Page 22 of Dark Space
‘Oh, my heart. Yes, here,’ I said, and did the same.
He nodded, pleased. He put two fingers on his collarbone and tapped in the same rhythm.
‘A pulse? Here,’ I said, placing two fingers under my chin. ‘And here,’ I said again, tapping my wrist. ‘Though I can never find it there.’
The medic nodded, and gave a series of short growls.
‘He wants to take your temperature, but he has no idea how warm humans are supposed to be, so this is a giant waste of time,’ Vesper snarled over the tiny screen. ‘He’s going to try to listen to your pulse instead. Apparently, the scans pick up the beat, but they can often miss something irregular, and theywon’t pick up anything odd in your lungs. If he does anything you don’t like, poke him straight in the eye.’
I cleared my throat as the doctor pulled out something that looked remarkably like a human stethoscope. It made sense, I supposed, that if you had a similar heart and similar hearing, then you might come up with a similar way to measure it.
He placed the double ends in his ears, and smiled in what seemed to be an apologetic way before he put the flat end on my chest, steering well away from my breast. I relaxed slightly, trying to steady my breathing as he listened to my heart, keeping his body as far from me as he could reasonably manage. I was glad; I hadn’t minded being bundled into the black-haired Roth’s arms – or Vesper’s – but that didn’t mean I wanted to be touched by anyone else.
He gave a soft growl.
‘He wants you to turn around, lodestar. He’s going to listen to your lungs. He asked if you’re comfortable lowering your shirt for him. If you like, I can tell him exactly where to stick his –’
‘It’s okay, Vesper,’ I said hurriedly. I turned around and undid my top buttons, shrugging my shirt off one shoulder.
‘Talk to me, Anna. What’s he doing?’
Something cold was placed gently above my shoulder blade. ‘He’s listening now, Vesper. I’ll have to be quiet.’
‘Tell me the moment he’s done.’
I took a steady breath in, then exhaled. My position on the bed was making my cramps worse, but the coolness of the alien stethoscope distracted me from the pain. I took a handful more breaths, and felt the doctor take the chest-piece off my skin.
I huffed a relieved laugh. ‘It’s finished, Vesper, it –’
Something sharp sank deep into my shoulder, and I screamed.
I heard her screamfrom the corridor.
Callan was outside the clinic door, already pounding on the glass. ‘He’s locked us out,’ he roared. ‘Alcide, that fucker haslocked us out!’
‘Move,’ I said shortly. I had the override code for every room on the ship, and I tapped it in with a calmness I didn’t feel, my blood rushing hot around my body, fear boiling in my stomach.
When the glass slid aside, my vision went white.
Dainn had sunk a needle deep into the human female’s shoulder; the vial was filled with the distinctive blue sedative used to render Roth patients unconscious. She shrieked and struggled fiercely against him; a feral growl ripped from Dainn’s throat as he ducked down andbither, trying to hold her in place. The female cried out in pain and wrenched herself sideways, dislodging Dainn from her skin; his sharp second row of teethtook a strip of pale flesh with them as Vesper’s voice shouted from the wrist screen.
My hand was on my sword before I knew what I was doing, and I didn’t think at all as I swung it through the air.
Dainn’s head hit the floor with a dullthump. It rolled in an uneven, ungainly spin, before its horns brought it to an abrupt stop; blue blood leaked out onto the surgery tiles.
‘Anna?’ Vesper shouted from the wrist screen. ‘Anna!’
Callan blinked at the doctor’s head, then stowed his gun, carefully flicking the safety setting back on. ‘Well, that’s one way to deal with it. I didn’t know you kept that thing sharp. I thought it was only ceremonial.’
‘There’s no value in a dull blade,’ I said blankly, repeating something my father said often. I felt oddly hollow inside; I focused on the red mess of the human female’s shoulder.Anna, Vesper had called her.Her name was Anna. ‘She’s bleeding. Her name is Anna, and she’sbleeding.’
Callan threw open Dainn’s neatly-ordered cupboards until he found packages of sterilised bandage. He opened one and approached Anna slowly, with his hands in the air. ‘It’s all right, beautiful. You’re safe, but you’re bleeding. We just need to stop the blood.’
Anna didn’t understand him, of course. She shrank back, shivering, her eyes empty.
‘Anna, lodestar, it’s Alcide and … the other one.’ Vesper’s voice came over the wrist screen, soothing. ‘They’re not going to hurt you, because if they do, I will find out whether I still have enough energy to go supernova, andI will take out this ship and every being on it, dark matter chain or no dark matter chain. They’re trying to help you. Someone mentioned blood.’ His voice broke on the last word. ‘Blood should be on the inside. If you’re bleeding, you have to let them stop it. Let them help.’
She still had the wrist screen clutched in her hand, so tightly it was almost cutting into her skin. She blinked, and seemed to take us in properly. She said something to Vesper, her voice rasping.
