The Legacy of Lehr by Katherine Kurtz

Author:Katherine Kurtz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2016-04-19T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but both doctors probably will be occupied for at least another hour,” a nurse told Wallis when she entered the outer reception room in Medical Section and asked to see Shannon. “Please excuse me. I have to get back.”

The nurse had come out only to dispense a headache remedy to an adolescent boy, who turned anxiously to Wallis as the woman disappeared back into the innards of the medical complex.

“She called you doctor,” the boy said, almost accusingly. “Are you a medical doctor?”

Wallis gave the boy a reassuring smile. “Yes, but I’m not part of the crew—just a passenger like you.”

“Well, do you know what’s going on?” the boy insisted. “People are getting pretty scared. Somebody said that there are some big blue cats down in the hold and that one got out during the night and killed someone.”

“Oh? Who told you that?” Wallis asked. “It can’t have been anyone very responsible, to go spreading such rumors.”

“Then it isn’t true?” the boy replied. “Well, that’s a relief! They are handling some kind of medical emergency in there, though. I think it has to do with one of those aliens.”

“Really?”

“Hmmm.” The boy nodded as he drank down whatever the nurse had brought him for his headache. “Right after I got here, one of the security guards brought in one of those aliens that bundle up all the time—with the feathers on top of their heads.”

“An Aludran,” Wallis supplied.

“Yeah, I guess so. He looked awfully shaky. They took him inside, and it was ten minutes or so before anybody came out to see what I needed.” The boy grimaced and rubbed at his temples. “I think I’ll try a nap, to get rid of this headache. Maybe it’ll be gone by dinnertime.”

“I’m sure it will,” Wallis said politely.

But when the boy had gone, and a quick glance outside revealed no one coming, Wallis went cautiously to Shannon’s office door and touched the latch plate. To her surprise, the door slid back immediately. Heartened, she slipped inside and closed it behind her, heading immediately for the master console on Shannon’s desk.

The controls were clearly labeled. Running her finger down the row of monitor switches, Wallis tried surgery first—empty, except for an orderly cleaning up—then looked in briefly on one of the treatment rooms, where Shannon and an assistant were performing an autopsy, presumably on the murdered engineer. After that, she punched up surgical recovery. Deller’s back blocked most of her view of the bandage-swathed patient he tended, but the erratic life readings Wallis called up on another monitor identified the patient as Aludran—an Aludran very close to death. A crimson-robed Muon sat close by, his feather-crested head bowed over a bandaged hand that trailed tubes and wires, so the patient could only be the unfortunate Ta’ai.

Sighing helplessly, Wallis shook her head and flicked quickly through the half dozen infirmary rooms, glancing only in passing at other patients sleeping or resting, a few of them attended by a tense-looking nurse or orderly.

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