Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [42]
I’m getting four points of view now, as the lieutenants spread out around the dome, making reports. Northern quarter — no resistance, says Red. Most of them are in the common area at the centre of the dome, says Turquoise. No lifesigns in the outlying domes. That’s Black. We’re confirming that now.
Yellow has brought the stray hoverskimmer in to land.
While troopers secure the other vehicles — farm equipment, mostly — Yellow takes two soldiers and waits for the passengers to get out.
It’s a young white woman and an older white man. A tiny flinch from Yellow. Well, the lieutenant’s still young. The man has a hand pressed to the left side of his face. There’s blood between his fingers. In the alien sunlight, it seems oddly orange. She’s helping him down from the hoverskimmer.
‘Please,’ she says, ‘when you surprised us, my uncle hit his head on the instrument panel. I need to take him to the infirmary.’
Yellow nods. I think she even smiles. Given that there are two massively armoured men with her, waiting for a signal to shoot the newcomers, I doubt she’s projecting the friendly image she thinks she is.
A flash of Black: The outer domes are empty.
Turquoise: Sir, there are six people in the infirmary. Two of them are non-mobile.
That Sir means he wants instructions. Secure the infirmary, I tell him. We’re going to need it. Yellow is sending you another patient. I flash him a picture.
In return, he shows me the infirmary, with subtitles. A white man in his thirties, with the caption ST JOHN Medic. He turns, and a black woman, maybe ten years his senior, comes into view. She’s wearing some kind of loose-fitting undergarments.
Her right arm’s hidden inside an inflatable sling.
Turquoise probably interrupted her consultation. He asks her a question, and a caption pops up in his field of view: FORRESTER Medical assistant.
She may be lying, Black thinks.
Of course she may. We’ll pick it all up in the computer checks later.
The non-mobiles are an Australian woman: SMITH-SMITH Archaeologist, and another woman, ZINKIEWICZ
Psychologist, both heavily sedated. Black adds a small flash beneath SmithSmith’s caption: She is psychologically disturbed, requires continual care. The other’s a pyrokinetic.
Kamotja is making a bit of a show of meeting Red outside the dome. The colony’s Captain looks like she’s been up all night worrying about us. The colonists are a mixed bunch — Botswanan, South African, Burandan. There’s a small chunk of one of Australia’s nouveau riche families, probably here as a tax dodge.
It doesn’t matter a damn where they’re from. They’re going to act and think like people surrounded by armed troopers.
We are, after all, all the same underneath.
ST JOHN Medic is keeping up a constant stream of complaints as he works on his new patient. ‘I will not be releasing my medical records to you,’ he tells Turquoise.
‘Yes, you will,’ says Turquoise.
St John gives him a dirty look. His medical assistant —
not much use with only one working hand — is helping him clean up the new patient’s face.
‘It’s not nearly as bad as it looks,’ she says soothingly, dabbing blood from the small man’s cheek. There’s no caption. Turquoise hasn’t found out his name yet.
‘What happened to her?’ Turquoise asks St John, gesturing at SMITH-SMITH Archaeologist.
‘She’s in psychic shock,’ says the small man. The lack of a caption is beginning to irritate me. ‘She’s going to need long-term psychiatric treatment.’
‘Are you a medic?’ Turquoise wants to know.
‘Yes,’ says St John.
‘No,’ says the little man. ‘But I have had some training.’
‘He’s been giving me a lot of assistance,’ claims St John.
Me: Peep him.
Turquoise: He’s telling the truth.
Me: Does St John know his name?
Turquoise: No.
The little man’s eye is so bloodshot it’s scarlet. It makes him look bizarre, one bright blue eye and one red. He looks at Turquoise.
For a moment, I feel as though he’s looking right through Turquoise