"Not me. I knew exactly what I was doing. I was running from some big lunk who kept chasing me all over the dome. He knew I wasn't Nona because I yelled for him to leave me alone. He didn't pay any attention and I guess I lost the absorbics just before he caught me."
"You don't have to talk about it if it's painful," he said impassively.
"What do you think?" she said scornfully. "You think I'd let him bother me? I told him to go away or I'd slip my face off. He got sick right there and let go."
He smiled at her vigor. "It's a good thing he didn't take you at your word and let you remove the disguise."
"Thank you, kind sir. Now I know I'm pretty too." Her manner overcame the apparent sharpness. "Anyway there I was. I'd used up more energy than usual and I had nothing to take. I didn't make it to the hospital."
"I didn't know the details but I imagined something like that. You're lucky we found you and even more so that we were able to discover your particular absorbics in the dispensary mess."
"Right both times—but you didn't find my absorption capsules. They weren't there. Never are. I have to go directly to the lab to get them. Of course I couldn't expect you to know that."
"Then what are you doing here, alive?" he asked, frowning. "The wrong thing should have killed you."
"I'm not a true deficient, you know. It's not that my body fails to produce glandular substances. What I lack is food and water and anything that's composed mostly of that will do, providing it's in a form I can assimilate. When you slapped me and held me up I saw someone else's capsule but I knew it would do. That person has trouble with a number of blood sugars and several fluids—not what I require for a complete diet—but it brought me out of the hunger shock."
It was not ordinary hunger which had caused her to stumble and be unable to get up; this was acute, a trauma which affected her whole organism. And because it was such a constant threat, unconsciously or not, she had prepared for it. Deficients knew each other better than any other group. They were aware which prescription could in an emergency be substituted for their own. It was unlikely to be used—but that knowledge had paid off for Jeriann.