesives, bladders of synthetic blood nestled in molded depressions under its lid. Some kind of bare-bones first-aid kit.

“Fix it.”

Somehow Valerie had already stripped down to her coverall, geckoed her abandoned spacesuit to the wall like a crumpled wad of aluminum foil. Her left arm was extended, wrist up, sleeve rolled back. Her forearm bent just slightly, halfway down its length. Not even vampires had joints there.

“What—how did—”

“The ship breaks. Shit happens.” Her lips drew back. Her teeth looked almost translucent in the glassy light. “Fix it.”

“But—my ankle—”

Suddenly they were eye to eye. Brüks reflexively dropped his gaze: a lamb in a lion’s presence, no recourse beyond obeisance, no hope beyond prayer.

“Two injured elements,” Valerie whispered. “One mission-critical, one ballast. Which gets priority?”

“But I don’t—”

“You’re a biologist.”

“Yes but—”

“An expert. On life.”

“Y-yes…”

“So fix it .”

He tried to meet her eyes, and couldn’t, and cursed himself. “I’m not a medical—”

“Bones are bones.” From the corner of his eye he saw her head tilt, as if weighing alternatives. “You can’t do this, what good are you?”

“There must be some kind of sick bay on board,” he stammered. “A, an infirmary.”

The vampire’s eyes flickered to the hatch overhead, to the label it framed: MAINTENANCE & REPAIR. “A biologist,” she said, something like mirth in her voice, “and you think there’s a difference .”

This is insane, he thought. Is this is some kind of test?

If so, he was failing it.

He held his breath and his tongue, kept his eyes on the injury: closed fracture, thank Christ. No skin breaks, no visible contusions. At least the break hadn’t torn any major blood vessels.

Or had it? Didn’t vampires—that’s right, they vasoconstricted most of the time, kept most of their blood sequestered in the core. This creature’s radial artery could be ripped wide open and she might never even feel it until she went into hunting mode…​

Maybe give her prey a fighting chance, at least…​

He tamped down on the thought, irrationally terrified that she might be able to see it flickering there in his skull. He focused on the bend instead: leave it, or try to reseat the bone? ( Leave it, he remembered from somewhere. Keep movement to a minimum, reduce the risk of shredding nerves and blood vessels …)

He pulled a roll of splinting tape from the kit, snapped off a few thirty-centimeter lengths (long enough to extend past the wrist — it was starting to come back). He laid them down equidistantly around Valerie’s arm ( God she’s cold ), pressed gently into the flesh ( Don’t hurt her, don’t fucking hurt her ) until the adhesive took and hardened the splints into place. He backed away as the vampire flexed and turned and examined his handiwork.

“Not set straight,” she remarked.

He swallowed. “No, I thought—this is just temp—”

She reached across with her right hand and broke her own forearm like a sapling. Two of the splints snapped with a sound of tiny gunshots; the third simply ripped free of the flesh, tearing the skin.

The fascia beneath was bloodless as paraffin.

She extended the refractured arm. “Do it again.”

Holy shit, Brüks thought.

Fuck fuck fuck .

Not a test, he realized. Never a test, not with this thing. A game. A sick sadistic game, a cat playing with a mouse…​

Valerie waited, patient and empty, less than two meters from his jugular.

Keep going. Don’t give her an excuse.

He took her arm in his hands again. He clenched tight to keep them from shaking; she didn’t seem to notice. The break was worse now, the bend sharper; bone pushed up from beneath the muscles, raised a knotty little hillock under the skin. A purple bruise was leaking into existence at its summit.

He still couldn’t meet her eyes.

He grabbed her wrist with one hand, braced against the cup of her elbow with the other, pulled . It was like trying to stretch steel: the cables in her arm seemed too tough, too tightly sprung for mere flesh. He tried again, yanked as hard as he could; he was the one who whimpered aloud.

But the limb stretched a little, and the broken pieces within ground audibly one against another, and when he let go, the lumpy protuberance had disappeared.

Please let this be enough .

He left the broken splints in place, laid down new lengths of tape adjacent. Pressed and waited as they grew rigid.

“Better,” Valerie said. Brüks allowed himself a breath.

Crack. Snap.

“Again,” Valerie said.

“ What’s wrong with you? ” The words were out before he could catch them. Brüks froze in their wake, terrified at the prospect of her reaction.

She bled. The bone was visible now beneath stretched skin, like a jagged deadhead in murky water. The contusion around it expanded as he watched, a bloody stain spreading through wax. But no, not wax, not anymore; the pallor was fading from Valerie’s flesh. Blood was seeping from the core, perfusing the peripheral tissues. The vampire— warmed —

She’s vasodilating, he realized. She’s switching into hunting mode. Not a game after all, not even an excuse.

A trigger…​

“I’ve got it,” said a voice from behind.

Brüks tried to turn. Valerie’s impassive gaze pinned him like a butterfly.

“No, really.” A pale flash, a beige jumpsuit. Lianna coasted into view and braked against the wall. “I can finish up here. I think your guys need some supervision out on the hull anyway.”

Valerie’s eyes flickered to her broken arm, back to Brüks. He blinked and she was gone.

“Let’s get you out of that suit,” Lianna said, unscrewing his helmet.

She’d cut her hair. Her dreads ended along the jawline now.

Brüks sagged and shook his head. “How can you talk to her like that?”

“What? I just—talk.” The helmet tumbled off across the compartment. Brüks fumbled with zippers and clasps, still quaking; Lianna unlocked his gauntlets. “Nothing special.”

“No, I mean—” He took a breath. “Doesn’t she scare the shit out of you?”

“Yeah, I suppose.” She glanced at the first-aid kit drifting to one side. “Holy shit, she had you using that ?”

“That creature is fucking insane .”

Lianna shrugged. “By human standards, sure. Then again—” She tapped the bulkhead with her toe: a diagnostic pallet unfolded from its dimple in the wall. “Not much point in bringing them all the way back from the Pleistocene if their brains worked just like ours, right?”