Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (30 page)

Irons
had even tossed in a couple of view screens and holo projectors for the doctor.
He'd suggested a class room but they had unfortunately run out of room. Numiria
didn't sound like the class room teaching type however. She preferred her
people learned on the job with experience.

When
they were certain the construction supervisor and tradesmen knew their jobs
O'Mallory went back to keeping an eye on the ship's overall health and checking
in with other projects going on all over the ship.

Irons
hinted to Numiria and the staff about the medical database Sprite had uploaded.
Numiria hadn't been interested at first; but when she caught one of her
orderlies looking up a disorder it had intrigued her.

As
new equipment rolled out she asked for training on the equipment she had no
experience with. Irons did his best but sometimes all he had was the tech
manual to go off of. He was no medic even though he had an associates in
medicine. He hadn't applied a lot of the knowledge he'd gained in the high
school class so he lost most of it over time. He had a bit of residual memory
of a few things but the science of medicine changed since he'd taken the course
eight hundred and some odd years ago.

During
their discussions they would sometimes get off topic but it was enjoyable for
him and for her. When they installed the bioreactor and cloning equipment that
had shocked her.

“Doc,
I realize you don't have experience, but there is a great deal of information
in the database. I suggest you take a look when you can spare the time,” he
suggested as they made the final connections.

“You
don't understand. With this we can... we can heal so many of the people in
stasis!” Numiria was ecstatic.

“I
know doc,” he said with a nod. That had been part of his plan after all, he
just hadn't mentioned it because he didn't want them to get their hopes up...
and he didn't want to run into any resistance from the captain. The nurses
nearby were looking up at her. They exchanged looks. The air took a general
feel of excitement and anticipation.

“Okay,
let's see here. You wanted to know the basics of cloning. Let's see how much
I've remembered from high school health class doc.” He smiled at her
expression. He started laying it out, leaning heavily on the bookmarked
passages from the encyclopedia Galactica Sprite had helpfully pulled up for him
on his HUD. Some of it he remembered from his own experience with the doctors
dealing with his own injuries but a lot came from the layman's knowledge he had
on hand.

As
the staff picked up the data... he was pretty sure they were soaking it up like
a sponge which was amusing. They could access this anytime they wanted but
again, they learned by experience. They started into a rather lively discussion
of cloned tissue replacements over implants.

He
explained tissue basics to the medical staff and those interested. “See, you
use ECM structures and stem cells harvested and force split from the patient to
form replacement parts. By applying a stimulant you induce the stem cells to
fission in a controlled growth pattern. You can find the directions in the
files.”

“But...”

“Doc,
I suggest you give it a test whirl. Start with something simple. There might be
labs in the files, I don't know. Try a recipe, but start with something small
like skin. Build up your confidence in the equipment and then try something
tougher when you become familiar and more confident in the system.”

“Okay,”
Numiria said with an ear flick and nod. “Sounds good.”

“We've
built a bioreactor for you. I'd like to do another but unfortunately we don't
have the material or the room. If the stasis pods were emptied then...” He
shrugged and spread his hands as she nodded in understanding.

The
stasis pods were in bays under the infirmary's lower floor. Unfortunately they
couldn't do anything about that space; the pods couldn't be moved or disturbed.
Their contents were too delicate.

“Now,
the bioreactor is a simple piece of equipment that has been around for over a
thousand years. What it does is it mimics the body of the patient to allow the
tissue to grow at an accelerated rate,” he explained.

“Usually
it takes about two weeks to grow an organ. It really depends on the species and
how complex the organ is and what you have to start with. That is if you don't
have to repeatedly stop to induce additional cellular fission mitosis and other
factors.”

“Yes
but what does it do? It looks like a box,” a nurse said, wrinkling her nose. It
was a cube about a meter high on top of a cabinet. The lower cabinet had an emergency
power supply and material containers for the reactor. A heat exchanger was on
top. Getting that sorted out had required a bit of shifting of the life support
but Proteus had anticipated the usage of the equipment in the plan.

Irons
rested his hand on the green reactor casing. There were controls along the
right side and a series of doors hinged to the left side. If someone didn't
know any better it looked a bit like a microwave. An oversized one with a lot
more controls but a microwave. “It's not a reactor like the fusion reactor.
What the reactor does is provide warmth, high oxygen or other atmosphere and
nutrients to stimulate the tissue to grow, filling in the voids in the ECM and
forming the tissue pattern you want.”

“Oh.”

“We
can replicate some tissue structures with nanites. Most notably ECM. A medical
replicator can churn out ECM that is sterile by the bucket load. But to avoid
tissue rejection you use harvested cells from the patient themselves. You
really only need a small amount. Of course the more there are the better and
faster the process goes.”

“So
we can clone my brother's hand?” An orderly asked.

“What
happened to his hand?” Irons asked turning to him.

The
orderly made a face. “Engineering accident a couple of years ago.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.
He gets along without most of the fingers but...”

“It's
a pain. Okay, yes, if I remember from the literature and my limited experience
in health class, if you treat a
fresh
wound with a powdered ECM it will
stimulate regeneration. Basically the body regenerates instead of forming scar
tissue. But it has to be under the right conditions and before the scar tissue
is formed. For him a tissue replacement is in order. The doctor can sample his
tissue and then force grow a replacement digit. Or digits in this case.” He
wiggled his fingers.

“Ah,”
the nurse said. The orderly nodded.

“I
would prefer you start with something a little easier actually,” The doctor
said slowly.

“What
me?” The nurse asked surprised.

“You've
the incentive to learn it right?” Numiria asked. The nurse nodded. So did the
orderly.

“It's
best to learn to walk before you can run. Or in this case crawl before you can
walk. I suggest you start looking over the additional materials Sprite has
uploaded for you.”

“I
have?” Sprite asked amused. He cocked an eyebrow.

“Okay,
I am now. How’s that?” she asked. He saw files flutter across his HUD to a Red
Cross symbol.

“Better.
Please flag the tutorials if there are any. And any video recordings for them,”
he ordered. Numiria seemed relieved at that.

“Done,”
Sprite said after a moment.

“What
did they start with before?” the nurse asked.

“Back
when cloning and regeneration was first making major break throughs they
started with simple structures. Ears if I remember correctly,” Irons said with
a shrug.

“You
are correct admiral,” Sprite said sounding amused again.

“It's
in the historical database or in the preamble in the cloning documentation
Sprite uploaded. I skipped some of it over for brevity's sake. Check it out. I
suggest regenerating something similar. Perhaps skin for a burn victim if one
is available.”

“Well,
we don't have a burn victim that lost an ear but we do have Charlie and Barney.
Both of whom lost their ears in a bar fight...” Doc mused. “I'll look into
this.” Her ears were forward as she stared down at the tablet in her hands.

“Doc
you know damn well he's just going to go get it torn off again,” an orderly
sighed, shaking his head. The Veraxin nurse chittered an affirmative.

“He
hasn't the other yet.”

“No,
but he will eventually. Then he'll have a matching set.”

“Well,
if we fix it maybe the pain of fixing it will get him to sober up some?” She
looked up from the tablet to stare challengingly at her staff. After a moment
they shrugged uncomfortably.

“Good
luck with that doc,” the nurse said shaking her head mournfully. “You've got as
much luck with that as getting to the head of the lunch line before...” she
shrugged. “Never mind. Do you want me to assist in this?”

“If
you please,” the doctor said with a nod.

“Then
I suppose I'll need to read up as well,” she sighed. “Fine,” she shook her head
and fluffed her hair. “Can you send me the links?” she asked, turning to the
admiral.

“Sure.”

It
took the better part of twelve days, but on the thirteenth day they had a grand
re-opening ceremony that was attended to by the bemused captain and Cora. Cora
made a lot of approving noises as they walked around in the tour. The captain
tried to look suitably impressed. He was a bit out of his element and unsure
how to react to it all.  Toni following along with a video camera didn't help.
It did keep him on his best behavior though.

The
new infirmary was clean, white washed and neat. The floor was tiled with a
green linoleum product that was easy to clean and self repairing. The ceiling
had a drop ceiling covering all the duct work above.

Cameras
were in the corners of each room. The nurse's station on each floor had a bank
of monitors. Some showed the camera views but most were set up to report the
patient's vitals.

In
the corner of the wards was a LCD screen. Irons apologized when he pointed out
the small size. He told them that they could upgrade to a larger screen size
when they had the time and material.

“Oh
my, a bathroom?” Cora asked, looking inside. She smiled politely and then
looked at the doctor. “No more trying to find an unused refresher to get
cleaned up I take it?” she asked.

Numiria
smiled slightly and flicked her ears and then nodded. “That's the idea,” she
said. She didn't like the ultrasonic shower but she didn't mind the water. The
massage feature was nice. She'd have to get Lobo in there sometime when they
had a slow day. The thought of them taking a shower together made her smile
even more.

The
biggest hit with the staff at least equipment wise was the bug zapper. Really
it was a glorified cleaner. A cylinder about a meter tall, the user loaded it
from the top and then closed the lid. The utensils inside were bombarded with
ultrasonic’s to clean them, and then a microwave baked them for a few minutes
to sterilize them.

The
first time they had used it Numiria had been sure she was going to howl and
that her teeth were going to fly out of her mouth. If the ultrasonic’s bothered
her so much they were pure torture to Blur the cargo master. The Telerite
hadn't been happy over all the changes, he had kept up a bitter rant about
cost, but he had cleared the decks in quite a hurry when someone had
“accidentally on purpose” turned the bug zapper on. The captain had shaken his
head and commented about not ever having seen a Telerite move so fast in his
life.

People
stopped in to see the changes over the following week while Irons and his merry
band turned their attention on the other infirmary. Numiria complained about
the attention to O'Mallory who just shook her head and rolled her eyes at the
griping.

O'Mallory
was impressed and amused by Iron and his impromptu classes. Irons peppered his
work crews with training and held hour or sometimes two hour long courses when
he was supposed to be resting. He was even approached at meals now. She had
watched him take it all in stride, never complaining or storming off. He was a
good teacher, she liked that about him.

When
she found out the AI has been uploading classes and material she took a look
when she had a free moment. It was fascinating reading. Since the ship was 45
days out from exiting hyper and was running better than ever she kept a tablet
with her and sometimes pulled it out to read an article or two while waiting on
something or other. It was something she enjoyed now when she had to use the
refresher.

Other
people in her department as well as friends started to take notice and asked
what she was doing. She absently told them. After a day there was a run on the
computer files, overloading the servers. It spilled over into the other systems
so much so that Ops called to ask what was going on.

She
was a bit sheepish and amused when she explained to the annoyed Veraxin. To
placate him she had her electronics techs set up a secondary server system for
all the knowledge the AI had uploaded.