Cargo Bay 4, second Skithra, dockworker bitten.
The container that had carried the first creature had come from a supply depot near the Skithra homeworld.
Nobody had known until the cargo crew finished unpacking it that morning that the first Skithra had not been traveling alone.
Its mate had been hiding in the lining of a second crate.
It had struck as soon as the lining was cut.
Sepha grabbed her emergency kit and ran.
Behind her, she heard footsteps and turned her head to see Hamish Doyle running after her, barefoot in a hospital gown, holding his sore arm against his chest.
Go back, she called.
You are not recovered.
Who’s been bitten?
He shouted back.
A dockworker.
Liran.
Yes.
Then you need me, said Hamish and kept running.
The dockworker’s name was Tilo Varath.
He was a young Liran man, barely out of his apprentice years.
And when Sepha reached him, he was lying on the deck of the cargo bay with his workmates kneeling around him, clutching his right hand.
The bite was on the side of his palm.
His head fins were already drooping.
His eyes were wide and frightened.
4 minutes, Sepha knew it the way she knew her own name.
She had 4 minutes and nothing in her kit that could help.
Then Hamish dropped to his knees beside her, tore a long strip from the bottom of his own hospital gown and began wrapping Tilo’s arm firmly and evenly from the fingertips up toward the shoulder.
Pressure bandage, he said without looking up.
Not a tourniquet mind, not too tight, just firm all the way up the limb.
Squeezes the lymph channels and slows the venom moving and keep him still, totally still.
Don’t let him sit up.
Somebody find me a splint, a bit of board, anything flat.
One of the dock workers, after a moment of stunned hesitation, ran for a length of packing board.
Hamish splinted the arm and bound it.
Then he took Tilo’s other hand in his good one.
Hey mate, he said gently.
Hey, look at me.
I know it hurts.
I know you’re scared.
I got bit by the same kind of critter 3 days ago and look at me.
I’m right as rain.
You’re going to be all right.
You just have to lie very, very still for me.
Can you do that?
Tilo stared up at him trembling, then slowly he nodded.
