up on that cannula,” she said to Dunworthy, taking everything out of the kit and then putting it back in. She laid the kit down and started through her handbag. “I thought I had a skin-temp thermometer with me,” she said.
“The reads are up,” Dunworthy said.
Mary picked her bleeper up and began reading the numbers into it.
Badri opened his eyes. “You have to …”he said, and closed them again. “So cold,” he murmured.
Dunworthy took off his overcoat, but it was too wet to lay over him. He looked helplessly around the room for something to cover him with. If this had happened before Kivrin left, they could have used that blanket of a cloak she’d been wearing. Badri’s jacket was wadded underneath the console. Dunworthy laid it sideways over him.
“Freezing,” Badri murmured, and began to shiver.
Mary, still reciting reads into the bleeper, looked sharply across at him. “What did he say?”
Badri murmured something else and then said clearly, “Headache.”
“Headache,” Mary said. “Do you feel nauseated?”
He moved his head a little to indicate no. “When was—” he said and clutched at her arm.
She put her hand over his, frowned, and pressed her other hand to his forehead.
“He’s got a fever,” she said.
“There’s something wrong,” Badri said, and closed his eyes. His hand let go of her arm and dropped back to the floor.
Mary picked his limp arm up, looked at the reads, and felt his forehead again. “Where is that damned skin-temp?” she said, and began rummaging through the kit again.
The bleeper chimed. “They’re here,” she said. “Somebody go show them the way in.” She patted Badri’s chest. “Just lie still.”
They were already at the door when Dunworthy opened it. Two medics from Infirmary pushed through carrying kits the size of steamer trunks.
“Immediate transport,” Mary said before they could get the trunks open. She got up off her knees. “Fetch the stretcher,” she said to the female medic. “And get me a skin-temp and a sucrose drip.”
“I assumed Twentieth Century’s personnel had been screened for dorphs and drugs,” Gilchrist said.
One of the medics knocked past him with a pump feed.
“Mediaeval would never allow—” He stepped out of the way as the other one came in with the stretcher.
“Is this a drugover?” the male medic said, glancing at Gilchrist.
“No,” Mary said. “Did you bring the skin-temp?”
“We don’t have one,” he said, plugging the feed into the shunt. “Just a thermistor and temps. We’ll have to wait till we get him in.” He held the plastic bag over his head for a minute till the grav feed kicked the motor on and then taped the bag to Badri’s chest.
The female medic took the jacket off Badri and covered him with a gray blanket. “Cold,” Badri said. “You have to—”
“What do I have to do?” Dunworthy said.
“The fix—”
“One, two,” the medics said in unison, and rolled him onto the stretcher.
“James, Mr. Gilchrist, I’ll need you to come to hospital with me to fill out his admission forms,” Mary said. “And I’ll need his medical history. One of you can come in the ambulance, and the other follow.”
Dunworthy didn’t wait to argue with Gilchrist over which of them should ride in the ambulance. He clambered in and up next to Badri, who was breathing hard, as if being carried on the stretcher had been too much exertion.
“Badri,” he said urgently, “you said something was wrong. Did you mean something went wrong with the fix?”
“I got the fix,” Badri said, frowning.
The male medic, attaching Badri to a daunting array of displays, looked irritated.
“Did the apprentice get the coordinates wrong? It’s important, Badri. Did he make an error in the remote coordinates?”
Mary climbed into the ambulance.
“As Acting Head, I feel I should be the one to accompany the patient in the ambulance,” Dunworthy heard Gilchrist say.
“Meet us in Casualties at Infirmary,” Mary said and pulled the doors to. “Have you got a temp yet?” she asked the medic.
“Yes,” he said, “39.5 C. BP 90 over 55, pulse 115.”
“Was there an error in the coordinates?” Dunworthy said to Badri.
“Are you set back there?” the driver said over the intercom.
“Yes,” Mary said. “Code one.”
“Did Puhalski make an error in the locational coordinates for the remote?”
“No,” Badri said. He grabbed at the lapel of Dunworthy’s coat.
“Is it the slippage then?”
“I must have—” Badri said. “So worried.”
The sirens blared, drowning out the rest of what he said. “You must have what?” Dunworthy shouted over their up-and-down klaxon.
“Something wrong,” Badri said, and fainted again.
Something wrong. It had to be the slippage. Except