But the moment passed and she returned to the chair and resumed reading. She was working her way through the diaries of her family, starting with the First Landing couple who’d established the Double Comets ranch. He tried to maintain his focus on the events because he was interested in the subject and in her family’s past, but mostly because he craved her attention and hoped he could regain enough control to speak to her again before her shift ended. Trent and the doc were quietly capable and they spoke to him at times, but not like Tamsyn did.
Chapter Seven
Dr. Jericho had called a meeting. Tamsyn had come to regard the woman almost as a split personality in some respects—she was Melly most of the time, a friendly, approachable person who Tamsyn liked very much. But on occasion she was all doctor, professional from her head to her toes and came across cold and clinical. Tamsyn supposed that aspect of Melly was focused on doing the best she could for her patients but today she dreaded seeing it. In fact, she sat at her own dining room table with her fists clenched tight in her lap. A steaming cup of synthcaff sat in front of her but she’d only brewed it to cover her nerves while she waited for the team to assemble.
Tamsyn was sure Dr. Jericho was going to tell them she’d done all she could for Cody and it was time to give him grace and let him pass peacefully. She for one wasn’t going to accept the verdict without a huge, knockdown drag out fight. Cody was holding his own—she saw it for herself each time her caretaking shift came up—and she wasn’t going to let these people kill him out of a misplaced sense of mercy. This was her ranch goddamnit and while she didn’t fool herself she could win a fight against their superior firepower, she was going to order them off her land and stay here by herself forever. She’d die a lonely old maid surrounded by her horses and cattle, or maybe in an attack of the infected someday but she wouldn’t breathe the same air as Cody’s executioners.
The doctor waited until Jeff came in and sat at her right hand. She was at the head of the table as it was her meeting. Zach was the only one missing and he was on guard duty in the bunkhouse. Tamsyn guessed he was listening in on the secret communications link they all shared. Mike was there too, which surprised Tamsyn but she supposed a boy had to grow up fast in this world they had now. He was glancing around the table, ill at ease. Buddy sat on the floor beside him and nudged his knee every so often.
“Cody’s holding his own so far,” Dr. Jericho said. “In my medical opinion that’s all he’s doing though. His nanobots have fought the virus to a standoff. It’s still active in the wound and the black streaks advance and recede as we’ve all seen. He’s unconscious most of the time, thankfully and not in any pain but continues running a fever. It’s not as high as it was, but it never goes below 101 either. We can keep him hydrated with the infusions and we can give him nutrients as we’ve been doing.”
“But?” Jeff asked.
“He’s not going to get better. He isn’t going to wake up one morning and have beaten the virus,” she said bluntly.
Tamsyn opened her mouth to speak up but Dr. Jericho held up her hand. “I see several of you with questions or disagreement and I ask your indulgence to allow me to finish what I have to say first.” She waited a beat and as no one spoke, she continued. “If we simply switch to maintenance mode, I believe the virus will eventually win. It’ll take much longer than it does for an ordinary human obviously but Cody’s systems will weaken in other ways and the virus will seize the opportunity.”
“Tell me you have a suggestion.” A muscle twitched in Jeff’s clenched jaw. “Other than my marching to the bunkhouse after this meeting and giving him mercy.” The captain had made it clear from the first moment the APC returned he and he alone would take Cody’s life if it became necessary.
“Actually, I do.” The doctor wiped her hand across her face and shoved a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “The lecturers and professors glossed over treatment of cyborgs in medical school because they never expected any of us to ever see one. I dug out my oldest notes from the one session we did have and among the doodles I’d written down one thing. The professor made a joke about it, that there was actually one old fashioned nostrum we could give a high tech top secret cyborg to help him or her, should we ever run across one in our practice. It’s an old immune system booster called freyquitanal and there were a few experiments which showed it could provide extra energy to a cyborg’s nanobots.”
There was a ripple of reaction from those seated at the table.
“My hope is if we can obtain this old drug, Cody’s nanobots could use the stuff to turbocharge themselves and rid his body of the virus altogether instead of merely holding it at bay.” Melly—because she was in the non-doctor mode now—sipped her tea.
“We don’t have any in the cache of drugs we lifted from the hospital in the capital city?” Jeff asked. “I’m sure we couldn’t be so lucky.”
Melly shook her head. “As I said, it’s an old drug, out of favor with modern medicine. There are others which do the job and are recommended but unfortunately their ingredients don’t affect cyborgs the way the freyquitanal formulation does.”
“So we’re talking another trip to New Damarkal, to the hospital?” Trent asked. “That place was a nightmare in the capital city. We barely made it out alive, doc.”
“I remember. The problem is I’m not sure we can find this drug. A big modern hospital might not have carried it at all as it’s rarely prescribed.”
“Can we mix it up ourselves?” Jeff asked. “Get the ingredients and cook it in Tamsyn’s kitchen?”
Melly chuckled and the captain frowned.
“I’m serious,” he said. “Anything to help Cody.”
“I doubt it. I’m fairly certain there were proprietary compounds in it and of course it was all made offworld. I’m sorry to be offering a faint hope and then clouding the issue.”
“So it’s an old remedy?” Tamsyn said. “Modern doctors wouldn’t prescribe it?”
“Right.” Melly eyed her. “What’s on your mind?”
“Doc Ortenbe, who used to be our local physician in Rosewater, was pretty damn old fashioned. He had all kinds of syrups and pills and whatnot he liked to use. He never went so far as to say newfangled medicines weren’t any good but he liked to say the old ones worked damn fine and why change something that worked.” Tamsyn smiled at the memory of the somewhat cantankerous old doctor, who’d died of a heart attack in his inundated ER when the workload from the Western Flu grew too huge and hopeless.
“You think he might have prescribed freyquitanal on occasion?” Jeff’s question was eager.
“I can’t say. He never offered it to me or my ranch hands but no one here was ever seriously sick before…before the flu.” She swallowed hard. “I’m saying we need to take a trip to Rosewater and check out his office. He kept quite a stock of his favorite medicines there to hand out to his patients. We can also try the pharmacy since the manager carried the drugs he asked them to have in inventory. Last resort we could try the hospital but like you were saying about the capital, the hospital got really chaotic and I imagine got looted by the guy who set himself up as a warlord.” She paused to consider any other ideas and added, “Last last resort, I could direct you to certain houses where his elderly, most infirm patients lived. He might have given it to one or two of them if it was a system booster.”
“Make us a list of the places we need to go and we’ll leave within the hour,” Jeff told her.
Tamsyn shook her head. “I’m going with you.”
* * *
Later in the day, in Rosewater…
