When she was done she just hung there for a moment, draped over the edge of the pod, trying to catch her breath. Damn. Normally she wasn’t this sick when she woke up. What the hell was going on?
“Vital signs normalizing,” a woman’s voice said.
She pushed herself up to a sitting position. The stim suit made it hard to move, but the thin tubes of fluid that had cushioned her flesh for years were starting to empty now, and each passing minute made motion easier. “Where the hell am I?”
“Tiananmen Station.” The man who was speaking was wearing a medical tunic and a headset with two golden snakes spiraling around its central band, reminiscent of a caduceus. “Your ship was damaged. Our scouts caught up with you outside Omarus Node.”
Omarus Node. But that hadn’t been on their route—
Ru shut her eyes. Shit.
“I’m Medic First Class, Evan Chase. I was asked to oversee your awakening, in case the stasis pod had been compromised.” A pause. “Can you tell me your name and number?”
“Ruisa Gaya. Birthworld Guera. Outrider First Class.” Reciting the data had no purpose other than to verify that her mind was functioning well enough for her to . . . well, recite data . . . but the ritual nature of it helped her focus her mind back in the real world, and in that sense it was comforting. “License Number 108-A-59923.” Then she leaned over the pail and vomited again. Nothing but green fluid came up, the last residue of the stuff the stasis program had been pumping into her system for years now. It felt like she’d been asleep for three hundred.
Someone handed her a towel and she used it to wipe her mouth clean. Meanwhile the four people watching her were suspiciously silent. They were probably using their headsets to net a private conversation, which to her mind was pretty damn rude. “What’s up?” she demanded.
“Tull Syng isn’t in his pod,” one of the women said. “There’s a note about a neurotoxin in his med log, but no body.”
Full memory returned then, and with it a wave of knife-edged guilt. “I buried him in space,” she muttered. “It was what he wanted.”
“You should have brought him back. We need blood and tissue samples to verify the cause of death—”
“And you’ll find them in biostorage,” Ru said testily. “I do know how to do my job.” She shook her head sharply. “They hit him with something as we were leaving. Some kind of metal dart. That’s in storage now. And I took samples of every part of Tully that I thought you might want to look at.”
By the time the autopilot had taken over, and she was finally able to tend to Tully, his skin was a ghastly gray and he was struggling to breathe. She had managed to get him into the med pod and assigned all the ship’s free resources to saving him, but it was too late. The neurotoxin on the dart had done irreparable damage. For three days she’d hovered over him while the medical programs struggled to stabilize him, cursing her own helplessness. Then he’d exhaled his final wheezing breath, followed by a cold and terrible silence. There was nothing to do after that but weep, curse, and deal with his body appropriately. “He told me he wanted to be buried in space,” she said. “So I honored that.”
Bury me in space, Tully had begged. Otherwise, they might find out. . . . He didn’t finish the sentence, but she understood. There were some parts of his life a man wanted to keep private, even in death.
Slowly she swung her legs over the side of the pod, eased herself onto her feet, and tested her balance. It wasn’t good, but it was within the normal parameters of stasis recovery. Returning to full function after years of suspended animation wasn’t easy. “Am I free to go?”
“We need to run some tests,” Chase said. “Given the extension of the stasis period—”
Ru’s eyes narrowed. “The what?”
“Your ship was damaged during launch. It went off course while you and Outrider Tull were in suspension, and missed its scheduled return. The stasis program rebooted automatically—”
“How long?” Ru demanded. “I was on a three-year mission. How long was I gone?”
“Twenty years.” Was that pity in his voice? “The Guild had to wait until your ship got into range before it could initiate recovery. I’m sorry.”
Twenty years. Holy shit. Ru shut her eyes for a moment, fighting the urge to be sick again. If there was one scenario all outriders feared, it was that somewhere in the darkness between the worlds their ship would fail them, and they would hurtle forever through the endless night, neither fully alive nor dead, with no hope of rescue. This time the Guild had rescued her, but barely. Maybe next time she wouldn’t be so lucky. “The ship?” It took effort to force the words out. “What about my ship?”
“Under repair. All the data’s in here.” The woman took a small clear chip out of her pocket and handed it to her. Ru looked around for her headset, but nothing was visible in the stark white room other than medical equipment. What did they expect her to do, eat the chip and absorb its contents?
Doctor Chase tapped on one of the walls and a white drawer slid forward. Inside was Ru’s simple crescent-shaped headset, resting on a neat pile of her clothing. Her smaller personal possessions were next to it, mixed in with her partner’s. She had to turn away for a moment as a wave of guilt came over her.
I’m sorry, Tully. I should have known it was too dangerous. I should have stopped you.
“We won’t keep you long,” Chase promised. “The Guild just wants to make sure no biological functions were compromised by your long sleep.”
Ru’s first instinct was to protest that she didn’t need any help, but then a wave of exhaustion overcame her. It might have been twenty E-years since she had consigned her partner’s body to space, but she’d slept through most of that. To her body and mind, it felt like it had happened yesterday.
My partner’s dead. My ship is damaged. The mission was a failure. I almost didn’t make it back. Now here I am, seventeen years behind schedule. So where am I rushing off to? She sighed. I’ll bet my timeshare is occupied.
“What the hell,” she muttered.
If the Guild wanted her to get an official certificate of health before she left here, then that’s what was going to happen. No one denied the Guild anything. She spread her arms like a martyr awaiting crucifixion and told them, “Do your worst.”
I’m sorry, Tully. Whatever universe your soul is in now . . . please forgive me.
* * *
She paid for a private cab to Red Sector. She probably shouldn’t have—God alone knew what seventeen years of automatic rent payments had done to her savings—but she wasn’t in the mood to deal with public transportation right now.