Lifeline

Chapter 9

CLAVIUS BASE—Day 8

The nightmares gave way to consciousness. Duncan McLaris opened his eyes, hoping it had all been part of the dream.

Without moving, he let his body send him messages. He found himself stretched out on a comfortable pallet … a bed. He smelled a chemical taint, some kind of disinfectant, and a dusty charcoal smell that hung over everything. McLaris blinked and focused his vision on the clean walls, the white sheets on his bed, the various apparatus in the room … the other empty beds. Infirmary.

The Miranda had crashed! Memories flooded into his head. He caught glimpses of Stephanie Garland fighting the controls, the lunar surface careening toward them. Stephanie Garland … shredded by the shrapnel of the cockpit. And Jessie—oh no, Jessie! He saw a vision of a faceless space suit with a cracked helmet, air hissing out into the vacuum. Jessie!

The figure lurching into view was a narrow-shouldered Asian woman. Her hair had been smoothed to perfection, like a black silk cap; she wore a white coat and the trappings of a doctor. She narrowed her almond eyes at him.

“You were the only survivor, Mr. McLaris. I thought you’d like to know.” Her dark eyes were like cold lava glass.

McLaris worked his mouth, but no words came out. He saw flashbacks of the ruined Miranda—Jessie’s faceplate smashed … unconsciousness … pain. Then the rover vehicle, and the space-suited man pulling him out of the wreckage. He had been wearing an Orbitech 2 suit. Clancy—that was his name.

The doctor busied herself rearranging the gleaming medical instruments in a tray. Finally, she removed a hypodermic needle. “I hope you’re satisfied.”

McLaris looked at the needle, uneasy, but decided not to ask any questions. He found himself floating, unable to comprehend the doctor’s anger, or to respond as intelligently as he wanted to. He felt his body filled with a haze of pain, but it was a distant ache, not sharp and distracting—only enough to tell him that his bloodstream had been pumped with enough painkillers to blunt his awareness.

The doctor maintained her silence. She seemed to be seething inside but not letting much of it show. By the time she turned to leave, McLaris already felt the fuzzy effects of the tranquilizer seep into his head. He noticed a hollow emptiness, horror growing inside his stomach at what the doctor had said.

Jessie was dead. Jessie … dead.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and tears started to flow, just as unwilling sleep took him.

DAY 9

The sounds around him seemed hushed, snickering in the darkness. McLaris had been awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, or closing his eyes and counting how many times his chest rose and fell. He was alive. He had survived. Was this worth the effort? Now they had a scapegoat to blame everything on.

McLaris winced and felt the sweat itch beneath him on the infirmary bed. As the sheets went from being too hot to too cold, he cast them away from his body or pulled them up to his chin. The pain from his injuries—relatively minor, all of them—had subsided into quiet throbbing. Within a day the doctor, Kim Berenger, had taken him off the painkillers, and now McLaris felt his mind sharpening again, his full capabilities returning.

He liked it better when everything wasn’t so harsh and clear. The low lunar gravity showed no mitigating effect on the weight of his conscience.

Nobody had taught how to deal with this in management training classes. I didn’t do it for me—I did it for her, he thought. But he couldn’t explain that to Jessie now. What was it for, after all? His own excuses were pathetic.

You’re a survivor, Duncan McLaris! Isn’t it great to be alive?

During the day, some people in Clavius Base uniforms had come to stare at him. When the nurses brought him medication or rationed food, they acted cold to him. And Dr. Berenger’s frigid bedside manner would have been better suited for a morgue.

“You don’t know what Brahms is like,” he croaked once in a hoarse whisper. “I know what he’s going to do. You’ll see. Everything I did will be justified.”

Berenger just stared at him.

McLaris could blame nobody but himself. He had made a terrible mistake, the wrong choice, acted without thinking. He lay pondering how he could take it and turn it into something he could live with.

He closed his eyes and thought about breathing again. Inhale. Exhale. Deeper, and deeper. He felt the air go in and out of his lungs. He sensed the blood flow through his veins and arteries, detected the faint vibrations of his heartbeat … and the spinning wheels in his brain.

Diane was gone, either killed in the War or forever separated from McLaris anyway. He could never get back to Earth.

And Jessie was dead. I am being brave, Diddy! He was supposed to take care of her. He had promised Diane.

McLaris tried not to think about it.

Day 10

He got out of bed for the first time, stretching his aching muscles, standing—with only a seventh of Earth-normal weight—on trembling legs. McLaris’s body felt like a massive bruise, but the hurt seemed refreshing after the painkiller limbo.

McLaris rubbed the heavy stubble on his chin—about five days’ worth—and wondered if he should attempt to shave, to make himself more presentable. He decided against it. He wanted to keep the beard; he didn’t think he’d want to feel clean and slick for a long time. He stepped away from the bed, giddy and disoriented in the low lunar gravity. He looked toward the narrow slit window at ceiling height. A sudden memory sliced through him: What star is that, Diddy?

The voice in his memory echoed so clearly that he caught himself from turning to see if Jessie stood by him again.

McLaris had delighted in watching her learn things, in seeing the amazed look on her face when she discovered something new. She always wanted him to explain things to her.

Explain things, such as how a competent division leader and a skilled pilot could manage to crash a shuttle and kill a little girl?

He heard someone else enter the room, but forced himself not to turn around. It was probably someone he didn’t want to see anyway. He tried to catch a reflection in the window, but couldn’t see the door from where he stood.

“Mr. McLaris, I am to inform you that Chief Administrator Tomkins wants to see you.” The soft, controlled voice belonged to Kim Berenger. “Whenever you think you can face him.”

For a moment, the name meant nothing to McLaris, but then he remembered—Philip Tomkins was the head of Clavius Base. Well, he had known it was going to happen sooner or later. He let out a long sigh.

“Dr. Berenger,” he said, turning to face the woman. McLaris knew from his reflection how haggard he looked—the half-grown beard, the red eyes. “I was wondering if we might have some kind of—” he searched for a better word, a euphemism, “—service, for my daughter? And for Stephanie Garland?”

Berenger’s face remained expressionless. “We decided it was unwise to wait for you to heal. Your daughter and the pilot were interred in a cairn outside after the first day. Chief Administrator Tomkins himself gave a little eulogy.”

McLaris drew himself up in sudden anger. The doctor ignored him, instead acknowledging the medical record with her thumbprint. He fixed a haunted gaze at her. “You decided not to wait? What possible difference—”

“Dr. Tomkins insisted on holotaping the service for you. We can rig up a tank and let you watch it at your leisure.”

McLaris made his way back to the bed, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of him. He collapsed on the sheets.

“I had reasons for what I did,” he muttered.

Guilt rose up in front of him like a mirror, an echo chamber to reflect his thoughts back at him. Yes, it’s my fault. Yes, I killed my daughter.

Each time he admitted it to himself, he thought the words louder, more forcefully. Reality began to eat its way through the haze of shock and disbelief. Tomkins wants to see you. Whenever you think you can face him.

McLaris knew how to handle his own problems. He needed a focus—something to work toward, some goal to achieve. With that as a crutch, he could see himself through this. He lay back on the sheets, the pain in his body insignificant compared to the pain in his mind.

Yes, it’s my fault. Yes, I killed my daughter. But no, I didn’t intend for it to happen. And, no, I didn’t do it for selfish reasons. I did it with the best of intentions. For Jessie.

He would come out of this experience galvanized, a stronger person.

He would make it up to Jessie … somehow.