Memento Mori, Chapter 03
Nov. 7th, 2011 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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memento_mori_11 Hesger was a rather attractive planet, Rae considered, as the globe he was approaching slowly grew to fill his viewing screen. All green and blue, strung with chains of patchy island continents, swirled with the white of clouds. Small wonder the place had been so popular among holidaymakers, before the disease escaped from the science institute trying to cure it.
He followed Happenstance's particulate trace down until the atmosphere obscured it, but the lack of chemical trace available to his vessel's sensors ultimately turned out to be irrelevant. Away in the distance, in the direction he was heading, he could see what looked like rising smoke – an unhealthily ragged black banner among the squat distant mountains, advertising the scale of the problem to anyone that cared to look.
Even before he got there, more evidence was accumulating to make it clear that Happenstance hadn't had a good time of it. Although she had similarly avoided being shot down by the quarantine net, something had gone wrong – the rocks on his approach were scraped and blackened, and scattered with chunks of plating and other detritus that looked like they had been torn from some form of stellar vessel. At least – he breathed a sigh of relief – none of the scattered chunks of debris looked to have come from Blink.
At last, he crested a hilltop, and there, propped precariously in a gully, with only the stand of rocks piercing her command cabin preventing her skidding all the way down into the river at the bottom, was Happenstance. She was bigger than Rae had imagined her to be – several times bigger than Squib, definitely, a good-sized stellar yacht that would have easily housed a good twenty crewmen. Which begged the question, what were they putting in the places that should have been occupied by the twelve crew they lacked?
Rae brought Squib down close to get a good look at what remained of the ship, and winced. What must it have been like, he wondered, being aboard as the ship cartwheeled untidily down the mountainside? If they're not all dead after this, I'll make sure they end up that way, for subjecting Bee to this.
The fire on board seemed to have gone out, but the massive rent in the vehicle's crushed side still leaked thin skeins of black smoke. The wings had become a twisted mess, folded and buckled, and the engines were so comprehensively smashed, it was as if they had been held in some giant fist and squeezed into a ball.
“Hello?” he called, using his little runabout's loud-hailer. “Hello, is there anyone there? Is anyone alive?”
The vessel remained silent.
“I'm not here in any official capacity! I saw you crash!” A white lie wouldn't hurt if it encouraged them to come out of hiding. “Hello? Is anyone there!”
Still nothing. Only one thing for it. He was going to have to board the stricken vessel, and hope someone was alive and awake enough to tell him what had happened. He found the flattest, most stable piece of rock he could, and carefully set his ship down on it.
“All right, Squibby. Lock down all essential systems until I get back, yeah?” He snagged a little palm-sized computer out of a compartment under the pilot's station, and hastily downloaded what he hoped would be useful data on Hesger, just in case he was stuck here for a little longer than he'd have liked – night-time temperatures, hours of darkness, local dangers.
“Computer locked,” the computer acknowledged, while he worked. “Engines locked. Fuel locked. Your access cipher will be required for release. Confirm security?”
“Aye, security confirmed.” As an added safety measure, Rae leaned through into the engine compartment, and manually disconnected the fuel supply, pocketing the connector array. “Right. Let's see what we've got...”
Stepping outside of his little ship, it was immediately apparent how cold it was up here. “Brr!” Rae wrapped his arms around himself.
For all the holes riddling the vessel's flanks and underside, getting aboard was surprisingly difficult – the ragged-edged tears bit at his fingers and legs as he tried to pass them. “Hello hello? Argh, ouch. Is anyone aboard?” At last he managed to find a place where the damage was smooth enough to climb over, and scrambled aboard.
As if the damage outside wasn't bad enough to show the crash had been fairly spectacular, it looked like the whole interior of the vessel had been picked up, shaken around, and thrown back down. Broken equipment and household objects lay strewn across the floors and pooled in untidy heaps close to the walls where the deck sloped downwards. More disconcertingly, perhaps, were the smears of dark purple-black on the walls – the precise colour of dried laima blood, in fact.
“What a mess,” Rae murmured quietly to himself, picking his way carefully across the floor, trying to avoid lacerating the pads of his feet on chunks of broken glass. “Hello? Anyone here?”
His nose led him to the cabin. Still in the pilot's seat was what was left of the pilot – impaled in place by the control column. Rae felt his stomach lurch and his hand flew up to cover his mouth. “Ugh, gods.” The dead spur's head lolled backwards at an impossible angle, his eyes gone white and his skin bloating, putrefying. He didn't smell too fragrant, either, Rae noted, backing out of the cabin to find a place to vomit up his meagre breakfast. (He had to close the door behind him, so the smell couldn't follow him out of the cabin.)
He checked every cabin religiously, but that one stinking, rotting, bloated body was the only evidence that there had ever been anyone else aboard. Everything else had been too rigorously turned over in the crash for him to get any ideas off. Maybe this... this supposed mistress Larissa... had never existed in the first place! Maybe it was just one crazy spur, who'd kebab'ed himself in the pilot's chair. Except, of course, that didn't account for the sweeping smears of blood that marred so many of the walls. Rae didn't really want to think about what they all signified. Had one of them gone crazy, killed his – or her – shipmates? Or perhaps some hungry local predator had got aboard. Decided they'd make good snacks. It could still be lurking aboard, even now.
And they probably jettisoned Blink somewhere between here and tiao'I spaceport, he sighed, brushing his fingers through his hair. It's not like this ship was built for passengers her size. I should have told Squib to look out for her body.
The hold was the last place to check. And probably, he reminded himself, the only place Blink would even have fitted, short of crawling around on all fours. He peered cautiously around the door. “...helloo?”
The big blue femme was very clearly absent. Not even one of the great slumping heaps of boxes could have hidden her bulky frame. Everything had probably been stacked neatly, once upon a time, but right now the hold matched the rest of the ship. Although a few of the boxes had kept their grip on their mountings, the crash tore most of them free, and a great cluttered heap of them made the deck impossible to pass without some amount of climbing. Their contents spilled out all over the deck, like the guts of the pilot-... Rae had to take a second to fight off another great wave of disorienting nausea. Damn. He'd always been so proud of his iron constitution, but the sight of that poor dead guy was going to haunt him for weeks.
Steeling his nerve, he clambered over the mound partially blocking the doorway... Nothing. The hold was empty. He sighed, tiredly, and turned to go-
And caught a glimpse of toes. Laima toes. Laima toes gone very pale blue with cold.
“Aw, damn-...” Rae flinched away, involuntarily. Not another body, no, don't look, don't look-
But he looked anyway, and it turned out to be a good thing he did. Tucked into a kind of den between two crates, huddled down with its limbs all twisted up around itself, and almost invisible where it had burrowed away between the wreckage, was the body of a scrawny little fessine – filthy, inexplicably naked, skin chalky white.
Wait. Wait, no. Was that a body? Not only would a body have become discoloured and started to stink, by now, it was shivering.
Dead bodies, to the best of Rae's knowledge, didn't shiver.
He stumbled over, alarmed by his discovery but determined to help. “Hey. Hey! You still alive in there?” Why hadn't she responded to his earlier shouts? Shivering didn't mean she wasn't a few minutes away from dying of exposure, after all. Or perhaps she was scared. Didn't dare, because of the mysterious carnivorous wildlife that had eaten the rest of the crew. (Rae had to chance a quick look back over his shoulder, just in case. Nothing there. Good.)
“Hey, sweetheart. Can you hear me?” he wondered, softly, brushing his fingers gently down her leg; it was like touching a marble statue. “It's all right. I'm a friend. I'm here to help. Can you hear me?”
At long last, she moved, lifting her head jerkily to look up at him. Her lips trembled with cold as she tried to speak; she managed nothing more than an incomprehensible croak. Her shaggy mop of unruly dirty blonde hair obscured much of her face, but it was hard to miss those unbelievable, unnatural blue eyes.
Maybe a little rich girl, Rae immediately wondered, stowing away to escape a forced marriage? It was the only way she'd have got access to such ultra-expensive genetic therapy to change the colour of her irises like that, because no laima Rae had ever met had blue eyes – and not such a delicate, attractive turquoise-y shade, either. Or maybe she'd been kidnapped, too – she'd definitely been bumped around. A tracery of bluish-purple scratches turned her skin into a patchwork. A hostage, maybe? Held until a ransom was filled?
Curiosity would have to wait – the poor thing looked absolutely frozen. No surprise, really, in the unheated, badly-insulated hold. Her lips, her eartips and toes had all gone an unwholesome shade of blue, stark against her cold white skin, and her fingertips – hidden where she'd tucked her hands down against herself – were probably similar. She'd shed her clothing, too, which Rae had heard hypothermic people tended to do. He had to get her warmed up, and as soon as possible – but where, on this exposed, chilly mountaintop? Squib wasn't exactly designed with first aid in mind.
He recalled that a couple of the cabins didn't look too bad; that would be as good a place as any to get this frozen waif warmed up and steered away from death. The floor was covered in debris, sure, but he could sweep that away. More importantly, the room's structural integrity was still good, and it was better insulated against the cold.
“Come on, hon…” He ferreted through the broken crates and came up with a dirty blanket, which he spread carefully around her shoulders. The blue material was threadbare and more ‘hole’ than fabric, but it’d do in a pinch. “You can’t sit down here. We'll get you somewhere more comfortable and warmed up, all right?”
She croaked again, jerking her head in a single convulsive nod, and made a valiant effort at getting up, but her bandy knees refused to support her. Rae slipped under her arm to prop her up, but her feet still dragged, awkwardly.
“Look, I'm going to carry you,” he told her, gently, so as not to spook her. “All right?” After another nod, he carefully scooped her up off the floor, and carried her out of the hold, trying to ignore the chilly flesh he could feel pressed up against his exposed skin – she felt like a corpse already. Better not be too late. She's the only chance I have to find out where Blink is.
The cabin didn't feel much warmer than the hold, but at least had the potential to be comfortable, full of blankets and cushions. The mysterious, absent Madame Larissa's bedroom, Rae presumed, bundling the small laima in a quilt and arranging a nest of cushions on the floor for her; she flopped down in a heap the instant he'd released his hold on her, twisting the quilt tighter around herself.
Well, at least she looked a little less dead now, he consoled himself, going to see what he could find in the cupboards. With all the systems dead, the life-support heaters weren't running, leaving the bedroom almost as cold as the hold, but there were plenty of insulating materials around and if all else failed, he and the strange woman could decamp with her heap of blankets back to Squib and get her warmed up over there.
“Aha! Here we go.” Triumphantly, he emerged from the walk-in cupboard with an emergency heater. “I found something that should warm you up a little.” He set the portable stove down in front of her, and turned it on. Warm air immediately flooded the cabin, ruffling her stringy hair, and she leaned involuntarily closer, letting it wash over her. Her quilt ballooned up around her as it filled with warmth.
“Listen, I need to find my friend. Will you be all right here on your own?”
She nodded, jerkily.
“As you can't exactly stay nude, I'll leave you with some clothing to look through. There should be something in this whole mess that'll fit you, right?” Rae tried to smile, reassuringly. “It won't be for long, anyway. As soon as I've got this figured out, we can set off back to tiao'I. You should be able to make your own way pretty safely from there.”
“Th-... thank you,” she whispered, creakily.
Although still anxious by this new development, and not really wanting to leave such a vulnerable creature on her own, Rae knew he had to get to the bottom of what was going on. He backed his way out of the cabin and drew the door stiffly back most of the way. If there was a predator aboard somehow, the half-frozen little fessine would be completely unprotected if he left it wide open.
Standing in what was once probably the entry atrium, Rae realised he was something at a loss. “Where are you, Bee?” he wondered, tiredly, scratching the back of his neck with a sigh. “Did they really just... boot you out of an airlock or something, somewhere on the way?”
Dispirited, he set out on a second tour of the ruined space-ship. There really wasn't anywhere that a giant robot could have been stashed, but a horrible thought kept niggling at him. What if she'd collapsed on duty? She'd been engaged to refit the core, right? What if she'd been trapped in the engine room, and even now lay mangled in the twisted mess that remained?
The massive heavy door looked like the only part of the entire ship that hadn't suffered any damage in the crash, Rae mused, struggling to disengage the locks and open it up. He hoped it wasn't a bad idea – but he had to check. Just a quick peek wouldn't hurt, surely?
“...Yikes.” Just one glimpse and even a baggage handler who admitted to zero engineering knowledge knew that this didn't look right. The enormous spherical core was cracked, most of the way around, and some kind of... grey-black sludge... had spilled out. Deep down inside the crack, he could see the reflected blue glow of Cherenkov radiation. He dithered awkwardly in the doorway; he knew just setting foot into the room would probably be a very bad thing for him, but what if Blink was trapped in that mess, somewhere? Even if you DO look, and she IS trapped, his sensible side reminded, snidely. It's not like you'll be able to do anything to help her. Or were you forgetting that she alone weighs more than your truck? And that's ignoring that the engine core is infinitely heavier-
A noise from outside attracted his attention.
Oh, no. Oh no no no! That sounded like Squib. Stung into action, Rae lunged for the hole in the ship's side-
He could only stand and watch, despair in the pit of his stomach, as his little runabout lifted gracefully off the smooth rock, two scruffy, frightened looking spurs in her cabin, and swung her way quietly skywards. The fates were clearly all conspiring to prove Valdis correct. Not that he could exactly call Val and tell him so, not now his radio had departed. He sighed and sat down with a heavy flop in the makeshift doorway.
What was possibly most frustrating about it all, it wasn't even as if they'd get anywhere! So what if they'd successfully hacked the computer. Unless they had the same fuel assembly microconnector stashed away somewhere – and the exact same make and model as the one still in his pocket? – they'd only have enough fuel to get them just past orbit. And since they'd presumably got into the computer through a “backdoor” redundancy, the main system wasn't even turned on, so it wouldn't be able to tell them that available fuel was critical. Squib would just... grind to a halt, life-support would drop slowly away, and they'd probably run out of heat and oxygen (not to mention light) before they could cobble a new assembly together.
He wasn't sure if it was more infuriating that they'd taken the vessel, leaving him stranded – and he still hadn't quite processed that little factoid, yet – or that they'd taken the vessel, for no reason except to strand themselves in it. At least, he consoled himself, quietly, they wouldn't be exporting the disease.
Of course, it now begged the question. What in all the holies' names was he going to do now? He still hadn't found his friend, and now he was stranded! So he couldn't even call Val, and tell him what had happened. No friend, no radio, and no way off the planet.
Well, actually, that wasn't all strictly true; he glanced down the corridor are the mostly-closed door. He might still have a friend. And if they were careful, they might be able to get down to a town, where they might even be able to find a radio. Hopefully.
The fessine looked warmer, at least, when he returned to the warmth of her room – still shivering, a little, but the horrible blue paleness had vanished from her skin, leaving her looking a far healthier pink. She'd managed to find some underwear that fitted her lower half, but that was about all, so far.
“How are you doing?” he wondered, tiredly, sitting on a discarded cushion near the heater and watching her struggling awkwardly with a loose shirt. He had to work hard at not staring at her underclothed chest – a bra for those dainty breasts was probably overkill, but they were still breasts and they were still very much on show. Stop it, you useless spur, he scolded, inwardly. Now is not the time.
“N-... not... easy,” she protested, croakily. “Not-... not done this... before.” She successfully got her other arm down a sleeve and pulled the shirt closed.
“Yeah, I know what you mean, I don't think I've ever had to get dressed after freezing half to death, either.”
That wasn't just the cold making her shake, though, he realised. Her co-ordination was terrible, and her hands lacked dexterity. She looked almost like he imagined a person would after waking up from a very long sleep – having to remind herself of everything she used to know how to do.
“So. How are you feeling?” he prompted, gently, hoping to get a better clue from her. “Any better?”
“...cold.”
Her voice was... oddly familiar... but while she refused to use it, he was having trouble working out why. “You'll be all right in a little while. What were you doing down there, anyway?”
“Just... where they put me.” She picked up a pair of trousers and studied them, carefully.
Well that confirmed his suspicions, at least. “So you were a prisoner.”
“...yes.”
Rae narrowed his eyes. “Have we met before?” he challenged, at last.
She didn't look up, concentrating on trying to insert her legs into a pair of trousers. “Yes.”
And yet, he couldn't work out who she was. And he should have remembered such weird eyes, if nothing else. He sighed. “Here. Let me help you with those-...”
Leaning closer, he noticed the two small, irregular scars on her leg, just above her ankle-
An uneasy, crawling sensation made the hairs on the back of his neck all prickle up. Although he didn’t want to confirm the suspicion that had now seeded firmly in his mind, he knew he had to, and at last, he looked at her. Really, properly looked at her, determined to get to the bottom of why he couldn't shake that sensation of knowing her.
When the realisation sank in, it came complete with a nauseating sensation like a hook twisting in his gut. The blue eyes, the comprehensive tracery of scars, the voice... the complete and total disappearance of the woman he was looking for...
Rae swallowed over the doubt in his throat. “Is... is that you, Blink?” He could hardly believe what he was asking.
She glanced up at him, offered the tiniest of nods in response, then got straight back to trying to get dressed.
11947 ♥ 50000
He followed Happenstance's particulate trace down until the atmosphere obscured it, but the lack of chemical trace available to his vessel's sensors ultimately turned out to be irrelevant. Away in the distance, in the direction he was heading, he could see what looked like rising smoke – an unhealthily ragged black banner among the squat distant mountains, advertising the scale of the problem to anyone that cared to look.
Even before he got there, more evidence was accumulating to make it clear that Happenstance hadn't had a good time of it. Although she had similarly avoided being shot down by the quarantine net, something had gone wrong – the rocks on his approach were scraped and blackened, and scattered with chunks of plating and other detritus that looked like they had been torn from some form of stellar vessel. At least – he breathed a sigh of relief – none of the scattered chunks of debris looked to have come from Blink.
At last, he crested a hilltop, and there, propped precariously in a gully, with only the stand of rocks piercing her command cabin preventing her skidding all the way down into the river at the bottom, was Happenstance. She was bigger than Rae had imagined her to be – several times bigger than Squib, definitely, a good-sized stellar yacht that would have easily housed a good twenty crewmen. Which begged the question, what were they putting in the places that should have been occupied by the twelve crew they lacked?
Rae brought Squib down close to get a good look at what remained of the ship, and winced. What must it have been like, he wondered, being aboard as the ship cartwheeled untidily down the mountainside? If they're not all dead after this, I'll make sure they end up that way, for subjecting Bee to this.
The fire on board seemed to have gone out, but the massive rent in the vehicle's crushed side still leaked thin skeins of black smoke. The wings had become a twisted mess, folded and buckled, and the engines were so comprehensively smashed, it was as if they had been held in some giant fist and squeezed into a ball.
“Hello?” he called, using his little runabout's loud-hailer. “Hello, is there anyone there? Is anyone alive?”
The vessel remained silent.
“I'm not here in any official capacity! I saw you crash!” A white lie wouldn't hurt if it encouraged them to come out of hiding. “Hello? Is anyone there!”
Still nothing. Only one thing for it. He was going to have to board the stricken vessel, and hope someone was alive and awake enough to tell him what had happened. He found the flattest, most stable piece of rock he could, and carefully set his ship down on it.
“All right, Squibby. Lock down all essential systems until I get back, yeah?” He snagged a little palm-sized computer out of a compartment under the pilot's station, and hastily downloaded what he hoped would be useful data on Hesger, just in case he was stuck here for a little longer than he'd have liked – night-time temperatures, hours of darkness, local dangers.
“Computer locked,” the computer acknowledged, while he worked. “Engines locked. Fuel locked. Your access cipher will be required for release. Confirm security?”
“Aye, security confirmed.” As an added safety measure, Rae leaned through into the engine compartment, and manually disconnected the fuel supply, pocketing the connector array. “Right. Let's see what we've got...”
Stepping outside of his little ship, it was immediately apparent how cold it was up here. “Brr!” Rae wrapped his arms around himself.
For all the holes riddling the vessel's flanks and underside, getting aboard was surprisingly difficult – the ragged-edged tears bit at his fingers and legs as he tried to pass them. “Hello hello? Argh, ouch. Is anyone aboard?” At last he managed to find a place where the damage was smooth enough to climb over, and scrambled aboard.
As if the damage outside wasn't bad enough to show the crash had been fairly spectacular, it looked like the whole interior of the vessel had been picked up, shaken around, and thrown back down. Broken equipment and household objects lay strewn across the floors and pooled in untidy heaps close to the walls where the deck sloped downwards. More disconcertingly, perhaps, were the smears of dark purple-black on the walls – the precise colour of dried laima blood, in fact.
“What a mess,” Rae murmured quietly to himself, picking his way carefully across the floor, trying to avoid lacerating the pads of his feet on chunks of broken glass. “Hello? Anyone here?”
His nose led him to the cabin. Still in the pilot's seat was what was left of the pilot – impaled in place by the control column. Rae felt his stomach lurch and his hand flew up to cover his mouth. “Ugh, gods.” The dead spur's head lolled backwards at an impossible angle, his eyes gone white and his skin bloating, putrefying. He didn't smell too fragrant, either, Rae noted, backing out of the cabin to find a place to vomit up his meagre breakfast. (He had to close the door behind him, so the smell couldn't follow him out of the cabin.)
He checked every cabin religiously, but that one stinking, rotting, bloated body was the only evidence that there had ever been anyone else aboard. Everything else had been too rigorously turned over in the crash for him to get any ideas off. Maybe this... this supposed mistress Larissa... had never existed in the first place! Maybe it was just one crazy spur, who'd kebab'ed himself in the pilot's chair. Except, of course, that didn't account for the sweeping smears of blood that marred so many of the walls. Rae didn't really want to think about what they all signified. Had one of them gone crazy, killed his – or her – shipmates? Or perhaps some hungry local predator had got aboard. Decided they'd make good snacks. It could still be lurking aboard, even now.
And they probably jettisoned Blink somewhere between here and tiao'I spaceport, he sighed, brushing his fingers through his hair. It's not like this ship was built for passengers her size. I should have told Squib to look out for her body.
The hold was the last place to check. And probably, he reminded himself, the only place Blink would even have fitted, short of crawling around on all fours. He peered cautiously around the door. “...helloo?”
The big blue femme was very clearly absent. Not even one of the great slumping heaps of boxes could have hidden her bulky frame. Everything had probably been stacked neatly, once upon a time, but right now the hold matched the rest of the ship. Although a few of the boxes had kept their grip on their mountings, the crash tore most of them free, and a great cluttered heap of them made the deck impossible to pass without some amount of climbing. Their contents spilled out all over the deck, like the guts of the pilot-... Rae had to take a second to fight off another great wave of disorienting nausea. Damn. He'd always been so proud of his iron constitution, but the sight of that poor dead guy was going to haunt him for weeks.
Steeling his nerve, he clambered over the mound partially blocking the doorway... Nothing. The hold was empty. He sighed, tiredly, and turned to go-
And caught a glimpse of toes. Laima toes. Laima toes gone very pale blue with cold.
“Aw, damn-...” Rae flinched away, involuntarily. Not another body, no, don't look, don't look-
But he looked anyway, and it turned out to be a good thing he did. Tucked into a kind of den between two crates, huddled down with its limbs all twisted up around itself, and almost invisible where it had burrowed away between the wreckage, was the body of a scrawny little fessine – filthy, inexplicably naked, skin chalky white.
Wait. Wait, no. Was that a body? Not only would a body have become discoloured and started to stink, by now, it was shivering.
Dead bodies, to the best of Rae's knowledge, didn't shiver.
He stumbled over, alarmed by his discovery but determined to help. “Hey. Hey! You still alive in there?” Why hadn't she responded to his earlier shouts? Shivering didn't mean she wasn't a few minutes away from dying of exposure, after all. Or perhaps she was scared. Didn't dare, because of the mysterious carnivorous wildlife that had eaten the rest of the crew. (Rae had to chance a quick look back over his shoulder, just in case. Nothing there. Good.)
“Hey, sweetheart. Can you hear me?” he wondered, softly, brushing his fingers gently down her leg; it was like touching a marble statue. “It's all right. I'm a friend. I'm here to help. Can you hear me?”
At long last, she moved, lifting her head jerkily to look up at him. Her lips trembled with cold as she tried to speak; she managed nothing more than an incomprehensible croak. Her shaggy mop of unruly dirty blonde hair obscured much of her face, but it was hard to miss those unbelievable, unnatural blue eyes.
Maybe a little rich girl, Rae immediately wondered, stowing away to escape a forced marriage? It was the only way she'd have got access to such ultra-expensive genetic therapy to change the colour of her irises like that, because no laima Rae had ever met had blue eyes – and not such a delicate, attractive turquoise-y shade, either. Or maybe she'd been kidnapped, too – she'd definitely been bumped around. A tracery of bluish-purple scratches turned her skin into a patchwork. A hostage, maybe? Held until a ransom was filled?
Curiosity would have to wait – the poor thing looked absolutely frozen. No surprise, really, in the unheated, badly-insulated hold. Her lips, her eartips and toes had all gone an unwholesome shade of blue, stark against her cold white skin, and her fingertips – hidden where she'd tucked her hands down against herself – were probably similar. She'd shed her clothing, too, which Rae had heard hypothermic people tended to do. He had to get her warmed up, and as soon as possible – but where, on this exposed, chilly mountaintop? Squib wasn't exactly designed with first aid in mind.
He recalled that a couple of the cabins didn't look too bad; that would be as good a place as any to get this frozen waif warmed up and steered away from death. The floor was covered in debris, sure, but he could sweep that away. More importantly, the room's structural integrity was still good, and it was better insulated against the cold.
“Come on, hon…” He ferreted through the broken crates and came up with a dirty blanket, which he spread carefully around her shoulders. The blue material was threadbare and more ‘hole’ than fabric, but it’d do in a pinch. “You can’t sit down here. We'll get you somewhere more comfortable and warmed up, all right?”
She croaked again, jerking her head in a single convulsive nod, and made a valiant effort at getting up, but her bandy knees refused to support her. Rae slipped under her arm to prop her up, but her feet still dragged, awkwardly.
“Look, I'm going to carry you,” he told her, gently, so as not to spook her. “All right?” After another nod, he carefully scooped her up off the floor, and carried her out of the hold, trying to ignore the chilly flesh he could feel pressed up against his exposed skin – she felt like a corpse already. Better not be too late. She's the only chance I have to find out where Blink is.
The cabin didn't feel much warmer than the hold, but at least had the potential to be comfortable, full of blankets and cushions. The mysterious, absent Madame Larissa's bedroom, Rae presumed, bundling the small laima in a quilt and arranging a nest of cushions on the floor for her; she flopped down in a heap the instant he'd released his hold on her, twisting the quilt tighter around herself.
Well, at least she looked a little less dead now, he consoled himself, going to see what he could find in the cupboards. With all the systems dead, the life-support heaters weren't running, leaving the bedroom almost as cold as the hold, but there were plenty of insulating materials around and if all else failed, he and the strange woman could decamp with her heap of blankets back to Squib and get her warmed up over there.
“Aha! Here we go.” Triumphantly, he emerged from the walk-in cupboard with an emergency heater. “I found something that should warm you up a little.” He set the portable stove down in front of her, and turned it on. Warm air immediately flooded the cabin, ruffling her stringy hair, and she leaned involuntarily closer, letting it wash over her. Her quilt ballooned up around her as it filled with warmth.
“Listen, I need to find my friend. Will you be all right here on your own?”
She nodded, jerkily.
“As you can't exactly stay nude, I'll leave you with some clothing to look through. There should be something in this whole mess that'll fit you, right?” Rae tried to smile, reassuringly. “It won't be for long, anyway. As soon as I've got this figured out, we can set off back to tiao'I. You should be able to make your own way pretty safely from there.”
“Th-... thank you,” she whispered, creakily.
Although still anxious by this new development, and not really wanting to leave such a vulnerable creature on her own, Rae knew he had to get to the bottom of what was going on. He backed his way out of the cabin and drew the door stiffly back most of the way. If there was a predator aboard somehow, the half-frozen little fessine would be completely unprotected if he left it wide open.
Standing in what was once probably the entry atrium, Rae realised he was something at a loss. “Where are you, Bee?” he wondered, tiredly, scratching the back of his neck with a sigh. “Did they really just... boot you out of an airlock or something, somewhere on the way?”
Dispirited, he set out on a second tour of the ruined space-ship. There really wasn't anywhere that a giant robot could have been stashed, but a horrible thought kept niggling at him. What if she'd collapsed on duty? She'd been engaged to refit the core, right? What if she'd been trapped in the engine room, and even now lay mangled in the twisted mess that remained?
The massive heavy door looked like the only part of the entire ship that hadn't suffered any damage in the crash, Rae mused, struggling to disengage the locks and open it up. He hoped it wasn't a bad idea – but he had to check. Just a quick peek wouldn't hurt, surely?
“...Yikes.” Just one glimpse and even a baggage handler who admitted to zero engineering knowledge knew that this didn't look right. The enormous spherical core was cracked, most of the way around, and some kind of... grey-black sludge... had spilled out. Deep down inside the crack, he could see the reflected blue glow of Cherenkov radiation. He dithered awkwardly in the doorway; he knew just setting foot into the room would probably be a very bad thing for him, but what if Blink was trapped in that mess, somewhere? Even if you DO look, and she IS trapped, his sensible side reminded, snidely. It's not like you'll be able to do anything to help her. Or were you forgetting that she alone weighs more than your truck? And that's ignoring that the engine core is infinitely heavier-
A noise from outside attracted his attention.
Oh, no. Oh no no no! That sounded like Squib. Stung into action, Rae lunged for the hole in the ship's side-
He could only stand and watch, despair in the pit of his stomach, as his little runabout lifted gracefully off the smooth rock, two scruffy, frightened looking spurs in her cabin, and swung her way quietly skywards. The fates were clearly all conspiring to prove Valdis correct. Not that he could exactly call Val and tell him so, not now his radio had departed. He sighed and sat down with a heavy flop in the makeshift doorway.
What was possibly most frustrating about it all, it wasn't even as if they'd get anywhere! So what if they'd successfully hacked the computer. Unless they had the same fuel assembly microconnector stashed away somewhere – and the exact same make and model as the one still in his pocket? – they'd only have enough fuel to get them just past orbit. And since they'd presumably got into the computer through a “backdoor” redundancy, the main system wasn't even turned on, so it wouldn't be able to tell them that available fuel was critical. Squib would just... grind to a halt, life-support would drop slowly away, and they'd probably run out of heat and oxygen (not to mention light) before they could cobble a new assembly together.
He wasn't sure if it was more infuriating that they'd taken the vessel, leaving him stranded – and he still hadn't quite processed that little factoid, yet – or that they'd taken the vessel, for no reason except to strand themselves in it. At least, he consoled himself, quietly, they wouldn't be exporting the disease.
Of course, it now begged the question. What in all the holies' names was he going to do now? He still hadn't found his friend, and now he was stranded! So he couldn't even call Val, and tell him what had happened. No friend, no radio, and no way off the planet.
Well, actually, that wasn't all strictly true; he glanced down the corridor are the mostly-closed door. He might still have a friend. And if they were careful, they might be able to get down to a town, where they might even be able to find a radio. Hopefully.
The fessine looked warmer, at least, when he returned to the warmth of her room – still shivering, a little, but the horrible blue paleness had vanished from her skin, leaving her looking a far healthier pink. She'd managed to find some underwear that fitted her lower half, but that was about all, so far.
“How are you doing?” he wondered, tiredly, sitting on a discarded cushion near the heater and watching her struggling awkwardly with a loose shirt. He had to work hard at not staring at her underclothed chest – a bra for those dainty breasts was probably overkill, but they were still breasts and they were still very much on show. Stop it, you useless spur, he scolded, inwardly. Now is not the time.
“N-... not... easy,” she protested, croakily. “Not-... not done this... before.” She successfully got her other arm down a sleeve and pulled the shirt closed.
“Yeah, I know what you mean, I don't think I've ever had to get dressed after freezing half to death, either.”
That wasn't just the cold making her shake, though, he realised. Her co-ordination was terrible, and her hands lacked dexterity. She looked almost like he imagined a person would after waking up from a very long sleep – having to remind herself of everything she used to know how to do.
“So. How are you feeling?” he prompted, gently, hoping to get a better clue from her. “Any better?”
“...cold.”
Her voice was... oddly familiar... but while she refused to use it, he was having trouble working out why. “You'll be all right in a little while. What were you doing down there, anyway?”
“Just... where they put me.” She picked up a pair of trousers and studied them, carefully.
Well that confirmed his suspicions, at least. “So you were a prisoner.”
“...yes.”
Rae narrowed his eyes. “Have we met before?” he challenged, at last.
She didn't look up, concentrating on trying to insert her legs into a pair of trousers. “Yes.”
And yet, he couldn't work out who she was. And he should have remembered such weird eyes, if nothing else. He sighed. “Here. Let me help you with those-...”
Leaning closer, he noticed the two small, irregular scars on her leg, just above her ankle-
An uneasy, crawling sensation made the hairs on the back of his neck all prickle up. Although he didn’t want to confirm the suspicion that had now seeded firmly in his mind, he knew he had to, and at last, he looked at her. Really, properly looked at her, determined to get to the bottom of why he couldn't shake that sensation of knowing her.
When the realisation sank in, it came complete with a nauseating sensation like a hook twisting in his gut. The blue eyes, the comprehensive tracery of scars, the voice... the complete and total disappearance of the woman he was looking for...
Rae swallowed over the doubt in his throat. “Is... is that you, Blink?” He could hardly believe what he was asking.
She glanced up at him, offered the tiniest of nods in response, then got straight back to trying to get dressed.