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- I knocked on the door. The voice said, calmly, "Come in." I
- palmed the door open and stepped into the hospital room.
- "How are you feeling?" I asked.
- The voice from the speaker said, "I feel like shit. I haven't got
- my own voice back, so they leave my biocybed to this thing so I can
- talk." His eyes moved back and forth plaintively, but the tubes and
- wires running down his throat still kept him from achieving any sort of
- expression. "It doesn't even sound like me."
- "No, that it doesn't, kiddo."
- "How am I looking?"
- "Terrible."
- "You're so kind."
- I sighed. "Nance, it's my turn at the crank." I paused for a
- second, then said, "Please stop stardiving."
- "I know what you're going to say, and you can stop right there,
- Ken. You know as well as I do why I stardive. You even went with me on
- one. You know how intense it is. How incredible."
- "Look what it cost you!"
- "I can get it all back. The medicine's good enough. P'nyssa says
- they'll be ready to start poly-r'ing me in a few days. I'll have my arm
- back in two years. My ear'll grow back even faster."
- "It's not worth it."
- "It is to me. Just like Pendor is worth it to you."
- "Pendor didn't nearly get me killed."
- "No. Just Donna."
- "Nazg vy dol moria." It was the best curse I knew in Old Sind.
- "No, you listen to me, Ken." He closed his eyes for a second, then
- opened them again. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be here. Okay,
- here I am. Back from the very brink of death. Speaking through a
- computer because my throat is full of tubes feeding and breathing for
- me. Spending half my days in cyberspace because the real world is this
- hospital bed. But I made my decisions. The Crystal Ball broke up
- because of bad design. I'd been thinking of a new ship, anyway."
- "Nance..." I stopped, and put my hand over his remaining. "You're
- family, you know. If you die, P'nyssa will be lost without you. I'll
- be lost without you."
- "I didn't die this time, and I'm not going to die anytime soon.
- You know that."
- "I don't know that. You came pretty close this time."
- "Yeah, well. It won't happen again."
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