won’t come back,” he says. “Not after that.”
“How can you be sure?” I ask.
I turn around, and there’s another tribesman hanging from a noose. He wasn’t there before. He must have tried to flank us and got caught. He’s holding a bow, and--
The arrow hits me in the thigh. I don’t feel any pain at first, and I look back at Krakon, expecting him to shoot his cannon at the guy, but he’s still looking in the other direction.
“Krakon,” I mumble.
He turns around and sees the arrow coming out of my leg.
He shoots an arrow at the tribesman who shot me. Killing him with no hesitation.
I fall over as the pain hits me in a sudden wave.
He catches me. “Catherine.” His voice is tense. His strong jaw clenched.
I slip from consciousness, but the last thing I hear him say is, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
It sounds so much nicer than “it’s been real.”
22
Krakon
I wrap her in the blanket and carry her over my shoulder. I have to move slowly because of the arrow.
There’s no fire now. No camp. Just the snowy rolling hills in front of me. There’s a mountain line further on. I decide to make my way toward it. I might be able to find a cave. It will be colder higher up, but I’ll take more cold if it means we can find even an elevated camp that can’t be snuck up on so easily.
I don’t really think that same tribe will mess with us again, but who knows what other tribes are out there, or what they will do if they see us.
The priority now though is Catherine. I won’t make it to that mountain by nightfall, and she doesn’t even have until nightfall.
As soon as I find a few trees, I put her down on the blanket and get the axe. I cut furiously, and the weeks here in survival mode pay off, as I’m able to build and start a fire--even using the flint stones I made earlier, since the wrist tool is drained--in less than an hour.
I get her as close to the fire as I dare, catch my breath, and try to clear my head as I look down at that arrow in her leg.
It needs to come out, that much is obvious, but I’m not used to treating wounds without the full medical capabilities of my ship in reach. I have a small med kit. It has a tube of nanopaste that will prevent infection. Infection would be the main concern if I didn’t have the nanopaste. With the paste I don’t have to worry about the long-term danger of infection. My main fear is dealing with whatever happens in the short-term, right after I pull the arrow out.
Normally I’d have the ship’s A.I. walking me through it after deep-scanning the injury. It would tell me how much bleeding to expect, what to do to stem it, and basically hold my hand the whole way. Now I don’t really know.
I decide I need to prepare for a bad bleed out. Just in case.
I tear some strips off the bag. I have nothing to disinfect them with, so that nanopaste had better fucking work.
She could also go into shock. Though if I leave the arrow in, she will get infected even with the nanopaste, and she will die. If she goes into shock, I’ll have to just inject her with the “HealAll.” It’s a generic nano-medicine that does its best to adapt to whatever is needed, but it doesn’t always assess and adapt fast enough. It’s a last resort.
I hold the carving knife over the fire until it’s red-hot. This is the real last resort, the one I really don’t want to have to use. The HealAll is a last resort in that I want to save it for future injuries. The hot knife is a last resort because I don’t want to ever cause her so much pain.
A dull voice in the back of my head hisses at me. Humans caused you nothing but pain. It’s so dull I can barely hear it, though.
I grip the arrow and pull.
It’s barbed, and the wound it creates as I pull it out is much worse than I expected. Fuck.
Blood goes everywhere. I don’t even think twice before injecting the HealAll.
Blood keeps gushing. The HealAll needs time to scan her from inside. To adapt the nanobots, to send them to work.
Blood oozes into the snow. So much blood. Too much. Way too