Chapter 3 - The Voices
Doc Damien frowned down at his thermometer. "Again please, Captain." he said, shaking it to cool down the mercury. Captain Jackson sighed, adjusting the blanket Wes had tucked around his shoulders. He coughed heavily and wetly, brought a tin cup to his lips and spat, his face the picture of distaste. Damien snatched the cup from him and peered inside, tilting it toward the lamp to see better. He sniffed at it.
"Again?" the Captain said, frowning at the bespectacled doctor. "Has it been different the past two times?" Raff and Wesley stood nervously side by side, the difference in their heights almost comical. Jackson smiled at them, noting the dark circles under everyone's eyes. "I'm fine," he insisted again. "It's just a cough, a cold. Some hot drinks and a good nights sleep, and I'll be right as rain." He coughed again, rubbed at his aching ribs.
Quietly insistent, Damien held out the thermometer. Jackson glowered at it, as if his current situation were all it's fault. Then he took it and stuck it under his tongue. "Honessthly, Damien," he spoke thickly around the glass tube, "All thith hubbub ith nonthenthse." He fumed the entire wait, angrily scratching at one of the bandages on his leg.
Finally, Damien held out his hand. Jackson handed him the thermometer. The doctor regarded it in limp hands for a long time in silence. He sighed. "Alright. Turn to the side, sir, and lift up your sweaters." Jackson obeyed, looking worried now. Damien pressed his ear to Jackson's back. "Take a deep breath, as deep as you can." Even Raff and Wes could hear how Jackson's breath rattled, how when he got to the deep part of the breath his face blanched and his breath hitched in pain. Damien closed his eyes. "Again." The Captain breathed deeply again, winced again.
Damien stepped back and removed his glasses. Jackson felt his heart drop as Damien regarded him with watery blue eyes. "Captain, sir. It's pneumonia. Your lungs are inflamed and filled with liquid. Your temperature is many degrees lower than normal. This is beyond my ability to treat with what's available to me. You need antibiotics, more than I have. I suggest we turn around and head for Undertown. There will be supplies there, maybe a more skilled doctor to treat you."
"But we're on the run from the Patrol," Raff said, dark eyes wide with disbelief. "Going to Undertown... they're sure to find us."
Sighing wearily, Damien continued. "We also need to think of Carson. He still hasn't awakened. His arm might have to be amputated. A more skilled doctor, maybe, could save it..."
Silent during all this, Captain Jackson suddenly stood. His men fell silent. "Damien," he began. "You are as skilled a doctor as any I've met. You've saved the lives of many of my crew. Are you certain that there's nothing you can do? For either of us?"
The diminutive doctor thought seriously for a time, tapping one of the lenses of his spectacles with a fingernail. "Yes. At best, my care would return Carson only limited use of his arm and hand. He'd always ache, and any delicate work would be beyond him. At worst, he'd lose the arm above the elbow. Both would hamper his work as Alex's assistant. And as for you, Captain... without a full battery of antibiotics, at least a few weeks worth, you will weaken and eventually die. Your body will starve for air. So many things could go wrong because of this... organ failure, septic blood, infections everywhere else... Believe me, sir. I wish I could help. But..." He spread his hands helplessly, and they trembled. He clasped them together to hide it.
Captain Jackson bowed his head, a few strands of his hair that had escaped his ponytail sticking to his sweaty neck. "Then we'll have to risk it. Raff, alter course. True east. Take us to Undertown."