I was staring hard at my brother, but as far as I could see, he was just lying there with his eyes closed. I wished I could believe that he was sleeping, but I knew he wasn't. I licked my lips. He had the one hand loose, and I knew I had to get it strapped back down.

I was confident that I was stronger, but I didn't really want to have to fight him, maybe hurt him, to get the job down. Without taking my eyes off of him, I moved to the desk, and picked up Brains' clipboard. With a quick glance, I determined that I could safely administer additional sedative.

If I could just get it in the port before he realized I knew what he was up to, I could stand back until the drug took effect, then get the hand strapped down without any problem. The issue would be how to get the drug in the port, which was hanging from an infusion bag within John's line of sight.

I moved as quietly as I could to the drug cabinet. With my back to him, I prepared the syringe. I took a deep breath, and turned around. I'd made the move sudden, and sure enough, I saw the flicker of eyelids that told me he'd been watching.

I walked over between the two beds and made a show of checking on Scott. My eldest brother was still deeply asleep, for which I was truly thankful. I turned around to face John's bed, and pretended to straighten the blanket. He was still playing possum, so I reached up to slide the syringe into the port.

That's when he moved, snake fast, grabbing at me with both hands. He'd taken advantage of my turned back to release his other hand, and with one he grabbed my shirt, and pulled me close, while the other struck up at my neck. If I hadn't known he was up to something, that blow could have seriously damaged me. As it was, I pulled back just enough to keep him from crushing my larynx. Still hurt like hell, but I was too busy trying to stop him to worry about it.

I grabbed his shoulders, and slammed him back down on the bed. He was hampered by the straps at his waist and his legs, while I was hampered by my need to stop him without hurting him. John felt no such need, and he got his hand around my throat and started choking me. I broke his hold, and used my entire body weight to pin him to the bed.

Until that moment, the fight had been eerily silent. But then John started cursing me. In several languages. I just held on, trying to think of a way to end it. I could see the syringe lying on the floor where I had dropped it, but the needle was obviously bent, making it useless. If I let John loose, he'd use those hyper-reflexes of his to get the straps undone before I could get another syringe ready.

I couldn't just stay where I was, lying on top of him. He was biting, and scratching, and doing his best to hurt me. Doing a pretty good job of it, too. I looked around, getting a bit frantic about it. One of John's hands had latched onto my groin, and he was doing his damnedest to see to it that I wouldn't have to worry about future generations.

I was thinking I was going to have to just beat the crap out of him, when the door to the infirmary opened up, and there was Alan. "Geezus!"

"Uh, Al, can you… get… a sedative for me? And hurry?"

Alan ran to the drug cabinet. John in the meantime was basically going beserk. He clawed at my face, and stabbed at my ribs with his hand. I was breathing hard, trying to resist the temptation to retaliate. He was my brother. He was sick. Yeah, and he was trying to rip my eyes out.

Alan came up with the syringe. "Grab his arm, Gordy, and I'll inject him."

Easier said than done. I said I was stronger than John? Maybe so, but he had a wiry strength that was hard to contain. I finally, shifted my whole body up onto his face, and grabbed the arm. Thank God, Al was fast, because I couldn't have held him much longer.

Once the drug was in, I bailed, hopping of f the bed and my brother, who was still calling me names. As soon as I was off of him, he pulled himself up, and frantically scrabbled his hands on the hard leather restraining belts. Alan looked at me, but I shook my head, waving him off. John managed to get his waist and one of his legs free before the sedative stopped him.

He sort of flopped over, still cursing, his hands making weak little ineffectual moves. Alan and I stood back and waited until the hands and the cursing stopped before moving in and gently putting him back to bed. We got the straps fastened before either of us said a word. "How did he get loose?"

I shook my head wearily. "He tricked me. I thought he was okay. Hell, I wanted him to be okay. When he said he just wanted to scratch, I unstrapped his hand. Even then, he was all right. But then I realized that even though I told him Scott was sick too, he never asked about it. It was as if Scott didn't even exist, for all the concern John showed. I decided to sedate him so I could get him secured, but he realized what I was doing, and then it was on."

"Your throat is bruising up."

"Screw the throat. He got a hold of the family jewels."

Alan winced in sympathy. "Ouch."

"Big time." I moved gingerly over to the desk. Sitting down didn't have any appeal for me. "What are you doing up?"

Alan shrugged. "Jaw's bothering me. Thought I'd get a painkiller."

I nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good. I think I'll join you."

We moved over to the drug cabinet. "You want me to take the rest of your shift? You want to go lie down?"

I would have liked nothing more, but I'd promised Virgil. "No, I'll be okay. It's all just bruising. Oh, and a few bite marks."

I pulled up my sleeve. Sure enough, there were tooth-shaped impressions along the underside of my arm. Alan wrinkled his nose. "He bit you?"

"Yes, and he scratched me too. He fights like a damn girl."

"You should have decked him."

"Like I did you? I don't think so."

"Hey, you got lucky with me. I was caught off guard."

"Yeah, well, one jaw a week is my limit," I said to his snort. "I just didn't want to hurt him, you know? It's not his fault."

"Yeah. It's a good thing I showed up when I did. You would have not hurt him to your death from the looks of it."

"Ain't that the truth. What do you suppose a eudrilus eugeniae would be?"

"A what?"

I shrugged. "Johnny is very creative in his name calling. That's just one of them. I don't know if I even pronounced it right."

Alan shook his head, a wry grin on his face. "You know, he told me once that if you used the Latin name for things you could cuss people out, and they'd never know it."

I smiled. "Only John. Okay, you better hit the sack. I'll see you in the morning."

"You're sure you're okay? You want me to stay up with you?"

Knowing he meant well, I refrained from a smart remark. "No, I'm fine. Go."

With a glance at our sleeping brothers, Alan nodded and left the room. I sat rather gingerly at the computer desk. I was pretty much sore all over. I might accuse John of fighting like a girl, but I sure hoped to hell I never ran into a girl that could hurt me like that.

It was hard to get comfortable. I squirmed around for a while, then remembered that rubber pillow thing we'd gotten when Dad had an issue with hemorrhoids. I started looking through cupboards, but didn't have any luck. Finally I got smart, and went to the computer to bring up the medical inventory. Took a while, but I finally found it listed under doughnut pillow, which made sense. With the inventory number, I was able to go right to it.

It helped, thank God. I was able to sit at the desk, but you know how when things are quiet, you can feel every little ache and pain? It was like that in spades. A little ease to my injured manhood meant all the other bruises could clamor for attention.

I pulled up my shirt for a look, and sure enough, there were bruises forming all along my ribcage. There was no broken skin, and I could tell it was just bruising, no breaks or anything. I had a fleeting thought that maybe John was going easy on me, but then, I moved the wrong way, and pain flared, and that thought just naturally died.

Well, there wasn't a lot I could do about it. I'd taken a mild painkiller, and hopefully it'd kick in soon. I went back to the marine website where I had been looking at an article on a new species of tube worm discovered near an underwater volcanic vent. It had been interesting before, but now I couldn't really concentrate. I finally gave up and pulled up a mindless matching game.

I had been playing computer games for a couple of hours, and still feeling every little bruise, when the door to the infirmary opened, and my dad popped his head in. He barely noticed me as he stared over at my brothers. "Not awake, huh?"

"No."

"Alright, son, I'm going to go get some coffee, then I'll take over here, and you can catch a couple hours of sleep."

"Okay, Dad."

I was a bit surprised, but also relieved to find it was after 5a.m. I figured when Dad came back, I'd take one of the heavy duty painkillers and hit the rack. It wasn't like we could actually go out on a rescue. Not with 80 per cent of the team sidelined. Yeah, I was willing to count myself among the walking wounded. At least for this morning, anyway.