Starship Walker

The Second Wheel

Her dreams were bewildering, frightening: a confusion of voices and people screaming. She was horribly tired, as if she might never move again. She wondered, in a distant, disinterested way, where she was. She knew she wasn't in her cabin. And the ship noises around her, at first familiar and reassuring, were strange in a subtle way that she couldn't identify.

She wanted to feel secure. She was curled up in a soft, warm bed. She shifted, just slightly, and a spasm of pain ran through her chest, as if she had broken a rib. She groaned.

Abruptly, she remembered. She had been Walking the wall passage. The black hole had been unexpectedly powerful; she had been unable to stop and rest. She had grown exhausted, but she was duty-bound to keep going, no matter what. And she had reached the other side. Then - 

Gillian sat up in panic, and another spasm of pain shot through her. It was so agonising that she screamed, and tried to swing her hands to her chest. But her left hand was trapped and she couldn't move it. She used her free hand to lift a blanket, and gazed down at her left arm in shock and sudden terror.

Her wrist was handcuffed to the bedframe.

She heard the sound of running feet.

"Sorry, Miss! Sorry! I had to step away for a moment!"

The uniformed figure of a marine loomed over her. "They know you're awake. Someone will be along any moment."

Disoriented and bewildered, Gillian gasped and sank back on her mattress. She gazed at the ceiling. "What's happened to me? Where am I?"

"Sorry, Miss. I've got strict instructions about what I'm allowed to tell you. Someone else will have to explain why you're here."

Gillian gazed up at him, her free hand nursing her sore chest. "You're not one of my usual guards."

"No, Miss."

"What is this place?"

"You're in the hospital, Miss."

Gillian glanced around. Her bed was in a simple wheeled partition. Across from her, she saw three other partitions, so she presumed she was in a ward of them. The partitions she could see were unoccupied, and the sound ambience within the ward told her that she was the sole occupant.

"It doesn't look like the last hospital I was in on this ship. Why does everything feel so strange here?"

"That's probably because we're in the second wheel. It's smaller, so it rotates faster. Everything feels different here."

The news that she was in the ship's second wheel startled Gillian. Just as she was about to demand the reason for it, and for the handcuff, Joan Rubilio, Dr Morris and Mr McWhirter stepped around her partition corner.

Gillian sat up, this time more carefully. "What's going on?" she demanded, her voice angry.

Joan, holding a printed document in her hand, replied, "That's what we need ask you, Gillian."

Seeing Gillian's blank, puzzled look, Joan asked, "Don't you remember anything?"

"Let me give her a quick check-up," Dr Morris said. She moved towards the bed with her instruments.

Gillian replied, "I was Walking. I'd just reached the edge of the Wall passage, and I was tired. So I stopped for a rest and a cup of coffee - then I woke up here."

As Dr Morris examined Gillian, Mr McWhirter wheeled some chairs in.

Joan shook her head as she sat down. "That's not what happened. I'm authorised to show you this." She reached out, pushed one partition wall aside, and gestured at the wall behind it.