Vell did not spend the four seconds arriving at a decision, since the decision had been made at a bench eleven hours earlier. He spent them working out how to keep three injured people alive in a workshop while he took a fourth one out of a doorway.
"Yenna," he said, "the relay board, left of the door, and do not stand up to reach it."
She got the board with both arms gone from the elbow down and nothing to reach with. She hit the switch with a shoulder rather than a hand, which is the only reason anybody in that room saw a healer inside the hour.
"Jia, the yard gate," he said, "you are not chasing anything, you are keeping a doorway open for the people who arrive."
"Say the rest of it," Jia answered from the doorframe.
"The rest of it is that I am going now," Vell said.
Cain took Kana out through the yard door at the fourth second with a hand in the back of her collar. He did not run, because a man who has counted a room does not need to run out of it.
