That’s the job.
He held out his good hand.
No hard feelings.
Hravac shook it carefully with enormous relief.
The investigators from the Concord Medical Council arrived nine days later.
There were three of them, led by a tall, stern tollan physician named Druven Cale, who had chaired the council’s toxicology board for 30 years and had written the standard reference text on Skithra venom.
She came aboard Meridian Exchange with an expression that made it clear she expected to find a malfunctioning analyzer, an overexcited station doctor, and a misidentified animal.
She found Cepha waiting for her at the docking ring with a sealed case of samples, a full set of records, and two patients.
Examiner Cale spent four days on the station.
She ran every test herself on her own equipment, which she had brought with her.
She examined the bodies of both Skithra, which security had stored in a freezer.
She drew blood from Hamish and from Tilo and studied the antibodies and studied them again.
She interviewed the security officers, the dock workers, the nurses, and the chaplain.
She sat for six hours in the archive room with the human medical texts Cepha had found, reading in silence.
On the last evening, she came to Cepha’s office, sat down across the desk, and was quiet for a long time.
I owe you an apology, Doctor Ilenvith, she said at last.
Cepha inclined her head.
It is not necessary.
It is.
The council dismissed your report without reading it properly because what it described was impossible.
It is not impossible.
It happened.
Cale folded her long hands on the desk.
Do you understand what you have done?
There has never been a treatment for Skithra venom, not in the entire history of the Concord.
Hundreds of beings have died from it, explorers, biologists, traders, and you have made one from a single human’s blood in a station medical bay in less than 10 minutes.
Mr. Doyle made it, said Cepha.
His body made it.
I only separated it out.
Cale was quiet again.
I have read the human texts, she said finally.
The ones on their children have you.
Yes.
Every illness, every sting, every infection, every fever.
Their parents keep them safe and love them and care for them through it all, and their bodies learn and learn and learn.
The old Tolen shook her head slowly.
By the age of five, a human child has an immune system more experienced than that of most adult beings in the Conquered.
