Systemic Shock

Toying with her cup: 'Yes, we sent a team out last night as soon as I heard. Apparently an enemy jet and our delta collided. No survivors. I'm sorry, Mr. Quantrill, I knew some of those men too.'

'I was starting to think of the Norway as home. Even left my scout uniform and backpack in her. Now — look, could I find some other clothes besides these?' He looked down at the bright yellow uniform, his eyes dry, distant.

'There must be some Aggie coveralls—'

'No,' he said quickly. 'Just — just plain old clothes.' Her gaze was interrogative. He shrugged into her silence, added, 'I'll work for you, Dr. Palma. But I don't want to join anything I like. That hasn't worked out very well.'

After a long thoughtful pause, Palma said, 'I suppose it does sharpen one's sense of loss. But you have to make alliances with something, Quant — may I call you Ted?'

A nod. 'I don't have to make 'em with things I love, Doc. And I might like it here. I'm not making that sound very smart, am I?'

'Look, Ted, sometimes a long sleep and then some hard work can do wonders.' She pulled the vial from her pocket, set it before him. 'Why don't you wash those down with water and hit the sack? It's not much, but it's all I can do.' She had almost added that if he were older, they might have gotten drunk together. But her responsibility, not his age, was the barrier.

'Maybe I will. Thanks.' He put the vial into his pocket.

Almost angrily she said, “Don't you want to know what I found out?'

'About my folks? You've already told me. They're dead, aren't they? One, or both?'

It was curiously difficult for her to say it: 'Both. Your father was — in action.' She couldn't say 'killed'. 'Your mother was admitted to a clinic in Durham, North Carolina, and I'm afraid paranthrax swept the place.' More softly: 'Do you know what we're doing here?'

'An antidote for it. Chartrand said that 'd make this place a target if word got out.'

'We don't call it an antidote, but you have the idea. Does it make you feel better to know you're helping destroy the thing that destroyed your home?'

'You want the truth, Doc?'

She sighed and stood up. 'No thanks. There's too much of that going around.' His response was a smile, peer to peer, and that was somehow unsettling from a fifteen-year-old. “Not that you asked me, Quantrill, but don't cut yourself off from humanity. We all need somebody, now and then.'

'To dump on?'

'If you have to put it that way; yes.'

'Who do you have, Doc?'

'I have the little fellows like the ones I gave you. Mostly so I can get enough sleep to keep going. And why am I telling you that,' she laughed. Palma had good teeth.

'You needed somebody to dump on.' His humor was so mordant, so subdued she nearly missed it. This youngster already played the man too well; perhaps that was the trouble.

'Fair enough,' she said. “We take what we can get. See me when you feel better; right now I have to make a house call,' she ended with a private cynicism and walked away quickly, dismayed at her prevision of a future full of children grown old too soon.

Sandys jurnal Aug 25 Sun.

We got a dr. here, she looked like she could use one herself. She stuck things in my dady. They made me go outside but I heard some and worked it out my ownself. I dont see how a plate could be so small you coud have them in your blood. Mistery!! But thats why my dady is sick but now its just a matter of time, my dady doesnt have many platelets left. I prayed God to take away the rest of the bad platelets to make my dady well again.

The delta Santos-Dumont, hastily rescheduled to Sonora, brought vital personnel as well as supplies. Cathy Palma, sworn in as a Captain in the Preventive Medicine Division of the Army Medical Department, assumed her lessened duties with undisguised relief. Palma was on good terms with the civilian staff. Since the Army needed a smooth interface with the locals, the graying Palma found herself functioning as a one- woman clinical service. The crisis relocation center in the big Caverns of Sonora had its own clinic; the town itself was almost deserted.

On Thursday she sought out young Quantrill and handed him a small polypaper bag. 'I thought you might need this to keep your nose clean — or whatever,' she said, grinning.

He dutifully opened the bag, shook out the freshly-laundered square of bright cloth, and rewarded Palma with an open smile. 'I give up, Doc; where'd you find it?' He was holding his scout neckerchief, with familiar snags now neatly mended.

She told him of the local people who could not be persuaded to leave their own small underground lairs; of a man who had retreated to a cave like some wounded animal, and was unquestionably dying there; of the little blonde girl who had presented the doctor with a new treasure she had found near the Norway's crash site.

Palma had instantly realized that a scout neckerchief from the Norway could only belong to one person. 'You have to realize that the Grange family isn't the kind that takes charity, Ted. Little Sandy paid me for easing her father's pain in the only coin she had.'

'She had more,' Quantrill guessed. 'This was in my pack; I bet the little bugger found the whole thing. It's okay, Doc, she's welcome to it.'

This was Quantrill's first sign of interest in anything since their first meeting. Others could move cargo — and this youngster seemed determined to retreat into himself. He hadn't even approached the Santos-Dumont during her brief moorage. 'Quantrill, I need a strong back and a driver, and with that gimpy leg you're the one we can spare the most,' she spoke the half-lie gruffly. 'I'm requisitioning you.'

'I don't drive worth a damn.'

'You will,' she promised. That was the day Quantrill first left Aggie Station with Palma. At her insistence he wore a white lab coat; quickly mastered the four-wheel-drive van, more slowly became an asset in Palma's mercy rounds. There were advantages, she decided, in a strong youth who seemed unmoved by the sight of suffering.

For the first few days Palma used her new assistant sparingly, leaving him in the depot area at times. Soon she was sending him alone on errands to towns like Eldorado, Junction, and Ozona in the filter-conditioned van. She noted without comment that he was picking up the local dialect. Perhaps it would soon be time to introduce him to people whose troubles were more immediate than his own.

Sandys jurnal Sep. 2 Mon.

Mom got new kemlamp. I got musquitefrom the drywash, we bill afire sinse my dady is always cold. He dont want us to touch him even to take him out in the sun. I bet I coud do it myself he doesnt way hardly any more than I do. When I kissed him tonite I thout why if my dady is so good does he smell so bad. His breth smells like his arms do, they have this watery stuff in the sores. His hair is coming out. He made me get a mirrer and he took a look.and said if he had a dog with a face like that hed shave its a-s and make it walk backwards ha ha. He says more d-ms and h-lls than I ever heard. Its alrite God, at least hes awake again.

The emergency call from Salida Ranch came at one of the few times when Palma was near enough to make such a remote house call. Salida, a sheep ranch near the Llano River, was Quantrill's first experience at taking a four-wheeler over such rough terrain. By now he was nearly as adept as Palma at following the map display and found the faded clapboard house with its sheds, pens, and drunkenly-leaning barn a half-hour from the highway. Palma walked through old ruts to the house, Quantrill carrying her medical bag. A gaunt woman, her skin sun- creased like cured sharkskin, welcomed them with a gap-toothed smile. When Quantrill saw her husband, he wondered what she had to smile about; the man's lower leg was a gory mess.