Girl on Mars
Page 27
“You might lapse back into unconsciousness. I don’t know. We think you ought to stay here. That’s a joke, of course you’re staying here.”
“Ryan—how did I survive at all? Do you know?”
“You landed in some trees in Grant Park, which broke your fall somewhat. There were pieces of the Aphelial spacecraft all around you, but none damaged your capsule. Worse than it already was.”
“You got lucky,” the doctor said, “and you can’t count on that, ever. It’s going to take a serious commitment to therapy to get that right side back in shape once everything’s had a chance to mend. It’s safe to say your days as a spacewoman are over.” Conn frowned.
“I have a further concern,” the doctor continued. “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t like what I see in your blood work. Specifically, the white blood cells in it. You’ll probably want to kill me for not doing this while you were out, but I want to get a lumbar puncture to get a clearer picture of what’s going on in there.”
“A spinal tap?”
“That’s right.”
Conn was quiet. She didn’t like the way Ryan was looking at her—like he’d just heard the doctor diagnose her with cancer. Well, the doctor hadn’t done that. She was going to have some tests. It was good that he was being thorough.
“Thank you, doctor. And yes, I’m mad at you for not doing the spinal tap while I was asleep.”
The doctor left after increasing her Hydromorphone dose. “Nothing keeps you from being in pain better than a coma,” the nurse joked. “But you probably don’t want to do that again.” She administered the painkiller through Conn’s IV.
When they were alone again, Conn and Ryan sat in silence for a time. The room smelled like bleach.
“You were here for most of three weeks?” she asked him.
“As much as I could. Still working for a living, y’know?”
“Tell me who else has been here,” Conn said. Ryan went through the long list.
Then more silence. The blood pressure and other monitors attached to Conn made constant background noise, and sometimes foreground.
“This Hydromorbleone or whatever is the shit.”
“I hope it keeps you from hurting too much.”
. . .
“It’s making me sleepy, though.”
“I can let you get some rest.” Ryan smiled and got up to leave.
“Wait.”
Ryan waited. He saw two ways this could go. One would be great. One would be devastating.
“There have been a lot of things I’ve done wrong in my life,” Conn began.
“I’m sure that’s true of everybody.” Ryan sat again.
“A lot of them were mistakes I can’t fix. I can’t get Peo’s company back. I can’t get the year of my life I spent traveling to the Aphelial system for five days in a brig back. I can’t undo having dated Daniels.”
“OK, some of yours are worse than most people,” Ryan said.
“But you’ve given me a second chance to fix my greatest regret. That I never told you how I felt. When you were, you know, Grant.”
Ryan swallowed.
Conn just looked at him.
“So . . . did you want to do that now, or . . . ?”
“No,” Conn said.
“No,” Ryan repeated.
“No. I want to do it when I’m not high. I want to do it when I’ve come to grips with what you are. Who you are. Really. Because I haven’t yet.”
“I guess I understand that.”
There was always a third way things could go, Ryan mused. But Conn had given him the same gift she’d given Jeffrey’s Sidereals and the people of Earth.
Hope.
“But I want you to stick around. If you’re up for that.”
“I’m up for that.”
“Among other things,” Conn said through a yawn, eyelids drooping, “I want to hear about uploading yourself into a new body. . . .” She fell asleep.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Leah Barr edited Girl on Mars, after being a trusted adviser on Girl on the Moon as well. The depth of her caring about the books is evidenced by the arguments we had about them, and I’m enormously grateful for it. She showed a deft but firm touch, particularly when cutting, and made both books better. Girl on the Moon wouldn’t have been as successful, and this one probably wouldn’t even be here, without her. Contact her at leah@ellesbooks.com.
Piper often asked how the new novel was coming, in part because she liked the first one so much. Thank you, Piper—each time you asked, I felt a little more encouraged.
I owe a debt of gratitude to everyone who nominated Girl on Mars during its Kindle Scout campaign. For the third time I was overwhelmed by the support of Scout readers for a project of mine. I don’t know how the program is working out for Amazon, hopefully very well, but I do know that it gives good authors a real boost in confidence, and helps them hone necessary skills as writers, marketers, and entrepreneurs. I’m better off for having been through it.
Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed both Girl on the Moon and Pauper, with double thanks to those who took the time to write reviews of the books. Without you, I doubt I would keep this up. Some of the reviews help my self-esteem, yes, but all of them help make me better at what I love to do. Please, if you read and enjoyed Girl on Mars, consider posting a review of it on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews are so, so important to indie authors.
Thank you, Shell Presto, for your work on the cover. Everybody, go to www.ascensionepoch.com for some heroic adventure fiction co-created by Shell.
Copyright © 2017 Jack McDonald Burnett
All rights reserved
First published in 2017
Visit the author’s website at
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Cover image rights from Dreamstime.com
Image manipulation by Shell Presto
www.ascensionepoch.com
This is a work of fiction. That’s not you.