Hell's Gate

"It's that bad, Sir?" Janaki asked, eyes widened slightly, and chan Tesh shrugged.

"I may be worrying too much. He's a good, decent man. In fact, I think that's part of the problem. He's not used to carrying this kind of hate around with him, and he doesn't know what to do with it. But I'd like to keep him a good, decent man, if we can, Your Highness."

"Point taken, Sir," Janaki said respectfully, and chan Tesh nodded.

"In that case, Your Highness, why don't I take you around to the POW cage?" The company-captain smiled without any humor at all. "We'll probably find Darcel somewhere in the vicinity."

"I think this is going to be the most ticklish case, Sir," Petty Captain Delokahn Yar said. He stood at Janaki's elbow at the foot of one of the cots under the canvas tarp arranged to shade a clean, breezy open-air hospital ward. The tall, powerfully built man on the cot lay still?not simply motionless, but rigidly, harshly still?staring up at the sun-patterned canvas above him.

"This was their commanding officer?" Janaki's voice was cold.

"We believe so, Sir."

"I see."

Janaki gazed at the man in question with cold, contemptuous eyes. Company-Captain chan Tesh had briefed him fully on the portal battle … and how it had begun. Platoon-Captain Arthag seemed rather more philosophical about it than chan Tesh, and Janaki supposed the septman was probably right. It was very unlikely that these people used the same sort of ba

"What appears to be the problem?" the Crown Prince of Ternathia asked after a moment.

"The physical damage is bad enough, Sir. He took a hit?from one of the Model 10s, I suspect?right through the body just above and behind the hips. It was a clean in-and-out that somehow missed the major internal organs, but it clipped the spine on the way through. He's paralyzed from the waist down, and there's nothing we can do about it. On top of that, though, he's clearly suicidal."

Janaki nodded, although he couldn't avoid the thought that perhaps, in this case, not intervening to prevent a suicide might be the better course. Even aside from the man's stupidity, and all the deaths it had already caused, there was something else about him. Something Janaki couldn't quite put a finger on … but which resonated uncomfortably with the Glimpse he'd experienced in the mountains east of Fort Brithik.

"As nearly as I can tell, Sir," Yar went on, "none of these men even understand what Talent is. That's fair enough, I suppose, since we don't have a clue how in all the Arpathian hells they do some of the things we already know they do. But because of that, none of them understands what my corpsmen and I are trying to accomplish. They don't know how to help us, and at least some of them are so busy being frightened of us that they're actively blocking us, making it a lot harder for us to do them any good. And this man here is the worst of a lot. I think part of the problem may be that he actually has at least a trace of Talent. He's more aware of what I'm doing than most of the others, but he doesn't understand it any better than they do, and his own Talent, even untrained, is producing a lot of … interference that makes even pain management really difficult."

"I see," Janaki said again. "Which means, of course, that he's going to suffer a lot more discomfort when we transport him."

"Which is going to tie into the entire depression/suicidal cycle," Yar agreed. "In fact, to be brutally honest, Sir, I doubt he'll survive trip unless we take some fairly drastic action."

"Such as?"

"I'm afraid the only thing I can think of to do at this point is to shut him down completely, Sir," the Healer said. He clearly didn't like the suggestion very much, but he made it unflinchingly, and Jasak forced himself to step back and consider it before he reacted.

"You really think that's necessary?" he asked after a moment.

"Sir, my Talent's strength lies more in repairing physical damage than emotional or psychological damage," Yar said frankly. "That's one reason I'm forward deployed, where physical trauma is more likely, and usually more immediately life-threatening when it turns up. But it's going to take someone with a lot more strength on the nonphysical side to get through to this man and keep him from simply withdrawing deeper and deeper into himself until he finally just goes out like a light. I don't think you're going to get him to that kind of care in time if we don't shut him down for the trip."

Janaki nodded yet again, his expression somber. The techniques for disengaging a patient's consciousness from his body and surroundings were fairly straightforward, but it was a major breach of medical ethics to apply them without the patient's informed consent. Unfortunately, there was no way this man could even have understood the question, far less made an informed decision. Yar's Healer's oath required him to seek the patient's agreement, and forbade him to apply the techniques without that agreement from a conscious patient. Yet the same oath required him to keep his patient alive.

And there's another factor, here, Janaki thought grimly. Of all the prisoners chan Tesh took, this one undoubtedly has the most useful information of all. We need to keep him alive … whether he makes my skin crawl or not.

"If you 'shut him down,' will we be able to feed him and care for him properly all the way back to Fort Raylthar?" he asked.

"That shouldn't be a problem, Sir. Or, at least, not any more of a problem than dealing with any other patient with his spinal injury would present."

"In that case, write up your recommendation. I'll endorse it and ask Company-Captain chan Tesh to approve it."

"Thank you, Sir." Yar shook his head. "I hate to do it, but I just don't see a way to avoid it. Gods, I wish at least one of their Healers had made it!"

"None of them did?" Janaki frowned. "How did that happen?"

"It was just one of those godsdamned things, Sir," Yar said heavily. "It looks like they'd set up an emergency aid station in that pathetic redoubt of theirs, and one of the four-point-fives landed right on top of them." The Healer shook his head, his eyes dark. "One or two of them survived for a while, but they were too badly wounded for us to pull them through. I hate to lose any Healer, but I have to wonder what would have happened if they made it. Or if even just one of them had made it!"

"Why?" Janaki was surprised by the Healer's obviously genuine frustration. It showed, and Yar gave him a very crooked smile.

"Let's just say their Healers obviously know at least a few tricks we don't, Sir."

"Such as?" Janaki quirked an eyebrow, and Yar chuckled harshly.

"Once we'd taken their encampment, we discovered that most of their wounded from the previous fighting seemed to have been evacuated before this round. Or that's what we thought at first, at least. We captured less than half a dozen people who were still undergoing treatment, and all of them seemed to have only minor wounds. But then Junior-Armsman Hilovar and Petty Armsman Parcanthi went to work. They'd managed to Trace quite a few of the enemy's most badly wounded from Fallen Timbers, and it turned out a lot of them were still here. The very worst hurt obviously really were evacuated?somehow; we still haven't figured that part out. But the next most badly hurt were still right here, and they'd already been returned to duty. The ones still undergoing treatment were the ones who were least badly hurt in the earlier fighting."

"Excuse me?" Both of Janaki's eyebrows went up this time, and Yar chuckled again.