Adrift (25 page)

“Long.” He cleared his throat and pushed forward to the med bay. “Our pilot’s in here.

The tall woman straightened and entered the room, looking around with a touch of the same harsh lines about her eyebrows, though not nearly as severe as they had been before. She snapped her fingers and pointed to Whitman. The shorter woman surged forward, a strange device with a clear tube sticking out the back of it in her hands. She pressed this against Whitman’s arm, and a second later the tube was filling up with blood. The woman let the tube fill, unscrewed it from the small device, dropped it in a pocket and then replaced it with a second tube. She repeated the process again, this time putting the device in another pocket once the blood was removed.

“What medications has this man been given?” The tall woman asked. The man pressed in close to her side, as though he was determined to hear whatever Kivi and Tron said to her. He held out a small pad in front of him, and was typing on it with the fingers of his other hand. Kivi tried to lean over to catch a glimpse of what he was typing, but she couldn’t see the screen from where she was.

“Nothing.”

“No,” Kivi corrected, craning her neck in a different direction in the hopes that reducing the glare from her angle would result in some hint of what was being written. “He took a pill to make him
self hurt less.”

“What pills?” The woman asked as the man typed furiously.

“How long has he been unconscious?”

“Not sure,” Kivi felt a wash of shame. He’d been awake when she left him. He’d been about to say bad things, but he had been awake. Then she’d gone up to
navigation and ruined everything by kissing Tron and then Whitman was asleep when she came back. If she’d stayed, she might’ve kept him awake. Or, at least she’d be able to answer the woman with more than a guess. “At least fourteen hours.”

Another strange sound came out of the woman’s breather, and again Kivi couldn’t tell if it was her or the unit. “Priority the testing, Charlotte,” the woman said to the one who’d taken the blood. “Use my authorization.”

The tall woman snapped her fingers again. The man tucked his pad away and pulled another device out of a pocket. Kivi marveled at the strange white clothes they were wearing. She didn’t even see pockets until they were reaching into them, and there seemed to be no end to the odd things they kept tucked inside them.

This one was flat and long, and one end looked kind of like a handle. The man unhooked the strap, then shoved the strange device underneath Whitman. Kivi gasped. Tron took a step forward like he was going to fight the man. But the tall woman put a hand out to hold them both back. A second later, there was a low humming noise, and Whitman lifted off the bed half an inch. He levitated there for a moment, stiff as though the bed were still supporting his weight. Then the man grabbed the side of the device that looked like a handle and pushed.

Whitman floated forward like he were weightless. Only not exactly weightless, because he never lost the position he’d held on the bed. So it was really more like the man had put Whitman on a new, invisible bed. Kivi couldn’t help but to stare. The man pushed past them, following the other woman back down the corridor with their pilot. She craned her neck once again, trying this time to get a better look at the amazing little device. Her fingers itched to run over its surface. She already had a few theories about what made it work, and she longed to figure out if she was right.

“Is he going to be ok?”

It took Kivi a moment to figure out what Tron was talking about. She’d almost forgotten what was happening here. She’d gotten caught up in the idea of tech she’d never even imagined before. Just like her leg at the window. Even that brief moment of excited joy was enough to remind her what it felt like to be without it; she’d already lost some of her tolerance. It hit her so hard that for a moment she couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep, and right now I can only promise you that I will do everything I can for your pilot. I am making him my top priority.”

“You don’t know.” The words slipped out of Kivi’s lips before she could think about them. This was bad. She was always supposed to think. But the reality of what this woman was saying was like a knife right through the center of her. She’d gotten her breath back, only to have it taken away again. “You don’t know if you can fix him.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him yet,” the woman said softly.

“You are supposed to fix everything. But you can’t. Can you?”

The woman blinked and looked at Tron as though he held some
additional information that would make everything clear. Kivi knew that the woman didn’t understand what she meant. There was no fixing. Not for this. The people that were supposed to fill up the spaces inside the Lucy, they weren’t like machines. When they were broken like this, there was no fixing them. And she should have known that. She
had
known that. She just… She just needed…

“Aw, Kiv
i.” Tron pressed his forehead against the top of her head. A warm wet drop fell on her ear. He was crying. He was strong and smart and he never gave up, but he was crying now.

Kivi couldn’t hold it back. Not anymore. She’d kept it in for so long, too long. It was twisting and knotting up her insides. She wasn’t supposed to be a liar. Not ever. Lies were counterproductive. But she’d been lying to herself for so long, refusing to
be sad, refusing to be broken. She was broken. All her family, all the people she had known her whole life, were gone. They were dead. Dead forever. No doctor could bring them back. Lying wouldn’t make it go away. She couldn’t pretend that was ok. Nothing would ever, ever be ok again.

The sob ripped out of her. Once it had blazed the path, all the agony Kivi had refused to feel since the attack came spilling out. Not just sobs, not just tears. Cries, like the one Tron had
made when he’d gone into the mess hall and seen all the dead who used to be people they knew. They hurt, each one, as they clawed free of her throat. But there were more. So many more. An endless well of pain as dark and endless as the black.

Family

It was
four days before they were done poking at him. They took vial after vial of blood from his arm, until he felt so weak he could hardly keep his eyes open. Tron had thought Dr. Geddes was a pain, always prodding and taking temperatures, but the man had nothing on these doctors. There wasn’t an inch of him that hadn’t been subjected to at least three different exams, including some that had required tubes in places that weren’t designed for tubes.

But they were done now. Clean of all infectious diseases was the official verdict. Lorna, the pretty blonde nurse who he found himself daydreaming about more often than not, told him that he’d been inoculated against all the
ones he’d never been exposed to. She also said a lot about how lucky it was that he was so young, and that adults often had negative reactions to treatments. Tron chose to ignore that, and the implication that he was just a kid. He didn’t actually think he had a chance with the busty, bubbly woman but he liked the daydreams too much to let them go.

They healed a whole bunch of aches and bruises he hadn’t even noticed until they were gone. The pads of his feet, which were still all scabbed and ugly from his trip through the glass, were completely repaired. If it weren’t for the faintest of scars along his right heel, he might have thought he’d imagined the whole thing. Tron
had never felt so good. He wanted to move. Every bit of him was more alive, more filled with energy then it had ever been. It was like they’d given him a brand new body, and it was eager to be tried and tested. But they refused to let him go anywhere. At first they hadn’t even let him stand up and pull his own pants down when he had to pee. Well, not his pants. Those were gone, replaced by a pair of thin blue ones that were as shapeless as all the clothes the doctors and nurses wore. It was a code that hadn’t taken much work sorting out. Doctors wore white, nurses wore green, and people who weren’t allowed to take a piss without help got put in blue.

If there was some point beyond boredom, that was what he’d found in his colorless room.
His pad was back on Lucy. They gave him another to use when he asked, but it wasn’t
his
. The technology was similar, but only in the most basic of senses. The nurses had to teach him how to type on it, which was a kind of humiliation that Tron could’ve gone his whole life without experiencing. They reassured him that it was the same for everyone who traveled near light speeds, and that he had nothing to be embarrassed about. It didn’t help, but he supposed it was nice of them to try. Even after he learned how to operate it, he still didn’t find the access to the nets to be of particular comfort. None of his favorite vids were queued and while he could find the books he’d been reading, he couldn’t access his notes. Those were stored on Lucy’s intranet, which was beyond the reach of even this advanced pad.

At first he tried watching news vids. He’d come into a new world, one that hadn’t even existed when he first stepped on board Lucy, but had passed him up by at least fifty years while he traveled. Learning about it would be prudent, especially if he intended to become a part of it. And he might want that. He
needed to talk to Kivi before he decided anything. But it wouldn’t hurt to gather information in the meantime. That resolution lasted all of two hours. By the time another round of doctors came to start another round of tests, Tron was so tired of watching news he considered asking them to induce a sleep that would last until they were done with him.

Next he tried reading. But he didn’t want to read. He wanted to get up and find Kivi. They had so much they had to talk about. He needed to know how she was healing, and find out how Whit was doing. None of the people who bustled in and out of his room would tell him anything. They wouldn’t even acknowledge that Kivi and Whit were patients, no matter how many times Tron pointed out that he was present when they were admitted and, moreover, present when they got sick and injured. Between his frustration and his worry, Tron was too distracted to focus on any book.

After that, he’d just watched whatever vid the pad suggested. Since he hadn’t put in any preferences, the selection was varied and unpredictable, but as Tron found it impossible to pay much attention, that wasn’t really a problem. He watched everything from documentaries to cartoons, all without really processing anything. His thoughts, when he had them were sluggish and twisted up with Kivi and Whit.

But t
hat was yesterday.

Lorna told him that he would be allowed out of his room today. Not to go wherever he pleased, of course. The people here were obsessed with rules and restrictions, and Tron didn’t hold out even a small hope of actual freedom. Until they were done, he was leashed by their need to heal him. Normally he’d rant and protest and fight against this stupid system, but they were also healing people he couldn’t lose. Since he had no idea what would happen or where he would go if the people of Vah decided he was a problem the way everyone on Lucy did, Tron
didn’t want to push too hard. Argue a little, sure. He was a grown man, for god’s sake, and should be allowed to pull down his own pants. But not actually fight. He’d settle for leaving his room.

It wasn’t Lorna who came to get him. The doors here didn’t even hiss properly, which was just obnoxious. For the first two days, he’d been constantly startled as people seemed to just appear at his side. He’d finally learned the trick of noticing footsteps even when he wasn’t actively listening for them. Tron managed not to sigh with disappointment as the man entere
d, his eyes locked on a pad of his own. Accidently brushes with Lorna’s body were the highlights of his time here.

“
Are you ready to go Mr. Whitman?”

Tron shook his head. He must be losing his mind. “What did you call me?”

The nurse looked up. The guy was young, not much older than him. More importantly, he was Lorna’s male counterpart. It was strange beyond measure to see his fantasy’s delicate features and soft brown eyes worn by a man. They had to be siblings. Or clones. There was no way too people looked so identical by chance.

“Mr. Whitman,” the man responded. “That is you, isn’t it? Tron
dheim Whitman, physical age 17, nephew of Rueben Whitman.”

“Huh? Where did you…” He stopped. There was only one place they could get that idea. Whit must have told them. “What happens if I’m not?”

The young man arched an eyebrow, fingers hovering over the pad as though preparing to record everything Tron said. “Then your true identity would be determined so that you could be properly billed and, being under age, your next of kin found.”

“If… If there’s no one to bill? No next of kin?”

“Then Lost Persons Department would be notified. They would collect you and find somewhere to put you to work so that you might fulfill your debt to this base and the cost to the LPD for your continued care. You are stating that you are not Trondheim Whitman?”

“No! I mean, I am. I just…” He flashed a smile that he could only hope was convincing. “I was just curious. I’ve never done this before. My parents…”

It was the other man’s turn to offer a less than convincing smile. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

Whitman. That was… more. More than he’d ever expected, more than he deserved. The old man had claimed him, given him resources and saved him from pitfalls he hadn’t even known existed. The man had been dying, but found a way to claim him all the same. That wasn’t a favor that could be repaid someday. That went beyond helping out a fellow survivor. It was just so much more.

“Yeah, ok. Let’s go. I’d prefer if you called me Tron. But you could even call me Heim if it gets me out of this bed.”

The guy snickered, though Tron suspected it was more relief than an appreciation of his humor.
“Alright. Tron then. I’ll wheel you out of here. Policy is that no patient walks the halls. They worry about people getting turned around and lost. This is a big place. Once we get to the recreation area you’ll be free to do as you please.”

This time the grin he gave Lorna’s doppelganger was genuine. “Whatever it takes!” He slid around the bed until his legs dangled over, the way they’d taught him. It was weird, acting like his legs didn’t work when they felt so much better than they ever had before. But doing otherwise, he’d learned the hard way, would result in a long scolding from the nurses. This one was new, to him at least, but Tron hadn’t had any luck with the others. He wasn’t about to waste a second of his small freedom just to stand up in his room for a few seconds.

They navigated through the hallways quickly. Tron immediately understood the policy that had seemed so ridiculous back in his room. The place was every bit as busy and crowded as the mess hall had been at meal times. There were dozens of people in their color-coded uniforms, and they past at least six other patients in wheelchairs. He didn’t know there were so many people in the whole universe, let alone crammed into a single building. Even an enormous one like this. Everyone was going somewhere, and doing so quickly. Everywhere he looked was another room, another hallway, another alcove. There wasn’t a single section of wall that wasn’t being used for one thing or another. There were displays listing out letters and numbers that Tron was sure meant something to someone, but even when they paused long enough for him to get a glance at them, they were nothing but gibberish to him. In each alcove was a desk that was a center for the storm of activity, with nurses bustling about and talking in hushed tones. They turned corner after corner, each leading to another hallway that was just as busy as the one they’d left behind. In minutes, he was so lost that the thought of trying to make his own way back the room he’d been staying in actually terrified him.

And then, suddenly, they were out. They walked through another of the obnoxiously silent doors, this set so wide that ten people could easily walk through it at the same time without even brushing sleeves. On the other side was a burst of color so overwhelming that it was several seconds before Tron could even take it in.

This was nothing like the rec room on Lucy. It had far more in common with Hydroponics, though that was like comparing a weed to a tree. There were plants everywhere, but not the strictly functional ones his father had cared for, and they weren’t organized for proper monitoring. There were flowers everywhere, in reds and purples and blues and yellows and colors he didn’t even have names for. They seemed to be allowed to grow wherever they liked, beneath the giant trees looming overhead or climbing up the backs of the benches. Smells unlike anything he’d ever experienced assaulted him. At first, they were so powerful that they made his eyes water and he was gripped by a fit of sneezing.

There was a sting at the side of his neck. Tron looked up to find the nurse smiling down at him, another of the strange devices they called syringes – again, the compari
son was laughable – though there were no needles he could see. There was just the vials and the tiny sting. “What the hell?”

The nurse winked. “Antihistamine. A life on a ship doesn’t prepare your body for the pleasures of our garden. I thought you might like your first experience without a runny nose and watering eyes.”

“Um, yeah. Thanks.” He hesitated. “Am I allowed to stand up now?”

“Yes. Just do
me a favor, will you?”

Tron eyed the man, hoping the favor didn’t involve another test or vial of blood or day in bed. Not that he would have a choice in the matter. These people knew how to get what they wanted, no matter what
his thoughts on the matter.

“Don’t make a face. It’s nothing that bad.”

“What then?”

“Just take it easy. You feel strong. Everyone does. But you aren’t. Not yet. It takes time to build back. So just don’t push yourself too hard this first time, ok?”

Tron smiled. He had no intention of taking it easy. He’d spent the last five days missing the feeling of tired limbs, the satisfying ache of muscles pushed hard, almost as much as he missed Kivi. If he couldn’t have one, he intended to have the other.

The nurse rolled his eyes. “Alright, you do what you want. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’ll be waiting here at the bench, when you’re ready to go.”

“You have to wait for me?”

The man pulled his pad from his pocket and wiggled it back and forth. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got some reading to catch up on. You enjoy yourself. There are all kinds of surprises out here.” That was more than enough permission for Tron. Not wanting to lose another second, he climbed to his feet.

The nurse wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t nearly as strong as he’d thought. He figured that out very quickly, when his knees wavered and threatened to buckle under his weight. It took him a while to find his balance. Once he got it, he realized that he wouldn’t be running the way he’d imagined. But that was ok. Walking, after being tied to his bed for so long, was marvel enough for now.

He shuffled forward slowly, following a soft path of light green grass that wove around the flowers and trees. The deeper he went, the more he found. Just like the nurse had said, there was more to the space than he’d first thought. It wasn’t just a garden at all.

A short distance from where he left the nurse, Tron stumbled into an area without any trees. Light, blindingly bright, beat down on him. He tried to look up, to see where the lamp was that could produce such illumination and heat. Without the leaves, he could see clearly, except there wasn’t anything to see. No wires, no pipes. Just an endless expanse of blue, with white puffs that looked like stretched out cotton balls. Clouds, he realized with a start. He was looking at clouds. And they were moving. Which meant it wasn’t a ceiling he was looking at, but the sky itself. Not the endless black that had waited outside the thick walls, but real sky. Sky that had an end and a day and clouds. And a sun! He laughed out loud.