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  Everyone appeared to get it.

  “Good. Now, can we do this, or watch him die?” I waited for the length of a heartbeat. “Stats.”

  The nurse sounded furious, but she rattled off the appropriate readings. My instrument nurse positioned her setup tray. The interns moved in to assist.

  Hey, it worked.

  I silently released the breath I’d been holding, reactivated the rig and pulled down the lascalpel. The bright optic lights made Shropana’s hairy torso appear bloated and purplish.

  “Here we go.” I made the initial incision and pulled the beam down the median line from his chest, through the brisket and around into his upper flank. “Clamp back that subcutaneous tissue. Like that. Modify the rib spreader to clamp on the left withers only. Suction.”

  “Explain what you are doing, SsurreVa,” I heard TssVar say.

  I’m cutting open this man to repair your mess. “Standard traumatological procedure: get his lungs working, arrest the internal bleeding, then fix anything that threatens the cardiac organ. His heart is already diseased, so I have to proceed with caution. I’ll do a laparotomy—that’s abdominal exploratory surgery—if necessary, after that.”

  I didn’t bother to elaborate, but continued cutting, and addressed my two resident assistants at the same time. “We’ll plug the plural cavity first, then deal with the gland cluster and the ribs.” To the nurse, I said, “Give me a series two chest tube. More suction. Yes. That’s it.”

  I had to move fast. The pneumothorax compressed the Colonel’s diseased cardiac organ (not a good thing), so I evacuated the air from the space between his lung and sternal plating and sealed the rupture. Once that was done, I was wrist-deep in blood.

  Shropana’s species possessed a network of glandular nodules—delicate-looking systemic clusters—that regulated every organ in his body. The high concentration of vessels in the clusters redefined the term “bleeder.” He was a sieve. By the time I located and sealed off the main culprits, fluid was spilling over the table onto the deck. The nurse spent as much time suctioning as I did cauterizing micro-tears in the arterial walls.

  “Doctor, his pressures are starting to red range,” the vitals nurse suddenly said. “We’re running low on plasma, too.”

  I didn’t need him having an MI on me now. Why was plasma a problem? “Get more whole blood in here.”

  “There isn’t any more,” she said.

  Unbelievable. “Does this flying waste station possess a whole-blood synthesizer?”

  The nurse took a step back at my tone. “Of course, Doctor, but—”

  I tossed a bloody instrument in her general direction. “Then have someone to whip me up a few gallons, will you?”

  I rapidly completed my repairs while the residents clamped bonesetters around his arms. His shattered ribs would have to wait for another day. I closed his chest and watched his vitals monitor myself. I didn’t dare move him from the surgical suite until he’d been fully transfused, but the immediate danger was over.

  “Deactivate sterile field.” I turned and found my nose about an inch from TssVar’s surgical gear. I kinked a neck muscle as I glanced up. “Well, Over-Lord? Enjoy the show?”

  “It is interesting to watch you work, SsurreVa,” the Hsktskt said, stepping out of my way. Was that respect in those big yellow eyes? Surely not. I’d just ruined all his beautiful handiwork.

  “Glad to hear it.” I stripped off my mask and gloves. He nodded curtly, and left the surgical suite in silence. Most of the team followed. No one said a word as they passed by me.

  A simple thank-you would have been nice.

  I stood by Shropana and watched his vitals as one nurse, who had stayed behind, cleaned up the bloody instrument tray. A resident wheeled in a new batch of synplasma and I set up the infuser feed lines myself. The Colonel’s vitals responded accordingly.

  Patril might just live through this, after all.

  I was still enjoying my success when the nurse jumped at me, and something slashed at my chest. “What the hell—?”

  My half-turn was swift and reflexive. Fortunately. The dermal probe aimed at my heart buried itself in the flesh of my upper arm instead.

  The good arm, too.

  “Hey!” Through a mist of pain and fury I saw dark, glittering eyes blazing over the rim of her mask. Fury-spawned adrenaline allowed me to ignore the wound and grab her skinny throat with my hands. I took a moment to tear away her surgical mask, although I already knew who it was.

  “Nurse Lucretia Borgia,” I said. “What’s the matter, couldn’t lay your paws on any benzodiazapene?”

  I didn’t let her have enough air to speak. Not that I cared about what she had to say. I backed her into a plaspanel wall and held her there.

  Time to use some Hsktskt tactics. To keep the lizards monitoring us from interfering, I pulled off my headgear, then hers.

  “Now you listen.” I leaned in, felt something warm run down my sleeve. Blood from the new wound. As if I needed more problems. “I’ve had enough of this. Enough. If I signal that big monster in charge, he’ll put you on a tray and pass you around. Want to end up an appetizer?”

  Gasping, her tail thrashing frantically against the panel, the nurse shook her head.

  “Then we’re going to make a deal. You don’t try to kill me, and I won’t feed you to them. Agreed?”

  She gave a weak nod. I let go, and she dropped to the deck, choking and coughing as fresh air filled her cheek pouches.

  I gave her a few moments, using the time to check out my brand. The tussle had cracked the burns open, and they were bleeding, too. I snatched a couple of sterile dressing packs, then nudged her with my foot. “Get up.”

  Unsteadily she pushed herself off the deck, then staggered as I grabbed her by the arm.

  “Come on.”

  I hauled her over to the scrub unit, and stuck the dressing packs in her paws. I couldn’t help grumbling as I pulled the probe from the shallow wound in my good arm and tore the sleeve away. That hurt.

  Her beady eyes bulged again. “That, why are you doing?”

  “I’m not doing anything.” I held out my arm. “Clean it.”

  “Did you say, what?”

  “You heard me. You stabbed me. You clean it up.” When she started to back away, I caught her tunic with my good hand. “I can always ask TssVar to do it.”

  That got me an intense look of dislike, but she retrieved what she needed and began treating the stab wound.

  Maybe I should find out who wanted me dead. “What’s your name?”

  She sprayed a generous amount of topical antiseptic over the small gash, which made me wince. “Zella Dchêm-os.”

  While she worked on me, I kept an eye on Shropana’s vitals. There were a few fluctuations, but on the whole the levels kept improving. Zella followed my gaze and muttered something under her breath as she wound the sterile dressing over the brand.

  “What are you mumbling about?” I asked her.

  “Your time, you’re wasting,” the nurse said. Her face resumed its usual sullen caste. “On the Colonel, that Hsktskt butcher will finish the job. A chance, as soon as he gets.”

  It took me a minute to figure out her backward syntax. “Oh, so that’s why the OverLord allowed me to perform surgery on Shropana,” I said, in a the-light-dawns tone. “To save his life so he could kill him later.” Zella jerked and secured the ends of the dressing a little too tightly around my arm. “Now, be nice—”

  “SsurreVa?” TssVar had re-entered the surgical suite, and stood looking from me to the nurse. His lower eyelids dropped in an expression I’d guess to be in the highly upset range. “You harmed the Designate.”

  I decided not even Zella deserved that wretched isolation cell—if she even made it that far in one piece. Surreptitiously I shoved her headgear into her hands and slipped mine over my head. “No harm done, OverLord. Just an accident. See?” I held up the arm for his inspection, and flexed it for good measure. “Works fine.”
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br />   The Hsktskt ignored me. “Centurons! Attend me!”

  Two of TssVar’s guards burst into the room an instant later and trained their weapons on the League nurse. Time to do some fast talking, or Nurse Dchêm-os was going to end up in more pieces than even I could sew back together.

  “I never even saw the dermal probe until it was sticking out of my arm,” I said, and patted my wounded limb. “My nurse kindly agreed to dress it for me.”

  The OverLord released a slow, suspicious hiss, then cracked a limb at the guards. The centurons retreated.

  I deliberately gave the terrified nurse’s narrow shoulder a shove toward the panel. “Thanks, Zel. You’ve done enough here.”

  In a blink, Zella had dodged around TssVar and darted out into Medical. I returned TssVar’s suspicious gaze with my best virtuous expression.

  The OverLord paced a circle around me. “SsurreVa, you lie.”

  “About what?” This innocent, who me? act had better work. “You mean this?” I patted my arm. “Why lie about someone trying to hurt me?”

  He regarded me with those observant, viewport-size, yellow eyes. “This will not change their hatred of you, SsurreVa.”

  Too damn observant. “So it’s my problem.”

  “Until it becomes mine.” The OverLord’s huge head swiveled toward the Colonel. “This one will survive?”

  “He needs more surgery to repair his ribs and treatment for the preexisting problems with his heart, but with luck, yes. He’ll live.”

  “He owes his life to you.” TssVar surveyed the surgical equipment impassively. “And this is what you had chosen to devote your time and energy?”

  Past tense. Had. Another reminder of my current predicament.

  “This is it.” I got busy cleaning up the last of the contaminated instruments. “Everybody needs regular medical treatment, OverLord. It’s steady work.”

  “I am putting you in charge of this vessel’s Medical Section,” the Hsktskt said.

  About time. “That will make Dr. Malgat and the crew happy.” No, it wouldn’t.

  “Should the soft-skulled one object, advise me.” TssVar’s tongue lashed out in what I was starting to recognize as a Hsktskt expression of anticipation, then he stalked back out.

  I sat down next to Shropana and watched his monitor. In one day, I thought, I’d gone from a detainee in solitary confinement to acting Primary Medical Officer.

  Wonder what would happen tomorrow?

  I spent the next eighteen hours in Medical, keeping close monitor on Colonel Shropana. Six more units of synplasma were required to compensate for the blood loss. Hourly doses of pentazalcine kept him quiet and as comfortable as possible. The League Commander remained in critical condition, but he made it through the night.

  My vigil also provided a chance to further observe the medical staff in action. They were a busy bunch.

  The night-shift nurses coming on immediately gravitated toward one end of the ward. The end with the food unit. They kept it busy preparing cups of hot beverages, snacks, and other tidbits. Three patients were forced to signal more than once before they were attended. I handled two of them personally.

  Difficult to stuff your face and assist patients at the same time.

  The interns worked a little harder at their jobs, but some of them scared me more than the nurses did. I watched unqualified students make rounds, treating and prescribing for patients without orders or supervision. Not good. I silently followed up on every chart. No one seemed brave enough to try to stop me when I modified the med schedules.

  While fixing their disasters, I learned that the senior staffer on shift was a fourth-year intern, and he had yet to master the intricacies of galactic pharmacology.

  Eventually I covered all of the inpatients and then appropriated a portable medical terminal and went through the personnel records. Well, I had to do something while I was sitting there, listening to Shropana’s berth console bleep and the nurses chew.

  One intrepid soul finally approached me at mid-shift. Basically humanoid, with one pair of arms and legs. Innumerable protuberant hemangiomas covered his body, doubtless due to the unusual distribution of blood vessels in his species’ skin. He wore intern insignia on his tunic. Whether he deserved to was yet to be seen.

  “I’m flavored,” Strawberry the intern said, and held out a hand with three protracted digits.

  I blinked. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “You misunderstand me, Doctor. My name is flavored.” At my blank look, he typed it out on a data pad and switched it to display in Terran.

  Vlaav Irde, I read. “Fourth-year intern?” He nodded. So this was the idiot prescribing overdoses. I toyed with the idea of laying into him over that, but Malgat was really at fault. “Right. So what do you want?”

  Vlaav the intern went on to tell me he was a Saksonan, the senior intern onboard ship, and then promptly tried to pull rank on me. “I’m primary for this shift, you know. May I see Colonel Shropana’s chart?”

  An intern as primary. Mother of All Houses. “No.” I was tired and, now knowing who I was in charge of, not inclined toward tact. “Go away.”

  Saksonans, I would learn, had easily bruised egos. “I was just reviewing cases histories, and a thought crossed my mind—”

  “Must have been a long and lonely journey. Get lost.”

  Blood pooled under his derma, making the countless bumps swell. “I don’t see why you—”

  “That’s why I’m the MD and you’re the intern,” I said. “Take a stroll. Come back when you make resident. And keep your hands off the syrinpresses.”

  Dr. Malgat appeared once early in the shift, for a few moments. I got an evil look, but my predecessor wisely kept his distance. I watched as he performed rounds so fast he barely touched each patient’s chart. On his way out of Medical, Malgat ignored inquiries from two nurses and an anxious patient calling after him.

  I made a note to request Dr. Speedy be transferred to waste management, then went back to reworking the shift schedules.

  Things got interesting sometime later, when a Hsktskt guard detachment stomped through the entrance panel. Six of them, all carrying activated weapons. A couple hissed at the nurses as they headed for the center of the bay.

  I assumed they weren’t here to visit a relative.

  The group was lead by the biggest female Hsktskt I’d ever seen. Taller and bulkier than her male counterparts, she commanded instant attention. And fear. Something else seemed strange about her. When her massive head swung toward me, I saw exactly what it was.

  Her face.

  The sight would have made the most ambitious reconstructive surgeon weep with despair. A wide, twisted band of fresh scar tissue ran a jagged path from the top of her head down one side to disappear beneath the neck of her uniform. The wound went so deep that there appeared to be extensive skull distortion.

  What had been used on her? A blunt axe? And how had she survived a wound that had torn through scales, muscles, bone, and most assuredly the frontal lobe of her brain? Next thing I knew, she was standing over me and had her weapon in my face.

  Maybe I was going to find out. Personally.

  “Hi.” I blandly looked along the barrel of the pulse rifle. After enough times, I thought, you sort of got used to it. “May I help you?”

  A black tongue lashed out—but half of it was gone. Amputated? “You are called SsurreVa?”

  “By OverLord TssVar, yes.” It couldn’t hurt to mention his name, in a “we’re old pals” kind of way.

  That didn’t awe her. “Five captives are not accounted for. You are hiding them here.”

  Uh-oh. Helen of Troy here was on a mission. Apparently I was The One to Be Held Responsible. As usual.

  “I am not hiding anyone, OverSeer,” I said, careful to use her rank. By now I had memorized Hsktskt uniform insignia, and displaying respect toward hers seemed prudent. “The only personnel here are staff assigned to this section, or patients who have been account
ed for.”

  “If I find them, you die.”

  Not exactly fair, but completely straightforward.

  She turned her mangled head and barked out a series of orders. The Hsktskts detachment fanned out and extensively searched the Medical wards, treatment rooms, and clinical services. That meant patients as well as equipment were tossed around. Nurses fled shrieking to cluster in terrified huddles. Diagnostic consoles were torn apart.

  I followed after them, picked up patients, and tried to hold on to my composure.

  An hour later, the last guard reported that no escapee had been found. Medical had been completely trashed, and the staff were having hysterics as quietly as they could. The female OverSeer came after me again.

  I was busy rewrapping a torn dressing, so I didn’t rub it in too much. “Does this mean I live?”

  The cold metal rim of her rifle pressed against my throat. I took that to mean she wanted me to shut up. I shut up.

  “TssVar values your traitorous hide,” the OverSeer said. The tip of her tongue flickered so close that I could feel tiny droplets of her saliva land on my cheeks and nose. I wasn’t even going to think about the smell of her breath. “But for the OverLord I would have your entrails adorning my talons. I am OverSeer FurreVa. Say it, Terran.”

  “Your name is OverSeer FurreVa.” I had a feeling it didn’t mean “good-natured.”

  “I am taking three of these useless females.” She gestured toward the mass of frightened nurses. “They will tell me where the others are.”

  She might have the rifle, but I was responsible for those useless females. “Assuming they know anything, which I doubt, just how are you going to get them to tell you?” I finished the dressing and straightened. “By relying on your personal charisma?”

  FurreVa’s jaw dropped, maybe in surprise, which showed me every single one of her jagged teeth. There was a noticeable gap in her upper and lower palate. Most of what was left badly needed a good cleansing. Not that I was going to suggest it. Ever.

  “The OverLord has given me leave to interrogate them.”

  Bet her idea of questioning prisoners involved inflicting serious, prolonged physical damage. “Will you allow me to speak with them first? Perhaps I can get the information from them. That way, you won’t have to waste your obviously valuable time.”