He checked her neck, thankful for the pulse that slowly beat beneath the skin. Then her chest, too concerned to appreciate her plump breasts. Grasping her left hand, he lifted her arm and twisted it gently this way and that to expose every surface. He found plenty of cuts and gashes but no hint of the black markings Adaos had told him to search for.
Kova stepped back. “Nothing.”
Janwar checked her other arm, then the ghastly wound on her lightly muscled abdomen. Her pelvis and rounded hips.
Elchan shook his head. “Nothing on her legs or feet.”
Janwar straightened. “Nothing.” He glanced at Adaos, who seemed to be scrutinizing her as closely as they did. “Are you sure the signs would be apparent this quickly?”
Adaos’s brow puckered. “They were on Eliana.”
Janwar nodded to Kova and Elchan. “Help me turn her over.”
Together they gently lifted her and rolled her over, careful not to put any pressure on the worst of her wounds.
“Simone is older and stronger than me,” Eliana murmured, “so she heals faster. Maybe—”
Janwar and his men swore foully as they settled Simone on her stomach with her head turned to one side.
A ragged wound stretched across her lower back. It looked almost as if someone had impaled her with a hook on one side, then dragged it through her flesh to the other before it tore its way free. The deep groove left behind didn’t bleed. And it almost looked as though the shallow end had tried to weave itself back together and heal. But the rest of it…
Black tinted the mangled edges and had begun to slither across her skin like dark veins.
“Oh shit,” Eliana breathed. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over her lashes.
That couldn’t be good. Swallowing hard, Janwar consulted Adaos. “What do we do?”
Adaos frowned as he studied Simone.
Eliana shook her head as she looked up at the medic. “They don’t have a supply of her blood to give her like you did me.”
“We have Segonian blood,” Janwar said. “You said that’s safe. Is that what she needs? Another transfusion?”
The Earth woman shook her head. “There’s something… unique in our blood. Something that can fight the poison in sufficient quantities. Adaos happened to have a goodly supply of mine on hand when I was injured. It’s the only thing that saved me.” Again she consulted the medic. “But she doesn’t have that. What are we going to do?”
Adaos motioned to Janwar. “Let me have a closer look at the wound.”
Janwar grabbed the viewscreen and shoved it closer to Simone’s back.
A moment passed.
“This end over here looks as if it has begun to mend itself,” Adaos muttered.
“It does,” Eliana said softly. “And there isn’t as much black there.”
“But this over here is concerning.”
“Very,” she agreed.
“Thank you, Janwar,” the medic said.
Janwar released the viewscreen, allowing it to back away and hover across from him.
Adaos met his gaze. “I want you to give her another transfusion of Segonian blood. Twice what you would normally give someone her size if you have that much on hand.”
“We do.” He grabbed the datapad Kova held out and began typing in commands. “That and more. We didn’t know what condition any Earthlings we might find would be in, so Elchan has been donating regularly ever since you told us he was compatible.”
Janwar set the datapad aside and carefully turned Simone onto her side. The mechanical apparatus descended from the ceiling, found the bend of her arm, and began infusing her again.
“Thank you, Elchan,” Eliana said. “I’m in your debt.”
Elchan didn’t seem to know what to say, so he just nodded.
Janwar bent Simone’s knees and drew them up a bit to make her more comfortable. She wasn’t conscious, but he hoped that would soon change. “What else?” He glanced up.
Adaos had moved away from the screen and now tapped on a console across the room. “Give me a minute,” he uttered absently.
The comm in Janwar’s ear crackled.
“Commander,” Krigara said.
Janwar glanced at Eliana and Dagon. “Excuse me.”
They nodded as he withdrew from visual and crossed to stand in Med Bay’s doorway.
He tapped the comm. “Report.”
“I was going to ask you to do the same,” his cousin said, his voice pitched softly. “Srok’a said Simone is down?”
“Yes. What’s your status? Are you in the lab?”
“No. I didn’t want the prisoners to overhear.”
“Be careful of their tail spikes,” Janwar warned. “They’ve dipped them in bosregi.”
“What’s bosregi?”
“A poison that can be deadly to Earthlings.”
“And to us?”
“Unknown. One of the Gathendiens must have caught Simone in the back with his tail. The poison is hitting her fast and hard. We’re consulting the Ranasura’s chief medic and doing what we can for her.”
“Drek. Judging by the grim tone of your voice, it isn’t going well.”
From where he stood, Janwar could see the black striations on her back. “Correct.”
A long silence ensued. Then Krigara spoke. “These grunarks fight amongst themselves so much that I doubt they’d lace those spikes with bosregi unless they either had a natural immunity or an antidote. Their numbers are so few now they can’t afford the losses.”
Janwar nearly clapped a hand to his forehead in dismay. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “That’s drekking brilliant. Let Srok’a do the interrogating. I want you to hack their system and search for anything you can find on a possible antidote. But keep the Gathendiens oblivious. I don’t intend to let any of them live longer than it takes to question them, but if reinforcements arrive and attempt a rescue, I don’t want those grunarks to know how deadly that bura is to Earthlings.”
“They won’t hear or see a thing.”
“And get a blood sample from one of them.”
“I’ll do it now. Krigara out.”
Tapping his comm, Janwar returned to Simone’s bedside. “Some of my men are still on the Gathendien ship,” he told the Ranasura trio. “They’re going to search the lab’s records and see if they can find anything about a bosregi antidote.”
Kova sent him a hopeful look. “That would make sense. Those grunarks are always fighting with each other.”
“They’re also going to collect a blood sample in case Gathendiens have a natural immunity to it. Adaos, do you think you can use that to manufacture an antidote?”
The medic answered without looking away from whatever he studied on his diagnostic screen. “If they have natural immunity, yes. But it will take time Simone doesn’t have.”
Drek!
Elchan started toward the other med bed. “I’m going to donate more blood.”
Janwar clapped a hand on his shoulder as he passed. “Thank you.”
Adaos looked at them over his shoulder. “How is her back?”
Bending, Janwar studied the wound in her back. “It looks the same.”