Ivara Quill stepped to the side of the butcher’s bench as Brant Sallow released his traction grip.
Her single right hand reached down, her rough land-mapper’s fingers touching the pale, waxy tips of Len Vey’s left hand where they projected beyond the edge of the lower cedar slat. The skin of his fingers was cold, but the swelling had halted at the knuckles. The four brass luggage straps held the tissues in a crushing clamp that forced the fluid swelling back toward the humeral veins. The antiseptic wash had left a yellowish film across the back of the hand. He smelled sharply of phenol and pine ash.
“Move the thumb, Len,” she commanded quietly.
Len lay on the maple slab, his breathing shallow and rapid, his face turned toward the ceiling. He drew a shuddering breath. His jaw tightened as he sent the motor command down his median nerve.
The thumb twitched.
It moved an eighth of an inch—stiff, clumsy, and with a sharp, reflex hiss of pain through his clenched back teeth—but the fingertip bone bent.
“Now the fingers. Spread them.”
The four fingers spread apart by a tiny fraction of an inch. It trembled wildly under the strain, before curling back into a semi-bent rest position against the padded wool cushion. The deep grip tendons were intact. The emergency reduction had saved the nerve from permanent severance. The motor signals from the C8 and T1 nerve roots were reaching their destinations. But the heat flow was slow, muffled…
