She eyed him curiously. “What made you dump us in here?” she asked.
“I remembered that the arch is one of architecture’s strongest structures, and these ones were all solidly built out of good natural materials. Each of them also extended enough beyond the main part of the buildings that they might not necessarily be dragged down as well if the big structure went, especially if the brunt of the shock wave passed above them, as was possible since all of the arches are low to the ground. I just hoped I was reading it right and that it would be enough.”
Jellico was hard pressed not to shudder openly. Any turn of chance, any frown of fortune at all, and they could both have been dead or worse. “What about the rest?” Rael Cofort asked suddenly, sharply, “the other poor folk fleeing with us?”
As she spoke, she was already whirling toward the entrance, bracing herself as she did so. She did not anticipate seeing the gross primary injuries that would be encountered closer to the dock, those caused by the sudden, violent change in air and tissue pressure. The shock wave itself and the even more vicious blast wind had weakened and dispersed enough at this distance from their point of origin to spare them that—they could not otherwise have come through its assault so well themselves—but the area could not hope to have escaped the rest. Secondary injuries would abound, wounds resulting from flying shrapnel and glass and from falling masonry. Much tertiary damage had probably occurred as well. Their flier had been caught and tossed. Human beings had doubtless been thrown as well, and flesh and bone shattered when slammed into solid metal or stone at high velocity. When she left this place, she would be walking into pure horror.
As the Medic tried to fortify herself, she stepped out onto the narrow street.
Former street. It was now but a depression in a sea of high-mounded debris. The buildings on both sides had been flung down. Only a few of the arches remained standing, still marking the entrances to the now rubble-filled understories.
Precious few even of those had survived, she saw with an inner shiver. She and Jellico had been fortunate indeed in his choice of shelter.
The air was foul. She was aware of the stink of it even through all the numbing horror of the scene spread out before her. The odor of burning was everywhere, burning wood and synthetics, cloth and chemicals, the stench of burning flesh. A lot of people had been working in the shattered buildings that had become their tombs, and a great many of the ruins were afire.
Corpses lay everywhere, not in the windrows she had feared to see—the warning had been given soon enough to prevent that—but still with terrifying prominence. Most of those that she saw appeared to have been felled either by debris from the explosion itself or by material from the falling buildings.
Rael quickly ascertained which bodies she passed were no more than shells and paid them no farther attention; there were still some of the living here as well, not many of them, and they desperately needed help.
She was bitterly aware of the pitifully little care she could provide. In living and dead alike, most of the injuries she saw were ghastly—eyes gouged out, noses sliced off, people with their entire faces gone. Here were amputated or shredded limbs, bodies torn open or pinned to the solid pavement ^in grim testimony to the power of the force driving the missiles that had struck them down. One poor devil had been bisected by a huge, thin spear of metal, apparently one of the drilling stems stowed aboard the Regina Mavis.
Nearly all the living who had been hit in the head, face, or arms bore other grave wounds as well. Those even marginally capable of walking alone or with the help of friends or strangers had already staggered or been assisted out of the area in search of aid in other, hopefully less devastated districts of the stricken city.
The Captain, drawing upon his own considerable knowledge of first aid, was similarly occupied. He knelt beside the body of a woman. Flying glass had gotten her, and she had not died instantly.
Sighing, he came to his feet again. “I’ve seen wars, everything from primitive through interstellar, but I don’t think I’ve ever run into anything as bad as this.” They were not looking at the worst, either. Those caught much closer to the seat of the explosion would have sustained even heavier injuries, and this was, at least, a commercial area.
The victims, though pitiful and tragic, were all adults.
From the little he could see above the mountains of rubble, the destruction appeared to be equally horrendous on the primarily residential slope above. There were, or had been, children there, a lot of them.
The two spacers worked together more or less in silence.
There was so little that they could do. They were survivors themselves, without supplies or gear of any sort. All they were able to offer was first aid, utilizing the victims’ own clothing for bandages and whatever other materials they were able to glean from the wreckage around them. In each case, they did what they could and then moved the sufferer into the middle of the street, as far as possible from the threat of fire from the collapsed buildings on either side.
After that, they had to leave him with the poor comfort of their assurance, which they both prayed would prove accurate, that rescue teams would soon be penetrating the shattered area and would collect the injured then.
The final case they handled was a big man deeply comatose as a result of a massive head injury. Jellico and Cofort lifted and carried him to the center of the street and placed him with the other living victims, although neither of them believed he would survive very much longer.
Rael slipped on the rubble as they were settling him. She fell heavily, barking both her knees, but she was scarcely aware of doing so as waves of agony ripped through her side and chest.
Despite herself, she cried out, and it was several long seconds before she could make the attempt to stand.
Miceal steadied her. His eyes were dark with concern as they searched her face. “That was the last one,” he said gruffly. “Let’s get the hell out of here. You need a doctor yourself, and I’ll be more effective with some equipment . . .”
The woman pulled away from him. She turned on him in fury. “I’m a Medic, and I’m on my feet. You can help me, or you can go back to the ship, but damn it, don’t try to interfere with my work!”
Jellico started to protest but stopped himself. “I’m with you,” he said quietly.
She eyed him for a moment, as if not trusting him, then nodded. “Thank you, Miceal.”
“Where to, Doctor? You’re the Medic. This is your line. You call it.”
“To the docks,” she responded without hesitation. “The worst cases will be closest to that, and they may have to wait the longest before any real help can reach them.”
“Most there will have been killed outright,” he pointed out.
Rael nodded. “We’ll work our way back inland again until we start finding a few we can try to aid.” Or comfort a little if nothing else.
“All right. It’s as good a plan as any.”
Neither of them looked at the crumpled remains of their flier as they moved away from it. By the grace of whatever gods ruled this accursed planet, it had apparently not killed or seriously injured anyone, but neither of them could take credit for that fact. Not that they could have done anything had they stayed with the’ machine, apart from very probably dying in it.
The off-worlders worked their way down the street until they came to the place where it intersected with what had been the avenue.
Because the place was that much closer to the blast site and more open besides, the proportion of the dead to those still alive was greater than they had encountered near their shelter. A larger number of people had been caught here, however, and those who survived tended to be even more severely injured than their earlier patients, and the pair found themselves hard-pressed on every side by victims desperately in need of aid.
They had no choice but to triage those they discovered still alive, treating first the ones whose chances for survival were the greatest, leaving the most hopeless cases for last.
The choosing fell to Rael Cofort. It was a bitter task, especially so when one of those she ordered set aside was still conscious, but more lives would be saved in the end by ordering their efforts in this manner, and so she grimly held to the policy need had dictated that they adopt. Her strength was such that it kept Jellico firm in his determination to abide by her decisions, that and the seemingly unerring correctness of them.