Burn | Page 2

name?"
"Spur."
The docbot stroked Spur's palm with its med finger, collecting some of his sweat. It stuck the sample into its mouth. "That may be what your friends call you," it said, "but what I'm asking is the name on your id."
The words chased each other across the ceiling for a moment before they sank in. Spur wouldn't have had such a problem understanding if the docbot were a person, with lips and a real mouth instead of the oblong intake. The doctor controlling this bot was somewhere else. Dr. Niss was an upsider whom Spur had never actually met. "Prosper Gregory Leung," he said.
"A fine Walden name," said the docbot, and then muttered, "Self id 27.4 seconds from initial request."
"Is that good?"
It hummed to itself, ignoring his question. "The electrolytes in your sweat have settled down nicely," it said at last. "So tell me about the sim."
"I was in the burn and the fire was after me. All around, Dr. Niss. There was a pukpuk, one of the torches, he grabbed me. I couldn't get away."
"You remembered my name, son." The docbot's top plate glowed with an approving amber light. "So did you die?"
Spur shook his head. "But I was on fire."
"Experience fear vectors unrelated to the burn? Monsters, for instance? Your mom? Dad?"
"No."
"Lost loves? Dead friends? Childhood pets?"
"No." He had a fleeting image of the twisted grimace on Vic's face at that last moment, but how could he tell this upsider that his wife's brother had been a traitor to the Transcendent State? "Nothing." Spur was getting used to lying to Dr. Niss, although he worried what it was doing to his soul.
"Check and double check. It's almost as if I knew what I was doing, eh?" The docbot began releasing the straps that held Spur down. "I'd say your soul is on the mend, Citizen Leung. You'll have some psychic scarring, but if you steer clear of complex moral dilemmas and women, you should be fine." It paused, then snapped its fingers. "Just for the record, son, that was a joke."
"Yes, sir." Spur forced a smile. "Sorry, sir." Was getting the jokes part of the cure? The way this upsider talked at once baffled and fascinated Spur.
"So let's have a look at those burns," said the docbot.
Spur rolled onto his stomach and folded his arms under his chin. The docbot pulled the hospital gown up. Spur could feel its medfinger pricking the dermal grafts that covered most of his back and his buttocks. "Dr. Niss?" said Spur.
"Speak up," said the docbot. "That doesn't hurt does it?"
"No, sir." Spur lifted his head and tried to look back over this shoulder. "But it's really itchy."
"Dermal regeneration 83 percent," it muttered. "Itchy is alive, son. Itchy is growing."
"Sir, I was just wondering, where are you exactly?"
"Right here." The docbot began to flow warm dermslix to the grafts from its medfinger. "Where else would I be?"
Spur chuckled, hoping that was a joke. He could remember a time when he used to tell jokes. "No, I mean your body."
"The shell? Why?" The docbot paused. "You don't really want to be asking about qics and the cognisphere, do you? The less you know about the upside, the better, son."
Spur felt a prickle of resentment. What stories were upsiders telling each other about Walden? That the citizens of the Transcendent State were backward fanatics who had simplified themselves into savagery? "I wasn't asking about the upside, exactly. I was asking about you. I mean... you saved me, Dr. Niss." It wasn't at all what Spur had expected to say, although it was certainly true. "If it wasn't for you, it... I was burnt all over, probably going crazy. And I thought...." His throat was suddenly so tight that he could hardly speak. "I wanted to... you know, thank you."
"Quite unnecessary," said the docbot. "After all, the Chairman is paying me to take care of all of you, bless his pockets." It tugged at Spur's hospital gown with its gripper arm. "I prefer the kind of thanks I can bank, son. Everything else is just used air."
"Yes, but...."
"Yes, but?" It finished pulling the gown back into place. "'Yes but' are dangerous words. Don't forget that you people lead a privileged life here -- courtesy of Jack Winter's bounty and your parents' luck."
Spur had never heard anyone call the Chairman Jack. "It was my grandparents who won the lottery, sir," he said. "But yes, I know I'm lucky to live on Walden."
"So why do you want to know what kind of creature would puree his mind into a smear of quantum foam and entangle it with a bot brain a hundred and thirty-some light-years away? Sit up, son."
Spur didn't know what to say. He had imagined that Dr. Niss must be posted nearby, somewhere here at the