Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [95]
She tried to move her fingers and couldn’t. She almost cried and gave up then. Everything was just too hard and too unfair. Blinking back tears, she concentrated on her arm and tried to re-create the rhythm Scatter had taught her.
At first nothing happened. The scarred, disfigured meat around her arm just sat there and nauseated her. Then almost imperceptibly, the rhythm grew stronger and more sure. Her flesh started to heal, tanned skin reclaiming the charred areas.
After a couple of minutes that left her dripping with perspiration, Hella could move her fingers. In spite of the new wave of pain that burned up her arm, she smiled at Stampede. “I don’t think it’s permanent. I think I’m going to be able to fix it.”
Without a word, Stampede leaned into her and hugged her tightly, the way he had when she’d been a little girl. It felt good. But she briefly felt just as frightened as she had back then, and she didn’t like that at all.
CHAPTER 25
Groggy the next morning, her arm still pulsing pain up into her skull, Hella woke when Stampede stepped into the tent. Through the flap, late-morning sunlight fought the shadows for ground space.
“We’re not moving?” Hella sat up by herself, quietly groaning in pain when she inadvertently used her injured arm.
“Not yet.” Stampede passed over a plate of food culled from their remaining supplies. Sausage links, boiled potatoes, and onions filled the tent with a pleasant odor.
“What are they waiting on?”
“Pardot isn’t convinced the fractoid female is going to survive her landing here.”
“If she doesn’t?”
Stampede rolled his shoulders. “I guess we’ll wait until Colleen Trammell has another vision.”
Using her injured arm to hold the plate, Hella lifted food to her mouth with her fingers. “Has she been having other visions?”
“If she is, nobody’s telling me.” Stampede’s ears twitched and his nostrils flared. “I think we’re getting frozen out of the information.”
“We were never inside the loop anyway.”
Stampede smiled, but it was a cold expression that only served to bare his teeth. “I know.” He scratched his chin. “Pardot is also keeping Scatter in a cage. Some kind of electromagnetic field that Scatter can’t pass through. I’ve seen him try a couple times. It’s strange watching him melt away and end up flattening against an invisible field.”
Hella lost her appetite at that bit of news, but she made herself keep eating. She needed to keep her strength up, and she’d been starving when she’d woken up. She suspected that had a lot to do with the energy the nanobots were using to heal her arm. “I don’t like the idea of leaving Scatter behind.”
Rolling an eye her way, Stampede looked at her. “Nobody said anything about leaving.”
Hella shook her head. “I can’t believe you’d think about staying after all this.”
After a brief hesitation, Stampede growled and shook his head. “Right now we’d be out here alone too, Red. With the Sheldons around, maybe that isn’t a good idea.”
“We can take care of ourselves.”
“You’re not at your best.”
“Getting better all the time.” Hella set the plate aside and flexed her hand. Her forearm hurt, but the pain wasn’t as bad as it had been the day before.
“Maybe. But what if that wound gets infected? Even with the healing you’ve done, maybe it’s all on the outside and you’ve left a lot of damage on the inside.” Stampede shook his head. “All this mojo you’re doing, Red, it’s all new to you. If you have problems with that wound and we don’t have medical help … things could go badly.”
Staring at her injured arm, Hella found the healing rhythm again and focused on it. More of the burned areas along her arm went away. After a while she’d gone as far as she could, and she just wanted to go back to sleep.
“For the time being, we’re going to ride with the expedition.” Stampede took her plate. “While they sit, you’re healing. If we