Serru nodded. She was probably getting used to random bits of inexplicable oddness from me. “So. I assume Terenei made a good choice about what to send, considering your reactions. You were extremely pleased to have your ability to measure several things after less than four cycles here. It certainly makes sense that more ways to collect information is better.”
“For a diagnosis, it absolutely is.” I took out my new gear and id it on the table. “I’m usually working out of an ambunce, a vehicle that’s big enough to hold a person lying on a wheeled bed in the back while a paramedic works, and it’s full of equipment. To go to someone in a building and decide whether we can and should move them into the ambunce, we have a big bag of equipment that includes some tools for assessment along with ways to treat some things. I feel absolutely blind if I can’t even time someone’s pulse properly. This should give me more information than my Vitals trick and it won’t depend on whether I’m being a centaur or whether I’ve been using lots of magic for other things.”
“Good. You should try it, though. Clothes will interfere, I believe.”
Aryennos nodded. “It might be possible to get two or three of the sensors into pce on your bare skin while you’re still dressed, if I’m remembering right, but not the other ones.”
“I know you get uncomfortable, Nathan, and I’ve been trying to respect that, but I think that’s about to get in the way. Clothes here are for protection and self-expression, not to hide anything. How uncomfortable is it going to make you if I take off my vest and blouse and have only my bra on?”
Aryennos gnced down at himself, thoughtfully. “You’ve already seen me a lot less than completely dressed.”
“My world,” I said, choosing words carefully, “and my culture within my world, because there are a lot of cultures, has some complicated associations between exposed skin and sexuality, and some even more complicated feelings about sexuality. Respecting patient modesty and dignity is a big thing if it’s at all possible. I am a lot less uncomfortable with bare skin than a lot of people I know, for, well, I don’t even entirely know why, but context is kinda... everything. And in this context, I’m not going to have a problem with it.”
“Good,” Serru said, and briskly unwound her green-and-pink infinity scarf before starting to unce her vest. “From what I’ve heard, I’m honestly amazed at moments that your people could take the time out for inventions like that thing you used on Aryennos after we pulled him out, before you decided you needed the Heart.”
“There’s no CPR here?” I slid the monitor out of its case and left it on the table while I looked at the booklet again.
“I don’t recognize the word.” She gnced at Aryennos, who considered for a moment, then shook his head.
“It’s short for cardio...” I stopped, then said the phrase very slowly. “Cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Wow. That doesn’t have the right sounds, but I still hear ‘CPR’ in my head. That is just weird. Um, the idea is that you use very forceful thrusts to keep blood moving, and blow air into someone’s lungs in pce of breathing. Fiction... you have fiction, right?”
“In abundance,” Serru said.
“In lots of different forms,” Aryennos added.
Everyone had entertainment, I guess.
“Fiction tends to show it as somehow being a cure all by itself and bringing someone back from the dead, but that really isn’t accurate. Not even if it’s done right, and it almost never is in fiction. It’s incredibly useful and everyone should know how to do it, or at least I’ve been saying that for years, because it can buy time, but on its own, it doesn’t usually solve the problem outside of very narrow circumstances. Like, maybe, drowning if there’s still some heart function but no breathing. It just allows someone like me to show up and take over care while we get someone to a hospital full of doctors and other hardcore medical types who can use complicated equipment and controlled medications to fix the problem properly. It’s exhausting if it’s done right, but it’s worth it. Remember, we only die once and that’s it, no coming back.”
“That would definitely affect the amount of effort to use,” Aryennos mused. “And the possibility of permanent damage would change, too.”
“At the river, I had no backup coming, no way to get other help, but it’s so deeply ingrained that my reflexes took over and I just did it before even thinking about that. Normally, I’d at least have my partner running to get the gear we use to give the heart an electric shock that will restart it.”
“Interesting.” Serru id her deep green vest beside her scarf. “But that is, in effect, what you finally did, by a different method.”
“True. Possibly CPR would be less useful here. Could Softcure potions fix brain and organ damage from not breathing?”
“I don’t know. They can do a lot, but that isn’t infinite.” She shrugged her pale green blouse off over her head, leaving only a soft-looking bra in white with a pink pattern. How it could be that low and still offer that much support with no sign of anything rigid, I didn’t know—extremely inspired materials engineering? “So, pretend I’m a patient. Oh no, I feel terribly dizzy and the room is spinning.” She feigned a dramatic faint across the bed. “I’m much too warm, I can’t stand having clothes on, and now I’m starting to see coloured halos around everything. I hope someone can find what’s wrong with me.”
It would be really stupid to get all awkward and uncertain, when some familiarity with my new tool could make the difference in someone’s wellbeing, and Serru was offering and to all appearances not feeling at all uncomfortable.
I picked up the monitor, still holding the instructions, and moved over beside the bed. Serru sat up, mostly, but braced herself with her hands on the bed behind her, so it was easier for me to reach her.
A centaur paramedic could be their own ambunce, and had the strength to pull two people out of a river, and could probably get somewhere quickly, but there were definite disadvantages to manoeuvrability and flexibility.
I left the monitor on the bed and checked the booklet, just to make sure, but I would know the locations for a 5-lead ECG in my sleep. A 12-lead gave more refined information, but sometimes that just wasn’t realistic, and a 5-lead covered basics.
It recommended using a Cleansing Wipe on the sensors before each use, and that one Wipe should be sufficient for all sensors. That actually made me feel better, but it didn’t answer everything. The red metal box obligingly let me pull out just a single Wipe, which was thin and maybe twice the size of the alcohol wipes I was used to. The spongy white stuff didn’t feel tacky and I didn’t see how it could use suction.
“This doesn’t say anything about whether the skin under the sensors needs to be cleaned or shaved, or how they stay in pce.”
“They’ll just stay,” Aryennos said. “They usually leave a bit of a red mark afterwards that fades fast. And there are people who would get very unhappy if you shaved the area where those go.”
“All right, sure. I’m already getting used to the idea of no gloves or mask or protective gear, so I’ll get used to other things working by their own logic.”
“Why would you need protection?”
“Nathan’s world,” Serru said, “appears to be troubled by a number of diseases that are shared with distressing frequency and there are often limited options for their treatment. I believe the protection is intended to reduce the risk of infection for those who are often helping others.”
“Oh. That doesn’t sound good.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.” As I cleaned up each of the sensors, I pressed it in the appropriate spot on Serru’s torso, pretending they were ECG leads even though there were no wires. Two just below her cvicle and outwards to either side, two on either side of her lower abdomen, one in mid-chest just right of her sternum, automatically counting intercostal spaces to get them positioned properly.
As the fifth one made contact, the gss screen brightened and the monitor beeped. I picked it up. Currently, the text at the top said Saurid Adult, and I wondered what those were, but I turned the left wheel until the text read Human Adult instead.
On the screen were meters much like the bars in my Vitals spell, red on either end shading through yellow to a green centre except for a blue-green-red temperature one. This actually had numbers, though. Temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen, all came up emphatically green.
The lower of the two little indents in the frame was glowing gently; I touched it, and the dispy changed.
That spiky line creeping across the screen was a genuine, unmistakable ECG. I would know that rhythm anywhere in any disguise. The line was completely green.
Under it was a second line, belled Lung Sounds. I was definitely not familiar with that one, but it was absolutely steady and minimal, and also showed green, so I made note of that as a healthy result. I needed to learn how to read that one properly.
Only the upper indentation was glowing now. Two screens of information, but it was brilliantly useful information.
“Is it working?” Serru prompted.
“Hm. I should know better than to stop talking to a patient. That usually scares people.”
“You aren’t usually trying to understand new equipment.”
“That is true. This is actually super-easy to use. You are, by the way, spectacurly healthy, and your heart has a very pretty rhythm.”
She chuckled. “If I was actually seeing coloured halos and intensely dizzy, you can assume that I would be warm to the touch, sweating, desperate to strip off all clothing, and breathing fast. I think my heart would be faster as well.”
Mentally, I bumped the temperature, respiratory rate, and heart rate upwards. “Hm. In pain anywhere?”
“Not as such, but as time passes, my senses are all reacting more strongly to everything. I’m even beginning to confuse them, and insisting that I can hear colour.”
“Upset stomach? Feeling like you might throw up?”
“I’m growing more agitated and responding less clearly to questions. You need to pull my hands off the sensors at moments as I try to remove them, the feeling of them is irritating. I don’t feel like my stomach is upset, although there is a possibility I might throw up with no warning and then continue to say that my stomach feels fine.”
“Did you eat or drink anything unusual?”
“If you look around my campsite, there’s a pot and a cup, both empty but with traces of soup remaining, and it includes fragments that look much more like mushrooms than roots or greens.”
“Then I’d try to get you to drink an Antidote potion, and keep the monitor on you as best I can while I watch for any improvement. And while I’m waiting, I’d also be making observations about any signs of injury and intervening when necessary to keep you from hurting yourself.”
She ughed. “And within moments, the effects begin to fade, and within perhaps half an hour they are entirely gone, although I am exhausted and thirsty and chilled.”
“Bnket, water, Recovery potion, if possible put some tea on. While keeping those sensors in pce for a while so I can keep track.” Actually, the sensors being wireless opened up a whole lot of options for that, including monitoring one patient while doing something else, even treating another patient.
“A tent would also be one option. Even if not sealed, they can help stabilize temperature.”
“Plus comfortable physically and mentally. Got it.” I added that to my mental list of tools. “So, mushrooms?”
“There is a mushroom that grows in the Forest that is often mistaken for one that is tasty and popur. Enough of it can kill. You don’t need to fear when we get to the Forest, I had an excellent teacher and I know how to tell which is which. The toxic type are, in fact, one of the ingredients in Antidotes, and a significant reason why we need them.”
“Note to self, do not pick mushrooms.” I began to remove sensors, giving them a second quick cleaning with the same Wipe before setting them back in their holder. The instant the first one broke contact, the monitor screen froze, the data no longer updating but still on the screen. That would be great for doing patient care records, if I actually had to do those here. They did indeed leave reddened circles behind, but when I checked, the skin wasn’t damaged.
“Or at least ask Serru to teach you what to watch for,” Aryennos said. “I would offer, but Bandages will interfere with the sensors, as far as I know.”
“Those Bandages both stay for the moment,” I said firmly. “I’d like to try this on myself so I can see where the extra ones go on a centaur, but I might need extra hands.”
Serru pulled her blouse on, and nodded. “That makes sense.”
I untied my new scarf, then took off my own creamy tunic, which left only the equally-pale pin soft bra underneath, but at least it offered support still and didn’t leave me entirely bare-chested. I traced out the pces to put the five regur sensors, and the monitor woke up; I adjusted the dial to Centaur Adult, and the screen turned white with a slowly-rotating image of a centaur with all the pces for sensors pulsing gently. That, plus the instructions in the booklet, helped Serru and I pinpoint the correct locations. One went a bit below what I considered my waist, just right of midline; one went a little midline and back from my left foreleg’s armpit, and the st behind my equine ribcage, just right of midline. There was no way I could have reached the tter two alone.
I had no idea where my heart was, but the monitor informed me that it was beating strong and steady and smooth, all firmly in the green, although the numbers looked low to me. But then, my brain was calibrated only for Human, and I felt great, so I decided to just trust it.
We removed the sensors, and I cleaned them up and put them away before folding the top down. It snapped shut, and I put it back in its case and tucked it into my bag.
“That thing,” I said, “is brilliant. It’s easy to use, it’s precise if you want numbers or you can just watch for anything that isn’t green, it’s flexible in a way that nothing at home, or at least nothing I know how to use, needs to be.” Vet clinics did vitals, obviously, but I wasn’t really familiar with the details other than what I’d heard Grace say. “Thank you.” I gave them each a hug before I even remembered that I hadn’t put my tunic back on yet.
Neither one seemed to mind, and returned it warmly.
“You’re entirely welcome,” Serru said. “I’ll send Terenei a thank-you on the way out in the morning and tell him that his taste is, as always, impeccable. We’ll need to stop at the post office so Aryennos can send a message home anyway. For the moment, we should probably all get some sleep. It’s been a tiring cycle or so and a good sleep in a comfortable bed sounds wonderful.”
“It does,” I admitted, and gnced at Aryennos.
“I’m tired,” he said. “Even though I wasn’t walking.”
“You did nearly die.” Actually, by some scales, he almost certainly had, briefly. “I think being tired is reasonable. You’ll be across the hall, right? I’d rather share than have you do stairs tonight.”
“Across the hall, since no one else needs it.” He got up from the chair.
Good-nights were duly said, and Serru and Aryennos left for their own rooms.
I turned off the lumina stones. The darkness was intense. I lived in a city, I was used to the presence of a perpetual background illumination from the countless artificial light sources. Here, even in a vilge, no one minded the darkness or tried to chase it away.
I put my tunic back on, changed to my human form, and made my way to the bed by moonlight so I could take off my boots and lie down. The massive bed was soft enough for comfort, not so soft it was going to cause back pain—although I hadn’t felt a trace of that since I’d arrived here. There was that blessing, at least.
I fell asleep quickly.
If spinning emergency lights tearing apart the night happened to disrupt my dreams, well, I didn’t realize it until morning.
