"When it's finished," Gabriel said, "I think we'd better put it in the cargo bay and vent the hold." Enda made a little sniff of laughter. "If the hold is not already well enough vented. But, yes, that should successfully stabilize it. At least, we will hope so."
The phymech got on with its wrapping. Soon there was nothing left but an opaque, silvery-sheened, ungainly, and not very human-looking bundle, for neither Gabriel or Enda wanted the body forced into an unnatural shape that might destroy some useful piece of equipment or other evidence. The shape was awkward. They had some difficulty getting it into the airlock between the forward area and the cargo bay, but it fitted at last after some tugging and pushing. When the airlock was closed again, Gabriel activated the secondary grapples mounted inside the cargo bay, the ones used for handling rocks inside the bay, and carefully opened the other airlock door.
"There remains the problem of exactly how we handle this body when we get to Iphus," Enda said. Gabriel finished up with the grapples and closed the airlock door again, pausing to look at the inert lump lying there in the light gravity he had left turned on. "Probably," he said, "it wouldn't be a great idea to haul it through the corridors."
"No. I would think we might be able to get the doctor to make a house call, though, especially if there was an illness aboard ship."
"Oh?"
"Yes. I was just thinking how unwell you look, Gabriel." "What?"
"Oh, most unwell. I think you have eaten something bad. Contaminated stores, perhaps." Gabriel blinked at her, then made a few experimental retching noises. "Maybe there was something wrong with that last batch of meat rolls?" he suggested.
"Certainly there was," Enda said. "I cannot believe the amount of hot spice with which you ordered them made. They are nearly inedible, but perhaps there was some bacterial contamination as well." "Something that the phymech can't handle."
"Well, it has never been as strong on nontraumatic problems or simple systemic infections as it is on trauma. Perhaps there might be something wrong with the phymech as well. Yes, some kind of error in installation-or better still, another software problem that the installer missed even though it caught the other one."
Gabriel shook his head and turned to make his way back up to the pilot's seat. "I begin to see why fraal are such a long-lived species," he said.
Enda looked after him with some concern. "Why would that be?"
"Sneakiness," Gabriel said. "Come on. I'm going to go sound sick on the comm back to Iphus." Smiling very slightly, Enda came after him.
Chapter Thirteen
ABOUT FIVE HOURS later they were docking once again in the main ring on the Iphus Collective. Gabriel had been in no hurry to get there quickly, partly because he was "sick," partly because he wanted to give some of those big VoidCorp ships time to go away. Indeed when Sunshine arrived, they were all gone, which also made Gabriel wonder slightly. What other part of the system have they gone off to intimidate, and why?
Doctor Delde Sola was there at the docking ring to meet them. She came up in the lift, stepped into Sunshine, and held quite still while she glanced around her. It was slightly amazing to Gabriel how her height made the ship around her look smaller than it really was. Equally surprising was the look she trained on him as she stood there, holding what appeared to be a brushed-metal version of the standard doctor's bag.
"Conjecture: faked illness," the mechalus said with an expression that for the moment was decidedly cool. "Etiology: uncertain. Observation: atypical odors for human/fraal habitation. Query: nature of callout?"
"We were attacked in system space by ships, one of which was piloted by an alien we cannot identify," Gabriel said. "We managed to save the body. It's ... pretty abnormal."
"Query:" said Doctor Sota, "recording of attack and response?"
"The computer has saved it," said Enda and brought up the JustWadeln software.
Delde Sota stepped up to the pilot's seat and paused there for a moment, looking at the smear that still lay across the cockpit window from the first object that had hit them. "Query: provenance?"
"The residue from an impact," Enda said. "You will see it in the playthrough."
Delde Sola's braid reached up over her shoulder and brushed across the cockpit controls, the hair-tendrils finding one preferred spot and infiltrating itself through it into the computer circuitry behind. The tank flickered with images, dark and bright, too quickly for Gabriel to get a clear sense of any individual one. Delde Sola turned to them then and said, "Observation: lucky to be alive. Query: repeat occurrence?" "It happened once before, yes," Gabriel replied, "but there weren't any remains we could find." "Proposaclass="underline" autopsy," said Delde Sota, moving aft and taking her bag with her while looking around for a place to put it. "Requirements: suitable surface, disinfectant solution-" She smiled briefly. "Body." "We have a table," Enda said and led Delde Sota down into the "sitting room" area, where she unfolded the table from the wall.
Wait a minute, we eat off that table! Gabriel thought, but he didn't bother to say it out loud, for Enda was already making her way down toward the cargo bay with the doctor in tow. Gabriel sighed and turned to the computer, telling the cargo bay to pressurize itself with air from inside the docking ring access. He then followed the others.
Enda and Delde Sota were standing there in the chill, looking down at the unwieldily wrapped body. "Observation: some haste in preparation, programming in phymech insufficient," said Delde Sota. "Observation: odor immediately noticeable, some haste suggested. Query: computer interface in this area?"
"There against the wall," said Gabriel, "over by the spee-gee apparatus."
Delde Sola's braid started lo lengthen itself, wavering out and along to where the computer interface was embedded by the specific gravity and metallurgic assay equipment. "Observation: table too small. Conjecture: even if right size, not much good for dinner afterwards," Delde Sola said, going over to kneel by the corpse and putting her bag down while her braid insinuated itself into the ship's computer, "even after scrubbing by marine." Gabriel blinked at that. "Suggestion: pathology and food a bad mixture in close quarters. Query: assistance?"
"I'll help," said Gabriel, utterly horrified a second later that such a suggestion had come out of his mouth. Doctor Sota gave him a look. "Observation: educational. Also: finder's right." She opened her doctor's bag.
-and it opened, and opened, and opened, and kept on opening so that Gabriel had to just stare at it. The bag flattened itself out across the floor into an incredibly complex set of dividers and clearfoam-wrapped instruments and objects that Gabriel couldn't identify. There seemed to be many times more room in it for things than the original volume would have suggested. Finally it stopped opening, and Gabriel was almost disappointed.
"I wonder if anyone does a version of that for maintenance tools?" Enda asked, looking down at the "bag" with what looked to Gabriel like mild envy.
Delde Sota looked from Enda to Gabriel with that slightly wicked look. "Information: special order," she said. "Offer: will assist you in obtaining discount. Suggestion: put ship in escrow." "Thankyouno" Gabriel said hurriedly.
Delde Sota raised her eyebrows, looked over the contents of the "bag," and selected an object wrapped in clearfoam. The foam dissolved away as she lifted the object, a long, slender, extremely keen-looking knife.
"Invocation: here death rejoices to teach the living," Delde Sota said and began slicing delicately at the bodywrap film that covered the corpse. It fell away, crinkling dryly, and Delde Sota looked at that with some bemusement. "Observation: already atypical response in wrapping," she said. "Begin recording. Computer, copy to coroner's records, Iphus Collective Medicolegal Authority, Delde Sota recording, this recording under Coroner's Seal, Concord Medicolegal / Concord Pathology and Forensics SR7269563355209782673."