Read Designing for Free Online

the portable healing unit.”
    Darthuun looked sceptical. “How great?”
    Ula smirked, “It is finished.”
    It was hard to be smug while she was leaning against Deniir, but the moment she realised it was her own body shifting toward his on its own, she stepped back until she was leaning against her workstation.
    Darthuun looked sceptical. “Really?”
    Ula smirked and leaned over, grabbing the unit from where Deniir had set it down. Out of the way but within reach.
    She grabbed a blade from her belt, and wincing, she placed her hand on the table and plunged the knife through her left hand, between the bones. The searing agony distracted her, and she heard Deniir shout and Darthuun gasp.
    Through gritted teeth, she hissed, “Stand back. I have to do this.”
    He stood back but it was reluctantly.
    Her hand throbbed, but she picked up the new portable healer. She calibrated it against her forearm, and the moment it turned green, she pulled the knife out of her flesh, pressing the healing unit to the back of her hand.
    The unit’s indicator light turned blue and the pain stopped. It was telling her nerves to calm down while it used the clotting and repair factors of her body to do their work in the most efficient way possible.
    Once the blue light turned white, she rotated her hand to heal the interior of her palm.
    When the light turned purple, the healing was done.
    She raised her hand to Darthuun and flexed her palm. “I trust you will believe me now?”
    He bowed low, his wings fully extended. “My apologies that my doubt caused you pain, Master Designer.”
    “Testing a design on my own body is only what anyone should ask of themselves if they expect others to trust their lives to it.”
    Deniir looked at her as if she was the most precious thing in the world, and Darthuun bowed lower.
    “Please get up, Darthuun.” She returned to her workstation and smiled at Deniir as she started back on the tracking pod that she was working on.
    The master engineer stood up again and folded his wings in. “We thank you for your help. Are the schematics in the system?”
    “They are. I took images of the unit as I built it.” She sealed the casing with a few snaps, and the small rocket was complete. She would need to build more, and one per day would increase her chances of finding any traces of those first few Gaians.
    “If you are done with that project, it is time for the mid-day meal.” Deniir smiled. “Would you care to join me?”
    She looked across her workstation at the pieces in progress but acknowledged that her mind would be clearer if she had something to eat. “I would enjoy that.”
    Ula extended her hand to him, and he took it, bringing her bloody knuckles to his lips. Meeting his gaze over her hand, she smiled. It was an interesting way to start a relationship, but how much of a future could they have, separated by space and culture?
     
    As if performing a magic trick, he reached into his shirt and removed a small object while their server poured their drinks. She was sticking to fruit juices and plain tea. She didn’t want to take chances on getting intoxicated.
    “This is your debit chit. You can use it to buy anything on the mother ship, and you can use any terminal to check your balance.” He held it between two fingers and extended it to her.
    She examined it, and it was a simple piece of recording media. A small chip that could easily be concealed within clothing was sitting in her palm. She lifted it and tucked it into her work belt. That would keep it safe until she could make a wristband that would keep it in place.
    She smiled brightly and was startled when a man appeared at her elbow. It was Engineer Trull. He bowed low. “Thank you for your genius. I could never have shifted the design in that direction.”
    “Thank Gaia for the inspiration. My poor brain does nothing that the planet didn’t put there. I am merely a tool of her design.”
    “As are we all. Well, thank you for coming to