Her uncle was determined to help the natives, and obviously they didn’t want to be helped. Hort was intent on studying them, and they didn’t want to be studied. What they did want was to be left alone, and that was perfectly satisfactory to her.
She heard her uncle’s booming voice and the usual chorus of farewell from his native retinue. Resignedly she got to her feet, gathered up the robe she’d been lying on, and walked determinedly toward the embassy office.
As she dropped the door open, they turned toward her: her uncle, Hirus Ayns, and Aric Hort. They were about to drink a toast, and they held tumblers raised.
Her uncle greeted her with a smile. “You’re just in time, Tal.” He filled another tumbler. “Join our celebration. Fornri has accepted my suggestion about the drainage ditches. They’ll start work on them in the morning.”
He offered her the tumbler, and in a sudden burst of anger she struck it to the floor. “You fools!” she exclaimed.
Ayns and Hort stood frozen with tumblers raised. Her uncle stared at her dumbfoundedly.
“Can’t you see they are laughing at you?” she demanded. “You work from dawn to dark just tramping about trying to help them, and when they condescend to accept a suggestion, like your precious ferries, they give it to the children to play with. Now I suppose you’ll expect me to pose for pictures in your drainage ditches!”
She marched to the window and stood there with her back to them, looking out. “Langri is a lovely world,” she said. “The singing and dancing are charming, and the food is delicious, and it’s a nice place for a vacation, and I’ve had one. I’m leaving on the next courier ship.”
Her uncle said quietly, “You’re free to leave whenever you like, Tal.”
She turned and faced them. Hort was struggling to conceal his embarrassment. He suddenly became aware that he still held a drink in his hand, and he downed it. Wembling and Ayns did the same.
Talitha, looking past them through another window, asked, “What’s this?”
Natives had landed a boat just below the embassy, and they were walking up from the beach carrying a segment of gourd with what looked like a pile of blankets on it. Fornri led the way. Dalla, weeping, walked at one side.
Aric Hort dashed to meet them, with Wembling and Ayns following on his heels. Talitha, after long hesitation, trailed after them. When she finally reached them, the procession of natives had halted, and Hort was bending over the segment of gourd.
He peeled back the blankets and gazed down at an unconscious child.
Dabbi.
Her eyes were closed. Her small, pinched face looked violently feverish. Her breathing was rapid and shallow.
Hort spoke incredulously, and his agony throbbed in every syllable. “Not—the Hot Sickness?”
Fornri said gravely, “She cut her foot. On a sharp rock, we think. And now—”
His voice broke. Hort turned away, brushing his eyes with a gesture, and the procession followed him. They turned off and took the path to the rear, where Hort’s quarters were located. He hurried on ahead, dropped the door open, and stood waiting for them.
When Talitha entered the room at the end of the procession, Hort had folded out a bed and lifted the child onto it. The natives, except for Fornri and Dalla, took the gourd stretcher and left at once. Hort knelt beside the bed and gently loosened the blankets, exposing Dabbi’s foot and leg.
Talitha gasped. Both were hideously swollen to twice, three times their normal size.
Hort straightened up slowly. “I can try something different,” he said. “We might possibly learn from it, but I’m afraid she’s going to die.”
Dalla knelt at the head of the bed and continued to weep soundlessly. Fornri, still grave and courteous despite his obvious grief, said politely, “We understand. The Hot Sickness always brings death, and we are grateful for your attempts to find a cure. Please do what you can.”
He bent over the bed, placed his hand for a moment on Dabbi’s forehead, and then he turned and left the room. As he did so, Wembling stepped forward and spoke to Hort, who stood looking down at the sick child.
“How long are they going to be here?” Wembling demanded.
“Only until the child dies.”
Wembling shrugged resignedly. “Well—keep them quiet.”
He went out. Hort moved a chair into position beside the bed and started to examine Dabbi’s leg again. Now Talitha edged forward. “Why did they wait so long?” she asked angrily.
Hort looked up at her blankly. “This probably didn’t happen much over an hour ago.”
“What is it?”
“Some kind of blood poisoning. Our antibiotics have no effect on it. I’ve been trying them in combination, and the last pair kept the victim alive for eight days, but he died just as certainly as if I’d left him alone, and a great deal more painfully. The only thing I can do now is try a stronger dose of the same thing and see how she reacts.”
Talitha knelt beside the bed and conducted her own examination, but she could draw no conclusion except that the infection was appallingly virulent. “How do you administer your antibiotics?” she asked.
“By mouth if the patient is conscious. Otherwise, by absorption. I’ve been afraid to use the injector.”
“When an infection has spread this much, it’s too late for oral or absorbent applications,” she said dryly. “Let me see your medical kit.”
Hort wheeled the kit from the closet. She noted with relief that it was prime rated and had been renewed within the past year. She quickly rolled it into position, clipped a surgical mask to her nostrils, sprayed on a pair of gloves, and began a quick but thorough examination of the patient. She drew a blood sample by palm osmosis, and while the kit analyzed it she taped a cardio-sensor to Dabbi’s chest and monitored the faltering heartbeat.
“What did you give the last patient—the one that lived eight days?” she asked.
“Kornox Four and Cybolithon.”
“Dosage?”
“Half normal for each. I figured mixing the medicines was experiment enough, and two halves made a whole.”
While the cardiograph continued to click its appallingly irregular pictures of Dabbi’s heartbeat, the blood analysis data drifted across the screen: WBC 18,440 [] ZYN 9+ [] W3W 7.5 [] BUN 38 [] CPK 790 [] BROS 1,125 [] GAMMA GT 2,220 [] XRX 8.4 [] PY4 0- [] SGOT 57 [] RRR 190 [] SGPT 55 [] EBD 440 [] BILIRUBIN 3.5 [] MIC 99 [] DQS…
Her memory of blood analysis norms was fuzzy, but even without the red warning tabs she would have recognized the scientific confirmation of what Hort already had said: this was a dying child. She turned off the cardiograph and punched the code for the antibiotics chart. She read the data on Kornox Four and Cybolithon, read it again, read it a third time. She had been working quickly and confidently, but thus far she had followed a routine practiced countless times.
Now, with a dying patient before her, she was forced to make a medical decision light-years beyond her competence, and she was frightened.
She dared not hesitate. A delayed decision, even if right, could be as fatal as a wrong decision. “Unless we act quickly, she won’t live an hour,” she said quietly to Hort. “Is it possible to consult her parents?”
“Her parents are dead,” Hort said. “Dalla is her sister. You can consult her.”
Dalla was still kneeling at the head of the bed. Talitha knelt beside her. “If we do nothing, she’ll die quickly. If we give her too much medicine, we may cure the disease and kill her with the medicine. I can only guess and hope. Are you willing for me to try?”