by Ralph Prince
“We should just fly the ship in and blow the hell out of them,” Jackie said angrily, fighting back the tears born of worry and exhaustion. “It would serve them right for what they did to Don, and the Underdwellers wouldn’t have to worry about them anymore.”
“We can’t do that,” Will said, fully understanding her anger. “We don’t know how many women and children are in the towers. We can’t just attack without knowing who we’re killing.”
“Besides,” Iva interjected, “the ship’s energy reserves were reduced when I rescued you. Such an attack would deplete our reserves. Aside from that, I do not believe Captain Garris would condone such an action.”
Jackie bit her tongue as she considered telling the agent that it had no idea what the captain would want; but, she realized it was right. Don wouldn’t want them to kill the Tants. His conviction not to do so was what got him captured and injured.
“Go ahead,” Will said, after an uneasy silence. “Get some rest and don’t worry about telling Karen. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Will,” she said, backing slowly toward the exit. “I really appreciate it.”
“You owe me one,” he said, smiling as she left his sight. He listened as her footsteps faded to silence. Then, leaning back in the chair, he stared blankly at the control console before him.
“I missed you while you were away,” Iva said, drawing the lieutenant’s attention to her hologram emitter. “It gets lonely when there is no one else on board.”
“Can you really feel loneliness?” Will asked, finding it more and more difficult to believe Iva was once merely a glorified computer.
“Yes, but the loneliness isn’t as bad when I’m dreaming,” said the agent. “I feel many things. Most of them I have identified, but a few still elude me.”
“There are a few that elude me, too,” Will said. “I think it’s normal.”
“I had a lot of free time while you were off-ship,” Iva said. “I’ve been working on my interface again.”
“I thought it was done,’ Will said, studying the face carefully, trying to discern any changes.
“I realized,” Iva explained. “By using the holofield, I can project an entire body. However, I am limited to the area of the bridge normally encompassed by the field. I wrote a subroutine for the hologram emitter that simulates gravity effects and creates involuntary movements such as blinking and breathing in the image. By analyzing thousands of holo-vids from our archives, it even emulates body language and facial expressions based upon the observed actions of the actors when experiencing situations comparable to mine. Do you want to see?”
Nodding in affirmation, Will turned his chair to the front of the bridge, as Iva vanished from the emitter at his station.
Suddenly, she was standing beside the large emitter situated on the floor between the pilot’s and co-pilot’s stations. She wore a space force flight suit with her name on the patch. In the bright lights of the bridge, a slight nimbus of light surrounded her shapely form, giving her an almost angelic quality. She turned slowly so he could view her from every angle. “Well?” she asked, seeking his approval. “What do you think?”
“It’s nice,” he said dispassionately.
“You don’t seem pleased,” Iva said, a frown crossing her face as her newly formed shoulders sagged. “I was going for a well-proportioned, yet physically fit body; somewhere between Jackie’s petite, toned frame, and Karen’s tall voluptuous form. Should I have made my breasts larger?”
“No,” Will replied. “It’s great, really. I’m just concerned about the captain. It makes it hard to focus.”
“But there’s nothing you can do to help him,” Iva stated. “You’re not a physician.”
“I know,” Will said, trying to explain one of the feelings he didn’t understand himself. He turned back to the tactical station and checked the ship’s power level in an effort to do something useful. “I just wish there was something I could do to help, but I can’t.”
Iva stepped silently forward and extended her hand toward his shoulder in a gesture of comfort. Before she could reach him, her extremity shimmered out of existence as it left the holofield boundary. She drew her arm back, unsure why she had reached out in the first place; she was a hologram and unable to react with solid matter. She suddenly realized how he felt. It was a new sensation to her, and she found it extremely disquieting; she felt helplessness.
A long silence passed between the two, even the music no longer played. Each drifted deeper into their individual abysmal thoughts until the silence itself became stifling.
“Iva?” Will asked, his troubled thoughts finding their way to his mouth as he turned back toward her. “Do you think we’ll ever get back to Earth?”
“It’s doubtful,” she replied, still standing at the edge of the field with her arms folded across her midsection. “I have charted star patterns, and studied them intently. I have yet to identify a single star as being a member of our known universe. Wherever we are, it is an unfathomable distance from Earth.”
“I guess that means we spend the rest of our lives here,” Will said, wishing he had never asked the question. “It would have been better to have died in that black hole. Life here certainly isn’t going to be a picnic.”
“Life is always preferable to death,” Iva said. “Furthermore, your life need not be spent here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Will. “Where else is there to go? The ship isn’t capable of long flights in its present condition, and I don’t see any way to repair it.”
“I may have found what we need to repair the ship,” Iva said, “but there are more pressing matters to be attended to at the moment. First, I suggest you get some sleep. Perhaps things will not seem so bleak when you wake.”
“Karen’s sleeping in my room,” Will said, doubting sleep would even come to him. “I wouldn’t want to wake her.”
“According to my audio sensor in your quarters,” reported Iva, casting a glance down the ship’s central hallway toward his cabin, “she is not asleep. She seems to be crying. Perhaps it would be in her best interest if you were to join her. I believe it would be of great comfort to her.”
“Nothing I have to tell her would be of comfort,” he said, regretting his decision to tell Karen of the commander’s condition.
“Will,” Iva said, a displeased quality in her tone, “stop wallowing in self-pity and go to her. Your presence alone will serve to comfort her. Don’t you understand she is more alone now than she has ever been before? She has already lost someone she loved, and now she stands to lose another. If it were physically possible, I would go myself, but I do have my shortcomings. Talking to a hologram would not serve to comfort her as would the company of another living person.”
“Okay,” Will said, feeling a bit guilty as he rose from the chair. “I guess you’re right. How did you get so wise anyway?”
“I had a lot of time to think while you were away,” Iva said. “There wasn’t much else to do.”
“Except, apparently, watch thousands of holo-vids?” Will said as he strolled across the bridge toward the hallway. “I’m going to talk to Karen now. At least I can assure her Don’s still alive.”
As the lieutenant receded down the hallway, Iva’s full-body form faded, and she reverted to her head-only projection beside the tactical station. Night mode descended over the bridge, leaving her alone to explore her newly-realized emotions. She found some of them more than a little unsettling.
CHAPTER 15: Vigil
Karen sat on the edge of the bed, quietly reading from the book of ancient poetry she had liked so much. Her tear-streaked face wore a tired expression, and her lips trembled over every word she read.
Wiping her eyes with the one remaining sleeve of her tattered, soiled flight suit, she gazed upon the man she loved, hoping for some sign of change.
His chest rose and fell with each shallow, but regular, breath. The face, which had always seemed so solid and stron
g, was marred by cuts and bruises the bio-mend would have long since healed if not for the more vital injuries. Thus had he been all day, and with night drawing near on the barren world outside the ship, there was still no change. It seemed he would sleep forever.
Her eyes grew too weary to continue reading, so she closed the book and set it aside. Looking helplessly upon him, the tears she thought to have been cried out began to flow freely once again.
“I don’t want you to die, Donald,” she whispered, her voice quivering as she spoke. Gently, she placed her hand atop his, which were folded across his chest. “I don’t want to go back to the life I had before I met you. With Dillon gone, I can’t go back to the life I had before. I want to spend the rest of my days with you.”
“He knows,” Jackie said, having entered the room without Karen’s knowledge.
Once again drying her eyes, Karen turned to face the lieutenant. “He’s still asleep,” she said, trying to put on a brave front, “but he called out my name once. He must have been dreaming.”
Crossing the room to the bed, Jackie gave Don a quick examination before proceeding to the armchair next to the bed. “Still no change,” she reported.
“I wish there were something I could do,” Karen said, fighting to contain her tears. “I feel so helpless.”
“You’re here with him,” responded Jackie. “That probably does more good than the bio-mend. It gives him something to hang onto; something to live for. Sometimes, love can be the greatest cure of all.”
“Donald told me that when we escaped from the Tants he would take me as his mate,” she said, recalling their imprisonment, and the escape that had resulted in his injury. She could contain her tears no more. “I don’t even know what mates do on Earth,” she sobbed.
“It’s pretty much the same everywhere,” said Jackie. “They live together, love one another,” she paused momentarily, “and sometimes have children.”
“You don’t have a mate, do you?” Karen asked.
Drawing a deep breath, Jackie ran her fingers through the long tresses of her auburn hair. “No,” she replied, “but I was in a relationship for about a year. That was when I was younger and more foolish.”
“Why did you leave him,” Karen pressed, not realizing how tender an area she had touched upon. “Didn’t you love him?”
“I loved them very much,” reminisced Jackie, her eyes staring blankly into the past. “But they apparently didn’t feel the same; at least about me. I returned home one day to find they had moved out. All I had left was a message saying they had decided their relationship worked better without me in it. That’s when I decided to join the Space Force. For some stupid reason, I thought it would help me forget.”
“Was that when you met Donald?” Karen asked, her gaze going inadvertently back toward the captain. “What was he like back then?”
“Don and I didn’t meet until a couple of years after I enlisted,” Jackie recalled. “I hadn’t yet completed my medical training, so I had to finish it at the academy. My brother, Victor, knew Don long before I did; that’s when they became such close friends. I joined the crew upon graduation, at the same time Don took command of the Nova.”
The door chime sounded, startling the two women, then the door slid quietly aside and Will stepped in. “I finally got Victor settled down enough for Iva to keep an eye on him,” he said, slowly approaching the bed. “That kid has the most radical mood swings I’ve ever seen. One minute he’s completely passive, the next he’s bouncing off the walls.” His gaze drifted to the captain’s still form resting on the bed, “How’s he doing?”
“No change,” Jackie reported. “But it’s almost time for another bio-mend booster. Maybe it will help.”
“Iva says the weather should be clear tonight,” informed Will. “That means the Tants will probably be organizing another attack.”
“I know,” Jackie stated, rising from the armchair. “We’ll have to help the Underdwellers fight them off when they do attack. At least this time we’ve got photon rifles; that should help us hold them off a little longer.”
Walking to the desk, she picked up the communicator. She stared at it for a moment, recalling how the captain was so opposed to having a computer terminal in his room. He insisted his cabin be completely isolated from the rest of the ship’s communication network, for reasons she might never know. Switching the device on, she cleared her throat and said, “Nav-Tac. At first opportunity, I want you to move the ship. Set it down outside the city, near the Underdweller’s building. If possible, put it somewhere out of sight.”
“I can do it immediately, Med-Com,” the venomous voice responded as the photon engines pulsed to life. “The power reserve is sufficient for a short-term flight. However, it may be several days before the energy cells are fully recharged again. Is there anything else you require of me at the moment?”
“Negative,” she replied, cutting off the transmission, and turning back toward Will. “I get the feeling that thing doesn’t like me.”
“Nonsense,” Will said, “you just haven’t given her enough of a chance to get to know you. She’s quite amicable. I still think it would help if you used her name.”
“Amicable or not,” she said, returning to the bed and preparing the captain’s bio-mend, “I don’t trust it.”
Iva was Will’s pride and joy, Jackie thought. It had easily won him over and gained his trust. Even the captain, with his well-known distrust of AIs, had somehow been manipulated into trusting the machine. She was more skeptical of its motives. She was under the impression it was using them in some way, either for diabolical purposes, or for its own amusement.
“You know,” Will said, as Jackie administered the nanite-infused chemical into Don’s system. “If he healed as quickly as Karen does, he would be up and around in no time at all.”
Jackie looked toward Karen thoughtfully. Through the opening across the midsection of her flight suit, only a faint scar was visible where Stitch had slashed her. “You may have something there,” she said, a dangerous glint in her eye.
“What?” Will asked, trying to recall what he had said that was of such importance.
“When I checked Karen over, when she first came aboard,” Jackie replied, “one of the differences I found between her and a normal human was a slight variation in the makeup of her blood. It’s the only thing that would account for her rapid regeneration. We need to analyze Karen’s blood and find out what makes her heal so quickly. Maybe we can duplicate it.”
“How are we going to do that before dark?” Will asked. “We don’t have a lab capable of isolating and synthesizing on that level.”
“Maybe not,” Jackie said, an idea forming in her mind. “Karen, I’m going to need a blood sample. It won’t hurt.”
“If it will help Donald,” Karen said, “I will do anything.”
After securing a sample of the native woman’s blood, Jackie and Will hastened to the bridge, leaving Karen to watch over the commander.
Placing the sample in the atmospheric analyzer, Jackie turned toward Iva’s holographic emitter. “Nav-Tac, analyze,” she said.
“Right away Med-Com,” Iva replied, as the analyzer hummed to life. “That’s peculiar.
“What’s peculiar?” Jackie demanded. “Why do you always pause after saying that? Do you have any idea how annoying that is? Just tell us what’s so peculiar.”
“The sample is talking to me,” Iva stated.
“Well, that’s certainly peculiar,” Will piped in, drawing an angry sneer from Jackie.
“What do you mean, ‘the sample is talking’?” Jackie asked.
“Not the sample, precisely,” Iva explained. “Rather, the nanites infused in the sample. They are communicating with one another in a rudimentary fashion. They seem to be looking for something to repair.”
“How did the nanites get in Karen’s blood?” Jackie asked.
“Wait,” Will said as a theory dawned on him. He pulled a vial from a pocket in
his belt and placed it in the second chamber of the analyzer. “Iva, analyze this sample.”
“This is an inert chemical compound,” Iva reported. “It is also infused with nanites. Their programming seems to be similar, though not as complex.”
“Don’t you see,” Will explained in answer to Jackie’s confused expression. “The liquid surrounding the Underdweller’s complex must have contained nanites that were programmed to neutralize radioactive particles, essentially repairing them. When the Underdwellers began drinking the stuff, they must have adapted their programming to ‘repair’ their bodies. It’s like bio-mend. That explains why none of Karen’s people were sick despite the living conditions. The nanites are keeping them in perfect health by repairing damaged cells.”
“Is it possible to extract the nanites from Karen’s blood sample?” Jackie asked. “We could inject them into Don and they would repair him.”
“The few contained in this sample would do little good,” Iva said. “I would need to extract a great number of them from the source, and that would take some time.”
“We don’t have time,” Jackie said, a sly grin crossing her thin lips. “But, I may have another idea.”
“What have you got in mind?” Will asked, not sure he liked the expression on her face.
“I’ve been giving Don synthetic blood,” she said. “What if I were to give him a transfusion with Karen’s blood?”
“You must be kidding,” Will said. “Putting one person’s blood into another person’s body is disgusting if not morbid.”
“What do you think they used before synthetic blood was developed?” she asked. “It was a common practice in the early years of civilized medicine.”
“If you call that civilized,” he said, shivering in disgust. “Will it save the captain?”
“I don’t know,” Jackie answered. What she proposed hadn’t been done in centuries because it was considered barbaric. Many people had contracted diseases or died from bad blood. “Do we have a choice?” she asked.
