Chorvak was waiting when Joste left the surgery. "The tiny dark-skinned female is dead, Group-Leader," he reported, "but the bigger pale one's injuries were less serious than the physicians originally thought; she is alive and regaining consciousness. They will allow you to speak to her as long as you keep it brief and do not excite her."
"Thank you, Chorvak. I will be careful."
The hospital was small, so it didn't take long for the two to get to the room assigned to the human woman. Joste went in alone, took a seat by her bed. "Ka'naya Marine, may I with you speak?"
"Uh?" She looked at him, clearly still groggy and trying to focus. "Wha' 'bout?"
Joste puzzled over that momentarily, then he figured out the slurred words. "About Major Horst Marguerre, ka'naya. When I was him questioning, he something said that did not English seem, a code of some sort, I think. Then he cried out, and like a youngling wept. Can you me tell, what to him happened?"
She seemed to rouse at Marguerre's name. "Something not English? But he doesn't know any other language—" Then her eyes widened, and she looked sick. "Blood … is it his?"
Joste's silence answered her. Tears leaked out of her eyes and she swore tiredly. "Damn you, you bastard Shark. What'd you do to break him?"
"Ask me that not, ka'naya. The answer would only you distress, and he is help now getting. But I must know, when he those strange words said, what he by them meant. What they to him did."
"Maybe I'd rather not know, at that." She scowled. "What'll you do to him if I tell you?"