Tris exhaled. “Okay.” Footsteps echoed, and a drawer opened. Then light shone, and Brice saw a beam angled to the floor. He squinted, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the light, even as it moved across to the bunks. Ryann returned to Cathal’s side, and Tris held the torch over him.
The grips on his shoulders lifted, and Brice allowed his muscles to slacken. He hadn’t realised how tightly he was holding them. Then the hands were gone, and he heard a rustle coming round from his left. When Keelin spoke, her voice was in front of him. He saw her silhouette, strands of hair hanging down, and one arm reaching out. But not quite touching.
“You dark again, Brice?”
He nodded, like he didn’t want to admit what was happening. And her hand, the one she held in front of him, wavered. She was scared. No, she was terrified.
And he understood. She might have her lattice, might even still be in contact with her baby. She might have her body warmth, and be able to communicate with the others. She might be able to pull up filters and share data. But she didn’t know what had been in the cave. She didn’t know what condition Cathal was in. She didn’t know what else was outside, waiting for them. She didn’t know if they’d be able to reach Haven.
None of them did. None of them knew a thing.
He wasn’t the only one in the dark.
Ryann turned her back on the rest of the crew and returned to Cathal. She didn’t know if that would come across as weak or strong, and to be honest she didn’t care. Because she’d come too close to losing it with Tris and Brice.
Violence solved nothing. The only time Ryann inflicted harm was in training sessions, when it was expected. But when they started fighting, she’d felt her fingers roll over into a fist, and had wanted nothing more than to punch some sense into both of them.
If Keelin hadn’t stepped in and pulled Brice back, Ryann knew she would have given in to that urge.
They were selfish. Or maybe self-absorbed. Tris was terrified, and was hiding behind his bravado. And Brice was struggling without his lattice. True, he was trying hard, but his surges of aggression indicated a lack of self-control.
These might be reasons, but they weren’t excuses. Both of them needed to pull themselves together.
And Ryann needed to lead. She needed to set the example, and guide them. But she was failing as much as they were.
She hadn’t felt this alone for a long, long time.
But she would do what she could. That was another thing she’d learnt from Cathal—you did what you could, to the best of your ability. And if you failed, then the fault was not yours to bear. The situation was whatever it was.
Cathal’s condition was deteriorating. The disease—and that, she found, was the easiest way to view it—continued to take over his body. The dark patches were spreading fast. She probed them with a finger, and felt the hardness beneath the soft outer layer.
<Tris, hold the light just over his shoulder. A fraction to the left? Perfect.>
The beam wobbled, but didn’t move as much as she’d feared. She’d have to remember to keep Tris more occupied in future. He avoided looking at Cathal, and she saw his nose twitch a couple of times—understandable, with the rank odour that came from Cathal’s wound.
The smell worried Ryann, and it brought up memories of the time one of her father’s animals had fallen, far off on the hillside. By the time they’d found the poor thing, gangrene had already set in, and there was no other option but to remove the limb—and, a few days later, put the creature down when it failed to recover.
She wouldn’t be able to do that to Cathal, though. Not put him down, but amputate his arm. The wound was too deep into his shoulder. Besides, the wound itself was, strangely, clean. When she examined a sample of blood, there was little out of the ordinary, apart from a strange anti-coagulant. Whatever that was, it seemed to be working in conjunction with his own blood in stopping any infection.
She undid Cathal’s shirt fully and parted the material, careful where the blood stuck it to his shoulder and chest. She lifted his body by rolling, and freed his arms. Then she folded the garment as best she could, knowing this was classic avoidance strategies, but accepting that for the moment.
Without his shirt, and with the extent of his wound clearly visible, he was no longer Cathal but a patient. She scanned him, reading the data as it scrolled across a lens. Then she zoomed in on the dark patch closest to the wound, and saw tiny hair folicles, each strand a wiry couple of millimetres. She pulled one using tweezers, and it came free easily. She placed it in a sample bag, holding her finger over the chip to label it.
Ryann used a scalpel to take a biopsy of the skin itself. She didn’t dig deep, stopping before severing any blood vessels. The small sample she removed was pliable, but it contained a strength unlike normal skin. It was, in fact, closer to the leathery hide of many animals.
She placed the sample in a bag and turned to the wound itself.
The fluid that still leaked was more plasma than blood. Or maybe pus would be a better word to use. She syringed up a couple of drops, and it was translucent—cloudier than normal plasma, anyway. When she zoomed in she could make out stringy filaments, and at a guess she’d say that was to help seal the wound.
But she would also say that the sealing was happening deeper down. When she delved into his lattice—and when she could circumvent the blocks that threatened to trip her and throw her out—she saw how blood vessels in the area were closed off
