Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [136]
The lack of noise was the most telling part. All I could hear was the sound of people digging frantically through the debris. Occasionally, someone would yell out, asking if anyone was in there. They didn’t get an answer. An elderly woman began sobbing on the street, saying something about her granddaughter whenever she could get an intelligible word out. Mareeza went over to console her, slowly walking her out of our line of sight.
What truly struck me about the whole thing-and, in retrospect, I should have noticed this before we left the capital building-was that there were no sirens. Even though there were parts of the town that remained unscathed, there were no emergency transports moving in any direction. It was almost as though nobody knew what to do with such a catastrophe. They could handle smaller-scale events-putting out a single building fire or pulling someone out of a damaged transport-with ease. But multiple bombings? That was beyond their ken.
Fortunately, they had me around. The thought that now would be a very bad time for Voyager to retrieve me flashed through my mind before being just as quickly dismissed. My fellow citizens needed me.
Somewhere along the line, Darek finally arrived. I was too busy with the digging to notice the exact moment, but a man with a presence like his does not arrive unnoticed. He quickly took up the task of helping dig through the remains of his building. I cautioned him not to exert himself too much, as he had barely finished recovering from the stabbing, but he bullheadedly pressed onward.
Torelius and I were working on a back corner pile when a voice yelled, “I found someone!”
I dropped the piece of rubble that was in my hand and went toward the source of the voice. A young boy-perhaps eight years old-knelt, his hands trying feebly to scrape the debris off of someone’s forearm and hand. Judging by the weight of the pile that sat on top of the rest of the body, I didn’t hold out much hope for the child having found a survivor-Until the fingers moved.
That was when I yelled for help. Four pairs of hands answered my call, and we finally dug out the older woman from the third floor. After giving her the best field examination I could manage, we got a transport to take her to the hospital for further treatment.
As best I could tell, she had at least three broken ribs, a shattered hip and some internal hemorrhaging. If they got her to the hospital fast enough, Dr. Ruaal should be able to save her.
It went on like that for several hours, until finally all we were unearthing were corpses. Since I didn’t tire like the others, I continued to dig while the rest of the would-be rescuers took repeated breaks for water and food.
I know. I should have taken a break also, if only to protect the secret of my holographic nature. However, it didn’t occur to me at that point. I’m a doctor, not a secret agent. My duty was to any living creature still buried in the rubble.
When everyone who had lived in the area had been accounted for, we finally stopped digging. That was when I began to consider the new nature of my situation. I no longer had a place to live. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of Tahal-Isut that had been left homeless by this attack. I was in something of a quandary. What gave me the right to consider taking another dwelling, when there were so many in the native population who needed them? What made my ability to hide more important than the well-being of those who no longer had protection from the elements?
Mareeza finally returned, having left the older woman with her children to grieve their loss. “Aeson,” she said, “you may consider my home to be your own.”
As I was still trying to figure out all of my possibilities, my subroutines fumbled over that. “Mareeza?”
She nodded, and gave me a very soft smile. “Yes. You were responsible for finding me a place to live in my time of need. It’s my responsibility to repay that. My apartment’s more than sufficient in size, and something tells me this