Flashback - Diane Carey [31]
"Doctor! Doctor, come quickly!"
Neelix struggled into the sickbay with Kes in his arms. She murmured softly and desperately against his shoulder, words he didn't understand, things he had never heard from her before. Every few seconds a shiver went through her from head to foot, all through her bones, and he felt every tremor as he clutched her against him.
The Doctor appeared out of his usual cocoon of empty air and hurried to them just as Neelix put Kes on the diagnostic bed.
"What's wrong with her?" Neelix asked. "What's happening to her? She's saying crazy things I've never heard before. Things about falling and slipping and dying! Doctor, does she need a transfusion? A transplant? I can provide anything she needs! I'll be her donor!"
The Doctor bent over Kes with a bio-scanner. "She doesn't need a transplant or transfusion, and even if she did, you're Talaxian and she's Ocampa, and I seriously doubt any of your organs or fluids would be compatible. It's tricky enough to find compatibility between people of the same species." He paused, then straightened. "However, I did once hear of a successful pancreatic transplant between an African Cape buffalo and an Orion. However, that was very likely-"
"Doctor, please . . . what's wrong with Kes? Is there anything at all I can do?"
The Doctor gazed at him, then only said, "Not presently." He bent over Kes again, reading the information clicking through the bio-scanner and the diagnostic panel of the bed.
Plucking a ready hypospray from a sterile table, he spritzed it into the side of Kes's neck.
On the cushion, Kes twitched and moaned, constantly in distressful movement, her head turning back and forth, her eyes partly open, but seeing nothing there.
"Oh, please, love," Neelix begged, "come out of it! I'm here with you! I'm here . . ."
But she didn't react to him, except to grow suddenly calm. Her eyes drifted shut, and she lay sweating on the bed.
"I've given her a sedative, Neelix," the Doctor said. "She won't waken until I counteract it. I don't want her to injure herself in any way."
"Will that do anything? Will that stop this from happening? It was just terrible! She grabbed me and screamed that she was falling and she'd die if I let go of her. She thought she was tumbling over a cliff or into a pit or a well or something. I just didn't know what to do."
The Doctor straightened briefly, and looked through the sickbay to another area, where Tuvok lay unconscious on another bed. "Yes ..." Then he looked at Kes again.
"What?" Neelix asked. "Is there some connection between Mr. Vulcan and what's happening to Kes? I heard there was something wrong with him. Is there some illness that she's caught? You have to tell me!"
The Doctor seemed troubled. "I ... cannot tell you."
"Why not?"
"I promised Kes I would keep this confidential."
"Doctor!" Neelix plowed around the bed to face the Doctor. "You can't keep any secrets about her away from me!"
"Kes requested that I not tell anyone about her condition."
"Her condition? Has she got a sickness of some kind?"
"Neelix, please. Under no ethical justification can I speak to anyone about her condition. I am completely obliged by my medical ethics programming. Unfortunately, Kes knew all about it and swore me to doctor-patient confidentiality."
"But what if a decision has to be made? What if she needs something and she can't discuss it with you?"
"As a matter of fact, there already is a decision. It involves the sedation and whether or not I should keep her unconscious. Since I know very little about Ocampa physical and mental traits-"
Neelix held out both hands pleadingly. "There must be some kind of... keyhole!"
The Doctor glanced at him. "Loophole. And there is none that I can think of. Only the captain can make a life-or-death decision, and this is not yet a life-or-death situation,