Than smiled, “I’m glad you came. I don’t often have the opportunity to entertain a beautiful lady.”
Millie had to admit he had a certain charm. He must have spent a good deal of time on Earth or one of her colonies or somewhere around humans. Kaprinian customs and manners were quite different--they were a direct, uncompromising people with many rituals but very little charm.
The lasagna, when it came, was dry and curling up at the edges. The bottle of green wine from Oralen was surprisingly good. Millie found herself talking easily about growing up on Hawaii as the eldest of five children and how she had become a nurse, working for GEM Co. Somewhere about the time she was finishing a dessert of pefflinberry pie, Millie realized her companion had drunk three and a half glasses of wine, eaten very little lasagna, no dessert and was completely sober. She knew from direct experience with Jak that most Kaprinians were intolerant of alcohol. As she looked up into his intense eyes, a slow shiver started up her spine.
“Cold?” he asked.
“A little. The conditioning system here isn’t the greatest. Enough about me. What do you do for a living, Than?” Millie ventured to ask.
“I’m a diplomatic liaison. Right now I’m working on a large scale project with Renner Conlin.”
Millie wanted to ask him about the PEF card but then he would know she had been checking up on him. “Can you tell me more details about the project?”
Than shook his head, “I’m afraid not at this time. You look tired. You must have been working all night.”
Nice way to turn the conversation. “I’ll be fine if I stick to my regular schedule.”
“I was surprised at how fast you finished the testing.”
“We’re pretty efficient when we get going. We were lucky to find that wemrat though. He could have been running around this station for months.”
“Yes. I believe Dr. Aurelia found it?”
“That’s right.”
“Most fortuitous.” Than’s tone implied he didn’t think it was luck at all.
“What do you mean?”
Than’s antennae swayed slightly though they were certainly not as expressive as Jak’s. “It just seems convenient for her to find it. Quite a boost to her reputation.”
Leaning forward, Millie stared hard into those disconcerting eyes. “I’ve worked with Aurelia for twelve years and I’ve never seen so much as a hint of impropriety. She has an excellent reputation because she’s the best at what she does.”
“I admire your loyalty.”
“I don’t like innuendoes and rumors based on pure speculation not material fact.”
Than waved his hands at her. “Okay. I’m sorry. I don’t want to ruin an enjoyable evening.”
Millie sat back and smiled. “Neither do I.”
“I heard you were leaving in the morning?”
Millie nodded. “O800 on the dot.”
“I would think you would stay longer. Rest up for awhile.” Than looked hopeful.
“I would love to but I’m afraid that’s up to Aurelia and our scheduler, Ford Netteb.” Millie shook her head and laughed. “Both of them are very driven people.”
“Can’t you put in a request? If enough people signed it, they’d have to stay wouldn’t they?”
Raising an eyebrow, Millie looked at him. “The Pasteur is not governed as a democracy. Neither is GEM Co. for that matter.”
Than shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”
The thought struck Millie, he doesn’t want us to leave tomorrow. Why not? She studied her companion’s face as he took a sip of wine.
Than smiled at her over the glass, a sly smile as if he could read her thoughts.
Suppressing another shiver, Millie let her gaze slide casually over to the clock on the wall. It was in Jidalian time but easy to convert. Almost 2200. “It’s getting late,” Millie said. “I need to get some sleep. Thank you very much for dinner.”
Than got to his feet and held her chair for her. “May I walk you back to the ship?”
Millie didn’t want him to but didn’t want to be rude either. “All right,” she finally agreed. Maybe she could ferret out why he didn’t want the Pasteur to leave just yet. Or was it herself he wanted? No, even though he gave her the creeps he hadn’t tried to touch her at all and only complimented her once. Millie felt sure he was after something else.
They reached the elevators when it happened. For half a second Millie thought she had drunk too much wine. A tingling, nauseating sensation passed through her. The floor seemed to tip. She hit the wall, took a three foot drop to the ceiling and slid down the opposite wall. Alarms blared. Dazed, her breath knocked out of her lungs, Millie tried to stand. Gravity was gone. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face but felt her body rising.
A hissing noise. Something wet smacked against her face. Twisting in panic, Millie spat the bitterness from her mouth. Fire foam.
“Oh, God, please help me.”
Even with the force with which it was ejected, the foam had no place to go but up. The kesium back up system came on, splashing orange glow everywhere. The foam, white and sticky, spurted from the ceiling grids.
Pushing herself along the wall, Millie banged the elevator buttons. No lights, no service.
“Frap!” She tried to pry the doors open with her fingers until the nails chipped and bled.
“Somebody help!” She shoved foam away from her face. “Than! Where are you?”
The Kaprinian’s body floated about eight feet away from her. Millie could see his boot dangling out of the white mess. One hard shove against the wall sent her flying in his direction.
“Than! Can you hear me?” Millie yelled again. Throwing one arm around his waist, she kicked her foot against the wall and dived just like a swimmer into a pool. She swam for the door to Alfonso’s. The fire doors had locked into position.
“Hey, open up!” Millie pounded on the heavy titanium steel. Each hit sent her backwards. “Frap.”
Twisting, turning, struggling to hold onto Than, Millie pulled her utility belt off. Looping one end through the emergency door handle, she wrapped the other end around her ankle. Anchored, she pulled Than closer. The Kaprinian was unconscious with a smear of copper-colored blood across his forehead.
“Than. Can you hear me?” Millie yelled at his antennae. No response. At least he was breathing. The pulse at the base of his left antenna beat slow but steady.
She got a better grip on him then went fishing for her comm-link. “Hello. Is anyone there? I need help.”
No response from that either.
Something brushed the top of her head. The foam was going to fill the entire corridor. “How much of this stuff can there be?” Closing her eyes, she prayed it would run out.
A tug on her foot made her already racing heart jump. They were putting the gravity back on slowly. Would it be fast enough. Was there enough foam already to smother them? Than was going to get a lot heavier too. Pulling him over her shoulder, Millie yanked the belt off and held her breath as they rose through the wall of white.
Hurry up, hurry up, she prayed, feeling her body sinking once more. Than’s weight pressed against her shoulder.
Millie tried to get her foot under her but she slipped and fell to the floor. Coughing and gasping, she got to her feet fast, found the foam came about waist high. Feeling for Than’s shirt, she grabbed it and hauled him up. Both arms around his waist, Millie propped him against the wall. She wiped his face clear of the sticky stuff. Then she just breathed.
Than moved, blinked. “What happened?”
Millie started to laugh, catching her breath in little gulps. She wiped her watering eyes, stinging from the chemicals. “I’m not sure, but you missed it.”
Chapter Ten
Aurelia gripped the smooth metal of the last rung and pulled herself up into the Pasteur’s control center. Her fingers narrowly missed being stepped on by a passing engineer.
The acrid odor of fire f
oam assaulted her. By the orange kesium glow, Aurelia could see the robotic scrubbers were still cleaning. The center was in the Pasteur’s front cone. The two sides had panel after panel of computer boards with chairs for all the engineers. The tip squared off, not coming to a perfect point. The view screen was here but at the moment was blank. The navigation computer boards sat directly in front of the screen along with the chief engineer’s seat.
Aurelia put one hand to her ear. “Can’t we get those alarms turned off?” she shouted to no one in particular. The chemical laden air stung the back of her throat.
“We’re trying,” shrugged the navigator, Daan Tilar.
“Where’s Rekhaan?” Aurelia asked.
Tilar pointed. The Pasteur’s chief engineer, Akshay Rekhaan, huddled with five others around one of the working computer panels. GEM Co. had sponsored Rekhaan, a native of India, as a transfer from the TransEuro-Asian Conference to the North American-Mars Federation.
The engineer’s black hair was plastered to his head. He rolled his brown eyes when he saw Aurelia. “I do not know anything. Please go away and let us work in peace,” he shouted before Aurelia could open her mouth.
“What happened? What’s the damage?” Aurelia asked anyway. Her ears rang with the silence. Then she realized the alarms had finally shut off.
Rekhaan’s shoulders relaxed a little. He spoke in a normal tone. “I have no answers for you, Doctor. Most of our systems are down. We did reopen the airlock and I am sure there are injured on the station you could be helping.”
“I want a full report within an hour, Akshay.” She managed to make his name sound like an insult. After five years, they had worked out a relationship of polite, slightly insulting sentences darted at one another. He promptly followed her orders, when he agreed with them, and she promptly responded when he asked something of her, within reason. Any social interaction during off hours was religiously avoided by both parties.
`Aurelia climbed back down the access ladder. The elevators were on the priority B list so it would probably be some time before they were running again. She had already made sure that no one on the Pasteur had been injured beyond a few bumps and bruises. Most of the medical staff had gathered in the mess hall waiting for orders and staying out of the engineering crew’s way.
The door to the mess hall had been propped open with an R.O. tuner, a hand held instrument that could override the locking frequency. R.O. tuners were not strictly legal but most GEM Co. ships had them for emergencies.
Stepping through the opening, Aurelia waved her hands for quiet. “They’ve got the airlock open. I don’t know what we’ll find over there. We’ll use standard triage procedures.”
“Conference hall.” Lak Zanin called out.
“No. We’ll use the main docking area this time. It’s more centralized. The comms are still down so everyone stay alert. Be careful people. Let’s go.”
Aurelia stepped aside as the exodus began. She tapped her nails against the side of Dr. Sshn’LRuh’s cart. “Keep you eye on those four, Sshn,” she said, indicating the four medical students who looked a little dazed and unsure of themselves.
“I’ll keep a sensor trained,” LRuh agreed, raising a tentacle in a sort of salute.
Satisfied, Aurelia forgot about them and headed to the space station.
Davis looked like the pictures Aurelia had seen of the aftermath of a hurricane. Tendrils of foam dripped from the walls and made the floor slick enough to be dangerous. Anything not bolted down lay scattered in every direction. The alarms had been shut down, all except one that honked intermittently like a sick wallerpod. Someone else must have realized the main docking area was a good central point because the place was already filled with people, some injured, some confused, some angry-- all of them talking at once.
Governor Arnott met Aurelia just off the tube where a flatbed loading vehicle was being used for the more seriously injured. Arnott hovered as Aurelia bent to the task of determining which patient needed immediate attention.
“This is a disaster,” Arnott mumbled. “I can’t believe... I don’t know what happened.”
Aurelia glanced up at him. His pants had twisted on him, his face was brick red and his hairpiece looked even more like some sort of mammal, a wet, miserable mammal.
“Governor, unless you have something significant to tell me, go away. You can see there’s a great deal of work to do.
“Yes, yes. Keep me posted.” Arnott moved away still mumbling. Two Sclarians accosted him and they began a lengthy, angry conversation.
Aurelia turned to Zimbin who was following her, waiting for instructions. She pointed at two Aguanians. “These two head wounds to the ship. The broken wrist can wait.” That belonged to a Jidalian GEM Co. employee who nodded in understanding.
Aurelia bent over a tiny Melganite, delicate mole like creatures with lots of little bones. “I need a Surg II unit now.”
One of the Pasteur techs passing by called out,” Got it, Doc. Five seconds.” Opening an equipment box, he was as good as his word, bringing the portable surgery unit right over.
Zimbin slid one big hand beneath the Melganite and placed her in the Surg II Unit. It was about three feet by three feet, normally used for emergency surgery on limbs or in this case very small beings. The big Berellian nurse locked the lid then stepped aside for Aurelia.
Aurelia adjusted the unit’s sterile field and life support controls. Zimbin squatted down to watch the anesthesia level. Satisfied, Aurelia put her eyes to the microscopic lenses on the top of the unit and manipulated the enclosed surgical instruments with minute, precise movements of her fingers on the controls.
The rest of the room faded away. Aurelia’s entire mind, body and soul focused on the network of tiny purple blood vessels, shards of fragile bones, lavender spurts from a lacerated organ. In the zone, she called it, the place she felt most comfortable, where there was nothing and no one but herself and a damaged body that needed her skill.
It took about twenty minutes to complete the work. Another five to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.
Zimbin bared his fangs in a huge grin. “Nice work, Doc.”
“Back to the Pasteur with her,” Aurelia directed, rubbing the kinks out of the back of her neck. Two techs lifted the Surg II unit with the Melganite still asleep inside and took it to the ship.
Walking around, Aurelia felt proud of her crew. In twenty-five minutes, they had created an orderly treatment room out of the docking bay. It soon became apparent that only about ten people had serious injuries, the Melganite being the worst.
Aurelia found Millie in one corner applying synthetic derma-flesh to a gash on Althan Tahk’s forehead.
“There you are. You all right, Mil?” Aurelia asked, taking in the head nurse’s bedraggled appearance.
Millie nodded. “We got caught in a hallway with all the fire doors locked down. Thought I was going to smother in foam. Other than a huge bruise on my hip, I’m okay.”
Aurelia plucked the applicator out of Millie’s hand. “I’ll finish this. You need to go get some sleep.”
“I’m fine really. There’s work here to do.”
Aurelia shook her head. “We have plenty of help here. That’s an order.”
The head nurse protested a while longer then finally gave up. As she turned to leave, Tahk caught her hand. “Thank you,” he said.
Smiling, Millie nodded and walked away.
Aurelia bent over her task. “So, Mr. Tahk. Any idea what happened?”
“None at all. You?”
“No.” Aurelia finished with the applicator. “Still negotiating with Conlin?”
Tahk gave her a sly smile. “As far as I know.”
She gave him a quick scan. “Millie gave you Tridol for the pain. Do you want anything else for later?”
“No, thank you. That won’t be necessary.” Tahk got to his feet. “Thank you, doctor.”
Aurelia watched him leave.
He was polite, charming and left an evil taste in her mouth. She wished she had some clue what Tahk and Conlin were up to.
Chapter Eleven
Torp Nevad leaned over to talk in Bridget’s ear. “Dr. Aurelia just did surgery on a Melganite.”
Bridget dropped the bandages Dr. LRuh had told her to roll, which was a completely pointless task. “You’re kidding?”
Torp grinned. “Nope. She used a Surg II unit. I couldn’t see all of it but it was totally reactive. She was fast too.”
Bridget smacked him in the chest with the back of her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me? A Surg II ... that’s... Professor Allson says that’s one of the hardest things to do.”
“I know. It was great.”
“You could have told us,” Miguel broke in on the conversation.
Shrugging, Torp apologized, “I’m sorry. I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted an audience anyway.”
“You’re probably right,” Miguel agreed.
Bridget blew her breath out between her teeth. “I have the feeling I’m going to be rolling bandages the rest of my natural life. They don’t even use these stupid things.”
Patting her on the shoulder, Torp grinned. “Look on the bright side. You’ll be the foremost authority on rolled bandages. You’ll be in great demand at seminars.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“Hey, have either of you heard anything about what happened?” Miguel asked, lowering his voice.
“No.” said Torp. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it almost seemed like Hanson’s Anomaly.”
“What’s that?” asked Bridget.
“It’s what happens when you try to jump into hyperspace inside a gravity well,” Torp explained.
“Maybe that was it.”
Torp shook his head. “We wouldn’t be standing here talking about it. We’d be little particles of cosmic dust.”
“I was talking to a Sclarian,” said Miguel, still keeping his voice low. “or rather he was talking to me. I wanted to turn off my translator. But he was claiming that the Kaprinians tested a new secret weapon.”
Shadows In Still Water Page 7
