They reached the med bay, and Ritter was already there, with two gurneys ready for them, restraints attached to the sides for wrists and ankles.
Ethan submitted to it, getting on the raised bed and allowing himself to be restrained, watching as they did the same to Velda.
There wasn’t any choice, and every time a laz was aimed his way, his heart seemed to want to beat its way out of his chest, and his breathing got short.
“Right.” As soon as they were secured, Ritter seemed to relax, setting his screen down on a high shelf, and then taking a standard vitals monitor and checking first Velda, then himself.
“You’re obviously showing signs of not having eaten, but otherwise . . .” He frowned at the screen, and worried his lower lip. “Take them to have some breakfast, then bring them back,” he said to the guards, and walked out, screen still lighting his face.
The one guard made a face at the other at the curt order. Then they did the usual dance of one holding the laz, while the other got them off the gurneys, got restraints back around their wrists, and then marched them ahead to the mess.
“How are you feeling?” Ethan asked Velda quietly as they sat down at the same table they’d had before, waiting for someone to bring them something to eat.
Velda’s gaze, which had been sweeping the room, snapped to his face. “Surprisingly fine,” she said.
So, the same as him.
Something had worried Ritter, and it sounded like it was the lack of change in their vitals, not a difference, that had concerned him.
They ate with their hands still secured, which made things difficult, but not impossible.
The jah tasted good, hot and fragrant, and he savored it, surprised it was as good as this in a small ship’s canteen.
Velda seemed to be enjoying it as much as him, and she’d eaten everything on her plate, which she hadn’t yesterday. Like him, she must be wondering when their next meal would be.
The guards shepherded them back to the med bay, and Ethan stopped abruptly when he saw what was waiting for them.
“What is it?” Velda pressed up against him, then went still as she saw it, too.
The black box from the day before.
“Back on the beds,” Ritter said, pointing.
Ethan watched the scientist with narrowed eyes as he and then Velda were secured again, then blindfolded.
The guards were ordered out, and once again, he felt the sensation of something small, round and cold land in the hollow of his throat and then disappear.
The door opened a moment later. “Ritter.”
Ritter had been standing beside him, and Ethan sensed him turning.
“Captain.” He sounded annoyed. “I’m in the middle?—”
“I know, but what are you up to?” The captain’s voice sounded incredulous and accusatory.
Ritter sighed. “Come talk to me in the dispensary.”
He moved away, and Ethan heard the captain step inside, and the door closed behind him, and then another door opened.
Ethan had noticed it yesterday, a narrow door at the back.
“You all right?” he whispered to Velda.
“Yes, you?”
“Same as before.” He heard voices, muted by the dispensary door, but suddenly they seemed to become clearer, and he turned his head toward the sound.
“They’re the fifth ones to get the balls, and it may be they can only be used so many times,” Ritter was saying.
