And then he had asked whether the station had decent coffee.
And now he was sitting up in bed, 14 minutes later, asking about the culinary qualities of the most lethal creature in the Concourse.
In the corridor, the station administrator turned to her.
He was a stocky, heavy-browed Dravic named Hravak, and his deep voice was pitched low out of respect.
Is it over?
No, said Sepha.
Hravak’s brow furrowed.
He is still dying.
He is not dying, said Sepha.
At least I do not think so.
He is sitting up.
He is talking.
He has a fever and a headache and he says he feels as though he has been struck by a large ground vehicle and he wants to know if the skithra can be eaten.
The chaplain made a small, involuntary sound and almost dropped the farewell lantern.
That is not possible, said Hravak.
I know.
Skithra venom kills everything.
I know, said Sepha again.
I am going to go back in there now and run every test I have.
Please do light the lantern.
She ran every test she had.
She drew blood and ran it through the analyzer three times because the first two results made no sense.
She scanned the human’s nervous system from top to bottom and found it working perfectly with a faint background shimmer of irritation that the scanner flagged as inflammation.
She scanned the bite site on his forearm, which was swollen and red and angry looking with two small dark punctures at its center.
The tissue around it was damaged, but the damage was contained.
It was not spreading.
She found the venom.
That was the strangest part.
It was there in his blood in quantities that should have killed him three times over.
But it was not doing what Skithra venom did.
Something in his body was attacking it, surrounding it, breaking it down, and the something was doing it with a speed and ferocity that Sepha had never seen in any species.
Doc, said Hamish, watching her stare at the analyzer readout.
Doc, can I ask you a question?
Of course.
Why is there a bloke in a robe outside with a paper lantern?
Sepha hesitated.
Then, because she believed patients deserved the truth, she told him.
Hamish listened.
When she had finished, he was quiet for a moment.
Then he looked through the window at the chaplain who was still standing in the corridor clutching the folded lantern, and he raised his good hand and gave the old Liran a small, cheerful wave.
