Glory Main by Henry V. O'Neil Page B

posted guards between the receiving bay and the surgery. Some of the techs wondered if that meant the triage guidance was wrong, but speaking up got you a tour in the brig, so they pretty much kept it to themselves.”
    â€œThey talked to you, though.”
    â€œHey, you move enough gurneys for them and they forget you’re a headshrinker. Besides, I think they felt sorry for me. All that training and no job.”
    â€œHuh?”
    She gave off a short, helpless laugh. “The only cases I ever got to handle were mandatory referrals or the ones who’d actually cracked up. Oh, I did get to listen to a ­couple of higher-­highers complain about how lonely they were and that their subordinates didn’t like them, but all that did was piss me off. Every one of them spent years chasing that rank, some of them did really shitty things to get ahead, and now that they finally had what they’d been after so long, they had the nerve to say they didn’t like it. Boo fuckin’ hoo.”
    They exchanged fraternal smiles, Mortas wondering if his own father might sometimes feel the way Trent was describing.
    â€œAnyway, most ­people know that everything they tell me gets reported. So there’s not a lot of walk-­in traffic. Heck, I was originally assigned to triage so I could comfort the dying, but then they changed the regs because the psychoanalysts were supposedly upsetting the wounded. But that was a lie; they just didn’t want anyone getting into the Waiting Room who didn’t absolutely have to be there.”
    â€œWaiting Room?”
    â€œAnother one of those phrases. More like the Waiting To Die Room, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. They’ve got attendants and plenty of painkillers, but once you go in you’re not coming out.”
    A dark rumor from Officer Basic tiptoed into his head. A former enlisted man, veteran of numerous fights, promising them that if they made it back to a ship their chances of living were better than fifty-­fifty no matter how badly banged up they were. And that even if they couldn’t be saved they’d never know it.
    Mortas was so engrossed in the memory that he didn’t realize Cranther had moved until the scout was standing next to him. The skull cap was in his hand, and he was scratching the stubble on his head. Yawning, he murmured, “Now you know why my ‘type’ always wants to know where the hot chow is. You gotta be crazy to hang around the sick bay.”

 
    CHAPTER 4
    T hey were approaching the mountain when the ration bag blew by. The dark edifice had grown massive with all the hours of walking, even when seen from inside the chasms. They got lucky with the timing, as Cranther had climbed up to check the surface when the bag appeared. One moment he’d been crouched on a small ledge near the top of the ravine and the next he was gone, as abruptly as if a giant bird had plucked him from their midst.
    Mortas, robbed of energy by the constant ache in his stomach, had been sitting with the others when the scout scrambled away. He’d looked up in a daze, telling himself that he really should climb up there to see what was going on, when Trent beat him to it. She hopped up onto the spot vacated by Cranther, squatting while in the air so that only her head was visible when she landed. Mortas shook his head, not sure that he’d actually seen the display of acrobatics, but he didn’t get any more time to consider it. Cranther rolled over the side and dropped into the gully with a thud, his arms wrapped around his torso.
    Mortas and Gorman both pulled him to his feet, confused by the theatrics until they saw that he was clutching the dull yellow rectangle of a combat ration. The rubberized pouch had been torn open at the top, and the scout upended it to show it was empty. Even so, its effect was explosive.
    â€œIs it real?”
    â€œIs that what I think it is?”
    â€œAre there any