Throughout the rest of that day Harper had been visited multiple times by
the whole crew, Beka had been running back and forth from the command deck
all day.
Dylan had visited twice, the first time soon after he had woken up and another time later on, just to see how he was getting on.
Rommie had visited 3 times, once to see how he was, the second to ask him how to fix her arm that had stopped working, and a third time carrying her own arm where she had done it wrong and Harper had to give her a step by step guide while he lay there.
Rev had visited once for a long while to talk to him and see how he was doing, but had left when Tyr had come through the door.
Tyr had visited once; he had said that he came to see if their chief engineer was still alive because it could mean the difference between life and death if their ship was left without a proper engineer during an attack.
He had also said that he didn't like making repairs and told Harper to get well soon. Harper had thought that it was touching coming from Tyr.
It was late and Harper was begging to get tired.
"You look tired" Trance said looking over at Harper.
"I am a little tired" Harper said, then yawned as if on cue, that showed he was more tired than he was willing to admit.
"You look really tired" Trance said frowning. "I think that you've had enough visitors for today" Trance said.
Beka chose that exact moment to walk through the door, and was surprised to be suddenly pushed back out the door by Trance.
"Visiting hours are over" Trance said remembering an old earth term that Harper had used when he had been sick on the Maru once.
Harper chuckled at the scene, and was surprised that Trance had remembered the term that he had used such a long time ago.
"But, what, hold on!" Beka complained as she was ushered out of the door, once she was out Trance closed the door.
"I'll be back in the morning then!" Beka could be heard calling out from behind the door.
Harper began laughing, that was one of the funniest thing he had ever seen Trance do.
"Now, Trance, that was being assertive!" Harper joked.
Trance smiled, she was obviously pleased that Harper had found it as funny as she had hoped.
"I know, I remembered that thing you said about 'visiting hours' being over, what was that about anyway?" Trance asked
Harper looked surprised, he had thought that Trance knew what visiting hours were.
How had she remembered that term from so long ago when she didn't even know what it meant?
"Oh, it was a old earth hospital thing, they wouldn't let the visitors in after a certain time in the evening" Harper told her, he wasn't completely sure he was right, he had only seen it in one movie.
"But how did you remember it from so long ago?" Harper asked Trance.
"Well it was just the way you said it at the time, and it's hard to forget one of your special brand of jokes" Trance said, her answer strangely rushed and she moved a little awkwardly as she spoke.
But Harper hadn't seen her move as she had been behind him so he couldn't move to see her without making some aching part of his body ache more.
"So, Trance what exactly happed to me, all I remember was an explosion, where we attacked?" Harper asked.
"Not exactly, two ships came out of slipstream and were fighting each other" Trance began to explain. "Then one hit the other and then it crashed into Andromeda" Trance continued trying to explain.
"Oh, I think I understand now" Harper said, realising that Trance hadn't been on command at the time and hadn't seen it first hand, so she was therefore not a good source for finding out the details, but she had given him the general idea of what had happened.
"Exactly had bad was I injured?" Harper asked her, he had preferred not to ask her until now, he wasn't even sure how he had come to be lying in the medical bed he was in now, but now knowing how bad the accident had been, he wondered how badly he had been hurt, although Trances, and the rest of the crews attitudes showed that he couldn't be that badly hurt, or crippled.
Once when he had injured his leg on the Maru, Trance had been unsure if he would walk again, and they had acted completely differently from how they had this time, so he wasn't that worried. I addition, they would have probably told him by now anyway if it was that serious.
"I could have been worse if Dylan wasn't so good with a laser cutter, he told me it was difficult cutting you off the deck without injuring you further." Trance said, wincing a little when she was recalling the event mentally.
This didn't have a positive reaction on Harper, his eyes went wide with shock, and Harper knew her well enough to know that she was not joking.
"Cut me off the deck!?" Harper half asked, half shouted. Grimacing a bit as he did so, this didn't sound good.
"Um, you were kind of, umm…a little bit, uh, impaled on the deck." Trance said, nervous of what harpers reaction would be.
"Impaled!!" Harper shrieked, horrified. "Where?" He demanded more than asked.
"Um, your, uh, shoulder" Trance said looking nervous.
"So, that was what that pain was!" Harper said, a little more worried than he was letting on.
"Will I ever be able to use that arm again?" Harper said, trying to make out that he was trying to make a witty joke, but his face and tone betrayed him, Trance could see he was worried and gave him a reassuring smile.
"Yes Harper you'll be able to use your arm, at most there will be a scar." Trance said, trying to reassure him, it was a success and he relaxed back down.
"What else is there in the 'Make Harper suffer pie'?" Harper asked.
"Um, just some cracked and/or broken ribs, some lacerations, several deep scratches, a lot of small cuts, a load of bruises and a fractured leg." Trance listed the injuries quickly, so that Harper didn't have time to dwell on them.
"Oh, and that would be why pain shoots through my body like a pinball machine" Harper sighed. "Its going to be a long recovery, babe" Harper said to Trance, he hated being stuck in the same room for long periods of time.
"Well at least well spend some quality time together," Trance said happily.
"Yeah, at first, then you'll start getting sick of having me around all the time" Harper said to her "everybody does" Harper continued morbidly.
"Why do you think that Harper?" Trance asked him "Sure, you can be annoying at times, but your not that bad" She continued trying to get to the bottom of Harper's previously unnoticed emotions.
"Uh, just forget it okay. Harper said, wanting to avoid having to talk to Trance about his problems.
"But, you're my friend, you know that right?" Trance asked him
"Yeah" Harper said quietly.
Trance decided that it was pointless to push the matter further at that time, it wasn't like one of the times when he was quickly stopping by because he had been told to, or one of the seldom moments that they confided with one another. He was going to be in medical for quite a long time, there was no need to rush things.
It made her feel guilty, but she enjoyed it when he was ill and they spent time together, but mostly it was spoiled by harpers various illnesses affecting his behaviour.
Injuries of a physical nature meant that he'd be himself, she would enjoy being with him, not like those times when he'd been ill before and had begun believing that the walls were talking to him.
Why? She began to question herself. Why did she enjoy his company more than any of the rest of the crew? What was it that was different about him, was it that---
"Hey!" Harper called, Trance was startled, she hadn't noticed that she had gotten lost in thoughts and daydreams.
Harper had noticed that she hadn't responded to find her staring off into space, he was worried, she didn't do that very often, and it usually because she was concerned about something.
"Oh, ah, um, sorry" Trance said, still startled.
"Are you okay Trance" Harper asked her, not expecting a straight answer, you never get that when asking Trance personal questions.
However, curiously Trance never seemed to lie, whatever said, it was usually the truth, but sometimes cryptic or vague, but almost always, both.
"Just thinking" Trance said, her eyes glazing over for a second, but then returned to look at him.
Harper knew that if she wanted him to know what she was thinking, she would have told him; Trance spoke her mind, when she wanted to. There was no point asking her, but where was the fun in that?
"What about?" Harper asked her, she looked a little caught off guard, as though she hadn't been expecting it.
"What?" Trance said, Harper thought that she was stalling for time.
"What were you thinking about?" Harper asked again, making sure to pronounce the words carefully so that she couldn't say she didn't hear him clearly.
"Uh I was just thinking about how long you would be here" Trance said, it was true, but did not cover the entirety of the thoughts that she had in the few seconds she had been in her own world.
"I'll be here that long huh?" Harper asked, he was slightly annoyed, tomorrow the boredom would set in, usually he would just have to wait it out, but he sensed that he would be here longer this time, he would have to find a way to pass the time, he couldn't just talk to trance, even she couldn't go on talking forever.
It was late evening, three days later. Harper had finally managed to move, he could now sit up and would use the beds controls to higher the bed so it was easier to prop himself up.
Harper had spent several hours jacked into Rommie earlier that day, he had gotten bore and had decided to play poker with her, that had become boring less than an hour later, playing poker with two people got boring fairly fast, they had then played tennis, Rommie won, it was hard to lose when you controlled the world around you.
For a while he and Rommie had talked about thing that he could do while he was recovering.
She had suggested reading, but while Harper did sometimes enjoy reading, he wasn't the type to make a hobby out of it. And even if he did, it would have left trance with little to do.
Trance did have jobs to do around the med deck, but in her spare time she usually went to hydroponics, she still went there to do her necessary work, but while he was recovering she spent most of her free time with him, he had noticed and didn't want her to be bored while he was enjoying himself, well, as much as he could anyway.
After Rommie had suggested reading, she had suggested something else, this time the activity was more of a thing that Trance and Harper could do together, watch movies.
That was one of the things about being on a warship that just happens to be run by one of the most sophisticated computers ever created, and also having a database full of vast amounts of data, you often had a lot of media stored away somewhere, and Andromeda had it by the bucket load. And in there was a vast selection of movies that spanned from before humans had walked on mars, to very last, which had been not too long before the fall of the commonwealth.
However, after the fall of the commonwealth, such things became unimportant, survival was the first thing on everybody's mind.
A large amount of people have never even heard about them, over time they had been forgotten, the copies had all but been lost, those that remained were considered antiques, and fetched high prices at auction, no ordinary person could get access to them, true, there was one or two movies that had been copied by people that owned one of the rare copies, and were widely distributed. It probably began with the original owners making copies for their friends, then their friends making copies for their friends, and so on.
Those that had survived however, were ones that had been made not long before the fall of the commonwealth, Andromeda had a vast array that had never been heard of before, even to the few people that collected them, a few select people that had the riches to do so.
Harper and Trance were going to watch one in a short while. Harper had asked Rommie to search and see what movies might interest him and Trance.
Rommie had picked 'Star Wars', a movie that Andromeda said was a great hit, but was now all but unknown. But she said it appealed to her because it reminded her of their situation, the title that is, she had said that the rest held very little similarity.
Andromeda had asked had also said that 'Star Wars' was made up of several parts, and had asked him if he wanted to watch them in the order that they were made, or the intended story chronology.
Harper had asked her why they had made the films in the wrong order, she had replied that the she didn't know, but she guessed that it was because the writer didn't know how to start the story at first and had started writing from the middle, and the end, and had then gone on to write the start.
Harper didn't understand how anyone could write a story without knowing where the plot came from or was going to.
When Andromeda had told Harper about the time the movie was made he had wondered how the writer, had been able to write about intergalactic war, when at the time, humans hadn't even begun to explore space and before the genetic engineering programs started.
Harper had decided not to watch the movies in the order that they had been made but instead watch them in the order of the plot, he had decided that the story would probably be easier to understand that way, because being unaware of any of the events that led up to the first films release, he made have missed something that made the film understandable.
At the moment, Trance was at hydroponics finishing he daily duties, so that they could watch the film; she was looking forward to it. It was a good opportunity to learn some of harpers human 'slang' as he called it. It wasn't often that she got much time to spend with Harper, not since they came to the Andromeda anyway, so she was going to savour every minute of it, it was only when he was sick that they would spend the most time together, it was also difficult, because he had a lot more chances to ask her about her past, and although she was good at avoiding Harper's questions, she couldn't keep that up forever.
Luckily, he hadn't shown much interest in her background lately, perhaps he was finally giving up, or perhaps he was planning something, she found it easy to deflect his simple questions, but the more time Harper spent thinking about what he was going to ask, the harder it was to avoid them.
She hoped that he had given up, she didn't like withholding the truth from him, even if it was for his own good, he's already too close, he may already know, but that was unlikely.
She just had to hope and be prepared.
And hope he wasn't thinking of a way to make her reveal he secrets.
Dylan had visited twice, the first time soon after he had woken up and another time later on, just to see how he was getting on.
Rommie had visited 3 times, once to see how he was, the second to ask him how to fix her arm that had stopped working, and a third time carrying her own arm where she had done it wrong and Harper had to give her a step by step guide while he lay there.
Rev had visited once for a long while to talk to him and see how he was doing, but had left when Tyr had come through the door.
Tyr had visited once; he had said that he came to see if their chief engineer was still alive because it could mean the difference between life and death if their ship was left without a proper engineer during an attack.
He had also said that he didn't like making repairs and told Harper to get well soon. Harper had thought that it was touching coming from Tyr.
It was late and Harper was begging to get tired.
"You look tired" Trance said looking over at Harper.
"I am a little tired" Harper said, then yawned as if on cue, that showed he was more tired than he was willing to admit.
"You look really tired" Trance said frowning. "I think that you've had enough visitors for today" Trance said.
Beka chose that exact moment to walk through the door, and was surprised to be suddenly pushed back out the door by Trance.
"Visiting hours are over" Trance said remembering an old earth term that Harper had used when he had been sick on the Maru once.
Harper chuckled at the scene, and was surprised that Trance had remembered the term that he had used such a long time ago.
"But, what, hold on!" Beka complained as she was ushered out of the door, once she was out Trance closed the door.
"I'll be back in the morning then!" Beka could be heard calling out from behind the door.
Harper began laughing, that was one of the funniest thing he had ever seen Trance do.
"Now, Trance, that was being assertive!" Harper joked.
Trance smiled, she was obviously pleased that Harper had found it as funny as she had hoped.
"I know, I remembered that thing you said about 'visiting hours' being over, what was that about anyway?" Trance asked
Harper looked surprised, he had thought that Trance knew what visiting hours were.
How had she remembered that term from so long ago when she didn't even know what it meant?
"Oh, it was a old earth hospital thing, they wouldn't let the visitors in after a certain time in the evening" Harper told her, he wasn't completely sure he was right, he had only seen it in one movie.
"But how did you remember it from so long ago?" Harper asked Trance.
"Well it was just the way you said it at the time, and it's hard to forget one of your special brand of jokes" Trance said, her answer strangely rushed and she moved a little awkwardly as she spoke.
But Harper hadn't seen her move as she had been behind him so he couldn't move to see her without making some aching part of his body ache more.
"So, Trance what exactly happed to me, all I remember was an explosion, where we attacked?" Harper asked.
"Not exactly, two ships came out of slipstream and were fighting each other" Trance began to explain. "Then one hit the other and then it crashed into Andromeda" Trance continued trying to explain.
"Oh, I think I understand now" Harper said, realising that Trance hadn't been on command at the time and hadn't seen it first hand, so she was therefore not a good source for finding out the details, but she had given him the general idea of what had happened.
"Exactly had bad was I injured?" Harper asked her, he had preferred not to ask her until now, he wasn't even sure how he had come to be lying in the medical bed he was in now, but now knowing how bad the accident had been, he wondered how badly he had been hurt, although Trances, and the rest of the crews attitudes showed that he couldn't be that badly hurt, or crippled.
Once when he had injured his leg on the Maru, Trance had been unsure if he would walk again, and they had acted completely differently from how they had this time, so he wasn't that worried. I addition, they would have probably told him by now anyway if it was that serious.
"I could have been worse if Dylan wasn't so good with a laser cutter, he told me it was difficult cutting you off the deck without injuring you further." Trance said, wincing a little when she was recalling the event mentally.
This didn't have a positive reaction on Harper, his eyes went wide with shock, and Harper knew her well enough to know that she was not joking.
"Cut me off the deck!?" Harper half asked, half shouted. Grimacing a bit as he did so, this didn't sound good.
"Um, you were kind of, umm…a little bit, uh, impaled on the deck." Trance said, nervous of what harpers reaction would be.
"Impaled!!" Harper shrieked, horrified. "Where?" He demanded more than asked.
"Um, your, uh, shoulder" Trance said looking nervous.
"So, that was what that pain was!" Harper said, a little more worried than he was letting on.
"Will I ever be able to use that arm again?" Harper said, trying to make out that he was trying to make a witty joke, but his face and tone betrayed him, Trance could see he was worried and gave him a reassuring smile.
"Yes Harper you'll be able to use your arm, at most there will be a scar." Trance said, trying to reassure him, it was a success and he relaxed back down.
"What else is there in the 'Make Harper suffer pie'?" Harper asked.
"Um, just some cracked and/or broken ribs, some lacerations, several deep scratches, a lot of small cuts, a load of bruises and a fractured leg." Trance listed the injuries quickly, so that Harper didn't have time to dwell on them.
"Oh, and that would be why pain shoots through my body like a pinball machine" Harper sighed. "Its going to be a long recovery, babe" Harper said to Trance, he hated being stuck in the same room for long periods of time.
"Well at least well spend some quality time together," Trance said happily.
"Yeah, at first, then you'll start getting sick of having me around all the time" Harper said to her "everybody does" Harper continued morbidly.
"Why do you think that Harper?" Trance asked him "Sure, you can be annoying at times, but your not that bad" She continued trying to get to the bottom of Harper's previously unnoticed emotions.
"Uh, just forget it okay. Harper said, wanting to avoid having to talk to Trance about his problems.
"But, you're my friend, you know that right?" Trance asked him
"Yeah" Harper said quietly.
Trance decided that it was pointless to push the matter further at that time, it wasn't like one of the times when he was quickly stopping by because he had been told to, or one of the seldom moments that they confided with one another. He was going to be in medical for quite a long time, there was no need to rush things.
It made her feel guilty, but she enjoyed it when he was ill and they spent time together, but mostly it was spoiled by harpers various illnesses affecting his behaviour.
Injuries of a physical nature meant that he'd be himself, she would enjoy being with him, not like those times when he'd been ill before and had begun believing that the walls were talking to him.
Why? She began to question herself. Why did she enjoy his company more than any of the rest of the crew? What was it that was different about him, was it that---
"Hey!" Harper called, Trance was startled, she hadn't noticed that she had gotten lost in thoughts and daydreams.
Harper had noticed that she hadn't responded to find her staring off into space, he was worried, she didn't do that very often, and it usually because she was concerned about something.
"Oh, ah, um, sorry" Trance said, still startled.
"Are you okay Trance" Harper asked her, not expecting a straight answer, you never get that when asking Trance personal questions.
However, curiously Trance never seemed to lie, whatever said, it was usually the truth, but sometimes cryptic or vague, but almost always, both.
"Just thinking" Trance said, her eyes glazing over for a second, but then returned to look at him.
Harper knew that if she wanted him to know what she was thinking, she would have told him; Trance spoke her mind, when she wanted to. There was no point asking her, but where was the fun in that?
"What about?" Harper asked her, she looked a little caught off guard, as though she hadn't been expecting it.
"What?" Trance said, Harper thought that she was stalling for time.
"What were you thinking about?" Harper asked again, making sure to pronounce the words carefully so that she couldn't say she didn't hear him clearly.
"Uh I was just thinking about how long you would be here" Trance said, it was true, but did not cover the entirety of the thoughts that she had in the few seconds she had been in her own world.
"I'll be here that long huh?" Harper asked, he was slightly annoyed, tomorrow the boredom would set in, usually he would just have to wait it out, but he sensed that he would be here longer this time, he would have to find a way to pass the time, he couldn't just talk to trance, even she couldn't go on talking forever.
It was late evening, three days later. Harper had finally managed to move, he could now sit up and would use the beds controls to higher the bed so it was easier to prop himself up.
Harper had spent several hours jacked into Rommie earlier that day, he had gotten bore and had decided to play poker with her, that had become boring less than an hour later, playing poker with two people got boring fairly fast, they had then played tennis, Rommie won, it was hard to lose when you controlled the world around you.
For a while he and Rommie had talked about thing that he could do while he was recovering.
She had suggested reading, but while Harper did sometimes enjoy reading, he wasn't the type to make a hobby out of it. And even if he did, it would have left trance with little to do.
Trance did have jobs to do around the med deck, but in her spare time she usually went to hydroponics, she still went there to do her necessary work, but while he was recovering she spent most of her free time with him, he had noticed and didn't want her to be bored while he was enjoying himself, well, as much as he could anyway.
After Rommie had suggested reading, she had suggested something else, this time the activity was more of a thing that Trance and Harper could do together, watch movies.
That was one of the things about being on a warship that just happens to be run by one of the most sophisticated computers ever created, and also having a database full of vast amounts of data, you often had a lot of media stored away somewhere, and Andromeda had it by the bucket load. And in there was a vast selection of movies that spanned from before humans had walked on mars, to very last, which had been not too long before the fall of the commonwealth.
However, after the fall of the commonwealth, such things became unimportant, survival was the first thing on everybody's mind.
A large amount of people have never even heard about them, over time they had been forgotten, the copies had all but been lost, those that remained were considered antiques, and fetched high prices at auction, no ordinary person could get access to them, true, there was one or two movies that had been copied by people that owned one of the rare copies, and were widely distributed. It probably began with the original owners making copies for their friends, then their friends making copies for their friends, and so on.
Those that had survived however, were ones that had been made not long before the fall of the commonwealth, Andromeda had a vast array that had never been heard of before, even to the few people that collected them, a few select people that had the riches to do so.
Harper and Trance were going to watch one in a short while. Harper had asked Rommie to search and see what movies might interest him and Trance.
Rommie had picked 'Star Wars', a movie that Andromeda said was a great hit, but was now all but unknown. But she said it appealed to her because it reminded her of their situation, the title that is, she had said that the rest held very little similarity.
Andromeda had asked had also said that 'Star Wars' was made up of several parts, and had asked him if he wanted to watch them in the order that they were made, or the intended story chronology.
Harper had asked her why they had made the films in the wrong order, she had replied that the she didn't know, but she guessed that it was because the writer didn't know how to start the story at first and had started writing from the middle, and the end, and had then gone on to write the start.
Harper didn't understand how anyone could write a story without knowing where the plot came from or was going to.
When Andromeda had told Harper about the time the movie was made he had wondered how the writer, had been able to write about intergalactic war, when at the time, humans hadn't even begun to explore space and before the genetic engineering programs started.
Harper had decided not to watch the movies in the order that they had been made but instead watch them in the order of the plot, he had decided that the story would probably be easier to understand that way, because being unaware of any of the events that led up to the first films release, he made have missed something that made the film understandable.
At the moment, Trance was at hydroponics finishing he daily duties, so that they could watch the film; she was looking forward to it. It was a good opportunity to learn some of harpers human 'slang' as he called it. It wasn't often that she got much time to spend with Harper, not since they came to the Andromeda anyway, so she was going to savour every minute of it, it was only when he was sick that they would spend the most time together, it was also difficult, because he had a lot more chances to ask her about her past, and although she was good at avoiding Harper's questions, she couldn't keep that up forever.
Luckily, he hadn't shown much interest in her background lately, perhaps he was finally giving up, or perhaps he was planning something, she found it easy to deflect his simple questions, but the more time Harper spent thinking about what he was going to ask, the harder it was to avoid them.
She hoped that he had given up, she didn't like withholding the truth from him, even if it was for his own good, he's already too close, he may already know, but that was unlikely.
She just had to hope and be prepared.
And hope he wasn't thinking of a way to make her reveal he secrets.