Beads of sweat covered Maricia’s forehead. She twisted and moaned in pain. Zhivago administered more hypothalamic blocker and waited until she was able to be still. Imaging was repeated. She had been on Medical for two days. She had a common duct gallstone. Her sclera had started to yellow. Surgery had been delayed because of several factors including anemia, altered mental status, and a transient reaction to the antibiotic. It could not wait longer.
Her blood pressure hovered around eighty, her heart rate 130, and her temperature above 38.5 degrees Celsius. Jekyll was benched, so one of the med-bots, Lola, would assist. A short acting narcotic was given, and Maricia became still. Several small incisions were made in her abdomen and instruments placed. As Maricia looked straight ahead, blinking but otherwise motionless, her gallbladder was removed. Removal of the stone lodged in the common duct would not be so easy. Placement of the stone retrieval tool into the duct caused Maricia to squirm. More medication was given. Ivanna came to help, controlling two of the instruments. Blood pressure and heart rate fell, requiring a change in pharmacology. More blocking agent was given. Finally, there was a metallic clank as a large 1.5-centimeter stone hit the pan. If Zhivago could have issued a sigh of relief and pride in his skill, he would have done so at that moment. What he communicated to Lola and the system was a probability statement about possible damage to the common duct and potential leakage. Lola placed a long thick tube through Maricia’s mouth and into her esophagus. She threaded it though the stomach and into the duodenum, stopping at the ampulla of Vater. With this in place, they confirmed that the duct was intact albeit weakened in two areas of laceration from the wires of the basket used to extract the rock. They then began to sew and seal as the operation drew to a close.
Savanna followed the progress of the procedure as she sat at the pilot’s console in CAC, working feverishly to confirm and occasionally modify the computer’s analysis and plan for the undocking. The clank wrenched her attention to the screen, and the concern about a leak moved like a news ticker across the bottom of the picture. Her attention refocused on the dilemma at hand. If she chose to put her craft between the moon and Yord, they would need to separate about two hours from now to have the ion engine miss orbit and drift into the sun. This was her preference. The computer preferred the slightly higher probability course of separating later, using the ion engine to slow the craft down instead of lunar gravity. This would leave them with more fuel in the auxiliary rocket engine for maneuvering and landing. However, in this scenario, the spent engine would assume an orbit around the planet and enter the atmosphere years or centuries later. This would be catastrophic, of course, but the primary objective was to find out if the planet was habitable and begin populating it. By the time the engine hit the planet, it should have been populated enough so that the species would easily survive despite potentially considerable loss of life.
Savanna tested the electronics of the auxiliary engine successfully. It was stored in the LBS. The computer had accepted her plan, and separation would occur in forty-six minutes. She opened the storage bay doors and extended the arm that held the rocket, placing it several meters outside the skin of the LBS. The crew module and the auxiliary device would detach within the same millisecond.
She reached for a pill and a bottle. The pill was a type of amphetamine. It served to enhance cerebral function for several hours, peaking in thirty minutes. Savanna had not slept in over twenty-four hours and needed all the attention she could muster. It might also wake the baby. She had twenty minutes of waiting before she needed to oversee the process. She took yet another bio-break, made more frequent by pregnancy, then took the lift down to Medical.
Maricia was groggy but awake. She looked pasty and pale; cold forehead and blue fingers. She was making sounds but no sense. Savanna patted her and comforted her with words as well. On return to CACthe colors, normally muted, seemed brighter. Everything was in sharp, surreal focus. The mundane, familiar room looked strangely beautiful. She was feeling happy and peaceful. The amphetamine gave an entirely different feeling than the diethylamide she had used so often. She liked it. She sat at the console, mind focused and creative. Data flew by on the screen. She noticed something questionable as it passed and retrieved it. Was a tiny correction needed? She ran it by the computer. It was deemed optional and ignored. Minutes prior to firing, she issued the final order to batten down. All floors but Medical and CAC had been secured prior to this moment. Maricia’s bed was locked in. She was belted down. The robots were docked and locked. Nothing was loose.
An audible countdown started. This ended with rumble that grew to a loud roar and a huge pressure as the LBS “ejected” the crew module, slowing it down, creating a 3 g force temporarily followed by weightlessness.
The crew module had no fuel or rocket. Savanna had to remotely maneuver the auxiliary propulsion stage to the moduleand dock them. A jolt and shudder as well as a screen message confirmed it was successful. On screen she scrutinized the enormous LBS as it receded in the distance. It was pocked and scarred. The painted numbers, letters, symbols, and seven flags were gone. It was now gray, not the proud white structure it was when built. Now it was headed to the sun, destined for annihilation in a year or so.
After reconfirming that docking was complete, she fired up a small thruster that continued to slow them down. The amount of thrust was small, resulting in perceived gravity, about 18 percent of what they had been experiencing. She gave the order to resume activity appropriate for a weight-reduced state.
The trajectory placed their craft close to the barren, cratered moon. The moon’s gravity combined with the gravity of the parent planet would tend to accelerate them initially, but when the craft came between the two, the moon would slow them as it tried to capture them. This would bend their course. Savanna might need to fire the rockets to escape the gravity of the moon; they were coming that close. Alternatively, she might need to fire up to correct the course as they left. But for the next twenty-two hours, she needed to do nothing as pilot.
As she walked to the lift, she chose to take the stairs. She bounded down three at a time, happy. Her tiredness was gone, her mind still on overdrive, and she had lost over a hundred pounds, or so it seemed.
Maricia was still not talking, so Savanna went to the mess hall and had a large meal. She craved a glass of wine for so many reasons but did not drink it for one. The amphetamine was wearing off, and fatigue was quickly catching up. She needed sleep and went to her room. As she grasped the door handle, she realized she had not oriented the approach to the moon so that the final orbit would include a decent look at Yord’s poles, which appeared intensely white where they were not obscured by cover of clouds. She could not make the course correction from her room so retraced the route to CAC. It took half an hour to reprogram and triple-check. On her return to quarters, she was asleep within two minutes.