1942664419 (S) (12 page)

His words coated me like icing on a cake. I’d felt off since he left, as if part of me was missing. Now that part was back, and I felt whole again. Complete. It was scary and exhilarating all at the same time.

David retreated. A speck of uncertainty passed across his face.
Did he feel the same way I did? Did it scare him?

His hands fell to his lap. A word may have formed on his lips, but he didn’t speak it. He ran his thumb over one of his fake, human pinkies, keeping his gaze down.

Dad’s voice whispered in the back of my mind.
He’s on Mars.
The words hung like a solid wall of truth. But that wall had been broken. I’d never questioned where David had been for the past two months, or I might have tried to wiggle my way back into his life earlier. “I thought you’d be a few million miles away by now.”

He nodded. “I should be. There was a solar flare storm. It was too dangerous to proceed, but we expect it to be over in the next several lunar cycles.”

And then he’d be gone.
“Oh.”

“There are three research vessels similar to this one. All are focused on the terraforming project. We’re keeping on schedule.”

He sounded funny when he talked about work. So formal. So adult. So not him.

His eyes searched through me for a moment, before falling on my mouth. Erescopians didn’t kiss, but I knew he liked the feeling of my lips against his. I inched closer, but he pulled away. Why?

“Have you taken any interesting photographs?” David asked, still not meeting my gaze.

I blinked, startled by the sudden change in his demeanor. “Umm, yeah. I wish I could show you.”

“May I see your camera?”

Handing him the case, I said, “Looking through the view screen doesn’t do them much justice.”

He popped out the memory card and stood.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking at your photos.”

He thumbed the card into the brick along the fireplace, and the plastic chip seeped right into the mantle, almost as if it had sunk into water. Standing in the middle of what looked so much like my living room, I’d forgotten a liquidic ship surrounded me.

The memory card reappeared, and David handed it to me. I slipped it back into the camera. “What was that all about?”

He poked the bricks a few times and then made a movement like throwing something into the middle of the room. Hundreds of photographs appeared in midair.

Hol-eee-crap
.

David spoke a word in Erescopian, and the lights dimmed. He scrolled through the pictures hanging around us by waving his hands in the air.

I’d seen cool before, but this had to be the icing on the proverbial cool cake. I needed to get me one of these
hang your photos in the air
thingies, like, yesterday.

He tilted his head, looking at a few pictures of bare walls, and shots that appeared to be of people’s shoulders. So much for me trying to catch a Steven Callup magnum opus.

The photos faded away, and the Earth appeared before us—the picture I’d taken this morning with Nematali. The blue glow of the ocean lit up the room.

“Very nice,” he said.

“Thanks.”

He flipped forward. I recoiled as three Erescopians filled the air around us, throwing fists at each other. It was like watching a movie without a screen.

“Where were you when you took this?”

“I got lost. I ran into these guys. Well, almost. I decided to get out of there, and the ambassador found me.”

He turned to me. “The ambassador?”

“Yeah, you know. Good Will Guy.”

He scrunched his brow and made a pushing motion with his palms. The movie zoomed in. “Re-pixelate,” he said. The picture sharpened.

“You can speak English to the computer?”

David grinned. “Only using this kind of interface. It’s actually reading my thoughts. I don’t need to say the word aloud, but it helps me to focus. My mind translates what I want to the computer.”

Whoa. Add extra icing on that coolness cake.

“Suspend,” he said.

The three aliens froze in place, hovering before us.

David tapped a point on the screen between two of them. “Enlarge.”

The photo zoomed in. A doorway stood open behind them. I hadn’t noticed it during the commotion.

“Re-pixelate and enlarge twice,” David said.

A clear view of the room, or at least the visible part, zoomed before us. A cylinder, partially filled with a brownish, yellowy something or other sat on the edge of a table.

“What is that?” David asked.

“I don’t know. Looks kind of like mustard.”

He leaned closer to the photo. “That color isn’t natural where I come from.”

“So, what, you think it’s something from Earth?”

His gaze remained fixed on the picture. He rubbed his chin as he concentrated on the image before us. What could be so important about that flask?

David took a deep breath, and a new set of pages appeared in the air. Scrolling, calligraphy-like writing rolled past us. The images blurred, until David raised his hand, stopping the motion. A photograph appeared beside the original—a small amount of mustardy-colored powder in some sort of metal dish sat beside a wilted, splotchy-looking red plant.

“Is that the same stuff?” I asked.

His cheeks paled, tinting slightly with the violescence beneath. “I certainly hope not.”

I sooo didn’t like the sound of his voice.

“That color is rare in my culture. It’s used to frighten children, and just the mention of it terrifies most adults.” He turned to me. “If that flask contains what I fear, we have a very large problem.”

“Okay, now you’re scaring me. What the heck is it?”

“A mistake. An abomination.” He closed his eyes. “It was engineered to bring life. But it didn’t.”

A shiver crept down my spine. “What does it do?”

“It kills planets.”

“What?” My shiver traded up to an all-out panic attack. The picture of Earth exploded before us, overlapping with piles of killer powder. Had I done that? Had the computer triggered off my thoughts and pulled a photo of what I feared most at that exact moment?

It didn’t matter where the picture came from. Earth hung before me, lush, beautiful, and completely unaware of the danger looming above her.

Maybe General Baker was right to still be on the defense. Maybe this thing with the aliens wasn’t over.

David’s eyes hardened. “Where were you when you took that video?”

Uh oh.
“I don’t even know. I fell through a wall, and then through a floor. If I hadn’t met the ambassador, I don’t know how I would have gotten back.”

“The ambassador found you down there?”

I nodded.

David’s nose flared as he shuffled the photo of Earth to the back and re-centered on his enlargement of my video of the guys fighting. “Recapture and reduce to original size.”

The two photos of the mustard powder shifted to the side, replaced by the fighters again. David’s gaze panned the outskirts of the photo. “This is one of the storage levels. The ambassador wouldn’t be down there.”

“Maybe he had to pick something up?”

“The ambassador would not pick something up. Others would do that for him.”

“So you’re thinking it wasn’t the storage area?”

David wove his fingers through mine. It would have seemed tender if he didn’t look terrified. “I need you to show me where you fell through the wall.”

Oh. Snap
. It was in that hallway, the grayish one that looked like every other freaking hallway on this Godforsaken death ship!

The picture of Earth remained below the others, stacked like a transparent deck of cards, but the photograph still spoke to me, tugged. Tugged like home.

I steadied myself. “We had just left the Mars project room. We turned right down a long hallway that bent to the right. It was somewhere after that bend.”

Turning to the pictures hanging before me, I waved my hands in the air. Under different circumstances, I would have been stoked that the photos scrolled at my whim. I stopped on the square etched block, and the other photos I’d taken just before I disappeared.

“This is where I was.” I pointed to the block. “Does this thing help? It was on the floor.”

David nodded. “It is a primary juncture. There are dozens of them on that floor.” He turned to the photos. “Seal and file,
quilesec niam ghosest mioga est
.”

Earth was the last photo to fade into the wall before David grabbed my arm. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk.”

14

“Does anything seem familiar? Anything at all?” The desperation in David’s voice cut a hole through my heart.

“I’m trying. It all looks the same.” I punched the wall. He was right. I should have paid more attention. If Earth died, it would be all my fault.

But I wouldn’t give up. Not yet. Not ever.

David tugged at his bangs. “Every few feet of this partition is dissimilar. How can’t you tell where you were?”

“What are you talking about? They’re all gray!”

Defeat flashed through his eyes.

Dammit! All he asked me to do was find where I’d fallen through the wall. This guy branded a stinking human skin onto his body for me, and I couldn’t find a simple alien doorway!

Something flashed to my right and spiraled beneath the surface of the wall. The stalker shadow. I turned, but like before, only a grayish molten barrier remained when I approached.

David joined me in studying the wall. “Is something wrong?”

I rubbed my arms to ward off a chill. Sweat beaded at my temple. “There was something there, but it disappeared when I turned around.”

He shoved against the wall. Solid, of course. His face remained expressionless.

“The same thing has been following me all day. It’s driving me crazy.”

“It’s probably just a
grassen
.”

“A what?”

David’s eyes flashed with amusement as he placed his palms against the wall and pressed. I snapped a few pictures as a dark, rotating shadow appeared within the shining surface. “Is this what you’ve been seeing?”

“Omigosh, yes! What is that?”

He continued to push, and a bubble appeared between his hands. A shape formed within, like a drenched tarantula rising out of a pool of molten tar. I managed five photographs before my stomach lurched. Not just a tarantula. A damn big tarantula, with a body probably a foot and a half long and almost a foot wide.

I backed away. The deep-purple spider twitched its ten-inch legs as it continued to rise out of the molten metal wall.

“
Dedredeare colerin, est
,” David muttered. “Welcome, shepherd.”

David looked back to me, but I could barely take my eyes off
spidicus
giganticus
.

“What the Hell is that?”

The spider’s disgusting, hairy body expanded and contracted as if it had mammalian lungs. I cringed as ten long, hairy legs stretched one at a time.

“This is a
grassen
,” David said. “A motility shepherd. They are part of the biological make-up of the ship. They feed off a vessel’s metabolic waste, and the occasional rodent.”

I rubbed my shoulders. “Well, why is it trying to shepherd me?”

David shrugged. “Probably because you’re different. They’re curious. It may be attracted to the cool temperature of your body. Don’t worry. It won’t hurt you.”

He drew his hands from the wall, and Giganticus jumped, landing on David’s wrist. David cried out and flailed, pitching Spidey across the hall. The giant bug splatted into the wall and disappeared within the swirling metal.

Agape, David stared at three holes sliced into his human exterior.

“I thought it wouldn’t hurt you. Are you all right?” I asked, grasping his hand.

He puffed a laugh. “I’m fine.”

David rubbed the holes with his thumb, and they disappeared. I guessed the
grassen
-thing didn’t bite deep enough to harm his real skin.

“I certainly feel foolish,” he said.

“You? I’m the one who can’t find my way around.”

He rubbed my shoulder. “I’m sorry if I was short with you. It’s that powder.” He shuddered. “If it’s out there somewhere, I need to find it. Please understand how important this is to me.”

“I get it. I’m the one whose planet it’s aimed at.”

I clenched my fists and glanced over both shoulders. Why couldn’t I see changes in the walls like the Erescopians?

But maybe I could.

Adjusting my backpack on my shoulder, I closed my eyes and listened. David was so close. A hum echoed off his body, calling to me. I eased toward him, my skin yearning to revel in his essence.

No! Come on, Jess. Focus.

I blinked and blinked again, trying to tune him out. His tone, his smell, his resonance encompassed all. I gritted my teeth, focusing myself. There had to be something other than David that I could key into.

A high-pitched squeal hid just beneath the roar of David’s—
everything
. I took a step away from him and centered on the odd sound. The farther I stepped away, the weaker the sound became, only to be overtaken by a different tone. But even that wasn’t right.

Holding my hands out so I wouldn’t run into a wall, I moved down the hallway until a tone stopped me: a high pitch with a dash of clatter simmering beneath. The sound made me think of falling.

I opened my eyes. At my feet, lay the square etched block on the floor that I remembered seeing when Nematali had stopped to talk to the alien. “This is it. This is where we were.”

A rush of energy blasted through me.
Delight. Pride. Satisfaction.

Huh?

David’s gaze dripped over me like I was an ice cream sundae, and he hadn’t eaten in a month.

Umm, what were we doing again?

He looked away, and the sizzle under my skin subsided. “Do you know where you fell through?” he asked.

I felt along the wall, hoping to find the phantom door.

Nothing. Dammit.

Disgusted, I folded my arms and propped myself against the swirling metal. “I’m never going to … ” I shrieked as the surface softened and gave. The fierce cold of the inner wall stabbed me before I thumped onto hard metal. Ouch.