Fortune's Light - Michael Jan Friedman [65]
A door opened behind him, and he tried to turn in response. He never quite got all the way around—a sharp pain in his shoulder stopped him.
That was when he realized he had a portable regenerator strapped to his shoulder. He looked at it stupidly.
“Ah. You’re awake.”
It wasn’t Lyneea’s voice, but he knew it all the same. No. That can’t be, he told himself. She’s up on the ship.
Then Dr. Crusher came around the couch he was lying on, and he had to admit that it could be. Hell, it was.
And that would explain where the regenerator had come from.
“How do you feel?” she asked, pulling a chair over to sit beside him. In one hand she held a cup of coffee.
The word “fine” started to come out of his mouth. Then he felt his shoulder, worked it in its socket, and suffered that darting pain again. “This hurts,” he told her. As he looked into her bewitching green eyes, he remembered why. “The knife, right?”
She nodded. “The knife.”
“Then Lyneea called the ship after all.” He grunted. “How about that?”
“But not without a lot of soul-searching,” Crusher pointed out. “She wasn’t too happy about using your communicator, what with that high-tech ban they have around here. And when I took out my tricorder … forget it. I thought she was going to bite right through her lip.”
Riker regarded her. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous.”
“You should have thought of that before you went and got yourself skewered.”
“You can’t go back, you know. Not until the end of the carnival.”
The doctor rolled her eyes. “Believe me, I know. I’ve only been told half a dozen times, by everyone from the captain to Lyneea to those two strong-arm types who lugged you here in the middle of the night.”
Of course. They’d had to get him off the streets somehow, and there were no mechanical conveyances in Besidia.
“This isn’t where we were staying before,” he noted.
“No. They thought it might not be safe there any longer. Also, this place was closer to the market. It was hard enough to carry you this far.”
Riker took it all in. “Where’s Lyneea now?” he asked.
Crusher shrugged. “Damned if I know. She muttered something about time running out—and then ran out herself.”
Time running out? He didn’t like the sound of that.
He sat halfway up—and winced at the searing pain that erupted in his shoulder. “Damn,” he breathed, easing himself back down onto the couch.
“Serves you right,” she told him.
“How long have I been lying here?” he asked.
The doctor set aside her coffee, leaned over and searched through a pack on the floor, finally extracting her tricorder. “Almost two days, thanks to the dimexidrine.”
“Two … days?” he echoed.
Crusher straightened, looked him in the eye. “Why? Did you think you’d have come this far in less time? Or without the aid of a sedative?” She placed a forefinger against his chest—and none too gently. “Listen to me, Will Riker. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You think you’re going to leap up and go after Lyneea, as if you were fully recuperated, but you’re not. Forty-eight hours ago you were knocking at death’s door. There wasn’t enough blood left in you to sustain a good-sized rodent. Plus you had a nasty concussion.” She sighed. “I practice medicine, Commander, not magic. It’s going to take time for that shoulder to heal properly, even with the regenerator working nonstop. And then some more time for you to get your strength back. In sickbay it might have happened a little faster, but not much. You’re not made of duranium, Mister. Remember that.”
He smiled a little at the doctor’s speech. Of course she had a point. In this condition he wouldn’t be much help to Lyneea. And she had the strong-arm types if she really needed help.
Crusher set her tricorder and held it near his shoulder. Judging by her expression, his progress met with her approval.
“How am I doing?” he asked.
“Could be worse,” she told him.
What was it Lyneea had said to him in the beginning? Something about Imprimans taking care of their own problems?
Well, she’d finally gotten it her way. With Riker laid