"I don't know why I'm talking so low," she said, raising her voice. "It doesn't hurt now. No, I didn't have anything to do with it. Come in and see her."
Maureen was sleeping. Her breathing was light but regular as the lung machines responded normally. Her skin was waxen but it was not unhealthy. The wrinkles of strain had fallen away and her face was relaxed in the beauty of survival.
"Go ahead and talk," said Cameron from the corner as he bent over an analyzer. "I shot her full of dope. I guess I didn't have to—she'll sleep now no matter what you do."
"Thanks, doctor," said Docchi. "We're lucky to have you."
"Not half as lucky as I am to be here. Damnedest thing I ever saw. My colleagues wouldn't believe it." Carefully he closed the analyzer and rolled it away. "I forget I no longer have colleagues."
"The more remarkable. Your efforts alone."
"I guess you don't understand. I had nothing to do with it," said Cameron. "I was an interested and awed spectator but nothing more. The person who saved Maureen was Maureen herself."
"Now how could she?" said Anti. "She lacked male hormones and the bodily processes were out of control, upset, running away with themselves." She raised a few inches from the floor to get a better glimpse of the patient. The best refutation of Anti's argument was Maureen herself.
"It couldn't happen to anyone but an accidental," began Jeriann, but Cameron cut her off.
His voice was cool and dry, that of a lecturer. It was the only chance he'd get to share his discovery. "You know why you're biocompensators: the severe injury, and later pulling through with the help of medical science, developing the extraordinary resistance I spoke of. You had to have it or you didn't live. And the resistance remained after the injury was gone.