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William spends the most of the night, unable to sleep, tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable, his apprehension about tomorrow’s plans keep his mind from allowing rest. Finally he falls into a fitful sleep.
Waking to the smell of something burning, William jumps out of bed, throws on a robe and collides with Chris in the corridor as he rushes out of his room.
"Sorry, Chris," William apologizes as he tries to locate the source of the smell.
"That’s all right, its coming from the kitchen," Chris helps William back to his feet and they rush into the small galley to see Tina standing over a pot, which is belching flames and smoking very badly.
Rushing over to the pot, William crashes a larger pot over the flames, not seeing the lid anywhere. He holds it down, preventing any more oxygen from reaching the flame.
"Tina, just be glad we’re in a low oxygen atmosphere, otherwise you may have been in flames also." Chris scolds Tina. William sees, out of the corner of his eye, Tina cringing from Chris’s scolding.
"It’s all right, what were you trying to cook anyway?" William continues to hold the pot over just in case the fire isn’t truly out yet.
"Breakfast."
"I’m just glad we’re at port," Chris comments, "At least we can vent the smoke and clean the air filters, no problem. We’ll have to postpone the remerge for a bit longer."
"Fine," William waves his hand idly at Chris as he concentrates on watching the pots for fire as he lifts the larger pot slowly.
The three of them spend the next six hours cleaning the filters and repairing the galley. Chris fixes a quick lunch and they sit down to plan the remerge.
"Ok, William, you’re going to have to monitor us as we merge. These are the lists of the exact amounts of chemicals we each need in our bodies during the merge, and their tolerances." Chris hands William two electronic pads. "I figured them out last night."
"Hmm," William starts skimming the lists on the pads, "What’s Choriolia Beta XE? And why so much?"
"Choriolia Beta XE is the base of a mergehalf, most races have water, we have Choriolia Beta XE."
"Mergehalf?"
"Oh, sorry, that’s the term used for someone who has been merged with another and is currently not merged." Chris takes another sip of his Irish Tea.
"Ok, I think I can monitor these values."
"Great. Also, you might want to know, one of the problems of merging is that the bodies form large amounts of heat, and originally the water-base of the bodies of the two too be merged would boil, killing the volunteers. Choriola Beta XE boils at 342 degrees Celsius, instead of the 100 degrees of water. When sick, our fevers tend to be above the boiling point. But then again, we rarely get sick."
A loud crash startles the two guys and they turn in unison to see Tina, blushing brightly, standing amidst a couple of broken plates, and three servings or so of rice.
"Tina, I don’t remember you ever dropping a plate before." Chris glares at Tina.
William quickly gets out of his seat and helps Tina clean up the mess, all under Chris’s unwavering glare.
William and Chris continue their discussion on the specifics of the merging process, while Tina wanders aimlessly around the city. Tina returns right before local nightfall and stows a large amount of doggie bags in the small fridge. William enters the kitchen while she’s putting the bags away and exclaims, "So that’s what you’ve been doing. Visiting all the restaurants, again."
Tina looks toward William and his slightly lopsided grin causes her to swallow the retort she was going to say. "Yeah, I guess," she sighs as she slumps into one of the chairs.
"Something wrong?" William takes one of the seats beside her, a look of concern clearly showing on his face.
After a few moments waiting as Tina looks down at her hands, she replies, "I just want to be whole again." She then breaks down into silent sobbing while William gently caresses her back.
The next day, the three of them modify the small infirmary for the remerge process. It takes about two hours for them to set up the equipment, and it starts coming together, Tina appears to get more cheery. Around noon, They stop for a small break. William has lunch but Chris and Tina decide they shouldn’t eat anything, not knowing how it might affect the merge. After William finished eating, Chris and Tina both lie down on the cot. William attaches the probes and IV lines to each of them and starts doing checks on the equipment, not wanting anything to go amiss.
"So, how do we start this thing?" William asks from the console he is sitting at, keeping an eye on the monitors and the two mergehalves.
"You’re ready?" Chris doesn’t turns his head slightly to look toward William.
"I’m ready, all I need to do is monitor you two and make sure your chemical balances remain within tolerances?"
"Yes. Tina you ready?" Chris slowly turns his head toward Tina.
"I’m ready whenever you are…"
"Ok, William, we are beginning the merge."
William concentrates on the monitors, showing the two of their status and a live video feed. The video feed shows the two of them grasp hands and the hands start to melt into each other. Their faces contort in agony as the merge begins. William notices a dramatic drop in the water level of them as their temperatures soar quickly to 150 centigrade. William triggers the air cooler system to help keep their temperatures down, as Chris suggested during their talk. William changes the IV feeds to compensate for a slight dropping off of sugar levels. William tweaks the IV lines for the next hour and a half. After this period, they are no longer distinguishable, the agonized screaming coming from Tina during parts of the process sent chills down William’s spine, but now the newly remerged Christina appears to be sleeping contentedly. William cut out one of the IV lines, not wanting to over feed any chemicals to her. The two status monitors aren’t synced yet, but are getting closer by the minute. When the two monitor readings synced, William noted the process took just over an hour and a half.
William gives Christina a quick look over, avoiding gazing too long at her personal areas, and notices her hair seems to have a more metallic shine in it. Otherwise she appears identical to how she looked when he met her. Her breathing was still heavy but she seemed complete. While William waits for her to wake up, he ponders where in the universe all that extra mass went. Christina weighs less than either of them alone, she is taller than either of them, but that’s expected. Christina stirs in her sleep, letting out a soft sigh as she shifts on the small cot. William watches her with a sense of great relief while still praying she had at least very close to the same personality, having had a chance to interact with each of the individual parts of her mentality.
William removes the last IV line and disconnects the three billion probes. He waits a full hour before Christina wakes up and looks around, fixing her eyes on William. To William’s surprise her eyes are now a piercing hazel color, instead of the brown he expected.
"What’s wrong?" Christina’s musical voice sends waves of ecstasy through William’s mind.
"Hu? Oh, your eyes are hazel instead of brown like they used to be." William quickly pulls himself out of his reverie. "Hungry?"
"Uh, hu," Christina sighs, without even attempting to move.
"Ok, I’ll go make you some soup. When you’re ready a jumpsuit is sitting on the chair to the right of the cot."
Christina, suddenly noticing her current state, attempts, ineffectively, to cover herself up. William, seeing this, quickly takes his leave and heads for the kitchen.