<What an astoundingly rude thing to do.>

:That is one way to put it: 

The mages are collected and sent off with one of Valdemar's volunteer battlefield Healers, who has a very unpleasant twenty-minute shuttle flight of bouncing between them, trying to keep bleeding stopped and stop this man's lung from collapsing fully and checking that the other woman's serious but not yet life-threatening head injury isn't getting worse.

Leareth's people are waiting impatiently. 

Leareth excuses himself from the engineering team and goes out to check on his people and find out what, if anything, the Andalite doctor can do. 

He looked up humans after the last medical incident and has slightly more of an idea of what to do than last time, though he's still well out of his league. Bleeding is easy to treat, they have bandages that imitate a scab and yield gracefully to real ones as they form. It's possible to grow organs but he doesn't have any on hand right now. He doesn't think any of his drugs will work.

No, attempting to use Andalite drugs on humans seems likely to be disastrous given the differences in their metabolic setup. Leareth's Healers huddle together and try to figure out what to ask for. The man with a punctured lung would benefit from oxygen while the Healers try to repair the damage; the one whose bleeding is now stopped is going to be fine but lost quite a lot of blood and that takes a while to come back from even with Healing. Can you grow blood specifically? That would be really neat. They're not sure what to do about the head injury and are mostly throwing normal Velgarth Healing at it, but the woman has some bleeding in her skull and that sometimes results in people losing access to their Gifts even when they survive, so they're thinking hard about alternatives. 

You can grow blood, and it doesn't take as long as organs. If there's brain damage probably Matirin will - well, he shouldn't speak for Matirin - he would mostly use drugs to stop the bleeding and manage swelling and encourage brain tissue recovery, in an Andalite, but with those unsafe he's less sure what to do. He can do brain surgery? That's safe enough, people don't die of surgical complications anymore, but he's much less sure than usual that it'll help.

Wow! The Healers talk quickly amongst themselves. What he would do with drugs is pretty much what they're trying to do with Healing, but there isn't a lot of maneuvering room because things are already pretty crammed in there inside the skull. They wouldn't previously have considered doing surgery to get the clotted blood out and make more space, because it's VERY not safe on Velgarth, it sounds like Andalites have figured something out that Healers haven't to change that. They're pretty sure that would help as long as he didn't cause any additional damage in the process. 

Brain surgery used to be dangerous but it's really not anymore, at least not at all with an Andalite patient, and he's betting it is mostly dangerous on Velgarth because you can't cut very precisely and people get infections? 

Yeah they think that's mostly it. Anyway they trust his judgement on this and will of course have a couple of the Healers standing by the whole time, and if he's going to do it he should do it now before any more damage becomes permanent. 

Yeah all right he will get an elaborate piece of equipment that will stabilize his hands and tell everyone to shut their eyes and bathe the whole room in special light and then grab a laser saw and cut off the top of the skull. He is very efficient about this; he is a warship doctor.

Probably normal people would find this really alarming! They're Healers, though, and think it's possibly the coolest thing they've ever seen!

Also wow they can see where it's unsquishing the delicate blood vessels in there and letting circulation get through. (Healing-Sight still works fine with eyes closed, possibly even better because less distraction.) It's also bleeding faster now that there's less pressure pinching off the torn spot, but one of the Healers can temporarily grab it with their Gift while they ask the Andalite doctor if it's easier to deal with his way or if they should Heal it properly. 

Probably they should Heal it; his drugs won't work so he'd just be pinching it with physical force, which seems probably worse.

They do that in about five minutes. The patient still seems better than before rather than worse, although it's hard to tell how much damage happened before they handled it.

Uh, now what? Is he going to...put it back? 

Yep! With glue, pretty much, since he can't be sure that the stuff he'd put down to promote faster bone healing in an Andalite won't give a human cancer or something. The glue is safe enough. 

...Earth probably has drugs that are safe for humans and recommended after a brain bleed. Probably too late this time, but maybe they can grab a medical person once they go and he can stock up properly.

Oooooh that's a benefit of visiting Earth they hadn't even thought of until now! There are excited Mindspeech speculations, and then they eagerly watch the top of the mage's skull being put back on with glue. Healing works pretty well for bone healing but they've already thrown a lot at her so as long as it's good and stuck on, they might deal with that tomorrow. They check on the other patients again. 

Leareth comes back half a candlemark later to check how his mages are doing. He doesn't regret sending them, they knew what they were opting into and are specifically the people who volunteered for it, and it was the correct move, but - well, he's simmeringly angry with Vkandis, which doesn't help but he isn't trying to squash it just yet. 

None of them are going to die, though it's unclear they'll be ready to fight out straight away if they leave for Earth in two or three days. 

Leareth hovers for a few minutes, watching, even though he's not being useful at all. 

"Should we plan on having Velgarth as a base of operations or are the gods going to interfere with it at a particularly inopportune moment."

"The region north of the mountains, where I had most of my own operations, should be fairly safe from interference even in the longer term, and most forms of interference I have seen Them use would not threaten your ship at all, but - not something I can be entirely certain of." 

Nod. "Maybe something to reevaluate once we know more about Earth. 

If you want help, destroying Them, afterwards - I'd certainly consider it."

...Leareth nods, looking thoughtful, distant. "I will keep that in mind." 

He speaks telepathically with the doctor for a few minutes, asking about their prognosis (Leareth can catch the doctor's side but not his.) The doctor asks if he'll give the one morph, if there's brain damage. He says of course, but possibly in a few weeks, when the timing is less awkward. The doctor is relieved.

He goes back to figuring out plans for the arrival on Earth.

Interesting. Leareth doesn't ask.