Dream Called Time: A Stardoc Novel - By S. L. Viehl Page 0,3
such a brutal injury that for a moment I forgot to breathe.
How could I have survived this? I felt ready to puke myself now. Thanks to my enhanced immune system, I could physically survive almost anything, but mentally . . . emotionally . . . “That’s what that League pirate did to me?”
“Based on the initial head series I performed, and the few details we were able to garner from one eye-witness, this approximates the wound you sustained after your transport crash-landed on the surface of Akkabarr.”
I glanced up. “What are you talking about? I wasn’t anywhere near Akkabarr. I was on that dinky Rilken ship. One of Shropana’s jackasses boarded it before he smacked me in the head with the end of a pulse rifle.” I regarded the simulation again. “There’s no way he did this much damage, unless he kept bashing my skull in after I fell unconscious.”
“That is the last thing you remember?” he asked. “Being assaulted on the Rilken ship?”
“That’s the last thing that happened to me.” I didn’t like the careful way he was talking to me. “Right?”
“Ah, no.” His gildrells coiled into knots of agitation. “You were abducted and taken to Akkabarr by a League operative, but the atmospheric conditions caused your transport to crash on the surface. There you were attacked by a group of natives, and shot.” He touched the control panel, creating a second, independent image of the brain and projecting the ruined organ above the body, where it slowly revolved. “Due to the weapon being fired at almost point-blank range, it caused considerable damage to the brain center, as well as significant vascular trauma and a substantial amount of tissue destruction.”
I resisted the urge to touch my head. “You’re telling me that after this League ship I was on crashed, the natives dragged me out of the wreckage, shot me in the head, and blew out half of my brains.” He nodded, and I took in a shaky breath. “Any particular reason why?”
“As it was explained to me,” he said, “they wished to kill and partially dismember you in order to collect a bounty from their masters.”
“Partially dismember?” I almost shrieked.
“They skin the faces of unauthorized intruders,” he explained, “which they trade for various rewards from their masters.”
“Remind me never to jaunt to Akkabarr again.” Not that I’d wanted to go in the first place. I took another good look at the holoimage. “What happened after that?”
“I cannot be certain,” he said, not looking at me again, “but scans indicate that the tissue and bone spontaneously regenerated, probably within a matter of days. It was during that time that, I believe, you entered the primary phase of an extended dissociative fugue state.”
“Getting shot in the head gave me an identity disorder.” I snickered. “Sure. Who did I think I was? A P’Kotman with clogged mouth pores?”
“No.” He seemed to be searching for words again. “Cherijo, do you recall anything else? Anything at all? Do you remember where you were or what you saw after the League soldier attacked you?”
“I woke up here, in Medical.” His expression and my lack of wounds told me that couldn’t be correct. “Squilyp, just how long was I unconscious?”
He had to try three times before he could speak. “I regret to say that you were abducted and taken to Akkabarr nearly five years ago.”
All the strength went out of my legs, and I groped for a stool. Not five days, or five weeks. Not even five months. Five years. Absently I heard myself ask, “Did you try to bring me out of the coma before now?”
“Cherijo.” He hopped around the exam table and bent his knee until he could look into my eyes. “There were some residual effects, but to our knowledge, you never became comatose.”
“What?” I was still trying to process what he’d said. “Okay. So, where did the five years go? Did I freeze on that ice ball or something?”
“This will be difficult for you to accept.” He wrapped the sensitive and extremely dexterous web of tissues at the end of his arms around my hands. “The attack destroyed your mind. You were lost to us.”
“I’m right here, and my mind is working perfectly,” I reminded him. “What did you do when you found me? You didn’t put me in stasis, did you? Not for five years.”
“There was no need. When we recovered you from Akkabarr, you were conscious and cognizant and functional.” He hesitated. “You had acquired another personality. An Akkabarran persona.”