Fatal Boarding Read online

  It is best not to miss doctor appointments onboard a starship. It must be since upper management is strictly required to complete their regular checkups, they vent that frustration by making certain the rest of us comply as well. Per the Doctor’s orders from yesterday’s EVA debriefing, I headed for sickbay.

  It is very tempting, though frowned upon, to use service and cable tunnels to get you where you want to go. Usually you cannot access all the areas on one level without first traveling up or down a number of other decks. If you are in the Bridge conference room for example on deck six and you wish to visit the communications center on deck eight, you must start by taking an elevator or stairwell to deck five. It has always bothered me that it becomes necessary from time to time to stop and consult the floor plans located on etched panels at the end of each corridor. Although I doubt anyone has ever actually seen him do it, I am certain the Captain himself also consults them periodically.

  A design so disposed to necessity rather than accommodation can sometimes make Security's job very difficult. We are responsible for the rescues. During serious accidents, teams dispatched throughout the ship can become lost themselves, especially when there is structural damage to the ship. If the environmental system sensors are down, the threat is even greater. Rescue personnel cannot always be sure it is safe to open a sealed pressure door. They have only short range hand scanners to tell them what lies beyond. Add the loss of gravity to the situation and you can have a real carnival on your hands.

  I made my way up and around and over and down and finally arrived at sickbay, a multi-room facility which takes up a sizable hunk of level three. The attendant in the reception area was a slightly overweight lady named Patricia. She has the Aunt Bea appearance with matching persona, someone who seems totally unsuited for space travel, that is right up until you and everyone else comes down with some form of space sickness and you go to her only to find she’s still at the top of her game. She nurses you back to the best you can be and leaves you fearing you are not entirely the superhero you thought. I firmly believe people like Patricia were put here to make us aware that those first intuitive impressions of people we so pride ourselves on generally suck.

  "Oh yes, Mr. Tarn. We've been expecting you." She escorted me through double swinging doors to a combination office-exam room. I sat in a white plastic chair next to a metallic-white desk holding a nasty looking computer with dozens of spidery looking suction cups attached to a cable harness which hung over the edge. There was an examination table with thin white paper covering it in the center of the room, and a picture of daisies drawn by a child on the wall beyond it. Cummings assured me the Doctor would be right in. To my great relief, the silly little smirk left with her. Moments later Doctor Pacell came charging in wearing the standard white lab smock, an electric clipboard held low in his left hand. He is a very wholesome-looking man, blond hair, blue eyes, slightly tall, and deceptively friendly. He is one of those physicians who can get you to admit things he’s already figured out about you. The problem is, he’s too much of a real person. He’s someone you could get to know on a personal level very easily. We do not like our doctors to be that human. We need to think they are secretly in touch with God.

  He plunked down in his chair, flipped one page on his chart, and spoke without looking up, “So has it come back to you at all?”

  “I wish I could say it has, but no, nothing. But I feel fine.”

  “Tell me something, when this first hit you out on the gangway, why didn’t you abort the EVA right then?”

  “The others had already started in. It would have been very awkward to cancel out at that point. Once we regrouped inside, there was too much happening too fast to think about it."

  Doctor Pacell stared at me for a moment. He exhaled and tapped one finger on his desk. “Well, like I said before, I need to know immediately if any of it starts coming back to you. Stress is a likely candidate, maybe not the entire cause, but perhaps a catalyst. What we do now is we continue with the scan studies and give you some time for recall. I'll want you back here for a brief interview tomorrow, same time. Meanwhile, no work restrictions. I wouldn't worry about this too much. Anything serious and we'd have found something by now."

  "Well, I'm glad to hear that much, Doctor.”

  He folded his hands in his lap and smiled. "By the way, I want to thank you for the physical therapy you provided to one of my patients last night."

  "...What?"

  “Oh, don't worry; I just want you to understand people under my care don't really leave my sickbay without my knowing and without my approval, even though I might let them think that. Your particular therapy wasn't against medical advice. It was actually prescribed."

  I considered my options for denial and decided they were a lost cause. "Doctor, is there no privacy on this ship at all?"

  "Oh, I think there is, Adrian."

  "Then why did half the people in the mess hall already know about the incident you just mentioned?"

  "Gossip is a necessary part of social intercourse. To a degree it is very healthy. It's like spice, a little bit can be very good, too much ruins the food. There is some privacy aboard the Electra, though. For instance, I doubt many people know about the bourbon."

  "I don't believe it!"

  "Don't worry; as your Doctor I'm sworn to secrecy. As a matter of fact, I'd like to stop by your place for a drink some time, if you wouldn't mind."

  "Doc, if I did have such a thing, you'd be welcome anytime."

  "Great. In that case, please accept a standing invitation to my place for the best gin and tonic this side of B-deck."

  I shook my head in exasperation and stood to leave.

  "Don't forget, 09:00 tomorrow, Adrian. It'll only take a few minutes."

  "Doc, how did you know about the bourbon?"

  "Adrian, I'm disappointed in you. A question like that coming from a lead Security officer? It showed up in Frank Parker's blood work. He mentioned he had talked to you last night. It didn’t take much to put two and two together. The junior EVA types don't dare sneak that stuff on board yet. They worry about careers and such. They don't quite know the ins and outs. Only veterans like you and I know we can get away with it. And since I've answered your question, how about answering one for me? Your profile shows you are thirty-seven years old. Women seem to like you quite a bit; nice women. So why haven't you ever been married? It's a personal question. You don't have to answer it."

  "I haven't learned the ins and outs, Doc. I don't know what I could get away with and when."

  "Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you never will.”