‘Don’t push it, girl,’ Malvery growled. He raised an eyebrow and glared at her. ‘However it turned out, you were still-’ Then he saw the expression on her face, and realised she was joking. He shook his head and gave her an exasperated smile. ‘What am I gonna do with you, eh?’
Ashua laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ll look out for me, Doc. And I’ll do the same for you.’
Malvery felt himself well up at that, and blinked back tears. Foolish old man, he thought. Getting sentimental.
‘Doc!’ yelled Silo, as he came hurrying down from the wall to the courtyard. ‘It’s the Cap’n!’
‘He’s alright?’ Ashua asked.
‘He comin’ in on our location! Tell the gunner not to fire on him!’
‘I’m on it,’ said Ashua, and limped off with as much speed as she could manage.
Silo came to a halt next to Malvery, who was still working on the wounded man, assisted by the soldier who’d helped carry him. ‘What about Pinn and Harkins?’ Malvery asked.
‘They good. Pulled out when the anti-aircraft guns kicked up. Been drivin’ me crazy listenin’ to ’em ever since I put the cuff back in. Had some competition goin’ on, how many Sammies they could shoot down.’
‘Who won?’
‘Both of ’em, near as I can tell.’ He spotted the Ketty Jay swooping down through the flak, and waved at some nearby soldier. ‘Clear a space there! Cap’n’s back, damn it! Cap’n’s comin’ back!’
The Ketty Jay’s cargo ramp touched the floor of the courtyard, and the men and women in the hold poured out. Soldiers hugged each other and thumped their comrades’ backs. Grissom and Celerity Blane strode out with their heads held high. Bess larked with the other golems, her childish enthusiasm infecting them.
But then a voice rose over the others. ‘Make way! Make way, there!’ It was Balomon Crund, with Trinica Dracken in his arms. And behind him came Frey, supported by Crake and Kyne, with Samandra Bree at their heels. The crowd parted for them, and they came out into the courtyard, emerging into the grey daylight surrounded by the tinny stink of vented aerium gas.
‘Malvery!’ Crake shouted. ‘Doc!’
Frey could barely see through the agony. His vision had become blurred and his legs had no strength in them. It was hard to tell one pain from another. His torso was an aching mass. He still couldn’t draw breath properly. But he had a purpose, a focus, and that kept him moving.
Malvery got up from the ground, where he’d been tending to casualties, and came hurrying over. The doctor’s moustached face loomed in Frey’s vision.
‘Frey,’ he said in horror. ‘What in buggery happened to you?’
‘Forget about me,’ he said, and gritted his teeth as something shifted and stabbed inside him. ‘Her! Save her!’
Malvery looked at Trinica. ‘Put her on the floor,’ he told Crund, and then he crouched next to her and looked beneath the crude dressing they’d wrapped around her wound. ‘What happened to her?’
‘Cap’n put a cutlass through her,’ said Crake.
‘You what?’ Malvery said. He was feeling her pulse. ‘Second thought, I don’t even wanna know.’ He put the dressing back. ‘Frey, this is too bad. I can’t-’
‘I don’t wanna hear it, Doc. Make it happen.’
‘She needs blood. Now.’
‘Give her mine!’
‘You ain’t got enough to give.’
‘Do what I say, damn it!’ Frey cried, then was seized by a coughing fit and spat blood on the ground.
‘Cap’n!’ Malvery barked, and the volume of his voice shocked Frey into silence. ‘If you ain’t compatible, you’ll kill her. Likely you’ll kill yourself tryin’ anyway. And even if you are compatible, I don’t rate my chances. Let me save you! Or if not you, there’s plenty people round here I can save. I’m a doctor, alright? I know what I’m doing!’
‘Take my blood!’ said Crund.
‘No!’ said Frey. ‘What if you’re not compatible?’
‘What if you’re not?’ Malvery said.
‘I am!’ Frey snarled. ‘We were tested. . After we knew about the baby. . Doctor took my blood for. .’
‘What baby?’ Malvery said, but Frey ignored him. There wasn’t time to argue! Didn’t he see that?
‘We’re compatible,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘We’ve always been. . compatible.’
‘Frey, I can’t. It’ll kill you. I can’t do that!’
Frey found a burst of strength, fuelled by frustration, and he seized Malvery by the front of his jumper and pulled him close. ‘Doc,’ he said. ‘If you ever. . If you were ever a friend to me. . You gotta do this now. This is everything, you hear? This is everything.’
Malvery’s face was a picture of doubt. This went against everything he believed, as a doctor and as a person. Frey knew what Malvery thought of his obsession. Shit, Malvery didn’t even like Trinica very much. But Frey had to do this, and he couldn’t do it without Malvery’s help.
He owed Trinica a life. And he aimed to give her one.
‘It won’t save her,’ Malvery said, but there was defeat in his voice and Frey knew he’d won.
‘Gotta try,’ said Frey. ‘Gotta try.’
Malvery wrestled with his conscience a moment more, but in the end he lowered his head, and his brow clouded. ‘Get her inside,’ he said. ‘I’ll do what I can.’
The others knew better than to try to stop him, and for that Frey was deeply grateful. He couldn’t fight any more battles. He let them take him into a room off the courtyard, where they put him on a table, and they laid Trinica out next to him. She was still, and looked so small; the rise and fall of her breast was hardly perceptible. But he felt no terror of her now. The daemon inside her had been destroyed, beaten by the daemon in his blade. Even if she died now, she died herself, unconquered.
He was dimly aware of Malvery returning with supplies he’d taken from the Ketty Jay. He saw the doctor laying out jars and tubes, heard him snapping instructions at Crake, who was assisting him. They assembled the apparatus for the transfusion, blurred ghosts fussing in the background.
He stared up at the ceiling. Wetness trickled down his cheek. A tear, leaking from the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to leave this life. He loved it too much. It had treated him appallingly at times, and he’d abused it in return, but at that moment it seemed the most wonderful and precious of things. He couldn’t stand the loss of it.
But he’d lived. He’d made a difference. And now he could say with honesty that he’d done his damnedest.
There was that. At least there was that.
He felt the bite of a needle at his inner elbow. He turned his head, and saw a transparent rubber tube stretching from him to a glass jar that lay between him and Trinica on the table. The jar was connected to a rubber bulb which Malvery was squeezing rapidly. At the other end of the apparatus was a needle in Trinica’s arm.
‘Make a fist,’ said Malvery to Frey. ‘Crake, give him something to squeeze. It’ll help the blood through.’
Frey had little enough strength in his body, but he crawled his hand across the the table, and took up Trinica’s. And he squeezed her cold fingers as hard as he could manage.
‘Reckon that’ll do,’ said Malvery, through a thick throat.
Frey felt very far away from everything now. It was as if he were watching the scene from the end of a long tunnel. His body no longer seemed his own. He observed with detached fascination as the rich, dark blood began to fill the jar, his blood. He saw it slip along the tubes, and finally into Trinica, a glistening red thread between him and her.