Chapter 92: The Steady Hand

"Leave it," Leo said.

Ruth kept looking at the chest. "We need those instruments at the clinic."

"Come outside. We’ll talk there."

Carrick gathered the specimen dishes while Ruth closed the loose instruments into their roll. Severin took the map and followed them toward the entrance, keeping his weight off the cut below his knee.

Outside, Carrick set the dishes on a dry board. "I’ve got spare knives at the clinic and a few forceps. But I can’t operate on a crushed leg with those."

Leo looked back into the refuge.

"The bone saw’s in that chest," Ruth said. "And the bigger clamps. We can leave the bedding."

Elspeth stood beside Carrick. "How long to replace them?"

"I don’t know. We’d have to send someone to the mainland."

"And until then?"

Carrick shook his head.

Severin watched Ruth check the loose roll. She counted the instruments without taking them out, feeling each through the cloth. He had seen her do the same before an operation.

"Can you get the chest without touching the ledge?" Leo asked.

"We move it whenever we clean behind it," she said. "It slides out."

"If it sticks, leave it. Don’t chip away at the ledge."

Ruth nodded.

Elspeth fetched two men from the cove to bring boards. Carrick remained outside with the samples and the roll. Leo checked Ruth’s heavy gloves, then made Severin show him both hands. The skin across Severin’s left fingers still pulled when he straightened them.

"We slide it," Leo said. "You’re not carrying it."

"Wasn’t keen."

"If the stone shifts, we get out."

He led them back onto the outer shelf. The opened sample sites were easy to avoid now Ruth had marked them, though Severin watched the unbroken pale surfaces too. Leo pressed the intact heel of his marked palm to a dry ridge. His bandaged fingers stayed curled away.

"Same weak return."

He wrapped the hand again before it began shaking.

Ruth lifted a small covered case from a board beside the beds. She tucked the dressings stacked above it under her other arm and passed the case to Severin. It was light enough to carry against his coat without pulling hard at the burns.

They delivered both to Carrick. Nothing had moved inside.

On their return, Ruth went directly to the chest. Severin eased one board beneath its front edge and laid the second at a slight angle across the cleared floor. He worked with his good leg forward. Ruth could reach the side handle without putting a hand beneath the mineral lip.

Leo brought the lamp closer. Severin took the front handle in his right hand. Ruth held the side with her left. Together they drew the chest forward a few inches. Its base scraped onto the board, leaving a dark rectangle of dry stone behind it.

It moved easily.

They turned the chest toward the second board. Severin shifted his feet, and Ruth guided her side around. The rear corner touched the low projection. A strip of mineral cracked off against the side handle, its sharp edge driven into Ruth’s gloved palm by the turning chest.

Ruth cried out and let go. The chest struck the board. Leo caught its front before it could slide into Severin’s leg.

"Back," he said.

Ruth stepped away, but her left arm stopped short. A broken strip of mineral lay across the side handle. Blood darkened the glove beneath it.

"Don’t pull," Severin said.

Her shoulder was drawn back, stretching the glove between her palm and the fracture. She brought the arm forward with a sharp breath.

Leo shoved the chest clear with his right hand and set the lamp down. The broken strip fell aside. Pale threads remained between the opened lip and the slit in Ruth’s glove, drawn taut by the space she had gained.

Ruth looked down at them. "Cut the glove."

Severin drew his belt dagger and passed it to Leo, who slit the glove from the wrist. He worked from the dry side, keeping the blade away from the wound.

The leather parted around a deep cut at the heel of her palm. A small mineral splinter sat in it. Pale fibres ran from the splinter into the blood, disappearing beneath the torn edges.

Leo handed the dagger back, and Severin set it within reach on the board. Leo steadied Ruth’s forearm.

"Hold there."

Ruth pressed her right hand against his wrist. "Something’s pulling inside."

Severin crouched beside her. His knee protested. The mineral lip had gone still after the fracture, and the boards had not shifted. Only the strands at her hand were changing. One fine branch slid farther beneath the open flesh.

He had watched the Drifter’s muscle lose its contraction under cold. The refuge specimen had slowed in the basin too.

"Let me get at your wrist."

Ruth pushed her sleeve back with her right hand. Severin stripped off his right glove with his teeth and set his palm against the intact skin above the injury.

"Cold," he told her. "Tell me if it’s too much."

He began drawing heat. The first strand stiffened across the bloodied leather. Another had been curling at the wound; its movement slowed. Severin kept the pull shallow and watched Ruth’s fingers.

She flexed them once.

"Those two feel strange."

"Which?"

"Little finger. Next one." She tried again. "I can’t feel the glove there."

Leo supported her wrist. "Keep still."

Severin drew a little more. Moisture whitened on the exposed threads, but Ruth’s skin was cooling beneath his palm too. His own fingers began to answer late.

Enough.

He released the pull and took the dagger from the board. Leo kept Ruth’s hand forward so the strands stayed clear of the cut. Severin laid the blade across the stiffened attachment outside the glove and sliced toward the open space.

The strands parted. Ruth’s arm came free so suddenly Leo had to catch her against his shoulder. Severin stood slowly, pressing his gloved left hand to the board until his leg took his weight.

Blood ran from Ruth’s palm.

"Doctor!" Leo called.

Carrick met them at the entrance. He put folded cloth over the wound without pressing the splinter deeper and looked beneath her wrist.

"Can you move the fingers?"

Ruth moved them. The last two barely followed.

Carrick checked the hand, then raised her forearm toward the daylight. A pale line showed beneath the skin just above the wrist.

It had not been there when Severin touched her.

Carrick turned to Elspeth. "Get the clinic ready. Clear the main table."

She was already moving.

Ruth walked with Leo beside her, holding the cloth in place with her right hand. She kept looking at the left.

On the path, Severin offered his shoulder at the steepest section. She took it briefly without looking up. Her uninjured fingers gripped his coat hard enough for him to feel them through the lining.

? ? ?

Carrick laid Ruth’s arm on folded towels and cut the remaining glove away. Severin had brought the recovered case. Carrick opened it, took what he needed and moved the loose instrument roll into reach.

Ruth sat beside the table while he cleaned around the injury. She watched him lift the mineral splinter with forceps. Several pale strands rose with it. One held beneath the flesh.

Carrick stopped.

"Does that hurt?"

"Yes."

He lowered the splinter, changed his grip and cut the strand close to it. The fragment came away. More pale material remained inside the wound.

Ruth leaned forward. "How far?"

"I need to open it enough to see."

She looked at the line above her wrist.

"All right."

Carrick helped Ruth lie on the cleared table and supported her arm on the folded towels. He asked for the anesthetic. Leo took the mask under his instructions while Elspeth brought clean water and fresh cloth. Severin moved the lamp close to Ruth’s arm.

Before the mask covered her face, she caught Carrick’s sleeve.

"Get it out."

"I’ll try, Ruth."

She held on until he reached for the instruments, then let go.

Severin kept the light where Carrick needed it. The doctor widened the existing opening and removed pieces of bloodied tissue into a dish. Each time he cleared part of the wound, pale branches appeared beneath it.

Some lifted free. Others drew ordinary flesh up with them.

Carrick worked along one strand toward the wrist. When he raised it, a thin red branch rose too. Blood welled around the forceps. He lowered the strand at once and reached for a clamp while Severin shifted the lamp.

"Keep it there."

Carrick controlled the bleeding before going farther. He changed instruments twice, separating tissue in movements much smaller than those he had used opening the Drifter.

A pale fork disappeared around a smooth white band inside the palm.

Carrick followed it with the probe, then checked Ruth’s fingers. When he returned to the opening, he lowered the forceps without closing them.

"There’s a nerve under that," he said.

Carrick opened a short length toward the lower forearm. Fine strands continued beneath the skin, caught around tissue Severin could not name. The doctor freed several, then set down the knife to check the hand again.

There was still color in the fingers. Carrick pressed one nail and watched it before returning to the wound.

He removed another loose branch and watched the exposed tissue. No strand advanced while he worked, though pale material remained around the structures he had left intact.

For a while, Severin heard only Carrick asking for an instrument or telling Leo to adjust the mask. His right forearm ached from holding the light. He rested his elbow on the table without changing the angle.

Carrick finally put the forceps down.

Leo looked at the open arm. "You have to leave that?"

Carrick pointed with the blunt probe. "That’s a blood vessel. This is caught around it. There are strands beside the nerve, and more running between the tendons."

Severin looked at the discarded material. Carrick’s old folio had described sound tissue tearing before the pale strands separated. That had been written after a man died. Ruth lay beside them breathing under the mask.

"What happens if you take all of it?" Leo asked.

"I’d damage her hand trying. And I might still miss some."

Carrick checked her circulation again, then examined the cleaned margins before beginning to close what he had opened. Severin stayed with the lamp until the dressings were secure.

When Ruth woke properly, she tried to sit before Carrick would let her. Her left arm rested on a padded board, bandaged from palm to lower forearm.

"The hand?" she asked.

"It’s alive," Carrick said. "The circulation’s holding."

"Did you get it?"

"Not all. I couldn’t get the rest clear of your nerves and blood vessels."

She turned her head toward the arm. Carrick helped her raise the exposed fingers slightly.

"Can you bring the thumb across?"

Her thumb moved toward his finger but stopped short. She tried again before he asked, staring at the gap she could not close.

Severin remembered her catching the thin loop in the shelf sample with forceps. She had lifted it cleanly while Carrick held the fragment steady.

Carrick lowered her hand onto the padding. "We’ll check again once you’ve rested."

"Will it stay like this?"

"I can’t tell you yet."

She looked away from him. Elspeth stood near the basin with the unused dressings in her hands. "The rest stays down there," she told Leo. "Nobody goes back for it."

Leo nodded. "Agreed."

Severin glanced at the recovered case. They had left the chest on the boards inside.

He had agreed to keep the outer shelf open after Carrick’s hidden record came to light.

Ruth lay with her good hand resting against the edge of the dressing, careful not to touch the wound beneath it.

Carrick gathered the removed strands into a covered dish. A few minutes against an opened fracture, and he could not cut all of them away without damaging her hand.

Severin looked at him.

"Can Jonah live without it?"