The Forever War (The Forever War, #1) - Joe Haldeman Page 0,39
Harmony?”
“No,” she said dully. “The maintenance man was a double traumatic amputation. Only lived a few minutes. We’re keeping him running for transplants.”
“All those others?”
“Explosive decompression.” She sniffed. “Anything I can do here?”
“Yeah, just a minute.” He tried his ring again. “God damn it. You don’t know where Harrison is?”
“No…well, maybe, he might be in Surgery B if there was trouble with the cadaver maintenance. Think I set it up all right, though.”
“Yeah, well, hell you know how…”
“Mark!” said the medic with the blood bag.
“One more half-liter femoral,” Doc Wilson said. “Estelle, you mind taking over for one of the medics here, prepare this gal for surgery?”
“No, keep me busy.”
“Good—Hopkins, go up to the shop and bring down a roller and a liter, uh, two liters isotonic fluorocarb with the primary spectrum. If they’re Merck they’ll say ‘abdominal spectrum.’” He found a part of his sleeve with no blood on it and wiped his forehead. “If you find Harrison, send him over to surgery A and have him set up the anesthetic sequence for abdominal.”
“And bring her up to A?”
“Right. If you can’t find Harrison, get somebody”—he stabbed a finger in my direction—“this guy, to roll the patient up to A; you run ahead and start the sequence.”
He picked up his bag and looked through it. “We could start the sequence here,” he muttered. “But hell, not with paramethadone—Marygay? How do you feel?”
She was still crying. “I’m…hurt.”
“I know,” he said gently. He thought for a second and said to Estelle, “No way to tell really how much blood she lost. She may have been passing it under pressure. Also there’s some pooling in the abdominal cavity. Since she’s still alive I don’t think she could’ve bled under pressure for very long. Hope no brain damage yet.”
He touched the digital readout attached to Marygay’s arm. “Monitor the blood pressure, and if you think it’s indicated, give her five cc’s vasoconstrictor. I’ve gotta go scrub down.”
He closed his bag. “You have any vasoconstrictor besides the pneumatic ampoule?”
Estelle checked her own bag. “No, just the emergency pneumatic…uh…yes, I’ve got controlled dosage on the ’dilator, though.”
“Okay, if you have to use the ’constrictor and her pressure goes up too fast—”
“I’ll give her vasodilator two cc’s at a time.”
“Check. Hell of a way to run things, but…well. If you’re not too tired, I’d like you to stand by me upstairs.”
“Sure.” Doc Wilson nodded and left.
Estelle began sponging Marygay’s belly with isopropyl alcohol. It smelled cold and clean. “Somebody gave her No-shock?”
“Yes,” I said, “about ten minutes ago.”
“Ah. That’s why the Doc was worried—no, you did the right thing. But No-shock’s got some vasoconstrictor. Five cc’s more might run up an overdose.” She continued silently scrubbing, her eyes coming up every few seconds to check the blood pressure monitor.
“William?” It was the first time she’d shown any sign of knowing me. “This wom—uh, Marygay, she’s your lover? Your regular lover?”
“That’s right.”
“She’s very pretty.” A remarkable observation, her body torn and caked with crusting blood, her face smeared where I had tried to wipe away the tears. I suppose a doctor or a woman or a lover can look beneath that and see beauty.
“Yes, she is.” She had stopped crying and had her eyes squeezed shut, sucking the last bit of moisture from the paper wad.
“Can she have some more water?”
“Okay, same as before. Not too much.”
I went out to the locker alcove and into the head for a paper towel. Now that the fumes from the pressurizing fluid had cleared, I could smell the air. It smelled wrong. Light machine oil and burnt metal, like the smell of a metal-working shop. I wondered whether they had overloaded the airco. That had happened once before, after the first time we’d used the acceleration chambers.
Marygay took the water without opening her eyes.
“Do you plan to stay together when you get back to Earth?”
“Probably,” I said. “If we get back to Earth. Still one more battle.”
“There won’t be any more battles,” she said flatly. “You mean you haven’t heard?”
“What?”
“Don’t you know the ship was hit?”
“Hit!” Then how could any of us be alive?
“That’s right.” She went back to her scrubbing. “Four squad bays. Also the armor bay. There isn’t a fighting suit left on the ship…and we can’t fight in our underwear.”
“What—squad bays, what happened to the people?”
“No survivors.”
Thirty people. “Who was it?”
“All of the third platoon. First squad of the second platoon.”
Al-Sadat, Busia, Maxwell, Negulesco. “My God.”
“Thirty deaders, and they don’t have the slightest notion of what caused