When he woke up it was morning and he couldn’t feel any aching. He went and looked in the bathroom mirror. His face still appeared damaged, but it looked like it had been heeling for a week. When he pressed on it his right cheekbone was still a little tender, and the eye opened and did not show a halo when he looked at the light. Blair was in the dining room alone.
“How long have I been out?” Lewis queried.
Blair checked his watch. “Eight and a half hours, Sir.”
“Heard anything about Derrick?”
“No, but the ladies went over to check on him,” Blair told him. “Oh, by the way, Sir. Could I request a couple of days leave? I figure even if Captain Inu showed up right now, it would take at least two days to get ready.”
“Can you do that without getting into any trouble?” Lewis asked, a bit dubious.
“Oh, sure,” Blair said. “I even went to Houston once by myself and I don’t remember any trouble.”
“Go ahead,” Lewis said. “But only two days and if we have to bail you out of trouble, I will personally run you up the flagpole. Got it?”
“Yes, Sir,” Blair said seriously, and went to the bathroom. In a few minutes he came out in civvies. Lewis noticed as he shut the door that he was wearing the big pistol from the chest. Lewis wondered if a prayer was in order, then decided to use the solitude to catch up on finances and his log book.
It took him two hours to accomplish his tasks. Then he went to the hospital to see what was going on there. He found Roquette and Gomez in Derrik’s room, talking to the doctor. He stood outside the door and listened.
“I don’t know what happened,” the doctor was saying. “I checked him about half an hour ago and his condition was improving as we expected. Now he appears to be in a coma, but all his vital signs look good. I’m still confident that he will be ready in two days.”
Lewis walked in and saluted the doctor, who returned the salute.
“You don’t have to do that, since you’re not part of our military.” He grumbled. “I assume you are Lieutenant Lewis of Romeo Company, yes?”
“Yes, Sir,” Lewis replied.
The doctor pulled a small light out of his pocket and shined it in Lewis’ eyes. He then ran it over the rest of his face.
Ignoring Lewis he turned to Roquette. “What did you do to these men?”
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“I didn’t do anything,” she answered.
“Staff Sergeant?!” He said, turning on Gomez.
“Well, Sir,” she lost a little color. “I kinda gave them a shot.”
“Of what?”
“Don’t know Sir.”
”Where did you get it?”
“From an old medicine woman, Hagen, I believe.”
“We have stories of Hagen mysteriously saving soldiers,” the doctor said. “I would love to be the one who unravels it, can you tell me who this individual is?”
Gomez opened her mouth to speak but shut it at a look from Lewis.
“Sorry Sir,” Lewis said quietly. “Classified, just another story.”
“How did the lieutenant react to the shot initially?” The doctor asked, giving no indication of having heard.
Gomez looked at Lewis, who nodded. “We had to carry him to his bed.”
“How long was he out?”
“Not sure, eight hours or so.”
“Fine, come back in nine hours,” He made a dismissive gesture.
“Boy, you guys really irritated Captain Gibbons,” Roquette said, when they got to the waiting room.
“I know,” Lewis said. “He’ll try to track down his story. Gomez, go tell Mama what’s happened here and hurry.”
Gomez wandered out of the glass doors of the lobby and sprinted out of sight. Lewis and Roquette followed her outside and strolled toward the downtown area. At the gate to the base they met Telini and Stander.
“OK,” Telini said. “The grain deal is completed. I set it up for tomorrow; they will bring it dockside. Churro and Waymer will load it into the ships. However, they want to hold Inu’s third until we need it, for up to six days.”
“Good job,” Lewis said, then turning to Stander. “Why don’t you come with us, go ahead, I’ll catch up.”
He turned back to Telini. “Come on Sergeant, walk with me,” They walked quietly for a moment. “What did you discover about your little hot rod computer?”
“Oh man!” Telini exclaimed. “It does things that we didn’t even dare to dream about back home. Dude, I don’t even have half the security codes. It can monitors the ship functions without a patch cord, course we’re out of range here. But I was thinking communications on the Skipper are run by the master computer, so I’m wondering whether I would be able to back door into it with our little radio as basically a patch cord.”
“I was hoping you’d say something like that,” Lewis smiled.” But don’t do anything that will make the DeLeahs nervous, I don’t want to add them to our list of enemies.”
Telini noticed his smile and looked shocked. “Wow, you’re almost as pretty as ever.”
“I feel a lot better,” Lewis replied. “Now, here’s what I want you to do, see whether you can access the Defenders data base with your radio and/or computer.”
“Thanks boss. That sounds like fun, what are we looking for?” Telini wondered.
“Info on the Hagen, history, population figures, culture, battles, attitudes, anything you can find.”
“And you think they will have stuff like that on their computer here?”
“Don’t know. For all I know they might not even have a computer, or, if they are smart, you might not be able to access it. Find out, then go to the library and look there. You’re going to be our Hagen expert.”
“Whee, I mean yes sir.”