“Slug-sting,” Blackstone said. “Big bugger—twice the size of any I’d seen before. Tentacles twenty centimeters long, maybe more, at least as thick as my thumb….” He might have continued if Kriefmann hadn’t interrupted him.

“Get back out there nowand find the thing,” Kriefmann said. “Be as careful as you need to be, but get it back here alive. Use a thick bag to transport it, but get it into the biocontainment unit as soon as you can.”

Blackstone obeyed immediately, running back into the corridor as soon as he had cleared a way to the door by thrusting Dulcie Gherardesca—who had come in behind the doctor—firmly aside. Kriefmann took up a position beside Matthew, bending over his patient anxiously.

It was obvious to Matthew, even at first glance, that the wounds were serious. They were clustered on the outside of the right thigh, from just above the knee to halfway to the hip. The ragged edges of the smartsuit had not yet had a chance to begin healing—but that seemed to be as well, given that Kriefmann was armed with a pair of tweezers, which he was already using to pull alien tissue out of the wounds.

Dulcie Gherardesca scrambled past Matthew to fetch a plastic petri dish in which the doctor could deposit the tissue.

“If it’s new,” Kriefmann said to Dulcie, “I’ll need a toxin profile as quickly as possible. Where’s Tang? He’ll have to take care of it while Maryanne’s out of action.”

Matthew and Ikram Mohammed both opened their mouths to tell the doctor that Tang Dinh Quan was with Solari, but they shut them again as soon as they observed that it was no longer true. Lynn Gwyer had arrived before him, but she was already moving aside to make way for the biochemist. Vince Solari was bringing up the rear.

“Here,” the doctor said, as he handed the dish to Tang. “Get started on these sting-cell fragments. Now.”

Tang Dinh Quan was as quick to respond as Blackstone had been, seizing and covering the petri dish without further ado and heading off in another direction, presumably racing for his lab. Matthew took a certain comfort from the way in which the team had suddenly reassembled itself, setting aside the disagreements of the preceding day. Faced with an emergency, these people were perfectly capable of working together, all on the same side.

“How bad is it likely to be?” Matthew asked Ikram Mohammed, not wanting to distract the doctor, who was still busy with the tweezers and a replacement Petri dish provided by Dulcie Gherardesca.

“I don’t know,” the genomicist replied. “That’s a bad wound—worse than any I’ve seen. On the other hand, most of the tentacled slugs are very closely related—differentiation into species isn’t anywhere near as clear here as it is on Earth—and the differences between their toxins are usually slight. Our existing antisera ought to be able to help Maryanne’s IT suppress the symptoms. Even if it is a genuinely new variety, using poisons we haven’t met before, her IT should have enough capacity to keep her going until Tang can do a full analysis and come back with a plan for more precise countermeasures.”

“The worst-case scenario is that it might take a couple of days to synthesize antitoxins and her IT might have to put her into a protective coma,” Lynn Gwyer put in. “We have the know-how to counter local toxins—we even have the fundamental components of a Tyre-biochemistry protein manufactory, thanks to Tang—but we don’t have Base One’s facilities. Unfortunately, while Maryanne’s incapacitated we won’t have the benefit of her toxicological expertise.”

“I’m going to give her a shot,” Kriefmann announced to his rapt audience. “Got to relax her muscles. Her IT can take care of the pain, but it doesn’t have the facilities to deal with this kind of reaction.”

“Are you sure it won’t do any harm?” Dulcie Gherardesca asked, anxiously.

“No, I’m not,” said Kriefmann, “But the symptoms are consistent with the smaller wounds I’ve treated before, so it ought to be okay. Keep hold of her, will you.”

“It’s okay,” Ikram Mohammed assured the doctor. The convulsions were not so emphatic now, and Matthew modified his grip so as to put less pressure on the arm.

Kriefmann left the room. Worried glances were exchanged but no one spoke. They were all waiting anxiously. The doctor came back two minutes later with two sterile packs in his right hand, each containing a liquiject syringe. His left was clutching a handful of plastic bottles. Kriefmann scattered the bottles on the tabletop in order to free the hand that held them, then liberated the first syringe. He filled the liquiject from one of the bottles and positioned the head of the nozzle above a blue vein that showed on the inner side of Maryanne Hyder’s left forearm.

When he pressed the button, his patient’s whole body jerked in response. Matthew hoped that it was a reflex born of fear rather than a physical response to the injected drug.

The spasms in Maryanne’s muscles began to die down almost immediately, and Matthew let the arm he was holding go limp. He let go of it, wondering if all the convulsions might have been the result of a psychological response rather than a physiological one.

One final frisson seemed to release the toxicologist’s tongue. She began to swear, and then to babble. “God, I’m sorry,” she said, when she finally obtained sufficient control over herself to string a coherent sentence together. “I never saw it—carrying those boxes in my arms—so careless.”

“It’s okay, Maryanne,” Kriefmann replied. “It could have happened to anyone.”

“They’ve been creeping closer since we established the test plantings,” Ikram Mohammed told Matthew. “They’re just like the slugs back home in one respect—they take it for granted that everything gardeners do is for their benefit.” Then he turned back to Maryanne Hyder. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “Rand should have seen it if he was where he was supposed to be, leading the way.”

“You know Rand,” the stricken woman replied, in a thicker and slower tone. “He was in the lead all right, but he was carrying three times as much as me, all piled up. Couldn’t have seen a pitfall full of sharpened stakes.”

“Don’t go to sleep if you can help it, Maryanne,” Kriefmann went on. “Stay with us, if you can. Get a grip on your IT—don’t let it slip you into a coma.” While he was speaking he had been preparing a second shot. This time he positioned the nozzle halfway up Maryanne’s thigh, just above the topmost wound in the cluster. Matthew hadn’t seen him look for a vein, but he presumed that this must be the antitoxin and that he intended to spread it generously around the afflicted tissue as well as the circulatory system.

This time, the woman did not react to the shot. Her Internal Technology had damped out all feeling in the damaged tissue—but she was fighting its wider effects, as she had been instructed. Her IT didn’t know that she needed to retain consciousness, but she knew.

“Hang in there,” Kriefmann advised. “The antitoxin will kick in any second, if it’s up to the job. Once it does, your IT will register the effect and begin to ease up. Keep talking, if you can. You’ve met Matthew Fleury, haven’t you? He’s our new ecological genomicist.” Kriefmann knew perfectly well that Maryanne already knew that, but he obviously felt that he had to keep talking himself and didn’t know what else to say. “Mr. Solari’s been asking us questions,” he went on. “He’ll want to talk to you as soon as possible—which might not be the best reason in the world to stay awake, but …” He stopped as soon as he saw that the woman on the table was trying to say something in reply.

“I’m sorry,” was what she said, as her distressed gaze flickered between left and right, probably without bringing either Matthew or Solari into clearer focus. “You must think I’m sostupid.”

“Maybe it was a step too far in the study of local toxins,” Matthew murmured, “but everyone seems to think you’ve done your job well enough in the past to save yourself now. It could have happened to anyone. Vince and I wouldn’t even have known what to look out for. Take it easy.” He touched her arm again, but merely by way of reassurance. He was satisfied that there was no further need for restraint.