Chapter 3 Nola #2
In medical school, they called it the "clinical distance.
" The ability to treat a patient without absorbing their pain.
I was never good at it. My professors noted this on my evaluations: "strong clinical skills, struggles with emotional boundaries.
" They meant it as a critique. I took it as a description.
Some doctors maintain the distance because it makes the work sustainable.
I maintain the opposite because it makes the work honest. Every patient leaves something in me.
Every scan I read, every wound I clean, every frightened face that watches me for signs that things are worse than they seem, they all deposit something in the place where my professional identity meets my personal one, and that place is crowded and heavy and I wouldn't empty it if I could.
Then I take a breath, reset my expression, and pull up the next patient file.
I see eleven patients on my first day. The Vorath elder, whose name is Pahl, has arthritis that's advanced enough to warrant proper joint medication, which I don't have.
His four arms move stiffly, the lower pair barely extending past his torso, and his bio-luminescent markings are dim, the way they get in Vorath who are in chronic pain.
I make do with the painkillers I brought and add anti-inflammatory compounds to the supply list. The human man who coughs, Berec, has the beginnings of a lung condition that could become chronic without treatment.
I hear it clearly when I listen to his chest: a fine crackle in the lower lobes, consistent with early fibrosis.
The Keth woman, Syl, has a skin condition that's environmental, likely related to the station's humidity levels, which are too low for Keth physiology.
Her scales are flaking at the edges, dry and dull, and she scratches at them absently during the exam.
I keep notes on everything. Diagnosis, treatment plan, medications needed, follow-up schedule.
By the end of the day, my supply list for Captain Voss is three pages long and covers everything from basic antibiotics to specialized alien-compatible pharmaceuticals that I'll probably have to explain to a smuggler who thinks medicine comes in one variety.
By the time I finish with the last patient, my feet ache and my datapad is full and the medbay smells like antiseptic and the peculiar mineral tang that Vorath leave behind when they've been in an enclosed space, something to do with their bio-luminescent chemistry that offgasses trace amounts of phosphorescent compounds.
I open the air circulation vent wider and let the station's recycled atmosphere dilute it.
I eat dinner in the mess hall alone. Not by choice exactly.
More by default. The residents are polite but distant.
I'm the new face. The outsider. The person who showed up for a paycheck and doesn't share their history.
I understand the dynamic. I've been the new person enough times to know that trust in places like this isn't given, it's demonstrated.
They'll warm up when they see me do the work.
Or they won't. Either way, the work gets done.
The mess hall at dinner is a different room than the mess hall at breakfast. In the morning, people are functional, task-oriented, moving through the space with the purposeful efficiency of shift changes and work assignments.
At dinner, the room loosens. The overhead lights are warmer, shifted toward the amber end of the spectrum by whatever settings the previous crew programmed into the environmental controls, and the effect softens the institutional gray of the walls.
People linger. Conversations overlap. The children, who are quiet and watchful during the day, start moving through the room with the restless energy that builds in small bodies during hours of enforced stillness.
Salo runs between the tables, his mother calling after him with the exasperated patience of someone who has been chasing this particular five-year-old through confined spaces for years.
The sound of his laughter bounces off the high ceiling and settles into the room like a frequency the station needs, a reminder that survival is not just the absence of death but the presence of things worth surviving for.
Or they won't, and I'll spend six months eating alone.
Worse things have happened. The protein-block stew is better than I expected, which means someone in the kitchen actually cares, and I suspect that someone is Renna, who is probably in there right now despite my instructions to rest, because Renna's relationship with the kitchen is the same as mine with the medbay: it's where she goes to be useful, and useful is how she stays sane.
Fen finds me after dinner. She slides onto the bench across from me with the casual confidence of someone who's decided you're worth talking to and doesn't much care if you agree. Up close, her grey-green scales catch the mess hall light and throw dull reflections across the table.
"How was day one?" she asks.
"Your air filtration is producing humidity levels that are fifteen percent below Keth optimal range," I say. "It's causing skin problems."
Fen blinks. "That's what Syl has?"
"That's what Syl has. If you can adjust the humidity on the levels where Keth residents are quartered, it'll clear up within a week. The scales need ambient moisture to stay healthy. It's like, imagine your joints drying out. Same principle, external instead of internal."
She tilts her head. Keth mannerism, recalibrating.
I've seen it in textbooks. In person, it's more fluid, more expressive.
"I've been trying to fix the humidity regulators for months.
The parts are old. The injectors are corroded.
I can boost output on two of the three units, but the third is basically decorative at this point. "
"I'll add the parts to the supply request."
Fen nods slowly. "You're not what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"Someone who'd complain more." She picks at the food on her tray.
"The last medic complained a lot. About the supplies, the equipment, the food, the quarters.
Thresh scared him off, but honestly, he was halfway out the door already.
He lasted three months and spent two of them writing transfer requests. "
"I grew up on a mining colony. This is nicer than where I lived until I was eighteen."