Citron Juice and Mulitiberry Pastry
The next three days dragged on for Ava. She slept until she couldn’t. Hailey checked in on her, but Ava pretended to be asleep. This worked the first few times before Hailey poked her in her bruised side, informing Ava that she had to change her bandages.
Hailey helped Ava to her feet, handed her a large bottle of water, and made her drink the entire thing while she worked at removing the old, sweat-stained bandages. Hailey commented that the cuts and scrapes looked to be in as good a condition as could be expected before wiping them down, more roughly than Ava cared for, with antiseptic cloths. She then applied a soothing gel and rebandaged them.
Hailey wiped down the rest of the unbandaged Ava. It reminded Ava of a mother cat cleaning her kittens, but with sterile antimicrobial cloth pads and, thankfully, not her tongue. When Hailey had finished, she prepared to begin dressing Ava, but Ava fell back into the bunk and pulled the sheets over herself. Hailey sighed and left, saying she would check in again later.
Hailey did, but Ava was either asleep or pretending to be asleep, and Hailey left her to it, circling back every hour to see if Ava was ready to get up.
Ava was not ready for some time. She wanted to sleep through the days until she was free. It was a biological need that finally made her rouse herself. As low as she was, she was not ready to ruin her own bed. Hailey had recently visited, so Ava knew it would be a while before she returned to assist her.
Ava managed to free herself from the bed and take care of this biologically essential process, but it was a struggle.
Afterward, she stood in her cabin in her underclothes. She still wore the thick socks but not the overalls or shirt. Ava was filled with the need to leave her room, to be somewhere alone where Hailey would not come looking for her.
After many minutes of trying, she managed to get her feet into the overalls and pull them up but was useless at getting the straps over her shoulders. She managed to pull the shirt over her head and push her arm through its one sleeve. Without the straps, she was forced to hold the pants firmly or they would tumble down, but this was close to being clothed.
She stepped toward the door. She thought she could make it down the upper main and look out over the upper cargo-bay catwalk. Something about it sounded appealing to her.
The door opened, and she carefully peeked her head out to look up and down the hall. She didn’t spot anyone, but she did see that someone had left a mess-hall tray of food on the ground to the right of her door. There was a cup of citron juice, a brick pastry, and a bowl containing a bag of instant-cut oats.
Ava puzzled over that for a moment but carefully leaned down and picked up the cup and pastry.
She stepped carefully into the hall. She moved slowly and smoothly, focusing on keeping her pace unhurried and remaining upright and balanced, the cup in one hand, the pastry tucked into the crook of that arm, while her other hand clutched tightly at her overalls. She reached the end of the hall, and the bulkhead door slid open, exposing the uppermost catwalk of the cargo bay.
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The purpose of this catwalk was merely observation. No ladders connected it to the bay below, and no lifts reached it. Of all the places on the ship, Ava had always felt this was the most decadent, as it served no purpose other than allowing someone to lean over the railing and watch the people below.
Ava stepped onto the catwalk and then lowered herself to the floor. It hurt to bend, but she was careful and managed to sit with one leg stretched out and the other crossed beneath it.
Ava began munching on the pastry. It was multilayered, with alternating layers of thin pastry dough and multiberry filling. It was sweet, chewy, moist, and perfect. Between every few bites, she sipped from the cup to help wash the pastry down and keep her mouth from drying out.
Citron juice was her favorite of the beverages offered on the ship, but she rarely chose it. Kane had once told her that it was good to deny yourself things you really wanted sometimes. That way, when you did have them, they were that much better.
She hadn’t believed him at first, but she completely understood at this moment. The sweet, tangy sourness of the citron juice played across her tongue like sharing stories with an old friend. It was more than a powerful taste. It was memories of happy times.
Ava sat there looking down over the edge of the catwalk, basking in the moment.
Her eyes wandered around the room. She watched Quinn organize a workbench of tools while Shelly used a pressure hose to spray a thin but powerful stream of water across the floor grating, cleaning an area she had just finished scrubbing with a deck brush.
The water flowed along a gutter system beneath the grating and ended up in the ship’s gray-water supply. From there, it went through a process of filtration and sterilization that removed all solid particulates and toxic chemicals. The ship was able to recycle almost all water on board into safe, clean drinking water.
The solid substances removed from the water were collected in a drying pan and dehydrated into bricks. These bricks could then be collected and thrown into the processor in the cargo hold, where the different elements could be sorted into solid nuggets, bars, or powders, depending on the element.
Curry entered the room.
Ava watched quietly but with a slight smirk as he threw up his arms and began shouting at Shelly to turn off the pressure hose. Shelly twisted the hose nozzle, and the spray stopped. She dropped the hose and turned toward Quinn.
Ava couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Quinn walked over to Curry and said something that seemed to calm the man. Curry walked over to the artifact, turned his back to it, and crossed his arms.
Quinn said something to Shelly, and she turned and walked toward the workbench, where she began finishing Quinn’s project. Quinn picked up the hose and began spraying down the freshly scrubbed deck.
Curry watched him work, occasionally pointing toward places he thought needed more attention. Ava could see how tense Quinn was, but he suffered the indignity for the sake of peace.
Ava watched for a while, but her eyes kept darting back toward the blank white artifact.
The thing dominated the room.
Ava finished the final bite of pastry and sipped her cup dry.
She decided that she didn’t hate spending her time like this.
She struggled to her feet and made her way back to her room, hoping not to run into Hailey along the way.