"Great," I said."Great," I said. I tapped her arm at the elbow, trying to get a vein to stand up. I felt relieved when I found one. Fitting the IV quickly, I rigged the stand up overhead and began a fast drip of water and glucose into her arm. One of my medical teachers once told me that starvation and dehydration were among her favorite things to treat, because, as she said, "You fit an IV into their arm and they're up an running like nothing ever happened. The family thinks it's a miracle." My patient didn't come around so easily. I fretted over her for nearly an hour, feeling better as her heartbeat appeared to get stronger, and her eyes started moving again, albeit under their lids. "Sleep?" I asked Fawn. "How should I know? Could you rig me some telemetry maybe?" "Oh, sorry," I said. "Don't bother," Fawn replied. "To accurately determine a sleep state I'd need either visual confirmation or EEG, neither of which you have the hardware for." "If you say so." "It's all I can say right now." "Thanks," I said grumpily. I waited further. At least I felt now that goddesses responded to intravenous feeding. Or hoped they did. She did seem to be getting better, a pink glow returning to her cheeks. She still seemed more pale than was healthy. It occurred to me that I hadn't even thought to question that the woman before me was brilliantly caucasian. Blond, loosely curled hair with just a touch of golden-red to it framed a rounded face now made haggard by her self-inflicted wasting. I had my back to her, putting some of my gear away (I had recently developed a bit of a neatness complex. I have no idea why.), when I heard a small whimper, then a cough. I turned around quickly. "Hey," I breathed. "Calm down. Everything is fine." She coughed. I winced; that didn't sound good. "Who," she said, her voice rasping, "Who are you?" I smiled. "My name is Kennet." She coughed again. "My arms... they hurt." "I'm putting medicine into you." She looked down. "That's... that's not possible yet." I smiled. "You really do know medicine, don't you?" "Feeding someone through their veins... we have no medicine for that. |