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“Clarence Otto is a gentleman,” Dew said. “I’m not. I’m a firm believer in equal rights. You hit me and you’ll be spitting up blood. Then, if I know Otto, he’s going to come after me because I hit his girl. He’s bigger than me, so I’ll have to knee him in the b.a.l.l.s and then probably break his right arm to make him stay down.”

Margaret just stared at him. Dew talked in a slow, steady voice. A smooth voice. Even while he was talking about nothing but violence, his voice calmed her. Every degree her temper dropped, the pain in her hand went up correspondingly.

“Do you want to know how I’ll break his right arm, Doctor Montoya?”

Images of Perry Dawsey flashed through her mind, images of the huge man curled up on a hotel-room floor, bleeding from Dew’s handiwork. Her brain superimposed Clarence Otto over Perry Dawsey.

Dew’s left hand was still out, palm up.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to know.” She lifted her b.l.o.o.d.y right hand and put it in his palm.

He picked the tooth out of her knuckle and put it on the computer counter. “Otto might want that back,” he said. “Aren’t you scientist types supposed to be above the fray and all that?”

“I’m not going to let that woman die,” Margaret said. “What just happened doesn’t change anything. I’m going to operate.”

“No you’re not.” Dew pulled gauze on the wound, pressed hard and held it. Margaret hissed at the pain. “What you’re going to do, Doctor Montoya, is what you’re told.”

She started to protest, but he squeezed her hand a little bit harder. The pain made her gasp, cutting off her words.

“The president ordered that we allow that woman’s triangles to hatch,” Dew said. “We can’t locate the next gate; therefore we can’t afford to kill something that might have that information.”

“We can’t sacrifice our own citizens, G.o.ddamit.”

“Wake up, Doctor Montoya. America sacrifices her own all the time. Always has, always will. We sacrificed enough of my friends in Vietnam.”

“We have a volunteer army now, Dew,” Margaret said. “It’s not the same thing. We don’t have the draft anymore.”

“Which will last exactly as long as there are enough troops to fight the engagements we have.” Dew removed the b.l.o.o.d.y gauze and tossed it into a wastebasket. He pressed another batch in place, held it with his left thumb, then pulled out a suture kit with his right hand. He tore it open with his teeth and set it next to the keyboard.

“The very second we face a big enough threat, you know d.a.m.n well that draft will be back,” he said. “The few die so the many can live. That woman in there, she needs to die for that same reason.”

“I don’t give a s.h.i.+t,” Margaret said. “I’m not military. I am a doctor, and I do not sacrifice people. I’m going over your head.”

Dew removed the second batch of gauze, which was less b.l.o.o.d.y than the first. He pinched her torn skin together, picked up the pre-threaded needle and slid it through the flesh.

His hands were rough but warm. Gentle. She watched his technique: smooth, experienced.

“You’ve done this before?”

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