Chapter 18: SM03-Tau, Day 0

Lorraine Dubois woke, fuzzy-brained, to unfamiliar surroundings. She had no memory of this place; the last she recalled was yet another feeble attempt by her doctors to stir her out of her lethargy with a field trip to the French countryside.

She was lying in what looked more like a hotel room than her usual hospital or sanatorium, and she seemed to be wearing pajamas, rather than a hospital gown. The pajamas, and the walls, were in an odd pastel green and blue rose print.

Her right shoulder itched, as it often did when she awoke, and reflexively, she lifted the stump of her left arm in a futile attempt to scratch it. To her utter shock, the 'stump' actually had an elbow, and a forearm, and had a hand attached. And they all worked, as the fingers scratched at an itch she'd had ever since the accident.

Afraid to move, lest she awaken from this dream, or cause it to turn into a nightmare, she lay still, heart racing and chest heaving, until a scream from outside the room broke the silence. Before she could think, she was on her feet and moving towards the door, searching for the source of that scream, desperate to help, and to perhaps earn this wonderful reward.

She was a bit unsteady on her feet, as if she'd had to relearn to walk. Considering it was the first time in more than a year she'd felt anything below her waist, and that she was walking on legs that had mysteriously regrown just as her left arm had, that wasn't surprising. She reached the archway through which she'd heard the scream, and looked left and right, searching for the source.

To her left was a long hallway, which seemed to open into a larger room. To her right a tallish man was exiting a room much like hers, if somewhat larger, looking intent, and obviously seeking the same thing she was. He was slightly dazed, as though he'd just been awakened, but his eyes still took in everything around him, as if checking for threats even as he searched for the source of the scream.

Before Lorraine could speak to him, or he to her, the scream was repeated. They both turned, he to his left, she to her right, towards the room next to Lorraine's. The door was closed, but they could clearly hear sobbing behind it.

The man moved swiftly to the door, and when it did not open, pressed a panel beside it. When that didn't work, he looked at it again, touched it in a different place, and spoke, in English. "Please, what's wrong? Let us in, so we can help!" he said, speaking towards the panel, which must have a microphone of some kind.

Lorraine stepped up behind him, but didn't say anything. He spoke again, in angry tones, "Hey, assholes, open the door so we can help her." She hadn't known the gender of the screamer, but the man had either had slightly better hearing, or was making a possibly unwarranted assumption. "Now, assholes, before I kick it down."

The door slid open, and the man strode in, glancing over his shoulder briefly at Lorraine as if to encourage her to join him. As he stepped into the room, the anger left his face, as he visibly controlled himself so as to avoid further upsetting whoever was within.

A slender blonde woman lay on a bed, in pajamas identical to those worn by Lorraine and the young man. She was hugging her abdomen, and alternately moaning and crying, and speaking in German. The young man turned and gestured Lorraine closer; as she approached, she could make out the young woman's words. "My baby, what's happened to my baby?" she said, in a Bavarian accent. The young man looked at Lorraine as she felt the blood leave her face; she grew faint, and would have stumbled if the young man hadn't caught her.

Steve Miller wasn't having a good day. He'd been awakened in a strange hotel room, wearing odd clothing, by the scream of what sounded like a young woman. His brain was fuzzy, he was frightened, and now the woman he wanted to help spoke a language he didn't, and the woman who he'd hoped would join him in helping was about to pass out on him.

"Are you all right?" he asked the raven-haired beauty, as he guided her to a seat on the bed next to the sobbing woman.

"Yes, I think so," she replied in heavily accented English. She was French, or at least a French speaker, judging by her accent. "Before I woke here, I was missing this arm (she raised her left) and both legs. I missed the arm the most, because I had also injured my back, and could not feel the legs, even if they were not gone. I woke whole, and felt great joy, and it is now as ash in my mouth, for this woman has lost a baby, and what is what I gained, when measured against that loss?"

"You speak her language, then?", Steve asked. "I thought I recognized German, but I don't speak it. Do you remember anything of how you came to be here? My last memory is of sitting beside a roadway, at a table, looking at a map."

"Yes, I have my native French, and good German, and some English. I am Swiss. My name is Lorraine Dubois. I have no memory of how I came to be here."

"Please forgive me, I should have introduced myself. I'm Steve Miller; please call me Steve; my friends do, and I hope we can become friends."

"You may call me Lorraine, and friend. You have a good bearing, for one so young."

Steve raised his eyebrow at her. "Young? I'm forty-five, young lady, and rarely told I'm young. Those to whom forty-five seems young seem never to compliment someone on their youth."

It was Lorraine's turn to raise a brow. "You deny your youth, and assert mine? Perhaps you are addled after all. It was my thirty-ninth birthday when I lost my husband, my legs, and my arm to that drunken bastard, and that was a year ago and more." As Lorraine had calmed, her English had improved as well; her accent wasn't nearly so opaque now.

Steve's skin crawled, then he controlled himself, and spoke. "They you have regained your youth as well as your limbs; I would place your age at twenty, at most, and perhaps younger. From your words, I have also lost years of age."

Steve had half-forgotten the woman lying on the bed; her sobs had quieted when they sat down beside her, and she suddenly spoke to them, in a questioning tone. He still didn't speak German, so he sat quietly as Lorraine and the young woman conversed briefly. Lorraine lay down beside the woman, and drew her into her arms. She then looked at Steve, and said. "Her name is Anna Heim. She lost her husband about three months ago, in a work accident. She was four months with child at the time, and until she woke here, the pregnancy was normal. Now her baby is gone, and her heart is broken again. I fear for her sanity."

Steve grew angry again at the woman's plight. Controlling his rage, he said calmly, "You can do more for her than I can. Stay with her, please, and I'll see if I can find anyone who can tell us anything about what's happening." He left unvoiced his conviction that anyone who could restore youth, and missing body parts, had damned well better be able to find a baby they'd mislaid. If they couldn't, or wouldn't, there was going to be hell to pay. Knowing full well Anna couldn't understand him, Steve stroked her shoulder anyway, and said, "I'm going to see what I can find out. Please rest; we'll do everything we can to help you." He stood, turned away, and walked to the door, which had closed behind them. It opened at his approach, and he walked out. Behind him, he heard Lorraine speaking to the woman in low tones, perhaps translating his comment, or perhaps uttering reassurances of her own.

Steve left the room, and walked down the hallway. He entered a large room, with eight or nine women standing around talking to each other, or clustered around a pair of seated women on a couch on the far side of the room.

As he approached, the conversations slowed and stopped. He'd noticed several languages being spoken, including English. On that basis, he spoke to the crowd at large.

"I'm Steve Miller. Does anyone here know anything about how we came to be here?" There was a chorus of 'No's, along with a quick set of translations that led to a second round of "Non" and "Nein" and one lonely "Nyet."

One of the "No"s came from a dusky-skinned young woman who'd been examining a young fair-skinned woman with flashing red hair, and a strangely vacant look about her eyes. She turned from her examination, and stood; she walked over to Steve and gazed up into his face.

"I am Priya Surrivasa. I am a resident at the University of London Hospital. I trust you can explain that screaming woman that we heard? Erica saw you and the other woman enter her room, but the door would not open for her when she approached. She was not prepared to curse at it, but we wonder how you managed to get results, when we have been ignored?"

Steve shrugged, and said, "Maybe they didn't want me to hurt myself. I really would have tried to kick that door down, and I suspect I'd have regretted it. I understood you to say you're a medical resident? When you've finished with your current subject, I'd like you to look over the lady whose scream you heard, who is named Anna, and the lady who is trying to calm her, who is named Lorraine.

"Anna reports that before her arrival here, she was about seven months pregnant, and now there is no sign of a child. Since she lost her husband a few months ago, she is doubly distressed at the loss of his child as well. I would like your opinion on her condition.

"Lorraine has a happier story, but she is so distressed by Anna's condition that she has lost any pleasure at it. She was formerly a triple amputee, left arm and both legs, and paralyzed by a back injury. She is now walking with two good legs, and hugging Anna with two healthy arms.

"Lorraine and myself are both somewhat younger in appearance than we last remember, she having lost fifteen years to my twenty-plus. And now that I look, I seem to have lost some minor scarring on the back of my hand.

"All of this, is, of course, quite impossible."

Priya had gone from angry at what she thought was Steve's involvement in the scream, to frightened at what he had told her.

"I have heard somewhat of a similar story from that young woman I was examining," she said when she had gathered her wits. "Her name is Sarah MacGregor. She claims to be thirty-five, and appears to be only in her early twenties or late teens. She was blinded shortly after birth in an accident, and grew up without vision of any kind. She still cannot recognize shapes, but her eyes are now completely normal; only her brain's lack of visual experience is preventing her from seeing as well as you or I. I think with time she may develop normal vision, which is utterly inexplicable.

"I would sooner believe that this is an experiment of some kind, and all of you trained actors, than to believe that what I am being told is real. Unfortunately for my sanity, I too am missing scars from a younger, more foolhardy time, so I must expand my list of liars to include my own eyes, and that way lies worse madness than believing what I am told."

Priya began to shake, and Steve stepped close, and pulled her into his arms. "Forgive the familiarity," he said, "but I thought you might need something to lean on right now. I don't know why I'm not falling apart myself; perhaps it's the needs of those around me keeping me centered. I've been a bit prone to anger these last few minutes; that's part of what got that door open, but it's not like me to be that volatile."

Priya looked up at him from the comfort of his arms. "Perhaps you should indulge that volatility again," she said. "It got results last time, did it not?"

Shrugging, Steve looked up at the ceiling, and spoke, "Hey, assholes, how did we get here, and why?"

There was a quiet chime, and part of the previously blank wall lit up and a picture of the Earth as seen from space appeared. The view held steady for a moment, then a sudden flash of light appeared to one side. A shudder seemed to run through the surface, as the cloud formations suddenly changed to a series of concentric circles, apparently centered on the flash point. A second flash appeared almost instantly on the opposite side of the globe, accompanied by a huge geyser of what looked like rock, or lava. The globe visibly deformed, and a large burst of rock and lava spewed out of the wounds from both flashes. There was silence in the room as the various ejecta started raining back down on the planet, causing large secondary impacts.

There was silence in the room as the view shifted to a large array of rectangular pallets, thousands of them, in a large room. Bodies, some of them visibly damaged, began appearing on the pallets. As each body appeared, it would be surrounded briefly by a blue glow centered on the shoulders, which was then replaced by a silver cocoon covering the whole body. Each body was visible only for a few seconds before the cocoon covered it, but two things seemed to stand out. First, the bodies were predominately female, at least dozens of women for each man. Second, none of the bodies ever moved. It was hard to be sure, but it didn't appear as if they were breathing. The process continued until all the pallets were covered by cocoons. The view faded, then returned to what could have been the same array, or a completely different one. The cocoons began to disappear, revealing human figures that were uninjured, obviously breathing, and as far as could be told at a distance, younger than the original occupants.

The view faded to black, and a emotionless voice began to speak. "There was an accident. Our group of ships was off course, and one of them impacted your planet. The ship was destroyed; and all life on your planet along with it. We recovered as many as we could, from as many parts of the planet as possible before conditions deteriorated. Your group is one of many; assembled so as to maximize the probability that your species will survive this event. The appropriate authorities have been notified; we are to provide for your every need until they arrive. When they do, they will judge us, assess penalties upon us, and determine what restitution can be made to you. As we have demonstrated incompetence, your care is under independent control, and is planned to maximize the survivability of your species and culture. We are forbidden further contact unless emergencies arise, but your rooms can and will provide all that is in our power to meet your needs until the authorities arrive. What has happened makes apology or atonement impossible, but we deeply regret these events. You will be contacted again when the responsible authorities are available."

The voice fell silent.

Steve felt like he'd been kicked in the gut. Priya had buried her face in his chest, and he saw tears in the eyes of the women around him. One of the women began to scream hysterically, and Priya pulled back from him, looking to see who was in trouble, her training overcoming her grief.

Steve got there marginally before her, and gathered the screaming woman into his arms. She was half-deafening him, and he said, "Hey, assholes, can you give us something to calm her down?" The woman suddenly fell silent, and half-collapsed in his arms. Steve looked into her eyes, and saw only a vacant stare. "Back it off, assholes, before you fry her brains!" he yelled, and the woman shuddered in his arms, then smiled up at him.

"Thanks for caring, but try to yell a bit quieter next time?" she said.

"I will if you will," came his rejoinder.

Steve suddenly connected the vapid look the woman in his arms had had, with his own ongoing feeling of having a head full of cotton. He grew angry again, and said, "Hey, assholes, get the fuck out of my head." He felt a rush of emotions: fear, depression, loss, and finally anger, which did a good job of dispelling the rest of them. He also felt like his normal alert self, and dozens of questions about what he'd just seen came to him.

Priya was staring at him, as was the woman in his arms, and most of the rest of them. Even Sarah had turned in his direction.

"Those assholes are using some kind of emotional damper on us, probably to keep us from going insane. I told them to stop it, and they did. I'd recommend you let them keep using it on you, though. The side effects are a lot easier to deal with than the way you feel if you're not using it."

He gave the woman in his arms a final squeeze, and set her back on her feet. "Thanks for the help," she said. "My name is Erica Britasdotter. We almost met when you first went to help Anna, but you moved too fast for me."

"My pleasure, Erica. Since you were willing to help before, I have a nasty job for you. Once Priya's finished checking up on Sarah, can you go with her to help explain our situation to Lorraine and Anna? I'm going to find a nice quiet room, and ream our hosts a new asshole or two."

Erica shuddered, whether at the prospect of explaining the end of the world to an already depressed Anna, or at the tone in his voice, he didn't know. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "Don't worry, I won't bite you, except on request. And I'll try not to get slapped down too hard when I talk to asshole and his friends."

Priya had moved back over to Sarah, and was finishing up. He walked out of the common area, and back into his room.