The scream so startled Flight Sergeant Barniss that his hands twitched on the control wheel, causing the floater to jerk forward, almost bumping the craft in front of it. He recovered instantly, though the screaming continued—repeated shrieks, inhuman and shockingly harsh. In the troop compartment, he heard Kortalno swearing loudly.
"What the fuck's happening back there?" he called over his shoulder.
"Sergeant, we've got a stowaway! A woman on top of the cargo, back against the side of the aircraft! She's coming unglued up there!"
"Oh shit," Barniss muttered. "Arlefer, go back there and help him get her down. And be careful. I don't want her hurting herself, and I damn well don't want her hurting either of you."
His copilot got out of his seat and was gone, while Barniss swung the floater out of line and to one side, looking for the nearest place to set her down. "Little A, Little A, emergency on CPC 4. Emergency on CPC 4. We've got a stowaway having a screaming fit on top of the cargo, a stowaway gone psycho on top of the cargo. Get us a medic right away."
Troopers were getting out of his way, and he put down between two platoons. The shrieking hadn't changed; it was raucous, blood-curdling, and utterly mindless. Already a damned emergency, he thought, and I haven't even had a chance to see what this world looks like. When he felt the floater touch down, he hit the AG switch, swung out of his seat, and started back to help Kortalno and Arlefer.
Lotta was standing within eight feet of Romlar when CPC 4's emergency call sounded from the command radio, and she knew—knew who it was, though she hadn't seen her at the field, hadn't known she'd be there. She moved a stride behind the medics, running through coarse sparse grass as high as her chest. Troopers dodged out of their way.
As they approached the floater, she saw one of its crew standing disheveled at the head of the ramp, waving them on. The shrieks sounded as if they'd rupture the lining of the screamer's throat. On board, the crew had gotten Tain down from the cargo stack. One of them, angry scratches across a cheek, lay on her, arms around her hips, more or less pinning her legs with his body. Another, with a bloody lip, held her arms with his knees and hands. Dr. Orleskis had arrived with his belt kit open. Now he knelt, held her head still between his knees, and triggered a syringe against her cheek.
It took a few seconds before she stopped jerking, her movements reduced to feeble shudders.
"Is she unconscious?" Lotta asked.
"No more than she was. I gave her a tranquilizer; in large subcutaneous doses it's very effective for psycho-motor convulsions. Is this the teleport shock I was told about?"
Lotta nodded, remembering the sorlexes. Sedation had controlled their convulsions but they'd died anyway. "Get her on her feet," she ordered.
Orleskis frowned. "On her feet?"
"Support her; carry her upright."
The crewmen were already disengaging themselves from their stowaway. She stank; both excretory openings had let go. Two medics hoisted her to her feet. "Outside," Lotta said, and one under each arm, they carried the stowaway, her toes dragging, following Lotta down the ramp and into the tiger grass, here considerably trampled.
Lotta stopped them and took Tain's right wrist. "Tain!" she ordered, "lift your right hand!" then raised it for her to shoulder height. "Thank you," Lotta said, then lowered it, shifted to the left wrist and repeated the action. Next she turned the woman's face left, then right, always after the appropriate command, always thanking her for the enforced completion. Had her "go over to" the floater, the medics toting her, and providing both guidance and impetus, had her touch the side of it with one hand, then the other. All on command, all in a regular, unvarying format. After a bit, troopers relieved the two aid-men and carried Tain to the nearby forest, out of the way, where Lotta continued the procedure, using trees. Later other troopers replaced the first two. Within an hour, Tain was moving her legs a bit, as if trying to walk, and Lotta could feel her feeble effort to raise her arms for herself, though her eyes still were glazed.
Orleskis had left briefly to see to other things. Now he'd returned. "Want me to take over?" he asked.
Lotta shook her head. "It's working. Best not to change."
The doctor nodded and watched. After another twenty minutes, Tain was largely supporting her own weight, moving her own head, directing her attention as ordered. Her eyes weren't glazed any longer, though they were vague and she did not try to speak. After another ten minutes, her head was drooping as if she was starting to doze.
"Can we get her to bed somewhere?" Lotta asked.
Orleskis nodded, and turned to one of his aid-men. "Get ready to clean her up," he ordered. "In the aid tent." The man trotted off. The rest followed slowly, two of them supporting Tain.
"She's going to make it," Orleskis said. "No doubt about it. Where did you learn to do that?"
"I've been inside the minds of experimental animals when they were teleported, and got a sense of what they were feeling: incredible panic, and utter disorientation; not the most enjoyable thing I've ever experienced. The first time it bounced me right out.
"Later I read the reports of teleportation tests on trainees with insufficient processing. They'd described a feeling of having no control, of either body or environment." Lotta shrugged. "What I did back there just came to me—reestablish her control, even if only by proxy at first. It seemed appropriate."
Orleskis nodded. Inside their minds! he thought. What a diagnostic tool! If he got back to Iryala alive, he told himself, he'd see about learning to do some of these things, including the Ostrak Procedures.
Tain slept heavily without sedation. The medics, with Lotta standing by, had cleaned her up, then dressed her in army hospital pajamas. Orleskis had said that when she woke up, she'd be stiff and sore from the convulsions.
It occurred to Lotta that now she'd have a tentmate. And that she'd probably need to run some Ostrak Procedures on Tain, regardless of what the Crown might prefer. Such drastic teleport shock was bound to have severe mental after-effects. As far as that was concerned, the Crown had already gotten the main story it wanted from her, while the departure story had been covered by Iryala Video.
She wouldn't try anything ambitious with her, Lotta told herself; her intelligence duties wouldn't leave time for it. Just handle her through the zone that had been agitated and sensitized.