Approaching Oblivion (Jezebel's Ladder Book 4) (14 page)

Nadia
spit. Anger made her accent thick. “You want to do good deed, slut? This is
space exploration, not pleasure cruise. At next meeting, I will ask to be
placed on first landing party.”

“As
a lieutenant and construction expert, Rachael was placed in charge,” Yuki
cautioned.

“I
do not wish to lead; I want to be among first on new world. You and your
friends vote me onto that, and I leave you in peace. Good riddance to bad
garbage.”

“Done,”
Yuki promised. For the first time, she felt as if the entire crew of the
Sanctuary
was working together as a team—a family.

Risking
a side glance on her way out, Yuki glimpsed a flicker of a ghost above Mercy on
the mountainside, standing like a guardian angel.

The image of the void
hovering over Mercy bothered Yuki for the rest of the evening.
Why do the
Magi care so much about my friend? If anything, they should be following the
wristwatch that can detect them, or Nadia who might be able to sense them as
soap bubbles of light.
Is Snowflake using remotes to observe its
favorite human?
The computer had bent the rules before, but only when Mercy
was in mortal danger. Suddenly, everything had hidden portent.

As
the party wound down, Mercy excused herself. “I shouldn’t have eaten cake this
late. I have awful heartburn.”

Without
the presence of mittens, Yuki noticed how swollen Mercy’s hands were. “Have you
told Yvette?”

“No.
She’s been busy, and it’s not like she can do anything about it with my weird
chemistry, just like the headaches. Unless something knocks me out, my body
won’t tolerate it. I had a migraine all day till the party started. That’s why
I ate dessert. I was finally hungry, and it looked so good. Now I’m paying for
it.”

“When
is your next checkup?”

“Lou
takes us into the Oblivion system tomorrow at noon. The medical staff is going
to be busy with that until evening. The day after is soon enough.” Mercy meant
to say more, but sat down suddenly instead.

“Why
don’t you come with us to Olympus tonight?”

“No.
Technically, I’m on bed rest. It’s week twenty-seven, and I’m not allowed any
unnecessary risks. Besides, with a full day of data collecting on the new
system, you need your sleep.” Her face looked a little wan and puffy.

Leaning
over to Park, Yuki said, “Dear, fetch the cart. Don’t bother Auckland or Herk;
Sojiro can help.” He nodded and motioned to his sparring partner to assist.
Both men departed without a word. Turning to Mercy, she said, “Tell me what
you’ll need to spend the next few months in Olympus. I’ll help you pack.”

“The
control room is going to be crowded enough, and everyone will be cranky,” Mercy
objected.

Lou
came back from the bathroom and asked, “What’s going on?”

“I
don’t want to have to land the saucer here in the middle of reentry tomorrow,
so we’re kidnapping your wife,” Yuki snapped. “Any objections?”

“Nope.
Now that my part is finished, she won’t listen to me anyway,” Lou said, sipping
the last of his beer.

Mercy
smacked him in the chest with the back of her hand. To Yuki, she said, “I’ll be
fine, really.”

Staring
into her friend’s eyes, Yuki said, “I’ll make you a deal: you hand this coat
back to Toby. If he doesn’t have you on an exam table within a minute, I will
clean Nadia’s floor with my toothbrush.”

“I’ll
get her delivery bag and my overnight case for sick bay,” Lou said. “Make her
lay down. Use that bionic arm to force her if you have to. I’ll call Yvette.”

Yuki
replied, “We’ll pick the nurse up on the way through the orchard. The boys will
be bringing the cart around any second.”

****

After
hearing the symptoms from Yuki, Yvette escorted Mercy directly to the sick bay.
At one point, the nurse sliced a twig off an apple tree with her knife to clamp
between the patient’s teeth. “Just to be safe.” Lou kept asking what was
happening. Inside Olympus, the men were all forced to wait outside the door.
She performed a glucose test and an ultrasound before telling the Japanese
woman, “Get Toby.”

“But
he’s in lockdown.”

“Have
the commander override it.”

Yuki
leapt to obey. Mercy lay on the exam bed and complained, “Hello, I’m the
patient. Isn’t anyone going to tell me?”

“I
need confirmation,” Yvette said, wringing her hands. Sick bay didn’t trigger
any stress memories, but waiting for her former attacker made her breathe so
fast her fingertips went numb. There was no other way to save her friend.

Toby
shuffled into the room, dressed in his robe and Velcro slippers, which made him
appear less threatening. He took one look at Mercy and held out his hand for
the chart. After seeing the test results, he reared back his head. “Yes, it
looks like
preeclampsia. I thought we had a few more weeks
before we needed the tailored virus. There have been so many other urgent tasks
that cropped up for winter. I’m not ready. I’m so sorry.”

“How soon can you
have it?” Yvette asked with a quaver.

“Four or five days at
the soonest.”

“Tell
me what’s happening,” Mercy demanded. Lou appeared at her side, shushing and
trying to keep her calm.

Yvette
said, “In combination with your immune response against the baby, you have
gestational
diabetes. It’s indicated by a large fetus, high glucose, inability to clot,
bruising, as well as swelling. From the bruises on her legs and arms, I’m
betting she’s had some convulsions she hasn’t told you about. I think she also
knows what the problem is and has been hiding it.”

“It’s too early. Stewart can’t
survive,” Mercy said, her voice edging higher with panic. “I’ll stay in bed
like I’m supposed to. Please don’t take him.”

“What does she mean?” asked Lou.

“Sit down,” Toby told him softly.
Yvette looked sharply at the nanobiologist. He was being inordinately kind.
“The short list is: high blood pressure, placental separation, bleeding out,
risk of life-threatening seizures, and damage to Mom’s kidneys and liver. At a
minimum we should perform a Caesarean section—as soon as possible to spare the
mother’s health.”

Lou’s chest heaved as he tried to
absorb the information.

Toby continued. “We need to lower
her blood pressure and place monitors on her as soon as possible. Perhaps
administer fluids and anticonvulsive medication.”

Red floated in. “Would it help to
freeze her until you have a treatment ready?”

Toby nodded. Between his angst and
zero g, he’d lost a lot of weight. “If you sign off on it, sir.”

Lou’s voice cracked as he said, “I
need her awake to see well enough to navigate our entry into the system.” After
a pause, he whispered, “I need her. Don’t let me lose her again.”

“Clean her up, and prep her for
surgery just in case. A few hours delay shouldn’t hurt,” Toby said. “As long as
no one else gets critically injured in the next day and needs stasis, we’re
golden.”

“I won’t make any mistakes, then,”
Lou said grimly.

“Don’t worry, Lou. I’ll make some
coffee and resume work on the antigen suppressor tonight.” Toby seemed like a
different person with his meds. He was meek again.

Following him out the door, Yvette
said, “I’ll get the coffee. You can get dressed, doctor.”

“Thank you,” Toby said, looking for
the catch.

“We
have a common enemy, Toby. I’ll keep her stable while you work. I know you can
do this. You’re the best in this field.” He had changed.
Is it enough?
she
wondered.
If he misses a dose or adds a drug to his regimen, will he relapse
into Mr. Hyde?

****

When
Yvette ordered Lou to get some sleep, he said good night to his wife in the
medical bay and disappeared. The nurse struggled to stay awake till Auckland arrived to relieve her at six in the morning. Since Toby was still locked away in
his cell and the saucer was quiet, she decided to treat herself to a shower
before bed. Hot showers were the one luxury the Hollow didn’t have since
conservation kicked in because the crude camp couldn’t recycle water with the same
efficiency as the alien-made saucer. She opened the frosted-glass door to one
tube, but couldn’t force herself to undress in this room. Furious at herself,
she turned away from the memories in the shower.

That’s
when she found Lou huddled in the deactivated stasis chamber, holding the
ridiculous T-shirt Mercy had been wearing. Grief rolled off him in waves. He
hadn’t slept much, if any.

So
he could hear what she said, Yvette had to remove one of his earbuds. Mercy’s
voice played through the earpiece. It resounded with his wife’s gentle,
self-deprecating laugh, the one that escaped when she made a mistake in the
reading.

“It’s
just me,” Yvette said when she startled him.

“I
was trying to see if Mercy and I could both fit in the chamber together. It’s
too small,” Lou complained.

“You
need to rest if you’re going to be of any use to us as a pilot tomorrow.”

“All
that effort to keep her healthy, and the bloody birthday cake gave her
diabetes.”

“It’s
more complicated than that. She’s been playing the damn martyr for weeks,
trying to give the baby the best chance possible. Part of that is my fault. I’ve
been so busy that I took Mercy at her word too often.”

Lou
tried to put his earplug back in.
Mea culpa
changed nothing for him.

Yvette
placed a hand on his. “Maybe we could set up a second cot in the medical bay
now that she’s asleep, if you promise not to disturb her.”

“Okay,”
he said, standing so fast that he nearly knocked her over. She escorted him
back to sick bay and dragged his bedroll onto the floor. He curled up at his
wife’s feet and fell asleep listening to the sounds of their past.

Yvette
went directly to Red’s room and knocked at the door jamb. When the door opened,
Red wore the top to Zeiss’ pajamas and a neoprene headpiece lined with a
material that dampened mental assaults. Yvette whispered, “I was going to ask
to borrow that cap so I could sleep. Lou is heading for the deep end.”

Red
nodded. “He’s been broadcasting his emotions like a police siren all night. I
had to dig this gadget out to sleep.” She peeled the protective device off,
tangling her hair in the process. On the walls of the Zeiss bedroom, Sojiro had
used a dozen photos to paint a wraparound mural of the South Pacific beach
where the couple had spent their honeymoon. Inside, Red had her computer pad
set to sea-surf sounds to mask noises from rest of the ship. In hushed tones,
the pilot said, “I suppose I can start work early today. Lou’s not quite so
loud now. I’ll do the preflight checks for him and set up Snowflake with his
preferences. If Mercy dies, he’s going to kill himself before her body’s cold.”

“Maybe
we can prevent that if we can focus him on the baby.”

Handing
her the headgear, Red said, “That’s tomorrow’s problem. As my grandmother used
to say, you look like forty miles of bad road. Get to bed.”

I could with one of those injections I’ve been giving Mercy.
“I can’t sleep alone, not here.”

Laughing,
Red said, “Maybe you should slip into my sheets. I’d give a million bucks to
see the look on Z’s face when he woke up with a different blonde empath in his
bed.” Everyone knew that Red was the only woman Zeiss had ever slept with, and
then only after marriage. The former professor avoided even the appearance of
impropriety. “He’d never be able to give Lou shit again about drinking so much
that he couldn’t remember where he’d left his motorcycle.”

Yvette
stifled her own laugh as she wiggled the shower cap over her own hair.
“Actually, Herk kept moving the Ducati on him as a joke. We were all in on it.”

Eyebrows
raised, Red said, “
You
kept a secret?”

“Someone
told me as a part of our weekly wellness session. I could consider it
privileged information.”

Red
said, “I’ll hang out in the guest room with you until Sojiro arrives. Then he
can guard you while he sketches. Auckland or a rotating crew member usually
takes the other bunk. There’s a partition between the sides, and Sojiro keeps
the place so neat that I’m told it’s almost like a hotel.”

“Deal.
Thank you,” Yvette replied. “I know I can be a pain. As soon as Mercy is back
in stasis, I’m out of here.”

“Please,
in the list of high-maintenance women on this trip, you are nowhere near the
top.”

What
seemed like minutes later, Yvette awoke, refreshed. Voices chatted outside her
open door. Someone had tucked her in and placed a covered breakfast tray beside
the bed. A note card in Yuki’s handwriting said, ‘Meet me at the chapel
Wednesday after breakfast. We need to talk, for Mercy’s sake.’ That was two
days away, the next time the technician wasn’t on call as a planner.

Odd.
Yuki hadn’t seemed overtly
religious. Maybe Mercy’s plight made her desperate. Yvette also couldn’t
imagine the Japanese woman being so domestic. Park might be a settling
influence, but there were nasty jokes circulating about the woman’s inability
to cook. The nurse lifted the lid with trepidation. Inside the cover was a
capped bulb of soy milk, a second bulb full of orange juice, a bowl of dried
fruit-and-grain muesli, and one of Johnny’s muffins. She moved the orange juice
aside, having been drugged once using this method.

After
she finished her meal and the discussion died down, she crept out to exchange
the orange juice for coffee. Yvette noted that the label over Yuki’s room now
read, ‘Park.’ In the break room, the two lovers sat side-by-side. Yvette said,
“Thanks for breakfast. Is there something we should know about the new
nametag?”

“I’m
trying it on,” Yuki replied with uncharacteristic shyness.