Heart of the Nebula (40 page)

“
What are you doing?” asked
Maggie, the senior nurse on duty. She stood by the door, hands on
her flabby hips with her nurse’s mask hanging loosely by her
neck.

“
Sorry I’m late,” said
Deirdre as she dropped her skirt and pulled her shirt over her
head. “I—”

“
You shouldn’t be here.
Cryothaw is a risky procedure, and letting you tag along only makes
things harder.”

“
Oh, don’t be so dense,”
said Deirdre. She grabbed her scrubs and hastily put them on. “The
process is almost completely automated, and besides, I’ve got my
med certs.”

Maggie folded her arms and glared at her.
“Basic certification only—no license.”

But this is Commander
McCoy!
Deirdre thought angrily, hastily
tying back her hair.
No way am I going to
let you make me miss this.

“
I’m authorized,” she said,
swallowing her annoyance. “Captain’s orders. You don’t have the
authority to override them.”

Maggie said nothing as she washed her hands.
After counting to thirty, she rinsed the foamy soap suds off her
arms, then drew her hands through the water reclaimer and wiped
them off on her pants.

“
Ahem.”

“
What?”

“
Aren’t you forgetting
something?”

Maggie nodded at the floor, and Deirdre
realized she’d left her clothes lying in the middle of the room.
She rolled her eyes—why should it matter if she was going to change
back fifteen minutes later? Still, it was better not to make a fuss
about it. She reached down and hastily picked up the pile of
clothes.

As she walked to the locker, a small black
book fell out of her pocket, nearly making her drop everything.

“
What’s that?” asked
Maggie, striding over to pick it up. Deirdre dumped her clothes in
the nearest locker and snatched it from the floor before the head
nurse could touch it.

“
It’s an old family diary,”
said Deirdre, placing it carefully in the locker before pressing
her thumb to the auto-lock and shutting the compartment.

“
Handwritten or
digitized?”

“
Digitized.”

“
It looks kind of old,”
said Maggie. “Why don’t you ‘cycle it? The ship’s running low on
synthpaper.”

Deirdre looked her in the eyes and scowled.
“That copy was my great-grandmother’s and I’ve had it since I was
five years old. No way in hell am I going to ‘cycle it.”

They glared at each other for a second, but
this time, Maggie was the one to step down. “Great-grandmother,
huh?” she said, shrugging nonchalantly. “Sounds boring.”

“
Hardly. She was Speaker
Stewart’s wife—the first Speaker Stewart.”

“
Like I said,
boring.”

Deirdre clenched her fists and glared at
Maggie hard enough to murder her. Why couldn’t the other colonists
open their eyes and see that there was more to the universe than
the tiny little ship they lived on? That an entire generation from
the most exciting period of their history was soon to be with them
in the flesh?

The lights in the cryo chamber were dim and
old, the air chilly and foreboding, but to Deirdre that hardly
mattered. Her heart leaped in her chest as she watched the nurses
and med techs attaching tubes and calibrating instruments. Shivers
ran down her arms and back as she caught a glimpse of the man
behind the glass: James McCoy, the legendary leader who had brought
the colonists through their darkest hour and saved them all from
certain destruction. Not only that, but if her great-grandmother’s
journals were to be believed—

“
Control is go,” came a
voice through the loudspeakers. Deirdre glanced up at the inverted
glass window overhead. Captain Carlson stood at parade rest in the
control room, like a lieutenant awaiting the return of his
commanding officer.

Or maybe that was just Deirdre’s
imagination. Maybe she was just reading into things because
Commander James McCoy was not twenty feet away from her. Her hands
were trembling, she could barely contain herself. To be in the
presence of such an important historical figure—even a
cryogenically frozen one—it was enough to make her giddy.

“
Floor is go,” said Maggie,
slipping the mask over her mouth. “Commencing cryothaw in three,
two, one…”

* * * * *

James felt as if he were frozen in a dream,
swimming in a vast starless wasteland of nothingness. Darkness
pierced the void—a cold darkness, but substantial nonetheless. It
shifted, and he saw a group of people huddled below, dressed in
scrubs, attending a machine of some sort. He vaguely recognized the
cryo chamber, with the glass observation window and catacombed
slots for the cryotanks all up and down the walls. Fascinating.

And then, something yanked him down,
shattering the dreamscape. Consciousness dawned upon him, and every
muscle in his body screamed. With great effort, he forced his eyes
open. Green gas flooded the air around him, burning his lungs and
making him cough. His stomach convulsed, the pain stabbing him like
knives.

A sharp hiss sounded in his ear as the cryo
tank cracked open, followed by voices. He moaned and clutched his
stomach as he slid down to his ankles and fell over onto the floor.
His knees and wrists throbbed at the impact, and he vomited
explosively, dark black bile splattering over the floor and
walls.

His arms gave way, but before he could
collapse in his own vomit, hands pulled him back and helped him up.
Someone wrapped a heated blanket over his shoulders, and the
comforting warmth seeped into him like a soothing balm. Another
person put a rubber nipple in his mouth, and warm, sweet liquid
oozed across his tongue, dripping down his throat and into his
empty, aching stomach.

After several minutes, he regained enough
strength to glance up and look around. He recognized the dim
catacombs of the cryo chamber, much the same as it had been when
he’d gone under. Some of the details had changed, however: the main
control panel had moved, and the observation window up top looked
old and cloudy. The lights shone brighter, giving his skin a pale,
morbid look. He shivered and pulled the blanket tight.

“
How are we feeling?” came
a woman’s voice above him. He looked up and saw a round, masked
face peering down at him, hair tied back. Other faces joined hers,
blurring as his vision slowly focused on them.

“
Weak,” he said, closing
his eyes. “But getting better.”

“
That’s good. Your
temperature is still uneven. Drink more fluid—the formula will give
you strength.”

The woman had a distinctly foreign drawl. He
tried for a few moments to place it, then realized it must have
developed in the hundred-plus years he’d lain frozen. So much time
had passed, even the language had changed.

An image came to his mind, that of Sara
lying in the cryotank, hand pressed against the glass as she stared
up at him with anxious eyes. The memory filled him with a yearning
to see her again.

“
Sara,” he said, struggling
to his feet. “Where is she?”

“
Calm, calm,” droned the
woman, patting him on the chest to ease him back down. “Conserve
your strength.”

Someone pushed the nipple into his mouth
again, but he spat it out and leaned forward, pushing himself up
off the floor. His head swooned with dizziness, but by sheer will
he forced himself to stand.

“
Sara,” he said again,
leaning on the cryotank for support. “Where is she?”

Hands grasped him on all sides, holding him
back. Before the techs and nurses crowded him completely out,
however, he caught sight of a second cryotank in the other module,
open as well. Unlike the one behind him, however, this one still
had something in it.

“
Commander,
please—”

“
Sara?
Sara!
”

Adrenaline surged through his aching limbs,
giving him a burst of new strength. The techs and nurses tried to
hold him down, but he fought back, pushing them aside as he lunged
unsteadily forward. His legs gave way just as he reached the
glass—the all-too-familiar glass.

The body inside was covered with a black
plastic sheet, not quite thin enough for him to see through. Though
the shroud was loosely thrown on, he could recognize the body
underneath. White-blond hair spilled out across the top, while near
the chest, a pale, shriveled hand stuck up through the sheet, still
reaching out to him.

James’s eyes widened in horror. He slid down
the glass to his knees, lukewarm tears streaming out his aching
eyes while his arms and shoulders began to shake
uncontrollably.

“
Sara!”

* * * * *

Sara? Who’s Sara?

Deirdre watched as Commander McCoy forced
his way through to the second cryotank. It was obvious that the
person inside was someone he cared about very much—but who?

“
What’s the name of the
person in that tank?” she asked the nearest tech.

“
Just a sec,” said the
tech. His fingers flew across the control panel, bringing up a
profile on the main screen. “Says here it’s a female by the name of
Sara Galbraith-Dickson.”

“
Galbraith-Dickson,”
Deirdre muttered, the name immediately ringing a bell. “That must
be the daughter of the last patrician.” From her research as the
ship’s historian, she’d learned that the patrician’s daughter had
boarded a different colony ship from her father. Deirdre had
assumed that was because she’d been detained by the Nabattans and
rescued by James, but his heart-stopping reaction made her wonder
if there was more to that story than she knew.

“
No!” James screamed,
collapsing to his hands and knees. “Sara! Why?” Tears streamed down
his face as he broke into uncontrollable sobs.

“
What’s wrong?” Deirdre
asked the tech. “Why is he upset?”

“
Because the girl in the
cryotank is dead.”

Deirdre’s eyes widened, and she covered her
mouth with one hand. The nurses and other techs quickly rushed to
the commander’s side, but he was utterly inconsolable. Even though
Deirdre had very little idea what was going on, she couldn’t help
but tear up at the sight.

“
It’s all right,” said
Maggie, throwing a blanket over James’s naked shoulders. “Come,
sir, let’s get you to—”

“
What did you do to her?”
he yelled, shoving the head nurse away. “How could you let this
happen?”

His eyes were as fierce with anger as his
sobs had been filled with pain. His hands clenched and trembled, as
if looking for someone or something to lash out at. Several of the
nurses backed away in fright.

Deirdre glanced over her shoulder at Captain
Carlson in the window to the control room above. He remained
exactly where he stood, his impassive face a sharp contrast to the
chaos and emotion on the floor.

The doors hissed open, and a pair of
security guards rushed in with stunners in their hands.

“
No!” Deirdre cried out,
stepping between them and James. His bloodshot eyes turned on her,
but she stood her ground. For a gut-wrenching moment, it seemed as
if he were about to strike her, but then his rage deflated as he
fell back to the floor.

“
Commander McCoy?” said
Deirdre, kneeling beside him. “Commander, what’s wrong?”

“
Why did it have to be
her?” he sobbed. “Why couldn’t it have been me?”

That’s exactly what I’d
expect him to say,
Deirdre thought giddily.
She felt torn between fannish excitement and pain at seeing another
soul in so much distress. She suppressed the urge to squeal and
instead focused on doing her best to comfort him.

“
We’re sorry, Commander,”
she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “We never meant for it
to happen this way.”

He buried his face in his hands and wept. In
that moment, something inside of her shifted. This was not the
larger-than-life hero that she’d read about in the ship’s annals
and her great-grandmother’s journal—this was an actual person, with
all the weakness and fragility that entailed. In that moment she
wanted nothing more than to take him in her arms and hold him until
the pain was gone.

“
That’s enough,” said
Maggie, pulling her aside. “Commander, we really must see you to
medical. If you’ll come this way…”

Deirdre watched silently as James followed
the nurses through the door. Though his tears had ebbed, his feet
were heavy, his movements wooden. Even though he was almost exactly
her age in terms of years lived, the sorrow on his face made him
look much older.

The noise and activity all
around her faded, and her breath caught suddenly in her
throat.
I know what he’s going
through,
she thought to herself.
I’ve been through it before.
More than anything else, that made her heart go out to
him.

Chapter 21

James stared morosely at the drab gray
ceiling of the ship’s medical bay. The place reminded him of the
quarters he’d shared with Sara in the few short weeks before going
into cryo. Her face flitted across his mind, and he clenched his
eyes shut to keep the tears from spilling out. More than anything
else, he wanted to wake up from this nightmare. He wanted to open
his eyes and find Sterling and Lars and all his old friends having
a good laugh, and they’d tell him it was all a joke at his expense.
And Sara would be there, and he’d cry and laugh and everything
would be all right.