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The affable captain tipped his baseball cap back at Cabrillo, grinning broadly because of the thick sheaf ofJuan’s party to where the freighter loitered just outside Naood distance fro northward, ersatz sle funnel

Geoffrey Merrick had been hoisted onto the deck in a medical basket Julia Huxley was already hunched over hi in a hardened pool of oil Under it she wore blood-sether wounded men since the first moment the container Max had used to transfer the soldiers to the ship had been opened With her were two orderlies standing by to bring Merrick down to surgery, but she wanted to do an assessment as quickly as possible

A blindfolded Susan Donleavy had been escorted to the ship’s brig by Mike, Ski, and Eddie as soon as she’d set foot on the Oregon It was plain to see that the fact that no one had said a word to her since Juan had nabbed her in the desert earing on her

“What do you think, Doc?” Juan asked when Julia pulled her stethoscope from Merrick’s bare chest

“Lungs are clear but his heartbeat’s weak” She glanced at the saline drip bag one of her people was holding above Merrick’s prone foret soo after the bullet that’s still in the wound I don’t like that he’s unconscious”

“Could it be the heroin they gave him back at the Devil’s Oasis?”

“It should be out of his syste a fever and the wound looks infected I need to get him on antibiotics”

“What about the others? Moses Ndebele?”

Her eyes clouded over “I lost two of theo The others wereas no one shows an infection they should be fine Moses is a bloody ht separate pieces of bone on his X-ray before I gave up If he’s going to keep it we need to get him to an orthopedic specialist within a couple of days”

Cabrillo nodded, but said nothing

“How are you doing?” Hux asked him

“I feel worse than I look,” Juan said with a tired smile

“Then you must feel like crap, because you look like hell”

“Is that your official nosis?”

Julia pressed her pal a child for a fever “Yup” She motioned for her people to lift Merrick’s stretcher and started for the nearest hatch “I’ll be below if you need me”