The Second Ship (The Rho Agenda #1)(63)

A strong compulsion to go to the medical lab engulfed her, almost as if the table called to her. Heather found herself moving in response to the call before she was aware of having decided to do so.

Without waiting for Mark or Jennifer, she moved to the hole leading up to the next deck and jumped up, landing crouched on the floor above. It was a bit surprising to be able to jump like that instead of pulling herself up and kicking a leg over the edge as she had been forced to do in the past, but the compulsion left no time for reflection on the oddity. Without pausing, Heather moved through the doorway, which slid open to admit her. She could hear faint cries behind her, someone calling out her name. Then the door swished shut, blocking all external sound.

Heather moved to the table, hopped up onto its edge, and lay back, feeling its tentacular embrace enfold her body. So wonderful.

The tentacles on her head were doing something new this time, crawling across the surface of her face and forehead as though seeking new connections. Searching, in the way a mother seeks a lost child in a crowd. Rapidly. Urgently.

The tiny tentacles moved from nerve ending to nerve ending, spreading the lovely warmth along her central nervous system, gradually easing the pain in her head. And as a smoky haze glazed her eyes, the lights in the room slowly faded away. Just like the old Pink Floyd song, she…had become…comfortably numb.





Chapter 44





Heather sat up, the wondrously supple tentacles melting away from her body as she moved. She felt something. What was it? Somehow different.

For one thing, for the first time in days she felt not even a hint of the headache, which had been coming and going but always leaving just a fragment of itself in her head. It was as if a loose connection in an electrical circuit, one that had been spitting sparks, had been correctly spliced and wrapped with electrical tape.

Looking around the medical lab, Heather suddenly noticed that the door had remained closed. Mark and Jennifer must be frantic on the opposite side. As she visualized the door opening, it complied. Mark and Jennifer both raced into the room before it could close again.

Mark looked as if he were ready to kill something. “Heather, are you all right?”

Jennifer raced over and threw her arms around Heather’s shoulders, a flood of tears streaming down her face. Heather hugged her back.

“It’s okay. I’m fine now.”

“What the hell happened?” Mark yelled. “We were just about ready to go get help.”

Heather paused, looking at Jennifer’s accusing face as she pulled away. “I’m not sure. I think the ship detected something wrong with me and decided to fix it. I hadn’t told you, but I have been having the headaches again. This morning was especially bad. Anyway, when I put on the headset, I felt compelled to come directly here, so I guess that’s what I did.”

“You didn’t just come up here,” Jennifer said. “You jumped up the six feet to the second deck like you were Batgirl or something. Mark followed, but the doors had already closed and wouldn’t open for us. It’s been half an hour since you disappeared.”

“We banged on the door, yelled, tried visualizing the thing opening, but nothing worked,” said Mark. “You really scared the shit out of us.”

Heather touched him on the arm softly. “I’m sorry. I must have been in some sort of trance. Anyway, I think the table fixed whatever was wrong with me.” Heather paused. “You say I jumped up instead of climbed up?”

Mark nodded. “You just leapt straight up in the air and landed on your feet on the next deck. I had to concentrate to manage the same thing myself.”

“Well, there is a big difference in weight.”

“Don’t give me that. It’s a matter of weight ratio to muscle mass. Your muscles were performing like mine or there’s no way you could’ve done it.”

Heather shrugged. “There’s something else I didn’t tell you guys. This morning at breakfast, I think I heard Jen’s thoughts in my head.”

Jennifer turned pale. “All of them? You were in my head?”

Heather shook her head. “No. It wasn’t like that. You were thinking about telling me something, and I picked up on that. It was just the one time, but I thought it might be a good idea for all of us to keep each other in the loop on what is happening to us during the change.”

Mark tilted his head. “Did you just say, ‘during the change’? What change?”

Heather paused. “Did I? A Freudian slip. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Aren’t Freudian slips supposed to be based upon a real thought?” Jennifer asked.

“Forget I said anything about Freud. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“You got away from explaining the world record girls’ high jump,” said Mark.

“I was getting to that. It just confirms an idea that’s been growing in my mind for a few days now. Do you remember when we first got onto the medical table? It showed our brains with about the same level of activity. There weren't any real differences between us.”

Mark’s lips tightened. “Yes. What of it?”

“I think we all have almost exactly the same abilities.”

Jennifer shook her head. “But that’s just not true. I’m not coordinated and strong like Mark, and I don’t see numbers in my head like you do. But I’m better at data manipulation than either of you.”