Authors: Lyn Lowe
As soon as he reached the wall, he cranked the dial all the way up and waited for the blast of water that would follow. All that came out was a slow trickle; nowhere near enough.
He swore and twisted the dial off, then back to full blast. Again, nothing more than a trickle.
“It’s broken?” Kivi sounded as startled as he felt. Tron wanted to scream and beat the walls until the damn ship started doing what it was supposed to. Thirteen years of near-perfect operation, and now that they truly needed her to hold together, Lucy was falling apart.
It was Whitman and his friends. They’d started all of this. He couldn’t lose his temper, though. There wasn’t time for it. Just like there wasn’t time to wait for Kivi to sort out the problem, as he was sure she was trying to do. The fire was spreading fast, and the smoke was rushing to swallow the room. If they didn’t move fast, they would lose everything in the room.
“Go grab blankets from the living quarters!” He had to shout to be heard. Already, the fire was near deafening. “As many as you can carry!”
She nodded and darted out of sight almost as fast as she’d moved in zero g. Tron shoved the tree he’d carried out the door, then headed back into the worst of it. He got underneath the trickle of water and took off his shirt, holding it up until it was good and soaked. Then he wrapped it around his face. His lungs recognized the difference immediately. It was harder to draw in air, like trying to fill his chest with nothing but a straw, but it didn’t taste so much like acid now. More importantly, he could go much longer without the hacking coughs.
Once that was done, he pressed as close to the fire as he dared and pulled out two of the plants that hadn’t caught yet. They were too heavy, nearly toppling him the instant he swung them up onto his hips, but Tron didn’t let it stop him. His arms screamed with the effort, but he got them back out the door.
He got a total of six plants out, soaking his shirt between each haul, before Kivi returned. She was buried beneath the pile of blankets she was lugging, and he had to stop to help her before she collapsed beneath their weight. It took a few minutes to get a couple of them wet enough to be of use, which was time they didn’t have. The fire took the opportunity to spread through half the room while they were busy. Even as they started beating at it, attempting to smother it, Tron knew it was too late for such tricks. He dropped his and went back to carrying as many plants out as he could manage, but Kivi wasn’t ready to give up. She kept working, trading in one blanket for another when the water dried and the cloth began to burn. She couldn’t possibly control the fire, but she did keep it as far from him as she could while he grabbed the pots of dirt.
They found a rhythm, and for a time they were containing the
disaster. But that didn’t last long. Tron felt exhaustion creeping up on him, and knew he wouldn’t last much longer. His trips were now for just one plant at a time, sometimes resorting to shoving it across the floor. Kivi’s blankets were catching more frequently, and the coughs were turning into a serious problem. All of it should’ve warned him that it was time to go. But he was stubborn.
He’d found a miniature orange tree and was determined to get it out. Flames burst out of a nearby bush as he shifted the pot away, catching the leg of his pants. Tron screamed and dropped to the ground, rolling away and losing his shirt in the process. It felt like his whole body was on fire, not just his leg. There was pain and heat everywhere.
Then something heavy and cool dropped over him. He fought against it at first, his terror convincing him it was some other death grabbing at him. It wasn’t until he had his head and shoulders uncovered that he realized Kivi had dropped a blanket over him. When he looked down, he was shocked to discover that most of the damage was contained to his pant leg. The skin beneath was an angry red, but it didn’t look too serious. He couldn’t find any sign of the fire burning across every inch of his body. The coolness of the blanket kept the pain away, but he could still feel the flames trying to consume him.
It was in his head. There was nothing wrong with him.
Cursing himself for an idiot, Tron got back to his feet. The second he was up, the floor beneath his feet shifted. He swore and grabbed Kivi’s shoulder. “They’re back!” He shouted. She stared at him, no trace of comprehension in her eyes. He couldn’t understand it. Surely she felt the ground lurching. “They’re attacking again!”
She shook her head slowly, her eyes darting between him and the fire. He swore again. Why didn’t she understand? The fire wasn’t important! It was just in his head.
Their heads. All a distraction. There’d never been a fire before. Not in thirteen years. This was a trick, and they’d fallen for it. But he could feel the ship moving, he knew the truth now. Whitman had flown them into a trap, and now they were going to rip Lucy to pieces.
The ship tilted again. Tron grabbed for a handhold, but couldn’t find a thing. He fell forward. Somewhere on the way down, he passed out.
Burning Up
Kivi screamed when Tron collapsed. She couldn’t help it. But it was a bad thing to do. She’d tried to wrap a wet sheet around her head, but they were too heavy. So she’d copied Tron, and pulled off her shirt. But the thin cloth wasn’t enough to keep her from pulling in a mouthful of the smoke with the air she needed for her shriek. The hacks that shook her whole body locked her in place, keeping her from helping him for almost three whole minutes.
Something was wrong with him. She should’ve known. A normal person would’ve. Now that he was lying on the ground in the middle of a fire, Kivi could look back and see the signs. He’d been sweating while he was sealing the door, even though the whole ship was still cold from their time without power. It wasn’t like the torch was hot. It could be, obviously, but the whole thing was designed to keep the handle cool and the risk to the operator at a minimum. That was part of what made it so fascinating. So
maybe he wouldn’t be as cold as she’d been, but he shouldn’t have been sweating.
He’d spent a really long time in the shower too; almost an hour. No one showered for that long. Water wasn’t scarce. They had all sorts of systems that kept it pumping through the Lucy. But having enough wasn’t the same as having plenty, and no one was supposed to use more than their fair share. Kivi didn’t think anyone had taken so much at once in all the time she’d been alive. But she’d been playing inside the torch, seeing if she could find a way to reduce fuel consumption and keep it working for longer. So she hadn’t paid any attention to it.
Then there was the way he charged into the fire. Tron wasn’t stupid. He’d been the one who thought of the pressure suits. And he’d come up with the plan to stop the air from leaking and to stop the scavengers. Kivi was still pretty sure she was smarter than him – in her experience, she was smarter than most people – but he was obviously better at quick plans. She’d never handled change well. It threw her off, confused her, and made her feel overwhelmed. But Tron just kept going like he’d been expecting the change right from the start.
But when they saw the fire, he’d acted like a stupid person. He should’ve been the one to think of the system designed to water the plants. It wouldn’t have taken him nearly as long as it did her. She hadn’t even remembered it until she smacked the dial while she was waving and trying to get his attention.
Maybe the fire had broken the water delivery system, and if he’d turned it on sooner it would’ve worked the way it was supposed to.
She didn’t blame him. It was just another sign of something really wrong that she would have noticed if she wasn’t so different. Everyone else paid attention to people, but they always confused her. So Kivi paid attention to things, and figured people would take care of themselves. That was why she didn’t know where her family was now. If she’d paid attention to them, she’d know what they were doing when the attack happened. She wasn’t even really sure what her parents’ jobs were. She knew her papa worked with the mechanics, because that’s where he got parts, and that her momma talked to lots of people, because they were always coming over to tell her how much they appreciated
talking to her. But that was it. Because Kivi didn’t pay attention to people. Now Tron might be dead, and was certainly about to die, because she couldn’t watch and notice things until he acted crazy and fell down. And because she screamed.
When her coughing stopped, she skittered to his side. It took her a
few seconds to remember what Dr. Geddes used to say about what to do if people fell down. It was in her head, of course. Kivi didn’t forget anything. But since no one had ever fallen down before, she’d deemed it as unimportant and not thought about it again. Flip him over onto his back. That way she could make sure his airways weren’t constricted. She wasn’t sure how much that would help him, with all the smoke billowing around them, but that was what she’d been told so that was what she did. It wasn’t easy. Tron was really big and heavy. But she managed. Then she held her hand over his nose and mouth, trying to feel for air movement. That was the next step. Make sure he’s breathing.
He was. She could feel the air. Not well. That might be because of the fire. Or maybe he wasn’t breathing right. Dr. Geddes had said that if they weren’t breathing right, you were supposed to stick your finger in their mouth and feel for food or other obstructions that might be caught there. But she was pretty sure he didn’t have any obstructions, so it was probably just the fire.
Next, she felt at his neck for a pulse. That was harder. Geddes had warned that it wasn’t as easy as it looked in the vids, and he was right. She had to try three times before she found it. His heart beats were really fast. Far faster than they were supposed to be. And his skin was cold. Cold like death, even though they were being baked alive. She knew that was bad. She didn’t need to put her finger in his mouth to figure that out.
Kivi needed to get him out of
hydroponics. They both needed to get out. She knew that’s what the doctor would say. It was so hard to breathe, and she wasn’t even the one who fell. She wanted to think that it was because of the smoke, but she knew better. Tron was heavy and she could barely move him. But that wasn’t really why it was hard, either. They were going to die in hydroponics, burnt up while they were still alive. Kivi could leave him, and then she would be fine. That would be the smart thing to do. But he was the last. The last other person who was supposed to be on the Lucy, the last of her big family. And he wasn’t being a jerk like he was supposed to be. He was nice. Kivi couldn’t leave him to die. She couldn’t be alone again, either. There was too much quiet without him. He made noise every time he moved, except when he was stalking bad guys. He talked and joked and clanked and filled the rooms with his presence. It wasn’t a lot, but it was all that she had left and Kivi wouldn’t lose him too.
She kept pulling and waiting for something burning to fall on them and kill her. Then Tron would burn up. She wondered if he would wake up. Maybe he’d never wake up again. Maybe he’d be dead whether she got him out of the r
oom or not. But she had to try.
She tripp
ed over a plant, knocking it over. It wasn’t inside the room. She knew because the door was hissing closed. It took her a moment to realize what that meant, that she’d dragged the giant boy out of the burning room.
She wanted to collapse
too. The adrenaline that had gotten her so far was vanishing faster than she could grab it, and it was leaving her so exhausted she could hardly keep her eyes open. But she couldn’t stop. Not yet. There was still one more thing to do before they were safe. She stumbled over to the intercom on the door and punched in 11. Kivi waited until she heard the crackle that told her the speakers were working, then she leaned in close to the box and managed to breathe out the instructions.
“Vent the room.”
“What the hell? What did you brats do?”
“Fire,” she answered softly.
It was the magic world. On a ship, when everything was in limited supply and hard to come by, just about the worst thing that could happen was a fire. It ate up oxygen faster than any living creature could manage, not to mention all the damage left in its wake. No one joked about it. Not ever.
Kivi couldn’
t hear the air rush out of hydroponics, but she could certainly see it. The fire swirled up into a tornado of flame and leaves, then poured out the open slats in the ceiling. It would be channeled through pipes and poured out into the black. When she closed her eyes, she could see it venting, filling the sky with a burst of color. The ship lurched, the fire pushing them forward.
The alarm clicked off. The flashing red light was replaced with the warm yellow glow of the lamps. Kivi dropped to her knees, relief stealing what was left of her energy. She crawled over to Tron’s side and
curled up beside him. She just needed a minute. Not long. She wouldn’t sleep long. She was just so tired. And her lungs hurt from all the coughing. She knew he needed her, that she had to figure out what was wrong before he died, but she just needed a minute. Maybe two. She wouldn’t even close her eyes. Just rest. That was all. She’d lay right next to him, so that she’d know if he moved or made any noises. Surely that was good enough to win her a few minutes.
Her last thought as she slid off into a troubled sleep was that Tron was almost as hot as the fire.
Sick
When she woke, Kivi had no idea how much time had passed. Her limbs all felt stiff and there was a film of crud over her eyes that made her think it had been longer than the few minutes she’d planned. Her shirt was dry, so she unwrapped it from where it had bunched around her neck and pulled it back on, then examined her surroundings as she tried to get a handle on what was going on.
There were twenty-seven plants around her. Most of them were trees, but a few were small bushes and flowers. Of the two hundred and fifty
plants hydroponics once boasted, they’d managed to save twenty-seven. She didn’t think it was possible that such a small number could sustain them, especially since the bushes and flowers might not be edible. There were quite a few plants selected because they held medicinal value. But it was all they had, and she was too tired to get upset.
Tron. She remembered him with a start. He wasn’t where she’d left him. Panic seized her stomach. A couple of the plants were tipped, like someone had shoved them. She set them right and followed the corridor down that direction.
She was almost to the stairs before she found him. Kivi thought, because he was up and moving, that meant he was better. The minute she saw him, she knew that she was wrong. He was lurching around like the drunks in the vids always did. He still had his shirt wrapped around his face and when he noticed her he started shouting about distractions and attacks.
Kivi decided she wasn’t going to cry.
It wouldn’t help Tron. Instead, she slid her hand into his. He looked down at her hand and squeezed it. The corners around his eyes crinkled and she thought maybe he was smiling at her.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let them get you.”
It was really hard not to cry when he said that. Kivi had wanted so much for him to say those words before, when Whitman and the others came onto the ship, but he hadn’t then. The skin of his hand was on fire. Kivi remembered when Heath got sick once. Illness wasn’t prevalent on the Lucy; Dr. Geddes worked hard to make sure they were all up on their immunizations and vitamin regiments. They also didn’t have any exposure to diseases like they would back on Earth, which she’d learned in her studies meant their risk of infection was lower than it would be once they reached their planet. Even so, people still got sick sometimes. Heath was one of those, when he was just six. He’d had a really bad fever. She remembered touching him and how hot he’d been. Tron was hotter than that.
Kivi didn’t know what to say. She’d never talked to someone so confused before. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to pretend to believe what he did, or to tell him the truth. So she didn’t say anything. She just laced her fingers through his and led him
down the stairs.
He followed willingly, all the time chattering about plans and how he would protect her.
Tron said all kinds of things, brave and stupid and sometimes even funny, but Kivi didn’t say anything. She took him back to his room. She always used to think of it as storage, where he happened to sleep, but now it was
his
room and she wasn’t sure when that had happened. It was a small thing, but the distinction seemed really important all of a sudden. Like, because he owned this space, it was special. It would have some kind of healing power that the rest of the ship didn’t contain. That was stupid, and Kivi knew it. She was supposed to be too smart to put faith in something that didn’t exist, like magic. But she needed Tron to get better, and so she found herself believing all the same.
It took some work to convince him to undress. Kivi tried to do it herself, when he initially resisted, but he was so confused and that only seemed to make it worse. So she went back to trying to talk him into it. When he finally did take off his pants, he started laughing and wouldn’t stop. Or, he did stop, but only to cough until it sounded like he was going to throw up. Then he’d calm down for a second, but only a second, before he started laughing all over again.
Terrified and frustrated, Kivi dragged the crazy naked man into the shower and turned it on. She was surprised by the blast of cold water. The showers all resumed at the temperature they were at when they were last on. She wondered if the same problem that had led to such a little trickle of water in the Hydroponics room was to blame, even though she couldn’t imagine what would cause both those things. When she looked at the display by the temperature buttons, though, she discovered that it was actually set to -2. Not freezing, but definitely colder than people made their showers. That was bad. Not now, of course. Now she wanted it to be cold, to cool off his hot, hot skin. Kivi didn’t know if that’s how it worked, but it made sense to her. The instant the cold water hit him, Tron moaned lowly and leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed and a small smile on his lips. She decided that meant she’d made the right decision. But the fact that the water had been cold to start with meant that he was probably running a fever even before the fire.
“I’m cold,” he muttered.
Kivi frowned. She’d been about to leave him and call Whitman. He wasn’t one of them, but he was a grown-up. Grown-ups knew how to handle things like fevers and crazy. But now he was shivering and moving to climb out. Kivi might have let him, but when she touched his skin it still felt like it was on fire. It had only been about ten minutes. Heath was always in the water for at least twenty minutes. That might be important.
“You need to stay there,” sh
e said. “Ten more minutes, ok?”
He stared at her for a moment. His light green eyes were sunken in his pale face. It was a stark contrast with his black hair and gave him an intense look that was a little bit scary. She didn’t know what she’d do, if he said no. And if he got even more confused and thought she was one of the enemies he’d been talking about, Kivi was in real trouble. Even if she wanted to, she’d never be able to stop someone as big and strong as him. Finally, he nodded. She sighed in relief.
After his ten minutes were up, when he was shivering so much that he could hardly stand, Kivi took his hand again and led him to the bed. This brought on laughter. “Are you trying to seduce me?”
She poked him in the chest, not sure what she was supposed to say. So she didn’t say anything at all. After a minute, he shrugged and climbed under the blankets. He pulled them all the way up to his chin, and after a few minutes his shivering stopped.
Kivi placed a hand on his forehead, the way she always saw her momma do it when Heath was sick, and frowned. He still felt hot. Not on fire, like before, but not cool like he was supposed to either. She didn’t know what to do next.
“Can I have something to drink?” he asked weakly. It seemed like all the life had drained out of him and now he was just a shell of the boy. But he was still thinking faster than her. Dr. Geddes said to make sure Heath drank lots of liquids. She remembered that. So why hadn’t she thought of it herself? What was she going to do if he stayed sick? Kivi needed him helping her figure things out.
She didn’t say any of that. She just went and got a cup from his desk, then filled it from the faucet. He finished it all in two big swallows, then held out the cup for more. She refilled it three times before he finally seemed to have enough and laid down again.
“I think I’m sick,” he told her.
Kivi almost laughed. Or screamed. Of course he was sick. How was he just realizing that now? She didn’t do either of those things, though. She just nodded.
“Don’t tell the guy. He’s a stranger. Can’t be trusted.” Tron coughed, tugging the blankets tighter around himself. “Don’t let him know we’re weak. No telling what he’d do.”
Kivi didn’t believe that Whitman was going to attack them. If he’d wanted to do that, he could’ve right from the start. There was no reason he’d lock himself up in navigation and wait in the hopes that Tron would happen to get so sick. That would be stupid. Maybe Whitman was stupid, but he got the engine on and air flowing, plus he figured out how to tell where the alarms were trying to send them and how to vent a room, so Kivi didn’t think so. Even if she was wrong, he couldn’t make things a whole lot worse. She didn’t know how to take care of Tron and she knew fevers could kill people.
She wasn’t going to tell Tron that she intended to ignore him, though. So she just forced a smile and nodded. It wasn’t a lie. Kivi didn’t tell lies, so it couldn’t be one. She hadn’t said anything, after all. She knew he took it as agreement to his
paranoia, but that wasn’t what she’d meant, so it wasn’t really a lie at all. She wasn’t going to feel guilty about it. Not even when he sighed the same way he did when she first put him under the water.
Kivi climbed up to the second deck a few minutes later, staying with Tron until he fell asleep. She wished she could sleep too. Even with her nap up by Hydroponics, she was tired. There wasn’t any time for that, though. Not until she was sure
Tron was going to be alright. She hurried to an intercom that she knew was too far away for him to overhear. Then she dialed up navigation.
“Tron is sick.”
There was a silence for a minute, just like before. When Whitman answered, the inhuman voice sounded strangely out of breath. “How bad?”
“Bad,” she answered. “He has a fever.”
“What else?”
She thought for a minute. “He was confused. He thought we were under attack. And he fell down.”
There was more silence. Kivi wanted to know what he was doing. He should be helping her, not doing something else. Not making her wait. She needed to make Tron better, and he was an adult. It was his job to take care of them.
“
Probably the flu. Henson had it a couple weeks ago.” The man paused for a cough. “This is why we keep the damned breathers on. Look, it’s a nothing bug out here. Guy gets it, he’s down for maybe two days, then he’s perfectly fine and ready to eat every scrap of food on the ship. But that’s us.”
Kivi frowned as she thought about it. “It’s going to be different for us?”
“Maybe. I don’t know kid. How long’s it been since your ship took off?”
“Thirteen years.”
He barked a laugh that turned into another cough. “I mean real years. You know how time works at near light speed, right?”
She nodded, realizing belatedly that he couldn’t see it.
Time slowed down for people moving close to light speeds. For her, her parents had brought her onto the ship thirteen years ago. But it was different for Earth. They might not even remember the Lucy. No one on the ship ever said how long, though, and Kivi didn’t know the formula for time dilation. “I’m not sure.”
“Guess,” he commanded.
“A hundred years?”
Whitman let out a slow breath over the intercom. “Bad luck. You take off from Earth?”
“Yes. That’s where all colony ships come from.”
“Not anymore,” he said off-handedly. “That’s more bad luck. No chance you two have ever been exposed. There’s no saying how his immune system will handle this.”
That wasn’t helpful. “That doesn’t help.”
He laughed again, and again it turned into a cough. Kivi wondered if he was sick. She was surprised to find that she hoped he was. She hoped he had the flu too. Tron was really bad, and Whitman was laughing about it. He deserved to have the same sickness. “I don’t know what to tell you, kid. I’m no doctor. I don’t have a miracle cure. You’re out there, I’m not. You know what he needs better than I do.”
The intercom clicked off. Kivi thought about smashing it. That wouldn’t help. Neither would calling him up again. Whitman was a bad guy after all. He was an adult, but he wasn’t going to help. She had to help Tron by herself.
No crying. She’d decided not to cry.
Kivi considered what Whitman had said. There was no telling how Tron’s immune system would handle the flu. Maybe he’d do just like the people Whitman knew, and be sick for a little while and then hungry. So she wasn’t going to give up hope yet. Tron wouldn’t, if it was her. She was sure of that. He was good at handling change, so she had to try to be more like him.
Whitman had also said something about being a doctor. He was being
a jerk, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t an idea. Dr. Geddes took care of fevers before. He might not know how to deal with this flu, but he’d probably taken care of other types of flu before. He might have things to help. She peeked in one last time, making sure Tron was still asleep and had plenty of water in the cup by his bed, then hurried off to medical bay. When she saw it, she was stunned.
She remembered what the place looked like when they’d been there before. Kivi didn’t forget anything, and she absolutely wasn’t going to forget anything that terrible. If she closed her eyes and thought about it, she could still hear the glass crunching under Tron’s feet and the sound of him drawing in a sharp breath as it cut into the pads of his feet. Usually she didn’t know why people made the weird noises they did, but that time she’d understood perfectly. He was trying not to scream.
She’d been dreading having to do that herself, especially since she didn’t know what she was hoping to find. She remembered what Tron had said, about most of the drugs being gone. And medicine had never seemed very interesting to her before, so even if they still had all Dr. Geddes’s pills and shots, Kivi wouldn’t have known which ones to use. She just knew that she had to do something, had to find something to help. Even if it meant walking over glass.