“Uh—” Non sequiturs. “Right, right — Hey, Stiller! You seen—”
From inside: “Medic! MEDIC!”
Somebody who wasn’t Marygay was coming out. I pushed her roughly out of my way and dove through the door, landed on somebody else and clambered over to where Struve, Marygay’s assistant, was standing over a pod and talking very loud and fast into his ring.
“—and blood God yes we need—”
It was Marygay still lying in her suit she was
“— got the word from Dalton—”
covered every square inch of her with a uniform bright sheen of blood
“—when she didn’t come out—”
it started as an angry welt up by her collarbone and was just a welt as it traveled between her breasts until it passed the sternums support
“—I came over and popped the—”
and opened up into a cut that got deeper as it ran down over her belly and where it stopped.
“—yeah, she’s still—”
a few centimeters above the pubis a membraned loop of gut was protruding …
“—OK, left hip. Mandella—”
She was still alive, her heart palpitating, but her bloodstreaked head lolled limply, eyes rolled back to white slits, bubbles of red froth appearing and popping at the corner of her mouth each time she exhaled shallowly.
“—tattooed on her left hip. Mandella! Snap out of it! Reach under her and find out what her blood—”
“TYPE O RH NEGATIVE GOD damn … it. Sorry Oh negative.” Hadn’t I seen that tattoo ten thousand times?
Struve passed this information on and I suddenly remembered the first-aid kit on my belt, snapped it off and fumbled through it.
Stop the bleeding — protect the wound — treat for shock, that’s what the book said. Forgot one, forgot one … clear air passages.
She was breathing, if that’s what they meant. How do you stop the bleeding or protect the wound with one measly pressure bandage when the wound is nearly a meter long? Treat for shock, that I could do. I fished out the green ampoule, laid it against her arm and pushed the button.
Then I laid the sterile side of the bandage gently on top of the exposed intestine and passed the elastic strip under the small of her back, adjusted it for nearly zero tension and fastened it.
“Anything else you can do?” Struve asked.
I stood back and felt helpless. “I don’t know. Can you think of anything?”
“I’m no more of a medic than you are.” Looking up at the door, he kneaded a fist, biceps straining. “Where the hell are they? You have morph-plex in that kit?”
“Yeah, but somebody told me not to use it for Internal—”
“William?”
Her eyes were open and she was trying to lift her head. I rushed over and held her. “It’ll be all right, Marygay. The medic’s coming.”
“What … all right? I’m thirsty. Water.”
“No, honey, you can’t have any water. Not for a while, anyhow.” Not if she was headed for surgery.
“Why is all the blood?” she said in a small voice. Her head rolled back. “Been a bad girl.”
“It must have been the suit,” I said rapidly. “Remember earlier, the creases?”
She shook her head. “Suit?” She turned suddenly paler and retched weakly. “Water … William, please.”
Authoritative voice behind me: “Get a sponge or a cloth soaked in water.” I looked around and saw Doc Wilson with two stretcher bearers.
“First half-liter femoral,” he said to no one in particular as he carefully peeked under the pressure bandage. “Follow that relief tube down a couple of meters and pinch it off. Find out if she’s passed any blood.”
One of the medics ran a ten-centimeter needle into Marygay’s thigh and started giving her whole blood from a plastic bag.
“Sorry I’m late,” Doc Wilson said tiredly. “Business is booming. What’d you say about the suit?”
“She had two minor injuries before. Suit doesn’t fit quite right, creases up under pressure.”
He nodded absently, checking her blood pressure. “You, anybody, give—” Somebody handed him a paper towel dripping water. “Uh, give her any medication?”
“One ampoule of No-shock.”
He wadded the paper towel up loosely and put it in Marygay’s hand. “What’s her name?” I told him.
“Marygay, we can’t give you a drink of water but you can suck on this. Now I’m going to shine a bright light in your eye.” While he was looking through her pupil with a metal tube, he said, “Temperature?” and one of the medics read a number from a digital readout box and withdrew a probe. “Passed blood?”
“Yes. Some.”
He put his hand lightly on the pressure bandage. “Marygay, can you roll over a little on your right side?”
“Yes,” she said slowly, and put her elbow down for leverage. “No,” she said and started crying.
“Now, now,” he said absently and pushed up on her hip just enough to be able to see her back. “Only the one wound,” he muttered. “Hell of a lot of blood.”
He pressed the side of his ring twice and shook it by his ear. “Anybody up in the shop?”
“Harrison, unless he’s on a call.”
A woman walked up, and at first I didn’t recognize her, pale and disheveled, bloodstained tunic. It was Estelle Harmony.
Doc Wilson looked up. “Any new customers, Doctor Harmony?”
“No,” she said dully. “The maintenance man was a double traumatic amputation. Only lived a few minutes. We’re keeping him running for transplants.”
“All those others?”
“Explosive decompression.” She sniffed. “Anything I can do here?”
“Yeah, just a minute.” He tried his ring again. “God damn it. You don’t know where Harrison is?”
“No … well, maybe, he might be in Surgery B if there was trouble with the cadaver maintenance. Think I set it up all right, though.”
“Yeah, well, hell you know how…”
“Mark!” said the medic with the blood bag.
“One more half-liter femoral,” Doc Wilson said. “Estelle, you mind taking over for one of the medics here, prepare this gal for surgery?”
“No, keep me busy.”
“Good — Hopkins, go up to the shop and bring down a roller and a liter, uh, two liters isotonic fluorocarb with the primary spectrum. If they’re Merck they’ll say ‘abdominal spectrum.’ ” He found a part of his sleeve with no blood on it and wiped his forehead. “If you find Harrison, send him over to surgery A and have him set up the anesthetic sequence for abdominal.”
“And bring her up to A?”
“Right. If you can’t find Harrison, get somebody—” he stabbed a finger in, my direction, “—this guy, to roll the patient up to A; you run ahead and start the sequence.”
He picked up his bag and looked through it. “We could start the sequence here,” he muttered. “But hell, not with paramethadone. Marygay? How do you feel?”
She was still crying. “I’m … hurt.”
“I know,” he said gently. He thought for a second and said to Estelle, “No way to tell really how much blood she lost. She may have been passing it under pressure. Also there’s some pooling in the abdominal cavity. Since she’s still alive I don’t think she could’ve bled under pressure for very long. Hope no brain damage yet.”
He touched the digital readout attached to Marygay’s arm. “Monitor the blood pressure, and if you think it’s indicated, give her five cc’s vasoconstrictor. I’ve gotta go scrub down.”
He closed his bag. “You have any vasoconstrictor besides the pneumatic ampoule?”
Estelle checked her own bag. “No, just the emergency pneumatic … uh … yes, I’ve got controlled dosage on the ’dilator, though. ”
“OK, if you have to use the ’constrictor and her pressure goes up too fast—”
“I’ll give her vasodilator two cc’s at a time.”
“Check. Hell of a way to run things, but … well. If you’re not too tired, I’d like you to stand by me upstairs.”
“Sure.” Doc Wilson nodded and left.