Ghost Station, page 32
Kate rolls her eyes, but she pokes Suresh in his shoulder. “You hear that? Mean doctor says you need to stay awake.”
“Crazy bitch,” Suresh says, with a hint of his former spark. “Trying to save me from the nice alien torturers.”
Ethan returns seconds later with the PMU.
“Leave the tourniquet in place. I think,” Ophelia says to Kate, who has stepped to the other side of the table, her hands hovering above the looped cord. “We need to take off his glove.”
With a grimace, Kate steps back and out of the way, holding her hands up. “Machines, not people, Doc.”
Son of a bitch. Fine.
Ophelia moves around the table and fumbles with the latching system at Suresh’s wrist. It’s backward to what she’s used to, putting them on and taking them off of herself.
Ethan steps in, nudging her out of the way and taking over. He twists at the wrist, and the glove clicks in release. Then he lowers it carefully over the cuff edge of the suit.
The sound, oh God … Ophelia’s not sure any of them will survive this, but if she does, the wet splotching sounds of his flesh and that mix of blood and black sludge hitting the metal floor will stick with her forever.
Suresh’s hand is a shredded mess. Skin and ligaments dangle from bone. And the black stuff is everywhere. It’s as if the tiny pieces exploded his hand from the inside. And maybe they did, trying to get to the tower. Only his suit—and the fact that he wasn’t quite as infected as Liana—saved him. The pieces were not able to get out and rejoin the whole. Liana’s faceplate cracked. But his glove held. That’s it.
Ophelia tightens her lips and presses her tongue against the roof of her mouth, resisting the rise of bile.
Ethan draws in a sharp breath.
“Oh, shit, am I going to lose a finger?” Suresh asks.
The color drained from her face, Kate pats his shoulder. “Nope. All five alive. Going to be baby smooth and good as new.” She glares at them.
“Med-scanner,” Ophelia says after a moment. “I need it. I’ll be right back.”
She turns away for the A side corridor, her breath trembling. She manages to hold it together until she’s out of sight, tucked around the bend in the corridor. Then her trembling knees give.
Ethan follows her. She doesn’t look up, but she knows it’s him by the familiar rhythm and firmness of his steps.
“We can’t stitch it,” Ophelia says to the tops of her knees. “There’s nothing to stitch, and the PMU is useless unless you’re willing to risk amputation. Assuming there’s even a setting for that. He needs more care than we can do here. Probably even more than we can give him on the Resilience.” The ship, orbiting on autopilot, kilometers above them, seems as unreachable as home right now. “And I don’t even know … I’m not even sure he’ll survive cold sleep. The system uses our circulation to move the coolants, and he’s lost so much blood, and with that sludge, those things, in there, I…” Ophelia shakes her head.
“The shock to his body might be too much,” Ethan says, sinking down to crouch next to her.
“Yeah.” Ophelia clasps her hands together to keep them from shaking, resting them on her knees. After all they’ve done, after all that’s been sacrificed—Liana, Birch—they’re just going to end up stuck in here, watching each other die or progressively lose their minds.
“No,” Ethan says.
“No?” She raises her eyebrows.
“We just need to get the bleeding stopped as best we can. Stabilize him. And then we are getting the fuck out of here. Now.”
She looks up at him, startled. “But you said the lander can’t handle—”
“It can’t.” He amends a moment later, “We shouldn’t. But we’re past the point of ‘should’ right now.” He pauses. “You were right.”
Ophelia raises her eyebrows.
“Ugly choices.” He tips his head at her in acknowledgment. “If I’m going to be responsible for deaths, I’d rather it be in trying to save ourselves. Period.”
The hollowness in his expression, though, tells Ophelia what she already suspected. This is going to damage him further. To risk all of their lives by taking off in a storm, knowing it may well end badly. To put Suresh in a tank, knowing he may not survive.
But does anyone get through life without taking damage from a risk in one form or another? Her entire career—hell, her life—suggests that’s an impossibility.
Ophelia sits up straighter. “Okay,” she says slowly.
Ethan takes her hand and pulls her up to her feet.
“In the medikit, there should be casting gel,” he says. “I’ve used it to set a broken arm or two in the past. It makes a watertight seal. You think we could use that to stop the bleeding long enough to get Suresh back up to the Resilience?”
Dizziness washes over her. Probably from standing up too quickly. Lack of food. Lack of sleep—her eyes are burning with it. Stress. A tickle in the back of her throat. The urge to laugh, even though there’s absolutely nothing funny about any of this. “Maybe,” she begins. “It’s off-label use, for sure, but I can’t think of—”
Little Bird. I found you.
She stiffens, freezing in place. Just past Ethan’s shoulder, her father appears. Not see-through, vague, or even in shadow.
His gray jumpsuit is dusty with the remains of work, despite the best decon efforts. Just like it used to be when he returned from a monthlong stint on the P3X147 mine. His fists are clenched at his sides, knuckles bruised and darkened from colliding with rough edges on machinery and punching random walls in a fit of temper. His silvery curls are cut short on the sides. Exhaustion is creased into his face. Anger simmers in the heavy brows, ready for the lightning-quick shift from smooth to convulsive fury.
Ophelia hasn’t seen him, not like this, in decades. In the media coverage, they used his employee photo, a blank-faced stare into the camera. Or, worse, the muddled sec cam footage of him exiting the transport, a bloodied and small figure barely distinguishable from his surroundings.
But this is her father as she knew him most of the time.
Pissed. On the edge of an explosion.
Her shoulders hunch automatically. Stay still. Quiet. Hide, if you can. Wait it out until it’s safe.
The impulse to follow those tried-and-true measures is so strong it’s hard for Ophelia to even look at him, as if making eye contact might set him off. It used to, if her mother wasn’t there to intervene, to try to defuse him. She did, occasionally.
Why did you make me search for you? Didn’t you hear me calling you? You answer when I call you, Lark! His voice booms in her head.
Hearing it, the implacable build of fury within, makes her heart flip-flop with terror, even as an adult.
It dawns on her that this is likely what her mother felt as well.
Small, frightened, alone. And trapped.
Ophelia has always known that her mother must have been scared, even if she refused to talk about it. That being afraid kept her on Goliath and with him. That the rift with her family didn’t help, because she felt she had nowhere to go, no resources to help her escape.
As a small child, Ophelia saw it as two adults who seemed equal in her eyes. One who hurt her and one who allowed it. But that assessment, like everything else in life, was far too simple for a complicated situation.
Her eyes water, and she blinks to make them stop. This is not real. This can’t be real. No matter what the panicked rhythm of her heart is saying, her father’s long dead. No longer able to hurt her. But fuck if it doesn’t feel as though he could reach out and grab her at any second. Shake her until her teeth rattle in her head, leaving fingerprint bruises on her skinny-as-a-stick upper arm, just like he used to.
Ophelia shuts her eyes for a moment, trying to shake off the vision. Hallucination. Whatever. Clearly those things have finished … processing Liana and are starting back up again. “Let’s try the gel,” Ophelia says to Ethan, her voice croaky with distress.
And—thank God—her father is gone when she opens her eyes.
But Ethan is watching her with an odd expression. Then he steps back suddenly, putting distance between them.
“What, what is it?” Ophelia asks. Or that’s what she says in her head.
Because only then does she hear herself, the disconnect between the words she’s thinking and the ones coming out of her mouth.
“First, first siren coffee?”
31
“Order school eat!” Ophelia bleats. Her voice is not her voice, too soft, too dreamy. And not saying what she wants.
She claps a hand over her mouth. No, no, no. What is happening?
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Ethan says gently. Then he turns and calls over his shoulder. “Kate!”
Terror pierces Ophelia, cold blades tearing inside. She’s not as lost to it as Liana or even Birch seemed to be. But possibly only because she’s still awake. For now.
Kate appears in the corridor. “What is taking so long? The med-scanner should be—” She stops abruptly as soon as she sees them. “What are you doing? What’s wrong?”
“We’re losing her,” Ethan says quietly.
“No, I’m still here. I don’t know what’s wrong,” Ophelia insists. But more nonsense spews forth from her mouth. Her lips, teeth, and tongue feel like strangers, no longer obeying her commands.
Kate stares at her, mouth open slightly.
Ethan moves to grab Ophelia’s arm, but acting on impulse, she darts sideways, farther down the A side corridor, out of reach. Her limbs, for now, are doing as she asks. But that’s no guarantee for an hour from now, or even five minutes.
Her breath catches hard in her throat, a whimper escaping before she can stop it. I can’t. I can’t do this. Be present and feel my mind deteriorating around me. This is her nightmare coming true. Losing control of herself and still being dimly aware of what’s happening.
“Ophelia, I’m not going to hurt you,” Ethan says, his voice low, hands out in front of him as if he’s approaching a feral animal. “I just want to make sure you’re not going to hurt yourself, right?”
Part of her wants to roll her eyes at him. She understands him perfectly well. But he has no way of knowing that because she can’t tell him that.
She can’t breathe. Her lungs are tight, like they’ve turned to solid stone. Incapable and impervious to air.
What am I going to do? She shifts her weight from foot to foot as Ethan approaches slowly, cautiously. She knows what not to do, as unhelpful as that might be at the moment. Sleep will only make it worse. Birch, at least, had some awareness, but Liana …
Wait. She stops moving. She’d avoided giving Suresh a sedative because she didn’t want to lose him to the towers, to whatever this is. She hadn’t considered what would happen if she attempted the opposite. If their sleeping minds give this thing some kind of an advantage over them, then what would happen if she made herself, well, more awake?
Ophelia turns on her heels and heads for her office, where the medikit was the last time she saw it.
Fortunately, it’s still on her desk.
Ethan and Kate follow her at a safe distance.
“What is she doing?” Kate asks, as Ophelia rummages in the kit.
“I don’t know. Be ready to grab her if she’s got the scalpels,” Ethan says grimly. “Ophelia, just come with us and—”
“Grass. Chair sky benediction. Chair sky benediction!” She shows them, with trembling fingers, the ampule.
“A stimulant, I think,” Ethan says to Kate. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says to Ophelia. “It’s supposed to be for extended—”
She presses the hypo against her neck. A cool sensation rushes beneath the skin and then sweat instantly bursts out all over her skin, along with chills. Her teeth chatter.
“It’s in the frontal lobe, the language center,” she tells them, tremors racking her body. Her heart is pounding like she’s running sprints. Uphill. “But I can still understand everything. Ethan, I’m still me.”
Gibberish again.
Ethan cocks his head to the side, looking at Ophelia intently. Then he turns to Kate. “Can you give me a second?”
She folds her arms across her chest. “Not a great idea, Commander.”
“It’s fine,” he says. When she doesn’t move, he straightens. “Kate. Now, please.”
Commander voice. It’s effective.
She scowls at Ophelia. “I’ll be right outside.” Then she pivots and stalks toward the door, making a show of stopping just over the threshold.
Ethan edges closer to her, hands still up, but he seems more certain now. “I need you to come with me. Someplace safe. If you can understand me, you know why I have to do this. I can’t risk you hurting yourself or us. And…” He hesitates. “With your history, with what you’ve told me, I need to be cautious.” The compassion in his gaze, meshed with implacable kindness, makes Ophelia simultaneously want to cry and to dig a hole in the ground and vanish forever.
Bloody Bledsoe strikes again. But she understands. She would insist on nothing less.
She’s never felt more tainted, more damaged, in her life, though.
Ophelia takes a chance and tries nodding.
Relief spreads across Ethan’s face.
“I knew you could understand me. We’re going to prep the lander, get Suresh in place, and then I’m going to come back for you. We’re all getting out of here. Okay?”
“If it’ll even let us leave,” she says bitterly. “It might just yank that stuff right out of us the second we break atmosphere. We’ll end up nothing but puddles of black goo inside a crashed lander.” Which might, for that matter, be exactly what happened to any remnants of the Pinnacle team, assuming there were any.
Ethan’s eyes widen. And it takes her a second to realize what she’s said. Actually said.
Excitement courses through her veins like electricity. “That made sense! You understood me!” Ophelia doesn’t wait for him to respond. She has no idea how long this limited window will last. “Listen, you can’t sleep. Don’t even let yourself get drowsy. Our conscious minds seem to be able to hold it off somewhat. But probably not forever. Use whatever we have of this to stay awake, at least until you’ve made it to cold sleep.” She holds up the remaining doses of the stimulant.
“It’s fine,” he says, waving away her words. “You’re fine. You can—”
Ophelia takes a step back from him, much as it kills her to do so.
Ethan frowns. “What? What’s wrong?”
“You were right. I’m too big of a risk. Right now, I have control. But there’s a good chance this is temporary,” she says. “It’s in my head. I can feel them … waiting.”
Several emotions flicker across his face before he lands on one. The Commander is back.
“We need everyone, Doctor. You can’t just—”
“Not this time,” Ophelia says.
He opens his mouth to argue.
But Ophelia has one last card to play, her worst fear and her largest vulnerability simultaneously. “Don’t let me hurt anyone. Please.”
* * *
Ethan and Kate determine that the bunk room Ophelia shared with Kate and Liana is the best place to serve as Ophelia’s temporary holding cell. The farthest from the towers and the easiest to clean out.
Ethan walks her over through the central hub. Suresh watches silently from his table/gurney. Someone must have filled him in.
“It’s going to be fine. We’ll be right back for you,” Ethan says, as Kate finishes shoving all of their personals, including Ophelia’s, into the corridor. Eerily, it reminds Ophelia of how they found the hab when they first arrived. All those personal items discarded, left behind.
Ophelia nods, almost afraid to speak now, to find out that the ability is gone again.
Kate steps back, giving her plenty of space to enter the module. The only things left are the beds themselves. Even the sheets and blankets are in a heap in the corridor.
Kate is sweating, and her eyes are glazed. She’s struggling against the influence of the towers, just like everyone else. But she meets Ophelia’s gaze, openly hostile, as she swings the door shut, and suddenly Ophelia doubts very much that anyone will be coming back for her, if Kate has her way.
She doesn’t blame Kate. Learning that you’ve been working side by side with the daughter of the most famous mass murderer in the last thirty years, and that said daughter is now experiencing hallucinations of her father, is probably more than a little frightening, not to mention infuriating. And it’s safer for all of them if Ophelia is not on the ship. Trust is essential. It only takes a few seconds to disrupt a cold sleep tank and turn the prank that Suresh staged into reality. And someone always has to be the last one in. Kate doesn’t trust Ophelia, and now Ophelia’s not sure she would trust Kate.
Ophelia doesn’t know whether Kate will succeed in convincing Ethan. If she does, Ophelia hopes she won’t be aware of being left behind. Starving to death or bashing her head against the door to try to get out sounds like an awful way to die.
Outside the bunk room, the door lock clunks into place, and Kate’s face vanishes from the porthole window.
Ophelia makes herself back up, away from the door. Hovering won’t make it open any faster, if it opens again at all.
Though it was never a large space, the bunk room feels cavernous with just her. No snoring Kate or Liana asking her questions.
Out of habit, Ophelia drops back onto her lower bunk. Her hands are sweaty, her heart still racing.
Figure, what, a few minutes to gel-cast Suresh’s hand, make sure it’s holding. But then they have to work out how to get the glove over his hand. And his suit hasn’t been charged. Ours haven’t been charging long enough.
But even when that’s out of the way, they need to get Suresh to the lander and strapped in. Then, only then, would they come back for her.
So at least an hour. Maybe more like two.
