His tank? Breathing through his gills . . . Bel didn't have gills, no help there. Cooling water, flowing over the froggish body, his fan-like webs, through the blood-filled, feathery gills, chilling his blood . . . could some of this bio-dissolvent's hellish development be heat-sensitive or temperature-triggered?
An ice-water bath? The vision sprang to his mind's eye, and his lips drew back on a fierce grin. A low-tech, but provably fast, way to lower body temperature, no question about it. He could personally guarantee the effects. Thank you, Ivan.
“My lord?” said Roic uncertainly to his apparent transfixed paralysis.
“We run like hell now. You go to the galley and check for ice. If there isn't any, start whatever machine they have full blast. Then meet me in the infirmary.” He had to move fast; he didn't have to be stupid about it. “They may have biotainer gear there.”
By the expression on Roic's face, he was notably not following any of this, but at least he followed Miles, who boiled out and down the corridor. They rose up the lift tube the two flights to the level that housed galley, infirmary, and recreation areas. More out of breath than he cared to reveal, Miles waved Roic on his way and galloped to the infirmary at the far end of the central nacelle. A frustrating pause while he tapped out the locking code, and he was through into the little sickbay.
The facilities were scant: two small wards, although both with at least Level Three bio-containment capabilities, plus an examining room equipped for minor surgery that also harbored the pharmacy. Major surgeries and severe injuries were expected to be transported to one of the military escort ship's more seriously equipped sickbays. Yes, one of the ward's bathrooms included a sterilizable treatment tub; Miles pictured unhappy passengers with skin infestations soaking therein. Lockers full of emergency equipment. He jerked them all open. There was the blood synthesizer, there a drawer of mysterious and unnerving objects perhaps designed for female patients, there was a narrow float pallet for patient transport, standing on end in a tall locker with two biotainer suits, yes! One too large for Miles, the other too small for Roic.
He could wear the too-large suit; it wouldn't be the first time. The other would be impossible. He couldn't justify endangering Roic so . . .
Roic jogged in. “Found the ice maker, m'lord. Nobody seems to have turned it off when the ship was evacuated. It's packed full.”
Miles pulled out his stunner and dropped it on the examining table, then began to skin into the smaller biotainer suit.
“What t'hell do you think you're doing, m'lord?” asked Roic warily.
“We're going to bring Bel up here. Or at least, I am. It's where the medics will want to do treatments anyway.” If there were any treatments. “I have an idea for some quick-and-dirty first aid. I think Guppy might have survived by the water in his tank keeping his body temperature down. Head for engineering. Try to find a pressure suit that will fit you. If—when you find the suit, let me know, and put it on at once. Then meet me back where Bel is. Move!”
Roic, face set, moved. Miles used the precious seconds to run to the galley and scoop a plastic waste bin full of ice, and drag it back to the infirmary on the float pallet to dump in the tub. Then a second bin full. Then his wrist com buzzed.
“Found a suit, m'lord. It'll just fit, I think.” Roic's voice wavered as, presumably, his arm moved about. Some rustling and faint grunting indicated a successful test. “Once I'm in, I won't be able to use my secured wrist com. I'll have to access you over some public channel.”
“We'll have to live with that. Make contact with Vorpatril on your suit com as soon as you're sealed in; be sure his medics can communicate when they bring their pod to one of the outboard locks. Make sure they don't try to come through the same freight nacelle where the quaddies have taken refuge!”
“Right, m'lord.”
“Meet you in Small Repairs.”
“Right, m'lord. Suiting up now.” The channel went muffled.
Regretfully, Miles covered his own wrist com with the biotainer suit's left glove. He tucked his stunner into one of the sealable outer pockets on the thigh, then adjusted his oxygen flow with a few taps on the suit's control vambrace on his left arm. The lights in the helmet faceplate display promised him he was now sealed from his environment. The slight positive pressure within the overlarge suit puffed it out plumply. He slopped toward the lift tube in the loose boots, towing the float pallet.
Roic was just clumping down the corridor as Miles maneuvered the pallet through the door of Small Repairs. The armsman's pressure suit, marked with theIdris 's engineering department's serial numbers, was certainly as much protection as Miles's gear, although its gloves were thicker and more clumsy. Miles motioned Roic to bend toward him, touching his faceplate to Roic's helmet.
“We're going to reduce the pressure in the bod pod to partially deflate it, roll Bel onto the float pallet, and run it upstairs. I'm not going to unseal the pod till we're in the ward with the molecular barriers activated.”
“Shouldn't we wait for the Prince Xav 's medics for that, m'lord?” asked Roic nervously. “They'll be here soon enough.”
“No. Because I don't know how soon too late is. I don't dare vent Bel's pod into the ship's atmosphere, so I'm going to try to rig a line to another pod as a catchment. Help me look for sealing tape, and something to use for an air pipe.”
Roic gave him a rather frustrated gesture of acknowledgment, and began a survey of benches and drawers.
Miles peered in the port again. “Bel? Bel!” he shouted through faceplate and bod skin. Muffled, yes, but he should be audible, dammit. “We're going to move you. Hang on in there.”
Bel sat unchanged, apparently, from a few minutes ago, still glazed and unresponsive. It might not be the infection, Miles tried to encourage himself. How many drugs had the herm been hit with last night, to assure its cooperation? Knocked out by Gupta, stimulated to consciousness by the ba, tanked with hypnotics, presumably, for the walk to the Idris and the scam of the quaddie guards. Maybe fast-penta after that, and some sedatives to keep Bel quiescent while the poison took hold, who knew?
Miles shook out one of the other pods onto the floor nearby. If the residue of Solian lay therein, well, this wasn't going to make it any more contaminated, now was it? And would Bel's remains have escaped notice for as long as Solian's, if Miles hadn't come along so soon—was that the ba's plan? Murder and dispose of the body in one move. . . .
He knelt to the side of Bel's bod pod and opened the access panel to the pressurization control unit. Roic handed down a length of plastic tubing and strips of tape. Miles wrapped, prayed, and turned assorted valve controls. The air pump vibrated gently. The pod's round outline softened and slumped. The second pod expanded, after a flaccid, wrinkled fashion. He closed valves, cut lines, sealed, wished for a few liters of disinfectant to splash around. He held the fabric up away from the lump that was Bel's head as Roic lifted the herm onto the pallet.
The pallet moved at a brisk walking pace; Miles longed to run. They maneuvered the load into the infirmary, into the small ward. As close as possible to the rather cramped bathroom.
Miles motioned Roic to bend close again.
“All right. This is as far as you go. We don't both need to be in here for this. I want you to exit the room and turn on the molecular barriers. Then stand ready to assist the medics from the Prince Xav as needed.”
“M'lord, are you sure you wouldn't rather we do it t'other way around?”
“I'm sure. Go!”
Roic exited reluctantly. Miles waited till the lines of blue light indicating that the barriers had been activated sprang into being across the doorway, then bent to unzip the pod and fold it back from Bel's tensed, trembling body. Even through his gloves, Bel's bare skin felt scorching hot.