Clarion: The Sequel to Voyage (Paul's Travels) by C. Paul Lockman

Author:C. Paul Lockman [Lockman, C. Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Holdrian Press
Published: 2015-12-21T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17: Phoenix Reborn

It was silent except for the distant hum of ventilation fans. She became aware of them as she began her slow swim upward, regaining the sensations in her throat and mouth, in her fingers and toes, welcoming the gradual unfreezing of her central nervous system.

Anne Scott vaguely wondered what time it was. Within these white and green plastic walls, under these low-energy lights, day and night had become fused. If her rasping thirst were any indicator, she had been asleep for many, many hours. She had lost count, but this could have been the twentieth, or perhaps thirtieth time she had awoken since...

She stretched her back slightly, arcing upwards, and as she did so her thought processes restarted along familiar lines. There were images of the Aldebaran, her family, and their panicked escape in the Epsilon. Reminders of their struggles on this airless moon. And then, as one piece connected with a another the memories returned in far too much detail. It was hard not to slip back down into the haze once more, where such tragedies could not bother her. But she forced herself to stay awake, to shake off the comforting cloud of sleep. To begin facing the harsh realities, once again.

She grimaced as her toes curled for the first time in days. A nagging sore inside her elbow told of a difficult IV insertion by one of the girls, but at least the nutrient drip had kept her alive. She coughed, the spasm painful in the desiccated channel of her throat. Other muscles were awoken by these tremors, allowing her to move towards sitting up. She dragged herself back against the pillows and brought her aching back upright. The effort was massive; it felt as though she were recovering from temporary paralysis while enduring the first chapters of a monstrous hangover.

Anne reached for her bedside table, where the girls had laid out water and a small dish of pills. In combination, they addressed the terrible the dryness of her throat and the pain in her long-unbent knees. She finished the water in a sequence of thirsty but careful sips, and then reached up to tie back her hair into a rough ponytail, if only to keep it out of her eyes. Her arms ached badly as she flexed them, but the pain passed, replaced by a tiredness which she knew would last until she ate something.

This was always the toughest decision. If I eat, she knew, I will go on living. Every time she woke, over the weeks and months, she faced this same choice. Do I want to go on? What benefit would it bring? Would she be merely another mouth to feed, unable to properly work or care for the two girls. She reprimanded herself. They were, very definitely now, women, like her. They were mature, intelligent, and adapting remarkably well to this intolerable environment.

And one of them was a murderer.

She put the memory aside, as she knew she must. I can stay here and reminisce, and die.

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