THIRTY-SIX

 

 

ÉMILE ALIGHTED AT the busy port on the roof of the Baie-Comeau. The biggest of the habitats didn’t just house the government and important industries, but the hospital. Landing crews serviced the wings, fueled and racked them, while a different crew slowly reeled in drone-bins with incoming supplies from different habitats. A half-dozen people in survival suits were either shucking their big wing-packs or putting them on. Émile unstrapped his wing-pack, tied it to the rack, and cycled through a big airlock with five others.

He didn’t know the upper decks of the Baie-Comeau very well. The envelope nestled a warren of offices, meeting rooms and the hospital, but the corridors of black carbon nanotube paneling, pressed strong and light, all looked the same. At the end of a corridor he spotted a sign with a red cross on it. He’d never been here. Whatever medical help he’d needed, his father and mother had given it to him, consulting decades-old medical encyclopedias on their datapads.

It was cool and clean. The waiting room was half-full of adults and children in survival suits. Beyond that was a nurses’ desk and a ward of closely-packed hammocks behind a curtain. He entered uncertainly, then went to the nurses’ desk, where two big men with unscarred arms argued over a medical report.

“I’m looking for Thérèse Jetté,” he said.

One man frowned. Checked his pad.

“Jetté?”

Émile nodded.

“Outer waiting room,” the man said, pointing. “Out the door, to the left, down the hall.”

Émile followed the directions and arrived in a small, foul-smelling room. Four chairs were affixed to the wall. Thérèse’s thin, sweaty body was draped across two of them. A waste bin was near her head. She’d obviously needed it. A damp cloth had fallen on the floor. Émile knelt and touched her.

“Thérèse!”

Fine blue veins showed in cool, papery eyelids.

“Thérèse, where’s the doctor?”

She moaned and looked at him with dilated pupils. A shallow sigh escaped her lips as she recognized him.

“No doctors,” she said.

“There are doctors and nurses,” he said.

She shook her head, swallowed as if about to be sick again, then moaned.

“I’m getting a doctor.”

She gripped his hand tightly. For the first time, she looked ashamed. Embarrassed.

“No,” she said weakly. She made a visible effort not to be sick again. “They don’t waste meds on ODs.”

“You ODed?” He stroked her face, felt the temperature of her wrist, the way maman had taught him to look after Marthe and Pascal when they were young. He felt like he was going to cry. “It doesn’t matter. They have to.”

“I’m not dying. The best they could do is give me a lot of water and a bucket.” She was crying. “I made a mess.”

She had. The vomit hadn’t all hit the waste bin, and it smelled like she’d soiled her suit too. He stroked her hand and kissed her cool forehead.

“Don’t worry, chérie,” he whispered. “I’ll clean you up.”

She breathed easier and closed her eyes.

“Where is everyone?” he asked. “Why did they leave you alone? Why didn’t they call me sooner?”

“Réjean brought me,” she said in a weak voice. “He left.”

“What about the others? Your artist friends? The sculptors?”

She shrugged. He brushed the hair away from her face. Her breath came shallow and sour. He got water and knelt, wiping her face, cleaning the sweat and sick around her mouth. Then, what was on the floor. He sat, exhausted, although he hadn’t really done anything.

“Did you do it on purpose?” he finally whispered.

Her tears came harder and he thought of the kid with the knife at Réjean’s party, and even Marthe, who’d carved her own marks into her wrists.

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. The spiritual helplessness in her voice shriveled all his other concerns. A terror seized him. He might have lost her because... because of what? Because she’d given up on Venus? Because she couldn’t fight anymore? He lifted her head and hugged her as her sobs came stronger and louder.

“We belong,” he whispered in her ear. He whispered it over and over. “We belong here. We belong to each other.”

“Don’t let me go?” she pleaded against his chest.

“Never.”