Page 48 of Homebound
Delano sounded perfectly civil with just a hint of gentle amusement that spoke of his high tolerance for the stress he no doubt dealt with daily. He looked very distinguished and in perfect order: hair neatly combed, lab coat a pristine white. Middle-aged but trim and with a healthy sheen to his complexion, he projected an air of capable confidence and Gemma gradually relaxed. She was suddenly filled with hope that against all odds, her uncle might catch a break at the hands of Dr. Delano.
Drexel bleated a greeting and proceeded to tell the story of being cornered near the docks and maimed by Perali, those spawns of demon seed. While he poured his heart out, the doctor hmm’d and tsked as he leaned over and carefully unwrapped the homemade bandage to reveal angry red, festering meat.
Gemma swallowed thickly and averted her eyes.
She heard the doctor warn Drexel about needing to probe his arm and, after a tense moment of silence, her uncle yelped, then howled, then whimpered weakly.
“Okay, it’s over with,” the doctor said calmly. “Let’s numb your arm so I can put things back together.” He called a nurse to bring in medicine and instruments needed for the operation.
Gemma, noticing that the arm was again seeping blood, addressed Dr. Delano, “Can you fix my uncle’s arm, Doctor?”
Dr. Delano looked at her with some surprise as if only now registering her presence. “There will be an improvement. He might be able to use his arm again.”
It wasn’t what Gemma had hoped to hear but then she hadn't realized how much worse Drexel’s arm had gotten.
“It looks worse today than it did when it first happened.”
“It isn’t surprising. Perali’s saliva contains bacteria that the human body can’t fight off. Their bite wounds always get infected.” Delano shook his head sadly. “Good thing he’s here. He has to be treated.”
“Oh. We didn’t know that about Perali.”
“After all the years, there’s still a lot we don’t know about aliens. Some of them carry diseases we, humans, have never encountered before. Others possess a miraculous capacity for self-regeneration. Supernatural almost. We must know more. Research is everything.”
Dr. Delano’s eyes went aglow as he spoke to Gemma about the aliens and their differences from the human race. There was a subject that clearly intrigued him and Gemma thought about how lucky they were to have gotten him as a doctor. He must have a lot of knowledge in that area, and therefore had to be the best choice of a doctor for treating alien-inflicted wounds Uncle Drexel had sustained.
The nurse returned with another nurse and the supplies Dr. Delano had requested. The three of them clustered around the table with Uncle Drexel leaving Gemma to herself. No one asked her to leave and so she stayed, moving out of the way. With nothing left to do, she started pursuing wall art abundantly decorating the spacious room.
There were two or three framed certificates of distinction in Dr. Delano’s name praising his contributions in research on alien anatomy. The rest were pencil drawings depicting aliens. And what artful depictions they were! They showed full-body naked aliens, some even without skin to demonstrate their muscle structure and skeletons. All were beautifully done, gently colored and masterfully shaded, too jarringly whimsical for the clinical subject they portrayed.
Gemma moved from one picture to the next using the rare opportunity to both learn more about aliens and enjoy the art she so dearly missed ever since fleeing The Islands.
She recognized a Sakka and smiled, recalling her prisoner and his busy bustling around his cell. Tarai aliens, with their large fuzzy ears, were evidently fuzzy in many places.
At the next one, she stopped short. The illustration contained no caption - none of them did - but Gemma immediately knew a Rix. But familiar as she thought she was with this race’s physical characteristics, she couldn’t help but stare and absorb the details she’d never seen before.
The figure in the drawing was well-muscled and of what she presumed to be a normal Rix weight, so obviously, Simon would differ in this regard. The coloring threw her off, for the male in the picture radiated golden glow, his body tawny all over, not the dull white she was used to seeing. How interesting. Was the illustration accurate?
She leaned closer.
The Rix’s nose with its three slits on each side was correctly drawn, and so were the six long multi-phalanged fingers on each hand. Gentle arches of pale brows above the large coal-black eyes matched up. The two-dimensional Rix wore his russet hair short in another dramatic deviation from Simon’s long white braid that made it even harder to translate the illustration into the being she’d tended to at the prison.
One other thing that Gemma was able to confirm, blushing and berating herself for her inappropriate attention to detail, was that Simon, thank God, appeared to be intact in one specific area. Disappointed and shocked at her disappointment, Gemma surmised that Rix males were put together with a lot less generous hand than men. A lot less…
“Are you enjoying my pictures?”
Gemma whirled around and found Dr. Delano standing right behind her. A glance at the examination table confirmed that the procedure had been completed, and a nurse was wrapping Uncle Drexel’s arm in a fresh bandage.
“Oh, they are beautiful. All of them. This Rix, and the Sakka there, and the Tarai. Stunning work.”
Dr. Delano’s brows rose. “Oh? You know aliens well. Not many can recognize a Rix.”
“My niece works at the City prison,” Uncle Drexel helpfully supplied in a slurred voice. His face wore an expression of vacuous happiness and he was trying to form a grin out of his slack mouth. The numbing drugs must have spread well beyond his arm. “She cleans up shit after the aliens. She knows all of ‘em bastards.”
“Is that right?” Dr. Delano chuckled.
Gemma, not a little self-conscious, cleared her throat. “Yes. Well. How’re you feeling, uncle?”
“I’m feeling fantastic.”
