Dragon Pearl(49)

When the panel had closed behind me, I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. I wanted to lean against a bulkhead, maybe even nap standing up, but I couldn’t stop, not there. I forced myself to keep moving, putting one foot in front of the other as though I were walking a tightrope.

I must have been in worse shape than I thought, because a crew member hurrying through the passages with a crate stopped dead a few feet from me and frowned in my direction. Sweating as I drew upon Charm, I thought at him, I’m not here. There’s nothing interesting to see.

He slowed and shifted the crate in his arms, glancing this way and that. His eyes didn’t focus, though, even when he was looking right at me. He gave a puzzled headshake and continued on his way.

After what seemed like hours, I slipped back into Medical. They’d given my bed to someone else while I was gone. I hoped they didn’t keep track of who went where during the confusion of battle.

I recognized the head physician with her white-streaked hair. She was busy consulting a chart, and she had one stylus tucked behind her ear and another in her hand. I eased my way across the room until I came to an empty pallet, and climbed up onto it.

I had only dozed off for a few minutes, when someone prodded me awake. I sat up and mumbled, “Ma’am?” out of habit. For a second I thought I had missed the morning reveille and was going to get lectured for sleeping through an exciting session of scrubbing floors, or possibly helping out in the galley. The thought of the latter made my stomach protest, and I barely kept myself from retching.

“Don’t sit up,” the physician said, half a second too late.

Gratefully, I sank back down, feeling miserable.

The physician was studying her slate. “You’re Jang. But I thought . . . No matter. We’ll just have to give you your dose a few minutes late. More than a few minutes. I wonder . . .”

“Dose of what, ma’am?” I asked to distract her from the question of scheduling. My voice came out as a croak. I didn’t want any medicine in my system, even though I would have welcomed relief from the nausea.

She smiled thinly. “More painkillers. I keep telling those fools in Engineering that they shouldn’t be asking cadets to enter Trance without a lot more training. Open your mouth.” I did, and she dropped a couple of foul-tasting orange pills into it. “Here.” She brought a cup of water to my lips.

I faked swallowing, and, as soon as she turned away to make a notation, I spat the tablets into my hand. Quickly, I stuffed them into a pocket. I’d just have to live with feeling awful.

I said, “It was an emergency at the time.”

The physician harrumphed. “It’s always one emergency or another in Engineering.”

That sounded like a long-standing argument, and one I didn’t want to get involved with. “Please—is Cadet Sujin all right?”

The physician relented enough to say, “They’re healing nicely. Don’t fret about them. You should get some rest yourself, Cadet.”

She moved off, and I closed my eyes again. Although I meant to plan my next move, I fell asleep.

Some time later, I woke to a familiar voice. Not Haneul’s or Sujin’s, or even the physician’s, but Byung-Ho’s. I opened my eyes and peeked in his direction. He was propped up in a nearby pallet with a tray of rice gruel before him. One of the human medics was fussing over him. He had obviously recovered enough that they could remove him from the healing pod. Or maybe they needed the pod for someone hurt even worse.

I almost called out to him before remembering that he wouldn’t recognize me, not in Jang’s guise. I used my keen sense of hearing to eavesdrop on what he was saying.

“You were in a healing coma for quite a while,” the medic informed him.

“I appreciate all the help, don’t get me wrong,” Byung-Ho was saying to the medic, “but there was someone else on the Red Azalea with me. A girl about so high.” He held out his hand to indicate height. He went on to give a description, which didn’t sound like me. Then I remembered that I’d been going around as Bora. I wondered if half the reason my mom was so dead set against using Charm was how hard it was to keep track of all the details.

The medic shook their head in bafflement. “Sorry,” they said. “You’re the only one who made it.”

Byung-Ho’s face sagged. “If only you’d shown up a little earlier . . . Not that I’m complaining about the rescue, but she was too young to die like that.”

The medic’s face cleared. Comforting people was something they were used to. “That’s always hard,” they said automatically and launched into a standard soothing speech.

It made me squirm inside, realizing that my welfare was the first thing Byung-Ho had asked about upon waking. Without his help, I would never have made it this far. I wanted to let him know that I was all right. On the other hand, I didn’t want to blow my cover.

I waited until the medic moved on. Then I gathered up some Charm, which was getting easier with practice. I got out of my pallet, focused on convincing everyone in Medical that the bed was still occupied, and tiptoed over to Byung-Ho. My nausea had passed, and I was so hungry that even his watery gruel smelled tasty.

“Hello,” I said.

The Charm I was using made him look not at me but at a spot over my shoulder. “Hello,” he said distantly.