No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't tell him. There never seemed to be a good time. Every moment on this run had been spoiled by something. She just kept telling herself the time would come, and the circumstances would be right.
Her eyes kept dashing to the door. She hoped he would come back. All this time she'd delayed telling him about the child they would have, she'd thought about how easy it was for her to deliver such news to others and how different it had been now that she was in that position. For a while, she convinced herself she held the news from him because she hadn't decided whether she would keep the child. No, that was too easy. As she came to terms with her pregnancy, she grew to love the thought of motherhood more than she thought possible. With that love grew a fear for how Stellan would react when she told him. She'd played it out in her mind many times, and each time, she'd seen a sadness or regret in his eyes, a reaction she wasn't sure she could take.
She thought maybe she would wait until they returned to New Earth, for a quiet time where she might be able to prepare him, for a time when he would not be so preoccupied and she might be able to convince him that this life was good news.
Yes, he had enough on his mind without having to worry about her and their unborn child.
The truth she wouldn't admit to herself was that she was afraid he would bemoan the changes their life would endure, afraid that he would resent them, both her and their child, for having to return to the surface of the planet for which he had so much disdain.
She was so deep in thought for so long that she didn't hear Tom awaken and slowly rise from the table. She didn't hear his low moans or laborious breathing. And she didn't hear him shuffle nearer, struggling to maintain a balance on uncertain legs.
He grabbed her shoulder, and she cried out in surprise, turning toward the pale face and gray lips of Thomas Foster.
He collapsed to the deck floor with a groggy bellow.
"Jesus!" Daelen said with a hand over her mouth. "Tom, you shouldn't be up."
"I called your name. You didn't hear me. What the hell happened?"
"In a moment," Daelen said. "Let's get you back to the bed." She grabbed his arm and pulled him up. He wasn't much help. He was like dead weight, and as she pulled fruitlessly, Margo came running into the room with a mixed look of fear and wonder.
"Give me a hand," Daelen said.
Margo hurried to their aid. She slung one of Tom's arms behind her neck, and together, they were able to get Tom on his feet and over to his bed.
"You could have hurt yourself," Daelen said.
"Maybe you should pay more attention to your patients," Tom said. "Anyway, what the hell happened?"
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"We were loading up the refined rock. One of the others said something I don't remember. Then he pointed behind us. When I looked, I saw something."
"What?" Margo asked.
"Like a shadow," Tom said. "I remember the shape of a person, then just blackness, like there was a void there. I thought about chasing after whoever was there, but then there was this ringing. And then nothing."
"You passed out?"
"No," Tom said. "There was nothing, like I was floating out in the black. It actually felt kinda nice. Relaxing. Then I was here."
Daelen and Margo shared an uneasy look.
"We're going to run some tests, and I'd like you to stay here the night," Daelen said.
"I actually feel much better now," Tom said. "I think I just stood up too fast."
"Don't move," she said, ignoring his protests. She waved her link over Tom's body, head to toe. Several windows leaped from the face of her link, capturing diagnostics on Tom's body.
"I'm fine. I'm okay."
"Vitals are good. CT scan is good. When we get your blood results, we'll know more," Daelen said.
"Dr. Lund," Margo said, "I already processed them. Everything is normal."
"See?" Tom said. "I told you. Now let me go."
Tom stood, pushed Daelen and Margo aside, and walked toward the door. "Thanks for the hospitality."
He turned the corner out of the room, and Daelen and Margo were silent until they heard the door out of the medical deck open and close and knew Tom was gone.
"Ungrateful jerk," Margo said. "Why didn't you stop him? Should we call Stellan?"
"I'll let Stellan know. We'll just have to keep an eye on him. I've known Tom long enough to know he's going to do whatever the hell he wants to do or hurt himself trying, and there's no reasoning with him. He's insane, and he's slipping further into it. It'll take something big to wake him up, if he doesn't die first."
Margo turned her attention to cleaning the private room and prepping it for any other incoming patients who may need it. Daelen simply stared at the door for a while, quietly, as if she expected something to walk through it.
Chapter 6: Bullets And Second Chances
One
The Atlas felt heavier. Certainly, it carried pieces of a world in its belly, having fed from the excavator Shiva of the Trinity, taking on millions of metric tons of earth. What belonged to the Shiva now belonged to the Atlas. The pull on the crew's spirits, however, felt heavier than all the cargo in the Atlas' holds, and there was no giving it back.
For most of the crew, the Atlas had simply become a vessel for their weary bodies, beginning their long journey to New Earth, a planet that had become less like home and more like just another world. Their life was in the journey, and they felt it in their backs, aching like brittle bones. Nonetheless, they looked forward to the rest between worlds.
For Captain Pierce, the Atlas carried a dread akin to premonition. It put him asunder, into a sense of separation from the rest of the crew, a kind of loss or disconnect he hadn't felt in years, when he could somehow know trouble was just over the horizon or around a corner.
He thought of that ability as more of a curse than a blessing. It was never enough intuitive insight that he might be able to prepare. It was just enough to know something was coming, and he could do nothing about it but wait.
Stellan, however, the only other man Pierce ever knew to share this ability, never learned to accept that he couldn't save everyone. He wouldn't admit to himself that simply knowing a storm was coming didn't mean you had access to shelter. Sometimes, they just had to hope lightning never struck. If it did, well, dark times meant difficult decisions.
As they stood beside each other on the bridge, Pierce thought Stellan almost looked happy, as if he knew something Pierce didn't. Perhaps it was ignorance. He wanted to ask what Stellan was thinking. He wanted to know what Stellan could possibly be optimistic about. Pierce settled for the knowledge that, before their troubles were over, Stellan would accept reality. It wasn't something Pierce wanted, but they all had to return their feet to the ground, one way or another.
And so, the Atlas cast off from the Shiva, its long, tendril-like magnetic anchors hesitating to let go. Like old friends, the ships wanted to stay together just another moment, to share one last embrace.
Arlo pulled up on the controls, and Pierce focused on the comm channel on the wall in front of them, Commander Emra Ashland's face beside gentle waves of her voice. In another life, he would have liked to have found her earlier and under different circumstances. He would have liked to have served under her if it meant more time together, but that would never be possible. If Council politics didn't pull them apart, he knew he'd do something to screw it up.
No, what they had was as good as it would get, and it would have to be enough. The alternative was discharge from the service that provided the opportunity to live on their own terms. They lived free apart or as slaves together. Their choice was simple.
"Farewell, Atlas," Ashland said. "Be careful. We'll see you again soon."
Without knowing why, Pierce settled on a word he wasn't sure he'd ever said. He'd always chosen other words without such finality.
"Goodbye, Emra."
Two
The Atlas fer
ried past the floating debris field, two five nine now in its wake, the red giant Apophis itself beaming upon it with indifference, casting a long shadow upon the Shiva.
As they distanced themselves from the planet, Pierce and Stellan expected that uneasiness would weaken. It didn't, and they knew why. They carried their dread with them now, so close that it felt they would never again escape it, that it would drive them mad before they even reached New Earth.
"Light drive spinning up, Captain," Arlo said, and that familiar hum rested in their ears once again, like an old friend who talks and talks, never listens, and is impossible to tune out. Still, it meant they were on the move and would soon be gone from this place, and like any fool, Stellan thought, if only briefly, distance would solve their problems. Maybe it was hope.
"Never thought I'd miss it," Stellan said.
"I love it," Arlo said. "Like a bumble bee in your ears sometimes, but nothing says cruisin' like the hum of a good light drive." Arlo looked back over his shoulder at Pierce. "How fast you want to go?"
"Floor it."
"Yes, sir," Arlo said excitedly. He pushed a holographic slider up as far as it would go.
"Has the Atlas ever gone that fast?" Evans asked timidly.
"Not that I'm aware of," Arlo said with wild eyes.
"Never been a need to," Pierce said.
"Is there a need now?" Evans asked. Arlo stopped, realizing he hadn't thought to ask why they would risk one hundred percent on the light drive. He simply had heard permission to ejaculate and was happy to do so.
They turned toward their Captain and found Pierce's back to them.
"Where are you going?" Pierce asked Stellan who was walking out of the bridge.
"To do my job," Stellan said, "the best I can." And Pierce understood Stellan securing the ship was their best chance at making it back to Earth. Speed didn't matter so much as keeping the wolves at bay long enough to get to safety, and there was still an elusive Council agent around, assuming they hadn't left her on the Shiva.
Arlo and Evans turned back to their workstations, and as the hum revved up, faster this time, since they'd kept it warm while docked at the Shiva, they began the countdown.
Arlo counted down from ten, and the door to the bridge closed behind Stellan when Arlo counted seven. He heard Arlo's voice boom throughout the ship, counting three as the door to the lift opened for him.
"One," Arlo said, and Stellan turned around to face the lift's closing doors.
The Atlas tore a hole in the black with a streak of light, like the flash of a storm and then an eyewink of a god in the heavens, as the carrier disappeared among the stars.
Three
Jude Washington had always wanted a simple life. He would never have described himself as ambitious. He just wanted to enjoy the time he had. It was why he officially was a deckhand but unofficially tended bar on the Atlas. He was drawn to the art of mixing spirits. It brought people happiness and laughter, peace and relaxation, and aboard the Atlas, most of his concerns were taken care of for him as long as he kept taking care of his customers.
It was a good life. It was a simple life.
However, no life is difficulty-free, so the occasional signs of dependency showed themselves, and those times were when his life was not so simple. Who was he to tell other adults what was best for them? If they wanted him to keep serving, shouldn't he shut up and keep serving? It wasn't with a sense of obligation, of knowing regret followed excess, that he cut them off. It was because, at some point, he was just piling problems on top of problems even as they flowed out of his customers' mouths like rivers, and if he felt obligated to do anything, it was simply to listen.
Thomas Foster had been the worst. He was drawn to the bottle like a moth to flame. When he started drinking, it would cheer him up, but as he drank and more of his drivel flowed off his tongue, he would reach a point where he would just burn.
So Jude thought it odd when Tom sat in his usual stool, slamming drinks as quickly as Jude could serve them, without uttering a word, staring through Jude, through the wall of liquor behind him, into nothingness. Tom had become a machine, simply playing out his old routine without emotion, without the passion he once had, smacking his lips as he brought each drink closer.
Jude turned to serve someone else and heard glass shatter on the deck. He turned back to Tom and found he had pushed his glass off the bar top. It lay in pieces on the floor.
"You know, Tom," Jude said hesitantly when he saw no reaction or acknowledgement in Tom's eyes, "you're going to have to pay for that." Tom's continued silence disturbed Jude, and he found himself hoping the normal, harmless Tom would return. If he said anything, even if it was judgmental and ignorant, as it typically was, it would have been better than this strange silence.
Jude reached under the bar and pulled out a broom and dustpan and went to work cleaning up the glass shards.
Tom sighed like he'd been holding his breath and snapped out of his trance.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Jude," he said pleasantly, which shocked Jude to a halt. "I'm such a klutz. Let me clean that up." He took the broom and dustpan from Jude and efficiently, almost mechanically, swept the glass off the floor. When he'd collected it all, he offered the dustpan back to Jude with a smile.
Jude wanted to think everything was all right, but that smile was all wrong. Tom smirked. He grinned. He sneered. He never smiled. It amazed Jude how he couldn't tell the difference in qualities of these facial expressions until he saw the wrong one.
"Thanks," he said. "But you still gotta pay for it."
"Okay," Tom said. "No problem. I know when I've made a mistake." His voice returned to that hollow, empty tone, like he was reciting a script with absolutely no feeling.
Jude returned to his post and served Tom another drink, this time a beer in a pint glass.
"Maybe take it easy for a bit," Jude said. "Relax." Tom returned to gazing into nothing.
Jude turned around again to take care of another customer, and another crash reported from the deck. Jude looked back to Tom, his face still blank, the beer emptied, and the glass on the floor.
Jude grabbed the dustpan and broom again. This time, Tom didn't offer to help, and when Jude bent to sweep the broken glass, he saw the bulge behind Tom's waistband. Studying it closer, he discerned the butt of a pistol.
"I'll do that, Jude," Tom leered down at him. "I'll take it real easy."
Jude found himself in the middle of a complicated situation, and he didn't want it. There was an easy way out, though. He sent a message to Stellan via link-to-link connection, and the responsibility lifted from his shoulders.
Four
Instead of his son keeping him company, Edward Stone had a medical intern and a tall, lumbering security officer by the name of Douglas Fowler, not that Edward minded. He still lay unconscious, a deep sleep that had become a coma.
Margo stared, entranced by the metal casing of Edward's hyperbaric chamber. For her, being in the room with it dropped anchors in her heart. She felt anxious for the time when Edward would awaken and everyone would try to make sense of it all. But Margo never claimed to understand the things people did. She was a scientist, and science was only truth and fact, things you couldn't deny, things you had to accept.
"Can you believe this fuck head?" Doug Fowler said. "Loses his cool, and then he just decides to take a long walk out a door that literally leads to nothing." Doug pounded on the incubator's casing. "You almost got my friend killed, numb nuts!"
"He can't hear you," Margo said rattling a rack of blood-filled test tubes with an unsteady hand. Being alone with Doug made her nervous. He was hostile, he was as clumsy as he was dumb, and he was likely to kill you unintentionally by tripping and falling on you. And she felt uneasy because of the way he looked at her. His eyes sometimes lingered a little too long. She often longed for men to stare at her that way, but she certainly didn't like an ogre such as Doug Fowler looking at her. Not one bit.
"Anyway, space technicall
y isn't nothing," Margo said. "It isn't a perfect vacuum. It contains low densities of particles, magnetic fields, radiation, neutrinos. There's also dark energy and dark matter."
Doug shifted his weight, and Margo flinched as if expecting him to knock something over.
"Listen, squint, you think I don't know that?" Doug said.
"I wouldn't have told you if I did." Margo prayed Doug couldn't hear the rattling of her tubes. She set them on a table nearby. "Why did you call me 'squint'?"
"I don't know. Would you rather I call you 'shitheap'?"
"I would rather you call me Margo."
"Polo!" Doug yelled with excitement. Margo's eyes narrowed into a squint. Doug's smile faded.
"Relax," he said. "It's just a joke. You know, 'Marco-Polo'? You need to loosen up and get a sense of humor, or you'll end up like jack-off wagon in here. I've been waiting all night for an opportunity to say that."
"I have a sense of humor," Margo said.
"Really? Make me laugh. Tell me a joke."
"Okay," Margo said and thought for a moment. "Why do chemists call helium, curium, and barium 'the medical elements'?"
"Why?"
"Because if you can't helium or curium, you barium," Margo said and laughed smugly. Doug humored her with a smile, but she knew he didn't get it. Though, she felt more at ease with the giant she was realizing was gentle. The man's piston-like arms were intimidating, but she no longer feared he would use them, unintentionally or otherwise.
"So you said he can't hear me. Is that because this thing's soundproof?" Doug asked.
"No, it's because he's in a coma."
"So if you had somebody you loved in a coma or whatever, you don't believe they could hear you tell them you love them?"
"Belief has nothing to do with fact."
"Yeah, but even knowing what you know, you don't have faith."
"What do you mean?"
"You know, like you want them to hear you so bad that you believe it's possible."
She thought about it for a moment. She couldn't imagine a situation dire enough where she could find herself being so simplistic.
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