Alpha Centauri: Sawyer's World (T-Space: Alpha Centauri Book 2)

by Alastair Mayer

  “Sawyer here,” she acknowledged.

  “Elizabeth, it’s time!” That was Ulrika Klaar. Her meaning was obvious. The baby was coming.

  “Okay, Rika, we’ve rehearsed this.” Sawyer forced a calm she did not feel into her voice, deliberately using Ulrika’s nickname. “Have you contacted Krysansky? What about Fred?”

  “Not yet. Fred’s here. Contractions aren’t that close yet, I was going to wait but Fred insisted.”

  “I’m sure he did”, said Sawyer. There is nothing so nervous as a first-time expectant father. “Okay, I’ll get Krysansky. Can you make it to sickbay or do you want him to come to you there?”

  “Sickbay. I’ll just—” her voice cut off abruptly.

  “Ulrika?”

  “Sorry, another contraction. I’d better have help going up the ramp.”

  “Darn right. Stay with Fred, I’ll have someone meet you. And I’ll get the doctor.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Sawyer clicked off then signaled Krysansky.

  “Da? Krysansky here.”

  “Doctor, Ulrika’s going into labor. Meet us in sickbay.”

  “How far apart are contractions? Is she sure they aren’t Braxton-Hicks? It is still couple of weeks early.”

  “I don’t know. She had one while we were talking, it didn’t sound like just Braxton-Hicks. And with this twenty-six hour day, who knows what’s early? Just meet us there. If it’s a false alarm then no harm done.”

  “Already on my way.”

  “Good. Who else is around, she should have help going up the ramp.” Normally she would be fine, but having someone—two someones—to assist if she had another contraction while halfway up was for the best.

  “I see Dejois, not sure where Finley or Singh are.”

  “Have him meet me at Ulrika and Fred’s hut, we’ll meet you in sickbay.”

  “Understood.”

  “Anything else you need, doctor?”

  “Relax, Captain. This is hardly my first delivery. Has been a while, but I have done plenty.”

  “Not on an alien planet.”

  “The baby doesn’t know that. It will be fine.”

  “All right. See you in a few minutes.”

  “Da.”

  As she clicked off her omni, she realized that Krysansky’s normally near flawless English had been more-heavily accented. So he is nervous, she thought. Good, it will keep him focused.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  USS Anderson, sickbay

  “Breathe. ‘Hoo, hoo, ha.’ Come on Rika.” Krysansky could see that Fred was trying his best to keep both of them calm, but both Ulrika and Fred were sweating profusely, Ulrika’s face flushed, his pale.

  Ulrika panted, then grimaced at another contraction hit. “Augh. Fuck you, Fred!” Krysansky had heard far worse in the delivery room, from women more mild-mannered than Ulrika. It helped with the stress. He checked the monitor. Uh-oh.

  The baby’s blood oxygen was dropping, and its pulse was rising. Ulrika was dilated but the baby hadn’t crowned yet. It would be bad if the umbilical cord was pinched.

  “Ulrika, I need you to shift a bit.” That could help. “You two,” he nodded to Sawyer and Singh, “help me here.” With their help Krysansky shifted Ulrika's hips on the table, shifting her legs. He checked the monitor. The blood-ox rose slightly, then dropped again. Damn. He had about a minute to fix this before lack of oxygen began causing permanent damage.

  “Singh, status?”

  “She’s crowned but not moving.”

  “Ulrika, I need you to push. On three. One, two, three, push.”

  “Aaugh.” She took a breath and grimaced, bearing down.

  “Keep pushing.” The baby’s head had barely moved. The monitor sounded a warning, blood oxygen was near critical.

  “Chert.” He had no obstetric forceps, or he’d try pulling the baby out. Nor did he have a vacuum extractor. He’d have to cut. Now.

  “Singh, anesthetic, now. Sawyer, get Fred out of here.” The last thing he needed was a frantic husband and father, especially one who looked like he was about ready to either fight or faint. “Ulrika, this is going to hurt. I’m going to save baby, and you.”

  Ulrika was clearly in pain already, her face a mask of agony. She nodded. “Da! Do it,” she managed through gritted teeth.

  Krysansky was vaguely aware that Sawyer had frog-marched Fred out of the small sickbay. She was strong enough to do it, as he’d hoped. So long as he was out of the way. Without giving Fred another thought, he flipped the drape off the surgical instruments he’d had ready just in case. The baby’s blood-ox alarm still shrilled. Ulrika was still conscious, barely, the anesthetic slowly taking hold. He should have prepped her for an epidural despite her objections. Too late now. He glanced up at Singh, who had strapped Ulrika into place. Movement would be bad. He raised the scalpel.

  Chapter 33: Emergency

  Sickbay

  Well-placed incisions had opened Ulrika enough to take the pressure off the cord, and the baby had almost popped free. It was small, wrinkled, wet and bloody. It looked fine. Singh took the baby while Krysansky quickly clamped and cut the cord. As he turned back to attend to Klaar, her monitor began beeping a warning of its own. He glanced at it. Ulrika was crashing.

  Her blood pressure dropped rapidly, with the pulse getting thinner even as its rate rose to compensate. 110/83 at 120. 105/79 at 140. 98/73 at 145.

  “Chert! She’s bleeding badly. Saline, now.” The saline would help stabilize the blood pressure, but it would do nothing for oxygen flow. Krysansky glanced at the monitor. Blood oxygen 89%. 86%. “Singh, increase oxygen.”

  Singh raised the flow rate on the oxygen mask. Ulrika would be getting nearly pure O2 now.

  “Saline won’t hold her for long. Somebody get her blood from the cryobank.” He glanced up and saw Maclaren through the observation window. “Maclaren! Cryobank, next door. Thaw it in a 50C water bath. Carefully, no hot spots, nothing higher than thirty.”

  Maclaren’s voice came over the intercom. “On it. How long?”

  Too long. “Check at fifteen minutes. It will need to be washed.” The blood would be full of glycerol to prevent ice crystal damage. “The washer is in here.” Fortunately that step was automated, the machine would take care of it. He should have had the blood ready, but it couldn’t be refrozen if not needed.

  He checked the monitor again. Blood pressure and oxygen were still dropping. How was the baby? He checked the other monitor. He looked healthy, but....

  “Singh. Watch the baby’s vitals. Keep him warm. He should be fine.” He started to wail, and his cheeks reddened. Good, that would keep him oxygenated. He checked the mother’s signs again. Not good. Where was that blood going? He needed a surgical team, and what he had were botanists and geologists.

  “Dejois! In here now.” At least he’d know some biology. “She’s bleeding into her abdomen. Take this suction tube”—he grabbed it and handed it over—“and carefully clean out the worst. Don’t touch any tissues, just the liquid.” He didn’t want to just sprinkle quick-clot over everything. It would complicate the suturing, and unless that was done right, any subsequent pregnancy would be extremely high risk, if even possible. But if that’s what it took, he would.

  Dejois’ eyes grew wide, then narrowed. “I . . . yes doctor.”

  Krysansky watched him just long enough to be sure he had it. Dejois was fine. But Klaar needed blood. “Sawyer!”

  “Doctor?”

  “Your blood type. O-negative, da?” He knew it was.

  “That’s right.”

  “Ulrika won’t last until we thaw her blood. She needs it now.” Oh, how he wished for a few liters of perfluorocarbon blood substitute.

  Sawyer was already taking off her shirt. “Whatever you need.”

  “Field transfusion kit, drawer
2B. Can you do yourself or you want help?”

  Sawyer took a breath and let it out slowly. She’d already pulled the kit from the drawer, and from it the package marked “Donor”. The needle looked huge. “I can do it.”

  “You’re sure? I don’t need you to faint.” He wasn’t looking at her, he was too busy hunting for whatever blood vessels were pouring blood into Ulrika so he could clamp them. He had found one squirter, and with it clamped at least she wasn’t losing arterial blood, but the bleeding had only slowed, not stopped.

  “I’ve got this.” She knew the theory, they all had extensive first aid training, and she’d had to assist on more than one field trip accident on Earth. “I’ve got this,” she repeated. The rubber strap was already around her left bicep and she wiped down the inside of her arm with the alcohol swab. Krysansky nodded and turned back to Ulrika.

  He found the nicked vein and clamped it. The blood flow slowed but there was still leakage. He checked on Dejois, up at the monitors, then told Singh, “Stay with Elizabeth, help her if she needs it.” He took the “Recipient” package from the kit and swabbed Ulrika’s right arm—the left already had a saline drip going into it. He slid the needle in.

  “Dejois, stop suction. Take forceps and hold swabs in place. Not too much pressure.” As he said this, Krysansky adjusted the tubing between Sawyer and Klaar, checking that blood flowed properly. He checked the monitor. Blood pressure was still low but not dropping. Ulrika was stabilizing. The baby was still crying. Elizabeth was pale, but she looked alert. “Elizabeth, tell me if you feel light headed. Singh, hook her up to the monitors.” He wasn’t worried about her, Sawyer was a tough cookie, and anyone could give blood, but nor did he want to take any further chances. Give too much blood and she would go into shock too. She would have to be watched.

  “Maclaren, how is that blood doing?”

  “It’s getting there. It’s at 10C.”

  Considerably warmer than the minus-95C it was stored at, but not warm enough yet. “Okay. At 25C bring in here and we’ll rinse it.” That would warm it further.

  He looked around the little sickbay. Sawyer and the baby were both stable, Ulrika still had high pulse and low pressure, but it had stabilized. “Singh, prep a saline drip for Sawyer, we don’t want her passing out.”

  “I’m fine,” Sawyer insisted.

  “Don’t argue. Singh, do it.”

  “Yes, Doctor. Sorry, Captain.”

  The immediate crisis was over. He could now fix the clipped artery and start putting Ulrika back together. She still needed blood, she had lost a lot. The emergency anesthesia hadn’t helped her blood pressure either. There was still much to do, but the moments of sheer panic were over. Krysansky took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The baby, noisy as he was, was doing fine. Nothing wrong with his lungs, that was for certain. But he had one more patient.

  “How is the father doing?”

  Chapter 34: Firstborn

  Recovery room, USS Anderson

  “How are you doing?” Tyrell asked her when he’d finally been allowed to see his wife. And son, he thought, still not quite believing it. I’m a father. “How are both of you doing?”

  Ulrika lay on a cot in the small room next to the sickbay, propped up on pillows, their son in her arms, nursing. An IV line ran from her arm up to a drip bag hanging from a hook on the wall, and a nearby monitor tracked her vitals.

  She smiled up at him. “Sore. Tired. Happy. And he’s hungry.”

  “You gave us a bit of a scare there. I was worried.”

  “Sorry about that. I heard that Sawyer had to practically drag you out of sickbay.”

  “Uh, yeah. Rationally I knew you were in the best hands here, but I just wanted to do something.”

  “Sweet but impractical. I think that’s one of the things I love about you. You’ve always worried about me, but not to the point you’re overprotective.”

  “Yeah, well.” Tyrell didn’t know what to say about that, so he said nothing for a moment. “Krysansky said you should be as good as new once everything heals. I was worried about that, too.”

  “You worry too much. The Captain must not be keeping you busy enough.”

  “Ha. She’s going to have me learning engineering. At least, how to maintain and repair some of the ship systems, keep the fabbers and digesters running, that kind of thing. She wants us all to cross train in everything in case we’re down a crew member. And if it comes to that, to teach the kids.”

  “So you’ll be working with Maclaren? Should I be jealous?” She said that with a grin, teasing.

  “Please, you know I prefer blondes. Especially a certain tall Nordic blonde. Besides, I think Maclaren and Finley might be an item.”

  “‘Might be?’ They have been a couple for months now, haven’t you noticed?”

  He hadn’t. Well, maybe he had, thinking back on it, but it wasn’t the sort of thing he talked about. With Finley, most of their discussions were about geology, or flying, or whatever vids in the ship’s library might be worth watching. He knew he was somewhat clueless when it came to such things, which is why he was continually amazed, and grateful, that Ulrika had seen anything in him. And now they had a child together, how cool was that?

  “Okay, so I’m a bit clueless about other people’s relationships. I’m happy with the one I have. You know what else is cool?”

  “What?”

  “We’re the parents of the first child born on another planet. Well, unless someone’s been busy at the Lunar Quarantine Lab, but even then, I’m betting they would have brought the mother back to Earth months ahead of time.”

  “Most likely. The gravity here is close to Earth normal, but there haven’t been many studies on the effect of one-sixth gravity on gestation, and certainly not primate gestation.”

  “Your zoologist is showing.”

  “And that’s one of the things you like about me.”

  “It is that.”

  She smiled and rearranged the baby so he could nurse on the other side. “Do you want to hold him?”

  “Uh, I’ll wait.”

  “He doesn’t bite. No teeth yet.”

  “I’ll let him finish feeding. I know I’d be annoyed if someone interrupted me.”

  She grinned. “Changing the subject, what are we going to name Junior here?” They hadn’t chosen a name yet, in part because the ultrasounds hadn’t been reliable enough to be sure of the baby’s sex.

  “Not Junior, that’s for sure. I don’t know, what’s your father’s name?”

  She shook her head. “Not that, that would be weird. How about your father?”

  “How about Poul?”

  “After our ship? Hmm, perhaps. I think I have a great uncle or something named Poul. It’s also a form of Pavel, the doctor’s name.”

  “We don’t have to decide right now.”

  Just then Krysansky entered the room. “You should be getting some rest, Ulrika. Fred, she is still recovering from surgery, and nursing a baby, don’t wear her out.”

  “Ah, sorry. You’re right.”

  “Ulrika, if the baby is finished, I think we can put him back in his crib.” The ‘crib’ was actually a storage container, lined with padding and blankets. Again, a newborn was never part of the mission planning. “Perhaps Fred could take him?”

  “I think he’s done.” She wrapped his small blanket around him. “Fred?”

  “Okay, what do I do?”

  “Put your arm under him, like this,” Krysansky said. “Cradle his head with your hand, like holding a rugger ball, or what you Americans call a football. Keep him in place with other hand. Piece of cake.”

  Fred carefully scooped up his son. He was so light, perhaps four kilos. He gently placed him into the makeshift crib beside Ulrika’s cot and folded a blanket over him.

  “Da, is good. You make a fine
father.” Krysansky checked the monitor and the saline drip, then nodded. “Good. Ulrika, get some sleep. We have audio and video watching you and the baby, I’ll be in next room.”

  Fred kissed Ulrika gently on her forehead, then gazed down again at his son.

  Krysansky took his elbow gently. “Come on, Papa, let them rest.”

  Part IV

  Chapter 35: Status Report, Year Four

  Camp Anderson, nearly four years later

  “. . . so the kids are doing well. Poul Tyrell, the oldest, has been eating solid food for a while. Jennifer Singh is pregnant again. Everyone is hoping for a boy, poor Poul has only girls to play with. The local food, at least what we’ve been eating, doesn’t seem to be causing any ill effects. We’re still keeping the youngest children on Earth food for now, well, those who aren’t straight nursing. I never thought running a nursery would be part of my job description.

  “Local fall is coming, although of course the seasons last much longer here. There seem to be more girannos this season, the herd is starting to migrate. That wasn’t a problem last year, I don’t expect it to be an issue.

  “There’s getting less and less to report. We don’t have as much time for science and exploration as we did before the kids. In a few months it will be coming up on four-point-three years since the Chandrasekhar and Heinlein departed. I know I’ve said this before, but we hope they got back all right. We are wondering why we haven’t heard anything. Maybe in a few months we’ll be getting the transmission from Earth telling us they’ve arrived back there. Meanwhile I’m dropping these transmissions back to monthly, that is, every thirty Earth days. We’re still arguing about a local calendar, mostly we just count weeks.

  “Hope to hear from Earth soon, this is Elizabeth Sawyer for the Anderson away team, signing off.”

  Chapter 36: A Sound of Thunder

  Camp Anderson

  Sawyer awoke to the rumbling of distant thunder. She was in her small cabin aboard the Anderson, most of the rest of the team were likely in their tiny log houses near the ship. The rumbling continued. That was odd, and now that she thought about it, there hadn’t been any signs of storms in the data from their remote weather sites. But at this time of year, a local storm could brew up quickly. Well, she was awake now, she might as well go to the control room and see what was going on. She sat up and got of bed.