The pain killer had begun to work on Jamie. As the hurt in his arm eased he was able to pay more attention to the other occupants of the floater. Jeannie sat beside him, looking worriedly at Kristi, who was stretched out in the aisle between the seats. Judy was tending to her with the limited supplies in the medkits, but they had never been designed for such a massive wound. Lady kept up an anxious whimpering all the time, nuzzling close to her mistress. Every few seconds Judy had to push her gently aside in order to work. Jamie twisted in his seat to get a better look. Judy's eyes met his. They held little hope, but he felt compelled to ask, "How is she?"
"Not good." A tear trickled down her cheek, twisting a path through the bloody bits of concrete chips still embedded in her face from the near miss.
Lady's whimper became louder. She nosed forward and licked Kristi's face, then lay beside her with her muzzle touching her neck.
"Can we do anything?" Jeannie asked through her own tears.
Judy shrugged helplessly. "All we can do is try to keep her alive until we can get her hooked up to an autodoc. If she makes it till then, she's got a chance."
Lady licked Kristi's face again. Kristi blinked her eyes open for a moment. "I'll make it. I can't die now." Her voice was a whisper, barely audible. Her eyes closed again. Fuzzy Britches came up on the other side of her body and began helping Lady comfort her. He meowed very low and began licking the other side of her face. Presently Princess joined him.
***
It was a relatively short flight back to the Enclave in distance, particularly as Masters was pushing the craft to it's limits, but it was a very long one in terms of continuing apprehension. Judy continued her ministrations, calling on everything she had ever learned about field medicine to keep Kristi alive, but as they neared the Enclave, she let out a long bubbling sigh and stopped breathing. Judy immediately began CPR, shoving the pets roughly aside. Masters heard her cry of despair. He looked back over his shoulder, saw what was happening and put the floater into an all out, engine-ruining burst of speed. The power indicator blinked from amber warning to flashing red, and the craft's computer began telling him to slow down. He ignored the advice and began a long whistling descent that left no margin at all for error. Wind whipped tears from his eyes all the way down. He brushed them aside repeatedly in order to make out the gauges of the computer screen and the tarmac of the landing field, rushing up at him like a brick wall. At the last possible second he applied braking power. The floater's skids collapsed, the floater bounced hard, then came back down in a thudding crash, but it landed upright and almost on top of the waiting ambulance sled.
"Get her out, quick!" Masters said, jumping to help. He and Judy manhandled Kristi out of the floater, not wasting time trying to be gentle. The ambulance attendants threw her onto the sled and began frantically helping the autodoc attach it's tentacles to her. She gasped and jerked when the autodoc jolted her heart with a surge of current, then drew a bubbling breath.
Jamie bowed his head as the ambulance sled raced away. Masters put an arm over his shoulders. "Nothing more we can do now, son. Come on, let's get on over to security. We'll fix up your arm there."
Whitmire's waiting security team surrounded them and attempted to lead Jamie away. He balked. "I'm not going anywhere without Jeannie and the pets. We need to stay together." He supposed he sounded unreasonable, but it mattered little to him. He realized just then that he needed his family with him, even if it had not yet been formally declared, and that included Kristi's pets, and Kristi, if she lived. He hoped desperately that she would.
Masters backed him up. It had been many years since he had been encumbered with family, but he remembered the comfort they could provide in times of crisis. "Let them come," he told the security men. "I'll be responsible. Let's go, all of you." The chief of the security detail began to object until he saw the flinty expression in the ranger captain's eyes. He decided quickly that he would rather face Whitmire's admonition rather than argue with Masters. They left together.
***
John Whitmire was waiting. He startled Jamie by going immediately to Jeannie and hugging her, brushing aside the security chief's attempted explanations of why a coterie of pets and humans were accompanying Masters and the other man they had been detailed to fetch.
Whitmire spoke to Jeannie briefly in a low voice that was inaudible to the others, hugged her again, then led them all into his office. He chased out his secretary, then called for enough seats to accommodate everyone, arranging them to make room for the pets as well. They had come in as if by right and he did not try to deny their presence. As they were being seated, Judy huddled with Masters for a second, then asked to be excused so that she could go sit with Kristi, if she were still living. Whitmire gently dismissed her, asking her to call as soon as she had any news.
Masters had one question immediately. "Have you found any more of my people?"
"We have, Captain. Maria Martinez and one of your rangers, Sammy Terrence. They still aren't very coherent; apparently they were questioned under a very high dose of veronal, but they should recover. In fact, they should be arriving at the dispensary right about now."
Masters lowered his head and brushed at his eyes. Only seven survivors out of over three dozen, not including any losses among the floaters. Yet it still had to counted as a victory.
Whitmire continued. "The losses are regrettable, especially as it seems they have gone for nothing. I have a team scouring that site now, but there doesn't seem to be much left of the alien and it's spacecraft. Some sort of explosion, I understand."
"Yes, I saw that myself," Masters said. He turned to Jamie. "But it wasn't for nothing. We got what we went for, according to Mr. Da Cruz, here."
Whitmire seemed to slough off ten years and grow two inches taller in his chair. "Do you mean that? Jamie, please enlighten me. This has not been one of my better days. I have been preparing to submit my resignation in view of the heavy loss of life and the failure to gain anything of value from them."
Jamie pulled the disk from the pocket of his coveralls and his mind was immediately assailed with the familiar kaleidoscopic images. He returned it quickly, wondering how such an insignificant little object could hold such promise, then looked up at Whitmire who was waiting anxiously for a reply. "It's all in here. Everything we need to build faster than light spaceships, and all the associated technology that goes with it. Also, I know the location of the alien mothership now. It's orbiting Saturn, but it's unmanned. All the aliens are dead. There's other stuff too, but I can't remember much of it right offhand."
Whitmire's lips parted in a beatific grin. He pointed to Jamie's pocket. "If I heard you correctly, then you have done well, indeed. Perhaps you should let me take it. I can get a team to work almost immediately."
Jamie made no move to retrieve it, drawing a frown of disapproval from Whitmire. "There's a catch. No one but me can access it, and I can't access much of the data unless I'm holding it with the intention of learning."
Whitmire's frown grew deeper. "Jamie, are you telling me that only you will be able to work with the data? Son, you can't build a spaceship by yourself, it would take a lifetime."
"Oh, no. That's not what I mean. I can use the disk, and in turn teach others what's contained in it. But there's just so much. It will take months and months. Maybe years. I don't know when I'll ever be able to get back to my own research."
"I dare say this is more important," Whitmire smiled.
"I suppose so, but no matter how important, it can wait for a while. I want to see how Kristi is. I want to have Jeannie looked at by an autodoc." He glanced down at his burned arm. "For that matter, I think I had better see an autodoc myself, before this pain killer wears off."
"Of course. I apologize for not seeing to it sooner, but other things seemed more important. We'll get you attended to immediately." He turned to speak to his office computer, but it flashed a message signal before he could give voice. He glanced at it, then looked back up. The relief was apparent on his face even as he spoke. "Lt. Carson is out of danger. She should recover."
The other three humans in the room breathed sighs of relief. Lady let out a joyful woof, followed by Woggly. Both cats began purring loudly.
***
Jamie retained the thought disk on his person, but he was not allowed to leave the security building. He was escorted to a treatment room and spent several hours attached to an autodoc, then returned to a small room where Jeannie and his pets were waiting. In the meantime, Masters had escorted Lady and Princess to where Kristi was still undergoing treatment. She would be attached to her autodoc for several days yet.
Security agents had followed Jamie at every step and they repeated the process when he and Jeannie asked for something to eat. They cordoned off a section of the cafeteria while they ate a huge meal, then dogged their steps back to another door, which proved to be a small apartment. Jamie became a little irritated at such close scrutiny, but soon forgot it as they did condescend to remain outside the apartment rather than inside with them.
Neither of them spoke much once they were closed in. Both of them knew exactly what they wanted to do, first thing--take a shower. The facilities were small but adequate. They both managed to fit into the stall together. Hot water and suds and soft towels later, they stretched out on the bed together, tired, but not yet ready for sleep. Jamie's mind was still whirling from excitement and the residual effects of medicinal drugs and even Jeannie's naked body curled beside him could not quite distract his thoughts.
"Jamie?"
"Hmm?"
"What's going to happen now?"
He turned and kissed her on the lips. "What do you think?"
Jeannie pinched his ribs. "Not that, silly. I mean, are we going to have to stay here from now on, with security men following us everywhere? Can't we go back to your place?"
"Tonight?"
She pinched him again, then snuggled closer. She ran her hands over the new pink skin of his arm, shivering at the thought of how close they had both come to death. "I'm not letting you out of this bed tonight now that we're finally here. But what about tomorrow, and all the other tomorrows?"
Jamie had already been thinking about that, but so far he had not arrived at any conclusion or decision. After a bit, he decided, as was his usual inclination, that the best thing to do was to wait for a while and see what happened. Right now, he wanted sleep and he wanted Jeannie. He pulled her even closer and presently they began making slow, tender love.
"Meow," said Fuzzy Britches from the foot of the bed, thoroughly approving.