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Valentine heaved at the lifeless hand, terribly limp in his. She began to move. He prayed she didn't have compound fractures in her trapped legs; she'd end up looking like Narcisse, even if she wasn't paralyzed.
Anxious arms helped him bring her up out of the water. Valentine laid her out on the mound of dirt pushed up by the bulldozer.
"Work the breach, back to work," Xray-Tango shouted. The men and a smattering of prisoners started relaying sandbags. The bulldozer backed off and approached again from a new direction, digging into the ground.
Valentine saw none of it. There was just Styachowski, pale and limp beneath him, blue-faced and mottle-cheeked. He cleaned the froth from her mouth.
"Push on her legs and get the water out of her lungs," someone suggested.
Ahn-Kha knelt next to Styachowski, panting, water streaming from his body.
Valentine lifted his ear from Styachowski's chest. "That doesn't work," Valentine said, bending back her head. "Get a blanket, a dry one." He turned her head up, explored her mouth with a finger, and put his lips to hers. He forced air into her lungs.
"Get a medic, too," Xray-Tango shouted at the soldier going for a blanket.
"Ahn-Kha, push on her chest, here," Valentine said, indicating a spot "Don't be gentle about it." He pressed his lips to her cold mouth again.
The Golden One worked her heart.
"Should we rub her hands and feet?" Xray-Tango asked.
"No," Valentine said between breams. He was too busy to explain that it would draw blood away to the skin. She needed it in her brain, not her limbs.
Minutes in the wet dark passed, or perhaps just seconds. Hours? The only thing that mattered to Valentine were breaths, air into Styachowski's flooded lungs. Whatever time it took to run and get blankets had passed; the soldier returned with an armload.
Her eyes fluttered and opened. She coughed and heaved. Valentine rolled her on her side, and a mass of water and vomit came up. He held Styachowski through a series of wracking coughs, pulling blankets around her.
"Styachowski?" Valentine said as the coughing ebbed. Behind him the bulldozer was pushing the mountain of sandbags back into place. Valentine heard a beam snap and winced- he hoped that wasn't one of the Quickwood supports smashed.
Styachowski turned her face to see who was holding her. "God, Val-" she began. Valentine pressed his lips to hers, shutting her up. Xray-Tango turned away, perhaps embarrassed, and began to shout orders to the men helping the bulldozer. Valentine released her from the kiss.
"Dreams," Styachowski said.
"What's that?"
"Dreams," she said, and gathered herself. She burped, and glanced up at Valentine apologetically. "The wall fell on me, and I had dreams, or something. It was warm and pleasant, like I was being held by my momer as a baby. Then I woke up and you were there. Except my legs hurt."
A medic knelt at her feet. He ran his hands up her right leg, gently rolling it. He repeated with the left, and Styachowski cried out.
"There's a break. I don't think it's bad. Simple fracture; I don't feel any protrusions. We've got to get her on a stretcher."
"Hsssssssssssl" Styachowski sucked in air, closing her eyes. "It's throbbing. Am I bleeding?"
The medic splinted her. "It's the fibula, I think. Her knee's tore up, too. Abrasions."
"No, you're wet, you're not bleeding," Valentine said after looking at her legs. "Not badly. Bring the stretcher here."
The medic finished fixing the splint. Valentine took her shoulders and the medic her legs, and lifted her onto the stretcher.
"The infirmary at headquarters," the medic said to the men who took up the handles. "There's no hurry. Don't jog her."
"You can go too, Le Sain," Xray-Tango said, appearing at his shoulder. "Your captain there has things in hand."
"The breach?"
"God knows."
"Then I'll stay."
