[The Acheron Fold] by Nick Adams

Author:Nick Adams [Adams, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781915347015
Publisher: Elliptical Publishing

37

The starship Gabriel, docked on Vasi Stathmos Space Station

The familiar warmth and coziness suddenly became a falling sensation that lasted only a second before something hard hit from below. The sound of splashing water assaulted her ears and a coldness enveloped her as she collapsed in a heap. She began vomiting, gasping and coughing as her body screamed for oxygen and as the last of the fluid was ejected, she opened her eyes to try and make sense of what was happening.

A blinding whiteness seared her retinas as she rolled onto her hands and knees, coughing away the last of the clear gloopy fluid. She squinted and blinked. Raising her upper arms to wipe her eyes and using her lower ones to hold herself up, she felt herself tipping forward and smacked her forehead on the floor.

‘Ow, shit,’ she croaked. That brought on another bout of coughing.

Rolling over and sitting on her backside, she concentrated on focusing. The reason she couldn’t feel her lower arms became quickly apparent. They weren’t there.

‘What the fuck,’ she said, staring at the two arms and hands with five fingers. She wiggled them and grimaced, before looking around and realising she was sitting in a round room, with a tubular glass container suspended from the ceiling, from which a plethora of umbilicals snaked up into the ceiling.

‘Oh, shit,’ she said, the realisation kicking in, which caused her to stare at her hands again. ‘I must have died and been reborn as a human.’

A low buzzing from behind her made her jump as a narrow nozzle motored out from the wall high up and began spraying water. Pol stood for the first time and although she resembled a newborn foal, she managed to stumble under the water and wash the birthing fluid off her body. Towels appeared in a recess and as she dried herself, she revelled at the length of her legs, her feet with five toes, her knees and her breasts. She hadn’t had those before. Although, she found she wasn’t so impressed with having to dry her upper and lower body separately, instead of at the same time. Having only two arms was a distinct disadvantage and would take some getting used to.

Wrapping one of the towels around herself, Pol looked up.

‘Cleo, are you there?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows as she found the sound of her own voice so different.

No answer was forthcoming, which she thought was a little odd and she felt a small sense of disappointment that no one was here to welcome her back.

Perhaps they don’t know yet, she thought, perhaps it’s the middle of the night and Cleo doesn’t want to wake anyone.

Concentrating hard, she stumbled across the small chamber to a recessed panel in one of the rectangular wall sections. It only had two buttons, one red, one green.

Thinking it was the most sensible option, she pressed the green one. There was a low clunk followed by a hiss, as if the pressure had to equalise and the wall panel sunk back slightly and slid inside the wall to the left.

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