Ages in Oblivion Thrown: Book One of the Sleep Trilogy (11 page)

She thought about sending a reply, a plea,
or a request for mast. She was worthy, she had to be, otherwise,
what did she add up to? At any rate, she knew what was bound to
happen next. She’d seen it happen once before, to another colleague
who’d been under suspicion for espionage.

He was dead, purportedly a suicide,
and officially a traitor to the cause. She’d be damned if she
simply sat back and waited for their measure of punishment. She
knew what was coming,
who
was
coming. It wouldn’t be as quiet as all that. That left only one
option, really. Her office suddenly seemed foreign, and
unwelcoming. It smelt of betrayal, and she could no longer abide
it.

Amazed eyes watched as the doctor flew by
them, out of the clinic, toward her quarters. They were clueless,
but not ignorant. Something was afoot. Unfortunately, there wasn’t
much to be done about it. A vendor had reported a discovery of food
taint, so the clinic was teeming with nauseated patrons, all of
whom were certain that they were at death’s door. Everyone was too
busy.

They couldn’t have known Hawke had started a
small fire in her office anyway. And so it grew, happily consuming
all it could. It was a hungry, malevolent child, for the doctor had
disabled the alarms and fire suppression devices in her office
space. The flames crept about, teasing surfaces, indiscriminately
tasting objects, looking for what would feed it best. Soon, the
whole room was a boxed explosion, looking for an outlet. The flames
laughed and danced, knowing with the surest instinct of evil that
it was going to breathe ugliness into the world.

A physician’s assistant was the first to
notice something amiss. He needed something from the doctor’s
office, but as he drew near, he could sense the wrongness of what
he saw. The door was contorting in agony, and as he got closer, he
felt the terrible heat. Wisely, he stepped out of the hallway
directly in front of it, and punched in the panic code that would
send a fire squad reeling their way with the proper gear. At least,
he hoped he’d gotten the code right. Fires were not that common an
occurrence.

The security battalion, though it was
virtually next door, wasn’t fully manned, so the OOD, the officer
of the day, had to call in personnel who were off duty. Men and
women rushed in, listening to the brief as they donned fireproof
gear. Evac readiness was a go for part of them, since the entire
station clinic was in danger of being damaged to a point of lengthy
repair. The armory also shared a wall with the offices directly
across from where the fire was currently confined. Another team
went in search of the wayward doctor. The barracks was a blur of
motion and orchestrated pandemonium.

Another station, the
Boorda
(in orbit around Io) had been
alerted. There was a short-range ship being readied for casualties.
The firefighters deployed headlong to the clinic, which was not yet
engulfed, but it seemed inevitable that the fire wouldn’t be
contained much longer. It wanted to be free of its too small home
soon.

The unfamiliarity of peril was threatening
to send normally calm civilians into frenzy, as they wrestled away
from the vicinity of the clinic. Hoses were ready to pump foam into
place, as soon as the door blew, which it did with a roar of fury
and triumph. Glass exploded, flying outward into the unprotected
crowd. At the same time the hoses churned into life, barraging the
flames. The result was nearly instantaneous, as the onslaught of
fire suppressant crushed every hope of flight for the fire.

There were cuts, ringing ears, and a few
minor scorches. The crowd that had evacuated raised a cheer,
thumped backs, and shook hands with the personnel who had in fact,
saved most of their clinic. Only the offices were scorched, windows
shattered, and the pharmacy a little worse for wear. It was damage
that could be repaired within weeks, instead of having to entirely
rebuild the section, or worse. Compared to what it might have
become, it was so small. The exit of the doctor was forgotten in
the moment of relief.

۞

Hawke had made the best possible use of the
confusion to make it back to her quarters, where she threw most of
her papers and belongings into the trash recycler. Then, she
sprinted out and toward the shipping lanes, where there was sure to
be some empty docks. She had her plan roughly sorted out, so long
as she could avoid being caught, by the PMO’s or anyone else.

It was a certainty that someone was out
looking for her, she knew it, so she ran faster, trying to blend in
with the other creatures who were going to and from their ships.
She had to go up one level, to number four, where she consulted a
digital slip guide to tell her what she wanted to know. It read
that there were four empty spots, all on the other side of the
great circle. No matter, she kept her pace and her purpose
sure.

۞

Tark and Sa’andy surveyed the damage from
the fire. Their breakfast lay abandoned in the cafe, long since
forgotten. He cursed Hawke without really knowing why. She was a
pain in the ass, and a bigot, but up until now, never of criminal
intent. Something had made her snap, and he wanted to know what. He
had a suspicion that it had to do with whatever had encouraged her
foolish prejudices.

He was certain she’d never known that he was
aware of her sentiments, nor that most of her outgoing messages had
been monitored by the security manager, and subsequently given to
the commanding officer, namely, Tark. They’d always been oblique,
and never named anyone she was in contact with, but he’d also
always assumed that whoever it was, they certainly weren’t worth
him expending much time over.

Most of the messages were usually idle
grousing, never overtly threatening. Tark thought now that he
should check with Dmitry to see if there was anything new that
might shed light on this outburst of hers. Right after the doctor
was brought in and questioned. A staff sergeant spoke in his ear,
letting him know that the team currently trying to track Hawke down
had just finished at her place, and found it in a shambles. The
recycler had just been in use, so they guessed that she’d destroyed
any items that probably would have helped them in understanding the
situation.

Just then, a call came in from the
dockmaster, desperately seeking a team to come up and resolve a
problem. Someone had locked him...or her...self inside a docking
ring. He couldn’t see for sure, he said, but he thought it was a
kid, and was worried about them accidentally blowing the seals.
Tark took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to end the way he
wanted. What could have gone so wrong that Hawke would have come to
this point?

“
I think we’ve just located the
doctor, Staff Sergeant.” He pointed off toward the central
staircase leading off the docks. The woman nodded vigorously, and
called her team to meet them up there. Tark sprinted in the
direction of the lanes, with Sa’andy close behind. They rounded a
corner to the stairway, and nearly knocked down a group of people
in the process. It was Maeve and her compatriots.

“
Where’s the fire?’ She asked
good-naturedly, until she read the expression on Tark’s face. She
took up the rear as he continued his ascent. The other five all
shrugged and fell in as well. They alighted in a huge vestibule
that separated the military lanes from the civilian
docks.

Tark shoved through the curiosity
seekers who’d already flocked to the ring where crew and the
security detachment stood. They came to attention as soon as he
approached, but he waved them back to ease, as he tried to see
inside. If it
was
her, she’d
cut the lights, and was staying out of the line of sight afforded
by the porthole. He pressed the button on the emergency speaker and
hoped for the best.

“
Doctor, if that’s you in there, just
do us all a favor and come out. There is always a better way, if
you’re dealing with a problem. We’ll do anything we can to help you
out.” He was trying to recall the standard operating procedure for
this sort of thing. It was too far back in his memory banks, and
the training had lasted for a mere week or two. He went back to try
and see in the window, having gotten no response. A repair crew
worked to restore lights, and to disable the outer
hatch.

The doctor’s face appeared unexpectedly in
the small window, startling him. Her face was streaked with
moisture, and dust. She looked at that moment like what he’d always
imagined a banshee to be. She was full of that same rage, as she
picked up a prybar from the supply locker inside, proceeding to
smash the box which had given her the colonel’s voice. That
accomplished, she looked back at him, mouthing something. Over and
over. She backed away, into the darkness, as the crew finally made
headway. The emergency lighting came up, casting a pale amber wash
over the scene. Hawke cast a desperate look around, obviously not
expecting anyone to have reversed any of her actions.

She knew what she was doing, though, and
didn’t let herself get distracted. A knife in her hand was the
failsafe. It was decided and done. Temptation to try and make a
statement was abandoned; let fate run its course before man could
reverse it. Her fingers found the command pad and prodded the last
code needed. She felt a sudden cold rush at her back. She tensed,
and turned her head slightly as fingers with incomprehensible
strength closed around her and pulled her into the ruthless void.
She felt nothing. She knew nothing. She was nothing.

A collective scream rippled through the
crowd. Tark and Maeve stood transfixed in dismay as the vault-like
hatch rolled out of the way. Silently, the doctor’s body shot
outside, as though it were pulled on a string. Personnel worked to
get the outer door sealed and repressurized. Others stood by,
suited to jump in and perform retrieval. Maeve hoped that she was
in the last stages of asphyxia and not cognizant of what was
happening to her body. That thought didn’t make it any easier to
watch.

Hands covered eyes among the onlookers, all
anticipating what was to come. It didn’t take long. Soon, all that
mattered were the innumerable globular droplets floating past the
warning lights outside the bay windows of the waiting area. It was
almost beautiful, the way the red caught the light and shone
through. Rubies in space. A few of them caught against the glass,
hanging there, trembling in spacial currents before they froze
solidly. The air was hushed. Loss.

The nature of what had just happened had a
recognizable burn to it for Maeve. It was an atmosphere of utter
helplessness. She wanted to be far, far away from it, viscerally,
and psychologically. It reached out to her with skeletal claws; a
long-buried but well-traveled descent into hell. Striving to stay
in control of herself, she finally fled the scene. Her stomach
wrenched and vision swam while images of flesh and blood fought to
show themselves to her.

Maeve groped her way past the throng, down
to the number two level. It was relatively abandoned there. No one
gave her a second glance as she walked, then ran off the anxiety
she felt. Escape seemed so very right; comfort was granted only by
distance.

She had wanted never to see blood again,
never know its brutal definition again. But she knew she would. It
would follow her, just as surely as if it was her shadow. Revulsion
surged up, only to be fought back down (like so much else), and
sublimated. She had to get under control. She could feel sweat
pouring off her body as she shivered in spite of having
sprinted.

Leif had watched Maeve leave, feeling a
faint sense of unease. More than just this incident had to be
bothering her. Possibly she either was not sure why, or else she
was hiding what she did remember about herself. He didn’t think it
was wise to chase after her yet, though. She needed time to
process. Turning back, he saw that the colonel was involved in the
process of undoing as much harm as he was capable.

Colonel Tarkington looked the way a leader
should; unruffled, emanating calm. Under the surface was another
story. That was how Maeve had been. Once, long ago. Leif wondered
how much it would take to break a man like Tarkington. More, or
less than it had for her?

“
Guilt is a bitter
pill
.”

He turned around again, looking to see who
had spoken, realizing belatedly that it had been the voice of
someone who was long-dead by now. Leif stared back out the huge
windows into space, trying to forget that voice in the distant
past. The sun burned on and on, while space suited crew began the
grim task of collecting the doctor. It was barely past zero nine
thirty. He rejoined the others, as they tried to make sense of this
strange and unpleasant turn of events. A whole day waited to
unravel ahead of them.

۞

That same tiring realization penetrated
Tark’s thoughts finally. The whole damn day lay ahead. He’d watched
Maeve leave as well, knowing that he couldn’t follow her and still
do his job the way he had to. But he couldn’t imagine letting her
suffer alone either. He walked to a Comm panel and called Dmitry.
The respondent was still on the defensive, until he’d been briefed.
Then Tark could only fill the gap between them with an olive
branch.

“
Look, I’m sorry about what I said to
you, man. I felt like I had to look out for her, alright? And now,
I’m still doing that. I need you to go find her and see if she’s
okay.”

“
I can do that. And...nothing
happened. Just so you know.” A hum indicated that he had gone off
the line. Tark cocked his head back over a shoulder, surveying the
scene. Personnel were milling about in a sea of inaction. He could
predict being stuck there for a while, during the cleanup and
concurrent investigation. It would have been one thing if Hawke had
only had the good manners to see to her affairs in private. As he
chided himself for the callous thought, he had to admit he really
was pissed off. In his neck, muscles began to tighten into tiny
fists, which were bound to start hammering away by
nightfall.