The Entanglement

6

The on-suite is small, but so intensely white that it looks like it has no dimensions at all. To the right is a decontamination tube for patients as well as any objects they wear. To the left is a medical grade printer with neatly folded scrubs, medical suits, and instruments. The robotic assistant is the only source of discord in this room. It lays in a heap of burned and shot-through polymers, all its circuitry blackened or torn out. Half of the United Sol's medical insignia is still visible. It would've made more sense to steal it.

Violence is etched into this ship and its crew. Cira blinks irritably, only to feel tears prick at the corner of her eyes. Her chest feels too small for her lungs, her arms locked in their sockets. There's an infuriating audacity to this. Seeking out those weaker than yourself, taking because you can, because what you want is somehow more important than the rest of the universe, and feeling good about doing it. Until the situation is reversed, of course. And if their paths cross, the situation will be reversed.

Another full-body prickle. This one so strong it feels like a current runs through Cira's body. Her hairs stand on end. There's no telling how Thread views the surge of chemical and electrical activity that goes with this feeling. She clenches her jaw and tries to douse the flexing red hate expanding in her throat. It's hard. It's so hard. She doesn't really know anyone here. She hasn't even met most of the crew. But no amount of rationalizing can bank the fire now that it's lit.

She dons her helmet and screams. The feeling has no dimension just like this room. It's from before words. Before language and all the neat containers language can put feelings into. Rage doesn't do it justice, but it's the best description she knows. The white thread's desecration of Commander Sarwana. The faceless horde of Moore's crew. Herself: little more than an overstuffed receptacle. A carrier.

Sweat beads down Cira's face. Her breaths are rapid and shallow. It's hard to align her thoughts into any steady trajectory. Things gimbal all over the place. Her chest feels like it's constricting. Somewhere in the riddled crevices of her brain, a thought wobbles back into her consciousness.

Panic attack.

Disease and injury can take people away from themselves. The self isn't inviolate. It's not above biology. Cira shuts her eyes and struggles to slow her breathing down. Sarwana's singular eye stirs in her memory. She banishes it. There's no point in pursuing that line of thought. This is just an exotic version of a familiar problem. Disease and injury. That's all. In another 25 years, this will be in medical texts. It'll be as mundane and routinely studied as rhinovirus.

She takes a steeling breath and starts to doff her spacesuit. It's navy blue, compact and armoured, and covered in scorch marks. The largest mark is across its abdomen. Although the suit didn't breach, the fact that its outer shell melted implies an isolated heat source of over 2,000℃. She doffs her helmet, followed by her boots. They show spidering fractals both on the inside and outside. Her socks look like they were once white, but are now grimy brown and smell horrendous.

Cira wrinkles her nose and throws everything onto the bed that will slide into the decontamination tube. Her feet are tinged blue. In anyone else, she would say poor circulation, but this seems to be her general skin tone now. Her fingernails and toenails definitely need trimming. When she pops the O-ring connecting the top and bottom halves of her suit, the smell of ancient sweat fills the room. She shimmies out of the lower portion and is mortified to see that her thermal leggings and underwear are in the same state as her socks. A quarter century of dust, pollutants, and bodily secretions. Fractal patterns mirror each other on the inner and outer layers of the suit.

Finally, she bends over and pulls the top half of her suit off. A sharp twinge of pain makes her stop and hold her breath. Her body, if she can even call it that anymore, has unfamiliar limits. The pain eventually fades, but she hefts the suit's upper half into the tube much more carefully. Her thermal shirt and bra are the last to join the pile. Cool air rushes over her skin and it's then she realizes just how uncomfortably unclean she is.