Stoner started to say something—one of his usual variations on be cool, Sharon was sure—but then hesitated for a moment. Good thing for him, too. If he had said it, Sharon thought she’d just haul off and belt him one. He might be a pacifist, but she wasn’t.
What he did say surprised her. The tone more than the words themselves. It was the first time Sharon could ever remember hearing Tom Stone say anything harshly.
“That’s crap, Sharon. You want to know the truth? You’re one of those people who does better under pressure than they do any other time. That’s partly why I did this. Everybody—except you—knows that about you. Your dad makes jokes about it. ‘Best way to make sure Sharon aces a test is to give her no warning.’ ” He pointed a finger at the operating table. “So just shut up and Sharon, will you? There’s a man dying over there. What do you care who’s watching? Fuck ’em.”
The vulgarity jolted her as much as the tone. Unusually, for a hippie—at least, the two-generations-later brand of hippie that Sharon was familiar with from college—Tom Stone very rarely used foul language.
The jolt made her think about what he’d actually said. Was that true, she wondered?
It might be, actually. She’d always ascribed her tendency to goof off in school until the last minute to plain and simple laziness. But maybe that was her own unconscious way of maximizing her strengths when the time came. Sharon had never once turned in a paper until the very last minute, and for her the words “study” and “cram” were pretty much synonyms. Still, she’d graduated from WVU magna cum laude. Would have made summa if that bum Leroy Hancock hadn’t blown two whole semesters out of the water, jacking her around with his lies and promises.
“You’re treacherous, Stoner,” she murmured. But she was smiling by the end of the sentence, and taking her first step toward the table. “Come on, then. At least I managed to get two hours’ sleep, which is more than I usually did before a final exam.”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “I do hope that you didn’t forget to anesthetize the patient. Being so preoccupied like you were with plotting and scheming.”
“Oh, he’s under all right. I’ll keep dripping ether onto the gauze on his face to keep him under, and just have to hope I gauge it properly. I can tell you all you need to know about the chemical structure of ether and how to make it. But how much of it to use . . .”
Stoner glanced at the crowd. “I did tell all of them—really clear—that if anyone so much as looked like they were going to strike a match, we’d wrestle ’em down and slap them onto the OR table. Do an immediate brainectomy to remove what is obviously a malignant foreign body.”
Sharon chuckled and put a hand on his shoulder. Like she herself, Stoner was wearing a scrub gown. She’d brought several with her from Grantville, on the off chance that she might be called upon to do . . . well, exactly what she was going to do. She could tell from the warmth and feel of the fabric that Stoner’s gown, like her own, had just recently been sterilized in the steam cleaner that had been one of the first innovations the embassy had made in their little palace.
“Relax, Tom. I’m a lot more likely to kill him than you are, much less a casual smoker. Remind me to compliment Billy, by the way. He’s done a fantastic job here.”
They were only halfway to the operating table, since Sharon was moving slowly to help compose herself. Billy Trumble was lying on a cot not far away with an IV in his arm. One of the older Marines was lying on a cot next to him. Only two donors, which Sharon wasn’t happy about at all. Unfortunately, they knew the blood types of only two of the Scot soldiers who made up most of the embassy guard. Lennox was the other one, and he had A-positive which was no use at all since they didn’t know Ruy Sanchez’s blood type either.