Fucking hell, man!

Nick was awake, and his chest ached something awful, way deep inside. Feels like I got stabbed. Yeah. Now I know what that feels like.

On the plus side, his headache was a little less than before, and when he accidentally glanced left, it only throbbed a little. His situation sort of came over him again in a wave.

Son of a bitch!

Nick couldn't draw enough breath for a deep sigh, so he took a mental raincheck on it. Son of a bitch. I got stabbed.

He focused on his surroundings next. He was back in the infirmary, and there were four security bots around his bed. I'm guessing Petra did that on her own. Or I suppose Kathy could have ordered it. Either way, it's appreciated.

He cleared his throat. "Petra?"

"Hello, Nick."

It was a relief to hear her voice. "Did you catch the guy who stabbed me?"

"Yes, Nick."

"Where is he?"

"Level 11."

Nick winced at a brief surge of pain. "Status." Petra displayed the character sheet as usual, but Nick only focused on his health percentage and the outline of his body highlighting damage. Petra put him at 18% health, and the blue spots all over his brain had turned yellow. A fresh blue spot near the middle of his chest drew his eye. A few inches to the left and that would have gone through my heart. Glad he had bad aim.

"Petra, how soon will I recover?"

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"I don't understand, Nick."

"What time is my health 100%?"

"November 12."

"What time is my health 90%?"

"November 1."

"What day is today?"

"October 28."

"Okay. That's not so bad." Nick stared at the wall for a minute, trying to think of what to do now.

"You have messages," Petra offered.

"Play the first message, please."

The first one was from Kathy. It said the obvious things: she was really sorry that it happened, it was a surprise, most fuakalas aren't like that, she was glad he was recovering, she'd like to talk to him when he felt up to it, yadda yadda. You're turning into a politician, Kathy. I guess you kind of had to. You're like the overlord for over forty people.

Nick blinked. Oh, crap. Now I'm going to have to be a politician, aren't I? Oh, hell, no. I need to think of a way to get out of that.

I wonder if I should build a separate base just for me?

Nick found that he didn't much like that idea, for all that it made sense. He had been alone for months, and then gotten to interact with people for about a week before getting taken out of commission for months more. Being alone is better than being stabbed, and being stabbed really sucks. But damn, I'm tired of having nobody to talk to but Petra.

Maybe...maybe if I have video contact regularly, it won't be so bad...

Yeah. A separate place it is. Maybe just an hour's hike away or something. The next hill over. I don't need all this space here. It would be stupid to kick them out. So I'll move.

Nick grew sad and tired, thinking about one of the fuakalas hating him so much that they'd try to kill him. It was really depressing. People are people, no matter the planet. And people, unfortunately, suck.

This is why we can't have nice things.

After brooding for a bit, he had Petra play the rest of the messages. Mostly they were well-wishes from fuakalas he didn't recall ever meeting. One was different—if Petra's translation could be trusted, this one guy said he hated Olk!ano, and he was basically asking Nick not to kill them all or kick them out or anything. Geez. They really do think I'm a monster.

I guess I can't blame them. I'm an alien. Just by existing I scare the crap out of most of them.

Nick checked his brain number, and it was on the low end, so he had Petra bring him a dose of his meds before he went into "debuff" territory. Hard enough to deal with this when my brain is normal, let alone when I'm short on happy-brain stuff.

He started asking Petra about how long it would take to build him a little place of his own.

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