we’ll do that and so on. Nayleans can be great chess players, but they don’t lie to one another. They have no reason to. They have a bond between them that goes beyond physical. They can link to another person and feel what each other feels. They simply don’t have any reason to be hurtful or cruel to one another. They don’t care about those things. But humans are always mean to one another and lie to one another.
Is that why I came to feel a lot of hurt and pain from humans—my own kind? I was human once. I was born human. Damn it, I’m still human!
I had just gotten to my quarters when a voice came on the loudspeakers. “Abandon ship! Abandon ship! All personnel to lifeboat stations! Repeat, abandon ship! All personnel to lifeboat stations! Abandon ship!”
We were losing power, and the lights were shutting down. The smell of burning wires and plastic was putrid. Smoke was everywhere and burned my eyes and stung my throat. Somebody came up and grabbed my arm. “You gotta get to the life rafts!”
“I can’t see anything, the smoke! I don’t know where lifeboats are!”
“I’ll take you! Let’s go, FAST!” And he pulled me the opposite way down the corridor. Just then, another explosion knocked us sideways, and he lost his grip on me. He came slamming sideways again in front of me and yelled, “Grab a hold of me!” All I could see was the belt on the back of his pants, and I grabbed it with both hands. When he thought I was secure, he was off again. “Hang on!” and he went farther down the corridor.
We stopped at a junction of corridors, and he asked, “What life raft gate are you?”
Oh, great! I don’t know! Who pays attention to all that shit? We had fire drills. We had loss of oxygen drills. We had gas emission drills. We had isotope leak drills. Who the fuck is paying attention when you finally get around to evacuation drills? That’s like the flight attendant going through safety precautions. Nobody listens.
Then it came to me. “I think level B gate 8 maybe.” I can’t believe I remembered that. He pointed to my right and yelled, “Down there!” And he took off down the other hall. I moved carefully and found it. A crew member was standing at the opening and told me to get in, that I was the last one for this vehicle.
He slapped one of my hands on a bar over the small door opening. I hoisted up and lifted my feet in first. There was a cot that looked like a small cage. I shimmied into it. I guess we take off lying down. He yelled, “Watch yourself! I’m closing the gate.”
A computer voice came on, “Evacuation procedures cannot commence until all passengers are strapped into emergency cots and seat belts are fastened.”
Chapter 2
A Medical Miracle
My head was pounding! God, there’s a pain that started at the back of my neck and rolled to my forehead. I felt like my brain would explode. That’s what must have woke me up. My head’s my first problem. I guess my second problem was where the hell I was.
My sight was fuzzy, but I could tell that I was lying in a bed, and it looked something like a hospital room, but not quite. Chimes were going off somewhere above my left shoulder. It must be something attached to the wall behind me. I’d got an IV stuck in the back of my hand. No, not one IV, there were three, no make that four tubes running into the same needle in my hand. My left arm and hand were in a sling resting on my stomach. I tried to raise my good hand to my head to check that it hadn’t split open and felt that my head was all bandaged too, even down over my right eye.
The door to the room was on my right side, and on the left side was a workbench that looked like a computer station. I recognize it because…I don’t know why I recognize it. Had I been near one before? How is it I can remember something as stupid as a computer worktable but I can’t remember who the hell am I?
Then I heard footsteps at my door, and it quietly opened. A young orderly walked in and looked over at me. He was not in typical hospital scrubs. He wore white shoes, white slacks, and white sport coat with ID tags and a photo card hanging from his top pocket. After checking the IV tubes, he looked at me. “Well, you finally decided to join us. My monitor told me you woke up. Welcome to the land of the conscious. How do you feel?” He did something with some kind of TV remote thing that stopped the chime that was going off over my head.
I stared back at him and must have looked groggy and only half in this world. He smiled and spoke again, “I’m sorry I don’t mean to press you. Can you talk?”
I opened my mouth, but it took a while. “Head hurts…bad.” My left eye started to water.
“Okay, let’s see what we can do here.” He went to the tree of IV hoses and fiddled with a pump. He kept talking. “Let me know if this helps. My name is Chris Broker. I’m your nurse.” He wiped my cheek with a tissue. “Dr. Philippe is your lead physician. He is not on the grounds right now, but I’ve notified him that you’re awake. There are others too, and they are on their way. We weren’t expecting you to wake up so soon; that’s why nobody is here.”
“Where…here?” was all I got out, and I laid my head back in the pillow.
“We’re in the med research facility on one of the Storm Islands.” He must have been able to see that his answer meant nothing to me. “The Storm Islands are south of Aragain, the northern continent. Goldenridge is straight north of us.”
A one-word question came out of me: “Bode…?”
He could tell much of what he said didn’t register on me. “Yes, we’re in the Bode Galaxy. You’re on Hera, the main planet in this sector.” He smiled.
“We…made it?” It was more a statement than a question, but he could tell from my tone that I was unsure of myself.
I saw he was stuck for an answer. “Yes, you made it. You were in bad shape when they found you. You were dead actually, and we almost lost you a few times, but Dr. Philippe will tell you more about all that later. Right now, you need to rest.”
“How long…when?” Wow, I’d been almost a regular chatterbox now.
Chris looked at me and got serious. “Four months; they brought you here in April. It’s now August. But please rest; we’ll catch you up later. I’ll leave you be for now, but don’t worry, I’ll be watching from the main desk. All the monitors are on.” He fiddled with his TV remote thing again. “There is a sedative in the IV. It will relax you. You should sleep.”
“Head’s better, thanks.” I smiled and then said, “Others, the others, did they rescue the others?”
He looked concerned. “No, just you. Sorry.” Then the sedative knocked me out, and I fell back to sleep.
*****
When I woke in the morning, Chris and a middle-aged woman were both in my room. They fiddled with the machines and tapped on the handheld remote. They passed the remote back and forth to each other. Neither spoke, but Chris looked nervous and edgy. The woman stepped to the side of the bed and asked with a kind expression, “Feel better this morning, honey?” I looked at her and smiled. She looked like she was about to say something else, but the door opened again.
A man and a woman came in. The man, dressed in casual clothes, went straight over to the computer bench. For some reason, computer techy geek types all seemed to look alike to me. The woman came up beside my bed, and the nurse stepped away. This new woman was quite a contrast from the computer tech. She was in a very expensive dark blue business suit with a red silk scarf. She carried herself with a lot of poise. She smiled and looked at me. “Hello, it’s good to see that you are awake. I’m Jane. Jane Dietrich.” She sat on the side of my bed and touched my hand but didn’t disturb the IV tubes. There was a connection between us, a warm connection that I didn’t understand. I looked down at her hand, and I thought I saw a glow, but there was nothing to see. I must have imagined it. She smiled. “I will help you get your life back together. To get you back out into the world.”
The computer guy