"Don't look now," Paige whispered, passing him on the way out of the break room. "But you've got the entire chain of command heading your way."
"I beg your pardon?" Jahir asked.
"I'd get a prop if I were you," the Karaka'An added, grinning. "Give you something to do with your hands so you don't fidget." And then she was gone, leaving him staring after her.
...and then Radimir, Jiron and Grace Levine entered together, barely clearing the door like a blood clot squeezing through a particularly narrow capillary. They advanced on him, Levine in the lead wearing a look as coldly focused as a scalpel's edge. Or, he thought, chilled by the memory, a sword dripping blood on bare earth.
"Mister Jahir," Levine said, and the clipped speed of her voice did nothing to dispel the imagery. "Radimir here tells me you have a theory about the unresponsives."
It was difficult not to react to the ridiculousness of the form of address. Jahir wished he'd had time to get that cup, and settled for folding his arms, even knowing that the posture usually reflected a defensive frame of mind. And since she hadn't asked any question, he waited.
"You do have one, yes?" she asked, looking up at him.
"Yes. I did share that theory with him, and I presume he shared it with you?"
"But how can you be sure?" Levine asked. She held up a hand. "This is not an idle question. We need to fix this now."
The curtness of her delivery, the bald questions, the tension in her shoulders and jaw... he glanced at Radimir, who said, "We got in two more of them last night."
Jiron was nodding. "The emergency response team found them in the same house. In the same room, even. Which suggests they knew one another. So either they have similar enough lives to have been exposed to the same disease, or—"
"Or you're right," Levine said. "But if it is a disease, it's spreading and we have no idea how because it hasn't affected anyone here yet and we had the first case almost two weeks ago now." She looked up at him. "We went ahead and okayed the autopsy of the human, but we didn't find anything conclusive except that whatever it was did this made a complete wreck of his brain. Like part of it was sludge. So I want to know—" She leaned up on her toes. "How sure are you?"
"God and Lady," he said, hushed. "I don't know."
"Then your task for today," Levine said, "And your only task, because everyone else can do without you, is to see if you can glean anything from the bodies we've got in the beds now. Before they become corpses. I don't know how this esper thing of yours works and on a better day I might even care. But today, all that matters is your ability's given us one of the few clues we've got, and unless the police come back with something conclusive it might be the only thing we get. The uniforms are working on that apartment. You work on this."
"As you say," Jahir answered. "I will go directly."
"Good," she said, and left.
Radimir added, "She was serious. We can get along without you, all right? See what you can find out."
"Of course," he replied, but his spirit sank. The single clue he'd found had involved an accident—one that had also required him to be present in the mind of someone dying a violent death. He did not look forward to standing vigil over two more bodies, hoping to catch them in similar extremis. And yet, if there truly was nothing else....
He looked at Jiron. "Was the autopsy truly inconclusive?"
"Other than the damage?" Jiron shook his head. "There wasn't anything they could use. Usually you'd see something. Damage to the digestive tract, enlargement of the veins, scarring or significant damage to the nasal tissue or the skin... the ways you can take a drug are pretty limited, even these days. We should have seen something unless this stuff works so fast there's no time for that kind of wear to build up. And if that's the case...."
"You believe me," Jahir said suddenly.
Jiron nodded. "I do. Levine and I are both from Earth, but I come from a less fancy part of town. I've seen more drug cases than she has, and the pattern has me on edge. All young adults, all in similar types of clothing, suggesting a similar socioeconomic status... I can see this as some new drug being passed around at a party. But it could be a disease they're sharing instead. So..." He shrugged. "We need more evidence. You're a long shot, but sometimes it's the long ones that pay off."
"I shall do my best."
And if there was nothing? He went to the first room and found a comatose young woman: another of the Asanii, calico-patched like the woman who'd served him gelato on Seersana week after week. A little more orange than black on her, but the resemblance disturbed him. He stretched his senses out and found her aura close and hard, like armor against his invasion, and wondered what he could hope to learn. They had sentenced him to a death vigil on these hapless innocents, and for what? For the slimmest hope that he might hear something from them in their minds' last frenzied exhalations?
His eyes strayed to her brow. Levine's description of the deceased's brain clung to him. Had it really been so gruesome? He had to imagine so; she didn't seem the sort to resort to hyperbole in a situation this grave.
Jahir sighed and folded his hands on his lap, closing his eyes and forcing himself to concentrate; to extend himself, even knowing what awaited him if he succeeded.
It was, however, a very disappointing shift. He gathered nothing from the patients, and when at last he dragged himself from the stool and made his way carefully to the break room, he found Levine having an agitated discussion with Jiron while Radimir looked on. His entrance caused them all to fall silent, and then Levine said, "Well?"
"Nothing," he said. "I feel nothing when they are quiescent, so. It is only..." He drew in a breath and finished, "It is only as they are dying that I have an opportunity."
"Radclifte Clinic by the port has two other cases, and they're both more advanced," Levine said. "Maybe—"
"Doctor," Jiron growled, but she talked over him.
"—go see if they have anything for you—"
"You are not sending him across the city to play vulture there when he's just spent eight hours doing it here," Jiron exclaimed. "For God's sake, he's got Mediger Syndrome!"
"It's not like he'd have to walk there," Levine said, caustic.
Jiron looked at Radimir, who flattened his ears and said, "I can't support anything that would constitute a physical danger to someone I'm responsible for. He might be a student resident, Doctor, but the operative word there is 'student.'"
Levine met Jahir's eyes across the room and the force of her regard pinned him by the door. "Well? Ignore your nursemaids and make your own decision."
"I was not aware there was one to be made," Jahir said. "You have asked me to attempt to learn what there is to learn from our patients—"
"I asked you to help us get to the bottom of this," she said. "And you have a better chance of it if you keep trying."
"I fear I do no one any good if I collapse," he said, voice growing rough. He cleared his throat and said, "Doctor Levine. I will do everything in my power."
"See that you do," she said. She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes, composing herself. Then said, "I apologize, alet. This is just... a very serious situation. Normally our department wouldn't be involved in anything like this, in fact. Except that..."
"...I brought you information you might not have otherwise had," he finished.
"Yes," Levine said. "And there's some pressure from above for us to keep giving them something they can use. If you're tired, of course, go get some rest. Just... keep the gravity of the situation in mind."
"I assure you, Doctor, the gravity of the situation is the first thing on it."
She nodded and smiled at him, a look more frazzled than reassuring; he valued it for the genuine vulnerability in it anyway. "All right. I'll be by to talk to you tomorrow."
He watched her leave and was still staring after her when Jiron said behind him, "Don't worry. We'll run interference for you."
Jahir turned from the door to find the human watching him, arms folded and one hand clasping his elbow. "I beg your pardon?"
"I don't think even I got that one," Radimir said to Jiron. "And I know what you meant."
"She's right when she says we don't normally get dragged into things like this, at least, not this early in the process. They usually call us in to help manage the psychological aspects once they know what's going on and have a plan for dealing with it," Jiron said. "Having people beating down her door asking her to magic up more clues has made her nervy. But Radimir and I are here to oversee your education, and we're not going to forget our responsibility to your health and wellbeing. All right?"
"All right," Jahir said, subdued.
"Just remember the first duty of a healer," Radimir said.
"Do no harm?" Jahir asked.
"Don't become one of the casualties."