Chapter 79: Berth Six, Still Warm

Forty-three minutes after Elias forbade anyone to turn the route into another chase, Doctor Alder signed her reassessment.

She kept one hand beside Bed Two’s airway tubing while the other moved across the slate. Neral witnessed the time, checked the monitor, and added his own mark before the ink dried.

Bed Two remained unconscious and unable to protect their airway. The UI3-S17 stabilizer had improved the rhythm, but not enough for Alder to trust the change unattended. She and Neral maintained the same division as before: one watched the patient, the other the equipment, and neither left without a documented replacement.

Elias’s leg had been rebraced from ankle to thigh. Pressure still reached his toes. Sensation did so selectively and, in his opinion, with poor professional discipline.

Alder tested the edge of numbness again.

“You remain in the chair,” she said.

“I had gathered that from the straps.”

“You do not stand at Ward Five.”

“I can make disastrous decisions while seated.”

“That is the concern.”

Mara folded her arms. “He stays behind my working line. If the chair crosses it, I send him back.”

Elias looked at the cleared instrument table, where Hessa had arranged the untouched cold dose, the warm-return sample, and the sealed puncture swab.

“Accepted.”

Mara waited.

“Your medical line,” he added. “Your authority.”

Only then did she nod.

Alder authorized the deployment without releasing Neral. She and Neral would remain with Bed Two, maintaining continuous airway and equipment watch. Tovan paired their slate with his own so Alder could hear every statement at Ward Five and interrupt if the patient’s condition changed.

Hessa sent two guards ahead only after recording their names and purpose. They were not to detain anyone or open anything. One would hold the public ward entrance. The other would stand at the night dispensary door until Hessa arrived.

The rest of the party relocated together.

Tovan pushed Elias’s evacuation chair because Elias refused the ward orderly and Mara refused to let him use the wheels himself. Cassian carried the restricted routing map in its case. Hessa kept the samples on her person. No evidence traveled out of sight of the paired slate.

Ward Five was fully occupied when they arrived.

Medicinal steam hung beneath the low ceiling. Damp stone gave the room a permanent chill, while the treatment lamps made the central aisle too warm. Ink, boiled linen, and bitter respiratory salts competed in the air. Behind the nurses’ station, a painted pipe entered the wall beside a cabinet marked NIGHT DISPENSARY—CLOSED.

The pipe was warm.

So was the anger waiting around it.

Charge Nurse Brin Sol had assembled six night workers beneath Hessa’s instruction, though she objected to the word assembled.

“You posted guards at both doors,” Brin said. “That is detention with better grammar.”

“No one is detained,” Elias replied. Tovan stopped his chair behind Mara’s marked working line. “Anyone may leave after giving their name and destination.”

“And find ourselves suspended by morning?”

“That part would be worse grammar.”

A few workers looked at Cassian. None laughed.

Dispensary clerk Leth Arven stood with ink on two fingers and fear showing through an effort at indignation. Beside him, maintenance attendant Kett Dorr kept glancing at the supposedly inactive cabinet.

Hessa opened the record. “Who uses that dispensary?”

“No one,” Brin said.

“Night stock is counted there,” Leth said at the same moment.

Silence followed.

Brin turned on him. “Stock is counted in the outer cabinet.”

“Usually.”

“You told me the inner room was sealed.”

“I said I did not hold its key.”

Kett rubbed his palms against his work apron. “The feed is still warm.”

Brin’s attention shifted. “You reported it dead.”

“I reported the gauge dead. The line pulses after second bell.”

“How often?”

“Not every night.”

Leth said, “Every sixth night.”

Kett shook his head. “Fourth or sixth. Depends on the treatment board.”

“You know the treatment board?” Mara asked.

“I repair its lamp.”

“You just described its schedule.”

Kett’s mouth closed.

Fear moved through the assembled staff more quickly than accusation. One junior nurse asked whether they were being investigated for poisoning Bed Two. Another demanded to know whether the whole ward would lose treatment access. Brin said they had three respiratory patients due before midnight and would not let outsiders close a line on the strength of a hidden map.

“Good,” Elias said. “You should not.”

That answer unsettled them more than a threat would have.

Cassian placed the restricted map beneath Hessa’s glass. The public plan ended at Berth Six. The restricted version showed a concealed descent into Ward Five’s night dispensary, officially closed nine years earlier.

Brin stared at the date. “I have worked here seven years.”

“Leth?” Hessa asked.

“Five.”

“Kett?”

“Eleven,” he admitted.

“And the line was warm when you arrived?”

Kett looked at the guards, then at Cassian. “Yes.”

“Why was that absent from your maintenance reports?”

“It was not absent from the reports I submitted.”

Cassian’s expression did not change. “To which office?”

“Ward Works.”

“Under what classification?”

Kett swallowed. “Continuity reserve.”

Cassian looked down at the map. “That classification does not lawfully apply to an inactive treatment feed.”

No one mistook the statement for absolution.

Before opening the cabinet, Mara completed the comparison in view of the assembled staff. Hessa broke the custody wraps. Tovan copied each seal onto both slates, allowing Alder to authenticate the bedside samples remotely.

The untouched cold dose remained silver beneath reagent.