REAP 23

by J J Perry

  “Commander, you are not safe,” Lola said.

  “No kidding,” Savanna replied.

  She put both her feet against the wall and grasped the head of the bed with both hands and then, with all her might, pushed it away from the wall. When it was at about a thirty-degree angle and smack over her face, it loosed and fell with a loud crash over Savanna. She was positioned such that she did not get seriously hurt, although Maricia had depressed the mattress painfully on top of her protruding belly. Maricia screamed again in pain and surprise.

  Savanna squirmed out from underneath and, using her arms, climbed to an upright position.

  “That was unwise, Commander,” Lola said.

  “My forte,” she muttered.

  Maricia’s abdomen was rock hard as she moaned in pain. Savanna had to stop for a moment because of her own discomfort. “We’re both in labor,” she said aloud.

  “I can assist you if you get me down.” The luxurious Brazilian accent from the ceiling seemed suddenly so out of place.

  Savanna visually inspected Zhivago hanging about her on the curved ceiling. His lights were on but occasionally flickering. He had been silent. “Is Zhivago functional?”

  “He has no telemetry. He may be in a reset mode. It is unlikely he is functional at this time.”

  Savanna moved Maricia’s bed away. She pulled mattresses from two other beds in the room and placed them underneath Lola. Lola then undocked, falling gracefully onto one of the mattresses feet first. She crouched to absorb the shock and then put both hands above her head, like a gymnast with a perfect dismount.

  “I can’t believe you were programmed to do that,” Savanna noted.

  “I was not. I calculated the motions necessary to minimize damage to myself.” Maricia screamed in pain. Lola moved quickly to her and lifted both knees, spreading her legs and slipped two fingers inside. “The baby is coming. She is fully effaced and dilated.” Maricia was drenched in sweat but unable to verbalize. She moaned or screamed.

  Savanna herself grimaced and gripped a handle on the bed. “Can you give her something for pain?”

  “The pharmacy cart is on the ceiling.”

  “Maricia, baby, we’re safe. We landed,” Savanna said as she mopped sweat from her cheeks. “Say something. Talk to me.”

  Maricia held her gaze for a few precious seconds and then moaned again.

  As Savanna tended to her friend, Ivanna continued to twitch on the ceiling. Lola went to Ivanna and ordered to undock. The docking mechanism clicked, but she did not fall. She was about two meters off the floor. Lola lifted her up, twisting slightly, and Ivanna fell into her arms. The twitching stopped. “Her docking mechanism was torqued and jammed. Analyzing function.” Savanna wiped more perspiration from Maricia’s face and then her own. “It appears she has suffered a fatal error. I have disabled her until I can do a more thorough assessment.” She returned to Maricia, leaving Ivanna curled on the floor, appearing asleep, her off-blond hair cascading like a model’s over her green face.

  After another brief assessment, Lola spoke again. “This baby will be delivered before we are able to access the medication. There is some risk in releasing the cabinet.” Maricia groaned again. Both her helpers encouraged her to push, which she did with vigor. A minute passed. Maricia was cyanotic. The contraction passed.

  Lola tried to get oxygen to her. “Gases are not available,” she said. She cleaned the perineum with water. The smell of smoke grew stronger. Savanna walked to the stairwell. The door was horizontal and less than half a meter up from the floor. She stopped and put a hand on the wall to steady herself as a contraction hit. They were coming regularly and increasing in strength. She grit her teeth. After almost a minute, she relaxed. She opened the door, saw no flames, felt no heated air. The smell of retardant and smoke was strong. She closed it and returned to help Lola.

  Maricia wailed continually. Lola parted her legs to see the crown of the baby coming. She inserted her finger, finding the baby facedown. “Push hard!” Lola encouraged loudly. “Push, baby, push.” She reached in, tilted the head down, put a finger under the chin and pulled the face out. The baby squirted forward. Within seconds, the slippery, pale little critter was born.

  Grasping it by the ankles, she held it up and rubbed it on the back and bottom, the curly, fleshy blue cord dangling to the exit from which it just came. Covered in a mixture of blood and what looked like cream cheese, the boy began to cry. Lola placed it below Maricia’s perineum, milked and cut the cord. She then wrapped the newborn in a soft, pink blanket. Maricia had quieted to sobbing.

  Savanna grasped the headrail; hand white, face pale and wet. She was bent over with her free hand on her abdomen. When the pain eased, she straightened up and took the infant. “I can’t get the incubator. It’s in the—”

  “I know where it is, Commander.” Lola interrupted. She hurried to the far end of the room. The storage room door was horizontal as were all doors except those between compartments. The bottom edge was over one meter above floor level. Lola climbed in and lifted the incubator to the threshold. Savanna put the infant in Maricia’s arms and came over to ease the device to the floor without a crash. She retrieved the newborn girl, Maricia being unaware that it was there. Her mental state was growing alarming to her. Lola attached the power lines to the incubator.

  “Why isn’t she talking to us?”

  “She may have had a concussion when we landed,” Lola answered as she massaged Maricia’s belly. “She was upside down afterward with elevated venous pressure. I’ll do an assessment when I have time.”

  Maricia howled as Lola pushed on the flabby belly, tugging gently on the umbilical cord. Savanna, holding the newborn, walked to the second bed, still attached to the wall and ninety degrees away from where she needed it. Another contraction was starting, less than three minutes after the last. She hobbled to the incubator and turned on a small heater and turned on oxygen from a small concentrator. She grimaced in pain as she laid the precious package inside. More sweat building on her own brow, she suctioned the infant’s mouth. The baby cried, pink and strong. Savanna gripped the rail tightly until the pain subsided. She looked over to the action in the adjacent bed.

  Maricia was dark, an ominous blue. On the floor was a growing puddle of blood. Lola flopped a bloody gelatinous placenta onto the floor, no pan or trashcan being available. She was looking at the drug cart unreachable on the ceiling. A sonorous, gurgling breath issued from Maricia. Her unseeing eyes aimed in different directions. Lola disappeared into the storage bay for several seconds returning with an IV kit bag and an intubation set.

  “Commander, it is critical that drug cart be moved into a usable location. She is unlikely to survive without drugs it contains.” As she spoke, her hands were almost a blur, placing a tourniquet around the arm, giving her an assisted breath between actions. She placed a tube through her mouth and into the trachea and started an IV.

  The cart was about six meters up near the apex of the curved ceiling almost directly above the new doorway. Savanna knew there were no ladders on board except the one that was bolted to the wall in the central access shaft. She looked at the bed she needed ten or twenty minutes ago. It was not quite high enough, on end as it was, to get her or Lola in position to release the cart. Savanna flipped levers on the feet and then, this time without being underneath, pulled it away from the wall until it fell, banging to the floor as had Maricia’s bed. Savanna moved the mattresses lying on the floor where Lola landed a few feet to directly under the cart. She then pushed the wheeled bed to a location adjacent to the mattresses. This was made more difficult bythe angle of the ship. She cried out in pain with another contraction. There was no way she could stand this bed on end. She locked the wheels and returned to the bay where the bed had been and pushed a small table over to the current location, panting and moaning. The baby cried for a couple of minutes as this was going on.

/>   “I cannot establish a connection with the hub computer” came a Russian-accented voice behind her.

  “Zhivago,” Savanna said with relief, “are you functional?”

  “I am at 89 percent capability,” it responded. “I am having difficulty undocking. My telemetry is not functional.”

  “Can you undock the medication cart?”

  “I cannot establish a connection with the hub computer, therefore, I cannot initiate a reconfiguration algorithm.”

  Savanna cursed and took a deep breath, refocusing her mind. “Lola, if you can locate a pole, like an IV pole, I think you can disengage the drug box from the ceiling.” Lola flew into supply one more time and emerged with an extendable pole. Savanna leaned into the stretcher in pain. “OK, lift this bed up on end, use the end table to climb up to the high point and see if you can manipulate the cart free to fall on the two mattresses there.” Savanna spoke in short gasps, occasional exhaling through pursed lips.

  Lola flipped the bed on end with more effort than it should have taken, Savanna noted. “Is there something wrong with your strength?”

  “It has been reduced byaging.” Lola then climbed up. “Even robots get old.” Savanna leaned into the bed to keep it upright and against the wall. Lola sent signals to disengage the dock lock as she stretched, reaching with the full extent of the rod to unlock the manual wheel locks. She did this, and the cart lurched downward slightly.

  “Almost there,” Savanna hissed through clenched teeth.

  It was not almost there. Lola worked feverishly with the rod, looking over at Maricia, who gurgled, whose color was getting darker every second. Her life was ebbing away without the potent drugs a meter away from Lola. She looked back and forth between Maricia and the cart. She paused, analyzing, calculating. She crouched and then leaped. The end of the bed snapped. She jammed the rod behind the cart, freeing it. She grabbed the cart as she fell onto the mattresses. This time, Lola did not land on her feet but partially underneath the heavy box. Vials and boxes tinkled and clattered across the floor. Savanna hobbled over to Maricia and squeezed life into her lungs repeatedly, her color changing from pale blue to dead white. Savanna stifled a cry of pain as she tried to keep Maricia alive.

  Lola moved. Her right arm was crushed and useless. Her chest was deformed. “I need to get the respirator from the storage area.” Her speech was slow, and the pitch was down half an octave.

  “Self-test, Lola,” Savanna commanded.

  “Several systems are not functional, sir.”

  She tried to stand. “Unable,” she stated. She scooted herself along the floor to the storage and stopped. “Unable to acquire respirator in current condition.”

  “Medic Maricia has severe shock as well as an abnormal brain wave pattern consistent with concussive brain injury superimposed on previous neurological impairment. Consider termination of efforts to resuscitate,” Zhivago announced. “Additional resources for her will jeopardize success of the mission.”

  “No, no, no, no. God, no.” Savanna wept.

  “Probability of independent functional recovery is at 0.2, 0.2 percent and falling.”

  Lola scooted along the floor to the bed that was perched on its end and knocked it over, landing on its wheels.

  Savanna agonized in pain both visceral and emotional. She continued to squeeze the bag that inflated Maricia’s lungs.

  “Feel for a pulse, Commander,” said Zhivago. She put two fingers aside the tracheal and pushed deep, feeling nothing but cooling skin.

  “I don’t feel one!” she yelled.

  “She has had no blood pressure for several minutes. We do not have the resources to revive her, Commander. Please place yourself on the stretcher.”

  “Stop calling me commander!” Savanna intensified her efforts, squeezing the bag rapidly and fully to give her the breath of life.

  “Please lie on the floor,” Lola spoke calmly. “I can start an IV on you and give you pain control.”

  Savanna continued bagging Maricia through several contractions. Lola placed her good hand around Savanna’s knee. “Please, Savanna. Lie down. She is dead.”

  “No, no! God, no!” She wept.

  17.2

  Savanna stopped and stood still, dripping in sweat, her chest heaving, looking into the peaceful face of her beloved friend. She buried her face in Maricia’s chest, sobbing. She sniffed her hair, but the scent of death was already on her. She hugged her through her own arduous contraction. She eased her eyelids closed and held them in place for half a minute. She kissed her softly on the lips as she cried. She half whispered, half blubbered, “Good-bye, Maricia. I will teach Michael Adam about you and Raul. I will miss you so very, very much.”

  Still sobbing, she collapsed heavily on the floor, offering her left arm to Lola. With her teeth and one arm, she put a rubber band above the IV target and deftly placed the IV. “Hold the bag above your heart,” she requested. Savanna complied. Lola was able to pull herself up and contort to hand the bag on a hook. She returned to the floor, scooted to a mattress, and hauled it back with her teeth. Her dull teal color made her look reptilian. Savanna rolled onto the mattress and removed her pants. They had been soaked with amniotic fluid for several minutes. Another contraction, more pain. Lola fingers slid inside. “Fully dilated. The baby is turned faceup.”

  “Is that not good?” Savanna asked.

  “It makes for a longer labor and delivery. Perhaps I can turn it.”

  It took some repositioning to put Lola into where she had some leverage. “My self-test indicates a short circuit is draining power. It is likely that I will lose function very soon. Zhivago will guide you through the steps.”

  “What next?”

  “Hold on to my crushed arm and pull me toward your head. It will give me leverage.” Lola’s left hand went up to the little girl’s head and pushed it up from the birth canal and twisted. Lola tried to speak but issued just a low-pitched decrescendo moan. Her body went slowly limp.

  Savanna extracted her hand from the birth canal and rolled Lola away from the mattress. “Zhivago, did it work?”

  “My telemetry is not functional.”

  A strong contraction hit. They were all strong now. The scant amount of pain blocker given did not seem to make any difference. The baby boy in the incubator cried off and on for the next hour as the contractions came every two minutes. She kept placing a couple of fingers inside herself to check on the progress. She wanted a mirror, pain relief, help, company. She wanted a lot of things. With the baby screaming, she had another contraction with the undeniable urge to push. Her fingers felt the head near the opening and pushed. Three more contractions and exhausting pushes with unbearable pain were not softened by her screams. The head delivered followed by a rush of blood.

  “Get on your knees,” Zhivago said.

  In fear, in haste, she got up on her knees to allow the baby to fall on the mattress. She picked her daughter up, turned her facedown on her arm, and rubbed her back. She coughed and started to cry. Her color was maroon, not the pink that Maricia’s boy had been. Savanna had the material to cut the cord next to her, courtesy of Lola. With prompting from Zhivago, she tied and cut the cord and then, with a flood of overwhelming love, held her newborn daughter to her breast. The infant pinked up. Savanna continued to have painful contractions afterward. “Disgusting,” she said to herself. “God, I hate blood.”

  “Place some gently traction on the cord to help deliver the placenta,” reminded Zhivago. This is pretty disgusting, she thought as she pulled the kilogram of tissue out of her vagina. She threw it over toward Maricia’s afterbirth. She rolled on her side and snuggled with the newborn for a few minutes.

  “Your IV bag will be empty soon. I recommend replacing it” was the advice.

  She stood slowly, fighting lightheadedness, and carried the baby to the incubator. “I’m afraid you two will ne
ed to double bunk for a while.” She put the tip of her finger into the mouth of Michael Adam, and he fumbled around with sucking on it. She then replaced the empty IV bag. She saw a syringe, probably of pain blocker. She squirted it into her IV and felt dizzier. She sat down on the remaining clean mattress and let the IV run in quickly. She had no opportunity to lounge around. She looked around. The room was a disaster. Maricia, two dead med-bots, blood, afterbirths, drugs, trash, and broken pieces of equipment were strewn everywhere. Both of her legs were covered in blood. She felt dizzy then passed out. and then nothing.

  “What day is it?” She awoke with a start.

  “It depends on your point of reference,” answered the Russian. “I cannot access either base date or mission date. It has been forty-two minutes since you collapsed.”

  “Where am I?” “Planet K-70 EDN 7.”

  “We need to change that name. What do you think, Zhivago?”

  “I neither agree nor disagree.”

  “EDN. Eden.”

  “I believe you are under the influence, Savanna,” Zhivago said.

  “I dub thee Eden,” she slurred thenfell asleep.

  17.3

  She opened her eyes. Pain came back into focus. The images in the periphery of her vision reminded her of hell. She closed her eyes.

  Two infants cried in the distance. The sound came closer until Savanna awoke. Her thoughts were not fluid but sporadic. The pain was worse. She needed to check on the babies. They should eat at some time, probably not right away. Where was the food? It would be a day or so before her milk came in appreciable amounts. Nursing would stimulate the production factories. She sat up, still dizzy. The picture of carnage was unchanged. No cleaner-bot had been out yet. And probably wouldn’t be, she realized. It took a minute to stand up without falling. She shuffled over to the bubble that contained the sounds of life emerging. She picked up the boy and then put him down. She lifted her shirt up, removed her bra, and then picked him up again. He just cried when she put him up to her nipple. She kept trying, and, finally, he started to root and then found the teat and started to suck in little runs of five or ten. Her pain became worse. As she looked at Michael Adam at her breast, she had an emotion of happiness briefly. Then she saw that she was naked below her shirt. Turning and twisting, old and new blood appeared on her legs.