Doc led them into a multi-room complex. Ophelia noticed that the other two doors in this hall had been marked: STORAGE and so assumed this whole level was dedicated just to the medics. The infirmary itself, just beyond the large double doors, was a large half-circle with a dozen beds lining one half of the room, along the rounded wall. Three doors led further into Medical, one directly ahead and two at either side of the round infirmary. Unlike Transfer and the corridor outside, with their grey walls and green floor, this room was painted a soft blue, with white floors and ceiling. Cabinets labeled: PHARMICA were arrayed between each bed, and more lined the near-side wall. Much of the rest of the room had counters, trays, and carts, all loaded with a great variety of medical supplies.
Most surprising, though, was the ghost standing in the middle of the room.
A woman shrouded in blue light, wearing the same blue and white jumpsuit as Doc, with the same patches, was standing in the center of the infirmary. “-eeing this. I’m sorry. You-” she was saying, only to flicker and repeat, “-eeing this. I’m sorry. You-” Again and again, she kept repeating those same words, that same fragment of a message. She was pretty, fair-skinned and nearly as blonde as Doc, her long hair tied into a pair of braids decorated with ribbons. Her jumpsuit was a bit disheveled, and its soft blue, emphasized by the spectral halo imbuing her, was marred by dark, evil-looking stains.
Three of the beds in the infirmary lining the rounded wall were occupied, one with an unmoving man in a black jumpsuit, the two others with hollowed bodies like the one in the corridor. Atmos in the infirmary seemed stable after the reset. The room was warm and inviting, the lights were steady, and grav was active. Despite this, the man in the black jumpsuit was floating above his bed, wrapped in the soft golden light of a null field. Doc ignored everything trying to distract them and snapped her fingers at the others. “Hurry up!” she demanded, pointing at the examination bed in the center of the round room.
Nipper and Olé pulled Lou to the exam bed at the center of the infirmary and laid him on it. They moved around the spectral messenger, still trying to warn them of something. When the old miner was placed upon the central bed, a hatch overhead opened and a spherical device lowered, casting multiple lights in a variety of colors onto the old miner. Doc went to a console beside the exam bed and began typing in commands.
“Can you do something about her?” Rockboss asked, jabbing a thumb at the blue-haloed woman.
Doc tapped a command on the panel in front of her and the blue light went out, causing the image of the woman to fade.
“We should check the other rooms,” Blaster suggested.
Rockboss nodded. “Olé and Nipper,” he said, pointing to the left door marked LAB. He then moved to the right, towards a door marked: MORGUE, jerking his head at Blaster.
“What do I do?” Ophelia asked.
“Help Doc,” Rockboss grunted over his shoulder as he and Blaster opened the right door and moved inside.
The new mineralogist moved up beside Doc. “What can I do?” she asked.
The medic’s eyes were fixed on Lou. “Cabinet,” she muttered as more lights played over the old miner. “Get me an injector, and find Sarac and Brinsu.”
Assuming Doc was naming drugs and not people, Ophelia went to the large cabinet beside the main door she had not noticed was there at first. Reaching it, the mineralogist pulled at the handles. “It’s locked,” she reported, glancing back.
Without looking, Doc pulled her ID card from a hip pocket at tossed it to Ophelia. The mineralogist caught the small card after fumbling a moment, then turned back and pressed the ID to the cabinet’s lock-plate. With a click, the doors opened. Ophelia looked inside, but her eyes blurred. “What the hell am I looking at?” she demanded.
Doc was pulling a breather from the overhead sphere, setting some controls and placing the mask over Lou’s mouth and lungs. “There’s a whole drawer marked ‘rock lung,’” she nearly barked.
Ophelia looked and spotted it almost immediately. Midway up was a single drawer, the largest of any others. “Got it,” she reported.
“Just pull the whole damn thing,” Doc commanded as she engaged a fan over Lou’s head that began cycling along his entire body. “Put it on a cart and bring it here.”
Ophelia glanced around and spotted a utility cart. She pulled the entire rock lung drawer and, with a grunt of effort, put it onto the wheeled trolley.
“And don’t forget an injector,” Doc called as she tapped more commands into the console.
Ophelia glanced back and found the gun-shaped device among a row of them on their own shelf. She grabbed two for safety and wheeled everything back to Doc. As she did so, the examination bed was readjusting itself. Lou was brought higher, to Doc’s waist level, and he was lifted into a seated position. Ophelia moved the laden cart near to the medic and handed back her ident. The larger woman examined several small bottles until finding one in particular. She inserted this into the injector and set a dosage at the controls on base of the handle. The medic pressed the device against Lou’s neck and pulled the trigger, then handed the injector back to Ophelia without looking.
The mineralogist took the device and stepped back slightly. Doc was holding a hand to Lou’s chest and staring at the overhead sphere. A display panel glowed with moving lines and shifting numbers. Moments passed, and Doc only seemed to watch the display. Ophelia stood and waited as Lou continued coughing.
Rockboss came back with Blaster. “Anything?” Ophelia asked.
“More bodies,” Blaster grumbled. “The house is full.”
“More like…?” Ophelia glanced at one of the eviscerated bodies on a bed lining the wall.
“No,” Rockboss grunted, standing well away from the exam bed, but his eyes locked on the old miner struggling to breathe. “Broken bones, bruises.” The big man shook his head. “A couple dozen. Looks like a whole damn round went through some deep ground and got slabbed.”
“Don’t forget the bite marks,” Blaster muttered darkly.
“Bite marks?” Ophelia started.
Blaster crossed around the room, staying away from Doc and the exam bed. Her large, dark eyes were deep and speculative, seeing nothing while her mind saw much. “Yeah,” she mused. “Bitten, hell, eaten. Whole chunks of people torn off.” She looked at Rockboss. “This isn’t somebody going deep. This is…” Words failed.
“We also found the rest of your people,” Rockboss grumbled.
Doc barely glanced up, casting him an inquiring look before returning to Lou.
“Two of them locked themselves in a supply closet,” Blaster said. “Looks like they took something.” The small miner tossed a bottle at Doc.
The medic caught it and glanced at the label. “Defenz,” she sighed, setting the empty bottle on a tray. “Enough for twenty diggers.” She went back to her treatment of Lou.
“Gertie was sitting in the Med Office,” Rockboss said softly. His eyes drifted to the spot where the blue-haloed woman had been repeating her sad message. “After leaving whatever that message was…”
Doc’s face locked in concentration, letting nothing show through her intensity upon Lou. “How?” she whispered.
“Not sure. There was an injector next to her. It was empty.” Rockboss walked next to Doc and put a hand on the medic’s shoulder. “She was smiling,” he said as gently as his deep voice allowed. “She went before the blackdamp.”
Doc nodded and kept working, though Ophelia saw the barest hint of tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
As Doc continued treating Lou, Olé and Nipper returned from the lab.
“Well?” Rockboss asked quietly, his eyes still on Doc.
“Lab’s empty,” Olé reported.
“Of people,” Nipper added, his face pale and his eyes wide.
“What does that mean?” Blaster demanded.
Olé shook his head. “There’s… something. Big jars filled with fluid. They… There’s a few of them. Some kind of… I don’t know what.”
“Damn!” Doc snapped, drawing their attention. Lou’s breathing, though at first stronger, still sounded like a tank filling with water. His coughing returned, and his body started jerking. “Hold him!” she barked at Rockboss.
The big supervisor put a hand on his friend’s chest.
“Gently!” Doc snapped as she dug through the rock lung drawer. “Don’t crack a rib! Help him bend forward and hold him still. Get his coveralls off.” She glanced at Blaster. “Get scissors,” she commanded. “Cut open the back of his shirt.” She retrieved a large bundle and glanced around. “Bring me that tray!” she barked, pointing at another wheeled cart.
Ophelia obeyed, bringing the new tray forward to where Doc was pointing at her side. The medic set the bundle in her hands onto the top shelf and unrolled it, revealing a set of needles and some thick tubes. As she did this, Blaster picked up a pair of medical scissors. Rockboss helped remove his friend’s coverall top, pulling it down and exposing the undershirt, which Blaster cut away along the back.
All of this done, Doc tapped a few controls on the overhead sphere. “Sterilizing,” she said without explanation.
There was a flash of stinging yellow light. Ophelia felt as though a thousand microscopic wasps had stung every exposed bit of her skin. She gasped and jerked away, seeing Blaster do the same but with a more audible curse. Rockboss and Doc did not move or even flinch.
The medic directed a cone of green light at Lou’s back, just above one of his ribs. The skin seemed to blur and fade, allowing sight deeper at the bones and the heavier tissue. Doc ripped a sealed pouch containing a wet cloth and rubbed this against Lou’s back, then picked up a syringe attached to a large container. Peering intently, she traced a light finger along one of Lou’s ribs until finding some particular spot, then gently, yet purposefully, pressed the syringe in. Ophelia saw a small squirt of fluid into the container, and Doc slowly pulled at the back of the syringe. Fluid was pulled out of Lou’s chest, and the old miner’s breath immediately eased. His coughing subsided and became dry. Doc continued draining the fluid from his chest until the syringe was full. She then paused and unscrewed the now-full container, handing it to Ophelia. “Get me another,” she ordered.
The mineralogist took the small vial, trying not to cringe at the thought of what was within, then looked back into the rock lung drawer. There were several more of the containers, and she handed one of them to Doc. The medic screwed this in and once more began draining fluid from Lou. Two more containers were filled by the time the medic finally sighed, “That’s it,” and handed the last of the syringes to Ophelia.
Doc withdrew the needle from Lou’s back and held a small bandage to it. “Get me some quickskin,” she said, nodding at the drawer again.
Ophelia looked but could not find what the medic was talking about.
“It’s this,” Blaster said, picking up a small white can with blue and green banding.
“Do I want to know how you know that?” the proper Luna woman half-joked.
“Life’s hard outside Artemis Landing.”
Ophelia brought the can to Doc, who shook it briefly and sprayed a quick spurt of some thick, sticky fluid onto Lou’s back. She then helped Rockboss restore the old miner’s coveralls and help him back to a seated position, checking that his breath was stable.
Lou said nothing, only patting Doc on her arm. The medic smiled and held his hand a moment before turning back to the console. Rockboss patted his old friend on the shoulder and the old miner nodded, breathing deeply for the first time since Ophelia had met him.
“What now?” the new mineralogist asked.
“Let’s find out what Gertie had to say,” Doc said softly, her eyes watering slightly. She tapped a command into the console on the examination bed and the lights of the infirmary dimmed slightly.
The single blue light returned, drifting down from the ceiling. The woman once more manifested and seemed to look directly at Doc. “If you’re seeing this,” she said in a voice heavy with sorrow and despair. “I’m sorry, you’re already dead.”