Resting her damaged hand on her thigh, she grabbed the edge of the bed with the other as she warily eyed the needle.
Dagon turned to face the doorway, curious to see what Adaos would discover, and unobtrusively reached behind his back to take her free hand in his. Some of the tension in her form eased as she gave his hand a squeeze.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He didn’t know if she thanked him for holding her hand or for doing so behind his back where the others wouldn’t see it and guess her dislike of needles. Why she believed they would perceive such as a weakness after the strength she had just displayed baffled him.
In the next room, the hover gurney shrank back to its initial size.
Adaos tugged it out from under the intruder and set it aside. Grabbing his med tablet, he activated the full-body scanner.
A long moment passed as all waited to hear what it would reveal.
Eliana’s grip tightened slowly on his hand, becoming almost painful.
He glanced at her and found her face paler than usual. Her lips clamped together. A muscle in her cheek twitched. When she caught him staring, she loosened her hold.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “The bones are shifting back into position. It hurts like hell. I mean srul. It hurts like srul.”
He stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. “Squeeze as hard as you want to,” he murmured so the others wouldn’t hear.
Though pain pinched her features, the corners of her lips turned up in a faint smile.
Adaos swore. “The scanner is stymied by the blue liquid. It’s reading little more than a heat signature emanating from the puncture wound.” Setting his tablet aside, he strode away from the exam table and left Dagon’s line of sight. A clattering sound filled the silence.
Adaos returned to the intruder’s side a moment later with a glass tube in one hand and a long narrow instrument in the other. Leaning forward, he collected a sample of the odd, viscous blue liquid, adding a dollop of the dark red. Once he was satisfied with the quantity inside the tube, he left Dagon’s sight again.
Eliana’s grip relaxed. “Much better,” she said on a sigh.
He studied her injured hand. Though it was still swollen and discolored, it looked better. “Is it repairing?”
She nodded. “The bones are all aligned properly again, but it will take more time for them to heal completely. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
Amazing. Reluctantly releasing her hand, he reached for the med tablet. “Extend your arm.”
As soon as she held it out, he ordered a stabilizer. A mechanical arm descended from the ceiling. Eliana eyed it warily.
“No needles this time,” he promised softly.
Before she could respond, the end of the mechanical arm divided into two. One branch slid beneath her forearm. The other moved to hover above it. White foam shot forth from both and coated Eliana’s arm and hand. She jumped but kept her arm still. As the foam dissolved, the blue goo disappeared, leaving her flesh clean. A clear spray followed, which Dagon knew would disinfect the area. Then a colorless gel coated her skin, beginning halfway up her forearm and continuing down until her wrist and all but the tips of her fingers received a thick layer.
“What’s that?” she asked and moved to touch it.
Dagon clasped her free hand again before she could. “Wait.”
The mechanical arms emitted a flash of light.
The gel hardened instantly.
She stared. “Is that a cast?”
Dagon released her and sought a response. “I don’t think my translator is defining that accurately.”
“What is it telling you a cast is?”
“A sculpture made by the shaping of molten metals.”
She smiled. “That is one definition. But cast in this sense refers to a hard plaster doctors on Earth apply to broken arms to hold them steady while the bones heal.”
He nodded. “Then it is a cast.”
“What do you call it?”
“A stabilizer.”
“Makes sense.” Smiling, she scooted off the bed. “Now let’s go see what’s happening with the blue guy.”
Relieved, Dagon escorted her from the private room and approached the prone blue figure the same time Adaos did.
The chief medical officer now carried a laser scalpel.
“What can you tell us?” Dagon asked.
“The blood is Purveli.”
Shock rippled through him. “You’re certain?”
“Yes. The blue is an unknown metal that remains in a liquid form unless frozen or heated to four hundred and twenty gogans.” Frowning, he tucked the laser scalpel in a pocket and gingerly clasped Eliana’s stabilizer. She remained still while he inspected it. “I see no traces of the metal on her skin. But I should take a sample of her blood to see how much she absorbed and run tests to ensure it isn’t toxic to her species.”
Dagon regarded her with alarm.
“I’m fine,” she assured them.
Unappeased, Adaos warned, “It could be a slow-acting poison.”
She shook her head and motioned to the intruder. “Wouldn’t he be dead by now if it was?”
Adaos glanced at the blue figure. “The suit he wears blocks our sensors. He may already be dead.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Then why the srul are you standing here talking to me?”
Dagon motioned to the room they’d just left. “We should collect a blood sample to ensure—”
“Nope,” she insisted. “I’m fine. Trust me, guys. I’m very hard to kill. If you want to take a blood sample, you can do it later.”
When Adaos hesitated, Dagon nodded toward the intruder. “Proceed.”
Adaos drew out the laser scalpel. Positioning it above the center of the intruder’s forehead, he made an incision that he extended down the intruder’s smooth, featureless face to his torso, then to his groin. Four more incisions traced paths down the intruder’s legs and arms. Once finished, Adaos set the scalpel on a nearby tray and pulled the edges of the blue skin-like exterior open.
Viscous blue liquid spilled out to coat the medic’s hands. More oozed down to the table and over the sides to drop onto the floor with a splatter.
Eliana frowned at Adaos. “If you think it’s poisonous, shouldn’t you be wearing gloves or something?”
“I am,” he murmured, his focus on the patient.
Dagon supposed that to Eliana it appeared that he wasn’t. But Adaos would have sprayed his hands and arms with a clear liquid that formed a protective barrier before touching the puzzling figure.
More blue plopped down to the floor, its consistency somewhere between a liquid and a solid.
“CC,” Adaos commanded, “activate disinfection bots.”
Small square cleaning bots zipped out of a lower cabinet across the room and swarmed over the floor around them, suctioning up the liquid and coating the floor with disinfectant.
Dagon glanced down at Eliana to gauge her reaction.
She watched the busy little bots work, then looked up at him with brown eyes that sparkled.
“Let me guess,” he murmured. “You want one?”
Her teeth flashed in a grin. “Yes, please.”
Tamping down his amusement, he returned his attention to the exam table.
At Adaos’s command, a mechanical arm descended from the ceiling and coated the intruder with white foam.