| |
Brother Anderson examined Hannah’s vital signs. The toxicity and effects of her overdose had all basically returned to normal levels. She was in REM sleep now, probably dreaming. He scanned back over her recorded data and noted that she had entered REM about five minutes ago. She had been sleeping all night, and this was most likely her last cycle, so she would probably wake up soon. Brother Anderson was not entirely looking forward to that, he admitted to himself. Somewhere in his mind a voice said “keep her asleep,” but he knew that would not be ethical. At this point she had been sedated for longer than he was comfortable with, and the sedative was no longer needed, so therefore he could not justify another dose. Yes, Hannah would most likely be angry with him, but he would have to face her wrath sooner or later.
As he pondered these facts, a sudden burst of signals appeared in his awareness, originating from Colin. Brother Anderson spun around suddenly, and saw all four of Colin’s limbs twitch in a short but almost violent spasm, and his eyes suddenly open. He coughed and bolted upright instinctively to keep from choking. He shook his head briefly, causing his head to pound as he stared at Brother Anderson.
“Whoa!” said Colin.
“Hello Colin,” Brother Anderson replied, with almost a hint of emotion. “I’m very happy to see you awake!” Indeed, he almost sounded happy.
To say that Colin felt groggy would be a vast understatement. “Groggy” barely scratched the surface of the feelings of bleariness blowing through Colin’s awareness. Yet somehow, there was also a strangely urgent clarity. Something critical needed to be done. Colin felt very strongly that he had to act quickly. The problem was, he had no idea what action was required or why. He suddenly felt dizzy and weak, and allowed his body to ease back into the bed. Turning his head slowly toward Brother Anderson, he noticed the electrodes attached to his chest and head, and the awareness dawned that he was in med bay. He could not recall why. He did not feel any pain that would have indicated an injury. With some difficulty, he threw off the blanket and patted himself down.
“Doctor? Why am I here?”
Colin listened blank-faced as Brother Anderson explained the circumstances of his injury. Soon, the memories came rushing back like a flood. The smoke. The blinding yellow flash. The searing jets of flame. The smell - that god-awful smell - a sickening mixture of burning flesh and acrid bleach-like corrosion. He wretched at the thought of it, choking back several dry heaves. He thought of his colleagues, his co-workers and friends from shift C engineering; Tynor, Hansel, Turner, the chief, and of course Tommy and Scranton. He looked around the med bay, thinking he might see Scranton and Tommy, but knowing deep down that would be impossible. With the type of injuries he had witnessed them receive, they wouldn’t have stood a chance. Those two men had suffered terrible, painful deaths. He could only hope their suffering had been over quickly. His friends were not here in med bay with him. He did see someone here though, another patient. Her head was slumped slightly away from him but even from just the mass of somewhat strewn looking slightly wavy brown shoulder-length hair, he was pretty sure he recognized her.
“Doc?” he motioned at Brother Anderson, “is that Hannah? Maison Bhutros’s daughter?”
“Yes, it is. Do you know each other?”
“We’ve met.” Then, “She hates me.”
“Hmm. Me too.”
“What!?” he asked, confused “Why would YOU hate me?!”
“No, no. I mean Hannah hates ME as well.”
“She hates you?! But you’re her doctor!”
“Yes, well...” Brother Anderson trailed off. At any rate, Colin did not want to get into a discussion about why Hannah hated him, and he had other pressing questions as well.
“What about my friends, the other guys from the fire, did they... I mean, are they...” he let his question trail off. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
“Your friends did not survive the initial incident, I’m afraid.”
“Initial? What?!”
“Colin, the ship has suffered a series of hull breach-”
“I knew it! Something was really off about that fire! Was it some kind of weapon or what?”
“Well, that’s a really good question, actually. In fact, I have pondered that myself. Of course, there is no way to know intent, but it almost does seem to be the most probable explanation. Although, I scoured the databanks and there has never been any record of a weapon of this exact nature.”
“What? Are you serious? How can that be? There is nothing new around the sun, Doc!”
“I’m absolutely serious, Colin.”
“Wow, that’s unbelievable! What exactly was the ‘exact nature’ of this weapon?” Colin modulated his voice to sound similar to Brother Anderson’s phrasing.
“The breaches appear to have been caused by contact with centimeter scale granules of fluorine and chlorine molecules packed in an open lattice framework stuffed with a microbial payload. As I’m sure you know, fluorine is an incredibly powerful oxidizing agent so it reacted violently with the hull, effectively exploding its way into the ship.”
“No,” argued Colin, “That’s impossible. You can’t make a lattice of halogens. The ions repel each other.”
“True,” agreed Brother Anderson. “And yet, that is what seems to have been done. Which means that someone figured a way to stick these ions together. Which means that this was no naturally occurring phenomenon.”
“So how did they do it?”
“That, I do not know. I am still trying to come up with a satisfactory explanation. I have run millions of simulations using every known compound.”
“What? Every compound! Why? That’s a waste of time. You can narrow down the possibilities based on trace elements in the residue left from the reaction.”
“Yes, you are correct. I misspoke. I meant every known compound of elements present in the samples. But after I got no positive results, I widened the parameters and eventually, removed all elemental filters altogether. And then, I quite literally simulated every single compound.”
Colin let out a low whistle. “That must have taken forever.”
“It took a month.”
Colin was speechless. He could not imagine it. The hardest engineering problems he had ever fed into the ship had processing times in milliseconds. He had heard of navigation problems taking minutes, but a month? How could that be? Then another thought dawned on him.
“Wait. I’ve been out of it for a MONTH!?”
“No, Colin. You have been in a coma for almost four months.”
Colin reeled. How could that be? It felt like maybe a day or two! Instinctively, his body urged him to sit up. He struggled to do so. His muscles felt soggy, and he managed only to lift his head and left shoulder, pushing feebly against the bed with both arms. The sudden movement made him dizzy, and his head throbbed.
“Rest a moment,” Brother Anderson told him.
“Rest!? Like I need to rest?! What have I BEEN doing!?” He wasn’t sure if he yelled, or if he merely thought it. Nevertheless, he slumped to the bed, too weak to sit up. Brother Anderson gave him a few sips of water. After a few minutes, his body and mind recovered their strength.
“Doc?”
“Yes”
“You mentioned something else. Some kind of biological agent?”
“Yes, a microbial payload. Again, it’s like none on record. It has many similarities to viral pathogens, but the structure differs from a virus in several key factors.” He went on to elucidate on structural and metabolic minutia composed entirely of highly technical biological jargon. Colin had impressed himself with his ability to argue chemistry with the robot-doctor, but the conversation had veered very far out of his wheelhouse.
As the doctor spoke, Colin’s attention turned toward the rumbling feelings and sounds in his stomach. He hadn’t eaten in forever. That was an expression he used often, but this time it was nearly true. The rumbling seemed to surround him though. His hunger seemed to be part of his surroundings as well as just his body. He cocked his head to the side and listened. It was not only his stomach that was rumbling. The ship herself was vibrating and moaning softly.
“What is that?” he interrupted Brother Anderson.
The robot misinterpreted the question, thinking Colin was actually listening to him, and repeated some obscure word from his diatribe, then began launching into a further tangent based on that word’s definition.
“No, no... Shut up!”
Brother Anderson shut up.
“Listen!” Colin whispered, his index finger raised and pointing vaguely in the general vicinity of the ship that surrounded them, by gesturing toward a structural bulkhead that protruded along the med bay ceiling. “Do you hear it?” He stared at Brother Anderson, who somehow, through some unintended and unknown facial pose, managed to convey the correct body language that said:
“Yes, I hear it. I know exactly what you mean. And I know exactly what is causing it. Colin, we have some problems.”