Dr. Sepha Ilanorth had already started writing the death certificate when the human sat up on the treatment bed, scratched his chin, and asked whether the thing that bit him was any good to eat.

She stopped writing.

She looked at him.

Her head fins, which had been folded flat in the formal posture of mourning, rose slowly into an expression that no Liran physician had ever been trained to make in front of a patient.

I beg your pardon, she said.

The critter, said the human.

His name was Hamish Doyle.

He was an independent cargo trader from a place on his home world called Queensland, and 14 minutes earlier he had been bitten on the left forearm by a skithra, the most venomous animal in the known galaxy.

Big blue fella, about yay long.

Your security lad squashed it with a cargo door.

I was just wondering, is it edible?

Because it smelled a bit like prawns.

Sepha looked at the clock on the wall of the medical bay.

14 minutes.

She looked at the readout above the bed.

Heart rate elevated, temperature elevated, blood pressure low but stable, neural activity normal.

Normal.

Skithra venom killed a Liran in 4 minutes.

It killed a dravik, the largest and toughest species on the station in nine.

It killed every known species of the conquered without exception in under 12 minutes by shutting down the nervous system one region at a time until the heart and lungs simply forgot how to work.

There was no anti-venom.

There had never been an anti-venom.

There had never been a survivor to make one from.

The human had been bitten 14 minutes ago, and he wanted to know if the thing was edible.

Mr. Doyle, said Sepha carefully, please lie down.

I’m all right, doc.

Bit of a headache, that’s all.

Feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, sure, but that’s the fever coming on.

I know the drill.

He squinted at her.

You look worse than I do to be honest.

You all right?

Sepha did not answer.

She was looking past him through the window of the treatment room at the small group gathered in the corridor outside.

The station administrator, two security officers, a Liran chaplain in gray robes holding a folded farewell lantern ready to be lit at the moment of passing as Liran custom required.

The chaplain was looking at the human with an expression of profound confusion.