Chapter Five
Vivian opened her eyes in the warm glow of the sun.
She’d slept through the night for the first time since arriving on Mars.
The extra forty minutes in a Martian day seemed to offer a chance to feel truly well-rested.
Reaching her arms wide in her cozy bed, Vivian enjoyed the unfamiliar sensation of not being boxed in by any other bodies.
Delilah was still asleep in the other bed, her legs curled into her stomach, facing the wall.
Before doing anything else, Vivian stopped by the dining room console to check her messages. Nothing. On the transport ship, they’d had almost no communication access. But it had now been five days since she’d landed and sent messages to her parents and Evie. She should have heard something by now.
In the bathroom, Vivian slipped off the soft, silken robe the artificial clothier had provided her, and stepped into the shower’s warm cascade of water.
She tried to let her worry for her parents and Evie run down the drain as she took the time to wash every inch of her body with a peppermint body wash dispensed from the wall and massage her scalp with a lavender shampoo.
After nine months of sonic showers aboard the ship, she reveled in the sheer sensual joy of real hot water moving down her body.
After the shower, Vivian slipped the robe back on her clean skin and ducked her head under the built-in artificial styler.
In a matter of minutes, the styler dried her long chestnut hair and gave it a soft curl.
Vivian stepped back into her bedroom and dressed in a pale-yellow day dress with a sky-blue ribbon that gave her an unexpected wave of homesickness.
The pinkish-red Martian sky, visible through the dome, served as a daily reminder that she was a stranger here.
She ran one hand through her silken hair and breathed in the scent of lavender, allowing herself a moment of pure indulgent bliss at the sensation of being clean, sweet smelling, and well dressed. Mars might still feel strange, but her new life came with benefits she was learning to appreciate.
Vivian turned to look at Delilah, who hadn’t moved from her position curled on her side on the bed. Was her sister going to sleep all day?
“Delilah, wake up you sleepyhead.” She snatched the covers off of Delilah’s form.
Her sister moaned in response and grasped feebly for the blanket. Her pale face dripped with sweat.
Vivian’s stomach plummeted. Sticking her head out the door, she shouted, “Luz! I need you.” Without waiting for a response, she hurried back to kneel by her sister’s bed. Vivian carefully tucked the blanket around Delilah’s body and laid a hand against her brow. “You’re hot.”
“The room is spinning,” Delilah whispered. “Viv, I feel strange.”
Concealing her own terror, Vivian pushed the hair back from Delilah’s clammy forehead and murmured, “Shh, shh.”
Luz stuck her head in. “Shit. I’ll make a call.”
Vivian waited, holding Delilah’s hand as her sister panted and whimpered in turn.
Memories of the illnesses that had swept the camp passed through her mind.
At the camp, if Delilah had been in this state, Vivian would be bracing herself for the possibility of her sister’s death. Would it be different here?
Finally, Luz returned with Camille and Felicia beside her.
Camille knelt in front of Delilah and pressed a cool cloth to her forehead.
“My mom’s a nurse. Or she was. Before.” She turned over Delilah’s arms and then pulled up her nightgown to expose her legs and belly.
“No rash. Probably not measles.” Delilah barely stirred, her eyes closed.
“We were vaccinated,” Vivian whispered. “Before we got on the ship.”
“For TB too?”
“I think so.” Vivian swallowed. “How do we know what clinic we can afford here? Even if we pool all of our allowances from Wim, it won’t be enough.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Luz gestured to the door, where Caspian Hayes stood, chest heaving as if he’d run from the front gate. He crossed the room in two strides and crouched at Delilah’s side.
Vivian moved out of his way and went to Luz in the doorway. “I thought you were calling Dr. Chavez!” she hissed. “Tell me you did not contact Caspian of all people?”
“Of course I did,” Luz murmured in her ear. “You saw he owns a hospital, yes? We might as well allow some good to come of this. If he isn’t as kind and thoughtful as he seems, better to find out now. And if he is, Delilah will have demonstrated she needs him. Men eat that shit up.”
Caspian took Delilah’s limp hand in his. “How long has she been this way?”
“She was fine yesterday evening,” Vivian said. “Is it the fertility treatments? We’ve only been taking them a few days.”
Caspian shook his head. “I’m not privy to the breakthrough in reproductive medicine the Intelligence has shared with Dr. Chavez, but I recognize these symptoms—a form of kinetosis caused when a new arrival has an incompatibility with Martian gravity.
” His normally affable expression was gone, replaced by a pale, pinched mouth and creased eyebrows.
“You must allow me to treat Delilah in my hospital. At once.”
Vivian hesitated. “We can’t afford that.”
Caspian jerked his head back. “Our hospital does not charge for its services.”
Vivian had expected him to offer to cover the cost, not that there was no cost at all. At Sumter, any illness meant an agonizing scramble for sufficient funds for a medic visit and hours—or perhaps days—camped outside the clinic waiting to be seen.
“Please,” Caspian continued. “Let me care for your sister. She will be safe at the hospital and well-treated. We need to leave. Now.”
Vivian exchanged a glance with the other women. “Fine. But I’m coming with you.”
Caspian nodded in relief and hurried outside. Vivian watched him through the window speaking rapidly to one of his men. With astonishing speed, two Earther men entered their dormitory and moved Delilah onto a stretcher, and Luz helped Vivian scramble together an overnight duffel.
“Don’t forget this.” Camille pressed two bags of hormone treatments into her hand.
“I hardly think that matters now,” Vivian objected.
“It matters to them.”
Felicia nodded. “Don’t let her miss a day, Viv. She wouldn’t want to be behind.”
“Fine.” Vivian added the two bags to her duffel and rushed across the grounds to catch up with the stretcher.
Delilah gave a small moan and blinked open her eyes. Vivian grabbed her hand. “I’m here. Caspian is taking you to his hospital.”
“Caspian?” Delilah struggled to sit up. “Vivian, no! I don’t want him to see me like this.”
Hearing her, Caspian raised a hand. The stretcher paused. He knelt in the ground cover and ran a thumb over Delilah’s cheek. “Let me take care of you, Miss Bowen. Please.”
A single tear dribbled out of the corner of Delilah’s eye. “I wanted to be beautiful for you.”
“You’ve never been more lovely.” He nodded to the men, and they continued moving. Caspian stood, brushing dirt and thyme leaves from his trouser knees.
“Is that what you’re looking for?” Vivian asked. “The most beautiful girl you’ve ever beheld? Isn’t that what you told Xavier Dorsey at the luncheon?”
“I didn’t realize my private conversation was overheard,” Caspian said, a bit stiffly.
“She’s more than that, you know.”
“More than what?” Caspian began walking again, and Vivian hurried to keep pace with his long strides.
“Blond curls, long lashes, and eyes the color of a Martian sunset.”
“I can see that, Miss Bowen. That is why I wish to know her better.”
At the open gates of the compound, a small vehicle waited, flashing red and blue emergency lights.
Delilah’s stretcher was already loaded into the back, and Vivian and Caspian squeezed beside her.
Vivian was close enough to him to notice that his trouser knees were stained with green, and she liked him better for it.
Pedestrians and the few groundcars scattered out of the way of the ambulance as it sped through the streets.
In a matter of minutes, the car approached towering wrought iron gates that swung open at their arrival.
They drove past a stately house with wide decorative columns perched on a sloping rocky hill and came to a sprawling utilitarian building topped with a red cross.
The doors to the back of the vehicle opened. Two intent medics lowered Delilah and her stretcher to the ground. Vivian exited the vehicle and watched the medics wheel Delilah through a set of double doors labeled Hospital Staff Only.
Vivian wanted to run after them and keep Delilah in sight. But instead, she stood, helpless and adrift, in front of the doors. Mars was supposed to be their new beginning, and now less than a week after arriving, her sister was already worse off than before they’d left.
“Miss Bowen?”
Vivian looked up into Caspian’s grave eyes. She’d forgotten he was there.
“They’ll do all they can for your sister. I pledge my word. Please, will you accept the hospitality of my home while we wait?”
Vivian cast one last look at the double doors and nodded reluctantly.