To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  It was, but Kira wasn’t going to admit it. “How the hell did you survive this long without getting killed?”

  Sparrow chuckled. “There’s no such thing as safety. Only degrees of risk.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Then put it this way: I’ve had more practice than most dealing with risk.” There was an unspoken implication to her claim: because I had to.

  “… I think you just like the thrill.” Once more, a needle of pain shot through Kira’s abdomen.

  Sparrow chuckled again. “Could be.”

  When they arrived at sickbay, Hwa-jung was waiting for them outside. In one hand, she carried a small machine Kira didn’t recognize. “Aish,” the machine boss said as Sparrow hobbled up. “You shouldn’t walk around like this. It’s not good for you.” She wrapped her free arm around Sparrow’s shoulders and shepherded her into the room.

  “I’m fine,” Sparrow protested weakly, but it was obvious she was more exhausted than she was letting on.

  Inside, Vishal helped Hwa-jung lift Sparrow onto the exam table, and there the small woman lay back and closed her eyes for a moment.

  “Here,” said Hwa-jung, placing the machine on the short countertop next to the sink. “You need this.”

  “What is it?” said Sparrow, cracking open her eyes.

  “A humidifier. The air is too dry in here.”

  Vishal examined the machine with a degree of doubt. “The air here is the same as—”

  “Too dry,” Hwa-jung insisted. “It is bad for her. It makes you sick. The humidity needs to be higher.”

  Sparrow smiled slightly. “You ain’t going to win this argument, Doc.”

  Vishal seemed as if he was going to protest for a moment, and then he raised his hands and backed off. “As you wish, Ms. Song. It’s not as if I work here.”

  Kira went over to him and, in a low voice, said, “Do you have a moment?”

  The doctor bobbed his head. “For you, Ms. Navárez, of course. What seems to be the problem?”

  Kira glanced at the other two women, but they seemed busy talking with each other. Lowering her voice further, she said, “My stomach has been hurting. I don’t know if it’s something I ate, or…” She trailed off, not wanting to give voice to the worst possibilities.

  Vishal’s expression sharpened. “What did you have for breakfast?”

  “I haven’t eaten yet.”

  “Ah. Very well. Please stand over here, Ms. Navárez, and I will see what I can do.”

  Kira stood in a corner of the sickbay, feeling slightly embarrassed to have Sparrow and Hwa-jung watching while the doctor listened to her chest with a stethoscope and then pressed against her belly with his hands. “Does it hurt here?” he asked, touching just below her rib cage.

  “No.”

  His hands moved a few centimeters lower. “Here?”

  She shook her head.

  His hands moved lower still. “Here?”

  The sharp intake of her breath was answer enough. “Yeah,” she said, her voice tight with pain.

  A furrow appeared between Vishal’s brows. “One minute, Ms. Navárez.” He pulled open a nearby drawer and rummaged through it.

  “Call me Kira, please.”

  “Ah, yes. Of course. Ms. Kira.”

  “No, I mean … Never mind.”

  Across the room, Sparrow popped her gum. “You’ll never get him to unbend. The doc here is as stiff as a rod of titanium.”

  Vishal muttered something in a language Kira didn’t understand, and then he returned to her with an odd-looking device. “Please lay on the floor and unseal your jumpsuit. Not all the way; halfway will do.”

  The deck was rough against her back. She held still while he spread cold goo across her lower stomach. A sonogram, then.

  The doctor chewed on the inside of his lip while he studied the feed from the sonogram on his overlays.

  Kira expected an answer of some kind when Vishal finished, but instead he held up a finger and said, “It is needful to do a blood test, Ms. Kira. Would you please remove the Soft Blade from your arm?”

  That’s not good. Again, Kira followed his orders, trying to ignore the worm of unease turning in her gut. Or maybe it was just the pain from whatever was wrong inside her.

  A sharp prick as the needle broke her unprotected skin. Then silence for a few minutes as they waited for the sickbay’s computers to run the diagnostics.

  “Ah, here we are,” said the doctor, and started reading his overlays, eyes darting from side to side.

  Sparrow said, “Well, what is it, Doc?”

  “If Ms. Kira chooses to tell you, that is her choice,” said Vishal. “However, she is still my patient, and I am still her physician, and as such, this is privileged information.” He gestured toward the door and said to Kira, “After you, my dear.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Sparrow, but there was no concealing the spark of curiosity in her eyes.

  Once out in the hallway, with the door closed behind them, Kira said, “How bad is it?”

  “It is not bad at all, Ms. Kira,” said Vishal. “You are menstruating. What you are feeling are uterine cramps. Quite normal.”

  “I’m…” For a moment, Kira was at a loss. “That can’t be possible. I had my periods turned off when I first hit puberty.” And the only time she’d reactivated them had been in college, during the stupidest six months of her life, with him.… A flush of unwelcome memories crowded her mind.

  Vishal spread his hands. “I am sure you are right, Ms. Kira, but the results are unmistakable. You are most certainly menstruating. There is no doubt whatsoever.”

  “That shouldn’t be possible.”

  “No, it shouldn’t.”

  Kira put her fingers to her temples. A dull ache was forming behind her eyes. “The xeno must have thought I was injured somehow so it … repaired me.” She walked back and forth across the corridor and then stopped, hands on her hips. “Shit. So am I going to have to deal with this from now on? Can’t you do something to turn them back off?”

  Vishal hesitated and then made a helpless motion. “If the suit will heal you, then nothing I can do would stop it, unless I remove your ovaries, and—”

  “There’s no way the Soft Blade would let you. Yeah.”

  The doctor glanced at his overlays. “There are hormonal treatments we could try, but I must warn you, Ms. Navárez, they can have some undesirable side effects. Also, I can’t guarantee their efficacy, as the xeno might interfere with absorption and metabolism.”

  “Okay … Okay.” Kira paced the breadth of the corridor again. “Fine. Leave it. If I feel any worse, maybe we can try the pills.”

  The doctor nodded. “As you wish.” He drew a long finger across his bottom lip and then said, “One, ah, point to remember, Ms. Navárez, and I apologize most seriously for mentioning it. Practically, there is no reason you could not become pregnant now. However, as your physician, I have to—”

  “I’m not getting pregnant,” Kira said, harsher than she intended. She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Besides, I don’t think the Soft Blade would allow it, even if I wanted.”

  “Exactly, Ms. Kira. I could not guarantee your safety, nor the safety of the fetus.”

  “Understood. I appreciate your concern.” She scuffed her heel against the deck, thinking. “You don’t have to report this to anyone on the Darmstadt, do you?”

  Vishal twisted a hand in the air. “They wish me to, but I would not betray the confidentiality of a patient.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course, Ms. Kira.… Would you like me to fix your nose for you now? Otherwise it will have to wait until tomorrow. I will be busy with Sparrow later.”

  “She told me. Tomorrow.”

  “As you wish.” He returned to the sickbay, leaving her alone in the corridor.

  4.

  Pregnant.

  Kira’s stomach twisted, and not from the cramps. After what had happened in college, she�
�d sworn she would never have children. It had taken meeting Alan to make her reconsider, and only because she’d liked him so much. Now though, the thought filled her with revulsion. What sort of hybrid monstrosity would the xeno produce if she got pregnant?

  She reached up to fiddle with a lock of hair; her fingers scraped scalp. Well. It wasn’t like she was going to get pregnant by accident. All she had to do was avoid sleeping with anyone. Not so difficult.

  For a moment, her thoughts detoured into mechanical details. Would sex even be possible? If she had the Soft Blade retract from between her legs, then … It might work, but whomever she was with would have to be brave—very brave—and if she lost her hold on the suit and it closed shut … Ouch.

  She glanced down at herself. At least she didn’t have to worry about bleeding. The Soft Blade was as efficient as always in recycling her body’s waste.

  The door to the sickbay opened as Hwa-jung exited.

  “Do you have a moment?” said Kira. “Could you help me?”

  The machine boss stared at her. “What?” From anyone else the question would have sounded rude, but from Hwa-jung, Kira thought it was just a simple request.

  Kira explained what she needed and what she wanted. They weren’t the same things.

  “This way,” said Hwa-jung, and lumbered off toward the core of the ship.

  As they started down the central ladder, Kira eyed the machine boss, curious. “How did you end up on the Wallfish, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Captain Falconi needed a machine boss. I needed a job. Now I work here.”

  “Do you have family back on Shin-Zar?”

  The top of Hwa-jung’s head moved as she nodded. “Many brothers and sisters. Many cousins. I send them money when I can.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “Because,” said Hwa-jung as she stepped off the ladder on the deck just above the cargo holds. She lifted her hands, fingers bunched, the tips pressed together. “Boom.” And she opened her hands, splaying her fingers.

  “Ah.” Kira couldn’t decide if the machine boss was being literal or not, and she decided it was better not to ask. “Do you ever visit?”

  “Once. No more.”

  Leaving the shaft, they passed through a narrow passageway and entered a room close to the hull.

  It was a machine shop, small and cramped—stuffed with more pieces of equipment than Kira recognized—but impeccably organized. The scent of solvents stung her nose, and the smell of ozone put a bitter, nickel-like taste on her tongue.

  “Warning, some chemicals are known by the League of Allied Worlds to cause cancer,” said Hwa-jung as she edged sideways between the different machines.

  “That’s easy enough to treat,” said Kira.

  Hwa-jung chuckled. “They still require the disclaimers. Bureaucrats.” She stopped by a wall of drawers at the back of the shop and slapped them. “Here. Powdered metals, polycarbonates, organic substrates, carbon fiber, more. All the raw stock you could need.”

  “Is there anything I shouldn’t take?”

  “Organics. Metals are easy to replace; organics are harder, more expensive.”

  “Okay. I’ll avoid them.”

  Hwa-jung shrugged. “You can take some. Just not too much. Whatever you do, do not cross-contaminate—with any of these. It will ruin whatever we make with them.”

  “Gotcha. I won’t.”

  Then she showed Kira how to unlock the drawers and open the storage packs inside. “You understand now, yes? I will go and see if I can print what you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  As Hwa-jung left, Kira dipped her fingers into a mound of powdered aluminum while at the same time telling the xeno: Eat.

  If it did, she couldn’t tell.

  She sealed the pack, closed the drawer, cleaned her hand with a wet wipe from the dispenser on the wall, and—once her skin was dry—tried the same thing with the powdered titanium.

  Drawer by drawer, she worked her way through the ship’s supplies. The suit seemed to absorb little to none of the metals; it had apparently sated most of its hunger during the night. However, it displayed a distinct preference for some of the rarer elements, such as samarium, neodymium, and yttrium, among others. Cobalt and zinc, too. To her surprise, it ignored all the biological compounds.

  When Kira was finished, she left the machine shop with Hwa-jung still there working—bent over the control display for the ship’s main printer—and returned to the galley.

  Kira fixed herself a late breakfast, which she ate at a leisurely pace. It was nearly noon, and she was already wiped from the day’s events. Sparrow’s training—if it could be called that—had taken a serious toll.

  Her abdomen twinged again, and she grimaced. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

  She looked up as Nielsen walked in. The first officer got herself some food from the fridge and then sat opposite Kira.

  They ate in silence for a time.

  Then Nielsen said, “You’ve set us on a strange path, Navárez.”

  Eat the path. “Can’t argue with you there.… Does it bother you?”

  The woman set down her fork. “I’m not happy that we’ll be gone for over six months, if that’s what you’re asking. The League is going to be in serious trouble by the time we get back, unless through some miracle, these attacks let off.”

  “But we might be able to help, if we find the Staff of Blue.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of the rationale.” Nielsen took a sip of water. “When I joined the Wallfish, I didn’t think I was signing up for combat, chasing alien relics, or expeditions into the unexplored regions of the galaxy. And yet here we are.”

  Kira tipped her head. “Yeah. I wasn’t looking for any of this either.… Aside from the exploration.”

  “And the alien relics.”

  A smile forced its way onto Kira’s face. “And that.”

  Nielsen smiled slightly also. Then she surprised her by saying, “I heard Sparrow put you through the wringer this morning. How are you holding up?”

  Simple as it was, the question softened Kira. “Okay. But it was a lot. It’s all a lot.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Kira made a face. “Plus, now…” She half laughed. “You’re not going to believe it, but—” And she told Nielsen about the return of her periods.

  The first officer made a sympathetic face. “How inconvenient. At least you don’t have to worry about bleeding.”

  “No. Small favors, eh?” Kira raised her glass in a mock toast, and Nielsen did the same.

  Then the first officer said, “Listen, Kira, if you need someone to talk with, someone other than Gregorovich … come find me. My door is always open.”

  Kira studied her for a long moment, gratitude welling up inside her. Then she nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”

  5.

  Kira spent the rest of the day helping around the ship. A lot still needed doing before they went FTL: lines and filters to check, diagnostics to run, general cleaning, and so on.

  Kira didn’t mind the work. It made her feel useful, and it kept her from thinking too much. She even helped Trig fix the damaged bed in her cabin, which she was grateful to have done, knowing as she did that—if all went well—she would be spending months there on the mattress, lost in the death-like sleep of the Soft Blade’s induced hibernation.

  The thought frightened her, so she worked harder and tried not to dwell on it.

  When ship-evening came, everyone but the Marines gathered in the galley, even Sparrow. “I thought you had surgery,” said Falconi, glowering at her from under his thick eyebrows.

  “I put it off until later,” she said. They all knew why she wanted to be there. Dinner was their last chance to spend time together as a group before going into FTL.

  “That safe, Doc?” Falconi asked.

  Vishal nodded. “As long as she does not eat any solid food, she will be fine.”

  Sparrow smirked. “Good thing then you were
the one cooking tonight, Doc. Makes it easy to wait.”

  A shadow flitted across Vishal’s face, but he didn’t argue. “I am glad you are safe for your surgery, Ms.,” was all he said.

  A text popped up on Kira’s overlays:

 

 

 

 

 

 

  He chuckled quietly.

  The mood around the room was lighter than the previous day, although there was an underlying tension that gave their conversations a manic edge. None of them wanted to discuss what was about to come, but it hung over them like an unspoken threat.

  The conversation loosened until Kira felt bold enough to say, “Okay, I know this is rude, but there’s a question I have to ask.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Falconi, sipping from his glass of wine.

  She plowed onward as if he hadn’t said anything. “Akawe mentioned you wanted pardons before you’d agree to go. What for?” Around the room, the crew shifted uneasily while the Entropists looked on with interest. “Trig, you mentioned some difficulties at Ruslan, so … I was just wondering.” Kira leaned back and waited to see what would happen.

  Falconi scowled at his glass. “You can’t help sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, can you?”

  In a somewhat placating tone, Nielsen said, “We should tell her. There’s no reason to keep it secret, not now.”

  “… Fine. You tell her then.”

  How bad was it, Kira wondered. Smuggling? Theft? Assault?… Murder?

  Nielsen sighed and then—as if she’d guessed what Kira was thinking—said, “It’s not what you imagine. I wasn’t on the ship at the time, but the crew ended up in trouble because they imported a whole bunch of newts to sell on Ruslan.”