Her last thought as she slumped to the walkway was They’re going to put me in another bloody cage, aren’t they?

* * *

Iona woke in a pale yellow room with no windows. Slowly she became aware of figures moving around her and at first she thought she was dreaming because they seemed to be walking up and down the walls. Then she realized she didn’t know anything about these beings and maybe they could walk on walls. Gradually she realized she was the one on the wall. She lay in a bed that had its own gravity, variable according to what suited the occupant, and it had been mounted vertically for reasons she didn’t immediately understand.

Circular patches were stuck to her arm and abdomen. Tubes and wires trailed off from these patches, connecting her to sleek machinery mounted on the wall to her right. The clothes she’d been wearing upon leaving the dome had been removed at some point and replaced with loose-fitting black pajama-type garments. They weren’t terribly comfortable.

The memory of what had happened came back to her. Her body tensed up as she realized she was still a captive of these creatures. She could tell it was not possible to get out of the bed. If she dangled a foot off the side the gravity automatically increased, preventing her from rising. They had indeed put her in another cage.

Iona breathed deeply and felt a pain in her chest but it wasn’t the pain she was expecting. Her lungs didn’t protest—they seemed fine—however there were needle-like sensations across her ribs, in the skin and the bones. She touched a hand to her chest and found a scar right down the center of it. The scar was very tender, though it felt very clean.

She wondered how long she’d been unconscious.

The figures around her noticed she was awake. Until this point they’d been acting like she wasn’t there: now they began to act like they were far too aware of it. Two figures attended to the machines to her right. Another figure stood directly in front of the bed and addressed her. She couldn’t tell if it was the same one that had led them out of the cage—she had yet to find any way of distinguishing the figures from each other—but it was holding the same device, the thing that might be a weapon, and was pointing it at her.

The bed’s gravity field made Iona feel like she was looking up at the figure. It was a strange and unpleasant way to hold a conversation but she was determined not to let on that she felt discombobulated.

The figure seemed to be waiting for her to speak. From its point of view it must have been like talking to a portrait hanging in a gallery.

“How are the others?” Iona said.

“They are being restored,” the figure replied.

“Does that mean they’re alright?”

“They will be.”

Iona pointed at her chest. “What happened here?”