"He'll verbalize," Brooks said. "Just don't look at him—thank God they've found Gesner."
A red, bloated forehead above eyes fixed on her own through lenses of gray fluid as it writhed and pressed up against the Broca cup in her fist. She covered her face, and between her fingers the sleeping Barger face still lay on its pillow.
Dr. Brooks screwed his own features into a wink, and she turned away to watch the unrolling tape still chattering between his hands: "England is the only hope. We must go through immediately before direct control and defenses build against us—morphine, why did you not give me morphine? Pain is intolerable."
"Analgesics nullify the Gesner shots," Brooks said.
"Morphine," chattered the tape, "worth it, worth it, cure me when we have left for England. And hurry, they want me alive, and as soon as they control the police...."
Turning under Dr. Brooks' twisted glance as he took the Broca cup, she went to the sink and scrubbed her hands. She found the hypodermic and phial in the black satchel and measured two cc of clear tincture of morphine, and turned back to the arm which grasped Dr. Brooks' wrist, pressing the cup hard against a swollen red mass. She rolled up the sleeve of the hospital gown which led to a raised shoulder (she wouldn't look at the face) and hesitated—another needle was already stuck in the muscle, protruding just above the skin. She found the vein and pushed the plunger in, and withdrew her needle.
Dr. Brooks said, "Get that out of there."
She took tweezers from her bathrobe pocket and carefully removed an inch of broken hypodermic shaft. The blood spurted. She reached for cotton and alcohol.
Three bells rang in the corridor as the door slid open, and Miss Erwin came fluttering in.