Read Online Gravity by Tess Gerritsen - Free Book Online Page A

emerged from Atlantis’s hatch over two years ago. On weak legs she had walked into the sunshine, had stared up at a sky that was startlingly blue.
    In the span of eight days aboard the orbiter, she had lived one hundred thirty sunrises, had seen forest fires burning in and the eye of a hurricane whirling over Samoa, had viewed an earth that seemed heartbreakingly fragile. She had returned changed.
    In five days, barring a catastrophe, Chenoweth would share the secret.
    “Time to shine some light on these retinas,” said Chenoweth.
    “My brain still thinks it’s the middle of the night.”
    “It is the middle of the night,” said Emma.
    “For us it’s the crack of dawn, folks,” Vance said. Of all of them, he had been the quickest to readjust his circadian rhythm to the new sleep-wake schedule. Now he strode back into the O and C building to begin a full day’s work at three in the morning.
    The others followed him. Only Emma lingered outside for a moment, gazing at the shuttle. The day before, they had driven to the launchpad for a last review of crew escape procedures.
    Viewed up close, in the sunlight, the shuttle had seemed bright and too massive to fully comprehend. One could focus on only a single part of her at a time. The nose. The wings. The tiles, like reptilian scales on the belly. In the light of day, had been real and solid. Now she seemed unearthly, lit up against the black sky.
    With all the frantic preparation, Emma had not allowed herself to feel any apprehension, had firmly banished all misgivings. She was ready to go up. She wanted to go up. But now she felt a twinge of fear.
    She looked up at the sky, saw the stars disappear behind an advancing veil of clouds. The weather was about to change.
    Shivering, she turned and went into the building. Into the light.
     
    Half a dozen tubes snaked into Debbie Haning’s body. In her throat was a tracheotomy tube, through which oxygen was forced into her lungs. A nasogastric tube had been threaded up her left nostril down her esophagus into the stomach. A catheter drained urine, and two intravenous catheters fed fluids into her veins. In her was an arterial line, and a continuous blood pressure tracing danced across the oscilloscope. Jack glanced at the IV bags over the bed and saw they contained powerful antibiotics. A bad sign, it meant she’d acquired an infection—not unusual when a patient has spent two weeks in a coma.
    Every breach in the skin, every plastic tube, is a portal for bacteria, and in Debbie’s bloodstream, a battle was now being waged.
    With one glance, Jack understood all of this, but he said nothing to Debbie’s mother, who sat beside the bed, clasping her daughter’s hand.
    Debbie’s face was flaccid, the jaw limp, the eyelids only partially closed. She remained deeply comatose, of anything, even pain.
    Margaret looked up as Jack came into the cubicle, and gave a nod of greeting. “She had a bad night,” said Margaret. “A fever. They don’t know where it’s coming from.”
    “The antibiotics will help.”
    “And then what? We treat the infection, but what happens next?” Margaret took a deep breath. “She wouldn’t want it this way. All these tubes. All these needles. She’d want us to let go.”
    “This isn’t the time to give up. Her EEG is still active. She’s not brain dead.”
    “Then why doesn’t she wake up?”
    “She’s young. She has everything to live for.”
    “This isn’t living” Margaret stared down at her daughter’s hand. It was bruised and puffy from IVS and needle sticks. “When her father was dying, Debbie told me she never wanted to end up like that. Tied down and force-fed. I keep thinking about that. About what she said…” Margaret looked up again. “What you do? If this was your wife?”
    “I wouldn’t think about giving up.”
    “Even if she’d told you she didn’t want to end up this way?” He thought about it for a moment. Then said with conviction, “It would be my