The Hero of Varay Read Online Free PDF Page B

they’re not going to move me to a regular room in time for me to make the call, you could do it, but don’t scare her to death. Tell her I’m okay before you tell her I’m in the hospital.”
    My surgeon came in then and bustled Parthet out of the room so she could examine me. She identified herself as Dr. Barlow as if “Doctor” were her first name and said that I shouldn’t be awake yet. That came out almost like an accusation. She wanted to know how I felt, and how I happened to get stabbed so badly. Among other things.
    I didn’t answer any of the questions right away. She hardly gave me a chance to talk. But the delay was useful. It gave me time to try to remember if anything had been said about an “official” story. An urban hospital in the “real” world meant bureaucracy, a police report at the very least, maybe even a cop in to ask questions and be generally nosy. And I couldn’t remember that we had agreed on any kind of lie to tell.
    “I was out last night and got jumped,” I said when I couldn’t avoid the question any longer. “It was dark and I didn’t see much.” Keep it short. Keep it simple. We could do any necessary embellishing later.
    Dr. Barlow nodded absently while she investigated the sutures she had stitched in my hide and the drain tube hanging out. “You were lucky,” she said when she finished. She went to the sink at the side of the room and scrubbed her hands. “When I saw the wound, I expected to find more internal trauma than there was. The wound was deep but clean. It could almost have been made with a large scalpel. There were no severed sections of intestine, no damage to other internal organs. I stitched up the cut skin and muscles, the abdominal wall. Not much more complicated than a hernia operation, as it turned out.”
    “No permanent damage of any kind?” I asked.
    She didn’t look at me directly. “The reproductive system was not involved.”
    Well, I guess that was what I was referring to. I wasn’t used to women doctors, even older, dumpy ones like Barlow.
    “How long until I get out of the hospital?”
    “Figure four or five days, if there are no complications.”
    “Can I get rid of these tubes? They’re driving me crazy.”
    “Not yet. How about pain?”
    “Not enough to distract me from these damn needles.”
    I guess I was too lucid or something. Dr. Barlow did all of the easily recognizable medical things on me without calling in a nurse to help. She checked my respiration and pulse, blood pressure, adjusted the drip on the IVs, and made a long entry in the metal-jacketed chart.
    “I must be a better surgeon than I thought,” she mumbled.
    “Why do you say that?”
    “No pain, too much energy. You shouldn’t even be awake yet, and if you were awake, you should be groggy, hurting, and looking for a shot to put you back out.”
    “Just a waste of time,” I said. “How soon can I get to a regular room? I’ve got an important phone call to make.”
    She stopped fiddling with the chart then and stared at me. “Do you ever feel pain?” she asked. The question startled me, but she wasn’t being sarcastic. She was serious.
    “Oh, yes, I feel pain,” I told her. There were flashbacks to the Isthmus of Xayber and to the field next to Castle Thyme when I hurt so bad that death would have been welcome. “I’ve felt much worse pain than this.”
        I got to a room in plenty of time to make the call to Joy myself.
    “Don’t tell me you’ve decided that you don’t want me to come back,” she said as soon as she got on the line.
    “I won’t,” I said. “It’s just that I’m not going to be able to meet you at the airport. I had a little accident last night. I’m in the hospital, in Louisville. I’m okay, but it’s going to be a few days before they let me out.”
    There was a silence that seemed to go on for quite a while before Joy said, “You sure it’s not a nut house?”
    “I’m sure.”
    “How badly are you