And then the doctor is gone.

When the time comes to deliver a tray of food to Aly's room, they send another hospital worker to do the delivering.

Aly has by then skimmed most of the dictionary and extracted the most important words for her little handwritten phrasebook. "Thank you."

The orderly smiles. Says: "You're welcome."

She sets down the tray on the desk. There's a bowl of soup, a drink, some crackers, and... a napkin with something written on its corner in very small letters?

Hmmmm?

The letters read: can you keep a secret?

By the time she's parsed them, the orderly who delivered the tray is gone.

She writes yes in equally small letters. She eats.

The food's bland, probably not spiced with anything more interesting than large quantities of salt.

The tray gets retrieved about half an hour later, and then after that she has a lot of time to herself.

There's no obvious way to tell what's supposed to be day or night around here. Come to think of it, the dictionary didn't even seem to have words for day or night.

She totally has a bed, and the doctor did mention it being important for her to rest, but nobody's forcing her to do that.

Absent a schedule of any kind, she studies, finds a word for "scooter" and writes that down with some peripheral words in case their scooters don't look like hers, and goes to sleep when she's tired.

They wait to send more food in until she's up and about again.

It's the first doctor again, this time.

"Hello. Where is my scooter? Can you explain 'processed'?"

She beams when Aly gets the language right.

As for the question: "Your scooter was taken apart at another facility. It could be put back together and shipped here, maybe, but it'd take some time. Outpost 5 is a couple orbital degrees away."

(Apparently, 'degree' can be used as a measure of distance or time? How confusing)

She has a script for this! "I want it or something like it."

The doctor nearly claps her hands. She is very impressed!

”I’ll ask to have such a device fabricated for you as soon as there’s a macro-fab to spare.”

(‘fabricate’ means to have a machine build something, a ‘macro-fab’ is a machine that builds other machines)

"Thank you."

"Of course. We'll do anything within our means to accommodate you."

She fusses over the tubes again, and then consults a handheld screen.

"You've taken very well to the implants. We can finally take these hookups out safely."

She does so. There's a little bit of blood, but the doctor has colorful little sticky bandages ('band-aids'?) to cover the broken skin with.

"I know they must have been uncomfortable. You did such a good job of not tugging at them, you should heal up just fine."

"What were they for? Please explain. I understand even though I am not good at talk yet."

"We implanted... medical technology... into your body." She speaks slowly, enunciates clearly, and otherwise makes following her words as easy as possible given present circumstances. "This medical technology was designed to help people either born with disabilities or recovering from traumatic abuse at our enemy's hand. Sanjana Kaur, one of the two greatest biological scientists of our civilization, personally adjusted the technology for your situation and your... well, your differences from us."

She is not going to try to explain genetics right now.

"The hookups were necessary to ensure the implants remained healthy after you regained consciousness. According to all the tests I've run on you, the integration was a complete success and you should be set for life."

"Do they do anything besides what I see?"

"The implants will do a lot of minor things to make living here easier for you. I don't know the full range of enhancements offhand, but I could try to track down some documentation for you if you like?"

"...Yes," she says. Yes she wants to know what the things implanted in her while she was asleep are dOING???!

The documentation in question is not forthcoming throughout the next couple of meals.

Eventually, though, a knock comes at her door along with what sounds vaguely like a promise of aid.

"Miss Mahri, I'd heard you requested a couple of things that the hospital couldn't expediently provide. I've made some alternative arrangements, though. Are you feeling up to a walk?"

She's been studying very, very hard. "Aly," she says. "Mahri is not a - Miss name. I can walk but is there a scooter? I am not good at walk."

"Oh, I see."

She leans against the door frame.

"I thought you might like to pick your new 'scooter' up from the macro-fab yourself, but I can have it sent down here if you aren't up to making the trip yet."

"She's only had a couple degrees since waking up from a major surgery, and I suspect she had mobility impairments even before that. She isn't up to making the trip."

Sanjana is out in the hall, not visible currently but audibly tapping away at one of her screens.