Star Wars_ MedStar 02_ Jedi Healer - Michael Reaves [41]
She shook her head. “He’s got a fever we’re barely keeping down with analgesic suppressors and coma induction, a white blood cell count off the charts, and his kidneys are starting to shut down. He’s got fluid in his lungs, an erratic heartbeat secondary to cardiac tamponade, and his liver is working overtime and getting tired. Only good thing is, he doesn’t seem to be shedding pathogens, so he’s not contagious.”
Jos moved in, looking at the patient, whose chart identified him as CT-802. “Fast as everything mutates here, it might cure itself.”
“It better hurry, if it doesn’t want to kill its host. I’ve done what I can, but it isn’t enough. I’ve been keeping him stable by working on him through the Force, but I can’t keep that up forever.” Barriss’s voice was calm and even, in contrast to her strained and haggard expression. “I don’t think he’ll see another sunrise, Jos.”
Jos stood there for a moment, remembering a conversation he’d had with Zan Yant in this same room. He hadn’t known Barriss that long, but here in the swamps, among the dead and dying, fast kinships were established among the medics. The war was the problem, and they all did their best to be part of the solution, any way they could, as little as that might be.
He took a deep breath. “There might be something else we can try.”
She looked away from the patient to him, her gaze questioning.
When Zan had died, it had fallen to Jos to clean out his friend’s belongings. He had packed up most of the stuff—the quetarra, clothes, book readers, and the like— and had it shipped to Zan’s family, back on Talus. But hidden away under Zan’s cot had been something he hadn’t included in the personal effects package: Zan’s supply of processed bota.
It was illegal to possess the stuff here. All the harvested and stabilized bota went to other worlds and systems, where it was worth its weight in precious gems. Like out-world plantations where the locals produced fruit and crops too expensive for them to eat, or firestone pits where every day miners found stones worth more than a year of their pay, or anyplace else where those who did the scut work reaped none of the rewards, bota was deemed too valuable to waste on troopers.
But Zan hadn’t accepted that. He’d managed to get hold of a small amount of the miracle growth and field-tested it as much as was feasible, given the necessarily clandestine nature of his protocols. Even under less-than-ideal conditions, bota had cured every resistant infection a Fett-clone had developed on this world. The irony of being on a planet where the plant grew like a weed and not able to use it to save lives had not been lost on either Zan or Jos. Zan had risked his career and liberty to secretly treat patients with it. Jos hadn’t been willing to go that far, but he had turned a blind eye to his friend’s illegal actions.
He became aware that he had been standing there too long without responding. Time to make a decision, Jos. Can you do anything less than what your friend did?
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He left the ward and headed for his kiosk. The snow was knee-deep and still falling, but some of the maintenance droids had been set to clearing walkways, so it wasn’t that big a problem—yet. Of far more immediate concern was the lack of warm clothing for everyone. Jos was an ectomorph, tall and thin; his body radiated heat very effectively, which was useful in a tropical climate. But right now the temperature under the dome was about ten degrees less than either of the planetary poles, and for the first time in his life he found himself regretting his lack of body fat. He was wearing practically his entire wardrobe: two pairs of army-issue pants and socks, a heavy shirt, a durnis-hide vest, and a blanket as a makeshift poncho. He had two surgeon’s caps keeping his head warm, a sweatband worn low to cover his ears, three pairs of thinskin gloves, and he was