Sac'a'rith by Vincent Trigili Page B

jumbled mess and I wasn’t sure where one memory ended and another started. There was something about being attacked, a couch and a desk. I struggled to assemble them into something that made sense, but the memories just wouldn’t behave.
    “Ah! I see you’re awake! Excellent!” said a new voice.
    “He seems to be in a lot of pain,” said Marcus.
    “That is to be expected,” said the voice.
    I slowly turned my head, trying to avoid another flare-up of pain. The man who had spoken was an older gentleman wearing the uniform of a doctor. “Everything hurts,” I said softly.
    “Yes. I’m sorry about that, but we had to cut back your pain medication to start the detox,” he said.
    “Detox?” I queried.
    “I’ll explain in a moment. First, can you tell me your name?” he asked.
    “Purwryn,” I said.
    He obtained a small cup of water from somewhere I couldn’t see. “Here, sip this slowly. Your throat is probably rather irritated, but the water will help.”
    I remembered what had happened when I’d chugged a drink of water in the old man’s office and contented myself with sipping this one. He had also asked me my name, but there was something strange about that memory. It didn’t seem real.
    “Do you know where you are?” he asked.
    “I think – yes, this looks like the medical quarters on the Paradise ,” I said.
    “That’s correct,” he said. “Do you know why you’re here?”
    “I was attacked in my quarters,” I said.
    “Attacked?” queried Marcus.
    The doctor waved him off. “That’s a common side effect.”
    “Being attacked?” I said. “How is that a side effect?” My mind might not have been fully functional yet, but I couldn’t think of anything that would fit that description.
    “Purwryn, tell me about this attack. What happened?” he asked.
    “I was in my quarters and someone tried to take me prisoner. We fought but he was too strong for me. I managed to escape from the room and ran for the hallway, but then he shot me with a blaster or something.”
    “Did anyone see this?” he asked.
    “Yes, there were several men in the hallway at the time,” I said.
    The doctor pulled back a curtain and I saw three more beds like the one I was in. “Them?”
    “Could be; hard to tell from this angle,” I said.
    He closed the curtain again and said, “Everything you said fits. Are you familiar with tricholophate?”
    “Yes, we use it in the robotics shop. Nasty stuff, but safe enough if you take precautions,” I replied.
    “Yes,” he said. He sat on the edge of the bed and made a minor adjustment to some machine. “You seem to have your senses, so I’m increasing your pain medication a little. Hopefully that will make you more comfortable, but we need to keep it as low as possible.”
    I did feel a bit better and had to work hard to resist demanding more. “So, what happened?”
    “Several people in your section reported being attacked. When security was dispatched, they discovered the entire section was flooded with tricholophate vapors. It seems a primary supply line ruptured and was leaking onto a heating element,” he said.
    “So everything I remember was a hallucination?” Tricholophate was used by addicts for just that effect.
    “Yes, it seems that way,” he said. “None of the security cameras show any attackers, and there were none there when the security forces arrived. It took a few hours to decontaminate the area before we could pull anyone out, but the only injuries we could find appeared to be self-inflicted.”
    “Then who did I throw a table at?” I asked.
    “We did find your table overturned, but there was no one around and no sign that anyone had been in your room,” he said.
    “Makes sense,” said Marcus. “Tricholophate is hallucinogenic even in small quantities. If the section was flooded with it, it stands to reason it would be intense.”
    “But the attack seemed so real. I mean, the fight really hurt,” I said.
    “Yes, the others