Maxence wasn’t a lawyer, but he’d been trained in rhetoric by the Jesuits when he got his doctorate in theology. He knew the answer to his question before he asked it. “Has a study been performed that shows highly technological micro-clinics will reduce premature infant mortality in far-rural areasanywhere?”
Alfonso sputtered, “Surely, there has to be. If a premature baby is born near a NICU and placed in an incubator, the baby has a better chance of survival. Incubators save premature babies.”
“If a premature baby has access to an incubator and trained medical personnel in a hospital setting, yes, their chances of survival increase. But that’s an entirely different situation than we are confronted with here.” Maxence flung his arm sideways, indicating the vast, dark expanse of the Himalayan mountain range at night. “There are no doctors here. Dree is the first trained medical professional some of these people have seen in decades or their whole lives. Who is going to staff these NICU micro-clinics?”
Alfonso said, “We haven’t reached that part of the project yet.”
Maxence said, “I wasn’t aware that the project had a budget for ongoing, long-term medical professionals to staff these micro-clinics. How many physicians or surgeons do you think are going to move to these remote stations and stand ready for the one infant who is born prematurely in this area per year?”
Alfonso said, “Once the micro-clinics are built, we can raise money to staff them. In the meantime, at least they willexist.”
Maxence caught Dree’s gaze. She was watching their exchange with wide eyes and eating without pause. If she’d been sitting in a movie theater, she would have been shoveling popcorn into her mouth.
Father Booker and Batsa were casually chewing their food. Booker shrugged when he saw that Maxence had looked over at him.
They had known that staffing and resupplying would be problems.
Isaak was staring down at his plate and frowning, using his fork to stab a rehydrated carrot. This argument may have been a revelation for him.
Later that night, Maxence waited while Dree went back to her tent for her nightly sponge bath and self-care. Luckily for all of them, she’d turned the flashlight away from herself while she was washing up, thus avoiding putting Maxence and the other men in a moral dilemma that they had passed last time, but barely.
There had been no more discussion about the establishment of the NICU micro-clinics. Indeed, everybody seemed to be stringently avoiding the conversation. Instead, they discussed the probable schedule for the rest of the trip.
Batsa pulled out a map and shone his flashlight on it as they traced the meandering path that they would take through the Himalayas.
He mentioned, “If we need to buy more supplies, there are alternate roads from these mountain communities that would be a straight shot down into the larger town where the airport was, Chandannath. We could stay at that inn again that had the delightful hot showers.”
Alfonso added, “Chandannath has a medical college that trains doctors, nurses, and technicians. Since they have one of the larger medical schools in Nepal right here, why aren’t there more doctors and technicians out in these hill villages?”
Batsa raised his head from the map and stared at Alfonso. “Because maybe they prefer running water and better medical support services in Chandannath and the other larger towns.”
Maxence kept his mouth closed and stole a glance back at Dree’s tent, which was dark except for a tiny pinprick of light in one corner. “Looks like it’s safe. I’ll see you guys in the morning.”
After his quick crawl into the pup tent and undressing as silently as possible, he slipped into his mummy bag and zipped it up to his face.
The tent was significantly colder than it had been on previous days, and even the few minutes of being underdressed in the icy air had chilled him.
Luckily, Maxence was mostly muscle, and he warmed up within a minute or two of zipping up the bag.
The frosty air snapped at his exposed cheekbones and nose.
Dree asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah, I warmed up as soon as I zipped up my sleeping bag.”
“Yeah, it’s getting colder as we climb in altitude. I had to break out one of the hand-warmer packs that Father Moses packed for me in Paris to warm up tonight. But I meant about arguing with Alfonso about the micro-clinics.”
“Oh, that. Alfonso and I have known each other for years. We went to school together. That wasn’t an argument. That was just a discussion about what’s best. We both want what is best for the people who live up here. We just have differing opinions about what to do about it. He’s not going to throw a rock at my motorcycle or anything.”
Dree laughed. “I don’t know, man. He looked pretty pissed when everybody wasn’t going along with exactly what he said.”
“Alfonso wouldn’t try to murder me over this. Now, stuff that happened in high school,that’swhere a motive for murder might come from.”
She giggled prettily, and Maxence had a hard time not falling into the rabbit hole of his memory of her sunny smile, her flashing eyes, and her jiggling tits. She said, “It always surprises me when the motive for murder isn’t something that happened in high school.”
“Indeed, and boarding school is ten times worse than day school, I assure you.”
“Did any murders happen at your boarding school?”
