The servant had come back with a wrap, a wonderfully hand-worked piece, no common woven sheet; and very tenderly that young man helped Jase wrap the shivering captain in its tightly confining embrace—far easier on the captain, far more comforting than a hand-grip. “Get the light out of her eyes,” Bren said, tucking a fold across Sabin’s brow. His own gut recalled the misery, and he had every sympathy for what Sabin was about to endure. “Captain. We’re getting you upstairs. Do you hear me? Hang on. This was surely an accident, an unfortunate accident.”
With Jase he moved Sabin toward the door. Jago was outside. So were Kaplan and Pressman, and so was Collins, Sabin’s man, with his team.
“The captain’s reacted to something at dinner,” Jase said. “Mr. Kaplan, alert the infirmary.”
The dowager followed, with Cajeiri trailing close, the very image of the concerned host, servants adding a cloak to the dowager’s formal attire.
“You’ll stay here,” Collins said to them, as if Jase were one of the passengers.
That, Bren thought, was a tactical mistake.
“Mister,” Jase said, “they’re going where I say they’re going. That’s up to the infirmary, where we can pass information to the medics.”
“Cenedi-ji,” Ilisidi said. “Have the area secure.”
They moved. Cenedi and four men attended the dowager and Cajeiri. “Banichi-ji,” Bren said, intent on going with them, and Banichi and Jago opted to leave security to Cenedi’s men.
That added up to nine atevi, seven of them very large indeed—a boy and the dowager, and a handful of worried human security, with Jase and Sabin—Sabin being still conscious, but quite, quite beyond coherent expression.
They reached the lift together. “Second deck, Mr. Kaplan,” Jase said, and Kaplan punched it in, Sabin’s security crowded in with them so that there was very little space left at all.
The lift shot up, opened its door onto pervisible walls and a waiting escort in blue and white, medics who received the captain in greatest haste and concern and wanted to eject them all back into the lift in the process.
“The dowager expresses great concern for the captain’s welfare and will attend,” Bren said. “Such incidents happen with native diet—rare, but they do happen. Her staff has a pharmacopeia of remedies.”
“We have our own expertise,” the chief medic said. “Captain.”
“The dowager does know what was administered,” Jase said, with no trace of irony or anger about it. “Mr. Cameron can translate.—What will you recommend, nand’ dowager?”
“A purgative,” Ilisidi said. “A strong purgative. The body will continue to throw it off in every possible way, and administration of fluids will be very helpful.”
Bren translated. “Purge the system. Get her to a small, dark room. I’ve suffered a similar situation. Fluids will help the headache. I assure you there will be headache. Severe headache.”
For the next several days. He didn’t mention that. Sabin would want to kill them by degrees. And wouldn’t want to see bright lights or raise her head above horizontal—however that worked in zero-g.
“ This is Captain Graham.” Jase’s voice came over the general address, and from Jase, in stereo, via C1’s offices, Bren had no doubt. “ Captain Sabin has had a food reaction, and is recovering in sickbay, full recovery expected. We’re close to shift-change. It’s become my watch, and first-shift may stand down as relief arrives. Second-shift, report to duty immediately.”
Sabin began to try to speak when she heard that, and was, predictably, suffering nausea. Medics, atevi security and human, moved to assist. In zero-g, it was not a happy situation.
“ Atevi personnel will move about freely during crew and passenger boarding,” Jase continued on the intercom. “ Report any question to me via C1.”
A hovering grandmother, a vitally important child with security attendant, a handworked and expensive cloth—none of these were the ship’s image of a coup, Bren hoped. It would hardly be the image of such an event in Shejidan, if one didn’t intimately know the chief participant.
They’d rescued the precious throw and substituted infirmary disposables. And Sabin was both semi-conscious and miserable.
“We shall stay personally and assure ourselves that the captain is well, nadiin-ji,” Ilisidi said. “We have antidotes, which I have ordered be at hand during any dinner.”
“Aiji-ma, in case there should be any fatal outcome, one would hardly wish to have supplied a drug—”
“Translate!” Ilisidi said. Bren translated, and subsequently accepted a vial from one of Ilisidi’s young men.
“This may be of use,” Bren added, passing it to a medical officer, hoping to very heaven it might not be a fatal dose. “To be taken by mouth.” He knew this one. “The dowager’s medic provides it, out of years of experience with such accidents. It should be minor, except the headache. These are complex substances. I advise taking this remedy.”
“It should be safe.” Jase said at his shoulder, and in Ragi. “Stay here, Bren-ji, and keep matters quiet. Don’t have it look worse than it is. I’m going to the bridge.”
“There will be time to discuss,” Ilisidi said, silk and steel, with a tender smile, “ship-aiji.”
Jase didn’t say a thing. Ship-aiji. She’d just made him that, in very fact.
Ogun hadn’t necessarily wanted Jase here. Now he was. Now he was in charge, with power to abort or delay the mission. Ogun hadn’t necessarily wanted Sabin in charge of the mission, either—hadn’t liked her, and possibly hadn’t trusted her associations, to put it in Ragi.
Possibly far too many of his thoughts came in Ragi these days; but he believed in what he saw. He believed that, all evidence accounted, Sabin was a potential asset, only a potential one, and that things trembled on the brink of very bad mistakes.
He saw Jase board the lift, taking Sabin’s men out with him, leaving Kaplan.
Very bad mistakes. Which couldn’t be allowed to happen. He intended to go inside the treatment room, but Ilisidi and her escort came, and they crowded into the room to the evident distress of the medics.
“There’s limited room here,” the chief medic said angrily. “Sir, if you’ll persuade them outside…”
“This is ‘Sidi-ji.” The crew knew the dowager, knew her manner—and respected her. “I doubt I can. We’re here to see the antidote given. She feels personally responsible, and it’s a matter of honor.”
“We’ve no intention of giving the captain another unidentified alien substance…”
“You’re the aliens, sir, by way of precise accuracy, and I do urge the dowager has a far more exact knowledge of native chemistry. This is a medication I’ve had, and if I didn’t think it would ease the symptoms I’d never urge it.—Captain? You’re offered an antidote. I’ll vouch for it, on my personal honor. I’ve had such an incident myself.”
Sabin was just conscious enough, and she’d had it on far more alcohol and a far better cushion of previous dishes: the one might accelerate, the other cushion the effects of the substance, and for all his assurances to the doctors, Ilisidi hadn’thad that extended an experience at poisoning humans.
“At this point,” Sabin said, teeth chattering, eyes clenched rapidly after one second’s attempt to look him in the eye, “at this point, hell, it can’t be worse.”
It could.
“Captain,” the doctor said.
“I said it can’t be worse!” Shouting was not a good idea. Not at all a good idea.
“Just let her drink it,” Bren said. “Hang onto it as long as possible, captain.” Sabin’s heaving stomach knew exactly what he meant.
“Give it,” Sabin said.