A Matter of Oaths by Helen S. Wright

Author:Helen S. Wright
Format: mobi, epub, pdf

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“Attention, Bhattya’s Three. Attention, Bhattya’s Three. You have a Class One web-alarm. Repeat, you have a Class One web-alarm.”

Joshim was moving before the repeat, leaving Vidar or Rallya to silence the broadcast. Class One was serious injury or death! He pushed through the packed corridor towards the docks, the webbers there making way as they saw his insignia and made the connection with the continuing broadcast. Gods, if they had still been in the observation gallery, instead of on their way back…

“Attention, all Webmasters. Attention, all Webmasters. Bhattya urgently requires assistance. Repeat, Bhattya urgently requires assistance.”

“We’re Bhattya! We’ll handle it!” Rallya yelled from behind him as somebody else started to run.

Joshim ignored them all, concentrated on the end of the corridor ahead and the curve of the docking ring beyond. He swerved left as he got there, heading around the ring towards Bhattya’s open hatch. Hitting the ramp at a run, he bounced off the safety rail into the riser and triggered the speed override so that his stomach reached the top a second after he did.

The web-room was a blur of anxious faces, the web monitor a blaze of chaos that yielded no useful information.

“I’ll get it.” Rallya again, diving for the rest-room and the R-K-D as Joshim entered the riser to the web without breaking stride.

As he emerged at the top, his first glance confirmed that the casualties were Rafe and Churi. He had calculated that it would be so, prayed that it was not. He dropped to his knees beside Lilimya, who was stubbornly breathing air into Churi’s lungs as Peri and Caruya set up the respirator.

“What happened?” he demanded. “Anybody.”

“Full wave compound feedback,” Jualla said, looking up from Rafe. “And — we think — transference. Rafe’s breathing for himself,” she added, the simplicity of the statement underlining the harsh fact that it was the only good news she had to report.

“How long since you got them out?”

“Five minutes. Six since the alarm sounded.”

Joshim had not even noticed the banshee wail of the web-alarm filling the ship.

“Turn it off, somebody,” he called. “Lilimya, you’re tired. Let Caruya take over.”

If Rafe was breathing, he was in better condition than Churi. That made the junior Joshim’s first priority.

“Churi was breathing when he came out of the shub,” Lilimya reported, relinquishing her task. “He only stopped when we disconnected his web-contacts.”

Joshim grimaced. “Was he breathing in time with Rafe?” he asked.

“Yes.” Lilimya looked down at her hands in her lap, biting her lip. “That’s why we suspect transference. And we haven’t been able to start a pulse. Or get a brain trace.” She gestured at the electrodes lying on the floor beside them, and the flat traces on the physio-monitor that they had already hooked up to the youngster.

Joshim took Churi’s flaccid wrist, looked at the burned contact, the blue nails. Hypoxia, or the shock of third degree web-burn, either would have been enough to kill him. If there was no brain trace and they had not started a pulse already…

“Here.

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