injected into her body. That she knew.
The moment the flexible tube shield slid into the side of the platform, a small thump hit her stomach and a warmth traipsed up her body and nuzzled her under her chin. You is BACK. You came back. I knews You would! You is strong and My heart friend! I will lie here on You and help!
Yes, soft fur, the smell of Pizi and mountain dust and brown-yellow weeds and … stars to come.
Tears spurted from Levona’s eyes.
“Here, then. Here.” A soft, soothing voice that matched the soft cloth that patted her face.
Her mouth … moved. She could move her mouth. “Almost died.”
A slight clearing of more than one throat. “Yes. We noted something went wrong almost immediately, but believed stopping the process would kill you.” A different woman’s voice. The first had belonged to the … to Donna … Clague.
This one, not snippy, came from Ava Quintana.
One of the men said, “We think the blend of the chemical mixture is off. Not sure why.”
“Let’s do a complete chem run, blood analysis, and other procedures,” Donna ordered, and whipped a spider-armed medical robot over the bed. It looked more like a torture device than an aid for human health. Levona managed to lift her hand and pet … no, just touch … Pizi, who breathed warm and vibrantly alive, atop her.
“Yes,” Levona croaked. “I felt … something wrong … one of the chemicals too much, I think, in my blood.”
Umar Clague came into view behind his lady. “We’ll debrief you and listen to your experience later.” A wintry smile, accompanied by a shake of his head. “After you also survive the awakening process and all the medical tests in the world.”
She’d have sighed, but even the small weight of Pizi compressed her chest.
“How long?” That seemed to be the last words she could speak.
“As long as we possibly could keep you for the test and still have a good idea of the results of the process, and report to the colonists on the other ships and keep to our timeline. This is dawn of the eighth day. We noted that you yet lived, and wanted to carry on with the experiment.”
Because Levona was expendable.
“Because we are all depending on the cryonics process to live.” Ava’s voice held a note of steel.
A pause, another dip of the head from Umar Clague. “We’ll be initiating the forty-eight-hour launch sequence at dawn tomorrow morning.”
Tongue thick, Levona said, “You didn’t give yourself much leeway to discover what went wrong with me.”
“No. But we knew something went wrong and continued the procedure and analyzed it as it went along. And you fought to stay alive. We observed that, too. And you lived. You gave us life, too. Most of us, under the same circumstances, would have fought. So, all in all, a good result,” Umar Clague finished.
The med-bot squeaked as it tried to work around Pizi. She hissed back.
“I’m sorry, Pizi, but we need to help Levona, help us all. I will be picking You up now,” Hoku said. Levona hadn’t seen him, but then her eyelids had fluttered shut. So exhausted.
“I fought for a week,” she whispered. Didn’t know if anyone heard her, then slid down a stone-lined hole to the darkness of sleep.
The rest of the day they pummeled her with tests, and she faded in and out of consciousness. Miserable except for the presence of Pizi. Later that afternoon she sat in the main conference room with the ten leaders, clothed in some soft undies, trousers and shirt, a donation from some unknown person that Megan had delivered to the medical bay. The clothes didn’t quite fit. But Levona’s pack sat propped against her chair legs, and Pizi purred on her lap.
“I’ll tell everything. I think one of the chemical amounts was too much, at least for me.” She blinked. “I could distinguish the problem. It showed up as one of the chemicals in my blood, not in the gas.”
“That’s correct,” Donna said. She bit her lip. “I’m sorry that the process didn’t go as smoothly as expected.” She stood, hands on table, and scanned everyone. “But I am convinced we’ve found the problem and remedied it.” With a smile at Levona, she said, “We relayed the fact we had a problem within the first hour to the leadership crew of the other ships and that prodded them to institute their own tests. Off-site for the NJNY crowd, they are still stringing along the local gov