Ghost Station, page 21
If Montrose refuses to address it, Ophelia could always reach out to her—
She cuts off the thought before it reaches completion, ripples of shock shuddering through her. No. Absolutely not. Not even to respect the dead. Not even to help Liana.
Suresh holds his hand up. “Uh, Katey, your nose? It’s … there’s blood.” He looks queasy.
Ophelia leans around Ethan immediately, in time to see Kate swipe her hand under her nose. It comes away bright red.
Ophelia’s mind flashes to Birch’s pink teeth earlier, and that lingering sensation of wrongness grows stronger.
“Excuse me.” Ophelia pushes through the others to reach Kate. This, at least, she feels a little more confident with handling, as she used to have a patient who would get nosebleeds in times of high stress—or in recounting those times on her couch.
“Pinch closed,” Ophelia says.
Kate nods, doing so. “I know,” she says, her exasperation almost comically nasal, but then she leans her head back.
Ophelia reaches up and corrects her position. “Tip forward, not backward, unless you want it going down your throat.”
Kate rolls her eyes, but she allows it.
“Does this happen often?” Ophelia asks.
“It’s the dry air,” Kate says with a muted huff. “That’s all. The sooner we get the genny up to full capacity, the sooner I can bring secondary systems online, like adding some fucking humidity to make it more breathable in here.”
Ophelia heads to the galley and grabs a handful of the general purpose cloths—though on this mission they seem to have a very specific purpose, soaking up more blood than spills.
“Any headache?” Ophelia asks, pressing a cloth into Kate’s free hand. She releases her nose long enough to take the cloth with her pinching hand.
Kate starts to shake her head, then thinks better of it. “Just the normal one. It’s because of cold sleep.” Her voice is muffled.
“Still?” Ophelia asks.
Kate nods.
“How about your gums? Have you noticed any unusual bleeding?” Ophelia continues.
“Nooo,” Kate says, drawing out the word in a manner that suggests Ophelia asked her whether she’s experienced any unexpected finger growth. “I’ve been taking my iron tabs, like a good girl.”
How about anything resembling hallucinations? How about that?
“Itchy skin?” Ethan interjects, arms folded across his chest. He’s paying more attention than Ophelia thought.
Suresh exchanges a What the fuck? look with Liana.
“You know you can tell me,” Ethan continues with an enviable calmness, though frustration tinges his words. “Any of you,” he adds. “I expect you to tell me when something might be wrong, even if you’re not sure.”
Liana and Suresh are suddenly studying the table, and Kate shifts uncomfortably.
Kate’s hand flies to her opposite wrist, before she forces herself to drop it. “It’s just dry in here, I told you. That’s all.”
Ethan doesn’t seem inclined to respond, just continues staring her down until she raises her chin defiantly. “I said no, didn’t I?”
Liana raises her hand. “Uh, why are you asking these questions?” she asks Ophelia. Though quite reasonably that question should have been directed to her commander, the last one to ask a question. Something is definitely going on here.
Ophelia could defer her question to Ethan, but that feels somehow like a rejection of an overture, for reasons she doesn’t understand.
“Just making sure I don’t overlook anything,” Ophelia says finally.
Suresh eyes her with suspicion. “No offense, Doc, but I thought you were more the type to worry about itchiness inside the old pate rather than the top of it.”
“As I said, being thorough.” Ophelia meets his gaze without flinching, and that seems to be enough for him to let it go. For now.
Fortunately, it doesn’t take long for Kate’s nose to stop bleeding, leaving her with sticky red smears on her hands and face.
“There. See?” She waves a hand in front of her gruesome but non-bleeding nose. “Fine.”
Ethan studies her for a long moment, then seems to come to some conclusion. “Suresh, work with Kate as soon as she’s ready. We want everything up to full operating capacity as soon as possible. We don’t know how long this storm will last.”
Kate turns away without acknowledging Ethan. Still in a huff about … Ophelia is not sure what exactly. But Suresh follows her quickly and they head toward syscon, behind the galley, heads together and whispering.
“Liana, if you’re up to it, can you catalog the reports from Mabel and Marvin?” Ethan asks. “Write up the TLA summary and add it to the file.”
TLA summary. In spite of everything, a laugh burbles up inside Ophelia. TLA. Top Level Assholes summary. In other words, break it down into small sentences, use short paragraphs, and include pictures, if possible, for the people making the decisions, who have no idea what they’re talking about.
It’s a term she’s heard before from patients, but usually only the retired ones who have nothing to lose. So, either Ethan has decided she’s worthy of that trust or he just doesn’t care anymore.
“Sure. Of course,” Liana agrees hastily, leaving even as the words are still exiting her mouth.
Ethan remains at the table, watching her go, then he turns to Ophelia, and the intensity in his expression makes her take a step back. “I’ve been doing this for twelve years, been on dozens of planets and asteroids,” he says in a low voice. “First as a pilot and then a mission commander. I’ve never found a body like that. Never found a body, period. Any deaths have always been clearly recorded and the remains returned or properly disposed of. Leaving a body just out there, in plain view…” He takes a deep breath. “That does not happen. At the very least, it’s a potential contamination source for the existing planetary biome. And that says nothing about the disrespect and degradation for the person that used to be.” His tone harsh, he jerks his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of Silly Bird’s owner. “Combine that with what we found yesterday, and I have no idea what the fuck is going on here.”
Ophelia opens her mouth. “It’s not ERS,” she blurts, before she can stop herself.
He frowns at her. “I never said that it was.”
No, Ophelia is the one who is fixated with worry. Why? Because of a couple of admittedly strange incidents. Because she and Birch are both from Goliath. Or perhaps simply because it is her worst nightmare, what she’s feared since she was eleven years old.
“I’m more concerned that something happened here, and that’s why Pinnacle bailed without documenting anything.” He jerks his head in the rough direction of the city ruins. Or possibly to indicate the dead Pinnacle crew member again. Both, maybe.
“It’s possible,” she admits. “But I don’t think they would have sold the planetary rights, then. That would have just brought more attention to … whatever.”
He eyes her for a few seconds without saying anything, as if weighing his words and her potential response. “Have you known them to do something like—”
“No.” Not that. But it wouldn’t surprise her if they had. “I did find some odd things in here, though, the other day,” she adds belatedly.
Ethan is not impressed by the wedding ring or the dog digi-foto, for all the reasons she imagined. But the removed molar implant and old bloody scratch marks on the desk are more intriguing to him.
“I don’t like this. Any of it,” he says, rubbing his forehead. “Not the dead guy outside, not the weird itching, nosebleeds, and headaches, or … the other stuff. When we got here, Kate found that the Pinnacle team had just left the generator running until it burned out. No one does that. They might trash the place, but not that. It might all be coincidence, but I don’t like that so many of these things are piling up all at once.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m going to ask Kate to run another diagnostic on our bio filters and the environmental systems. Just to be sure.”
She nods. “Okay.” Relieved—why does she feel relieved? He’s talking about some kind of alien contagion so tiny or unrecognizable that it could bypass all their precautions.
It’s not possible. As long as they’ve been following safety and decon protocols, which they have.
Ethan starts to move past her and then stops. “But, Ophelia, to be clear … this is not Eckhart-Reiser syndrome. Correct?”
Guilt twists in her, a thick, knotty braid of regret, uncertainty, and frustration. “Myriad physical symptoms can accompany Eckhart-Reiser, including some of the ones we’re seeing, but others too. Psychogenic itch, hair loss, agitation, lethargy, for example. The problem is those can all belong to other diagnoses as well.” Ophelia folds her arms across her chest. What is the game plan here, Phe? When are you going to say something?
Not until I see more, not until I’m sure. There’s too much at stake.
And not just for her, either. With two black marks in a row, this team will be locked out of any R&E work. Deemed too high risk. And not just with Montrose but any of the reputable corporations in this business. That matters, too. Ethan told her that himself.
Ethan’s mouth flattens, but he doesn’t press her on her nonanswer. He just nods at where her arms are folded. “You’re scratching, Doctor.”
She looks down and sucks in a breath. Her fingers, clawlike, are dug into her opposite sleeve at the elbow, nails reflexively sinking in and dragging back and forth. She drops her arms immediately. “I—”
But Ethan is walking away.
20
Ophelia waits until she’s in the A side corridor and out of sight before she rolls up her left sleeve. Dry, bumpy red skin, scalelike, weaves in an uneven pattern along the back of her forearm to the inside of her wrist and up past the inner bend of her elbow.
What is that? Heat blazes from the afflicted skin; she can feel it radiating from the surface from centimeters away, like holding her hand in front of a fire.
Some kind of late-breaking infection from the port surgery? It is the same arm. But the port itself is surrounded by normal skin, not puffy or red at all. An allergic reaction, maybe. Birch … his results showed some kind of allergy, didn’t they?
She touches her arm gingerly with a fingertip and watches in horror as the raised individual nodules … shift beneath her skin. They slip away from the pressure of her finger, collecting in a semicircle around it. The accompanying tickling sensation is followed almost immediately by a fiery itchiness.
Her skin crawls along her spine in response.
When she lifts her finger from her arm, a patch of clear skin is revealed beneath it. The bumps hold their pattern until, as she watches, one returns to the open space, then another, and another. Until it’s no longer clear and no longer distinguishable from the rest of her afflicted skin.
She slaps a hand across her mouth, fighting the urge to vomit.
This is not hives or contact dermatitis or even psychogenic itching. Skin conditions don’t move in response to stimuli.
Bugs. It’s bugs! a panicked voice screeches in her head. You’re on a fucking alien planet, and there are alien bugs.
Except there aren’t any bugs. There can’t be. The scans would have shown that. There’s nothing alive here but the six of them.
Really, still counting on those super accurate scans, are we?
She ignores the voice in her head.
Besides, everything else is sealed tight. Their suits, the hab. There’s no way in for anything.
That we know of. That’s the key phrase she’s missing. Because isn’t the point of these missions to look for new things? Isn’t that why Ethan is asking Kate to run another diagnostic, just in case?
Ophelia starts to call for Ethan, to tell him, but stops before any sounds escape. What is she going to say? He has the same information she does. Pulling him in before she has any answers is only going to make things worse.
She hustles for the med-scanner and medikit in her office. Birch may not have let her run an exhaustive check, but she can do one on herself. Just stay calm. There’s a simple explanation. There has to be. Think it through.
Why did it have to be fucking bugs?
It still might not be. Several psychological conditions present themselves with body delusions. Ekbom’s syndrome. Cotard’s syndrome. Or, hell, even Morgellon’s, though no one has had that diagnosis in the better part of a century, since it was wrapped under the umbrella of Ekbom’s.
But if it’s psychological somehow, then they’re back to ERS, though it would be a variation of ERS that she’s never seen.
And if that’s the case, she needs to tell Ethan. Everything. Damn the consequences.
She’s thinking so hard that at first she doesn’t hear it over the air rushing through the ventilation system.
“… can’t…”
A pause.
“… course, I want to … it’s home. Home.”
She stops. Whispers, somewhere ahead of her. Chills ripple across her skin, triggering another bout of itching along her arm, which she has to work to ignore.
Real voices?
Little Bird, don’t make me find you …
Her father, the memory of him or a completely imagined circumstance, takes the cue to speak up. He sounds louder, but less solid than the other whispers somehow. His words are like water slipping through her closed fingers, there and gone.
Whereas this voice, while difficult to hear, lingers, clings to reality. A sibilant S. The huff of breath in front of the H in “home.”
And it sounds like it’s coming from her office, drifting out into the corridor from the open door.
Ophelia edges closer, scratching at her arm mainly so she can focus on what she’s hearing instead of the burning desire to scrape her skin against the nearest sharp edge.
“Ash, please … don’t…”
Ash. Who is Ash?
“… can’t ask me to do that. Not with her here.”
Ophelia’s only getting half a conversation, and she can’t tell who’s speaking. It’s a man, she thinks. Suresh? Birch is showering, and Ethan didn’t come this way. Did Suresh manage to get a direct connection to someone back on Earth? Ophelia didn’t think that was possible this far out, even in clear conditions, let alone in the middle of another storm.
She closes the distance, moving as quietly as she can in her fabric shoes with their flat soles, and peers around the corner.
A tall figure is standing at the far wall of her office, staring out the window, angled toward the view of the former city. His breath clouds the duraglass in rapidly vanishing condensation.
His profile is immediately recognizable; it’s Birch. His white towel is looped over his shoulders but it looks dry, still holding its creases from storage.
“Birch.” Ophelia stops at the threshold. “What are you doing here?” She hadn’t seen him cross back over through the central hub, from the C side to A, but to be fair, she and the others had been fairly distracted with the whole bored-out-chunk-of-a-human-on-video thing. “I thought you were going to clean up.”
He doesn’t respond. Continues staring out the window.
An uneasy feeling spreads its wings in Ophelia, preparing for flight. “Birch, are you—”
“Just looking,” he says, speaking over her.
“Looking at what?” Anticipatory dread curls in her stomach.
Birch turns away from the window with what seems like physical effort. His eyes are unfocused and so very red. He’s digging at his left arm again.
She opens her mouth to ask again.
“Looking for you. My head.” He blinks rapidly, then raises his hand to his temple. “It’s hurting. Can you give me something?” His words are coming faster now, like he’s waking up.
“Oh. Yeah. Yes, of course.” She turns to find the medikit. It’s on the desk, where she left it last night.
Then she stops, the burning in her arm giving the sense of movement beneath the skin.
She faces him again. “Birch, can I check on your arm?”
He blinks at her, gaze distant, as if he’s trying to interpret her words.
“Birch, can I—” she begins again.
“No, it’s fine,” he says. “Just my head.”
“I really would like to make sure,” she says. “If you can just roll up your sleeve, I promise, I’ll be quick.”
“I would really like a lot of things. Namely, not to be working with Bloody Bledsoe’s kid.” His voice rises in volume toward the end.
She flinches and automatically looks toward the door to see who might have overheard.
“But we don’t always get what we want,” Birch says, baring his teeth at her in a mockery of a smile.
Strangely, his gums don’t appear to be bleeding anymore, but they … appear oddly dark. Little dark seeds appear to have sprouted in the gaps between his teeth. What the fuck?
“Doctor,” he presses. “Unless you’d rather I express my pain in another way.”
The threat, mild as it is, does its job, sending a wave of cold panic through her.
“All right.” She heads toward the medikit. With her back turned, Ophelia feels somehow safer to ask the next question. “Who were you talking to, when I came in just now?”
He makes a noise, a grunt of surprise. “I wasn’t talking to anyone.”
She focuses on getting the painkiller loaded into the hypo. “Who is Ash?”
Birch’s response is immediate, a sharp inhale, as if she’s reached over and slapped him. “Do you think that’s funny?” He crosses the unit in three strides to grab her arm and yank her around to face him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” He gives Ophelia a shake, and it makes her teeth rattle in her head.
She’s too stunned to react at first—like always—but the pinch of his too-tight grasp finally penetrates. “Let go. Now.”
His face contorted in a sneer, he steps back, holding his hands up in a mockery of surrender. “You bring up Ash, and I’m the bad guy?”
“I didn’t bring him up,” she shoots back. “I heard you say the name. I don’t even know who it is! You were talking and—”
