1942664419 (S) (24 page)

29

The giant opalescent ball shimmered, reflecting the green glow of the alien trees. I refocused for the third time, but for whatever reason, the radiance wouldn’t come out on my camera’s view screen.

David flung his shirt over his shoulder and smiled at me.
Click.
If I couldn’t catch the beauty of the planet, the least I could do was immortalize my favorite alien for the seventeenth time today.

“How’s it going?” I handed him one of his water canisters.

He took the smallest of sips and replaced the cap. “Good. We should know soon.”

A bump formed in the earth between us and grew, reminding me so much of the line of dirt behind Bugs Bunny when he dug his holes that I had to laugh. Of course, I’d screamed the first time I’d seen one of these burrows for real, until Edgar popped his head out of the soil and not some kind of unknown creature ready to eat me. This time, one beady eye broke the surface and stared for a moment before the rest of him appeared. He shook, raining blue, pink, and brown debris across our shoes.

“He seems to be feeling better,” David said.

I glanced into my almost empty canteen and gulped down my dry throat. All it took to get our little
grassen
back on his feet was most of my water supply. Maybe I shouldn’t have given Edgar a drink every time he asked, but he’d been doing most of the work. I’d only gathered about a gallon of the metal stuff, where he herded in a gallon every fifteen minutes or so. I couldn’t let him collapse again. Suffering a little thirst was a small price to pay to get home.

David placed his nearly full canteen down as he sat. There were two more containers in David’s supply case. He’d share his water with me if I needed it, but for now I didn’t want to worry him that the supplies were dwindling. I needed both my guys in top form, since I had no idea what to do other than cheer them both on and pat a few dull globs of metal into the main form to bring the microscopic suckers back to life.

Closing his eyes and tilting his head back, David seemed to drink in the alien sunshine. “If this works, we could be off this planet by tonight.”

My mouth dried. Butterflies took flight in my chest.

Getting home should make me happy. Excited. But everything would change as soon as we stepped foot on Earth, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to face any of it.

David turned to me. He opened his eyes, and a gamut of emotions flooded from their depths. He wanted to get me home. I didn’t doubt that for a second.

But he also didn’t want to get home. Hurt emanated from those eyes, a pain and deep loss that I knew all too well.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“As soon as we get home. You’re leaving me again.”

He pulled his shirt back over his head. “I never came back, Jess. You came to me.”

Did he work at trying to frustrate me? “But after that solar flare thing is done. You’re going to Mars.”

“Of course I am. You knew that. My people need me.”

Yes, I knew that. I wasn’t an idiot.

He turned his eyes to the ship when I needed more than ever to look into them. But then again, maybe that was why he looked away.

“Are you ever coming back?”

“We don’t need to talk about this now.” He fiddled with his canteen.

“Why won’t you look at me?”

David chucked the container at a tree and clenched his fists. “Because you know the answers to these questions. I don’t know why you keep asking.”

“Maybe I need to hear you say it.”

“It won’t change anything.”

“It might, if you let me see your eyes.”

The cracked part of my heart healed as he turned completely away from me. I couldn’t read his mind, but I could read his eyes, and he knew it. Despite his words last night, he still wanted me, but he was trying to do the right thing. Stinking alien chivalry.

“David, please. We need to talk about this. Why can’t … ”

The ship groaned like a dog stretching after a nap. David sprang to his feet.

“What is it?” I asked.

“The power.” He sunk his hands into the gelatinous sides of the hull.

“The power what?”

David gaped and stepped back. Edgar grabbed my pant leg and pulled me away from the ship, before hiding behind my ankles.

The ship moaned and howled as if in agony. Was that even possible? The hull pinched and tucked. Leaped forward and back. Lurched and righted itself. The shimmering surface coalesced into several forms before the angles sharpened, and the material seemed to harden. A smooth triangular form loomed before us, the sides swirling in opalescent glory. The trees mirrored along the surface, before the mass dropped, settling into a big, beautiful, perfect ball.

“What do you think, Edgar?” David asked.

The gargantuan spider scurried from behind us and jumped toward the ship. He sunk through the surface as if he’d canon-balled into a vertical swimming pool.

David laughed.

“That’s good, right?” I asked.

“That’s very good. Ready to go?”

“Already?”

“We don’t have all that much power. If we’re going, it has to be now.”

“Oh, umm, okay.”

I glanced back at the planet and shot off a few hundred shots at high speed. Maybe one of them would capture the real color and the pearly quality of the air. I picked up the few canisters and knick-knacks littering our camp and stuffed them into my backpack with my camera. I snatched David’s water bottle from the ground and slipped it into the outer pocket.

Done. Cleaned up like a good Girl Scout.

My gut twisted, and my eyes burned. Why was I going to cry? I wanted to go home, but maybe a part of me had already bonded with this strange place.

Then I remembered the giant, man-eating dogs and the tears faded instantly. I was definitely ready to trade up green planet X for blue planet Earth.

I slung my backpack over my shoulder. “I’m ready.”

David threw our supply cases through the liquid wall, slipped his fingers into my hand, and gently tugged me toward the ship. He disappeared through the side of the hull, sinking vertically before he pulled me through behind him. A flash of frigid liquid stung my cheeks and hands before we stepped into a solid, gray room: the same room David had jettisoned me from when he thought we were going to crash.

Two escape pods glistened beneath the low lighting. Two. If anything happened, we’d leave together this time. And if David didn’t like it, he better get over it now.

“This way.”

I dropped my backpack and followed David to the front of the ship where two chairs finished forming near a set of large windows. I settled into the one on the right. The chair molded to my body and enclosed around me. “I can’t move.”

David took the seat at my left. “In a minute, you’ll be glad of that.”

His chair didn’t spring to life. He still moved around freely. Couldn’t he get hurt if something happened?

“Edgar, are you with me?” David asked, continuing his perusal of the console.

A wave of yellow glow folded over the wall and windows before fading back to gray.

“Good. Let’s give it our best.”

David leaned over and kissed my cheek, then my bottom lip. He lingered for a moment as if memorizing my scent before returning to his chair.

What was that all about? I was too terrified to dwell on it. Were we kidding ourselves? Could that tiny tuna can really have enough power to cut through a planet’s atmosphere?

David sunk his arms into the controls of the ship, and the chair came to life around him, locking him in but still giving him the ability to move. I guess the co-pilot being immobile wasn’t an issue. Either that or David told the ship to keep me out of trouble. The latter was more feasible. We might have words about that later—if we lived.

The windows disappeared, melting into solid gray walls. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer.

Could God hear me all the way out here? Did he take care of people on other planets, too, or was I crap out of luck the second I left Earth? I forced the thought away and continued to pray. Paralyzed in a cocoon of molten metal, there wasn’t much more I could do anyway.

“Here we go,” David said.

The ship quaked around us before settling. My body lifted, and my abdomen sank like it does when a plane takes off. The sensation continued to deepen, as if a hole had been cut to allow my organs to leave my body and drift out into space. My necklace rose out of my shirt and hovered before my face, the etched charm catching the flickering lights. It seemed suspended, hanging in time, before the clatter returned. My head vibrated within my enclosure. Pain lanced through my temples. Bile rose in my throat.

Beyond the rattling in my brain, David grunted and growled.
Were we in trouble? Was the ship breaking apart? Were we going to
…

Silence. Stillness. My necklace lay across my blouse, motionless.

The plain metal wall stood before me. Unblemished. Unbroken.

David puffed out a breath, and his next came quickly. My bindings relaxed as my chair released me and returned to its original state. David slumped forward, sinking further into the console.

“David, wake up!” I grabbed him and pushed him back into his chair.

His blank eyes stared at nothing. He panted three times before his gaze centered on me.

“You’re okay, David. We made it.”

He blinked and sat up, rubbing his shoulders. “Remind me never to try blasting out of an alien atmosphere again.”

The windows re-appeared. A quarter of the green planet peeked at us from the right, while the left sparkled with millions of stars.

Another wave of yellow washed across the ship.

“That means we’re ready to go.”

“Already?” I asked. “But you look exhausted.”

“The rest is only piloting, not keeping the ship from breaking apart. I’ll be fine.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “From here until Earth, it is up to the ship.”

I sank back into my chair. “Can you tell if we’re going to have enough of that cohesive stuff?”

“Molecular cohesion.” He sunk his hands into the controls. “The static in the atmosphere gained us thirty-eight
semphons
of power.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s not much, but I think we can get home.”

“Not to play devil’s advocate, but what happens if there’s not enough static or, you know, cohesiveness?”

David’s deep intake stretched the fabric of his tee-shirt across his chest. “If we lose molecular cohesion deep in space, we will know for a fraction of a second.”

“A fraction of a second?”

He looked away again. That was enough to tell me that we wouldn’t survive long if that happened. Cripes.

I stood, wiping my forehead. We weren’t safe. It could be over at any second, and there would be nothing we could do about it.

His arms surrounded me. He nuzzled my hair. “I’m sorry I dragged you into all this.”

“I was the one who found the stupid powder. I’m sorry for getting
you
into this.”

David’s grip tightened. As safe as I felt in his arms, I had to wonder; maybe he wasn’t all that sure about the cohesion-thingy. Maybe he was holding me in case we …

Yellow flashed across the hull again. David’s grip loosened, but only slightly. We touched foreheads, and a swirl of warmth squiggled from his skin into mine. I still trembled. How cold was it in space? Would I feel anything? Would Mom be waiting for me?

“I’m scared,” I whispered.

“I know. I’m here. I won’t let you go.”

Heat shot from his hands. His essence filled me, soaring through my body as easily as he walked through liquescent walls. He embraced me from within as effortlessly as he held me in his arms. I was not alone. Maybe I never would be again.

The lights grew brighter, and David leaned away. His semblance ebbed out of me. I grabbed hold with my mind, desperate to keep him near.

“Let go, Jess.”

My eyes fluttered open. What had he said?

His fingers trailed my cheek. “You need to let me go.”

Wait a minute, could I
…

I closed my eyes and pulled harder with my mind. He seeped back into me.

In the outside world, I heard him snicker. His arms tightened around me again. Everything that was David filled me, warmed me from within.

“I really need to get to work.”

His voice echoed through my mind, but I wasn’t sure if he’d actually spoken. I blinked and let go.

David stepped away; his lips turned up only on the left. He backed toward the console, almost as if he was afraid I’d do something to him, all the while with that adorable poop-eating grin on his face.

“Be good.” He turned back to the console.

Be good
, he says. How could I be good when I just figured out I could do mental mojo?

I concentrated on the back of his head, thinking with all my might. He turned and raised an eyebrow. “Stop it. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

I turned to hide my blush. You couldn’t blame a girl for trying.

A wave of deep purple light cascaded over the sides of the ship. The walls moaned a deep, deafening cry of sorrow.
There’s no way that was a good sound
.

“Jess, sit down.”

My chair turned toward me. Stupid, creepy, demon chair. If I was about to die, it was not going to be strapped to something. “No way. I want to help.”

“There’s nothing you can do!”

He pulled his arms out of the console and ran past me. Edgar materialized out of the ceiling.

“Where is it?” David yelled.

The gargantuan arachnid scurried to the far wall, stopped at hip-level, and spun like a top. David knelt and inserted his hand into the partition. He gasped and pulled free as if something bit him.

“What happened?” I asked. “What did you feel?”

He grimaced. “Outer space.”

30

A gray oval appeared where David had withdrawn his hand. A shape not larger than a walnut. The color blurred and doubled in size.

“No, no, no, no, no!” David held his temples, ran back to the console, and sunk his arms in.