Farenough: Strangers Book 2

by Melissa McCann

  Finally, he said, "Don't ever walk away from me that way again. I'll make a point of listening to you in the future."

  She felt relief like the best of good feelings in simulations. She raised her chin. "I found the Cerise today."

  "Where?"

  Tora sorted through the conversation with Jeffer Pente. "She has bonds with Solante."

  "How do you know?"

  She said, "Went with Mr. Ventnor. We found Jeffer Pente. The Cerise is gone to Solante. He didn't ask me about numbers or plans. He asks the Cerise."

  "Mr. Ventnor went with you?" He made the angry face under the don’t-care one.

  "He reports tomorrow."

  Baldwin made Tora repeat all she remembered that Jeffer Pente had told her and Mr. Ventnor. When she had told him, he watched her for a moment. Then he said, "Why Ventnor?"

  "Good soldier," Tora said shortly. Baldwin didn't want Tora to have bonds with anyone but him. Tora would make bonds where she wanted, and she liked to have soldiers with her, and Mr. Ventnor was her best soldier. She went back up the boardwalk.

  Baldwin followed her.

  Maycee looked from Baldwin to Tora, and her bells made curious sounds. "Well? Did you sort it out? What happened?"

  Baldwin said to Tora, "I'll see you for patrol assignments in the morning."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cho'en paced across the room and stooped over a flushed and silent child in her father's lap. She set her hand on the child's forehead. "How long is she sick?" she asked the mother who sat beside her husband.

  "A few days," the mother said. "I thought it was just a virus. She's had them before, but she's so sick this time."

  Cho'en's bells said, pity/sympathy/sorrow.

  Annia hoped the woman wouldn't hear the icy undercurrents of despair in the alien's bells.

  Maycee heard it. She slapped Cho'en's flank, and now Maycee's bells said, correction/rebuke. To Annia, she said, "We came to help. Lee's here to guard me, of course, and to run errands and lift heavy things if he can find any."

  As Cho'en went into the examination room to see the patients there, Maycee looked around the waiting room. "The first thing we need to do is get that old woman off the floor. We'll need something to make into beds." She had a suspicious brightness about her. The nictitating eyelid showed white at the edge of her iris, and her respiration was fast.

  Annia aimed the hand scanner at her. "You've taken another dose."

  "I usually do when I'm going to do any heavy work like healing. It keeps me steady."

  "How many is that today?"

  "Just two. It's taking a little more is all. It's normal resistance."

  "No more today," Annia said.

  Maycee rolled her eyes. "Go back in the examination room. Lee and I will run the waiting room until you need me."

  Annia hesitated. There was nothing she could do in the other room, and something about Maycee's appearance bothered her.

  "I've worked here with Cho'en before. I know what I'm doing." Maycee turned to Liam. "First order is to find more chairs and beds."

  In the examination room, the young mother had bundled her baby up and was rocking it against her breast. Annia felt the child's face. "Put her back on the table. The gel pad will help reduce her temperature."

  Over the other bed, Cho'en rested her hands on Ander Garret's chest. Both her human third eyes were closed. Annia laid her hand tentatively on the child's chest near Cho'en's. Like sliding into a dream without being really asleep, she saw Ander Garret's assaulted tissues. He was too hot. His body was rapidly weakening in its struggle to burn out an alien invasion. The high temperature was already damaging the delicate cells of his brain. He had a blinding headache, and his throat was dry and raw.

  "Can you reduce the fever?" she said aloud. The sound of her own voice startled her out of the trance.

  Cho'en's bells said, cautious optimism. She chirped, "Send Maycee."

  Maycee came to Annia's summons. "We've got two more patients, and I think there are going to be more. I've sent Lee to find Tora or Mr. Hollin for help."

  Annia nodded. "Do you need me here?"

  Maycee joined Cho'en at the exam table. "We need you doing triage for us."

  Annia nodded to the eighteen-month-old on the other table. "She's next. I'll sort out the rest."

  The newest victims were eight and ten in standard years. The younger dozed in the arms of his father. The other leaned wan and lethargic against his mother's hip. They both had raised welts on arms and necks.

  The parents greeted Annia with blank eyes. "They've all got the same thing don't they?" the father asked.

  "That seems likely." Annia ran her scanner over the older child. His resistance was greater, but the disease would run its course in time. A very short time.

  "Do you have a cure?" The mother spoke as though she already knew the answer.

  Annia wanted to offer them something hopeful. "Not yet, but we are working on it."

  The woman gently moved her son to his father's side. She folded her animal-hair shawl, and slipped it under the head of the old woman who lay on a pallet on the floor. "Some of these children need water," she said.

  Annia said, "I brought a bottle from my camp this morning. When we get someone here to help, we'll send for more."

  She introduced herself as Martia Cummerland. She took over the waiting room, helped Annia determine which patients would go first into the other room with Cho'en and Maycee, and didn't complain when Annia sent several of the younger children ahead of her older boy.

  Patients, mostly children, overflowed the waiting room long before midday. They were lined up outside the clinic in the summer heat when Liam returned with Tora and General Baldwin.

  Tora looked over the waiting patients, the crowded conditions. She said, "Need reinforcements," and went back out the door.

  The man who had entered the clinic behind Baldwin said, "Colonel's right. We need men and medicines. I'll go with her, round up some of our people."

  Annia said, "We need medicines. My field kit won't stretch to cover all these." She nodded to the waiting patients and their parents.

  Baldwin said, "Where's Mr. Hollin? That's in his line."

  Annia shook her head. "I haven't heard from him all day."

  He scratched the grey-flecked stubble on his cheeks. "I'll find out what medicines people might have around."

  Baldwin's militia came back to the clinic with scrounged lumber and plastine to make beds for the worst cases. Someone found an awning and set up a tent outside the clinic. Martia Cummerland, Annia's impromptu head nurse, turned it into an infirmary.

  Annia was in the laboratory. Martia had learned to operate Annia's hand scanner, and had the triage arrangements in hand. Annia had adapted the sequencer to extract live virus from the tissue samples of her patients. They were all infected. On the processor, she was reviewing several standard domestic virus variations she hoped to adapt to fight the plague, but she had no way to test them without access to a compiler.

  Martia put her head into the lab. "There's somebody complaining about the crowds and the tent. He says it is on his property."

  Annia said, "I'm working."

  "He's already called the police."

  There were four men in Ganymede Solante's blue-sash uniforms. The one with the blue cap said, "You'll have to take all this down." He indicated the silvery, plastine awning that kept the morning sun off the worst of the plague victims.

  Baldwin was out salvaging with his troops. Annia couldn't see anyone on guard at the clinic. She said, "What is the complaint?"

  "Noise, crowding. The neighbor is a tax-paying citizen." That was a cut at Annia and the clinic. They had never paid taxes to Solante, "And this tent overlaps his property line by half a meter."

  Annia said, "And what does he suggest these sick people do? They can't lie in the hot sun."

  The neighbor who had been loitering in the background stepped forward. "They ought to go home. They shouldn't be out
here spreading disease." He was well-dressed for the run of Murrayville, in the last quarter of his life with a bald and rough-formed face. She had seen him before and nodded to him in passing. He had either ignored her or scowled, depending on his mood.

  Annia said, "These people can't leave here. Most of them have yet to be treated, and they need to be out of the sun."

  The soldier in the blue cap shrugged. "It's got to be moved, and you'd better get these people off the street." He avoided looking at the people lined up in front of the clinic. Just to his right stood a man with a young child in his arms. The little girl's eyes were closed, and her cheeks were flushed.

  Annia's temper rose. "I can't move that tent, and I can't turn these people away. I suggest this gentleman stay away from that side of his property and avoid contact with my patients."

  The soldiers removed their truncheons from their belts. One carried a stun weapon. The man in the blue cap jerked his head toward the tent and said to his men, "Take it down."

  Annia was between them and the infirmary tent. The expression on the youngest of the three bulls was serious rather than brutal. He caught Annia's wrist and tried to pull her out of the way of the others. Annia brought her heel down hard on the side of his foot.

  He yelped and struck her across the face with his fist. She stumbled. He backed away, and Annia steadied herself between him and the tent. Her face throbbed, and she couldn't see out of her left eye.

  He looked guilty and put-out. "There's nothing personal about this, Doctor. It's just our job."

  She squinted through her streaming eye. "I'm not moving." They would beat her, break her bones. She might be killed. She decided not to consider that possibility.

  A mild voice from Annia's left said, "I wouldn't put another hand on the doctor if I liked my head on my shoulders."

  Annia didn't dare take her eyes off Solante's men to look, but she heard Tora say, "No fighting doctors." Tora stepped between Annia and Solante's soldiers. "Fight me."

  The man in the blue cap recognized Tora or knew her by reputation. He backed off and held his truncheon at a defensive angle.

  One of the men behind him raised his stun weapon. Annia said, "Don't fire."

  The weapon buzzed.

  Tora shuddered, froze for a moment.

  In the instant of immobility, the young man with the serious face swung his truncheon at Tora's head.

  Tora wasn't noticeably slowed by the stun. She caught the weapon on the downswing. With her other hand, she struck the man's arm.

  He screamed. Red flesh bulged around the jagged spurs of bone in an ugly compound fracture that half-severed his arm between the elbow and the wrist.

  Tora let him collapse to the ground where he curled around his arm, squealing like an injured catpil.

  Tora's companion had already disarmed the other man of his stun weapon and immobilized him with one arm twisted behind his back. He said, "Orders?"

  The other two men wearing blue caps and belts were backing away. Tora said, "Let go."

  "Your word." He released the prisoner's arm. "Colonel says you aren't worth her time, but I'm keeping your toy." He stuck the stun weapon into his belt. "Keep you out of trouble."

  Tora scanned the crowd around the clinic, probably sorting them into humans and enemies. The hostile neighbor was trying to hustle away.

  Tora caught him before he took a dozen steps and forced him to his knees on the ground with a cruel grip on his shoulder. Annia had never seen a clone use that kind of hold before. Someone had taught her to find the nerve bundle in the shoulder and compress it. With a clone's strength, she could easily control a human that way. The risk would be that if she didn't watch her grip, she could permanently disable his arm.

  Annia bent over the soldier with the broken arm. "Sib of a bad brood," she said. Tora's blow had shattered radius and ulna. Broken bones had sliced through major blood vessels. It would take hours of surgery to repair and blood packs to replace the blood that was turning the dirt to mud beneath him. He would bleed out in minutes if she didn't patch the torn artery. She ought to give him minimal first aid and send him home. Let Solante deal with it.

  Tora's friend, the soldier who called her Colonel, squatted by Annia's side. "Going to fix it?"

  "No choice," Annia said with bad grace. "Solante doesn't have anyone at his house to repair it even if this man could travel that far."

  Tora's friend said, "Colonel's reflexes must have been thrown off by the stun. You want me to haul him inside for you?"

  "There's no room inside. It will have to be the infirmary tent."

  "Your word, Doctor." He took the unconscious man under the arms and dragged him toward the tent.

  It was long, messy work, first patching the torn blood vessels, then finding all the broken pieces of bone. Had this been a real surgery, she would have replaced the shattered sections with artificial bone, or at least rebuilt the broken original, finding all the pieces and gluing them meticulously together. She didn't have time or equipment, so she discarded the smallest pieces and patched the rest together as best she could, using boneseal to fill the gaps. His right forearm would be shorter than the left until he got real treatment. It served him right. He didn't even deserve the pain-block she pasted inside his elbow.

  She left the man to recover on a pallet that should have been occupied by a real patient. While she worked, her bruised face had begun to throb, and her eye watered continually. She looked around at the street outside the clinic. Tora had declared martial law in a hundred-yard radius. She'd installed guards and organized patrols to keep enemies out and shepherd plague victims toward the clinic.

  They had only a few hours until sneakdilly time, and there were people in the line who had been waiting all day for someone to look at their children. Martia Cummerland had drafted some of the other parents, and there was a small triage team now going down the line and sending the most urgent cases inside. Another team carried water. Miraculously, there had been no deaths yet. The worst cases had been going in to Cho'en and Maycee, and the rest were hanging on, but if they didn't have a cure by nightfall, many of these would not survive the night.

  A pair of Tora's soldiers came back from a scavenging trip with food for the waiting people. Most of the families had not come prepared for a long wait. Annia almost expected them to riot when they saw the food, but Tora kept them under control with a few smoldering looks.

  General Baldwin joined her. "We've found another tent. It's smaller than the first, but I don't know where to set it up. You're running out of room."

  Annia felt tired and stupid. "Along the front where those people are waiting. Get them out of the heat."

  "It will block the street."

  Tora strode toward him with a cloth-wrapped bundle of food tucked in the crook of her arm. She gave Baldwin two of the crusty eel rolls and doled out three to Annia. "Eat," she commanded. "More fighting later."

  Annia said, "I want another tent set up along the front of the building for shelter, but it will partially block the street. Can you deal with that?"

  Tora cocked her head, eyed the clinic and the street. She jerked her head. "Yes."

  Baldwin said, "I'll have the tent brought to you."

  Tora nodded. "Yes." She strode back toward her soldier friend who squatted in the line helping an old man to eat the food he could barely hold in fingers swollen by the rash.

  Annia and Baldwin sat on the ground beside the tent with their backs against the wall of the clinic. Annia said, "We've been able to avoid telling people what's wrong with their children as long as Maycee and Cho'en could treat them, but we're running out of daylight, and we don't have space to keep all these people through the night. They'll be eaten alive by sneakdillies. They're going to have to go home and voluntarily quarantine themselves, and I don't know what to tell them. Do I mention it by name, or will that panic them?"

  Baldwin rubbed his stubbled face. "You don't have a cure yet?"

  "I've barely mapped the disea
se; I never had a live sample to work from until a few days ago, and I don't have a compiler to build an anti-virus."

  "Then don't tell them more than you have to. Imply you know what it is, that everything is under control, and they only have to wait a little while."

  Annia looked at the lines of people. Tora divided her time between supervising the setup of the new tent and circling the patients like a dog guarding a herd of fluffies.

  "I'd better make the announcement now." Annia stood up, dusted her hand on the seat of her trousers and broke her last eel pie in half. She offered half to Baldwin.

  He shook his head. "Tora figures you're a higher priority than I am. She's probably right."

  He accompanied her into the clinic. Martia Cummerland acknowledged Annia's presence with a glance. She held a cloth-wrapped bundle of food.

  "Have you eaten?" Annia asked.

  "In a minute." She waved the bundle in her hand.

  Annia took Martia's shoulder and drew her into the lab. "Nurses and doctors are highest priority right now. You have to take care of yourself."

  Maycee slipped into the laboratory, saw Annia and stopped. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were here." She turned to leave.

  "Stop." Annia turned Maycee to face her and groped for the scanner at her belt.

  Maycee's fair skin was grey with fatigue. The nictitating eyelid was shut tight over her left eye, and the lids of both eyes were red and drooping. She sighed and waited for Annia to run the scanner from her head to her waist and back up. "I'm only tired. I'll be all right."

  Annia checked the monitor. Nothing really out of the ordinary for Maycee; it just felt wrong. "You don't need flutter; you need sleep. Liam and Tora are right; there is something going wrong with your system, and I don't want you to take more than a survival dose until I can check you thoroughly."

  "Some of those babies out there will die before morning if Cho and I don't help them."

  Maycee and Cho'en had made a tremendous difference. It was time-consuming, but the worst cases had been going into the examination room all day, and those who had come out were stronger than many of the patients Annia or Martia had judged well enough to wait. If Maycee could just take enough flutter to hold out another few hours... She caught out of the corner of her eye an off-shift of light or shadow or expression in Maycee's face that stirred her sense of wrongness. She shook her head. "The ones we've been sending you lately would have lasted the night anyway. You're going home." She pushed Maycee toward the door.