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“This wasn’t a rescue mission.” Joan frowned. Garrett wasn’t surprised she’d declined to say hi. She’d always been anxious around children. “Did you find another group of survivors?”
“Yeah, an apartment block with about forty people holed up in it.” Garrett adjusted his grip on Rhast and pet his hair when the boy gave a little shiver at the mention of his old home. “The coordinates are in my ship.”
Joan nodded and ran a hand over her face, pausing to massage the bridge of her nose. “Alright. That’s good, that’s really good.” Her tone sounded the opposite of good, but Garrett knew that was only the stress of the coordination. “I’ll make sure you have a bigger ship ready tomorrow morning. Will you be up for heading out again by then?”
“Of course.” Garrett’s body still ached like he’d been thrown from a land cruiser, but he’d head out five thousand more times in as many days if it got him his home back with all the people that were supposed to be in it. “Anything else? I gotta take Rhast here to Maxwell.”
“Injured?” Joan scanned the little body with a frown.
Garrett shook his head. “Sick.”
“Coughing,” Rhast supplied helpfully and then descended into a coughing fit.
Joan stepped back. “Right. Well, you know where to find him. Drop your gun off to be serviced first. It looks ready to jam.” Then she pulled out her tablet and turned on her heel, raising her hand as she walked away. “See you bright and early tomorrow morning, Garrett.”
“I’ll bring the klak!” Garrett called after her, then he turned and made his way toward the ramshackle settlement off the eastern side of the sky port.
“Where are we going?” Rhast kept his arms locked securely around Garrett’s neck as though afraid he’d disappear if he let go, but his dark eyes scanned and darted curiously in every direction.
Garrett smiled and gave him a comforting bounce. “We are going to go see one of my favorite people in the world to get that cough looked at for you.”
* * *
“You’ve been taking the pills I gave you every day?” Maxwell pressed the stethoscope to the old woman’s back and frowned as he listened to the rattle of her lungs. A rattle that should have cleared up two days ago.
The woman nodded. “Yes, doctor.” Then she took another breath that sent static up the wires of Maxwell’s stethoscope.
Maxwell sighed and pulled the stethoscope out of his ears as he stepped around to face his patient again. “Every day, Lillian?”
Lillian’s bright blue eyes—still so sharp in her wrinkled face—only flashed through sheepishness for a moment before she lifted her chin obstinately. “Every other day.”
Maxwell should have seen that one coming. He shook his head as he turned away from the examination table and pulled open a drawer. “I told you every day.”
“But they’ll last longer if I take them every other day, and then maybe there will be some left over for the next person that gets sick.” Lillian sat up straight. “And the next person might not be an old grandma who’s lived long enough.”
“For one thing, Lillian, that’s not how it works.” Maxwell pulled a bottle out of the drawer and turned to fix the old woman with a stern stare over the rim of his glasses. Then he handed her the bottle. “For a second thing, we have more than enough medicine now.” Ample medical supply donations were the only aid the Qesh continued to give once the war had officially ended.
Lillian accepted the bottle slowly. “But we might not always.”
“And for a third thing”—Maxwell placed his hand on the old woman’s shoulder, waited until she met his eyes, and smiled softly—“we all need our old grandmas. And you know it.”
Lillian’s eyes misted for a second before she dropped her head with a hacking cough. Once her throat cleared, she sighed. “I suppose you do need us old women. Goddess knows the young can’t be trusted with the world.”
Maxwell’s eyebrows lifted at the invocation of the qeshian goddess, but he didn’t comment. Lillian wasn’t the first refugee from Tava he’d seen turn to Carta’s old goddess temple, and if they found comfort there, he’d be the last to judge. He held out a hand to help Lillian off the examination table. “Now, I really do mean every day this time, Lillian. Otherwise, you’ll stay sick and just use the medicine to make the virus stronger.”
“Every day this time, doctor, I promise.” Lillian eased herself off the high table, and now that her obstinance had melted away, she seemed bent and frail again. “I’m sorry for interrupting your dinner.”
Maxwell glanced at the bowl of stew cooling on his desk on the other side of the room with a sharp hunger pang but just smiled at Lillian as he walked her to the door. “It’s never a problem, Lillian. Have a good night.”
Maxwell kept his kind doctor’s smile until the door clicked shut. Then he groaned deeply and let his forehead fall heavily against the wood. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses. When he was young, he’d thought there couldn’t possibly be anything harder than being a doctor during an invasion. Then he’d thought the occupation was the hardest. Then working with the Resistance. Then the war.
He pushed himself off the door and returned to his desk, rolling his neck. Now he was one of the only doctors in a refugee camp bursting at the seams, and he thought that might be the hardest thing yet. The stew had cooled to room temperature, but it was the only food Maxwell had eaten in hours, so he shoveled it gratefully into his mouth. He saw patients of every age and species with every ailment, and everyone bore their own staggering trauma.
But it was what Maxwell had signed up for, and he didn’t regret it.
He set his half-full bowl of stew and spoon to the side and exchanged them for his old data tablet and stylus. The Qesh were generous with their medical supplies, but only in exchange for mountains of paperwork. If there were no more interruptions, he might actually be able to complete an entire official request for the antivirals that—despite what he had told Lillian—were already running low.
He had just finished form 6e and only had 7a, 7b, 7c, 8a through e, and 9a left when a heavy knock sounded on the door he had closed behind Lillian. Maxwell’s heart fell to his feet. He warred with denial for a moment. Perhaps the knock had just been in his head, conjured up through his pure dread. But then he heard the rattle of the knob, and he saved his draft of never-ending paperwork and set his tablet down.
