Chameleon Ch 21

Jackson was the last to report to sick bay after having already sent Rianya and Zalara. He watched Adams and Chandra hurrying from one crew member to the next with hypodermal injectors, a radiation protocol no doubt.

With an additional 25 centimeters of lead-bismuth shielding, and a gold leaf membrane, inside the regular bulkheads, Maria Mitchell’s sick bay would be able to withstand up to one hundred hours of direct bombardment at one hundred kilometers distance. That’s not to say her hull wouldn’t suffer any degradation. The leading edges of her frame would require hours of patching, refitting, resurfacing, and glazing before they could travel faster than light again.

The people, however, would not receive much more than, at worst, a day spent on a tropical beach without skin protection. Radiation was one arm of the astronaut’s triangle: oxygen, temperature, and radiation. Any one of the three outside of a small range of ‘normal’ could kill instantly. To Jackson, they were simply occupational hazards to contend with, well worth the risk, in his eyes.

Adams rushed up to him, the instrument in his outstretched hand, seemingly aiming for the jugular. This was one time he didn’t struggle with the doctor about a medical procedure.

“Is everyone here?” he asked Adams.

“Jay’s not here, Quixote stopped by but left. Cerebrus brought Tessa; she’s a heavy sleeper, apparently.”

“Mr. May’s across the hall. I’ll send him over as soon as he’s secured the helm.”

“I’ve set you up in my quarters,” Adams said.

“What for?” Adams tilted his head to one side and frowned.

“Captain and family. I know you respect the crew, but you can’t all have a camping trip in my sick bay and sing songs ‘round a fire. You need to be separated. I can take a cot in my office.”

“What about the Campbells and Honey?”

“They’re going in Mills’ quarters; he’s doubling up with me. Ferris and Chandra and Roz are in Chandra’s quarters. Everyone else, I’m afraid, has to take a curtain,” he said with a bit of a chuckle.

Jackson took in the chaos of sick bay going on around him. Two dozen people carried supplies back and forth, set up cots, and Bailey had set up a temporary kitchenette in the laboratory. Two microwave ovens and boxes and boxes of prepared rations.

“How long are we going to be stuck in here?” Rianya asked from behind Jackson’s back. Had it been anyone else he would have jumped ten centimeters.

“Just a couple of days, until we pass the storm.”

“A couple of days means…?”

“Fifty-five to sixty hours. The thing is huge. Even at light speed it’d take half a day. We have to proceed at ISS to avoid attracting it.”

“That’s a long time.”

“Not really,” Jackson said. “A hundred years ago it would take ten years to go that distance.” Rianya’s eyes popped open and her mouth smiled and gaped at the same time.

“Ten years?” He calculated the distance in his head at eighty-eight instead of ninety, and ballparked a figure of nine years ten months. Close enough. He nodded. She turned to Adams. “Ten years?”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Adams said, and he returned to managing the disorder of his domain.

“We can’t leave sick bay, use the gym, go to mess? What if…” she looked down at her extra width and back up. He glanced back and forth. No one was looking in their direction. He put his arm around her quickly put a kiss on her head.

“Don’t worry. The doc is right here.”

“There’s no privacy,” she whispered.

“Come back here.” He took her by the hand and led her to Adams’ office. “Phil put us here for just that reason.” The doctor’s quarters were only thirty square meters; he’d been used to eighty. But the lavatory was private, and that was about all he really needed.

“He is generous,” she said.

“Sorry to wake you. Why don’t you go to sleep? I’ll join you soon.”

“Where’s Zalara?”

“I’ll find her.”

Jackson wandered from one group behind a curtain to the next. He said goodnight to the kitchen staff, housekeepers, Lee and Rougeau, Barone, Stone, and Byrd, and John Chin, who was in the private recovery room. Then he headed straight to Wilson Mills’ cabin.

“Come in,” Keith called at Jackson’s knock. He cracked the door and looked in. “Captain, come in.”

“I don’t want to disturb you – I found what I was looking for.” He nodded at the two girls sleeping on the floor in a rumple of blankets. “I appreciate your parenting both of them tonight.” The man nodded.

“You seemed busy, and Rianya seems stressed.”

“She is getting more so each day,” Jackson muttered.

“Bailey enjoys having them to play with. My first wife had a terrible time. She was uncomfortable, anxious, angry, then she’d be happy, serene, then go back to irritated – one girl and we were done.”

“Famous last words,” Jackson said with a sudden chuckle. “Goodnight. Thanks again.”

The captain went across the hall to the Combat Info Center. Maria Mitchell wasn’t a warship, but a secondary operations room for emergency or minimal bridge operations, should the bridge be compromised, was a critical cog in a starship design.

“Mr. May?”

“Captain, we are approaching the leading edge at three point nine AU’s, in 65 seconds.” An electronic screen substituted for the windows, which gave Jackson an eerie feeling of claustrophobia. “Where’s Quixote?”

“Xe wanted to vent something in engineering.”

“Cerebrus?”

“Captain?”

“Prepare for a slight resistance,” Jackson told them. “I’ve never been this close to one before, so I’m not sure exactly what to expect,” he admitted.

“We are passing under the storm,” May said. The ship shook slightly, like perhaps a fly in a spider’s web, but without the fatal stop.

“We are slowing, Captain.”

“Steady as she goes, Cerebrus.”

“Oh!” May and Jackson shouted, each holding up a hand in front of their face as photons randomly flashed on the monitor.

“Polarize the bow lens!” Jackson said.  A moment later the photons had diminished to bright dots from blinding ones.

“Will you look at that!” May shouted. “Look!”

On the aft viewscreen, an indigo wave began to dance and undulate near the top.

“What is that?” Cerebrus asked.

“Gentlemen,” Jackson said with a growing grin. He crept closer to the screen. “On Earth we call them aurora borealis.”

“What the…?” May stammered.

“Our electromagnetic generators. They’re like the poles. Charged electrons at the poles accelerated with the magnetic field, and collide with the particles in the atmosphere. It must be reacting with our ship's hydrogen emissions since there’s no atmosphere out there!”

“Human vision cannot see ultra violet emissions,” Cerebrus offered as contrary evidence to Jackson’s remark.

“But the cameras can. We can see red, orange, yellow, and green, but that’s oxygen and nitrogen. This has to be hydrogen.” Jackson and May couldn’t stop grinning at each other. “Pipe that over to sick bay,” he whispered. “Cerebrus, can you maintain the helm on your own for a while?”

“I will need to recharge in twelve hours.”

“Someone will be here long before that. We need to get underground, so to speak. Quixote will be back, too, soon I hope.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Jackson and May jogged across the corridor to sick bay with elementary school joy. When they shot through the door, however, the monitors were off, the lights were low, and only a couple of people were awake.

“You think it will last the whole way through?” May asked.

“Not unless Quixote has more hydrogen to vent. I hate to wake anyone. Let’s make sure it’s recorded and we can play it back during breakfast. It’s not like we can see it any other way.”

“Sounds good. I’ll take care of that, Captain. Have a good night.”

“And you, too, Jay.”

Jackson slipped past the row of beds and cots, through Adams’ office with two cots and two people in those cots, and into the private room with not quite a bed for two but certainly bigger than a cot. He crawled under the covers and pressed his face in Rianya’s neck and hair, encircling her with one arm, and counted maybe three sheep before he crashed.

A palpable, collective hustle throughout sick bay prevented Jackson from sleeping beyond 07:00.  It reminded him of a summer camp dormitory. Never having been other than an officer in the navy, sharing was not a large part of his life experience. Even in college he paired, but didn’t group. This morning, he was twelve, and nine other kids were all up before he was.

Rianya slept away. He envied her ability to tune out superfluous racket in order to stay in the land of nod. He wouldn’t wake her unless the room was on fire, so he prepped for the day, dressed in informal uniform, and headed into the fray.

Outside the door, Adam’s office was empty of sleepers, so he ventured a little further into the treatment room. Here the source of all commotion thrived.

“Papá,” came Zalara’s familiar little voice. She hugged him as high as her arms could reach. He hefted her to chest level, a weary captain morphing into a cheerful father.

“Did you have fun last night?”

“Yes. Can Honey come and live with us again?”

“You’re going to have a sister pretty soon. I think Bailey really needs to have her live with them. You can always play, and go to school together.” The girl suddenly put her palm against Tom’s forehead.

“Okay. No ‘lectricity. The new baby said she wants to get out soon.”

“What?”

“She talks to me. All I have to do is listen.”

He gazed at her eyes, a fanciful emerald color but with the scalloped pupils that looked like her mother’s. She stared back at him, then squirmed to be released.

“Captain, coffee is ready,” Bailey said, walking up to the two of them.

“Hi Bailey. Where’s Honey?”

“She’s still in bed, but you can go get her, just be really quiet and not wake up Mr. Keith.” The girl darted off, weaving between people carrying plates for breakfast and those still in the line. The two adults watched her trot away.

“Thank you. I’ll be right there.”

“Is Rianya up?” He shook his head and offered her a look of disbelief.

“Bailey, you’ve cut your hair,” he said suddenly, noticing that she wore a bob instead of the long locks she’d come aboard with.

“When you’re me, you don’t have time to play with hair. I play with Honey and Zalara’s hair instead. Come on, let’s get you fixed up.”