Moya got me through the lock and onto an acceleration couch. Then he
headed for the panel. I was beginning to feel a desperate weakness, but
my head was still clear.
"Wait a minute," I said. "What's your gee tolerance?"
"High, but--"
"So strap me and raise this couch to vertical. Then override the auto
and take us up fast."
He blinked.
"Listen," I said. "This feels like a neuro-toxin. Remember snake-bite
aid? Well, the numbness is up to my groin now. No place for a
tourniquet. And nothing here for freezing."
It was strange going up. I blacked out almost immediately, but Moya took
it flat and apparently stayed alert all the way.
"Space!" I managed to gasp finally. "Any more of that sort of thing and
I'd have ended up stupid."
Then there was utter confusion.
* * * * *
I came to full awareness under the luminescence of the infirmary's
overhead. I was naked on the padding of the table. I could see a
respirator off to my right, and a suction octopus near it. The medic was
just stowing an auto-heart. But for a different tingling in my leg and
an all-is-lost sensation south of my diaphragm, I felt reasonably sound.
The medic approached. I hadn't gotten a very good impression of the
lean, blond youngster on the trip out, but now he seemed Hippocrates,
Luke, Lister, Salk, O'Grady, and Yakamura all rolled into one.
He weakened it by asking the classic redundancy.
"How do you feel?"
I elbowed up for a look at the leg. There was a series of little welts
the length of it, masked by forceheal.
"Where did you learn your trade?" I asked. "In a production expediter's
office?"
He grinned.
"It took more than three hours, Mr. Callum. Suction, flushing, full
transfusion. You've got some good blood in you now."