O’Malley. Yes, that was it. And Smith. I’m not trapped, but this tiny space is squeezing in on me.
“Um…can I get out?”
“Yes, hold on.”
Someone is nearby. Such a relief. I close my eyes and take deep breaths, try to control myself. So confined in here, so tight.
The white above my face splits down the middle, slides away to the sides. Spingate grins down at me. She’s dressed in black, just like O’Malley.
“Hello there, Sleeping Beauty!”
Someone else leans in next to her, smiling at me. It’s Smith, the skinny circle-cross girl with the short brown hair who was in Bishop’s group back on the Xolotl. She’s also wearing the black coveralls. Her gray eyes are so pretty.
“Your leg was badly wounded,” she says. “Spingate did a good job binding it, but there was only so much she could do in the field. You lost enough blood to make you dizzy. Or maybe you were just exhausted and stressed.”
“Leaders don’t get stressed,” I say.
Smith sighs. “As you like. How do you feel now? Better?”
I do. I take a deep breath. I don’t just feel better…I feel great. They help me sit up.
Cloth against my skin—I’m wearing black coveralls. I stretch my arms out, look myself up and down. The coveralls have long sleeves and many pockets. New black socks on my feet. Except for my face and hands, I’m completely covered. For the first time in my few days of life, I’m wearing clothes that fit. My hands are clean. I touch my face: also clean. And the big bump on my head…it’s almost gone. I tenderly try out my split lip—healed.
Smith and Spingate steady me as I step onto the floor. The room marked MEDICAL is small and white. There is a second coffin, open and empty. Both coffins are dark brown, glossy and clean. They are free of intricate carvings, but other than that, they look just like the one I fought my way out of on the Xolotl.
Off to the right, a single white pedestal with a red circle-cross engraved on the stem.
Smith taps the coffin’s edge. “Put your foot up here.”
She sounds as confident as Gaston does in the pilothouse. I do as I’m told.
She slides my pant leg up to my knee, touches my calf. She leans in, checks the area that was wounded. She squeezes the muscle and I wince.
Smith’s smile is full of pride.
“All better, Em. See for yourself.”
My calf is slightly bruised. There’s a thin pink line that shows me where the tear was, but it looks like the wound happened years ago.
“That’s amazing,” I say. “How did you know what to do?”
“Gaston said you wanted me to come in here and learn all I could. As soon as I started, some of those blank areas in my head filled in. I remembered medical classes, people teaching me things, and how to use the medical system. The machines perform most of the work, I just use the pedestal to ask questions and make a decision as to what needs to be done.”
Another person with recovered memories. Some, anyway, and these particular memories are critical to our survival. It feels good knowing that Smith is ready to take care of us.
She opens a cabinet, hands me a pair of black boots. It’s all I can do not to squeal with delight. As I put them on and start tying them, I look up at Spingate.
“Was I asleep long?”
“All night and half the day.”
That’s a long time. Too long.
“Has the spider shown up?”
Spin shakes her head. “Not yet, anyway. O’Malley made everyone stay inside the shuttle. He said that if it can stop attacks from the Grownups, it can probably stop the spiders.”
I finish tying my boots. I stand, put weight on my leg, bounce on it. My calf is sore, but feels so much better.
“Smith, you’re amazing.”
She blushes. She can be as modest as she likes, as long as she keeps fixing us up.
“Hey, where are my old clothes?”
Spingate’s face wrinkles. “Incinerated, I hope. Em, we stank.”
O’Malley brought me down here. My face flushes hot as I think of him seeing me naked.
“Who, um…who undressed me?”
“Don’t worry, the med-chamber did it,” Smith says, gesturing to the gleaming coffin. “It removed your old clothes, cleaned you up, treated your wounds, fed you intravenously, handled your waste and fixed your hair. It even put on your new clothes for you.”
She calls it a med-chamber? I like that, although I suspect she’ll be the only person to use