"I'll send a cart." The speaker blipped as the medic broke the connection.
Hali put a question to her computer: "Raul Andrit: age?"
The screen flashed 5.5.
"What is the age of the subject just tested?"
10.2.
Her fingers scurried across the keys: "The last subject tested was Raul Andrit. How could he be 5.5 and 10.2?
He has lived 5.5 standard annos. His body exhibits the characteristic intracellular structures of one who is 1O.2. For medical purposes, cellular age is the more important.
Hali sat back on her heels and stared down at the unconscious child - dark circles under his eyes, pale skin. His chest appeared too thin and it heaved convulsively when he breathed. What the computer had just told her was that this little boy had doubled his age in a matter of diurns. She heard the cart pull up, a young attendant with it.
"Get this child to sickbay. Notify his Natali sponsor and continue treatment for fatigue," she said. "I'll be along shortly."
She hurried toward Physical Therapy and, at the passage turn, bumped into a breathless medic rushing out. "Ekel! I was just coming for you. You signaled with a child who fainted? There's another one in the Secondary play area. This way."
She followed on his heels, listening to the description. "He's a seven-anno in Polly Side's section. Kid can barely stay awake. Eating too much lately and, what with food monitoring, that's a problem; but he was weighed today and found to be down two kilos from last week."
She did not have to be told that this was a significant drop for a child of that age.
The boy was lying on a stretch of thick green lawn in the freeplay area, a shutter-shielded dome overhead. As she crouched beside him to set up her case, she smelled the fresh-clipped grass and thought how incongruous that was - the enticing green odor and this boy ill.
The pribox readout did not surprise her after Raul Andrit. Fatigu.... exhaustio.... signs of agin....
"Should we move him?"
That was a new voice. She turned and looked up at a thin-faced man in groundside blue standing beside the medic.
"Oh, this is Sy Murdoch," the medic said. "He came up to ask some questions of the TaoLini woman. You sent her down to P-T, didn't you?"
Hali stood up, recalling the grapevine stories about Murdoch: Kelp and clones. Lab One director. One of Lewis' people.
"Why would you want to move him?" she asked.
"I understand from the medics that Raul Andrit has been taken to sickbay with a similar seizure. It occurred to me tha...."
"You say Raul Andrit with a certain familiarity," she said. "You're wearing groundside. What do you know abou.... ?"
"Now, see here! I don't have to answer you...."
"You'll answer me or a medical board. This could be a disease brought up from groundside. What's your association with Raul Andrit?"
His face went blank, completely unreadable, then: "I know his father."
"That's all?"
"That's all. I've never seen the child before. I jus.... knew he was here, shipside."
Hali, trained from childhood to be a med-tech, to support life and see that Shipmen survived, knew each bodily muscle, nerve, gland and blood vessel by name and often spoke to them quietly as she worked. Instinctively, she knew that Murdoch was trained otherwise. He repelled her. And he was lying.
"What's your business with Waela TaoLini?"
"That concerns the Ceepee, not you."
"Waela TaoLini has been put in my charge by the Natali. That's Ship's business. Anything concerning her concerns me."
"It's just routine," Murdoch said.
Every mannerism said it was not just routine, but before she could respond, she saw Waela walk into the play area.
While she was still at some distance, Waela called: "They said somebody here was looking for me. Do yo.... ?"
"Stay back there!" Hali called. "We've some sick boys and we don't want them near any expectant mothers. Wait for me over in the Natali Section. I'll join you i...."
"Forget it!" That was Murdoch speaking with a new forcefulness. He gave every indication of someone who had come to an important decision. "We'll meet with Ferry in Medical. Immediately."
Hali protested: "With Ferry? He doesn'...."
"Oakes left him in charge shipside. That should be good enough for you." He turned on his heel and strode from the area.
Myths are not fiction, but history seen with a poet's eyes and recounted in a poet's terms.
FERRY SAT at his command couch sipping a pale liquid which reeked of mint. He had been reviewing biostats on a shielded viewscreen when Hali and Waela entered and he did not lower the shields.
The command cubby, which had been tacked onto the Processing complex after Oakes' departure, was brightly illuminated by corner remotes which filled the room with yellow light. There was a sharp smell of caustic cleaner in the air.
Hali noted two things immediately: Ferry was not yet overcome by the drink and he appeared fearful. Then she saw that the command center had been tidied recently. Anywhere Ferry worked was soon a scattered mes...notorious situation shipside where instincts of neatness equated with survival. But things had been made neat here. Unusual.
She saw Murdoch then and realized that Ferry feared what Murdoch might report to Oakes. Murdoch stood at one side of the command center, arms folded, impassive.
Ferry closed down his screen with a conscious flourish, swiveled to face the newcomers.
"Thank you for coming along so quickly."
Ferry's voice was reedy with controlled emotions. He stroked the bridge of his nose once, an unconscious imitation of Oakes.
Waela noted that his fingers were trembling.
What does he fear? she wondered.
The man's furtiveness spoke of terrified concealments.
Is it something to do with my baby?