Филип Керр - The Second Angel

‘Well I guess this should help him work his passage back home,’ reflected Raft. ‘There’s not much hard labor you can do with a prosthetic arm. Even the ones they can fit these days take time to build strength.’

‘Are you going to fit it yourself?’ asked Berger.

Raft pulled down the nerves on the stump of Cavor’s arm gently and then shortened them by a couple of centimeters so that they could retract more easily into the depths of the severed flesh.

‘Tried it before and it didn’t take. Good hemostasis is almost impossible with all this lousy dust around. Any hematoma in the stump predisposes to infection, which will only delay prosthetic fitting. No, he’ll have to go to the PD hospital [7] In compliance with regulations laid down by the World Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (WCAHO), the World Center for Applied Microbiology and Research (WCAMR), and the International Institute for Virology (IIV), there are two kinds of hospitals in the modern world. The public health-care system is largely made up of permanent deferral (PD) hospitals, catering to patients considered to be at high risk for infectious disease transmission, and whose blood products disqualify them from ever becoming part of any predeposit autologous donation program. The private health-care system, on the other hand, is based exclusively on so-called crossover hospitals, for patients whose blood products meet all theoretical criteria for use in allogenic (homologous) donation programs: Today, in practice there is only autologous donation, involving the donation by the intended recipient of his or her own blood or component for a possible subsequent transfusion; any other transactions involving quality-assured blood are purely commercial. in an open prison back on Earth, and as soon as possible too. The earlier a false limb is applied, the more likely it is that the prosthetic computer will take to the nerve ends.’

‘Prepare to release tourniquet,’ said Florence.

Only when he was satisfied that the stump was adequately supplied with blood did Raft attempt to control the bleeding again; and having doubly ligated the major vessels and applied synthetic flesh foam to the smaller oozing areas, he inserted a suction drain and closed the skin flaps over the bone using synthetic HFM. [8] Human fibrous membrane. Finally, Raft smeared the stump with recombinant centrosome to begin the process of helping attract the wound’s protoplasmic granules to the prosthetic, when eventually it was fitted, and then he applied a compression dressing. When the job was complete he surveyed his work with some satisfaction.

‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘A neat job, even though I say so myself. Thanks for your help, Berger.’

Berger laughed dismissively.

‘What about me?’ said Florence.

‘You too, Florence. Goes without saying.’

‘It was a pleasure, Peter,’ Florence said in its cool, quiet voice. Although Raft had never said so, the computer’s honey-sweet voice reminded him of his mother’s.

‘Okay, how about giving me some suggestions for chemical aftercare?’ he inquired.

‘Give me a second to think this over.’

‘Make it snappy, Florence. My back is aching. I’ve been on my feet since two-ninety hours.’

‘Okay, here’s my suggestion. I suggest that you intravenously implant a medical nanomachine [9] Medical nanomachine. Molecule-sized machines designed for use in the bloodstream or digestive tract. Controlled by a tiny computer, each MN is programmed with a set of objectives that mimic the action of a drug, or a combination of drugs, at a molecular level. Currently these can survive in the body for periods up to seventy-two hours. containing a combination of prophylactic antibiotic and painkilling actions. For you, I prescribe that you ingest some glucosamine sulfate.’

‘Sounds good to me.’

‘Would you like me to prepare the MN for you, Peter?’

‘Yes, please, Florence.’

Berger was busy washing the remains of Cavor’s arm, prior to preserving it in a sterile polyethylene bag cooled with liquid nitrogen. Despite the badly crushed state of the limb there were areas of skin and flesh that might later be used as a safe biological dressing. Nothing on the Moon is ever wasted, least of all in a prison colony like Artemis Seven. While the Moon has a strong industrial economy worth many billions of dollars, there are no indigenous materials except rock and ice, and so everything is recycled.

Florence prepared the nano-sized machine in a saline solution, which Raft drew up into a hypodermic syringe, and then injected into Cavor’s jugular vein. Raft had hardly looked at Cavor’s face: Now, he saw that Cavor was small and thin, and it seemed almost impossible that he could have survived four years of hard labor. If you had informed Artemis Seven’s medical officer that the one-armed man lying on the flatbed scanner would turn out to play a key role in the commission of the crime of the century, [10] The phrase ‘crime of the century’ is frequently employed by the more sensationalist sections of the multimedia and has become something of a cliché. What does it really mean? Describing crime in superlatives is ethically problematic. It smacks of celebration, as if the perpetrators are worthy of our approbation and are to be congratulated. That is not my intention with the crime described in this account. Rather I wish to focus on this crime as something uniquely representative of the twenty-first century. he would almost certainly have assumed that you were suffering from the sensory abnormalities brought about by some small changes in the colony’s artificial atmosphere. [11] Moon colonies are pressurized to normal atmospheric levels using an admixture of oxygen and helium, the most plentiful element in the universe, except for hydrogen. Helium’s isotopes are especially plentiful in Moon rock, the result of billions of years of exposure to solar wind. Cavern-based colonies, like Artemis Seven, are divided into sealed sections, and, occasionally, the seals leak. Usually this is not serious enough to cause respiratory problems. But for those in whom the P2 virus is far advanced, even the smallest change in available oxygen levels can cause a condition akin to hyperventilation in which the subject’s blood pressure falls, thereby causing him or her to hallucinate.

‘Florence? When is the next cargo container to Earth?’

‘There’s one leaving Tranquillity Base this evening.’

‘Can he make that?’

‘Yes. A transport will leave Artemis in one hour with some prisoners who are being paroled.’

‘Lucky bastards. Better book him a place.’

Raft, who had six years of an eight-year stretch to go, ripped off a bloody surgical glove and looked critically at his moist right hand, as if it were all that might separate him from Earth and freedom.

‘Prosthetics are pretty good these days,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It might just be worth it at that.’

Rameses Gates belted himself tightly down in his seat on the Earth-bound Superconductor, [12] Much less energy is required in escaping from the Moon’s gravity than from Earth’s. Rockets are used only by wealthy tourists. Everyone else uses the Tranquillity Base’s Space Superconductor, a magnetic-field monorail that gently rises some fifty feet from the surface of the Moon for some fifteen miles before the escape velocity of 1.4 miles per second is finally achieved. The Moon has proved to be the ideal environment for transportation that utilizes high-temperature superconductors. On Earth a major problem in the development of anisotropic technology had proved to be the instability of the chemical environment due to moist air, which is, of course, not a problem on the Moon. adjusted his seat to the fully reclined position for takeoff, and then drew the neck brace as close around his square chin and cauliflower ears as was comfortable. A three-day, two hundred and thirty-six-thousand-mile flight lay ahead of him, and after that, a short period of detention in an open prison before being released into the so-called community. But first there was the small matter of takeoff. The Superconductor was a lot less comfortable than a rocket, since it created almost unbearable g-forces. Prisoners and animals traveled in a g-compartment that was supposed to be able to withstand 10 g’s, but they still experienced blood pooling, which often caused unconsciousness and, for those in whom the P2 virus was far advanced, sometimes even death. Gates — who was P2 — had, like everyone else he knew, no way of determining just where he was in the life of the virus; but he had heard that even for those who survived the journey, it was common to feel ill for days afterward.