The medical tent smelled like antiseptic and field air and urgency.
Twelve cots, twelve survivors, twelve sets of injuries being catalogued with the efficiency of people who had been waiting outside a lethal facility and were now doing the thing the waiting had been for. Zeph lay on his cot and let them work.
The bee sat on his shoulder. A medic reached for it once, professionally, the way medics reached for things that needed to be moved.
The Dimensional Anchor engaged—ten meters of locked physics, the medic's hand stopping against nothing visible. The medic withdrew, made a notation, and worked around it.
The notation read: 'creature bonded to subject, removal inadvisable.' This was accurate.
Whisper was three cots down, receiving the kind of attention that serious findings produced.
Four broken ribs, a punctured lung, the Translation Plague permanent in the records. The medical team worked with the urgency of people who had identified a priority.
