Cathryn sat quietly on the floor of her bedroom. Her cousin lay deeply asleep on the bed, sedated. Kerri's system had gone into overload when she'd taken her first notum-filled breaths. Cathryn had tried to convince her cousin that it would be better to make her way from Earth in a DNA-pod transport but Kerri had refused. She wanted to experience Rubika in the same way Cat had. Cat's arguments that it was different for her since she'd been born on Rubika and lived most of her life there, but her words fell on deaf ears.
Kerri paid the price for her stubborness. Her blood pressure had gone through the roof within minutes after there arrival and she nearly fainted into Cat's arms. Fortunately Cat had brought along the right equipment and meds for treating her cousin. Of course, Cat had thought they would be used on someone else, someone who would be in too fragile of a state to travel in the DNA-pod. But then, he hadn't been able to make the journey at all in the end. So Kerri was able to receive the life saving sedation and medication that had been meant for her father.
Now, one week later, she lay on Cat's bed being monitored by the systems that had also been meant for her father. Equipment that Cat had picked up on the black market just an hour before her hasty departure for Earth.
During the week they'd been back on planet, Cathryn had allowed herself short excursions to catch up with her old friends. Still most of her time had been spent at Kerri's side watchin the computer readouts to make sure that Kerri was adjusting properly. Finally after the long week, it looked like Kerri's body was ready.
"Well," Cat whispered to her still silent cousin, "your body is ready, time to see if your spirit is." With the press of a button the computer adjusted the flow of nanobots in Kerri's system, slowly bringing her out of the sedation. As Kerri's eyelids began to flutter, Cat sat on the edge of the bed and leaned her face over her cousin, smiling down at her.
"Good morning and welcome to Rubika."
