SPURLEA: How did you manage to escape?

DAMANIS: I didn’t at first. One of the pack things bit into my calf and took a chunk of it. I managed to kick it off and then ran as fast as I could in the other direction. By that time the rest of the crew was down and I guess the pack decided there was more than enough where they were. They didn’t need to follow me. I just kept running until my leg gave out on me.

EL-MASRI: Do you remember which direction you mostly ran? North? South?

DAMANIS: I don’t know. Mostly south? I remember the sun being to my right when I could see it, and I think it was morning here when we landed. So, south?

EL-MASRI: What happened then?

DAMANIS: I rested, but not too long, because my leg was already beginning to hurt, and I didn’t want it to stiffen up on me. I kept heading south, and after a while, maybe ten minutes, I came to a stream. I remembered reading somewhere once that if you ever get lost in the woods that you should find a stream and then walk downstream, because sooner or later you’d find civilization that way. So after I drank some water and washed out my wound, I just started walking downstream. I walked and then I would rest for a couple of minutes and then I would start walking again. Eventually I came out of the woods and saw your colony. I saw a couple of people in a field.

SPURLEA: That would be the Yangs. They found him out in what was supposed to be their sorghum field.

EL-MASRI: Go on, Malik.

DAMANIS: I tried yelling to them and waving my hands, but I didn’t know if they could hear me or not. Then I passed out, and when I woke up I was here, and Doctor Spurlea was trying to fix my leg. That woke me up.

EL-MASRI: I don’t doubt that.

DAMANIS: And that’s everything, sir. That’s everything I know.

EL-MASRI: All right. Thank you, Malik.

DAMANIS: You’re welcome, sir. Can I have my painkillers now? I’m really going to start crying soon.

SPURLEA: Absolutely, Malik. Give me one minute to talk to Chen here, and I’ll come right back and hook you up.

[Door opens, closes.]

EL-MASRI: Well, at least now we know how he got the Rot. That pack bite would do it.

SPURLEA: And if it didn’t, washing the wound in the stream water did.

EL-MASRI: You can’t blame him for not knowing that the stream is packed with the Rot’s bacteria.

SPURLEA: Believe me, I don’t. His blood work just pinged, by the way.

EL-MASRI: Bad news?

SPURLEA: Don’t make it sound like you care, Chen.

EL-MASRI: Just tell me.

SPURLEA: He’s got it in his blood. He’s got about twenty-four hours before the septicemia blows him up from the inside.

EL-MASRI: We don’t have enough painkillers for you to let him ride out that whole time, Aurel. That’s how we got into this situation with the painkillers in the first place.