Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [133]
Once I was certain that Mareeza was safe, I began trying to help the injured. Some were cursing the Terrinans, saying that if they were willing to bomb a peace rally they didn’t deserve to live, but others thought it nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence. We happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The capital building took the hardest hit. The building had been circular in shape, not unlike the Senate chambers on Romulus… or so I’ve heard. The deep green marble columns-resakna, as they refer to it-that surrounded it had been so intricately sculpted that nobody had been able to reproduce the level of detail in the two centuries since their construction.
And they were in shambles. At least five of the columns had been toppled by the explosions, and the rear portion of the building looked as though it had collapsed completely. I could hear screams for help from inside, even though the dust was still slowly settling out of the atmosphere.
One of the local sports celebrities-a rather sturdily built cherusa kelo player named Akreedor Torelius, who’d been helping to introduce the assembled performers-was also uninjured. He went into the capital building with me. Together we freed several victims who’d been trapped in the rubble. In a few instances, the damage was so serious that I suspect if I hadn’t been able to treat them quickly, the victims might not have survived to reach the hospital.
When we reached Protector Baracin’s office, we found that it had been hit the hardest. I could hear very faint coughing, and followed it to my right, to a pile that looked to have once been a bookcase. Now, it was a mound of smoldering papers, with the occasional broken bookshelf sticking up for good measure.
Once we cleared the rubble, I found the Protector. Reflex had apparently caused him to curl into a kneeling fetal position when the bookcase came down on him. There was only one problem, but it was a big one. He had curled up with his back to the ceiling. Normally, his spinal column would have been a long, even ridge of bone beneath the skin down his back, even under clothing. From what I could see, the vertebrae were pockmarked, with distressingly large gaps where there should have been none. His hands were clasped behind his head, blood covering his fingers.
I asked him if he had feeling in his extremities. He moved his hands, and very slightly nodded. At least that much was still working. His voice was like rough sandpaper as he said, “Ecram.”
“Ecram?” I asked.
“My assistant,” the Protector said.
Torelius and I looked at each other, lost. We thought we’d gotten everyone out at that point. “Where was she?”
“Office. Side door.”
Torelius searched the room for another door while I worked on Protector Baracin.
While the Protector may have been able to move his arms, his legs were another story. When he tried to stand, there was no response. I tried to figure out a way we might be able to get him out of the building without doing further damage to his spinal column. Considering his position, I wasn’t sure it was possible.
“Um, Doc?”
Torelius’s voice sounded as though he had found something he never wanted to see. I had a feeling I knew what it was before I even answered. “Yes?”
“You might want to come see this.”
At that point, the other rescuers finally got back to us with supplies. I gestured toward the Protector. “Help me get him loaded up and out of here.”
Torelius managed to find a way back across the room through the piles of debris that I’d been adding to in order to make room to lay the strikna-I mean stretcher. It took all four of us to get him on it and eliminate any unnecessary movement. When I asked, he said he couldn’t feel anyone putting pressure on his legs. I was hesitant to do any more at that point, for fear of causing more injury to his spinal column.
“Help Ecram,” Baracin said as two of