Free Home: Interstellar: Merchant Princess by Ray Strong

table and fell. Instruments crashed onto the clinic floor around her, and she clutched her arms to her chest and neck to hide her scars.
    John rushed to her and kneeled. “Are you all right?” he asked.
    John’s voice brought her back to reality. She blinked repeatedly and nodded. “Yes. Just some water, please,” she said, and John helped her to her feet. She walked back to sit near Phillip. He pulled his hood farther down to hide his face, and Meriel realized how much she must have hurt him. She looked more kindly at his disfigured face and put her hand on his arm. “Please, forgive me, and don’t be offended. Your injuries reminded me of a close friend who had wounds similar to yours. The memory was very painful for me.” The hood nodded, and he patted the back of her hand as a tear rolled down his scarred cheek and fell onto her sleeve.
    “You can see the improvement in just two months,” the doctor continued. “With access to the final product and replicator templates, we will be able to…ah…thank you, Phillip,” he said and led them out of earshot.
    “Treatment can begin next week if we reach a final understanding,” the doctor said, and John nodded. Meriel frowned at the idea that he might delay treatments for the burn victim because of financial arrangements, but she said nothing.
    Dr. Wo led them to a small exercise area where two athletic women played a version of racquetball. One woman had red cuffs around her left knee and ankle and a bright pink scar that ran between them on the outside of her leg. Four monitors adjacent to the viewing area showed side and top views of the knee and ankle joints as they moved. It was clear that the red cuffs were instrumentation displaying real-time telemetry.
    “See,” the doctor said while pointing to a graph below the display on the monitors of the knee joint, “the joint stress exceeds the nominal range for her age. She needs to worry that the ISA will rule this as a disqualifying enhancement.”
    “Is she a professional athlete?” Meriel asked, not recognizing her on the sports networks.
    “No. At least, not yet. A talented amateur. Her joints were crushed last year in an accident. They told her to forfeit the leg and hip for prosthetics. Your company offered her an alternative. She learned the sport as part of her physical therapy. Now she’s considering a professional career.”
    Meriel wondered if John had some business deal that would require continuing treatment for people like Phillip and this girl.
    “What about the radiation patient?” John asked and looked at his link. “Mr. Thompson?”
    The doctor smiled again. “Released last week.” He looked at Meriel. “An impossible case, you know. Mining accident. Just remarkable. Stage IV melanoma spread to his lungs—incurable. He came here to die, to waste away where his family could not see him degenerate.”
    “Bone-marrow regen,” John said.
    “That’s right, Mr. Brown,” the doctor said. “Genetic replication for hematopoietic regeneration. Your company also provided the cancer-cell tagging. The regenerated T-cells wiped out the melanoma completely.” He looked back at Meriel, clearly moved. “Death comes easy for some who have nothing to live for. This man recovered remarkably fast and returned to children who loved him.” The doctor walked ahead, and Meriel and John followed a few paces behind.
    Meriel could remain quiet no longer and whispered, “John, it’s cruel to withhold treatment for business reasons.”
    “Yes, I agree it is immoral and unethical to withhold it,” John said, “but treatment is also extremely expensive.” Meriel opened her mouth, but John raised his hand to stop her. “That’s why their treatments are free.”
    Meriel raised her eyebrows. “Then what’s this ‘final understanding’?”
    “In a moment,” John said. The doctor stopped by the door to a small office, and John turned to Meriel. “If you will excuse us please, I’ll be out