Ages in Oblivion Thrown: Book One of the Sleep Trilogy (5 page)

The nurse pushed her back toward her room.
The five left sitting around the room wore expressions of
disappointment and unhappiness. None of them was sure what they had
anticipated.

“
It’s like we’re right back where we
started. She isn’t any better.”

“
But she was, before they herded us up
and made us into freezies.”

“
I suppose, but Leif, man, this
complicates things.” Antonio was the most vocally dissatisfied, as
usual.

“
She
does?
Gimme a break. The fact that we’ve been gone for over two hundred
years doesn’t strike you as more of a complication?”

“
Well, as far as we know, our original
mission may still exist.”

“
Antonio, you are nuts.”

“
Wouldn’t you rather have a purpose
than admit we’re….”

“
Dude, we
are
useless. Consider the reality of this. We’re
behind in everything. It’s like being born a second time. We have
no skills, no understanding of life in this time…I’d rather just go
off and try to eke out a retirement.”

“
They didn’t mean to do this to us. I
cannot aceept that we were abandoned with no guidance.” Jemila was
still the voice of reason. Josh sat back, his eyes closed, trying
to stay out of it. Grace was crocheting a sweater, waiting for a
moment to stick an oar in.

“
We were never supposed to be stowed
away on some far away moon, either. Yet, there we were.” Leif was
giving himself a manicure, man style. Jemi’s mouth twisted as she
tried not to watch.

“
They didn’t have that capability when
they put us under. I think we must have been moved.” She was tired
of sitting. They all were.

“
And the other two?” Josh watched
Leif’s reaction carefully.

“
They said it was Wallace and
Ramirez.” Leif shrugged. “They have no leads on that.”

“
You sound remarkably not unhappy
about that.”

“
I don’t not know what you mean by
that.” Leif refused to meet Josh’s even gaze.

“
She’ll notice, sooner or later, if
you keep up the goo-goo eyes every time she comes in the room.”
Grace batted her eyelashes to punctuate the point.

“
Lock it up, Gracie. It’s none of your
business.”

“
Oh, okay. After ages of pissing and
moaning about it, suddenly it’s nobody’s business.” She held up her
hands in mock-defense. “Never saw a big guy so afraid of nothin’
before.”

“
We are getting sidetracked, people.”
Josh was the only one Leif never argued with; the others had
learned to take the same cue. They never argued with him
either.

“
Well, what do we do, then?” Antonio
knew what he wanted to do; go curl up in bed with as many books as
he could, with a giant pizza by his side.

“
The CO here has offered to keep us
under wraps until we get that figured out. We should just keep
getting ourselves back in fully working order, I think.”

“
Oh, alright. Whatever. I still want
pizza.” Antonio plodded back to his room. The girls headed back to
Grace’s room, presumably to discuss everything that had just
happened. Josh hung back, eyeing Leif from across the
room.

“
What is it?” Leif was resigned to
hearing whatever Josh had to say. There was little other
option.

“
That’s your plan, then? Admit
everything?”

“
Not you, too.”

“
Dude, you have to admit that coming
at her with this may not be the best ever timing.”

“
I already waited a long damn
time.”

“
Try longer.”

“
Frick. Fine. I’ll give it a few more
weeks.”

۞

Time continued to bleed away for Maeve, as
she steadily improved, and put her whole focus into regaining
strength. This desire had grown and intensified over another few
weeks. She had moved past walking, and was secretly testing out
jogging around her room whenever she was alone. Her regular routine
of exercise was slowly coming back to mind. She was pushing the
physical therapist to try things, surprising both of them in the
process.

Finally, Tark visited her after getting a
report that all of them were ready to leave medical care. He wasn’t
entirely sure why he was going to her alone, rather than all of
them. There was just something in the way she carried herself that
drew him in.

“
We have temporary housing for you.”
He handed her a small bundle. “These are the keys, and we’ve put
together information for you about the Nimitz, as well as some
other topics you might find useful.”

“
Like a brief history of ‘what the
hell just happened?’” She looked at a device she was holding. It
was somewhat reminiscent of the little tablet computers that had
been everywhere in her day. In her day, jeez, listen to that. She
sounded like an old lady.

“
Something like that.” He chuckled a
little. “Look, I know this has all been a little crazy. I don’t
know how, but we’ll get you sorted out eventually.” He stood up to
head back to his own duties. “Storms are dying down, finally. My XO
ought to be back soon. I’d like it if you would have dinner with us
once he’s here.” Maeve took a deep breath.

“
Us?”

“
Sorry, with me, my XO, and, um, my
girlfriend, Sa’andy.” Maeve smiled what she hoped was an
affirmation. He nodded and left her to sit and stare at the pile of
keys and tablet thingies.

They were being discharged in time for
lunch. The nurses gave them a lengthy list of places to try. They’d
been given food cards (and a list of the places that accepted
them), leaving her to wonder how the Colonel was still keeping them
under the radar. She hoped he wouldn’t land in hot water over
it.

Time to face the music.

She handed them all keys, out of some
strange sense of duty, and became part of a quiet procession
through halls, down flights of stairs, to the third deck. The third
level was below, and not above. Life was wrong side up in space,
apparently. It would all start to be knitted back together, she
supposed. Only after it finished unraveling into a giant mess of
yarn and fuzzy thoughts, though.

They found her room first. She scrutinized
the door for a moment, before she stuck the key into its middle,
feeling rather like she was poking someone's belly. This was
reinforced when the door responded by chuckling. Then, it wrenched
itself apart along an invisible seam in the middle. The halves
swung inward, revealing a modestly sized living area.

Two other doors inside led separately to a
bedroom and to a closet. A bath led off the bedroom. The decor was
much more...natural than any of them had expected. Wood was used
for the doors, and the counter, which separated the kitchenette
from the sitting area, was stone. The cabinets and furniture were
wooden as well. The rooms that they had been given clearly hadn’t
been lived in before. There was a greeting waiting for them as soon
as the lights were switched on. A message flashed up on a
wall-mounted screen, along with a soothing voice, reminiscent of a
flight attendant.

“
Welcome to the class two
military quartering. These rooms are designated for either
transient lodging, or visiting dignitaries. These are not intended
for permanent living, but may be used for that purpose with
approved modifications. The woodwork you see is all reclaimed.
There are...”
Maeve stopped paying attention. She
poked into every drawer, cabinet, and cubby. There was a white
rabbit in there somewhere. She just had to find it, and follow it
back through the looking glass.

“
Do we all get these?” Grace padded
silently around the room, the possibilities swirling in those
changeable eyes.

"Well, I guess. They're economical, but
comfortable, and at this point...free." Jemila nodded in agreement,
remaining steadfast in unusual silence. Antonio drummed his fingers
restlessly on the arm of his seat. In the corner, Josh and Grace
moved in an impromptu sparring, and at alternate swings, narrowly
avoided crashing into the wall and the divider.

“
This...of course, is why...my parents
named me...Grace.”

“
What are we doing here?” Josh stopped
swinging abruptly at the sound of Maeve's question. Everyone looked
at each other and remembered why they had stayed with her in the
first place. “Other than a few scattered memories, I have no idea
how or why we got here.”
A few
memories
? What did that mean? She'd just let that slip
before even thinking about it, and now they were all looking at her
expectantly. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. But she wasn't
ready to share her odd visions yet.

Antonio was the first one to notice that
Maeve had suddenly lapsed into a state of silent confusion. He
quickly cleared his throat, and interrupted.

“
Well, I don't know about anybody
else, but I think we’re all feeling a bit dislocated and unclear.”
Jemila raised her eyebrows, marveling at the ease of deception. She
was about to put forth her opinion of the whole thing when the
screen on the wall flickered and put into view the face of Colonel
Tarkington. In the background, the container was visible, as well
as about ten crewpersons milling about.

۞

“
I hope I'm not bothering you, but I
thought you’d...ah, I see you have company.”

“
You're not bothering anyone. Leif,
Josh, Jemi, Grace, Antonio and I were just trying to figure out how
to kill some time.” Tark’s mouth twisted slightly; he understood
her motive in pointing all of them out, but spoke calmly, no trace
of any embarrassment in his voice or demeanor. He had never visited
them as a group, and had kept his private visits with the rest of
them tacitly quiet. They all seemed to understand, and played dumb
accordingly.

“
I'm sorry I haven’t had a chance to
meet all of you formally. We’ll have to remedy that soon. We have
some news, though.” He paused, letting that take hold, and then
smiled slightly before continuing. “That's why I’ve called, Ms.
Howard. We’ve gotten access to the entirety of your files.” Maeve
blinked.

“
Come again?”

“
Sorry, the computer that was onboard
your, er, ship, it took them a while to recover all the
information. It was badly degraded, I believe was the word used.”
He did not mention that O’Leary and Shirk had also been working
feverishly to locate any information about the container. What they
had found had proven to be a bit troubling. Even more troubling was
how much appeared to have been excised from what information there
was. He was a heartbeat away from telling them to use whatever
means necessary. His hole was getting deeper by the
moment.

“
Anything of note?” Leif’s presence
loomed up just behind her, as protective as ever. Looking back over
her shoulder, she wasn’t sure how she felt about being hovered over
by him…like that. She looked back up at the screen. The colonel
seemed to be thinking things over.

“
Why don’t you come to my office and
look things over? I would say that you all should come, but we
might not want to attract too much attention. A lot of personnel
are returning from leave; I’d prefer to keep things as quiet as
possible. Ms. Howard can bring it all back to you, if that’s
okay.”

“
It’s alright, she can go on her own.
We ought to get settled in our rooms, anyway.” Leif walked around
to face Maeve. “Go ahead. We’ll try to rustle up some lunch in the
meantime.” Maeve studied her friend’s face for a moment or two.
What was he up to?

“
Okay. I’ll go.” Not that she wasn’t
interested to hear what Tark had to say, but there was some weird
current carrying through that she couldn’t figure out. Leif had
been treating her like a piece of fragile china for the past few
weeks. Antonio would constantly sigh and shake his head when he
thought she wasn’t looking. Jemi and Grace were solicitous to the
point of annoyance. Josh just kept trying to get her into a
meditative state. It was as though they were sitting around waiting
for her to do
something
.
What, she didn’t know. Maybe they thought she’d crack up
completely.

Maeve walked down the corridor, feeling
self-conscious. The colonel had assured them that most personnel on
board had no idea she and her friends existed. This had been a good
reason for placing them in otherwise empty temporary housing.
Hidden in plain sight.

This didn’t stop her from feeling as though
everyone was staring at her. She wished she had a mirror to check
and make certain her hair wasn’t standing on end. She was utterly
and catastrophically self-effacing, though she had long been at war
with this tendency.

It was a benefit when facing into actual
mistakes; otherwise it was a terrible habit. Yet, Colonel
Tarkington seemed pretty convinced that she was the person who had
been picked to be at the forefront of whatever happy little mission
this was supposed to have been. And he based that on a few flighty
details that almost anyone could poke holes in, given a reasonable
debate.

Her head was aching again. She’d grown used
to the pain, but not what came with it.

…
There was water again,
but this time there was a distinctly different feel to its
presence. Its ripples were unfriendly, sending warning in their
movements, while shouting echoed around her, seemingly emanating
from the ground beneath her feet. The smell of blood hunted air
currents to steal a ride on, reaching her nostrils, turning the
sand ever darker before her eyes. A few steps took her over a rise,
and she saw again the source of the shouting, the fires burning on
the horizon, soggy forms crawling from inky seas.