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The engines grumbled. In the sick bay examination room Doctor Russ looked up as the instruments he was sorting begin to rattle in their steel trays. “Surely this can’t be right,” he said. Then he was flung sideways, into the wall. No sooner had he picked himself up than he was flung into the wall again.
“Doctor?” called Katya from her quarters across the hall, “are you okay?”
“Yes,” said Stephen, climbing to his hands and knees. “I think so,” he started to say, but the room jerked again and he found himself lying on his side. “Why does the room keep moving?”
Stephen raised a hand to the back of his head. Yes, a tender lump was rising over the left leg of the lambdoid suture. Through the haze he felt the floor rocking gently, but before he could explore this phenomenon he heard a voice. “I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked.
“Are you okay?” asked Katya again. She helped him to his feet and sat him on a stool. “What happened?” she asked.
“The room moved unexpectedly - the ship moved, I suppose. We must have injured. Were we attacked?” He could tell that he was speaking somewhat at random and tried to pull himself together. There was blood on his finger, he noticed. Was that from his head? He raised his other hand to the lump on the back of his head and when he pulled his it away he found a stippling of blood on his index finger. “I appear to be bleeding,” he said, “though not severely. Are there injured?”
“No,” said Katya, “only you.” She donned a pair of exam gloves and delicately parted his hair at the back. “Contusion,” she said, “and a small abrasion. Didn’t you see the mood lights?” she asked, opening a syringe and loading it with gelled antiseptic. She held a gauze pad to his head to catch any drips, “this will sting,” and spread the antiseptic over his wound. The she activated a cold pack, taped the gauze to one side, and handed it to Stephen.
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