We should supply them with bicycles or skateboards, Clemens thought. This place is bloody enormous. Although a palace here was far more than a king's house; it held warehouses, barracks, armories, libraries, and office space for most of the civil service as well.

"Here is the birthing chamber," one of the eunuchs said.

Clemens's nose and ears had warned him. Most of the palace smelled slightly of wool and people, with an underlying hint of wood-smoke and incense. Now he could detect sickroom odors-sweat, blood, urine. Two smooth-cheeked guards brought their spears up, then lowered them uncertainly as the escorting eunuchs waved them aside.

The room within was not very large but crowded. Mostly with women and eunuchs, although he recognized a few bearded figures in the fringed shawls of priests, and others who were probably priestesses. They flickered across his consciousness without much impact. It was the naked figure on the birthing stool that caught and held all his focus.

Too young, he thought at once; fifteen, possibly a little more. Thin, and slender in the hips, so that the swollen belly showed all the more plainly. A ripple went across it as he watched, but the girl was too far gone to scream. Blood dribbling down between her legs, but not the arterial gushing that would mean it was too late-

"Out! " he roared, turning on the small mob of spectators and flushing them out the door, nearly pushing when they jammed. "Smith, Kelantora"-to his assistants-"get her up on that!"

"That" was a table off to one side; he grabbed it and dragged it into the center of the room. A cloth from one of his bags went over it, and he glanced around. No time to transfer her. We'll have to do it here. God help us, what a germ farm.

It was then that he noticed a third figure helping transfer the panting, sweat-slick figure of the girl to the table. A woman, gaunt-faced under a plain headdress but young, in her twenties; a big hooked nose and receding chin, huge dark eyes. In a long robe with a shawl pinned over it, stained with blood and fluids that also splashed her strong, long-fingered hands.

"Who are you?" he snapped. "The midwife?"

Level black eyes looked at him. "No," she said. "The sabsutu"- midwife-"and the ashipu"-sorcerer, his mind prompted, or witch doctor-"have left. I am an asu."

That meant "physician," or as close as Akkadian came to having a word for it. Extremely unusual for a woman to claim such a title, but she couldn't be lying, not here in the royal palace. Of course, a witch doctor had higher prestige; to a Babylonian's way of thinking, physical treatments were superficial, a mere tending of symptoms. Only a supernatural approach got at the root causes of illness.

"I am an asu as well, of the Nantukhtar, the Eagle People," he said, as he laid out his instruments on another sterile cloth. "The king has asked me to save this woman's life."

"That cannot be done," the Babylonian woman said flatly. "The child is misaligned and cannot be turned-the midwife tried, and she is skilled in her craft. The woman will surely die within three hours."

Clemens looked up. He found not the cool indifference the tone suggested, but an utter and burning frustration.

"Perhaps, and perhaps not. Do you wish to help?" he said. She nodded, a single sharp gesture. "Then you must obey my orders without argument." Another nod. "First, go tell them that I need water. Water in bronze vessels, several of them, heated until it boils-have them put more on the fire and keep it boiling until I need it. And clean cloth-boil the cloth too, first. And wash-rub this on yourself, wash in the boiled water, and dress in this. Put this mask across your mouth. Hurry.'"

The operation that followed was a nightmare that he never remembered very clearly, except for an occasional question-questions that somehow didn't distract him, that soothed his mind away from gibbering panic and allowed his training to move his fingers.

Tapping the hypodermic…

"What is that?"

"An extract of poppyseed. It banishes pain and makes the patient sleep… Smith, is the autoclave heating?"

" Yessir." The safety valve hissed, and the assistant swung it off the charcoal brazier with tongs and popped it open.

"You will use the sipir bel imti?"

His Akkadian seemed to improve under stress; "the way of cutting with sharp bronze" came through easily.

"Yes. The child must be removed from the womb."

"Then the girl must die, as I said?"

"No. Although it may happen."

The first incision, and the skin peeling back from the cut like saran wrap under tension. Smith and Kelantora setting up the saline drip…

"What is that?"

"Very pure water with salt and a few other things. It replaces some of the blood lost during an operation. Blood is better, but it must be matched or it will be poison." He switched to English. "Smith, type her. We might luck out. And type her, too. I don't like the way the hemorrhage is increasing."

Deeper, through the subcutaneous fat. Clamps, the cut held back with extensors, sutures for the spurting veins-clamp and tie off…

"What is that?"

"Catgut-thread made from sheep intestine. Kelantora, get the extensor in here-and move that lamp closer, I need to see what I'm doing."

The Babylonian woman picked up a cloth and imitated Smith, swabbing off his forehead to keep sweat from dripping into the working area.

"Will such a wound not rot, even if she does not die at once?"

"Infection is caused by very small animals, too small to see with the eye-you need instruments such as we have. If you kill the animals with disinfectants-cleansing medicines-the wound will heal cleanly."

"Invisible demons?"

"No! Animals-no more demons than you or I. Just smaller than a mote of dust." In English, "Ahhh, got it!"

Christ, he thought, as the flow of blood increased. The muscles were still contracting, and they must have torn one of the veins toward the cervix.

"Clamp, clamp!"

"Sir, she's type O-positive," Smith said, bending over his kit. God, what'll we do when those run out? They were working on substitutes, back on the Island. "So's the local."

"Good. You-what's your name?"

"Azzu-ena daughter of Mutu-Hadki, the asu of the palace."

"Azzu-ena, we need blood to transfer to this girl's veins. Yours is of the correct type. Will you give of your blood? It will not harm you and it may save her."

A very slight hesitation, and the Babylonian touched the unconscious girl's forehead. "Yes," she said.

"Good. Get up here. Bare your right arm. Kelantora, get her set up, stat! Azzu-ena, squeeze this with your right hand until we tell you to stop."

At last he reached in and lifted the small form out, hands clearing the mouth and nose. Then one further incision…

"What is that?"

"The uterus-the womb. Better to remove it. She can't bear children normally after this, anyway, and it's less likely to get infected that way."

And… oh, hell, sometimes there's no substitute for tradition.

A swift slap, and a thin, reedy wail.

"Out!" he roared again, as heads poked through the doorway. He handed the baby over to Smith and began the long, delicate process of closing the incisions. When the last running stitch was done his hands began to shake; they always did, and this time worse than usual. The assistants painted the area with a surface disinfectant.

"What is that?"

The Babylonian's voice was as calm and abstract as it had been that first time as he drew another hypo.

"A cleansing medicine. It kills the small animals I spoke of, in the blood."

A crude form of penicillin they'd finally stumbled on in the Year 4. It worked-far better than antibiotics did up in the twentieth- although God alone knew how long that would last.

Siemens gently covered the girl, then checked pulse and temperature. "She may make it," he said in slow wonder.