Price of Ransom Read Online Free PDF Page A

tattoos and all, with respect. Pausing to watch her as she bent over a patient, Hawk observing but not interfering, Gregori was not surprised that she and the other Ridanis had so readily defected to the mutiny.
    “His signs look ya better,” the assistant murmured. “But with ya trauma to ya head I just don’t know if he’ll ever regain consciousness.”
    Hawk laid a hand on the man’s brow, a gesture that to Gregori’s eye looked more like a benediction than one bearing any resemblance to the rude temperature-taking his mother caressed him with on those few occasions he had caught some illness.
    Hawk removed his hand and shook his head. “This one has gone deep,” he said softly. “I still can’t predict if we’ll be able to bring him back.”
    Flower stared raptly at him, admiring. He gave her a brief, if absentminded, smile and began to turn to the next couch.
    Stopped. Paused, as if some unseen information had just come to him, and turned abruptly to gaze right at Gregori.
    Gregori began to step forward.
    And realized that someone else had come in behind, and that Hawk’s attention had focused on this new arrival.
    “Hello, Gregori,” said the captain casually as she walked past him.
    Hawk moved obliviously past his assistant’s admiration and went to meet her. He did not touch her, but the force of his attention was almost tactile, it was so strong.
    “How are the casualties?” she asked, not so casually.
    “Six are still in a coma, eight are at least partially conscious but seriously disabled, and the other nine you’ve seen in the convalescent ward. None of them are going to be active any time soon.”
    “Otherwise we would have shipped them off with Machiko. I know.” She looked troubled. “Hoy. Good thing there were fourteen well enough to be moved.”
    “Seven of the convalescents could have gone but asked to stay,” Hawk reminded her.
    “Mostly because of you,” she replied absently. The crease in her forehead that marked her brooding appeared as she spoke. Her eyes took in each still or restless patient in the ward, a concise survey, and she acknowledged Flower with a terse nod. “But too high a percentage of the power we’re using is routed into Medical to sustain these people. We have to go in to Forsaken, and except for those who specifically asked to stay with us, I want the rest transferred to planetside hospitals.”
    “No,” said Hawk. He paused to flick a glance at the Ridani woman. She coughed self-consciously and, picking up her com-clip, walked out into the convalescent’s ward.
    Gregori slunk into the shadows of a far corner.
    “No,” Hawk repeated. “Maybe some of these people won’t recover, but none of them, even the ones who are recovering, will have anywhere near as good a chance for a normal recovery in Reft hospitals as on this ship.”
    “In your care,” she echoed, sounding a little irritated. “Damn it, Kyosti. How much mercy can you expect this ship to extend to people who may never be able to give service in return?”
    “Infinite mercy,” he said sharply. “And infinite compassion. That’s my business. You ought to understand why.”
    To Gregori’s surprise, she did not argue but instead sighed and drifted across to gaze at the occupants of the couches, her expression a mask behind which Gregori could not discern her true feelings. Hawk did not follow her, except with his eyes.
    “In any case,” Hawk added after she had visited most of the couches, “the care these people will receive once we get back to League space will as far exceed what I can provide in this unit as this units exceeds Forsaken’s hospitals.”
    “Kyosti, we don’t have enough power to find our way by trial and error and what sketchy charts this boat has to League space.”
    “I’m not giving up my patients, Lily.”
    She turned and walked briskly to the door, her face still a mask. “I’ll consider it,” she said brusquely as the door sighed aside to reveal the