“Where did all this come from?” she said, almost in a whisper.
“It’s what we could salvage,” Paul said. “After the attack. The labs were the part of the ship that was worst hit – intentionally, we believe – and very few of the facilities up here in the superstructure survived. Below decks…” He seemed to check himself, like he had almost said too much.
“Below decks?” Ursala said.
Paul shaked his head. “What’s down there is mostly in storage. We’re only meant to access it in a certain very specific set of circumstances. Anyway, most of the medical tech was up here, and you’re looking at what’s left of it. My wife and I are not technicians. Or doctors. So we just brought everything that looked as though it might belong. Hopefully you’ll have a better sense than us of what you can use. You said your unit was missing some of the expert plug-ins.”
“Yes,” Ursala said. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Does it have a gene-splicer?”
“No. And I’d given up hope of finding one.” Her eyes went to Paul, then back to all the tech that was on the bench. “There isn’t a complete sequencer here. But this…” She touched one of the bits of tech on the bench. “And this… I think I could…”
“Well, that’s the issue. Could you? Working with what’s here, could you add gene-editing functionality to your diagnostic unit?”
Ursala was still picking up this piece of tech and then that one, her face all lit up with eagerness. “I don’t know, but I’d like to try. If you’re really offering me free access to all this…”
“I didn’t say free, doctor. We’d like a favour in return.”
Ursala turned from the bench to face him. I could see how hard it was for her to stop looking at the tech and touching it. “What kind of favour?”
“Our son has a medical condition. We’ve been treating it as best we can with the remedies available to us. But with a fully functional diagnostic unit, you’d be able to accomplish in minutes what we haven’t been able to achieve in years.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Ursala said. “But… that’s all?” She could not keep her surprise from off of her face. “You just want me to use the diagnostic to treat your son’s illness?”
“Yes. That’s all.”
Ursala throwed out her arms in a kind of a shrug. “Well, of course. I would have done that anyway. I’ll be delighted to give all three of you a full screening.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Paul said. “Lee and I are in perfect health.”
“Just Stanley, then. But what does he have?”
“It’s a kind of auto-immune disorder. A very rare and unusual one.”
“Called…?”
“It’s rare enough not to have a name,” Lorraine said. She had come into the room without any of us hearing. Stanley was there too. He had trailed in behind her and now was standing off to one side, almost out of sight. His shoulders was slumped and his arms hanging down by his sides, like he was too tired to make his body stand straight. Even his face seemed paler than it had been before. Whatever his treatment was, it had not took long, but it seemed to have left its mark just the same.
“Then we’ll go by the symptoms,” Ursala said. “But if you’re treating it already, you must have had a diagnosis. Perhaps we should start there.”
“We can discuss it later,” Paul said. “Obviously the immediate priority is to repair your unit.”
“Thank you,” Ursala said. “But I’m only repairing the gene-splicing function. I won’t need that to treat Stanley.”
“Yes,” Lorraine said. “You will.” She put her arm across Stanley’s shoulders and drawed him to her side. It seemed to me he flinched away from her a little, but she held him tight. “We’d like nothing better than to have you start treating Stan right away, but it will take all the resources of your tech – augmented by what’s left of ours – to do it. First things first.”
Stanley rubbed a hand across his eyes. His lips was moving, but I don’t think he was saying anything out loud – only mouthing words under his breath. I might of been mistook, but it seemed to me now I looked that there was some fresh cuts in among the old scabbed ones on top of his head. I was thinking up to then that the treatment was some kind of medicine, but I gun to think something different.
Ursala stood her ground. She looked somewhat troubled now. “I’d really like to know as much as I can about Stanley’s symptoms,” she said, “and about the interventions you’re currently using.”
Lorraine leaned down so her mouth was next to Stanley’s ear. “Stan,” she said, “how would you like to show Koli and Cup your racetrack?”
Stanley’s shoulders twitched in a kind of a shrug. It was the onliest answer he give.
“Or the three of you could go up to the top of the tower. It’s a lovely day out there. The sun’s come out again, and Sword is something to see on a day like this. You should give them the pinnacle tour.”
Stanley pulled free of her. “If they want to see the sun, they can see it from here,” he said. He sounded tired to the death, and he was blinking his eyes like the light in the room was hurting them, or like he was somewhat dizzy. “It’s ninety-three million miles away, after all. A few hundred feet aren’t going to make any damn difference.”
“Stanley,” Paul said. “I warned you. I’m not going to continue to ignore your persistent bad manners and disobedience. I’m a peaceable man, but there are limits to my patience.” He hitched his jacket back and started to undo his belt, threading it back through the loops in his trousers. It wasn’t until the belt was loose and he folded it double that I seen what he purposed to do, which was to give Stanley a beating.
Lorraine stepped in quick, putting a hand on his arm. “Let’s all take a deep breath, shall we?” she said calmly. “Paul, I don’t want to undercut you, but I’d love it if we could give Stan another chance. Just today. Since we’ve got guests and since we all want to get along. How about it?”
The two of them locked eyes for a second, Lorraine still just about hanging onto her smile and Paul scowling something fierce. Stanley dropped his arms to his sides again and just stood there, like he didn’t mind how this come out so long as they made their minds up quick.
After a few seconds, Paul put his own smile back on.
“I hear you, sweetheart,” he said. “You’re seeing the big picture, the way you always do. And you’re right, you’re right, you’re very right. Stan, you get a stay of execution – provided you promise to entertain these young people while we speak with their guardian.”
“Wow,” Stanley said in a voice like he had just trod in dog dirt. “And what’s in box number two?”
“What do you think, young man? A minute and a half with me and the belt, and then a twenty-four-hour time-out.”
There was a moment when Stanley stayed all slumped and looking at the ground. Then he lifted up his head of a sudden and smiled. It was a really good copy of Paul’s smile, much too wide and too quick to be really meant. “Gosh, Paul,” he said, “you’re making this really hard. But I guess I’ll go with the option where I keep the skin on my back.” He looked at me and Cup. The smile was gone again, inside of a breath. “Okay, you two, follow the leader. We can do taxi-metered corporal punishment another time.”