Steven McDonald - Steven E. McDonald

Great bedside manner, DJ, Miller thought. DJ turned, looked for a moment at Miller, nodded, dropped the used hypodermic into a biohazard box, and went on to Cooper. Cooper, as usual, had dispensed with even the smallest display of modesty, standing before his gravity couch with only his sassy attitude and a pair of dog tags to keep him warm. Cooper, grinning, offered his arm to DJ, who did no more than frown, swab, and impale.

To one side of him, Peters kicked off her boots and started to shuck out of her flight suit, going to hang it up in a storage locker. Time was moving; the ion drive would not wait for him. He pulled off his own boots and unzipped his suit, stripping down to his regulation underwear.

Done with Cooper, who went to let it all hang out in his Gravity Couch, DJ

moved over to Justin, frowning for a moment at the silver pentacle hanging around Justin’s neck with his dog tags. DJ could not raise an objection, however. Just as the dog tags were permissible in the tank, so was religious and matrimonial jewelry. There had been instances of people dying in a Gravity Couch, and woe betide those who thought to deprive them of their comforting icons.

DJ swabbed, stabbed. Justin winced, followed up with a pained smile, went to his tank, and laid down.

“Captain Miller…”

Miller turned his head, his expression darkening. Weir was approaching, an almost pleading look on his face. He had stripped down to black bikini underwear.

“Not now,” Miller said, sharply. He looked around, found Peters, gestured to her. She walked over. “Peters, show Dr. Weir to his couch, please.”

Weir shut his mouth. Peters took the scientist’s arm, gently, leading him away from Miller. The Captain was pleased to see that Peters’ mothering abilities were effective even on someone as relentlessly single-minded as Weir appeared to be. The last thing he needed was an insistent passenger getting in the way. Weir, unfortunately, had been trying his best to be underfoot since coming aboard at Daylight Station. As far as Miller was concerned, the scientist was nothing more than a nervous, fidgety pain in the ass.

DJ approached, intent on Miller. Making sure I get the point, as Cooper says.

Miller offered his arm.

Peters kept her light hold on Weir’s arm as she led him over to an unattended Gravity Couch. Weir was not sure whether he should be offended or complimented by this very specific treatment, deciding, in the end, to have little or no reaction at all, blanking everything out as usual.

Weir looked the Gravity Couch over, uncertain. His name was written in black marker on a piece of masking tape stuck to an open area on the operations plate. The tube was lined with padding, the gel feeders almost invisible.

His chest tightened, and he had difficulty breathing. Peters’ hand tightened slightly on his arm, reassuring, but it did not make the anxiety attack cease.

She looked at his face, smiling warmly at him as he tried to regain control. “First time in a grav couch?”

Weir swallowed hard, and found that his throat was dry. “Yes.”

Peters checked over the Gravity Couch with a practiced eye, inspecting the seals and checking the lining. Taking Weir’s arm again, she helped him to get into place inside the tall tube.

Over at the other side of the medical bay, DJ, was administering a shot to Captain Miller. As DJ withdrew the needle, Miller straightened his arm out, flexing the muscles, making the dark skin ripple. Silent, Miller climbed into his Gravity Couch and closed his eyes.

Miller dealt with, DJ came toward Weir, who felt his chest tighten again.

Scientist or not, he had been terrified of medical procedures since childhood; needles were the worst. He had never even been able to tolerate local anesthetics for dental work—one look at that hypo of Novocain and he was fleeing for his life.

Distracting himself, Weir said, “Your captain seems to have some sort of problem with me.”

Peters smiled again. He liked her smile. Irrationally, it made him feel they could actually be friends. “Don’t worry about him,” she said, the undertone of her voice suggesting to Weir that she thought Miller was just a big old teddybear under all the gruff authority. “He loves having complete strangers on board.”

Very reassuring, Weir thought.

DJ was at his side, now, Peters giving way to him, going off to prepare herself. Silently, focused on his work, DJ took Weir’s arm, swabbing it with alcohol. The treatment was not particularly kind, verging on painful. Weir did not feel singled out for special mistreatment, however—even Miller had been handled brusquely.

Still, he disliked the process. Trying to keep his mind of what was to come, he said, “Is that necessary?”

DJ gave him a measured look, not answering for a moment. Trying to decide if I’ma complete idiot or just blowing smoke, Weir thought, uneasily.

An eyebrow raised, DJ said, “When the ion drive fires, we’ll be taking about thirty gees. Without a tank, the force would liquefy your bones.” The doctor’s tone was patronizing, and Weir bridled at this.

“I’ve seen the effect on mice,” Weir said, more sharply than he had intended. The ship, he knew, also had inertial dampers that mitigated the effects of acceleration.

DJ shook his head, sighing, and Weir knew that he had failed whatever sort of idiot test DJ had. He closed his eyes and held his breath, wishing himself to some other, kinder, place. Once again, his prayers were not answered. There was a sharp pain in his arm as DJ jabbed a needle into his arm, followed by a worse pain as the doctor injected the medication into him. Weir winced, bit his lip. Liquid warmth spread from the injection site, up and down his arm.

He opened his eyes again, to see DJ disposing of the hypodermic and the swab. The doctor turned back, reaching for the Couch door. He saw Weir’s expression, took stock of the scientist’s tense posture. “Claustrophobic?”

“Very,” Weir said, grateful that someone was at least paying a little attention to him. He was even more grateful for the warm lethargy that was beginning to steal over him.

Unbidden, lines from Coleridge’s unfinished “Xanadu” drifted across his mind: For they on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise.

DJ slammed the Couch door. There was the sound of the door being dogged shut, somewhere in the distance.

Weir faded.

Weir dreamed.

Fifty-six days out of Daylight Station, with Neptune looming close, the USAC Lewis and Clark responded to its own inner voices. Its crew slept on, entombed in the heart of the spaceship, but it did not need them, not right now.

For fifty-six days the Lewis and Clark had answered only the call of its own electronic mind. Now it followed a new compulsion, approaching its target.

Maneuvering thrusters fired in sequence, first correcting pitch and yaw, then, stability ensured, firing delicate bursts at just the right vectors to cause its lumbering bulk to slowly roll forward.

Head over heels, the Lewis and Clark turned to face back the way it had come. Thrusters fired again, stopping the roll. A silent countdown followed.

The ion drive ignited, a brilliance that, out here at least, shamed the sun. Fusion fire roared silently in the vacuum, slowing the ship.

Inside the heart of the vessel, another countdown began. When it was done, the sleepers would awaken.

The Lewis and Clark flew on.

There was a voice, somewhere, calling him. The world was dark, formless.

Somehow, he knew this place. He was a blind man, a deaf man, his senses cut away, leaving him void.

The voice came again, but now it deepened, thickened, became a swirling mass of noise, the massed choir of the damned pouring under and over. Humanity tangled with inhumanity in that terrible knotwork of sound, abrading him as it passed, leaving him bleeding at the edges of his soul.