On Distant Worlds: The Prologues & Colibri. Brian Gonzalez
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June peered at him closer, seeming to actually see him for the first time. “The shamblie,” she repeated with amusement. “You had a tough time during the night, Davvit. Lots of tossing and turning, unusual for you. Lots of high-level brain activity under sedation, unusual for anyone.” She waved her clipboard at him as though somehow the up-and-down motion would transmit data about his past procedures into Davvit’s head. “I can see how nightmares about shamblies would have caused a little sleep anxiety. But that’s over now.”
“It was real,” Davvit said. “There were Peacekeepers. One of them shot me!” He clutched at his chest only to realize there was not a wound there.
The nurse smiled at him. “We don’t have Peacekeepers in the Medical Center, Davvit, and if we did, they wouldn’t be shooting our patients. We want to make you better, not dead.” Suspicious, Davvit scanned her face for dishonesty but as far as he could tell – and as a frequent target of bullying, Davvit had developed fairly good instincts about people’s intentions – Marjorie June was being completely truthful and seemed genuinely concerned about him.
Confused, Davvit took a moment to consider his situation. As Marjorie June had pointed out, he did not appear to be any kind of dead. The room, the nurse... in fact, the way he felt right now, post-treatment miserable, all seemed perfectly normal. Could it in fact have been a dream? “I have to pee,” he finally said.
Marjorie June jerked her thumb toward the bathroom door. “You know the drill.”
When he opened the bathroom door there was no sharp tang of medical waste. In the toilet bowl, only “clean” recycled non-potable graywater as always before. When he pissed the flow was its usual thick gray-black, full of dead nanite husks. Everything was normal. Could it really have been just a vivid dream? Damn Sissa and her time-release horror stories, anyway. And with the thought of Sissa came thoughts of school and thoughts of missed assignments and upcoming grade exams. With a weary sigh, Davvit washed up and thanked Marjorie June, who decorously left to allow Davvit to get dressed.
He of course talked to his own doctor about the incident during the trip back to the Civilian Lobe. As Davvit’s primary physician, Dr. Saito transported Davvit back and forth to the procedure as per often-complained-about regulations but returned to his own practice while Davvit underwent treatment. But Davvit had felt too stupid to ask Marjorie June to see a doctor there, so he would just have to get what answers he could from a doctor that he actually trusted. Could he really have had a dream that vivid during the treatment? “Oh, sure,” said the doctor. “For a lot of reasons, actually. You could be developing a tolerance to one or more of the medications. Or they might have used a different combination of medicines which might mean a previously unknown interaction; I’ll review your records. Allergies. Puberty. It could even be something you ate.” He looked at Davvit appraisingly for a moment, and then said: “You’ve proven yourself a practical and serious young man, Davvit, so I’ll be honest with you. The reason they give you short-term-memory blockers during most surgical procedures is so that later you have no memory how absolutely flipping high you got. The best explanation for what happened to you would be that the STM’s didn’t work long enough for whatever reason and you’re remembering drug-induced dreams or even full-blown hallucinations you ordinarily would have no memory of.”
Unlike the bizarre explanations he’d considered so far -- impossible reality or unbelievably real dream -- this one actually made a fair amount of sense. Davvit tested the idea for flaws as their transport sled rode its single rail through the tunnels of the Ice-Ship. The motion of the sled disguised the actual moments they were weightless, but there was no mistaking the shift in the general pull of microgravity over several minutes, up and down flipping places, like the directions themselves were orbiting you. After treatment gravity gradients were actually fun again, like they were supposed to be. Accepting Dr. Saito’s hypothesis, Davvit turned his attention toward school and what creative counter-insults he might need to arm and launch tomorrow.
And all was well until later that afternoon, after he checked out of Dr. Saito’s office and headed back home.
Davvit lived in the Crèche, which of course was where babies are born, which of course was just more ammunition for Herk and his type to taunt him. Never mind that Davvit had a small suite of his own; parented children left the Crèche but orphans or children needing constant medical care – and Davvit fit the bill on both counts – remained behind, living in age-appropriate quarters. Davvit had more space and privacy than most of his schoolmates. A Crèche Parent checked on him at least once a day and the Parents were always available when needed, which was also a lot more than he could say for some of his classmates.
In a couple of years he would be eligible for his own small quarters, a year or so ahead of the parented who had to fully finish school first; let’s see what Herk had to say then. But in the meantime the Crèche was his home and by no coincidence happened to be on the floor below Dr. Saito’s offices. The medical staff allowed him to use one of their internal access ladders; otherwise he would have to return all the way to the central spindle of the Module, wait to ride the platform just one floor, and then walk all the way back out to the Crèche’s location on the D-wedge of the Module. The ladder, on the other hand, let him out thirty meters from the Crèche.
Davvit climbed down the ladder that led to home. As he hand-over-handed down the rungs, he caught a faint but unmistakable odor every time his left wrist neared his face. He paused mid-ladder and sniffed at his left arm, frowning. Most of his arm smelled like mild antiseptic, but a tiny patch near the outside of the wrist smelled of decay and death and rot, a faded but accurate representation of the walking horror he had unquestionably experienced last night.
It was like somebody had missed a spot when they cleaned him up.
Author Unknown
“Top Ten Misconceptions about the BioShip”
Cataclysm Humor Net Locus
2101 C.E.
#10: It has weapons in case of aliens.
Sure, the BioShip is loaded with weapons. Big surface microwave lasers and whatnot. Heat beams. Missiles. But they’re not for aliens. Picture the BioShip moving through space really fast. Now picture a huge asteroid moving through space really, really fast. Now picture them slamming into each other. Get a third picture clearly? The one where the asteroid punches straight through the BioShip and keeps going? Those weapons are to protect the BioShip from regular space hazards.
But wait, you say, because you’re a doon, what about the machine guns and handguns and such? Aren’t those to repel boarders? No, you doon. Any time you have more than, say, one people in one place, there’s going to be violence. The weapons aren’t in case of aliens. They’re in case of humans.
#9: Everybody Will Be Frozen All the Time
Horseshit. There will be 2 kinds of people on the BioShip: Civilians and Authority. Only Authority personnel will ever be “frozen” (see below) and only top-level personnel at that. It’s just to make sure there are always people around who actually know how to run the BioShip. So please stop repeating those stupid fucking “space morgue” jokes. (Yes, we know we helped start the trend. We were young and naïve. Remember we’re all dead soon anyway and shut the fuck up.)
#8: People Will Be Frozen At All
For the last time, they won’t be frozen. They’ll be in a superchilled, electrically stimulated, genetically active biological gel full of heat-exchange-powered microscopic robots. Does that sound like the same thing you do to Aunt Edna’s pot pie for three and a half years before pitching it into the trash?
#7: It’s an Escape Pod for the Rich
Well, yeah, the rich are getting onto the short list in kind of disproportionate numbers. We’ll admit that. So it stands to reason they’ll get on the Civilian roster in similarly disproportionate numbers. But remember this: the BioShip won’t actually use money. So as soon as the rich board, they become as poor as you and your flapmates.