There was no reaction from the patient; the local appeared to be working. I cut deeper, making my way through the heavy layer of subcutaneous fat and into the muscle. Still not a twitch from Curious, and he was still breathing regularly. I opened the abdominal cavity and peered inside.
There was nothing remarkable at first sight. Loops of intestine, mesenteric fat and blood vessels, omentum. I worked my way up to what appeared to be a set of stomachs and began to follow the intestine down, examining it systematically. It didn’t take long to find the problem: a section of intestine that was blackish-red, swollen and lumpy.
“What did you find?” Howard called frantically. “What are you doing?”
“There’s an inflamed piece of intestine here,” I called back. “I’m going to see what’s inside.” Under my breath I whispered to Lynda, “How’s Curious doing?”
She shrugged helplessly. “He’s alive. He has a pulse and he’s breathing. That’s about all I can tell you.”
“That’s about all I can ask for. Here we go.”
I made an incision in the intestine, and a bright orange tendril popped out. Lynda jumped, startled, and nearly fell backwards in the water. Carefully I enlarged the incision until we could see most of the creature’s body.
“Is it alive?” Lynda whispered.
I looked at it doubtfully. How could it possibly be alive after all that time in the digestive tract? The tendril had probably popped out because of a release of pressure. It hadn’t moved by itself. Had it?
“Is it?”
“I don’t think so. Careful, don’t touch it. We’d better only handle it with instruments.”
“OK.”
I poked a large forceps at the creature and clamped down on a piece of it. Gingerly I began to tug at it. Nothing happened; it was stuck tight to the intestinal wall. I pulled harder, then used another instrument to try to pry it free of the intestine.
“What’s happening?” Howard called plaintively.
“It’s one of those yellow and orange things. We’re trying to get it out.”
I shifted the instrument to a different position and rocked it back and forth. Something gave way, like a suction cup releasing, and then suddenly there was a violent thrashing of tendrils and the creature leaped out of the intestine and twisted frantically on the end of my forceps. As I gaped at it the thing tore itself loose and flopped across Curious’ body, straight toward Tegan.
“Tegan!” Lynda screamed.
“Tegan, look out!” I yelled.
Tegan snapped out of her trance, saw the thing coming, and dove out of the way. A blur of yellow and orange flashed past her and disappeared into the water. I gasped with relief. And then my surgical field lurched up against me and hit me in the face. Curious, terrified, was thrashing in the water, with his abdomen open and a hole in his intestine. I grabbed the piece of intestine, clamping my fingers down on either side of the hole, and held on for dear life. Lynda snatched some of the instruments, but the rest tumbled off the surgical field and splashed into the water. And then, mercifully, the thrashing stopped. Tegan was back in her place, dripping wet, soothing Curious with gentle fingers. Shakily, I continued with the surgery.
The intestine was too badly damaged for mere suturing; I had to resect the damaged piece and then anastomose the ends, a tedious piece of surgery even when half of your instruments haven’t disappeared underwater. But I finished at last, and closed, and when I was done Curious was still alive.
And he was, remarkably, already looking better. He rolled up onto his chest, peering back curiously at his incision. The other monsters swam up to him, squeaking and clicking, touching him gently with noses and fins. Then the other nine swam off together, to the center of the pool, and began to play.
Lynda smiled tiredly. “Well, they seem to think he’ll be all right.”
I stripped off my mask and gloves, gathered what instruments I could find, and staggered up the bank to collapse beside Howard. Lynda followed with the piece of resected intestine bundled in a drape. It was probably best that Howard didn’t look at the thing; he was pale enough already, and he was still shaky.
“Is it over?” he whispered.
“It’s over,” I said. “He made it through surgery and he’s already looking better. So far so good.” Removing the poisonous creature and the damaged intestine had done wonders; now all we had to worry about were mundane things like infection, dehiscence, and whether the antibiotics I was going to have to use were safe for sea monsters. I got back to my feet and staggered to my truck to contemplate the selection of antibiotics. Lynda put an arm around Howard and gently took him out to visit with Curious, and Tegan discreetly moved away. I watched Tegan distractedly as she began to dive like a mermaid for instruments. She surfaced with a thumb forceps, then went back under and returned with a Doyen clamp. I sighed. I really could have used that Doyen during the surgery. And I’d have to do an inventory before I left, to make sure I had all the instruments; otherwise one of the monsters might swallow one, and I’d end up doing surgery again. I shuddered at the mere thought of that, and picked up an aquatic-medicine text, hoping to find a dolphin or sea lion antibiotic dose that I could extrapolate for Curious. I was immersed in tables of doses when Tegan came up to me with an armful of instruments.
“Here you go,” she said. “Say, could I use some of your exam gloves?”
“Sure.” Absently I handed her the box and got out my calculator to figure a dose. Then, not trusting my tired and foggy brain, I double checked the calculations.
“Oh wow,” I heard Lynda say. “Look at that.”
“Oh dear,” Howard said. “It’s hurt.”
I looked up from my calculations. Tegan stood in front of me, the orange and yellow anemone-thing cradled in her gloved hands.
“Aaaah!” I cried.
Tegan looked at me reproachfully.
“That thing’s dangerous,” I sputtered.
“It should be safe to handle it with gloves on, shouldn’t it? Look, one of the tendrils is torn partway off. Can you fix it?”
I peered doubtfully at the creature in Tegan’s hands. Apparently she was right about the gloves, since she was still standing and she showed no signs of being poisoned. But what in hell could I do for the thing? Surely any creature that could survive for several hours in a monster’s digestive tract could take care of itself. Reluctantly I put on gloves and examined the injured tendril more closely. It was torn nearly all the way off, hanging only by a shred of tissue. Guiltily I recognized the mark of my forceps. I did feel obligated to do something. But what? There was probably too much damage to reattach the tendril; undoubtedly the best thing would be to amputate it. After all, the thing had plenty of other appendages. And maybe it could regenerate its limbs, like a starfish. But would suturing the wound interfere with a possible regeneration?
“Can you?” Tegan asked again.
I looked at her earnest, hopeful.