Chapter 11

“Well?”

Simon cringed slightly under the glare Mal was giving him. He couldn’t help it. “He’ll be fine. It was close. Very close. If you hadn’t been there, in the room with him right at that moment, I’m pretty sure he’d be dead now, but… Well, thankfully you were and we caught it in time. Once I knew what it was, the antidote was easy enough to simulate.”

“The antidote for the poison? The poison that you assured me hours ago wasn’t there?” The captain’s voice was frigid. Simon sighed and sank onto the couch, running a hand through his hair.

“I know, Mal. I’m beating myself up enough for missing it. You don’t have to help, not that I think saying that will stop you. In my defense, however, this poison was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It was constructed to stay hidden in the blood stream for almost twenty-four hours before it even started to break up and spread. Until an hour ago I thought something like that was only possible in theory on the pages of very complicated textbooks.”

“But it’s gone now, right?” Mal pressed, his face more serious than Simon had ever seen it. “You tell me you are one hundred percent sure my pilot is out of the woods. That there is nothin’ else wrong that’s gonna come back to bite him later, ‘cause I’m tired of playing games with his life an’ he’s out of second chances. He can’t afford for you to miss something again!”

Simon paused for a moment and a heavy silence filled the air between the two men. Mal said nothing as he waited for an answer, but the tightness of his jaw and weary lines around his eyes spoke more loudly than anything how he was dealing with all of this. Simon decided to ignore the cold tone and accusatory words that had been sent his way, knowing it was just Mal’s way of trying to cope with being totally out of control of events.

“It’s over. I double – triple checked everything, common, uncommon, unheard of. He’s clean.”

“Good,” Mal said shortly.

“Whoever this guy is,” Simon spoke again after