Star Wars_ MedStar 02_ Jedi Healer - Michael Reaves [45]
Best not to dwell on it, the spy knew. Painful experiences left scars, and even years later they could throb and blaze, if one paid them too much mind. Best to put them in a closet and close and lock the door. They would always be there, but if one didn’t look at them, there in the dark, they didn’t hurt as much. Sometimes it was the only way to move on.
They still thought it was an accident, as far as the spy had been able to determine, so they weren’t looking for a saboteur. Eventually, operations between the ship and the planet would return to normal. And Column would be allowed to leave and return to the Rimsoo.
To contemplate the next inevitable blow against the Republic.
To call the results of the intramuscular injection of bota extract into the dying trooper a miracle was perhaps stretching the meaning of the term as Barriss understood it; still, there was no denying that the man had been calling on death’s door a few hours earlier, yet he was now awake and alert, his fever was gone, and his rapidly failing organ systems were on the mend, if the telemetric monitors were functioning correctly. His white cell count with its bacterial shift was markedly decreased, though still slightly elevated. He was, for all intents and purposes, nearly well.
Amazing.
Barriss had six more of the bota muscle-poppers given to her by Jos, and she knew several patients who could certainly benefit from them. Those who were more human in their species-tap seemed to derive the most antibacterial and antiviral benefits, but those for whom the drug functioned primarily as an analgesic, and who were in extensive pain that was unabated by ordinary narcotics, would appreciate the injections as well.
There were a lot more patients in the Rimsoo than usual—the explosion aboard MedStar had slowed their transfers, and while most of them were stable, some still needed more care than the Rimsoo could provide. The bota would help that. Problem was, it wouldn’t last long.
Even as she made her rounds through the medical ward, Barriss was already wondering how she might get more of the miracle plant. The larger crops were, of course, guarded, but Jos had told her that there were smaller clumps still growing wild. These patches Zan had found, and used for his preparations. If she could find a wild patch and harvest even half a kilo or so, she could make a suspension that might treat fifty or a hundred patients. She didn’t know the precise dosage and proportions of active ingredients to carrier solution, but she could analyze one of the remaining poppers and figure that out. Chemistry and pharmaceutical preparation hadn’t been her two favorite subjects during medical training, but she had managed to learn enough in both to pass with honors. She would find a way to make it work.
Too bad Zan didn’t leave notes, she thought. That would have saved some time and trouble.
Of course, leaving such notes around could get one in deep trouble if somebody found them. What Zan and Jos had done, and what she had in mind to do, was technically illegal. It was not, however, immoral, and her Jedi and medical training were in complete accord on such matters. There were laws, and then there were laws. Some of them had been passed for the wrong reasons, and many were flawed—nearly every rule had some exception. When the choice came down to a legal act or a moral act, the Jedi making the choice would ideally do both. But circumstances were seldom ideal, and in such cases one should always choose the moral way, and be willing to suffer the consequences, if any.
In this case, it wasn’t complicated. Saving lives was the right thing to do. If the means to do that were at hand, and one allowed people to die because of a law that had been passed to favor the rich and powerful—well,