Save the Manatee!
17: Heaven
(June 14, 2015)
They descended in light from the sky. Dipper couldn't think coherently, could hardly remain conscious. They lifted him, and although he kept trying to say, "Help Wendy first!" he dimly realized that no words left his mouth. He struggled. He felt himself rising . . . into the light.
For a long time—though he had no sense of it passing—he was out of it, gone, unconscious. Now and then he had the strangest fleeting feeling of weightlessness. First the light, then the dark. Then pins sticking him all over, hurting him. Something that smelled sharp and sweet both at once. As much as he could form a coherent thought, he wished that would stop.
He maybe-dreamed. He wondered if he were in the Mindscape. He looked for Bill. Maybe Bill could help. He saw a distant shining triangle moving fast and tried to fly toward it (somehow, he was flying) and then realized it was a shark-fin, cutting through something that wasn't water, a surface like hammered silver. The fin was Death, on the trail of his blood.
He recoiled, and the bright light faded to deep purple darkness, and he was alone.
Where is Wendy?
He looked for her then. He had a confused sense of people around him—but not Wendy. Maybe I'm dead and she's not.
Cold, so cold.
I will never be warm ever again.
Oh, he so wanted it to be over. He wanted it to end. He could go if he knew Wendy was all right. Maybe he'd had a nightmare. Maybe life was the nightmare and he was struggling to wake up from it.
Someone shouted his name, right in his ear. "Mason Pines!"
"Nngh," he groaned, trying to say, "No. Dipper!"
He drifted and felt himself being jostled. Someone shaking his shoulder. "Wake up!"
He couldn't even manage to crack an eyelid, but someone helped by placing forefinger and thumb and prying open his left eye. Light sharp as a silver needle stabbed his brain, and he tried to scream, but only got out a weak, high-pitched groan. Then, perhaps, he passed out again.
Mabel's teasing voice: "Aw, you scream like a kitchen!"
Kitchen? That' can't be right. Kettle. Kit and caboodle. Kitsch. Kit—kitten. "Mabel!" he tried to complain. It came out "Mmb!"
Someone shaking him again. "Come on, listen to me, kid!"
It wasn't—Stanley or Stanford or his dad—it was—somebody else.
"Wendy Corduroy is here!"
He tried to open his eyes again. Everything was a bright blur. "Wnny?' he whispered.
"You're all right. The Angel crew rescued you!"
Angels rescued me. I'm going to heaven. Wait—Wendy, too? Where is she? He had the illusion of sinking into a hole, and seeing it close overhead, a growing sea of black around a fading, shrinking circle of light. He fought to rise.
"Pines! Stop struggling. Can you hear me?"
"Hmmh?"
Then, right in his ear: "We got you! You're going to be all right."
Then let me sleep.
He didn't have the strength to say it out loud. Nothing mattered. He just wanted sleep. He wanted to drift—
"Listen, Pines, we saved the girl, too. She's going to live, but we had to amputate all her fingers."
That shocked him awake.
"NO!"
"Oh, thank God!" Stanford took off the headphones.
"What is it?" Stanley asked him through the open rear hatch.
Ford removed his spectacles and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. "Coos Bay. They couldn't raise us earlier. The helicopter, the Angel-5, lost its radio—the shooting took out something—"
Stanley sounded furious: "What about Dipper! Tell me!"
Stanford blew his nose. "They pulled Dipper and Wendy out. They've life-flighted them to a hospital in Eugene. The Agency's taken charge. We have to get there."
Stan checked the fuel gauge. "Can we get there in half an hour?"
"No, Stanley! We're almost a hundred miles from Coos Bay, and that's the closest port!"
"Six hours at top speed, huh? Then forget it. Half an hour's all the fuel we got, and with this northeast wind buildin', we're not gonna be able to get there under sail."
"I'll call the Agency for help," Ford said, and he went back to the radio. As he tried to raise the Agency radio post, he heard a small sound, a sound like an unhappy puppy's whine.
He glanced up. Mabel, looking as if she were about to collapse, stood at the foot of the bunk. "Grunkle Stan?" she rasped, her voice sounding thin and rusty. "Dipper? Wendy?"
"They've been rescued," Ford said.
He jumped up and caught her before she hit the deck. "You just lie down again," he said softly, lifting her soft weight and putting her back in the bunk. "I gave you some medicine and it makes you sleepy. Mabel, it's true. Dipper and Wendy have been picked up, and they're being treated by a doctor. They'll be all right."
"I love you, Grunkle Stan . . . Ford," Mabel murmured, as if she weren't sure exactly who he was. She reached up as though to hug him, but then her arms fell loosely back to the bunk. She smiled, looking twelve again, in her relieved sleep.
Dipper ranted until the man agreed to wheel his gurney over next to Wendy's. He reached to touch her hand—but her IV feed was in the way and prevented him.
He yelled, without meaning to yell: "She—her hands—oh, Wendy!"
"Yes, I understand," Stanford told the radio operator. "Thank you. We'll stand by. If they could bring fuel . . . three hundred gallons, but seventy would get us to the dock safely with a healthy reserve. Understood. Yes, that will do. We'll hold our present course. What's your ETA?"
He took off the headphones and went back on deck, all the weariness of a long day and a night without sleep suddenly weighing on him. He took a deep breath. The salty-smelling air had a sharper edge of cold, and the lowering gray sky promised a blustering day.
"What's the word?" Stan asked him.
"You must be exhausted, Stanley. I'll take the wheel if—"
"Spill it!" Stan barked.
Stanford took a deep breath. "Dipper and Wendy both are suffering from hypothermia. The Agency has a doctor dealing with it. With luck, they'll both be all right. We need to keep our present heading. In about half an hour, a small coastal patrol vessel will meet us. Throttle back so our fuel will last until we meet the patrol boat. They're bringing ten five-gallon cans of diesel for us."
"That'll get us there," Stan said. "Why just fifty gallons?"
Stan shrugged and pulled a rueful face. "That particular boat only had ten five-gallon cans on board."
"That's the government for you!" Stan growled, sounding for all the world like their father Filbrick.
"Fifty gallons will be enough. We'll fill the tanks when we dock."
"Yeah. So about Dipper and Wendy—"
Stanford shook his head. "Stanley, I told you all I know. All they told me. I asked them to call me as soon as there's news—"
"OK, OK, so tell me about hypothermia," Stanley said, his voice harsh.
"It would only worry—"
Stan's face flushed in anger. "Tell me, Ford!"
With a sigh, standing close beside his brother, Stanford said, "Hypothermia is a serious condition. It happens when the body is chilled so much that the core temperature drops. If it gets as low as 80 degrees, the condition is often fatal."
When Stanley began to protest, Ford held up his six-fingered hand. "Calm down, Stanley. It wasn't that severe with Mason and Wendy! They were down to between ninety-three and ninety-four degrees. That leads to disorientation, confusion, hallucinations, and unconsciousness. There's also something called the diving reflex—almost all mammals have it—which causes the body to redirect heat from the extremities to the inner organs"
"What does that mean, Brainiac?"
Stanford cut to the chase: "It means they should be all right."
"They damn well better be," Stanley said.
"Her hands," Dipper said. "You told me—"
"Yeah, woke you up, didn't it?" the mustached man in the white lab jacket said. "I'm Doctor Mallion, by the way—"
Dipper glared at him, hating him. "Why'd you lie to me?"
Fallon said gently, "Sorry to shock you like that, but we were having a hell of a time getting you to respond, and it was vital to wake you up. Relax, son. We didn't touch her fingers."
"Get me right up to her," Dipper said. "I want to touch her hand."
"Believe me, son, it's whole," Mallion said. But he wheeled the gurney and adjusted it until Dipper could reach his left hand—unencumbered by an IV drip—over to cup his palm around Wendy's fingers, avoiding the drip tube that led into the back of her right hand.
"What are you doing to her?" Dipper asked.
"Warming her up, son. Warm compresses on her torso, like the ones you're under. We're also hydrating her with the drip. Don't worry if her hand still feels cold. It's important to get the vital organs warm first."
"Is she going to be OK?"
Mallion stood on the other side of Wendy's gurney. "Well, she swallowed some seawater, which didn't help, and she was hit by the cold a little harder than you were, and she was so out of it that we could have called her condition a coma, but yes, I'd say so. Right now, most of all, we need to wake her up."
"Let me stay with her like this," Dipper said.
"Son, you ought to—"
Anger heated him more than the warm blankets that covered his body. "Dammit, just leave me like this!"
The doctor blinked. "All right. I'll be back in a minute. I have to tell your guards you're conscious."
Waiting until Mallion stepped out the door, Dipper concentrated: —Wendy? Are you there? Are you getting this?"
She didn't stir or respond verbally, but he felt something—a sense of her, far away, remote, floating in the sea of unconsciousness. —Wendy? Wake up, please. This is me. I'm right here. I've got you. I'm holding your hand. Wake up now. Please do that for me. Just wake up.
He felt her emotions stirring first—surprise, gratitude, a rising tide of love.
He gave her fingers the gentlest of squeezes. —Me, too, Lumberjack Girl! I love you. Come on back to me now. We made it. Come on, come on, open your pretty green eyes for me, please.
Don't . . . let . . . me . . . go . . ..
—Never! I love you, Wendy!
The door opened, and the doctor stepped in and said, "OK, Mr. Pines, we're going to move you to—"
"Leave us alone! You're not separating us!" It came out as a snarl, angrier than Dipper had meant it.
Wendy rolled her head. Her red hair looked tangled and messy.
Dr. Mallion stepped closer, looking down at her, and murmured, "Well, well, well. She's stirring. Maybe we shouldn't separate you, at that. Miss Corduroy?"
"Just shut up!" Dipper said it between clenched teeth.
Then, through his telepathic conntecion, he thought: —Come on, Wendy, I've got you. This is my hand. I won't let go, not ever. Just open your eyes and look at me.
Her eyelids fluttered, opened and she focused on him. He'd never seen anything more beautiful than those two bloodshot green eyes.
"Big . . . Dipper," she whispered with the ghost of smile. He felt the weary, immense effort it cost her to say just those two words, and his heart went out to her. Then she blinked—the fluorescent light was sharp after the darkness of unconsciousness—and more focused, she thought, Oh, man! Where the hell are we, dude?
Dipper's face was wet for some reason, but he was grinning. He squeezed her fingers again, lightly.
—Heaven, Wendy. This is Heaven.
To be continued . . .