The Lazarus Particle (7 page)

“Oh, Christ,” Jenner murmured as he knelt at Fenton’s side. “Hold him down!” he told the medics accompanying him. Extracting a pair of shears from his bag, he cut down the center of Fenton’s shirt. With Fenton’s chest exposed, he produced a hypo and a small vial of clear liquid, marrying the two with a soft hiss. “Keep him steady! This has to go in just right!” He double-checked the dosage, murmured something that sounded like a prayer, then plunged the hypo directly into Fenton’s heart. His body tensed and froze in an elliptic arch, head to toe, then settled flat. Jenner checked his pulse and heaved a sigh of relief.

“He’s going to make it.”

Carsten side-eyed the medics as they hoisted Fenton onto a gurney and rolled him out of the room. The implications of that icy glare were clear. “What the hell happened?” he demanded of Jenner once they were alone. “You said the dose—”

“It
never
happened,” Jenner said, wiping the lenses of his spectacles against his uniform. “For both our sakes’, Fenton Wilkes suffered a seizure as a result of severe cranial trauma sustained during his capture. Nothing more, nothing less.” Jenner replaced the spectacles on his face. He stared fixedly at Carsten from behind the rounded glass of each lens. “Are we clear?”

Carsten nodded, a wave of understanding passing through him. It was followed closely by a flood of cunning. “A seizure as a result of significant head trauma. Indeed. Surely that would be cause enough to delay his trial? Perhaps even postpone it indefinitely while he undergoes, ahem, ‘rehabilitation’?”

Now it was Jenner’s turn to nod understandingly. “In my professional opinion? More than enough.”

Carsten allowed himself a small, almost ghoulish smile. “Thank you, Dr. Jenner. Your assistance in this matter has proven surprisingly
invaluable
.”

08 • BEDSIDE MANNER

Roon’s footfalls were a reflection of her current mood, caroming angrily off the bulkheads as she double-timed the march from her stateroom to sickbay. Behind her, Ensign Pruitt kept pace, though his steps were considerably quieter.

“What’s his condition?” she demanded over her shoulder.

“Stable, the last I heard, ma’am.”

“Stop calling me ma’am, damnit. What else do you know?”

“Only what I’ve been told, Advocate McNamara.”

Roon stopped abruptly before the lift between decks. She’d heard before that the grapevine ran deep on stations like this, that finding out the real truth was only a matter of knowing the right questions to ask.

Roon was good at knowing the right questions to ask.

“Forget what you’ve been told. What have you
heard?
”

Ensign Pruitt narrowed his eyes discerningly. “Unofficially?”

“Unofficially.”

“From what I’ve heard, scuttlebutt and all, they’re saying he’s unfit to stand trial. Because of the seizure. It’s being postponed indefinitely.”

Roon’s eyes widened to saucers. “You have got to be shitting me,” she said, temporarily forgetting her polished professionalism in the wake of that startling news.

Ensign Pruitt gave her a blankly sympathetic look by way of return. “Sorry to have to be the one to tell you, ma’am. Looks like you came all this way for nothing.”

Her mind whorled at the news. “I told you to stop calling me ma’am,” she said as she summoned the lift. The admonition came off flat and distant. Her heart was no longer in the enforcing of it.

Time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. None of what was happening made sense to her. She had met with Fenton just the day before, and while he didn’t seem to be in the best of ways, he was lucid, engaging—even kind of charming, in so far as he was oblivious to it under the circumstances. She certainly hadn’t taken him for someone who was about to suffer an atomizing seizure. Nor, apparently, had Dr. Jenner; according to Pruitt he had given Fenton a clean bill of health only hours (and several dirty martinis) earlier.

Strange. Something wasn’t adding up. Roon fiddled with her jacket, buttoning and unbuttoning it absently as she considered the variables already known to her.

Time righted itself a moment later with the arrival of the lift. She stepped inside it, followed closely by Pruitt.

As the lift ascended, she regarded herself in the mirrored finish of the chamber. She had dressed as smartly as she was able under the circumstances. It was a worthy effort, she thought, considering her brain was still besieged beneath the black clouds of a thundering hangover. (Despite its promise of fast-acting relief, the shot of IntoxiCure she downed before exiting her quarters had yet to take full effect.) Then she happened to glance down, noting with equal parts embarrassment and bemusement that no one—in particular a certain civilian liaisons officer—had been so kind as to mention that her slip was showing. Rather obviously, at that. Had she been alone in the lift she would have corrected the wardrobe malfunction and thought nothing more of it. As it was, though, she wasn’t about to go rummaging around in her skirts with Ensign Pruitt standing right next to her. Given a choice between maintaining her modesty and stoically embracing a minor embarrassment, she was almost certain to take the former at every opportunity.

Feeling the energetic hum of the lift begin to dissipate beneath her, Roon steeled herself for whatever version of Fenton she might find beyond its doors. Bright-eyed and bushy tailed or bed-bound and barely registering the world beyond, she resolved to do anything in her power as an advocate to maintain the best interests of her client. When at last the lift fluttered to an almost imperceptibly soft stop and the doors opened, Ensign Pruitt made to follow her out.

“Thank you, Ensign Pruitt,” she said, wheeling to a stop just on the other side of the lift’s threshold, “I can take it from here.”

“Are you sure, ma’am?”

Again, she considered reminding him not to call her that. Then she realized it was just protocol. Being something of a slave to protocol herself, she could hardly fault him for following it so doggedly. “Quite sure, yes. I’m sure you have far more pressing duties to attend. I’ll find my way back on my own. You know what they say.”

At that, Pruitt smiled. “If you’ve been on one station, you’ve been on them all. Very well,” he said, receding back into the lift. With a parting nod, the lift doors closed and he was gone.

Roon couldn’t help congratulating herself. For one, because he hadn’t been decent enough to mention the state of her slip. For another, and much more importantly, because she couldn’t trust anyone aboard the station. After the sudden turn of events, she felt a nagging sense of foreboding that wouldn’t let go. Civilian liaison officer or not, Ensign Pruitt remained a cog in Morgenthau-Hale’s vast military machine; so too was the doctor who greeted her.

“May I help you?”

“Hello,” she said, trying to strike the right balance between cheerful and appropriately duty-bound. “Dr. Jenner, I presume?”

“Correct. What I can do for you?”

“My name is Advocate Roon McNamara, Dr. Jenner. I understand my client, one Fenton James Wilkes, suffered a seizure while in holding and was put in the custody of your care shortly thereafter. I need to see him as soon as possible, make certain he’s being properly cared for and so on. I’m sure you understand.”

Jenner nodded slowly, making a show of consulting his flexpad. “Ah, yes, Mr. Wilkes… hmm.”

“Is something wrong, Doctor?” she ventured when he hesitated.

“Well, as you say, Mr. Wilkes suffered a rather significant seizure. I would have thought you had been informed of the implications of that by now.”

Roon faked a look somewhere between confusion and mild consternation. “I’m sorry, no. You’ll have to enlighten me.”

Jenner lowered his flexpad, clasping it before him with both hands. “The fact of the matter, Miss McNamara, is that this was a significant event brought about by severe neurological trauma. Based on my preliminary examination, I’d say Mr. Wilkes won’t be capable of standing trial anytime soon. Technically you are no longer his advocate, and therefore not entitled to see him. I’m very sorry.”

This was the moment, Roon realized, when one of them would have no choice but to blink. They were playing a form of chicken, bluffing one another over a hard-fought game of cards. The chips were there for the taking, but only one of them would be able to wrap his or her arms around the pile when this little game they were playing was through.

“Are you sure of that, Dr. Jenner?” Roon countered sharply.

“Well, I—”

“Of course you aren’t! Because
you
are not an advocate. Don’t you understand that I’m Mr. Wilkes’ advocate more than ever? Who else but me would be qualified to speak for him in his condition?” Feeling a daring surge of bravado rise up in her chest, she lifted a finger to poke at Jenner’s breastbone. “Do I tell you how to treat your patients? Do I tell you what medications to administer, in what amounts, for how long and how frequently?” She scoffed. “No, I don’t, because I have no idea what you do, just as you have no idea what I do. Now stand aside or I’ll be forced to call shipboard security on grounds of obstruction.”

Fuming though he clearly was, Jenner finally relented. “Very well. You have five minutes, though I don’t know what you expect to get out of him in his current state.”

Neither did Roon, once she saw him. Fenton was out and then some, wrapped in the grip of so many clear plastic tentacles feeding medication and other life-giving fluids into his arms. They didn’t seem to be doing much good, at least if his pallor was any indication. He was pale as a ghost, with thin bloodless lips and dark bags hanging heavily below his eyes. He looked like—there was no charitable way to put it—like a junkie going through an especially heavy-handed round of detox and withdrawal.

Again, strange. This was not the Fenton James Wilkes she had conversed with—even lightly flirted—the day before.

“I’ll need some privacy to confer with my client,” Roon said over her shoulder to Dr. Jenner. He shrugged, moving away and muttering beneath his breath all the while.

Roon sat in the chair beside the bed. She reached out to take Fenton’s hand in hers, stroking the other over it, hoping for some response. “Fenton? Fenton, it’s Roon.” She scooted the chair a little closer, trying to keep the noise down. “Blink or, I don’t know, squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

Somewhat to her surprise, she felt Fenton’s fingers constrict around her own just so.

“That’s good,” she complimented, patting his hand. “That’s really good. But I need more, Fenton. I need you to try to wake up. Just for a minute or two, just long enough to tell me what happened to you. Then you can go back to sleep. Can you do that, Fenton?”

Fenton made a low gurgling sound. Roon nodded, squeezing his hand, feeling him squeeze back harder.

“There you go. Listen to my voice, Fenton, follow my voice. Can you hear me?”

It took several seconds, but at last Fenton’s eyes fluttered to consciousness.

“Wha—whur am… ohh haiiii, Roooon.” Upon seeing her he bared his teeth in a dopey, anesthetized version of a smile. “S’nice t’see yoo gyin…”

“Hi, Fenton. It’s nice to see you again, too, but we don’t have long, so try to focus, alright?”

“I lye kyoo, Roon. Yoo—yoo’re vurry nice…”

Roon couldn’t help smiling a little in spite of herself. “I like you, too, Fenton. But I need—”

“Priddy, too…”
 

Roon blinked. Opened her mouth, closed it. That part caught her for something of a loop. He thought she was pretty? Her?
Roon
? If she hadn’t already known he was under the influence of some serious medication, that last bit would have confirmed it for sure. “Fenton.
Fenton
. I need you to focus for me, okay?”

“Kay, I’m focust.” He nodded once in what she assumed was meant to be a reassuring gesture.

“Good. Now, can you tell me what happened before your seizure? Is there anything that stands out?”

Fenton stared up at the ceiling, apparently deep in thought. After a few seconds his eyelids began to narrow and Roon wondered if he had slipped back into that slurried, ill-defined space between consciousness and unconsciousness.

“Fenton?”

He stirred at the sound of her voice, blinking incredulously. “Roon? S’zat yoo?”

“It’s me, Fenton. I’m here. I just need you to tell me what happened before the seizure. Do you remember?”

Fenton lifted his free hand to his chest limply, tapping just below his breastbone. “Hurst. It hurst.”

“It
hurts
? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Mmmmnn-hmm.”

“Do you mind if I take a look?”

Fenton lolled his head from side to side. Roon took the shaky gesture to mean that, no, he didn’t mind.

“Okay, Fenton,” she whispered, “just hold still.” Not that that would be a problem. He was already drifting into a peaceful, medicated slumber.

The real problem was what she found waiting for her beneath the top of his gown.

“Oh my god…”

The flesh of his breast was flush with a blossoming bruise, its petals a sickly mottle of purple, blue, and yellow. The bruise itself was roughly the size of her fist, centered around a small puckered welt an inch and a half below his nipple. It almost looked like…

Like an injection point.

“Ahem.”

The voice came from behind her, a gravelly clearing of the throat that nearly caused her heart to leap out of her chest.

Roon yelped with surprise, covering her chest with her hand. “Dr. Jenner!” she said, turning to find the man looming just beyond the cordon of privacy curtains surrounding Fenton’s bedside. “You startled me.”

“It’s been five minutes,” Jenner answered impassively. “I’m going to have to ask that you leave now. Mr. Wilkes needs time to rest and recuperate.”

Reluctantly, Roon nodded. She had no choice; her impressive haranguing aside, it was Jenner’s sickbay to run as he pleased. If he said five minutes, then five minutes was all she had. She could offer a cursory protest, but the risk of getting confined to the brig for disobeying an order from a ranking officer was hardly worth it. After all, what kind of an advocate could she be for Fenton if she got herself thrown behind bars?