4
In the center compartment immediately behind the driving cab of the Juggernaut, now in the final phase of being fitted out at Stony Flats, Kieran checked the pincer-shaped sutures that he had clamped along the gash on the back of Harry Quong’s hand after cleaning it, then sprayed a fast-setting coagulant along the wound. Both would dry up and flake off when the healing was complete. Harry was the vehicle and equipment technician included in Walter Trevany’s expedition out to Tharsis. He had hit his hand on a heat exchanger cooling fin when his foot slipped on a greasy stepping plate. Mahom had found Trevany the part he needed. The Juggernaut would be leaving first thing next morning.
“Is that comfortable?” Kieran asked. “I’ll put a pad over to protect it while it’s soft. After two days you won’t need it.”
“It feels fine, Doc.” Harry watched as Kieran selected what he needed from the medical box opened on the table. “Is that what we’re supposed to call you? Walter said you were a quick fix when Pierre had to drop out. Something about being a military medic once?”
“Not even that, to be honest, Harry,” Kieran answered. “Back in my impetuous days of youth, I did a few years with an SAF regiment. It was part of the cross-training you got.” Spaceborne Assault Forces were a breed of combat soldier that specialized in defending and penetrating all manner of vessels and structures in the face of problems peculiar to the space environment; also in making rapid descents and deployments from orbit. The term referred to a category of military competence rather than describing the armed services of any particular political or other entity. SAF units were formed by governments, commercial enterprises, and other organizations, and recruited by mercenary forces available for hire to anybody striving to enforce claims, seize opportunities, or simply protect themselves in the salmagundi of rivalries and alliances scattered across the Solar System.
Harry looked impressed. “Who were you with?”
“Oh, for the most part, a conglomerate effort in one of the Belt sectors that was organized against claim jumpers. Then some merc strikes to take out launch bases being set up on Ganymede. I’m not sure we were the good guys in that one, though. So these days I just work for me.”
“Why did you do it?” Harry asked.
“To prove I was a tough kid, of course. That’s when they know they’ve got you.”
“In my book, that makes you all the more useful to have along. I hear this place can have its wild moments.”
Kieran secured the edges of the pad with adhesive tape and looked up. “There. Try not to wave it about too much.” As he began tidying up, he asked, out of curiosity, “What kind of biological research was Pierre involved in, that made him drop out?”
“Oh, nano stuff—pieces of molecules that come together inside body cells.”
“What for?”
“Something to do with remote-controlling metabolic chemistry. You’d need to talk to Dennis and Jean when we get to Troy. They know more about it. Pierre was a friend of theirs.” “Troy” was the name that Hamil had given to the base camp at Tharsis. Dennis Curry and Jean Graas, together as a couple by the sound of things, were geologists with the group that had remained at Troy with Hamil while Juanita and Harry came back to Lowell to meet Trevany and the others from Earth, and collect the Juggernaut. Harry examined the finished dressing on his hand and seemed satisfied. “So what should we call you?”
“Why not just `Kieran’?” Kieran suggested. “I also go by `Knight’—from the initials.”
Harry considered the options. “Is it okay if I stick with `Doc’ anyway?”
“It’s fine by me—but you know it pushes one of Rudi’s buttons.”
“I know. That’s why I like it.”
Rudi Magelsberg was the group’s scientific technician. He had greeted Trevany’s announcement of the new addition to the team with reservations regarding Kieran’s suitability for the job, although without going as far as open criticism. Kieran interpreted Harry’s stance as a way of telling him that he had one solid supporter on board at least.