“I’m not hoping for anything. I don’t need anything.”
Patel watched this exchange, trying desperately to find some secure purchase. But none of it made any damn sense. It was both irritating and exhausting. And on some level, so like Gwyn, who until very recently never seemed to have a thought in the world that wasn’t about herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I was a part of whatever is happening to you now. I’m sorry if my choice forced you to do something you didn’t want to. Most of all, I’m sorry you don’t feel like you can trust me to understand.” She rose from her chair. “But there’s only so much I can take responsibility for and so many things I can apologize for. Excuse me.”
With that, she left the mess hall. She was confused, hurt, and angry. Patel hadn’t had that many friends when this mission began. Lasren and Gwyn were certainly among them. And she could see that Kenth was struggling to walk a difficult line.
Not long ago, she had decided that duty was all that mattered to her, not thinking of the long-term consequences, as she didn’t expect to be around to suffer them. Gwyn had changed that. She had saved her life. But somehow that choice had broken something between them Patel doubted could ever be repaired.
Once duty had been all that mattered. Now she wondered if it might be all she had left.
13
GALEN
“I have no idea how long I was out,” Lieutenant Ranson Velth said through parched lips. He had been brought to a private room in the medical bay where only the Doctor, Commander Glenn, and Lieutenant Kim were present. The EMH was in the process of completing a full-body scan as Glenn and Kim questioned Velth gently. “And it was pretty confusing when I woke up, because I didn’t seem to have any trouble breathing.”
Velth’s EV suit had been removed and placed behind a level-ten force field as soon as alien bio-matter had been detected that had fused with the suit. That matter had apparently been responsible for saving Velth’s life. The small black “plugs,” as Kim had christened them, were tiny photosynthesis powerhouses. They had functioned as oxygen generators, removing carbon dioxide Velth exhaled while simultaneously capturing and filtering out the excess carbon molecules. A larger patch of alien material had been found on his right arm that had been responsible for providing sufficient amounts of water to keep the lieutenant alive for the duration of his spacewalk. It had punctured the suit, somehow cauterized the breaches, and wrapped itself around Velth’s arm, injecting the necessary fluid directly into his veins. Apart from an unusual tightness and constant itching sensation on the arm, Velth hadn’t even been aware that the alien substance had become part of his body. He had been barely conscious when the “IV” was revealed, and as soon as he saw it, he became alert and distressed. Almost immediately upon being exposed to the atmosphere of the ship, it had withered and fallen from his body of its own accord. It, too, was now being studied using extreme safety precautions.
“They kept you alive,” Glenn reminded him.
Velth nodded somberly. Despite the efforts of the Edrehmaia, he was severely dehydrated and 1.5 percent of his body weight had been lost. He had not ingested solid nutrients for almost six days.
“They did more than that. They gave me a guided tour of the area.”
“How many of them are out there?” Kim asked.
“Thousands,” Velth replied. “Maybe more. I know this will sound speciesist as hell, but they all look alike to me. Five of them were always nearby. John, Paul, George, and Ringo were almost impossible to tell apart. Eventually I settled for referring to them as the ‘fab four.’ But the fifth one, Pete, was a little different.”
“Different how?” Kim asked.
“I kept thinking that the lights, the flashes, had some meaning, but I’ll be damned if I ever figured it out. With the fab four, it was like a damned kaleidoscope whenever I looked at them, but after the first few days, Pete’s flashes were only white. They came in short bursts, one, two, sometimes three times.”
“Was there anything else unusual about Pete?” Kim asked.
“He stayed closer to me than the others, always at my right hand. I think he was my designated navigator. He seemed more curious about me than the others. Sometimes he would just sit there for hours at a time—or what felt like hours. The display on my suit was fried, so I really wasn’t clear on the passage of time. He would flash a single time. Then wait awhile and do it again. I told him about the Beatles. I even sang a bunch of their songs to him. I think he liked it even though I have a terrible voice. ‘Yellow Submarine’ was his favorite. Whenever I sang, that’s when the flashes would come in different patterns. But like I said, if he was trying to tell me something, I never understood it and without interfacing directly with my suit, I can’t imagine that he could hear or understand me. It was comforting, though, in a way. Made me feel like he cared, you know?”
“Maybe he did,” Kim said. “Clearly they took you with some intention. And they went to great lengths to make sure you could survive with them.”
“Yes and no,” Velth said. “I mean, there wasn’t anything to eat, so I wasn’t going to last forever out there. And I still don’t know why they brought me back. I asked a thousand times for them to return me to the ship but either they didn’t want to or didn’t understand.”
“What else did they show you?” Glenn asked.
“There are thousands of baby stars out there. And they’re not forming naturally. The Edrehmaia are creating them and nursing them. I actually watched a group of a dozen or so circle up and hold hands.”
“Hands?” Kim
