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apparently.”
    “He is losing confidence in himself, Cherijo. I think he’s afraid of going back on the simulator. He puts it off, says he can’t clear his thoughts. He must be constantly second-guessing himself.”
    A luxury a surgeon never had time to indulge. “Squilyp, I honestly didn’t know it was that bad.” And all my fault. Like everything else.
    Squilyp accurately read my expression. “It’s not your fault. He didn’t air his concerns, and I know how busy you are. Vlaav admitted he couldn’t bring himself to ask you about the transfer. The boy idolizes you.”
    Or was scared to death of me. That didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel like Joseph Grey Veil. “Not much of a role model for him, am I?”
    “Let me work with him for now. When he’s got his focus and confidence back—”
    “No. You take over his residency from here on out. It’s for the best.” I felt like banging my head against the nearest hull panel. “You can use the extra hands, anyway.”
    “Have you talked to Reever yet?”
    “No.” I picked up my sojourn pack. “Don’t go behind my back and tell him, either.”
    “I may not have to. The man is a telepath, Cherijo.”
    “I’m not telling him now.” I held up a hand when he would have argued the point. “Stay out of this, Squilyp. It’s personal.”
    The ship suddenly lurched, and shuddered. We grabbed each other to keep from falling on our faces. The ship slowly restabilized, and the Omorr hopped over to the room console and signaled the helm.
    “Are we under attack?”
    “No, Senior Healer. We passed through a small meteor swarm, but sustained no significant damage. Jorenian alloys are impervious to such bombardment.” The ship’s Operational Officer glanced at me. “We were able to shield the Truman , but I regret to report the Perpetua was not as fortunate.”
     
    I shuttled over to the now-crippled Perpetua , which looked like it had been put through a molecular sieve. I went directly to Medical, and walked into total chaos. Patients were yelling, nurses were shouting, and orderlies were running back and forth fetching supplies.
    I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled to get everyone’s attention. The room fell silent. “Triage nurses, report.”
    Three of my nurses came over and delivered the stats on the injured. Most of the crew members had reported in with only minor assorted lacerations and fractures, but at least a dozen were going to require surgery.
    I got on the console and signaled the Sunlace . “Squilyp, I’m going to need a full med-support team over here. You and Vlaav, too, if you can be spared.”
    “We will shuttle over and be there in a few minutes.”
    A nurse appeared at my side. “Doctor, we’ve got a complicated spinal injury over here you’d better look at.”
    “On my way.” I pulled on some gloves. “Surgical team, prep and ready! Two minutes!”
    My spinal injury case turned out to be three broken vertebra compressing the patient’s convoluted spinal cord, according to my first scan.
    “Fifty cc’s of prednisyone,” I said, and performed a second pass. “Looks like we’ve got three fractures between C-eighteen to T-fourteen in the cervical.”
    The patient was unconscious, so I had to rouse her. She was one of the Tingaleans we’d rescued from Catopsa, and strongly resembled a large snake with six pairs of stunted limblets.
    “Can you hear me?” I glanced at the nurse. “What’s her name?”
    “GySikk.”
    “GySikk,” I said, and patted her leathery cheek. Slowly her triple-lidded eyes opened. “You’ve had an injury to your spine. I’m going to probe your abdomen and lower body now. I want you to tell me if you can feel it touching you.”
    “Yes.” She was slurring her words, but that was normal for a Tingalean.
    By probing, I determined that GySikk’s legs and a third of her trunk were paralyzed. She had trouble keeping her second eyelids from drooping, too.
    “Upper ten limblets reactive,