19.
"Thank you," North chuckled, "but I'm far from a sir! I have only two bars beneath my picture. There must be several more before I deserve a man's title!"
The girl smiled, looking at North with an expression that he could not quite recognize. "Yes, young lord," she said, "please forgive this one of low position., for her unthinkingness. Is there anything else you desire before I depart?"
"No. I have all I need with your smile."
"Thank you kindly, young gentleman," the nurse replied. Nodding her head she left the room. Northern Star looked at the tray of food lying at the foot of the bed.
"Med-Com," he said, "how am I to get my breakfast?"
There was a slight hum and the tray of food lifted off the end of the bed and floated up to within North's reach. He found he could easily move his arms to feed himself.
The days in the hospital wore into a steady routine, broken only by the operation to put the new bone in his wing. His mother came to visit every day, and his father when ever possible. Morn helped him with his studies each afternoon, so he did not fall behind in them, but even pulled ahead with so much time to devote to them.
An investigator came and questioned him about the young man who had attacked him, but North did not even know him. He'd come from a family of low rank and nobody seemed to have any information on why he had attacked North. As Morn had said, whoever had put him up to it had covered their trail well. There was only one person who could tell, and he was dead.
That year North did miss The Games, and Morn took first place practically without challenge, as his best competition was forced to sit in the stands beside his father and cheer him on. Morn was there when it came time for his friend to slowly but surely bring the muscles in his wings back to shape.
Finally, the two friends were again soaring above the city, wrestling with each other in the air and teasing each other unmercifully, which is the way of any boys on any world. And so passed another year in the life of Northern Star.
** ** **