Flinx's Folly A Flinx & Pip Novel

CHAPTER 1 "He's not deadbut watch out for the winged snake." As she studied the tall young man lying unconscious on the fast-moving gurney, the alert eyes of the duty physician at Reides Central narrowed. "What winged snake?" The harried medtech guiding the gurney gestured at the slow rise and fall of the patient's chest. "It's coiled up under his shirt between his left arm and his ribs. Squirmed in there and hid when we arrived to pick him up. Sticks its head out occasionally for a quick look around, but that's all. Won't leave. Hasn't bothered anyoneso far. Almost as if it senses we're trying to help." The emergency sector physician nodded tersely as she continued to pace the gurney. "I'll be sure and keep my fingers away. Why wasn't it caught and neutralized before the patient was brought in?" The medtech glanced sideways at her. "Quickref says it's an Alaspinian minidrag. They bond emotionally with their owners. If you'd heard what I was told, you wouldn't get any ideas about trying to separate them." They rounded a corner, dodged an oncoming stasis chair, and headed up another corridor. "Hell of a way to practice medicine," the doctor muttered to no one in particular. "Like there aren't enough obstacles put in our way." She leaned slightly forward over the motionless form, but she was unable to detect any movement in the indicated area. "It's dangerous, then?" The medtech smoothly eased the gurney into an empty monitoring chamber. "Apparently only if you try to separate them. Or if it thinks you're trying to harm its master." "We're trying to help him, just like we're trying to help all the others who were brought in." As soon as the waiting sensors detected the gurney's presence, a dozen different automated appliances initiated a standard preliminary patient scan. They automatically disregarded the presence of the flying snake just as they ignored the basic but neat and clean clothing in which the patient was dressed. The doctor stepped back from the gurney and examined her pad as one recording after another was made and silently transferred. A duplicate set was simultaneously being entered into the official hospital files. The medtech looked on thoughtfully. "Want me to stay?" When the doctor glanced up from her softly glowing pad, it was only to eye the patient. "Up to you. I'll be careful of the snake." Now that she knew where it was, she could see the slight bulge occasionally moving beneath the patient's shirt. "If I have any problems, I'll alert Security." Nodding, the medtech turned to go. "Suit yourself. They probably need me in Receiving now, anyway." The doctor continued speaking without looking at him. "How many all together?" "Twenty-two. All standing, walking, or sitting within a few meters of one another in the same part of the Reides shopping complex. All displayed the same symptoms: a sharp gasp, followed by a rolling back of the eyes, and down they wentout cold. Adults, children, males, femalestwo thranx, one Tolian, the rest human. No external signs of injury, no indication of stroke or myocardial infarction, nothing. As if they'd all simultaneously been put to sleep. That's what the official witness reports say, anyway. They're pretty consistent throughout." She gFoster, Alan Dean is the author of 'Flinx's Folly A Flinx & Pip Novel', published 2003 under ISBN 9780345450388 and ISBN 0345450388.