“A real bad idea,” Ryan said as he and the companions took cover in the dimples.
This time the troopers opened fire on the troublemakers without hesitation. Obviously, it was a plan worked out well in advance. It wasn’t a wholesale slaughter because the workers were needed to mine ore. The guards performed selective mutilations, targeting those who were already showing the effects of the radiation.
Lasers whistled, their green beams lacing through the charging mob from three sides.
Slaves dropped here and here, squealing in pain.
And the smell of burned meat drifted over the compound.
Those who hadn’t been singled out, scattered, abandoning the wounded men flopping about on the glass. Some waved their blackened stump arms. Others, more grievously subdivided, could only lay there and moan. None of those who had been hit were dead. None would die soon. All of them faced horrible suffering.
“The least you could do is finish them off!” one of the slaves shouted through cupped hands.
And for his trouble, he got a green beam through the middle of his stomach. It cauterized his bowels and severed his spinal cord, and passed on to drop the man standing behind him, and the man standing behind him. It would have kept on dropping slaves, but the others jumped aside.
Skirmish over.
Status quo intact.
The slaves meekly picked up their axes and started funneling back into the mines. Their first cup of water was hours of toil away.
As the companions fell into line with the others, Ryan and J.B. gathered up Gabhart and brought him along. The colonel was still unconscious. After they had selected a pair of sledges to use, Ryan and J.B. carefully laid him in one of them.
“Mildred, what can we do?” Ryan asked. “Gabhart isn’t coming around, and we need what’s in his head or we’re all going to die just like him. Slow and ugly.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Ryan.”
“You’re a doctor, we need to wake him up. Give us some options.”
While they talked, the other companions eased the two sledges down the entrance’s slope by their ropes.
“Hard to do that,” Mildred said.
“Why’s that?”
“I took a solemn oath not to injure my patients,” she said as they joined the others on the flat of the main tunnel. “Pain can be used to rouse people from this kind of state. But as a physician I’m sworn not to inflict it unnecessarily. As a physician, I know that the colonel’s better off unconscious when his body gives out.”
“There are more people to think about here than him,” Ryan said. “People who aren’t sick yet. Dozens of people. Some of whom are your friends.”
“I know that. I know that.”
“Triage, my dear Mildred,” Doc said. “This calls for triage. A sound medical practice since the days of Hippocrates. Treat those with the best chance to survive. Leave the others to the grace of God.”
“Waking him isn’t going to kill him,” Ryan said, “and if it does, by your reasoning, it would be for the best. Mildred, we can’t wait. Krysty can’t wait. We need the information now.”
“Trouble is, it isn’t just triage. I’m going to have to keep hurting him to keep him awake. It’s more like torture. And I don’t like it.”
“Just tell us what to do and we’ll do it!” J.B. said.
Mildred shook her head. “No, I know what to do. I know when to stop. I have to be the one to do it.”
When they reached the fork in the tunnel, the pair of guards stationed there split up the companions. This time Mildred, Dean and Ryan took Gabhart into the left-hand passage, and Jak, J.B. and Doc took the right.
When Ryan’s group reached the end of the tunnel, they parked their cart out of the way against the wall.
“Let’s get him out on the ground,” Mildred said, gravely.
She and Ryan lifted the limp man out of the box and stretched him out on the tunnel floor. The other slaves pushing sledges into the tunnel paid them no mind.
Mildred knelt beside him and took his pulse. “It’s fast and thin,” she said, putting his hand on his chest. “His breathing is very shallow. We’d better get on with this.”