Death in the Stars

I. Maximum Life Expectancy The nurse took the syringe and the vial from the shelf, soaked the liquid substance up, and stepped to the glass cover of the tubular medical container. She checked the name on the list: Laurence Bellanger. She is the patient who needs to have the wake-up cocktail injected. She carefully ran her finger along the line of the tubes—coming out of the patient’s veins—until the end. She verified the switches and the connections, and then injected the cocktail into the tubes. In nearly three hours this lady would be awake, until then, the nurse would have time to prepare her bed in the high observation room. Before leaving Madame Bellanger alone, she adjusted the patient’s thin, grey hair and mopped up the perspiration from her forehead with a cloth. The disease had been eating Laurence’s once nice-looking body from the inside out for years. Her limbs were covered with reddish patches, and her breasts were enmeshed in the net of burst capillaries. Her skin had flaccidly fallen into the valleys of the cheekbones, because the connective tissues had lost their flexibility. But even so, the face was in the best condition. Life expectancy: 42 years—this was written in her file. She did not have much left of it. For her, the road would end soon. The nurse adjusted the heated pillows, turned on the illuminant imitating the light of the sun, then left the room. Soon the conditions started to change in Laurence’s feeble body: the awakening infiltrated into her deep frozen dreams. Her veins enlarged, the blood heated to the level of the human body temperature. The dreams had become quicker as the comfort slowly increased. The rousing consciousness, which had been trying to hold these fantasy pictures back to have one more dream, knew that it would be its last dream. But she may have a chance to go through one more dream. And hopefully this would be the most beautiful one. * “Good morning, Madame Bellanger.” “No,” said Laurence. She wanted to speak the word out loudly, but only a faint sigh came out. “This is the wake-up call,” she felt the touch of the nurse’s hand on her skin. She had very soft and fragrant hands. Laurence wanted to prolong this moment for a while to enjoy this caress more. “Sleepyhead! You haven’t had enough for 32 light-years?” The nurse playful exaggeration was not totally covering the truth. Due to the spaceship’s engine—which had bent the physical space—the trip had taken only one-and-a-half earthly years. “But I want to finish this only last dream…” Laurence said finally, loudly when she was able to do so. “You will finish at home. Be prepared, the ferry leaves for Earth soon!” Laurence moved her fingers a bit. She felt there was no way back to the beatific dreams: she had to wake up. She wanted to catch that sentimental last scene that she had seen in the imaginary cinema of her mind. There she was still in her 20s, had just met with Jack, who was the only American student from the campus. They were at dancing, embracing each other. Finally the last dream ended with pleasing memories… “What day is today?” she asked, more lively. She had opened her eyes a bit, looking through a thin gap of the eyelids. The rays of the artificial sun-like illuminant got into her yes and generated a burst of the wake-up hormones. “Saturday, 10th of July, 2235. There is excellent weather in Paris. You will be assisted at the Charles de Gaulle by our colleagues. I think it will be an exceptional day,” a natural optimism could be heard in her voice – or she was damned good to cheer up a patient with an incurable diseases on this Hospice Spaceship. It did not matter, Laurence got the message. “May we leave?” asked the nurse. This would be the last time Laurence saw her beautiful smile. The Latin-American features of her face shone out nicely from the glowing white background. The picture of this sweet woman was frozen into her mind. * Her ferry arrived at the VIP terminal of the spaceport. She sensed the dinging noises of the neurotic traffic around her. She saw the glittering clusters of the ships hanging from the sky. Sluggish ferries headed off to the Moon Colony or to bigger spaceships, which would take their passengers to further destinations: to the Mars New Home or to the Jupiter’s moon Europa Colony. A trip from Earth to Mars only took 2 days—she could not comprehend this. She had travelled with this incredible speed to the nearest Hospice Exoplanet, the D74X, too. She did it in a year and a half, there and back; meanwhile the 32 years had passed on Earth. She went on a sort of time travel—she flew to the future but aged only a year and a half. The little flicker of hope, what she had when she left, came back again like a blazing flame on Earth. She was pushed out from the ferry on a floating bed. The drops of painkillers came down from crystal clear bottles. Without them she could feel the unbearable pain that she hadn’t had on the journey. It could kill her in a minute. The worst thing in this disease was not the unchangeable fate, but the intolerable pain that had accompanied it. She could not care about losing her legs, arms; if only this pain would go away! But the unstoppable and incurable disease—which started from a tiny bit of her finger and forced the living cells to die—had spread on, all over body. She hosted a slow and cruel killer. “I am Jean-Paul Armangeaux,” said the kind man shaking her hand, he must have taken the nurse’s place. He was also a really good helper. He lifted her in a professional manner and placed her into the floating chair—Laurence did not feel any pain or discomfort. She remembered the time before leaving the earth: every movement was an exploding bomb of pain. Now she felt herself become almost weightless in a great, relaxed comfort, which might come from the new type of painkillers. “Nice to meet you,” Laurence was trying to smile, but it turned out to be just a good try: her facial muscles were immobile due to the long sleep. “If I were a bit fitter or younger we could even date.” “But Madame Bellanger, you are not only fit and young” said the man and headed off to the floating ambulance car “but very pretty!” The man was not just a perfect helper but he was a professional liar. But Laurence did not care about it. She enjoyed the compliment she could not have for years. Each of them was equal to a bottle of magical painkiller, even if this was only a polite gesture. Paris had changed a lot. The unexpected marvels filled her with wonder. The boulevards of the ancient, bright city had sunk between the 120-floor skyscrapers—nobody used them anymore as a result of the growing traffic of the floating cars. The Eiffel Tower was still standing, although it had been chopped in half; it was on the top of a 150-floor building with its legs missing. But the light on the top of the viewpoint was still on. The outskirts were still ugly, run-down, and drained. Although these dark, unlit slums had changed a lot too: they started to look worse than the favela of Rio, built on junk, made from tin. “Only twenty-five minutes and we will reach the Dignity Hospice Center,” said Jean-Paul, turning back from the front seat. “Don’t worry about me,” waved Laurence. “If I have already been asleep for thirty-two years, then this half an hour extra will not shake me. Einstein said a few hundred years ago: time is relative.” The Hospice Center had become more modern and nicer, although it also provided luxury service before. If medical centers were rated like hotels, this one would have six stars by now. The room she was assigned to was painted in the color of peach blossom with bright white azaleas. Small lights were imitating the flickering stars on the ceiling; a stone fountain let water run at the corner, and a small yellow patch—a canary—was trying to bring the spring into the room. It was pure hokum, what she did not like. They could switch off all the effect, the canary could be taken away too, but she did not ask it. She wanted to keep the nature in the room for her remaining days, even if it was just a fake parody of life. She had dreamt about the spring a lot, wanted to see it now. “Madame Bellanger, I am so happy that you came back to us!” She immediately recognized Dr. Foucault. When she left he had started his career as a resident at Cell Biological Department. Now, at over fifty, his hair was a bit greyish. It was so good to see a familiar face in this rapidly changing world. He drew a chair next to her bed and sat down, holding her hand. “Today you have to have a big rest, but tomorrow,” he said to her, “we will have a long chat.” “I’ve already taken an extensive, thirty-two-year rest,” smiled Laurence. “It was only one and a half years in reality, and your health status did not change,” said the doctor, gently caressing her hand. “The post-hibernation indisposes the strong and healthy too, so you need to obey.” “I know,” said Laurence with resignation, “I have to.” “Yes, you really have to….” “But you have to answer only one thing.” “About the treatment and perspective we will speak tomorrow….” “Not about that,” said Laurence. “About my family. How are they?” Dr. Foucault slowly tightened her hand to make her more secure. “They are all right,” he said with a warm glaze in his eyes. But Laurence was still tortured by her doubts. What if he just lied? She felt that everybody wants to hold back the cruel truth from a patient with a deadly disease. Dr. Foucault must have known that he could not tell the truth to her without preparation. This could kill her immediately. “We will speak about everything tomorrow. I have some surprises for you too,” he added at the end. “Right,” sighed Laurence and shook his hand. “The aging suites you well, doctor. I love your nicely greyed hair.” The man left the room with a wide smile on his face. At least he could see that the sense of humor had not left his patient after that many years. But a huge lethargy clouded her mind when she stayed alone. Every man forgot that she was still a forty-year-old woman. She was still younger than this handsome doctor. The disease made her old and wrinkled, how could she expect to be treated like a pretty woman, she thought. But she did not want to be treated as a living dead. But new hope would rise tomorrow. And hopeful dreams waited for her that night. * “Good morning, Madame Bellanger.” His name was Frederic; it was written on his shiny nametag. This strong man came to her to lift her like fluff and put her into the floating chair. She had not known him before she left with the Hospice Flight, because he could have been in the nursery at that time. She wrapped her arm around his neck and inhaled the clouds of his masculine perfume. For a moment, she thought back to her marriage with Jack, or even earlier, the time of young loves. She travelled back to the time for a few seconds until she reached the chair. “We start to move slowly, getting fit, to get back our muscles. The disease—as a taxman, who takes all—pilfered away a lot from the skeletal muscles. We have to stop it!” he said when he gently released her. Laurence loved these strong men. They formed a robust shelter around her with their arms, and they blew the dark clouds away with their strong voices. “With the new type of painkillers, you will be more comfortable and not addicted,” he explained the newest medical invention to Laurence. He drove the floating chair through tortuous corridors. “These drugs were in the night-cocktail I mixed for you. You don’t feel any pain, do you?”