Page 151 of Claimed By the Condemned Alien

She set the ration cakes beside Kesta and looked toward Iri. “How is she?”

“I am excellent,” Iri announced.

“She is also listening,” Kesta said.

Iri grinned.

Lina leaned closer to the monitor while Kesta checked the child's pulse. “She likes the third-moon story.”

“So I hear.”

Iri's ear fins fluttered. “Commander Dreven makes the little moon squeak.”

Kesta nearly lost count.

“He what?”

Lina laughed.

Apparently that was the exact moment an orbital platform crossed the skylight.

The monitor chirped. Iri's pulse skipped twice. Kesta's amusement disappeared. She marked the time and watched the rhythm settle again. Lina's face changed.

“Was that the platform?”

“Yes.”

“Can it do that to her?”

Kesta looked at Iri before answering.

“I don't know.”

Lina's eyes held hers. “Don't tell me no because it's kinder.”

“I won't.”

Kesta turned the monitor so the child could not see the tracing and lowered her voice.

“We establish a baseline. We compare orbital passes to symptoms. We shield the worst exposures if we can determine how they're reaching the children, and the families decide what information leaves medical custody.”

Lina looked around the crowded infirmary.

“So we don't know how to stop it.”

“Not yet.”

“But we have something to do.”

“Yes.”

That seemed to matter. It mattered to Kesta too.

Dreven arrived late in the afternoon. He had spent most of the day with Keth tracing every person who had accessed the condenser during market day, but no saboteur had emerged from the records. He entered the infirmary carrying that frustration in the rigid set of his shoulders. Then he saw the children. His expression changed. Iri waved from the far cot.

“Commander!”

Dreven glanced toward Kesta as though checking whether patients were resting before answering.