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She always had tended to, ever since they had been kids in school together, at a time that felt both like yesterday and a million years ago. But it was more than that. You live with a man for so many years, you work with him during the day and lie awake next to him, hearing his breathing enough nights, and it gets so that you don't really know where you leave off and he begins, sometimes, and while he can't lie to you, or you to him, not without the both of you feeling like a neon sign has gone off, anything he tells you that he believes, you will believe it, too, because his reality and yours have melded together in a way that's sometimes reassuring and sometimes frightening. Doc glared at the overhead display. "Ah ... damn. I think we're going to lose him," Doc said, pulling the crash cart a little closer with his foot, not missing a beat as he cut away at the bloody rag wrapped around the little man's thigh. You went to the paddles if you had to, and about half the time you could get the heart started again. For a while! But in all her years, Martha could remember only two, three times that they'd actually ended up with a live patient after jump- starting him. Doc had him hooked up to what he always called the MGP, and it kept pinging away regularly. The little man may have been funny looking, but his heart was strong. Ian Silverstein stood shivering, like he was looking for something useful to do. "Ian," Doc said, "there's a sink over in the corner. Wash up don't spare the scrub brush then put on a gown and a set of gloves. I can use another set of hands here." Martha was expecting some sort of protest, but Ian Silverstein just nodded as he more ran than walked toward the sink. Doc winked at Martha, and Donna, on a dead run, dashed through the curtains, two red-black bags in her hand. She moved faster than Martha could have as she connected up the blood to the IVs, then started the flow, cutting back on the Ringer's to let the real thing snake its way down through the coils of plastic tubing and into the veins. "Okay," Doc said. "Warm up another two units. I want to get at least six into him ..." he grunted as he worked a hemostat into place, then reached for another "... and then we'll stick in the dipstick and see if he's full." He glanced up at the monitor, at the rippling green mountains and valleys that were now getting larger. "Good boy. Stay with me, just a little while longer," he said. Page 28 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html "You just hang in there, and let ol' Doc Sherve sew you up, you hear?" Ian Silverstein, now gowned and gloved, was by Doc's side the next time Martha looked up. "Okay," Doc said, "you know those things you call roach clips? They're called hemostats, and I'm going to need a bunch of them. You just slap them into my palm when I call for one shit." A small geyser of blood erupted from the wound, covering Doc from shoulder to waist before he could get it stopped. "And Martha, I need some section here, if I'm going to have a chance to see what file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis.../spaar/Joel%20Rosenberg% 20-%20Hidden%20Ways%203.htm (34 of 213)22-2-2006 0:42:07 Hidden Ways 3.htm the hell I'm doing." She was already on her way, the Davis in hand. Ian had been concentrating so hard on not screwing up even though Doc Sherve hadn't asked him to do anything really difficult, and he was half-wondering if it was just Doc's way of playing with his head that he didn't notice that Hosea and Thorian Thorsen were in the room, until Doc, his eyes never seeming to leave his work, said, "And a good day to you, Hosea and Thorian." Ian had gotten tired of staring at the instrument tray, although it had been minutes since Doc had asked for another hemostat. So Ian had kept his eyes on the dwarf's face, to avoid looking at where Doc was working on the gash in the thigh, and to avoid feeling guilty for wanting Doc to give him something for the pain in his shoulder. Ian had seen blood before, although not much, thankfully; his reputation in the Eastern Hinterlands of Vandescard to the contrary, he had only fought one real duel, and his winning had been more of a fluke than due to any great skill, but there was something frightening about the calmly professional way Doc Sherve stuck his gloved hands and his shiny metal instruments right into a wound, clamping here, sewing there. It was almost inhuman. He tried to distance himself. It wasn't a human Doc was operating on; it was a vestri, a dwarf, a Neanderthal. Another species entirely. You could, possibly, mistake the dwarf for a human although an awfully strange-looking one if you didn't have another context in which to place it But not if you gave it more than a second glance. A ragged beard covered his chin, but the chin receded improbably, and the brows were just too thick. It seemed strange that the vestri had such long eyelashes, although Ian didn't know why he shouldn't. Or why he should. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |