Part 52 (2/2)

Ja finally freed the left hand from its wrappings. ”Move it,” he said.

Zed moved the fingers. ”The synaptic lag appears less, don't you agree?”

”What do you think?” Zed asked.

”I think you should stop taking up a bed,” said Ja.

”How much can I use them?”

”It depends what you plan to do with them,” said the surgeon. ”Don't lift anything heavy, and don't try to do anything precise. Get some gloves without tips to protect them.”

”That's a good idea,” said Zed. He closed his eyes and tried to pour his senses into his hands, to reawaken the nerves. Nothing happened. He opened his eyes.

Ja said ”Try the claws.” Zed licked his lips. The claws would not extend unless the fingers were slightly crooked: he curved them. Ja prompted him. ”Keep the hand extended and make a fist.”

”I remember.” The instructions sounded contradictory but were not. Zed imagined as he tensed that he could feel the neural impulse traveling down his arms.

The claws slid out.

They were impressive: about two and a half centimeters long, metal, gleaming, sharp as a scalpel. Zed turned his hands in the air, admiring them. He relaxed the tension; they retracted. ”Thanks, Ja,” he said. ”They're exactly what I wanted.”

Ja gazed at his handiwork as if he had never seen it before. ”Not bad,”

he said. ”What're you going to do with them?”

”Climb mountains,” Zed said. ”And -- other things.”

”Put a gel layer on them before you go out,” Ja advised.

”When can I ...?” ”Climb mountains? Come back here in three weeks. It'll be at least that long before the meld takes, maybe longer.”

”Can I scratch?” Zed said. ”Can I bathe?”

”You can scratch anything you like,” Ja said. ”As for bathing, they won't rust, if that's what you mean.” Dutifully, Zed smiled. ”And they won't extend by accident. The fingertips may feel a little sore.”

Zed nodded. ”Got it,” he said. ”Ja, many thanks.”

”Wait'll you see my bill,” said the surgeon. He took his gloves off, dumped them into the disposal, and left. Zed sighed, and, cautiously, scratched his left arm with his right hand. He could not feel the texture of the skin, nor -- he moved his hand -- the texture of hair, or the fabric of his clothes. No matter, he told himself, discernment would come. Quickly he hunted around the room for his belongings, and found only clothes and Rhani's letter. Everything else -- bookviewer, booktapes, old PINsheets -- belonged to the Clinic.

Haldane Ku walked in. ”How do they feel?” he said.

Zed held the lumpy hands for him to see. ”It's nice to have the bandages off.”

”I'll bet,” said the rotund orderly. ”You want to leave now, I suppose.”

”Yes. I need some protective gel.”

Ku went to the supplies cabinet and brought out a tube. Zed extended his hands. Carefully Ku covered them with a thin layer of paint. ”How's that?” he said.

Zed flexed the hands, feeling the slight coolness of the gel through the new skin. The sensation delighted him. ”Good. Now gloves.”

Ku rummaged in the cabinet for a pair of gloves. ”Hmm,” he said, holding them up, ”large enough? No, I think not.” He found the next larger size. ”Better let me do this.” Zed submitted -- for the last time, he told himself -- to the indignity of having someone else a.s.sist him in donning an article of clothing.

”The tips have to come off,” he warned.

”Right,” said Ku. He procured a pair of shears from the cabinet and nipped the ends of the fingers from the gloves. ”Now -- ” he tugged the gloves on the rest of the way. The extra layer seemed to increase the anesthetic effect, but Zed told himself that this would not last, that soon the sense of discriminate feeling would come back.

”Thanks,” he said to Ku.

The orderly smiled. ”Glad you're going home,” he said.

”Sorry I was such a bad patient.”

”No, you're not,” said Ku calmly. ”Sorry, I mean. I don't think you could be anything else.”

Taken aback, Zed glared at him. But the truth of what the orderly said penetrated and unwillingly, he laughed. ”You're right.”

”I know. Good day, Senior. Have a pleasant life.” Ku smiled, turned his back, and began to strip the bed.

Zed walked into the corridor.

The lounging guards came to attention automatically, and then relaxed. He recognized them vaguely: they were both members of the Net Communications unit.

”How's it going, Commander?” said one of them, the shorter of them. She wore a stun gun on her hip. Zed was surprised that the Clinic had let her display the weapon so openly. She followed his glance and grinned. ”It isn't loaded,” she said. A stun cylinder flickered between the fingers of her left hand, and vanished. ”But this is.”

Zed said casually, ”Let me see that.” She held it out to him, and he gripped it in his right hand. After a moment of stupefaction, she laughed.

”Hey,” she said, ”the bandages -- gone! You gettin' out of here?”

”I am,” said Zed. He dropped the silver cylinder into her left hand. ”Hey, Raeka, tell the others,” she said to her companion. The tall woman with the communicator on her belt lifted it to her lips. She thumbed the stud and spoke softly. Zed heard his own name. ”Where to, Commander?”

”Home -- or, at least, where my sister is,” he said.

”Right. We're ready.” Raeka thumbed the communicator stud to off and put the device back in her belt.

Zed frowned. He did not want to be escorted around the city as if he were an incompetent or a tourist. ”I didn't ask for company,” he said.

The two women looked at each other, and then the short one -- whose name, he remembered suddenly, was Barbara -- said, ”We know that, Commander. But when we decided to do this, we decided to keep at it until the f.u.c.ker A-Rae's caught.

You want not to see us, we can do that, I think, but we're not s.h.i.+nnyin'.

Sorry.”

Despite himself, Zed's fingers began to curl. He recognized the gesture and, alarmed, halted it. What the woman said was fair -- indeed, with the Net gone, the crew was free to do what it liked and technically they were all on leave, certainly not subject to his orders.... After a while his breathing steadied. Neither of the women had moved, but Barbara's little stun pistol glinted in her hand. He wondered if she would have used it. His throat hurt.

He shrugged. ”I won't argue,” he said. They walked from Recovery to CTD, CTD to Outpatient, Outpatient to the street. At the door of Outpatient, Zed halted. The waiting room, as usual, was filled with people punching computer keyboards, baring their arms to technicians, holding urine samples, reading booktapes or listening to auditors while they waited for someone else to appear from the bowels of the building.... He wondered if he should go back to Surgery and say farewell to the people he had worked with.

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