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and had somehow soothed her in her last few minutes. Wait a minute, last few minutes? Had she died? Looking at her hands, legs, and breathing deeply, she could feel no tightness that indicated artificial tissue or field regen treatments. Her internal display indicated no unusual radiation or enzymes in her systems.

  The last thing she remembered was falling asleep, surrounded by the rapidly flooding suit. The cold had been intense. What had happened. All of her memories were very disjointed and murky, as if viewed through a mud-covered lens. She remembered glimpses of memory after that. Only the briefest of glimpses. Somehow she remembered seeing Idova telling her she was sorry. But, sorry for what? The questions piled on top of one another until she felt overwhelmed. Sleep claimed her again.

  S'Hara and Willem came in seconds later, to see Aya, obviously having moved in her bed, but now deeply asleep. Idova's situation had not yet altered. Her bloodstream was slowly clearing itself of fatigue poisons, and the anti-shock drugs had eased the massive damage that had resulted in the complete amputation of her left leg, and the amputation of her right above the knee. Her tail also had to be amputated, it now would hang to just above her knees. S'Hara looked over the diagnostic display beside Aya's bed. Nothing unusual any more. Her core temperature was approaching 36 degrees. She was out of hypothermia danger, and rest was the best advice the medical system could offer.

  "Jihon, could you estimate how long it will be before either of them wakes up?" S'Hara asked softly.

  "Estimates for Aya range from one to six hours, depending on the amount of regenerative time required by her redundant cybernetics. Idova will not be allowed to awaken until her fatigue poisons have been naturally absorbed. Estimate on that time is at least twelve hours.

  "Jihon, Aya should be dead. I've just gone over the remains of her suit. The internals were exposed to liquid deuterium, shattered at every joint, and it had been completely flooded. Why is she virtually undamaged, and Idova's lost her limbs?"

  "Insufficient information to perform hypothesis. I would prefer not to advise you of any 'wild' ideas I may have formulated until they are both awake and able to communicate."

  "What wild ideas have you formulated?" S'Hara asked him as they stepped outside the medical bay.

  "As advised, I would prefer not to hypothesize as they may be completely incorrect. I am running 'blind and deaf' at this point."

  "Jihon, what ideas?"

  "Hypothesis one: Aya's body went into a metastable state upon immersion in the liquid deuterium. This was completely due to her internal cybernetics converting her natural blood to a glycerol-like fluid in a rapid enough time to prevent major damage to organs.

  Hypothesis two: Idova transferred her life energy to Aya, absorbing the damage into her own body and enabling her to heal the damage using her unique abilities.

  Hypothesis three: An unknown energy form inhabits liquid deuterium, and it realized that Aya was being killed by it's environment. It attempted to protect her by raising the temperature around her.

  Hypothesis four: A-"

  "OK, OK. I get the picture." S'Hara interrupted his diatribe.

  "Jihon was right. We will have to wait until they wake up to find out what happened." she said to Willem as they continued back towards the bridge.

  "What do we do now, chief?" He asked her as they drifted through the down shaft.

  "Jihon, what is the current state of repairs?"

  "Which section of repairs? Fusion engines, Neospace drive, or outer hull?"

  "What is left to fix?"

  "Checking... Primary fusion drives are still offline. We have lost eighty cubic mets of hydrogen fuel, and will require a refuel two weeks sooner than expected. Neospace drives are now offline and are having field generators fully degaussed. Estimates for full system reactivation without assistance, sixty hours."

  "You've got forty, Jihon."

  "Unable to comply with full repairs in requested time. Which repair do you wish to reduce in favor of the other?"

  "Concentrate on the fusion drives."

  "Auto-repair systems reconfiguring for full fusion drive repair Will advise percentage of repair completable by allotted time within ten minutes."

  "Looks like we just wait and keep scanning that rock. It's caused us some grief. We may as well get something out of it, right?"

  "You bet your... um. You know what I mean, Chief."

  "My ass, you mean? Yeah, agreed."

  Ten minutes passed, with Willem aligning the ship's high-powered long-range sensor array at the slowly receding planetoid. He switched all sensor systems to high penetration, maximum depth, and began very intensive scans. 'To hell with any life that might have been on it,' he thought, ensuring the sensors were at maximum power,

  'I'm going to get some serious scans out of that lump of coal even if it means I irradiate the entire surface to twice it's original levels.'

  Jihon's lucid voice came over the speakers after the allotted time had passed. "Estimates of repairs completed on fusion engines in forty hours without any assistance. Engines one and two will be functional. Engine three will require five more hours of fabrication work before it can be operated. We will be able to get up to 1.2 standard gravities of thrust, fully sustainable, by the end of that time period."

  "How long would it take for repairs to be completed on engines one and two?" S'Hara asked him.

  "Engine one will be repaired to functional state in three hours. Engine two will take thirty five hours for alignment and recalibration. Engine two can be repaired in twenty hours, but that will entail no repair work on engine three at any point during that time. This may impose structural damage to the gimbal mounts for engine three which may require extended zero gravity to fully realign."

  "Stay with the original plan and complete all three engines. How far will the planetoid be when we have engines one and two operational?"

  "Calculating rates of trajectory and velocity now. Stand by. Estimate is 14.4 million kims. Time to intercept will be ten hours using all available thrust to cancel our own velocity and overtake at that range and approach to within a thousand kims.

  "As soon as the engines are ready, head towards the planetoid."

  Willem nodded and plotted the new course into the navigation systems.

  He then glanced at S'Hara. Their eyes met and locked for a second, then they both sat down again and settled back for another long wait.

  Half a day later Aya finally regained consciousness with all her faculties intact and operating. She still felt weak, but no longer had the chill that had pervaded her earlier times of sleep and lucid dreaming. She sat up cautiously and looked around the medical bay. Idova lay on the bed beside her, the machines had now withdrawn, and to Aya's shock and surprise, Idova' legs had been amputated severely. Unsure about what had happened, and still unclear on the events leading up to her own deep-freeze, Aya swung her legs over the edge of the bed and was just about to stand up when the door opened and S'Hara walked in, followed closely by Willem.

  "How are you feeling, Aya?" S'Hara asked her.

  "Much better than before. What happened?"

  Willem grimaced. "We were hoping you could tell us." He said softly.

  She shook her head, then lay back on the bed. "All I can remember was getting into the airlock after getting something caught on the edge of it. I didn't realize at the time I'd ripped my suit, but I must have. By the time I felt the fluid inside, my suit had already shorted out, and I was trapped. The last thing I can remember was a feeling of intense cold, then complete blackness. Then I wake up here."

  "I was hoping for a bit more. Idova must have all the answers." S'Hara said, looking at the unmoving figure on the other bed.

  "Well I want some answers right now. What the hell did you do to her. She's got no legs left!"Aya growled.

  "She's also missing most of her tail. We had to do it. The limbs were completely dead from direct contact with the liquid fuel. We s
till don't know how you survived." S'Hara explained.

  "I don't understand how I survived unscathed and she didn't. I was the one coated with liquid hydrogen, not her."

  "What we do know, is that Idova had her hands on your temples, and there was a blue glow around you. She was weakened by this, and we can only assume the damage had been already done in the process of getting you out of the airlock itself."

  Aya fell back against the bed as she absorbed the information.

  "What a stupid, stupid thing for her to do. It definitely goes against any code of conduct to allow such damage to occur to yourself just to save another. Why did she do it?"

  "Idova is not Taran. As to why she did it, I think you know, just as well as any of us do."

  Aya glanced at her. "I am fully aware of my and Idova's current status. We had agreed to continue our relationship for mutual reasons, and it had been agreed that it was only casual. This should not mean she does something so stupid as this. I cannot understand it, hasn't she learned anything over all this time?"

  "You know as well as I that her people are a very physical race. Both through mental and actual touching contact. They are also a very emotive species. She probably understand the casual, but still loves you anyway."

  A soft gonging sound interrupted Aya's reply. "Idova's vital signs indicate a high probability of consciousness." Jihon reported.

  Aya swung her legs back off the bed and quickly managed to walk the few steps to lean against