Chapter 5

Mark

Mark paced the floor of his private suite at First Landing Memorial Hospital, waiting for the doctor who would be overseeing his treatment program. He was wearing nothing but a silky robe. He had already completed the antiseptic routines, including a complete shaving of all body hair. He touched his scalp for the hundredth time. Smooth. He´d done this too many times to count, but everything was different this time. He reckoned the treatment could be reduced to a minimum of three to four months, and he intended to make the doctors understand the adjustments that would make this possible. It usually took six to eight months, so even a conservative doctor should treat a 50% reduction in time as an opportunity.

Besides, he was Mark Novak. People listened to him. He invented the treatment, and without him, the Moon people would just be an isolated group of lunatics and their descendants confined to Luna or some remote part of Earth.

While the treatment and the plan for conducting it, were important, Mark found himself occupied with thinking of everything that was happening. The starship orbiting Saturn had disappeared and was possibly closing in on Earth. Covenant leadership was in the balance, and Mark wasn´t sure which side he would end up on. Meanwhile, David Wagner was in Buchanan, and although Mark had sent him a message to help him figure out what to do next, he wasn´t sure whether Wagner would see the possibilities, let alone act upon them. And then there was poor Susan.

Mark cursed himself for letting her be brought to Luna in the first place. He should have picked her up from the Corpus himself. He´d actually believed Evan Hordvik would take care of her, but something had happened up there. Mark didn´t know how she had ended up in Charlestown, or why she was being treated with Bliss. What was Evan´s role in it? Why had he let her go like that?

This was his greatest concern: he might have completely misread Evan Hordvik´s intentions. If Evan figured out the truth of his father´s death, that would be the end of Mark—and Alexej along with him. War would certainly follow, as inevitable as the seasons.

The door opened, and Mark looked at a stunning blonde standing in the doorway. Swaying as she entered the room, she smiled when he sat up straighter. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, and Mark wondered who had sent her. She had to be a gift from Alexej, he thought. He grinned sheepishly.

"Don´t get up on my account, Counselor Novak. I´m here to discuss the procedures," she said, taking a seat next to him. She flicked the screen of her infopad, ignoring his surprised look.

"You´re the doctor? You look a lot younger than I expected," he said. She grinned, flashing a perfect row of white teeth.

"Well, it´s been a while since you were here last." She seemed to be scanning a list before she put her finger on one of the items. She looked up at him, all business. "While your work is amazing, Counselor, there have been a few developments since you last took the treatment. I took mine just two years ago, and you can’t tell, right?" He nodded slowly.

"I´m close to a hundred and twenty years old, Counselor Novak." Mark said nothing as the implications struck him. The treatment had evolved, and the doctors were performing even bigger miracles. Yet, even as the possibility of more effective rejuvenation exhilarated him, a chill crept up his spine. They had done all this without his supervision. They had managed to improve the treatment to an even higher standard. He would soon be redundant, if he wasn´t already.

 

 

Dave

Dave was working late. He was bleary-eyed and tired from staring at the computer for hours, and his eyelids had drooped shut more than once in the last hour.

He started at the loud clicking of footsteps behind him and turned to see who it was.

Dr. Michelle Sims stopped and smiled.

"Mr. Wagner, I see you take your work seriously," she said. Dave blushed.

"Well, yeah," he said. Dr. Sims took a chair and sat down next to him.

"So, how do you like it here?" she said. Dave thought for a moment before answering.

"I love it. I really do. There´s so much to discover, and what I´m doing here goes way beyond anything that I did while I was with the Wardens. Perhaps they do more in Legacy. The Covenant shouldn´t be underestimated, you know. But honestly, I never dreamed that someone had ever left for another planet, let alone left the solar system. Those people had never even heard of the Moon people, right? Or Buchanan?" Dr. Sims smiled smugly.

"Well, the Moon people, no. Definitely not. They might have heard of Buchanan, not the city or the nation, but the founder should have been quite well known among them. In fact, he was in charge of the project that sent them out there in the first place," she said. Dave nodded. He had read as much.

Dr. Sims waved it off and changed the subject.

"Listen, Dave. There is something I would like you to see. I know you have been busy working on the Aurora information and the data sent back from the Exodus en route to Aurora, which is interesting, but what I have to show you, young Wagner, will blow your mind." Dave looked up. Dr. Sims never spoke like that. In fact, now that he looked, he could see she was beaming. Something big was happening, that much was obvious.

"Tell me about it," he blurted. Dr. Sims shook her head. She got to her feet and motioned for him to follow.

"Come with me. I think you should see for yourself."

Dave followed her through the hallways of the Frost Observatory, which were almost empty at this hour. A few red-eyed scientists on their way out nodded their acknowledgement in passing, and a cleaner moved her trolley aside for them. Other than that, the only sounds were the clicking of Dr. Sims’s heels and the low hum of fans. The air smelled of ozone and detergent, and there was a special quiet this time of night that Dave had always enjoyed.

They entered her office, and Dr. Simms unlocked her computer. Dave saw a diagram, and he sat down while Dr. Simms explained it to him.

"These are gravity measurements from near Saturn. As you can see, there is a spike. In reality, it´s just a small blip, but it has been enhanced for us to see the disturbance."

"Disturbance, ma´am?" Dave asked, puzzled.

"A slight disturbance, but something that shouldn´t be there. Now," she clicked, and an image of a pale dot on a black background appeared. "This is the cause of the disturbance."

Dave had to look closer. He still didn´t understand where she was going. Dr. Sims clicked rapidly through several images, fast enough that Dave was able to see the dot move and turn.

"Impossible," he whispered.

"And yet, there it is," Dr. Sims said softly.

"But relativity, I mean, it shouldn´t even be possible for decades.” He trailed off and looked up at Dr. Simms, who was grinning.

"But it is, David. It´s a spaceship. And we believe it is the Aurorans."

 

 

Sue

Sue was standing in front of the mirror staring at her reflection. Her mind was made up, regardless of what everyone around her said. The headaches were getting worse. This wasn´t life. Seeing Laurie had made her consider her current life. She had been a Janissary once, and she had faced death more than once. She had been scared, of course, but she had faced it. Life as a Janissary had been as dangerous as anything could be, and yet she had done it. And, amazingly, she was still alive.

But living like this, dependent on medication and unable to do anything of value, depressed her. If this continued, she´d have two decades of suffering and then she would have to face euthanasia, discarded at forty, just like her father had been at fifty. That wasn´t life. It was a slow death.

She opened the little medicine box. She emptied it into her hand and stood looking at the pills for a long time. What was the point? What was the point of anything if she had to live like this? She would rather be dead than live like this, every day blurring into an endless, empty routine, broken up only by blinding headaches that left her exhausted and disoriented.

It was as if she had died up there in the North, like her body had been left in an unmarked grave. She was a ghost, caught between life and death, unable to escape. She desperately wanted to escape. She had to escape.

She looked down at the pills and then back at the mirror again. She couldn't live like this. She opened her hand and let the pills drop down into the sink. Then, she flushed them all down.

She was done. She was done with this, even if it cost her her life.