Page 48 of Fresh Flesh

Maisie

When I getto the med bay, the physicians on board check out my ankles straight away.

“What in the world happened to you?” asks the head physician, a yellow scaled Grengoran who I never see without a monocle over his left eye.

“The chains on my ankles were too tight.”

He shakes his head in disgust. “I keep telling the captain it’s a massive risk to keep humans shackled twenty four hours per day. It’s not as if you stand a chance of swimming to shore in these waters anyway.”

He sighs and snaps his scaled fingers. “Bring me a syringe, a scalpel, and plenty of unguent.”

The doctor touches my ankle and I wince. “And bring me a local anesthetic.”

“Anesthetic?” his nurse frowns. “I thought we were not to use good medicine on the humans.”

The doctor takes off his monocle, so I know he’s really pissed off.

“Are you questioning my authority? I’m not about to get kicked in the face because the human can’t control her reflexes while in agony. Bring. Me. The. Local. Now.”

He snaps his fingers again, and a moment later the nurse places a metal cylinder in it. Without preamble and zero bedside manner, the doctor jabs the needle at the end of the cylinder right into my leg. I gasp at the sharp pinch, then sigh as cooling relief floods into my legs. My ankles haven’t stopped hurting since I woke up on this ship. It’s so nice I don’t care if the doctor is a jerk.

He touches my wounds a couple times to make sure I’m not going to kick him, and then sets to work. I have to turn my head away. He pokes my abscess with the needle and drains a monstrous amount of pus out of it, then uses the scalpel to excise dead skin from both of my ankles.

Then he wraps them up carefully and sets me up in an actual bed in the infirmary.

“Listen, human,” he growls. Again no bedside manner. “You’ve picked up a serious infection. I have caught it in time, but if I had not, it would have spread to your heart or other organs and you would be dead.”

“Thank you for treating me.”

He snorts as if my gratitude annoys him.

“You must keep off your feet for the next few days,” he says. “You may relieve yourself using the water closet, but that is all. Now, will you remain in the infirmary of your own volition or should I restrain you to the bed?”

“I’ll stay right here,” I say. “I don’t want to get sick. No point in being miserable before I die.”

He frowns at me for a long moment, then shrugs and goes about checking out the new influx of fertile human females. I get to sleep and lay around for the next few days. It’s nothing short of glorious.

Once the doctor decides I’m healthy enough, they take me in for my examination. It’s a lot less invasive than I expected it to be. I stand on a platform while they run a scanning device over my body. The scanner is huge, and attached to the wall by an armature. I can’t see the readout on the screen because it’s facing away from me, but the shocked expression on the doctor’s face is probably not a good sign.

I’m wondering if he found cancer or something when he takes off his monocle and stares at me with hard yellow eyes.

“Who have you been having sex with?” he demands.

“What? No one,” I say, shaking my head.

“Do not lie to me, girl. Which human male have you slept with? Hmmm? Answer me!”

I laugh a little bit. “I can honestly say I havne’t had sex with a human male in years.”

His eyes narrow to slits.

“Then why are you pregnant?”

The news hits me like a blow. I sway on my feet, and would probably fall over if not for the safety rail on the platform. Pregnant? I guess it’s either Joras’, Mlarx’s, or Lurg’s. I haven’t had sex with anyone else.

“She’s not lying, doctor,” says the nurse. “Her bio readings are normal, not elevated as they would be if she were telling a falsehood.”

His eyes snap back to me.

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