Wounds, Book 1

by Ilsa J. Bick

His brown-black eyes searched her face, then narrowed slightly. “Yes,” he said. “You did. He looks better.”

  “He is. A little. He’s still got a bullet in there. I don’t dare try to get it out.”

  “Will he survive?”

  “I…” Her gaze flicked to the corpse lying on its tumble of bloody linens. She straightened her shoulders, pulled out of her slouch. “I don’t know. Maybe. A dozen things can go wrong: infection, more bleeding, the bullet wandering around and shredding something else. I don’t know.”

  “If you had more or better equipment, could you do more?”

  Yeah, right, I do just great with antiques. “ I don’t know. Depends.”

  “On what?”

  Lense gave what she hoped was a negligent shrug. “On how badly someone’s hurt. I wouldn’t expect miracles.”

  “I’m not asking for any.” A hint of a smile touched Saad’s lips and he seemed to reach a decision. “Very well. We have to talk.”

  “We? Meaning you and Mara and—”

  “And a few others, yes. In the meantime, you will go with this one,”—he gestured at the wiry soldier who’d brought in the news of their ambush—“and he will show you a place where you can wash, change out of those clothes. Rest. Have something to eat and drink.”

  Remembering the lake and its awful smell, the way it looked and felt, Lense wasn’t sure she trusted or wanted either one but then figured she didn’t have much choice about that. “What is this, some kind of last meal?”

  “Perhaps.” Saad’s eyes were sober. “When we are through discussing the matter…maybe so.”

  Chapter

  10

  For a moment, no one moved, no one spoke: not Blate; not the soldiers who stood poised with their rifles aimed at Kahayn’s heart. Not the nurse who’d brought the crash cart on a dead run; not Arin who’d paled to a shade of light aqua; and not Kahayn. The only person who did move was the dying, blood-soaked man on the gurney. His clothes were in tatters; his knees flexed and extended, and his legs strained against their restraints like he was trying to run in an awkward, slow-motion shuffle. His breathing had dropped off to irregular, deep gasps that scored Kahayn’s heart like jagged glass.

  Agonal breaths, brain’s starving for air; we’re running out of time!

  “Blate,” Kahayn said, urgently, “Blate, please, you have to let us finish!”

  “It could be a trick.”

  “Damn you, Blate, I don’t have time for this!” Kahayn shouted so fiercely that even Blate took a step back. “He doesn’t have time! This man is drowning in his own fluids, and he’s going to die if we don’t help him! So either shoot me, or get the hell out!” Then she looked over at Arin, the nurses, the tech. “Let’s go, people, let’s do it!”

  She saw the soldiers glance at one another; Blate’s eyes narrowed. Arin hesitated, looked at the soldiers, then at Kahayn, and snapped to. “You heard her! Move!”

  That was all her people needed. Personnel swarmed around Blate and the soldiers; the nurse rattled up with the crash cart; Arin slid a tube down the man’s throat, attached a bag, and then the anesthetist pushed his way in and took over as Arin moved to bring up his scanners. Kahayn pulled on fresh gloves as fast as she could, then slapped the man’s skin beneath his right clavicle with antiseptic solution. She bent over him, feeling for the notch of his clavicle with her right index finger and judging the distance before stabbing a large-bore needle threaded through a central venous catheter. There was a flash of blood in her syringe as the needle pierced the subclavian vein.

  “I’m in!” She threaded the catheter into the vein and then nodded to a nurse who flicked on the IV while Kahayn threw in two quick sutures to hold the catheter in place. She snapped off her soiled gloves as the nurse moved to bandage the site. The corporal had started a line in the left arm and was taping down the tube. “Careful not to open that up wide; we don’t want to overload him.” She glanced behind her shoulder and saw that Blate and his men had taken up position along the far wall. Best I can hope for. She turned back to the corporal. “Get the rest of his clothes off! Move!”

  “I want the clothes,” Blate said, “and that suit!”

  “Yeah, yeah, when we’re done,” Kahayn said, not turning around. “Arin, what you got?”

  “In a second!” Arin’s fingers flew over his control panels. “Bringing tomography and 3-D on line now!”

  “Corporal, check for wounds. Then clean off his face, I want to get a good look at that gash, and get the portable X-ray up here; I want pictures of that skull, make sure—”

  “Idit, pressure’s dropping!” Arin sang out. “Heart rate one-thirty-five; we’ve got significant pulmonary hypertension, and I’m getting atrial fibrillations here, sporadic PVCs! No periatrial waves at all!”

  “What’s his potassium?” Kahayn shot back.

  “Calculating…normal.”

  “Dial down the IVs, then hit him with a diuretic, ten of pentalatix! Let’s get some of that fluid out of him. Someone get me a catheter in there, let’s make sure his kidneys are still working.” She spun left toward the anesthetist. “Give me positive pressure ventilation, short bursts, pure oxygen, keep those alveoli open, don’t rupture—”

  “Idit,” Arin said, “I’m getting couplets!”

  Kahayn swore. “Pull up 3-D of that heart, I want to see what I’m dealing with here.” She snatched up a stethoscope and slapped the drum to the middle of the man’s chest. She frowned. “Where’s…what the…what the hell…I don’t hear…?”

  “Idit! V-fib! No pulse!”

  Kahayn hopped off the gurney. “Corporal, start compressions! Charge up that defibrillator! Two hundred!” The defibrillator gave a crescendo whine as the machine charged, and she grabbed the gelled defibrillator paddles, rubbed them together. “Everyone off!”

  The corporal jumped back, and Kahayn slapped the paddles onto the man’s chest, one at the apex of his right chest and the other at the tip of the sternum. But then what she’d heard flashed through her brain. Nothing in the center or to the right; heart’s shifted left; what’s it doing there, maybe pushed over because the right lung’s boggy, but that doesn’t make sense and the sound’s all wrong; what am I missing? She closed her eyes, imagined how that heart must look beneath the chest, how the electrical impulse must flow, and then she repositioned the paddles, the sternal paddle directly over the sternum just beneath the notch and the apical paddle on the left chest just below and left of the nipple.

  “What are you doing?” cried the anesthetist. “Doctor, no, that’s wrong.”

  “No, leave her!” Arin shouted. “Idit, go!”

  “Clear!” Kahayn thumbed the push button of the apical paddle. There was a faint puh as the paddles discharged, but not the melodramatic flopping around that holodramas were so fond of. “Arin?”

  He shook his head. “Still in V-fib. No pulse.”

  “Charging again, two hundred…” Listening to that crescendo whine, thinking about that weird heart: Arin said no periatrial waves at all. Her eyes raked over the man’s body, over smooth skin and taut muscle. I’m missing something, what’s missing; what if he doesn’t have a periatrium to jump-start…? The defibrillator trilled. “Clear!” She discharged the paddles, heard the puh, waited. “Arin, anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay; charging up; nurse, get me an amp of xentracaine ready after this next—” She broke off as the charger whined. “Arin, you said no periatrial waves, right?”

  Arin gave her a look. “That’s what I said.”

  “That can’t be right,” said the anesthetist. To Arin: “It’s not reading right.”

  “It’s right,” said Arin, giving her that look again. “I’m reading it right.”

  No periatrium, no way to jump-start— Kahayn gasped, then jerked around to the nurse. “Charge it to three hundred.”

  The nurse went as goggle-eyed as Blate. “Doctor?”

  “Just do it!”

  “Wait a se
cond,” said the anesthetist. “That’s not—”

  “Three hundred,” Kahayn said to the nurse.

  “But, Doctor—”

  “Are you deaf? Three hundred!”

  The nurse swallowed hard, looked at the anesthetist, who shrugged, and then to Arin, who did nothing. Then she toggled up the charge. “Three hundred.”

  “Clear,” Kahayn said, hoping like hell that she was right. She thumbed the discharge. There was that dull puh. “Arin?”

  “That did something.” Arin looked at her over his glasses. “I got about five, six beats before the rhythm degenerated.”

  “I got a little flutter up here,” said the anesthetist, almost grudgingly. “Though heaven knows why.”

  Kahayn let out a breath. “Okay; Corporal, resume compressions; nurse, push in that amp of xentracaine, see if that’ll tamp down that cardiac irritability. Charge up the defibrillator again.” She and Arin exchanged a wordless stare; then he gave a minute nod, easily missed if she hadn’t been looking for it, and Kahayn said, “Three…fifty.”

  She saw the nurses glance at one another before the nurse dialed up the voltage. Without a word, she took up the paddles. “Tell me when the minute’s up.”

  That minute crawled by in an eternity of seconds, and it was long enough for Kahayn to wonder what she would do if this man—whoever and whatever he was—pulled through. The corporal had managed to clear away most of the blood and she stared now at his face: black, close-cropped curls slicked with blood capping a high forehead; delicate cheekbones; a chin that was more oval than square. That forehead wound was ugly and oozing, and he looked as if his nose was broken. They would probably have to give him some blood, and that forehead would need stitches. She would make him a nice scar…

  And then, with a jolt, she realized what was missing.

  No scars. Her eyes traveled over the man’s chest, his abdomen, his hips and legs. There are no scars anywhere, nothing, as if he’s never had a wound or prosthetic in his life.

  “One minute, Doctor.”

  “Right.” But she didn’t move. She stared into that face, and for a brief, disorienting instant, that wasn’t a stranger lying there—and whatever else you are because you are not like us, not like us at all—but her Janel, because they did look a bit alike and she missed the man he’d been.

  And then he was not Janel but a stranger who needed her: a man without scars inflicted by time and an unkind planet. And the difference between the two, between the man who had been Janel and the one here now, was the wound in her heart that had never properly healed.

  Oh, my beloved, how I wish I could have saved you, really saved you.

  “Clear,” she said, and then as the corporal jumped down, she placed the paddles on the man’s chest, took a deep breath and pushed the button.

  Chapter

  11

  Saad came to find her after several hours though she’d lost track of time. Lense sat on a rock just outside the entrance to this system of caverns. The guard was with her, of course, but she’d wanted to go out. Maybe just to convince herself that there was an outside world, something that was not a warren of dank, glistening gray caves. That orange ball of a sun was setting to her right, its light refracted to a dark red that glowed on the undersides of a pillow of yellow clouds and turned them a peachy blush. It was a little cooler now, too, and she was more comfortable in the clothes they’d given her: a rough cotton khaki tee and matching trousers, with sturdy, worn black boots and thick socks. They’d taken her uniform, though they’d given her combadge back. Why, she didn’t know. It rested in the right pocket of her trousers. Felt good there. She slipped her hand in now and again just to feel it. Knowing she still had it made her feel better.

  Then she smiled a little. Probably make Gold feel better, too, her being so by the book, keeping “advanced technology” from the natives when all she wanted was to remind herself of a little bit of home. She tried hard, though, not to think about whether she’d ever get back. No point to it. Not yet anyway.

  She was breathing better. They’d given her some kind of mask: an adaptation of a re-breather, she figured, similar to what divers used but with a carbon scrubber. At least, that’s what the guard told her. As long as she kept the prongs fitted into her nostrils, her lungs didn’t burn, and she was comfortable enough. Her mouth still tasted like ash, though.

  There was a crunch of gravel, and then she turned and stood as Saad slipped out. His pistol was still in its black leather holster. Saad gave the guard a look then hooked a thumb over his shoulder. Obediently ducking his head, the guard slid into the caves and out of sight. Saad edged closer. His leather holster creaked on his hip. “I see that you’ve washed and changed. You’ve eaten?” When she shook her head, he asked, “Why not?”

  She decided honesty—and a little humor—might lighten things a bit. “I just wasn’t hungry. Figured that if you were going to kill me, somebody else could use the food more than me. That’s the way things work here, right?”

  That faint smile again. “You catch on quickly. Where did you say you were from again?”

  “I didn’t. Say, that is.” She quickly thought back over what she’d gleaned from the runabout’s sensors during those few chaotic moments that had happened only six hours ago and felt more like a century. “I come from very far north, another continent.” And please don’t ask me the name.

  “Ah,” was all Saad said. “Odd that you and your friends should wander this way. I know,”—he held up a hand when she opened her mouth—“I know. You were hiking. And they’ll be looking for you.”

  She clasped her hands behind her back, felt the straps of the re-breather pack dig into her shoulders. “So have you decided, or not?”

  “First, since you don’t seem to know anything about us, I need to explain a few things.” He waved her over to a hump of rock a meter long and flat on top. He sat, and indicated that she should sit as well. “I need you to understand why I’m going to do what I’m going to do.”

  Her heart fluttered against her caging ribs, like a trapped bird. “Okay,” she said, though it wasn’t at all.

  “You were surprised when I shot Apariam, the one with the belly wounds. You were more than surprised. You were outraged. And I thought to myself that, Saad, this is a woman who truly does not understand the Jabari, or any of the Outlier tribes. Or the Kornak.” His dark eyes slid to hers in a sidelong glance. They were only a half meter apart, and he was so close she caught his scent, a mixture of musk and sweat. “Truly amazing, that she doesn’t know.”

  “Know what?” she said. Her voice quavered, and she swallowed. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Elizabeth Lense, that you are lying, and I do not believe your story.” His voice was mild, not accusatory—more…intrigued. “I have eyes—my own, fortunately—and your skin, the color in your cheeks and lips…you’re lying.”

  She wasn’t as shocked as she thought she’d be. After all, it was one of those things a person would have to be brain-dead to miss. Standard Starfleet-speak, though, Prime Directive junk: lie your head off and hope no one catches on that you aren’t just a teensy bit different than, say, oh, that guy over there with five tentacles and seven eyes. “Okay,” she said. “And?”

  “And, if that’s so, then you don’t understand this. You don’t understand me or my people, or what we’re up against. So I will explain. We Jabari fight the Kornaks because they are machines.”

  “What do you mean, machines?”

  “Living machines. They add prosthetics when their limbs wither, or replace their organs with those they’ve harvested in transplant or with a mechanical equivalent. Our planet hasn’t been very good to us, or maybe it’s the other way around. Our air’s bad; the water’s polluted; there’s residual radioactivity in some areas.” He shrugged. “It’s our life here. Mara and I, the rest of us, we don’t want to be machines. We don’t think the Kornaks should force their will on the planet or its people, especially not when a prosthetic
is a reward for how loyal you’ve been, or what you haven’t consumed.”

  The scars on Mara’s neck, those people missing hands, legs…they’ve either removed their prostheses or declined them outright. “Why not?” Lense asked, genuinely mystified. “If you’ll live better and longer lives, isn’t that worth the trade-off?”

  “No. Because if I accept that more and more of me isn’t flesh and blood, then I give up what it is to be a man.” Saad’s eyes lingered on hers. “And, above all, I’m a man, Elizabeth Lense. I have lived and I will die as one.”

  She stared back, and the insight was like the quick flash of a shooting star: A little like the Borg, but without the collective. Her eyes searched Saad’s face, its clean lines and strong bones. No scars at all, and that struck her as odd, though perhaps his scars were hidden by clothing. But she liked what she saw, and it had been a long time since she’d seen a man she hadn’t dismissed out of hand.

  And then, on the heels of that thought, she remembered what Julian had said: I am a person, and I have feelings to hurt…

  “And me?” she asked. She looked away and hoped that Saad hadn’t noticed that shame, not embarrassment, burned her cheeks. “What about me?”

  “You are a free woman, Elizabeth Lense. You may live and die as one.”

  “But only if I stay here.” She glanced at him askance. “Right? Otherwise, I’ll die free, only a lot sooner.” When he nodded, she said, “So I can be your medic, or you’ll kill me. Not much of a choice.”

  “No, but it is a choice. Whichever you take, however, one thing is certain.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Either way,” he said, “there is no going back.”

  Chapter

  12

  Two hours later, after the patient had been stabilized and a corporal had wheeled the gurney out of the ER for an isolation unit in the ICU, Blate came and stood over Kahayn and Arin, who were seated at a workstation, busily entering their notes and data into the official computer record. Arin saw him coming first, casually stabbed a control that blanked the 3-D VR, and gave Kahayn a gentle nudge with his elbow.