Zion's Children Pt 4

Lily Bennett sighed in relief as she set her bag on the soft-carpeted floor of her assigned rooms. Unlike the commander, she welcomed the sight of the furnished room. Her first fear upon being told of her new assignment was that she would have to live in primitive conditions. She hadn’t told the brash young doctor that she had grown up on a colony world much like Zeta Muria.

There were colony worlds, and then there were colony worlds. Political dissidents established the very first colony worlds, as well as those sent into exile, often against their own will. Zeta Muria was one of them, as was her home world of Beta Talisman. Her ancestors had been herded into a ship along with other religious zealots and sentence to death among the stars. Their ship had drifted for untold years after the hyperdrive had failed them, and they had eventually been forced to land on the first inhabitable planet they found. If it hadn’t been for the earthquakes it would have been ideal, but they’d had no choice. People who had been used to some level of comfort suddenly had to become frontiersmen.

Shaking off her melancholy, Lily set about unpacking her bag and arranging the few mementoes she carried with her. The past was the past and no amount of prayer could change it. She wanted nothing more that to cure these people and return to the civilization of the Core Worlds.

After showering in a real shower and changing into a fresh uniform, the solemn nurse returned to the front desk. Freeman was still waiting there and looked as though he hadn’t moved the entire time she’d been gone.

While they waited for the doctor, Lily decided to make some conversation as it felt too awkward to her to stand there in silence.

“How long have you been here, Lieutenant?” she asked.

“I came out with the General fifteen years ago.”

“You’ve been here fifteen years? Do you ever get home?” Lily couldn’t fathom being in one place that long.

Freeman looked confused. “This is my home.”

“Ok,” she said, drawing the word out in disbelief.

“I was born in space,” Freeman explained. “I never had a home until I was assigned here. My family comes once in a while, but they never stay long. They don’t like being tied down.”

“I see.” Personally, Lily could understand the feeling. She never wanted to be tied down to one place or person. She didn’t have time for sentimental foolishness. She couldn’t.

“Ah, here comes Doctor Gold,” declared Freeman as he spied the approaching doctor.

As the three set off on another trip, Lily looked slyly at the doctor. Truly he was a good-looking man, even if you didn’t like his type. He was tall and his blond hair had natural red highlights in it. His blue eyes were strikingly sharp and open. Gold’s features were fine, as if his face had been chiseled to create the angles and then sanded to soften the edges. And his smile could stop a woman’s heart if he wasn’t careful. She almost regretted that he wasn’t a Christian and therefore considerable for her, but given his love of the frontier, perhaps it wasn’t a bad thing.

The infirmary, three blocks away from the housing, and was as she expected…primitive. It was a whitewashed one-story clapboard and stone building whose only redeeming quality was that it was large. It easily covered twice as much ground as the Housing building. The interior reflected the exterior, but at least it was clean and had good lighting. Even above the smell of disinfectant, there was the overriding smell of death.

Lily wanted to go home.