Soldiers

Chapter 42

Moribund

"They are both moribund."

The Bering had left Tagus's moon less than two hours earlier, and Christiaan Weygand felt comfortable now about questioning the expedition's scientists working on the alien captives. The two Wyzhnyny lay strapped on examination tables, wires and tubes leading from them to a life support system and a bank of readouts. If everything above the withers had been covered, and you overlooked the feet, they might have passed for some Terran mammal in a large-animal clinic.

"What actually does `moribund' mean?" Weygand asked.

Dr. Maria Kalosgouros was a formidable, humorless woman, a vertebrate exobiologist of major professional status. "Captain Stoorvol's stunner had been set to render a two-hundred-fifty-pound human unconscious for a period of one to three hours," she answered wryly. "Unfortunately its effect on Wyzhnyny of similar mass is far more profound. They are dying, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I doubt their own physicians could, working with their own life support system."

Weygand regarded the two Wyzhnyny glumly. And we paid eighteen marines for them, good men. Valiant Not many, by the standards of war, but they'd been his, in a manner of speaking. "I presume you can still salvage information from them."

"Valuable information. Subcutaneous injection of minute quantities of African bee venom has resulted in encouraging tissue responses. But unfortunately their capillary circulation is virtually nil." She gestured at the bank of small monitor screens, where thin lines of colored light jittered microscopically, or sparsely, or flowed smooth as oil. Esoteric numbers showed occasional small changes. "I have injected the brain of one," she continued, "but that is not analogous to venom reaching the brain systemically. I could learn far more with studies on specimens functioning at something approaching normal.

"Still, we are learning far more than we knew before. And through Madchen," she added, referring to the Bering's savant, "I am sharing our results with Dr. Minda Shiue, at the University of Baguio."

Weygand had heard of Dr. Shiue. The Nobel Committee might meet in Buenos Aires now, instead of Oslo, but its awards continued to shine. "Just now," Kalosgouros went on, "she is at War House, to help interpet our results. I believe they are sufficient that the African Bee Project will be continued."

"Thank you, Dr. Kalosgouros," Weygand said, bowing slightly. We do what we can, he added silently, recalling the cost.

Back on the bridge, he buzzed Dr. Clement and asked how the hornet venom chromatography was going. Her answer was gratifying. In important and surprising respects, Tagus hornet venom resembled that of Apis mellifera scutella. She was proceeding optimistically.