Adrift, page 10
“Tron is sick.”
There was a silence for a minute, just like before. When Whitman answered, the inhuman voice sounded strangely out of breath. “How bad?”
“Bad,” she answered. “He has a fever.”
“What else?”
She thought for a minute. “He was confused. He thought we were under attack. And he fell down.”
There was more silence. Kivi wanted to know what he was doing. He should be helping her, not doing something else. Not making her wait. She needed to make Tron better, and he was an adult. It was his job to take care of them.
“Probably the flu. Henson had it a couple weeks ago.” The man paused for a cough. “This is why we keep the damned breathers on. Look, it’s a nothing bug out here. Guy gets it, he’s down for maybe two days, then he’s perfectly fine and ready to eat every scrap of food on the ship. But that’s us.”
Kivi frowned as she thought about it. “It’s going to be different for us?”
“Maybe. I don’t know kid. How long’s it been since your ship took off?”
“Thirteen years.”
He barked a laugh that turned into another cough. “I mean real years. You know how time works at near light speed, right?”
She nodded, realizing belatedly that he couldn’t see it. Time slowed down for people moving close to light speeds. For her, her parents had brought her onto the ship thirteen years ago. But it was different for Earth. They might not even remember the Lucy. No one on the ship ever said how long, though, and Kivi didn’t know the formula for time dilation. “I’m not sure.”
“Guess,” he commanded.
“A hundred years?”
Whitman let out a slow breath over the intercom. “Bad luck. You take off from Earth?”
“Yes. That’s where all colony ships come from.”
“Not anymore,” he said off-handedly. “That’s more bad luck. No chance you two have ever been exposed. There’s no saying how his immune system will handle this.”
That wasn’t helpful. “That doesn’t help.”
He laughed again, and again it turned into a cough. Kivi wondered if he was sick. She was surprised to find that she hoped he was. She hoped he had the flu too. Tron was really bad, and Whitman was laughing about it. He deserved to have the same sickness. “I don’t know what to tell you, kid. I’m no doctor. I don’t have a miracle cure. You’re out there, I’m not. You know what he needs better than I do.”
The intercom clicked off. Kivi thought about smashing it. That wouldn’t help. Neither would calling him up again. Whitman was a bad guy after all. He was an adult, but he wasn’t going to help. She had to help Tron by herself.
No crying. She’d decided not to cry.
Kivi considered what Whitman had said. There was no telling how Tron’s immune system would handle the flu. Maybe he’d do just like the people Whitman knew, and be sick for a little while and then hungry. So she wasn’t going to give up hope yet. Tron wouldn’t, if it was her. She was sure of that. He was good at handling change, so she had to try to be more like him.
Whitman had also said something about being a doctor. He was being a jerk, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t an idea. Dr. Geddes took care of fevers before. He might not know how to deal with this flu, but he’d probably taken care of other types of flu before. He might have things to help. She peeked in one last time, making sure Tron was still asleep and had plenty of water in the cup by his bed, then hurried off to medical bay. When she saw it, she was stunned.
She remembered what the place looked like when they’d been there before. Kivi didn’t forget anything, and she absolutely wasn’t going to forget anything that terrible. If she closed her eyes and thought about it, she could still hear the glass crunching under Tron’s feet and the sound of him drawing in a sharp breath as it cut into the pads of his feet. Usually she didn’t know why people made the weird noises they did, but that time she’d understood perfectly. He was trying not to scream.
She’d been dreading having to do that herself, especially since she didn’t know what she was hoping to find. She remembered what Tron had said, about most of the drugs being gone. And medicine had never seemed very interesting to her before, so even if they still had all Dr. Geddes’s pills and shots, Kivi wouldn’t have known which ones to use. She just knew that she had to do something, had to find something to help. Even if it meant walking over glass.
But there wasn’t any glass. Everything was back in order, just like Dr. Geddes was here a few minutes ago, bustling about and setting things right. She gaped. Tron must have done this. Whitman locked himself in Navigation right away, which meant he was the only one who had time. He must have been working on it while she was in the airlock. That was the only time they were alone. It was so messy, so bad. He must have worked so hard to put things right. Now everything was back where it belonged. Hope burst on her like a breath of fresh air. If he could do that here, she knew he could get better. He knew how to put things right.
She had to strain to reach the cupboards, but she opened each of them. Almost all were empty. Everything that was left had been gathered in the one closest to the door. That was smart. It made sense. That way they wouldn’t have to remember where to look or go hunting. Everything they had would be right on hand. The drawers in the counter beneath it held all kinds of bandages and other medical supplies. That was smart too.
Just like she expected, Kivi didn’t know what anything was. Well, she knew the stuff in the drawers. Those were bandages and cotton swabs and stuff. Everyone knew what those were. It was the medicine she needed, but that was the part she didn’t know anything about. She thought about screaming and throwing things around. That would make her feel a lot better, but it wouldn’t help Tron. So she compromised. She threw one thing.
She didn’t look at what she grabbed, she just reached into one of the drawers and tossed the first thing her fingers wrapped around. It was a tin canister and it bounced off the walls with a clang. The top popped off when it hit the ground, and several small packets spilled out over the floor. Kivi sighed. She wanted to just leave them there, whatever they were, but she knew she couldn’t. Not just because she didn’t like when things were in places they weren’t supposed to be. Tron must have worked really hard to straighten this place. She couldn’t mess it up. So she reached down and scooped up the white packets.
They were filled with crushed tea leaves. Kivi didn’t like tea, but her momma did. There wasn’t much to be had on Lucy. No one grew tea in hydroponics. Kivi’s momma only had one canister, kind of like the one she’d just thrown. Every year on momma and papa’s anniversary, they shared a cup. She was allowed to sip some if she wanted to, but she rarely did. It mostly just tasted like contaminated water. Finding it here was not what she expected. It made her think of her momma and her eyes started to water.
Kivi blinked the tears away and finished cleaning the packets of tea. As she scooped the last one up and deposited it in the tin, she noticed the writing for the first time: Fever Relief.
She laughed out loud. Nothing was ever that easy. If someone was telling her a story where the solution appeared like that, Kivi would have rolled her eyes and written it off as silly. But there it was, her answer. Maybe Dr. Geddes’s spirit was watching over her or something. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but her papa was always going on about good spirits, and here she was with her tin of tea, so maybe there was something to it after all.
A quick search through the other drawers did not magically produce the tea to fix the flu, but she did find quite a few others. Among them was one to help with sleep and another to boost immunity. Kivi grabbed both of them, then headed back to Tron’s room. It wasn’t medicine, not exactly. And she knew it wouldn’t work as well as pills or shots. After all, if tea was as effective as those who would ever get shots or take pills? But it was so much safer than guessing about the bottles in the first cabinet, and she figured it had to be better than nothing.
Tron was asleep when she got back, which was probably good. Everyone knew that you were supposed to get a lot of sleep when you were sick. Unless you hurt your head, of course. Then the doctor was supposed to look at you first. Kivi was worried for a minute, remembering Tron’s fall. But since she couldn’t tell if he’d hurt his head and they didn’t have a doctor to look at him anyway, she put it out of her mind. After all, he definitely had a fever. Worrying about things that she couldn’t control was unavoidable, but she wasn’t going to let it get in the way of things she could. Not this time.
It took a little while to make a cup of tea using the torch. It would be better to go to the kitchen and boil water in a pot or something, but Kivi was never going back into the Mess Hall. So she made do with what she had. She started with the stuff for the fever, deciding that it was the most important of their problems. Once it was good and hot, she woke Tron. When he opened his eyes, he didn’t seem to see her at all. “What’s that smell?”
She sniffed the air. Her momma’s tea always had a distinct, spicy odor to it, but this tea didn’t seem to smell like anything at all. Maybe a leaf, when she stuck her nose right over it, but that was it. “What smell?”
“That buzzing, angry smell.”
Her brows knit. His fever must be getting worse again. Kivi was so sure she’d done right, putting him in the water, but clearly he was delusional again. It was all her fault. If she’d ever bothered to learn something about the way people worked, instead of spending all her time investigating machines, she’d be able to help him for real. “I have some tea,” she said weakly, holding it out to him with the dwindling hope it would make things better.
“Bee fumes!”
She blinked. What were those? Did bees make fumes? “There aren’t any bees in hydroponics.”
“Oh dear god! Space bees!” While she gaped and tried not to cry again, Tron blinked and shook his head. “Oh, is that tea?”
Kivi glanced down at the cup still in her hand. “Yes.”
He smiled widely, took the cup from her hand, drained it all in two great swallows, then dropped back down to his pillow and curled up with his back to her. Kivi felt like she’d just been caught up in a tornado like the one back in hydroponics.
Water
Tron woke feeling gummy. He didn’t know that was a state of being before, but he was pretty certain of it now. All of his limbs felt weak and lifeless, his skin a sticky mess, and the synapses in his brain were utterly against the idea of firing properly. He was pretty sure he’d be better off closing his eyes and going back to sleep, but his bladder was demanding immediate attention. Even with that looming disaster, he still laid there as long as possible, debating the merits of dragging himself out of bed. Bed felt… well, not good. But better than not bed was going to feel.
It was only the knowledge that pissing himself would mean he’d have to get out of bed anyway that finally got him moving. It wasn’t particularly fast movement, but it did get his feet on the floor which he decided to count as a personal victory. Especially since his legs tried to collapse out from under him, but he managed to keep himself upright.
He didn’t go even a step toward the bathroom when he tripped. He glared down at the lump on his floor, prepared to let out a barrage of curses. Or, more likely, think them. His throat hurt and Tron was pretty sure he’d need to drink a small pond before he’d be up to the shouting that he felt the offending mass deserved. It wasn’t the pile of clothing or blankets he expected, though. It was Kivi.
She was curled up near his bed, beneath a blanket she must have dragged down from the habitation deck. With her legs tucked up against her chest, she looked almost like a doll, too cute to be a real person. Her light brown hair was splayed out over a pillow in the exact way they always showed in vids, and her face was too pale and peaceful for the girl he knew. It didn’t take a fully working brain to figure out what she was doing.
Tron knew he’d been sick. His whole body was screaming that at him. Kivi must have taken care of him. He had a dim recollection of something to that effect, her handing him a cup of water or something. Which meant her being on the floor was his fault, and he couldn’t be mad at her for it. That was a pain. His leg hurt from the way he had to strain to catch himself on his weakened limbs and he really wanted to be angry with someone about it.
He could think about it later. He still needed to pee.
For about three minutes, Tron didn’t think at all. He just enjoyed the relief at the dwindling pressure. Since he was already up, he decided he might as well solve a couple other problems as well. So he clicked on the shower and stepped in.
And shouted at the blast of cold water that sprayed against his skin.
All his muscles bunched into an immediate and painful reaction. It took him another minute or two to sort them out and jam the hot button. He couldn’t figure out why his shower was so cold. -2 wasn’t freezing, he supposed, but it sure as hell wasn’t acceptable for human bathing. Tron always left his set at +3. He was a firm believer in the relaxation the hot blast and accompanying steam always created. Maybe there were shower gremlins. Everything else was going wrong, why not gremlins?
Once the water was the right temp, Tron leaned back against the wall and let it do its work on his aching body. One good thing about the cold blast was that it got his mind working a bit. He couldn’t remember how he got to his room. He tried to pin down the last thing he could remember, but it was a lot of haziness. There was definitely a fire. He glanced down at his leg and saw an angry red mark where his pants had burned. But everything else was unfocused. He thought they were attacked. He had a recollection of the ship lurching beneath his feet. But after that? Nothing.
Clearly the attack wasn’t bad, or Whitman and Kivi got them away. Otherwise he wouldn’t be in his room. And the fire was out. He didn’t need a deep insight into Kivi’s mind to know she would never leave Lucy burning. Something like that would kill them just as fast as the invaders. So it seemed a safe assumption that, at the moment, they were safe. Safe-ish. They were still flying blind, trusting some strange man who locked himself in nav to take them somewhere with food and atmo. Or they were last he knew. So not exactly safe, but in no immediate threat.
He wondered what happened to his clothes. Tron clearly remembered having some. He was certain he hadn’t been wandering around Lucy naked. Had Kivi taken them off? Even if she hadn’t, she was in his room so he had to assume she’d seen him. That was disturbing. He was going to have to go out there and talk to her soon, and now he was going to have to wonder what she was thinking about. She wasn’t a normal girl, which helped. With one of them, he didn’t think he’d be able to handle the embarrassment. Kivi thought differently, so Tron might be able to convince himself that she wasn’t thinking about the parts of him she wasn’t supposed to see.
He darted in and out of the bathroom as fast as he could, grabbing a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants and tugging them on as he went. Tron was certain she was awake – he saw her shoulders shift as the door hissed open – but she didn’t turn to face him and he didn’t stay to talk. Once he was safely back inside he let out a relieved breath and tugged the pants on. Whether she thought about those private parts or not, he wasn’t ready to face her just yet. Why hadn’t he thought to grab a shirt?
Tron caught a glimpse of himself in the small bathroom mirror and gasped. His face was gaunt and pale – even for someone who lived on a ship – and looked like the face of a homeless man from the vids. Even more shocking was the hair all along his jawline. He couldn’t really grow a beard like some of the men on Lucy. Not yet. His hair still grew in patchy. He had to shave at least every other day or that patchy growth took over his chin. Like now. He had at least a week’s worth of hair on his face. That meant he’d been out longer than he thought. A lot longer.
With no more thought about his embarrassment or lack of dress, Tron hurried back into his room, nearly colliding with his clothes locker when he misjudged the strength of his legs in his charge. Kivi turned around and smiled at him, the most genuine smile he could ever remember seeing on the girl’s face. It threw him off and he lost track of his urgency in the blink of an eye.
“You’re better!”
He scratched his head absently, suddenly embarrassed for different reasons. “How bad was I?”
“Really bad.” The enormous smile on her face didn’t fit with what she’d just said, and Tron found himself wondering just what ‘really bad’ meant to her. “You had the flu. I didn’t have medicine.”
He shrugged. “Looks like I managed.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “I found tea in the Medical Bay. I think it helped with your fever and made you sleep a lot. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Tea?” She nodded and Tron shrugged again. Tea. He’d never been fond of tea – not that he had the chance to try it much – but he supposed, after this, he would have to reevaluate his stance on the hot flavored water. “You said I had the flu? Did I…”
“Throw up?” Her smile went up another notch as she nodded. He started to worry she was going to break her face in half. “All over the place. It took two scrubbers to get it clean again.”
He felt himself blush, the embarrassment returning in force. She was the younger one, and tiny to boot, and he was eighteen. Wasn’t it his job to take care of her? “How long?”
Kivi pursed her lips for a second, flicking her eyes up toward the ceiling then back down again. “Nine days, ten hours and twelve minutes.” She paused and gave him an embarrassed look of her own. “That’s how long since you fell. Not how long you were sick.”
“Since I fell?”
She nodded. “In hydroponics. I should’ve seen it before. I know that. I wasn’t paying attention. I’m sorry.”
“Are you kidding?” Tron could see she wasn’t, but the whole idea was so bizarre. “Kivi, I didn’t know I was sick. How the hell were you supposed to? Look, you took care of me for nine days, ten hours and twelve minutes. There’s nothing you need to apologize for. You hear me? Nothing.”
