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Zack's lips drew taut. His hands shook. Rachel took the microphone. Her voice was as raw as her husband's. "Is that a suggestion or a demand, Carlos?"
"Neither. Not yet, anyway."
"Then we needn't worry about it yet. Sylvia, all serious suggestions are welcome. We know we need more security. Please, all of you, be assured that until the entire situation has stabilized, no aspect of security will be neglected. But we have to start somewhere—right now, we have to make sure that a total inventory of the damage and losses is made, and that all of the wounds are dealt with. Yes—Andy?"
The engineer stood. His right arm was strapped to his chest. "This wasn't supposed to happen. Nothing like this was supposed to happen. I was... We can't go home!"
Jill Ralston, the slender redhead from agriculture, stood. Both of her hands were wrapped in burn gauze. "Dammit, I saw that freaking animal take over a hundred rounds, and half a tank of jellied fuel. It was in the water, and the water smoked. We got a net around it, and its tail was still twitching! It had to be dead, just spasms—but I'm telling you that it almost killed the three of us. If there had been five of them, they could have killed everyone in the camp."
"Five—hell if it would have needed five!" Ricky shouted.
Rachel tried to speak, but despite the microphone she was drowned out in the babble.
"One. One more would finish us!"
"Cadma
"Ten light-years, ten years away—"
"Power plant's finished—"
"Vet shed—"
"The biology lab's wrecked—"
Zack took the microphone and waved his hand. "Enough! Listen, damn it!" The babble died away. "Look, we're not going to get productive work done until we rebuild the camp, and we can't do that until our minds are at rest."
"Yeah, sure, relax," La Do
"Cut the crap. It doesn't help the situation if everyone talks at once. Look, chances are we won't find another one of these—things. No sense in taking chances, we'll take precautions, but damn it, science is science. There's nothing for it to live on here. There won't be more of them—"
"How the hell can you know that?"
"There couldn't have been that one—"
"Stop! You're scientists and engineers, and the best people that could be chosen from a half billion applicants, and God damn it, act like it!
"All right. Now, just to be sure, we'll put a study team on the problem. Immediately. What do we have that will kill these... monsters... and do it efficiently? We'll find out!"
"I think we need atomic bombs," Andy said. Two people laughed. Andy sat down again.
Zack spoke through pain, pushing his voice when it should have been allowed to rest. "We weren't prepared. Whether we ever run into another of those or not, we'll soon know what will kill it. One person by himself should be able to do it. We'll find out. I swear. This is our island, and I'm not turning it over to any goddamned monster. Ours, do you understand?"
"Right." Carolyn McAndrews stood and applauded. After several seconds others joined wearily. Sylvia rose and left the room.
She walked out through the door, out into the camp, where smoke still rose from the twisted struts. Three buildings had been totally destroyed. The power plant looked bad. People dug in the ruins, trying to find valuables or irreplaceables.
Here was the hospital. Its normal five beds had been expanded to twenty. Most of the wounds would heal, thank God, but a few, just a few...
Terry for instance.
Terry lay torpid in a bath of saline solution. Jerry was checking
Terry's wounds as Sylvia came through the door, and his face was grim. "We may have to amputate the right leg. The bones are shattered."
She nodded numbly and sat down in a folding chair next to him. Terry was still unconscious, filled with painkillers. His skin was reddish and peeling, as if he had been staked out in the Mojave for days.
"He's lucky to be alive," Jerry said.
"We're all lucky," Sylvia said soberly. "Somehow, that doesn't make things any easier."
There was one figure conspicuously absent from the expanded hospital, one figure that she wanted desperately to see. Jerry caught the look in her eye. "We moved Cadma
Sylvia half stood, but Jerry's hand tugged at her. "Name of God, Sylvia. You're not the only one who's sorry. We screwed up, and we're paying for it. But you can't do any good. How do you think Terry's going to feel if he wakes up and you're not here? Let it be."
She twisted her arm in his hand, and then finally sat back again.
Drained. "There isn't anything to be done."
"Nothing. We've got the body out of the river, and as soon as the wounded are stabilized, we'll be able to spare you. Until then... you're a doctor, not a lovesick schoolgirl. This is your husband. For God's sake act like it."
A slap across the face couldn't have shocked her more, and she nodded.
"I... I'm sorry, Jerry."
"Being sorry doesn't count for shit. Broken bones don't care how you feel. They just need to be set."
What time was it? How long had Jerry been working while she luxuriated in her grief? It had been twenty hours since the attack. It had probably been two days since Jerry had slept, and he was still going. Shame swept through the depths of her. But in its wake was resolve, and a kind of nervous energy. She stood. "Jerry, thank you. There's a time for self-pity, and this isn't it. How long has it been since you slept?"
Jerry smiled raggedly, ru
"Get out of here, and don't come back for at least six hours. Doctor's orders."
"Are you all right?"
"Now I am. I have to pass the favor on. Scoot."
Jerry took a last look around the infirmary and shuffled off, grabbing his coat on the way out.
Sylvia rolled up her sleeves, and touched her stomach gingerly. The baby was fine, she could feel that. If anything had happened...
But now there was work to be done.
A war zone. That was what it looked like in here. A goddamned war zone.
Chapter 11
EULOGY
He is gone from the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain
When our need was the sorest.
SIR WALTER SCOTT, The Lady of the Lake
For Sylvia, the next three days were a stabilizing time, a time of learning who was going to die, and who would live. They lost three more during that time, raising the death toll to twelve.
It seemed that none but the dead slept during those days. There just wasn't enough painkiller or somazine to keep the wounded asleep.
If only...
That game was too easy, and too painful to play. "If onlys" turned wishes into guilty visions, turned thoughts of mine fields and guards and infrared scans into haunted caves, vast cobwebbed torture chambers where her sleep-starved mind whipped and racked her without mercy.
She was pregnant, and she couldn't deny it or hide it, and so every night when others went back to the hospital after di
But the guilt and the pain and the sheer stark need drove her on.
She saw Zack. He was going harder than she. Perhaps harder than anyone. And if she knew that her dreams were pits of despair and self-recrimination, his were beyond her imagining.