All of the above?
Her mind was still trying to play catch-up with all that suddenly went wrong in the past few hours. Bad dreams. Rape. Attempted murder. Computer glitches. Disappearing Fyal. Death.
Lara sat on the edge of the bed between Susan and Anatoly, and she knew this wasn't the proper time to grieve. This wasn't like a battlefield in the midst of war, she reminded herself, where best friends and lovers might die all around you and there'd be little choice but to forge ahead, to save grief for later.
It's imperative you show control and composure!
Now, as she turned toward Miguel Navarro, she knew the self-reliance Daniel taught her was everything she had going for her. She was not going to cry. Not this time.
I'll say goodbye to you properly, Daniel. I promise!
Lara Singer her next step.
“Captain, could I have a minute?” She approached Navarro.
“Certainly, Lara. I think you wanted to tell me something earlier?”
Lara glanced toward Olivia. “Yes, Captain. I need a minute.”
Knowingly, the doctor excused herself and checked on her patients. Lara and Miguel stepped to the far corner of medpod, and Lara kept her voice low as she began.
“I realize this is not the best timing, Captain, but I believe this could be important. I think that somehow it could relate to the, well, the anomalies we've been uncovering.”
“Such as?”
“Such as, I want to know what happened to you on the Tube right before the explosion in the stasis chamber.”
“Right before the explosion? When you and I were together?”
“You remember the seconds right before it happened, don't you?”
Miguel paused, crinkled one eyelid as he searched his mind. “As I recall, we were talking about a number of issues. Susan's claim of rape, repairing the Napier, oh ... I'm not certain what you're looking for, Lara.”
“We were discussing Mifuro and his conclusion that our signals were being jammed at the surface.” Lara spoke slowly. “I was talking, and I looked up at you while I was in mid-sentence, and you were frozen.”
“Frozen? How do you mean?”
“You were staring ahead, your eyes were glassy, they weren't blinking, and you didn't respond. You almost looked like a dead man standing on two feet.”
Miguel let out a deep breath, and offered little expression other than what Lara thought was the hint of a condescending grin out of the corner of his mouth.
“I see. How long did this last? Obviously, I must have come to my senses.”
“It was only a few seconds. And you picked up the conversation with the last words you said before you went ... still.”
“Are you sure you could not have mistaken this for something else? Perhaps I was merely listening to your comments and running them through my mind, working up an assessment. Lara, why did you wait so long to bring this up?”
That last question struck a bitter nerve, and she refrained from an out-of-character retort. There was this little problem with my lover being blown to kingdom come.
She looked across the medpod for a second and saw Fran return.
Lara wondered whether brief time alone had done the woman any good. How could it come even close to erasing the guilt and the anger that were undoubtedly entrenched? Right at this moment, Lara couldn't say she felt any of that anger, but there was a tad bit of impatience – and paranoia – sailing through her blood.
“I didn't wait to tell you, Captain. I spoke up when I finally remembered the moment. I don't know. It was something you said. Similar words, I believe. Then you got the call to the cargo bay. But are you telling me you remember absolutely none of it?”
“Quite honestly, Lara, no. I recall no lapse in memory, no lapse in time. Everything prior to that moment of the explosion I recall as being quite routine. And if I must be frank with you, Lara: I do have considerable experience in what it means to drift in and out of reality.” He nodded. “Oh, yes. During those times when I would come around, I knew my mind had been out of touch for quite a while. And I remembered pieces of the previous episode where my mind tended to clear. So, if this had happened in the Tube, I would know.”
Lara wanted to tell him about her nightmare, about Susan's shockingly similar words addressed to him. But something was holding her back. It was trust, or in this case, a lack thereof. The words were of a tone and sincerity she had always expected from Miguel, and yet they sounded wrong.
She felt an uncanny twinge of paranoia.
Fran and Olivia were engrossed in conversation as they studied something on a monitor.
“Then I apologize, Captain, for bringing this up.” She tried her best to seem sincere. “But what I saw was, well, extraordinary, and kind of frightening.”
He dropped a reassuring hand upon her shoulder. “And you've never seen that happen to a person before. I certainly understand. But I appreciate that you mentioned it. Olivia should probably run some tests on me just to be safe. You shouldn't worry about me, Lara. I can't imagine anything I might face being as dreadful as what I've already suffered. Or, more importantly, what you have suffered.”
She tried to force a smile – it was better than succumbing to the pathos of the moment. She realized nothing more would come of this topic – at least not for now, and she was glad when Olivia motioned for Lara and Miguel to join the others.
They shared looks of excitement and puzzlement. Olivia moved to another monitor, asking the computer to retrieve additional data.
“Have you found something?” Lara asked.
“Oh, yes,” Fran bellowed. “Something strange but also familiar.”
What Lara saw was a monitor full of visual gibberish she couldn't begin to decipher. She saw horizontal patterns of almost every color in the spectrum, the undulations whipping rapidly across the screen but occasionally overlapping each other.
“What are we seeing here?” Miguel asked, and Olivia spoke while keeping her focus on the second monitor.
“It's an analysis to determine chemical equilibrium in the body. In this case, Susan's body. I didn't run this test the first time Susan was brought here, but her behavior was so severe this time, I added this to the battery of blood works.”
“Basically, folks, what you got here is evidence of any hormonal imbalances,” Fran added. “Now, this kind of test doesn't usually show us anything we wouldn't already expect. At any given time, the body is going to have something or another just slightly out of kilter. Perfectly normal, and the body has a great way of restoring the equilibrium all on its own.”
“The problem here,” Olivia turned on her swivel, “is that we've found evidence of a severe imbalance that Susan's body doesn't seem capable of restoring.”
“As in, a natural breakdown?” Miguel asked.
“No. Not at all. Look closely at the monitor and I'll explain. The yellow waves you see across the top of the screen represent the body's existing PTH levels. Excuse me, that's parathormone. It's a polypeptide secreted from the parathyroid glands, and its major function is to regulate calcium metabolism. Simply put, when the calcium level in plasma falls, PTH is secreted in order to restore the proper calcium level. What we're seeing is a steady drop in calcemic levels and absolutely no corresponding increase in PTH.”
“And this is dangerous?” Lara asked.
“Only without treatment, which is actually a simple procedure. But this is a bit more complicated. Just below the third wave of blue, you'll see what look like faint gray smudges. That is actually the presence of a hormone not naturally manufactured in the human body. And from what I've been able to discern, this other hormone is acting as an inhibiting agent on the parathyroids.”
“So, it's rendering those glands useless?” Miguel surmised.
“Essentially, yes. But we think we know what it is.”
Fran put her hands to her hips. “We've encountered it before, on Centauri III.”
&nb
sp; Lara took a half step back and swallowed hard. “What? How?”
“It was in the water, Lara. The ku-ccha, as they called it. Do you remember that before we agreed to drink their water, we ran a sample through a full bioscan and turned up nothing that seemed capable of hurting us? Then we put the kibosh on ku-ccha a couple days later when blood works on the landing crew turned up results damn similar to this one.”
“I remember well,” Miguel said. “When we returned to the surface, we brought along ample supplies of ship's water for the duration.”
“And the presence of that foreign chemical was no longer discernible in our systems a few days later,” Olivia continued.
“Oh, my,” Miguel whispered, then spoke up, began to pace. “Are you suggesting Susan has recently been drinking ku-ccha?”
“Based on my preliminary comparison, that would be my guess,” Olivia said. “The information I culled from the other monitor was archival medical data from those first tests on the crew. The inhibition of PTH into the bloodstream is almost identical.”
“But how? Except for the very brief time when she escaped from here and made a beeline for the cargo bay, Susan has been watched ever since coming out of hibersleep. Correct?”
“Yes. Well, actually, I did allow her to go to the command deck on her own after she was fully revived from hibersleep. But why in creation would she have made a detour to the stasis chamber and opened up the only sample canister of ku-ccha on this ship? That's insane.”
“And impossible, Liv,” Fran added. “We were constantly monitoring the stasis chamber during that time because of the earlier problem with the hydrothermic regulators. Daniel made the last two visits there.”
After a couple of seconds of awkward silence, Fran offered an apologetic smile to Lara.
“What can this mean?” Miguel pondered. “Could she have consumed ku-ccha sometime during her last rotation?”
“Certainly,” Olivia said. “But I find it very strange that her PTH response would be this low after so long. Remember, the body is not frozen when in hibersleep. Blood flow does continue, albeit at a dramatically slower rate, and she was in hibersleep for more than five years. That would have given the body more than ample time to have at least restored some of the imbalance.”
Fran snapped her fingers. “Damn, Liv! I know what you're going to say. You think it's in the water supply.”
“It's the only conclusion I can make.”
“Ohmigod,” Lara whispered. “So we could all have this problem?”
“Yes, but remember, the lack of PTH secretion can be easily corrected. What I'm concerned about is that this could only be one symptom of a greater problem. Except for this one hormonal compound, ku-ccha's chemical properties are almost identical to our water. The trouble is we haven't been able to fully comprehend just what this hormone is. It consists of latent chemicals I haven't been able to discern. My suggestion is we run a full analysis of the water supply and of each of us. As soon as possible.”
That twinge of paranoia rose just a notch higher within Lara, and she saw ashen faces all around. Just the thought that the nightmare of Centauri III might have been flowing through their bodies for the past 15 years was numbing.
“Then obviously we need to proceed with this at once,” Miguel slapped his hands together. “Have you run a similar test on Anatoly?”
“That will be my next task,” Olivia reassured him.
“Fran, I think you're the one to run the bioscan on the water. I think we need ...”
“I'm all over it, Captain,” Fran did not hesitate. “I'll work both the primary supply tank and the propulsion vent tank. Should have the results within the half hour.”
“Lara, I ...” Miguel’s words were sliced off.
Five successive klaxons rang out, two seconds apart, each one three seconds long.
Lara shot back and felt her heart rush, and the others were equally startled.
Lara wrinkled a silly smile. “Ohmigod. It's Mifuro! Ohmigod.” She worked to slow her breaths to a reasonable pace. “Right before our first meeting in the Commons, I had him set the drill alarm system to respond to the SN-70 dish receiver. That way we would all know at once and wouldn't have to be tracked down.”
Suddenly, she felt downright giddy. “We're getting a response from Earth.”
“I'll be damned!!” Fran shouted, one fist pumped.
Their smiles tried to mask the concern they were experiencing only seconds earlier, and for a few seconds they stood in awkward silence.
“Let's get up there,” Fran said, and headed to the Tube, followed by Miguel.
“Talk about incredible timing,” Olivia said, audible only to Lara.
“We'll be in the next Tube,” Lara told Fran and the captain, and they disappeared inside the revolving black door.
“No,” Olivia said seconds later. “You go on up there and be with them. You should be. You tried so hard for so long to reach them. Now here's the big moment.”
“But you can ...”
“I want to run this test on Anatoly. We haven't resolved this matter of the ku-ccha, and we're still going to have to test everyone, regardless of how soon Earth comes to greet us.”
“I understand, and you're right. I'll have Mifuro relay the message directly here.”
Suddenly, Lara felt something different. It wasn't exuberance, certainly not ecstasy – too much happened to allow her to reach those heights. No, this was more like relief.
The vortex down which she’d been falling finally leveled out. This was something good, something they anticipated for years, the beginning of their second lifetime.
She waited anxiously for the next Tube and closed her eyes for a moment. Let this be everything we hoped! Tell us this is finally over!
She heard the hum of the Tube as it arrived, and as she was about to open her eyes and step in, Lara felt a scratch. It was not something she could reach with her hands. No, this was inside her mind. It was more than a scratch; it was an echo. And then there was a second in which it became focused, and Lara was sure she heard a voice. Her heart skipped just a tad faster.
But when she opened her eyes and looked into the Tube, she felt a numb desperation, and the Fyal that stood before her now spoke.
“Do you believe in the union?”
Lara jerked a step back and she was paralyzed.
Nothing processed but for two words:
Kiss me.
She wanted to shout those words, and she had no idea why. But out of the shock and terror of witnessing a Fyal standing before her, it was stunning, even embarrassing, that romantic words emerged. And when the Fyal vanished from the SlipTube with the unceremonious quickness with which it appeared, so did the romantic desire that suddenly and awkwardly gripped Lara's heart.
She turned and studied medpod. She wanted to shout to Olivia, ask her if she, too, saw the Fyal. But there was no point. The doctor was hovering over Anatoly, her back to the Tube. And really, Lara wondered, what difference would it have made had the Norwegian been staring straight into the Tube at that very instant? This was not an illusion, she concluded, that was likely to have been shared.
Except this illusion supplied words, and she responded.
And so, as she stepped timidly into the Tube and gave an order to transport to the command deck, Lara sensed a tiny part of her brain, where the better-safe-than-sorry neurons fired off curt warnings, becoming impatient. She wanted desperately to focus on this historic moment of first contact with Earth, and she was persuading herself to do just that.
It's time for something good to happen, she told herself. I did not see that Fyal. I did not see that Fyal.
She wanted to be able to smile.
When Lara stepped out of the SlipTube and onto the command deck, she did not see other smiles but rather a huddle of crewmates who she could tell were becoming overwhelmed by anticipation. Mifuro Nakahita was in mid-sentence.
“... that th
e computer should have delineated in about another 60 seconds. As for the layers of encryption, I don't know what to make of that. It seems rather, well, peculiar that we'd receive such a huge volume of data on a first contact.”
Miguel was nodding. “Lara, you haven't missed a thing. We'll know what we've got in about a minute.”
She saw wet lips, excited eyes and twiddling fingers among the group who assembled. Peter and Boris began to pace, while Fran sat at her workstation, uncharacteristically stoic.
“But it is a message from Earth?” She asked.
“Yes,” Miguel replied. “It simply isn't what we anticipated. Instead of an open transmission, we received a multi-stream encrypted message. Mifuro is running it through the computer now and we expect translation in seconds. Exciting moment.”
Lara tried to force that first smile since before Daniel's death, but she didn't quite succeed. “Yes. It is,” she offered meekly.
The command deck fell briefly into awkward silence, and Lara looked out the viewport toward Earth. They were above the Pacific Ocean, and the Asian Rim was approaching. She heard a muffled grunt from Peter:
“Don't like this,” he said to no one in particular, barely discernible. “Bad feeling.”
Miguel offered a chuckle. “Oh, Peter. You must be an optimist!”
Lara thought back over the days she had been on this deck trying in vain to make contact with anyone, and of hoping that when the great moment of response came, Daniel would be with her on the deck. To have celebrated that moment together ...
The beginnings of her reminiscence were thwarted by the synthesized sound of a bell, and then the computer suddenly announced: “TRANSLATION COMPLETE. PREPARE FOR AUDIO INTRODUCTION.”
She took steps toward Mifuro's workstation, as if being closer to the computer would somehow increase the chance for them all to hear exactly what they awaited for 34 years. With the exception of Fran, who did not rise from her seat, the others drew close as well.
The voice on audio translation was clear, mannered and deep.
“On behalf of all of us who have anxiously anticipated this day, we welcome you home, Andorran,” the male voice began. “What you have accomplished makes all of us immensely proud and gives us a new sense of hope that our future will be much more prosperous.
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