Surak's Soul - J.M. Dillard [33]
Of course, you’d never know it from watching Reed: although he was doing his best to maintain a stoic pose, he wound up gritting his teeth and flinching each time he pressed down on the hypo. Trip pitied his patients—and pitied himself, too, because he had to fight the urge to grin at Reed’s squeamishness.
But at least the guy was out here helping. And within a matter of fifteen minutes, they’d managed to treat more than half the crew. The captain would be pleased—assuming, of course, that the captain really felt that injections would do any good. Trip doubted they would, but he also felt it was better to be on the safe side and try everything.
Beside him, Reed pressed down on the hypo and, at the same time, let go a little groan; this time, Trip couldn’t help himself. As another crew member stepped up to receive an injection from him, one corner of his mouth quirked upward in a minuscule grin as he murmured out of the other corner, on the side toward Reed, “Careful. Don’t want to scare the patients. Of course, one look at that ugly mug of yours and—”
“Help me,” Reed said.
He enunciated it quite clearly, in that formal British accent of his, without any sort of inflection at all; Trip heard no fear in his tone, no dismay, no teasing—which is what he at first thought it was.
But it was no joke. The male ensign who stood in front of Reed cried out.
“Hey! Watch that hypo!”
Trip Tucker became immediately aware, in his peripheral vision, of Reed lurching backward, against the counter. He turned.
“Malcolm?”
Reed’s eyes were wide and unfocused, as though he were staring at something just past the bulkhead across from him. Beneath the five-o’clock shadow of beard on his chin and cheeks, his skin had grown deathly pale.
Without looking at Tucker, Reed began to slide down, back against the counter.
On pure instinct, Tucker dropped the readied hypo in his hand—it went clattering across the metal deck—turned, and caught his friend before Reed sagged all the way to the floor. Cutler turned, and gave a short cry as well; the crew members standing in line scattered in their efforts to move out of the way.
“You’re all right, buddy,” Trip said, which struck him as a perfectly ridiculous thing to say. Reed was clearly anything but: by this time, his eyes were rolling back in his head, and his mouth was working, but now only the very faintest sound came out.
Trip leaned his head down to listen.
“…what I said…remember…”
“Don’t worry, Malcolm,” Trip said. “I won’t forget.” As he spoke, Reed’s eyes closed, and he let go a long, sighing breath, then went perfectly limp in Trip’s arms.
Cutler rushed to him and did a quick scan.
“He’s fainted,” she said. “He’s fine.”
“What?” Trip asked, suddenly disgusted with himself for thinking his friend was dying.
Cutler shrugged. “He’s fainted. I’ve seen this happen. People who don’t seem the least bit funny around medical stuff, and all the sudden, when you give them an injection, they just keel over….”
“Ooh.” Reed’s eyelids fluttered. “What’s happened?” He stirred in Trip’s arms. “Was it the radiation?”
Trip less-than-gently pushed his friend up and onto his feet; Reed swayed slightly while Cutler fetched a different hypo and administered it.
“There,” Cutler announced. “That’ll help.”
“What happened?” Reed asked again.
“You passed out,” Trip said flatly. “Why didn’t you say you got light-headed around medical stuff?”
Reed sniffed; clearly, Cutler’s hypo made him feel well enough to be insulted. “I don’t. I just suddenly felt weak.”
Cutler’s smile was small and diplomatic. “Well, just in case, I’m ordering you to your quarters to rest, Lieutenant.”
“Very well,” Reed said stiffly. He brushed himself off a bit, then moved toward the exit. Before he reached it, he turned and said, “Of course, should you be needing for help—”
“You’ll be the last one we call,” Trip said archly. He watched,