Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [28]
As the doors of Dr. Ree’s sickbay drew near, Pazlar whispered in his ear. “Don’t worry, Kent. Dr. Ree hasn’t eaten any member of this crew.”
Not yet, Norellis thought as he passed through the gates of Hell, and abandoned all hope.
But once inside sickbay, he was heartened by the sight of a kindly, familiar face. Instead of a savage lizard-man, he saw Nurse Ogawa turn toward him. Except for her young son, Noah, the head nurse was the only other person in the sickbay reception area.
“Please tell me Dr. Ree is out,” Norellis whispered, his jaw drawn tight from the agony in his knee as Keru and Pazlar helped him sit on the edge of a nearby biobed. “Maybe one of the other doc—”
“As a matter of fact, Dr. Ree is out at the moment,” Ogawa said, cutting him off. “He’s trying to boost morale by making a few ‘house calls’ among the crew.”
Norellis sighed in relief at her confirmation of Ree’s absence, then winced again as jagged lightning bolts of pain shot through his right knee.
Then he noticed Ogawa watching him in silence, her expression baleful. She brandished a medical tricorder as though it were a hand phaser. “Would anyone mind if I have a word with Mr. Norellis? Alone?” As Keru and Pazlar beat a tactful retreat, the nurse placed a gently restraining hand on little Noah’s shoulder. “Not you, Noah. I want you to hear this, too.”
Oh, crap, Norellis thought again, wishing he could run after his two shipmates. I’ve really stepped into it this time.
“Tell me, Kent, what do you know about Dr. Ree?” Ogawa said as she ran a quick scan of his injured knee. “How much can you tell my son about him?”
“Not a lot,” he confessed.
She exchanged the tricorder for a hypospray, and injected him on the side of his knee. The pain immediately abated, and he flexed the joint cautiously. Still no pain. He heaved an appreciative sigh. Then he noticed Noah regarding him with his dark, curious, almond eyes.
Acknowledging Norellis’s grateful smile with a small smile of her own, she continued: “So you aren’t aware of all the new surgical techniques Starfleet has acquired thanks to the Pahkwa-thanh in general, and to Dr. Shenti Yisec Eres Ree in particular.”
“Um, no.”
“Or the dozens of papers he’s had published in Federation medical journals.”
He knew his face was heating up, warming and tinting itself to the precise color of shame. “Ah. Not, er, not as such. No.”
“So all you do know about him amounts to the fact that he belongs to a species that superficially resembles an extinct Earth reptile.”
Norellis nodded. “A very scary, carnivorous Earth reptile. Yes.” He remembered meeting Ree the night before in the arboretum; the doctor’s long, crazily articulated fingers alone had made Norellis want to jump out of his skin. This morning Norellis had watched in mortified fascination as the doctor took a meal in the main mess hall. He wondered when the dripping red contents of Ree’s plate would stop haunting him—
“Are you even listening to me, Kent?”
He shook off his unpleasant memories, wondering just how much of Ogawa’s dressing-down he had missed. “You’re right. I suppose I haven’t been exactly fair to Ree. I took the same Academy diversity training you did.”
“That’s exactly what I was trying to remind you about.”
He nodded. “I guess I’m just not used to being part of such an obvious minority. Being a human on a ship with a crew as varied as this one, I mean.” It suddenly occurred to him that he himself had been a minority of quite another sort for as long as he could remember—a fact that had never bothered him, nor anyone else in his life.
To Norellis’s intense relief, Ogawa broke off her attack and answered his frank admission with a smile. She began waving a deep-tissue regenerator over his injured knee. “I’m glad we’re seeing eye to eye then.”
Though he returned the smile, he thought, But I can’t promise you I won’t flinch if Ree tries to touch me.
That notion made him feel rather disappointed with himself. He remembered his Starfleet Academy diversity training, of course,