Schemes of the Unknown Unknown Ch. 02

It was still risky to stumble over the wreckage of the affected chambers when the escalator took him as close to the surface as it could. Laurent trampled over the ruins of people's lives. The toys that had been incinerated in the heat. The household goods that had melted and crushed in the searing heat and air pressure. The scattered holographic images that still flashed memories of lives brutally curtailed. And worst of all the amputated limbs that had yet to be cleared away after the emergency surgery that had been necessary to rescue the victims. Laurent sighed as he reflected that the flash of white leg he'd seen stretched out beneath the wreckage would very likely become victim to the same necessary but heartbreaking duty.

He clambered over the ash and molten metal until he could squeeze through the entrance that had been widened by the laser torches of the rescue robots and into a chamber that had survived despite being so very near the breach in the colony's hull.

At the very least, he expected to see the third degree burns and broken bones that usually accompanied survivors of such breaches, but the body the rescue robots were uncovering was in much better condition. Sure, there were bruises and scratches, but this was one very fortunate victim. She hadn't even needed resuscitation although her breathing was still shallow and her eyes tightly shut. It was only when the final beam was lifted up and carried away that Laurent could see the extent of this woman's good fortune.

It was at this point that wholly unprofessional emotions passed through Laurent's mind as they did through Nathalie who, despite her avowed preference for male company, had a taste for women as well.

This naked woman was unusually beautiful even in a Solar System where ugliness had been mostly entirely banished. Her bosom suggested she had chosen further enhancement on top of her natural endowments. Although her hair was singed, it mostly retained a peculiar bounce and silky fullness.

Laurent closed his eyes. These were totally inappropriate thoughts for a firefighter. His duty was to rescue the victims of disaster, not to entertain lecherous thoughts for them.

The woman was eased onto a hovering stretcher that, accompanied by Laurent and Nathalie, glided to a pedestrian walkway over the treacherous terrain away from the worst damage. This led to the massive metal doors that had so successfully shielded the majority of the colony's several hundred thousand citizens from the breach that had claimed the lives of so many. Everyone in the Lovano Colony was at almost equal risk from deadly disaster. Even those protected by innumerable levels and many such protective doors were at risk from a system failure. Ruptured pipes. Electrical failures. Leaks of lethally hot gases from the planet's surface. No one born on Venus or who had chosen to live there could be considered immune. There had been cases where entire colonies had been devastated. Although Laurent never had the misfortune to work on such missions, these catastrophes had claimed the lives of many thousand more lives than were lost this evening.

This breach was scarcely routine, but something like this occurred most months somewhere on the planet's surface. Although such catastrophes happened rather less frequently than during the early years of Venusian colonisation, it remained an irony of which most Venusians were rather proud that the planet the most like Earth in many ways was actually the last to be properly colonised. Even Jupiter had been colonised before Venus and the Jovian outer atmosphere was even now home to rather more people than lived on the second planet from the Sun.

The victim was soon well away from harm's way and stretchered to the nearest hospital bed. Her eyes were still closed although her modesty was ensured by a thin sheet that did nothing to disguise her voluptuous contours.

Although there were other victims who needed Laurent's attention at least as much as the last one to be dragged out from the rubble, it was the naked woman he found himself drawn towards in the time left before he and his crew returned to their station. That would be a long journey back and the next shift had been on duty for several hours now. Laurent could expect at least a day in lieu after this mission.

He and Nathalie sat by the woman's bed and Laurent's eyes were drawn again and again to the curves that even under the sheet reminded him of the flash of crotch he'd noticed when the victim was lifted out of the ruins and before it was covered. For the first time since Magdalene died he was feeling an erotic charge that he sometimes believed he'd never experience again. And it was in similar circumstances that he last saw his wife alive before she expired from her extreme suffering.

Only on that occasion, Magdalene's eyes hadn't opened.

The woman looked around her, clearly dazed but unusually alert for someone who would normally be expected to remain unconscious for many more hours.

"How do you feel?" asked Laurent in English, although he had no idea whether the woman might speak French or, coming from the Lovano colony, Italian.

The woman's voice betrayed no accent. Not even that of a Venusian. It was hesitant and strangely croaky, but not in the way voices normally were after such a trauma.

"All right," she said. "Given the circumstances."

Victims were often able to articulate deceptively well after even the worst trauma, so Laurent didn't take this as evidence of full recovery. However, had she suffered worse injuries, the discovery that she'd lost a limb would soon cancel her apparent coherence.

"What's your name?" asked Laurent. This wasn't because he especially wanted to know, though identification would eventually be a necessary part of her recuperation. He knew that questions of this nature were often the ones that would most focus a victim's attention.

"BTR..." began the woman, before hesitating and looking around her with an expression that almost betrayed anxiety. She gazed deeply into Laurent's eyes and flashed a smile that captivated him more than anyone's had since Magdalene's. The smile vanished but Laurent's memory of it persisted for much longer.

"What's your name?" he repeated.

"Beatrice," she said. "My name is Beatrice."