Angel of Europa by Allen Steele Page A

against his temples and the sockets of his eyes; the very pores of his skin felt as if they’re on fire. His fingers loosened from the rung, and then he was lying in an infirmary bed, gazing up at Dr. Philips.
    “Hello, Otto.” In keeping with expedition protocol, she spoke to him in English rather than his native German. Her voice was quiet, her eyes searching. “How are we feeling?”
    Somewhere above his head was the staccato beep of the bed’s sensors, registering his cardiac rhythm and respiration. The bed sheets were cool and crisp, the pillow soft against the back of his head. His body was utterly weak, his muscles drained of all energy. It was all he could do just to keep his eyes open.
    “Like … hell.” His throat was a dry tunnel behind a parched mouth. “Water.”
    Dr. Phillips — he’d always had trouble thinking of her as Martha, her first name — favored him with worried smile. “You shouldn’t be dehydrated,” she said, glancing up at the IV drip bag suspended above the left side of his bed; its narrow plastic tube carried a glucose solution to the stent inserted in the crook of his left elbow. “I’ll get you something to drink in a moment.” She looked down at him again. “Do you know where you are?”
    “Here,” he managed to croak.
    “Think you can be a little more exact?”
    “Ship … Zeus … Explorer .”
    “Yes. Very good.” A satisfied nod. “And your name is …?”
    “Otto … Danzig.” Irritation accompanied thirst. “Water … please.”
    “Of course.” Phillips strolled over to a water dispenser, filled a paper cup, inserted a straw. Returning to the bed, she pushed a button on its right side. The bed purred softly as it raised halfway to a sitting position. “Just a little,” she said, bending the straw and fitting it between his lips. “Don’t gulp or you’ll get sick.”
    The water was as lukewarm and flat as only the recycled urine of twenty men and women can be; just then, though, it was as sweet as wine. Ignoring the warning, Danzig sipped greedily at the straw, savoring the water as it rolled down the desert cave of his mouth and throat. He wanted to take the cup away from her, but his hands only twitched a little when he tried to raise them.
    “That’s enough,” Phillips said, even though he’d barely slaked his thirst, and gently pulled the straw from his mouth before he was through. “Now … do you remember what happened?”
    “I was … I was … in … the airlock. Outer door … opened and …” He struggled to remember, but the only image that came back to him were his feet, one of his sneakers missing, dangling a couple of meters from the open hatch. “That’s all.”
    “Shock. Don’t worry, it’ll come back to you.” Philips took the cup over to a recycling tube and poured the remaining water into it. “You’re fortunate to be alive,” she continued as she crumpled the cup and shoved it into a disposal chute. “They managed to shut the hatch before you were blown outside, but you were dead when they pulled you out of there.”
    Danzig stared at her. “Dead?”
    “Uh-huh.” Philips turned to a nearby counter, started to do something Danzig couldn’t see. “Severe pulmonary barotrauma, coupled with acute ischemia. You’re just lucky you didn’t have an embolism … I’m not sure I could’ve saved you then. Otherwise, everything that could happen to someone who’s been in a blowout, happened to you.”
    “How did … how did …?”
    “They got you out of there in time. Once I managed to resuscitate you, I put you on life support, pumped you full of medical nanos, and programmed them to repair your organs and blood vessels. Then I stuck you in the emergency hibernation tank to heal.”
    Philips turned away from the counter. She held a syringe gun, its barrel half-filled with a milky fluid. “Now that we don’t need them anymore, it’s time to kill the little demons.” She placed the gun’s tip against the side of