Ghost Planet (20 page)

“And you did?”

“Yup. She was right. If we just live and let live, they don’t cause any problems with the ship. In the beginning it seemed like they were always in our way, but now we hardly notice them anymore.” He held up a pudgy finger. “That’s not true. Yas sings to them. Especially the ones over her bed. Crazy fucking bitch.”

There was so much affection in his voice as he said this it was impossible to hold it against him.

“Murphy,” I said, spinning my seat toward him, “I went looking under my bed for my shoe this morning, and I found a patch of clover growing right out of the floor. I pulled up some of it—it was definitely the real thing. Somehow I don’t think this is a coincidence.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I agree. You said under the
bed
?”

I felt the heat creeping into my cheeks. The bed, where we’d made love, but also where we’d discussed our ideas and plotted our escape. Where I’d lain night after night thinking of him. Missing him. Remembering our time together.

I thought about Gaia theory—the idea of a planet functioning like a single organism—and the environmental changes on Ardagh 1 since the ghosts’ arrival. Mitchell blamed the ghosts, but what if she had it backwards? Maybe it had come back to the Ghost Protocol again.

“Could it be there’s a connection between the ghost/host relationship and the planet itself?” I asked Murphy. “Maybe this cold war is rippling out and affecting the whole system.”

Thought lines creased his forehead. He began to nod. “Based on the idea that the spontaneous growth is a result of pairs in balance.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s an idea worth exploring. But most scientists view the ghosts and planetary instability as symptoms of the same disease. I don’t know how we’d get anyone to listen to us.”

“We need to find someplace where we can test some of our ideas.” I glanced at Garvey. “Maybe we’ll see more of this kind of thing in this colony we’re going to. There’s no Ghost Protocol there, right?”

“That’s true,” Garvey said, eyeing his empty glass. “But things are a bit different there. Which reminds me.” He looked at Murphy. “I recognize you too. Seen you on the news. You’re a shrink, right? Grayson Murphy. One of the protocol guys.”

Murphy had about half a shot left, and he tossed it back. “Yes, that’s right.”

Garvey clucked and shook his head. “Look at the pair of us. How the mighty have fallen, eh?”

Murphy replaced his glass on the bar and angled his body toward mine. “So it would seem.” But the way his hand came up to slide along the curve of my waist said something completely different.

I slipped my fingers into his hair, brushing it back from his face. The whisky vapors lost their noxious quality when filtered out through him. In fact, I was finding it incredibly sexy breathing his whisky breath. I leaned in and kissed him softly, and he gave a quiet moan.

“That’ll be my cue to go,” grumbled Garvey, turning toward the cockpit. “Couple more hours before we get to Devil’s Rock. The sleeping compartment is on the other side of that wall. Use my bed. I’m begging you.”

Murphy reached for my hand, raising my fingers to his lips. “What are you thinking about?”

“How much I hate your eyes.”

“Ah, that’s a shame.”

I ran my fingers over his lips. “And your mouth.”

“You’re wounding me, love.”

“And that adorable fucking accent.”

“You’re the one with the accent.”

I slipped off the stool and wriggled between his legs. He wrapped them around me.

“Well, mine’s not adorable.”

“Good thing. A man can only take so much.” His hands worked into my hair.

I pulled his head down to mine, whispering, “Murphy?”

“Mmm.”

“I want to lie down.”

“Tired, are you?”

“Very.”

“Okay, come on.”

My insides fluttered in a warm, expectant way as we headed for a doorway at the other end of the galley. The door slid open, inviting us in, and a sweet, floral aroma wafted out.

Filtered sunlight streamed through a window, illuminating the untidy sleeping compartment. There were two beds, both a jumble of knotted sheets and blankets. Vines dangled from the ceiling over one of the beds, and the delicate white flowers explained the perfume.

I gasped as Murphy bent and lifted me. He navigated around piles of clothing and stacks of books to the bed with the vines.

“Sorry, Garvey,” I murmured against Murphy’s cheek.

As he leaned to deposit me on the bed, I knotted my hands in his shirt and pulled his mouth to mine. He drew away, raising his thumb to my swollen lip.

“It doesn’t hurt,” I said, pulling him back. It
did
hurt, but it would have to hurt a lot more to come between me and Murphy’s lips.

He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight. He felt and smelled so good I let out a little moan of happiness, and his arms coiled tighter.

“I wanted to kill him for hurting you. I’ve wanted to kill him a dozen times just for the way he
looked
at you. I’d give anything to have done it for you.”

“Don’t think about it, Murphy,” I said soothingly, hands kneading his back. “We’re out. They can’t hurt us anymore.”

I pressed him onto the bed and peeled off his shirt. Bending over him, I worked my way down his chest, teasing with my lips and tongue. He groaned softly, one hand moving to the back of my neck.

“
Mmm,
Elizabeth.” His low murmur sent a shiver of anticipation through me.

But after a few moments of this he went very still. I nibbled at a rib and glanced up at him. “Are you okay?”

His gaze locked with mine. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

My breath stopped. My heart stopped. I sat up, staring at him with a very different kind of anticipation.

He rose and cupped my face in his hands. “I’ve held something back from you.”

Oh Jesus.
I studied his expression and realized I’d seen it before. The night we’d made love at the institute. He’d asked me if I trusted him. There’d been something pleading in the way he looked at me. Something frightened.

“What is it?” I whispered.

He drew me closer, pressing his forehead against mine. “You’re pregnant, Elizabeth.”

?!

I pushed him back so I could see his face. “What?”

His features twisted in anguish. He took hold of my hands.

“Murphy, why would you say that? I can’t get pregnant. Mitchell told me. They did five thousand scans of my uterus and ovaries.”

He closed his eyes. “Did you ever wonder why they did five thousand scans of your uterus and ovaries if you can’t get pregnant?”

I shook my head, not understanding. Not wanting to understand.

“I saw one of those scans today,” he continued. “Mitchell showed it to me. There wasn’t much to look at, but there’s no question.”

I began to tremble. “She told me no ghost had ever … reproduced.”

“You’re the first, as far as they know. But it was no accident, her telling you that. She wanted you to believe it wasn’t possible. She didn’t want it to stop you from…”

Oh God oh God oh God.
I was pregnant—with
what
? And he hadn’t told me everything. Something worse was coming.

His fingers tightened over mine. “It’s been one of Mitchell’s objectives since the beginning—to produce an offspring from a symbiont and a colonist. Her firm has a contract from ERP. The Species Compatibility lead astrobiologist wants to study a hybrid—thinks it may provide some answers about the origin of ghosts. But Mitchell’s failed with both artificial insemination and in vitro.”

I felt sick. I let my head sink onto his shoulder. “They let you come to me so we’d…”

His arms curled around me. “They were monitoring you—they knew when your body was ready. She played with your emotions—lied to you, made you talk about me, finally let you see me—to make you more vulnerable. More receptive.”

Something cold skittered down my spine and I sat up straight. I remembered how he’d been that night when he came to me. Preoccupied.
Secretive
.

My hand curled over his wrist as I braced myself against my sudden suspicion. “Why did Mitchell tell you all this?”

He tried again to take me in his arms, but I held him back.

His eyes met mine. He swallowed dryly, and his lips parted. “She wanted my help. She told me if I didn’t, they’d use you for detachment experiments, and that you probably wouldn’t survive.”

Understanding jolted through me like an electric shock, and I released his wrist. “No, Murphy.”

I waited for him to deny it—to take it back—but he just kept pleading with his eyes.

Jumping up from the bed, I stumbled away from him. “How could you keep this from me?”

He rose and tried to approach me, but I backed toward the door. “Murphy, this should have been
my
decision. What gave you the right?”

“I knew you wouldn’t do it,” he choked out. “I knew you’d choose the experiments. I thought if I agreed to help her it would buy us some time—I never imagined it would happen so fast.” He held out his hand. “
Listen to me,
Elizabeth. Don’t you know what you mean to me? I couldn’t stand for them to hurt you.”

I could see how his guilt was tearing him apart, but this had no effect on me. That night had sustained me until our escape. He’d made me feel so safe and so wanted. So
alive
. And it had all been a trick. A manipulation. While I had believed he was making love to me, he was turning me into a living, breathing test tube.

The Storm

I couldn’t breathe. The ship was closing in on me.

I started for the door.

“Elizabeth, please wait…” Murphy’s hand closed on my arm. It was exactly the wrong thing for him to do.

Spinning around, I let my hand fly across his face. It connected with a solid
whack
, stunning both of us.

He took a step back, raising his hands in surrender.
Okay
,
I get it
.

I fled to the galley, choking on the grapefruit-sized lump in my throat.

Leaning over the big stainless basin, I turned on the water. It coughed out some rusty funk, sputtering fitfully a moment before running clear. Splashing water over my face, I hung over the sink trying to catch my breath. I couldn’t overcome the feeling I was suffocating.

When I heard the door to the sleeping quarters slide open, I turned and headed for the cockpit. I didn’t want to be studied by those eyes. I didn’t want those lips spilling out any more horrors.

“That was fast,” Garvey chortled.

I stepped between the two consoles, staring out at clear blue sky and the expansive blanket of green below. My breathing slowed. My stomach settled. Now if only I could erase the last fifteen minutes.

Yasmina watched me for a moment before she said, “Get out, Garvey.”

His head jerked in her direction. “What the hell, woman?” But he glanced at me and got up, muttering to himself as he lumbered out.

“You okay?” asked Yasmina.

I nodded, keeping my eyes on the window.

Sinking down in Garvey’s chair, I took a deep breath. The treetops seemed almost close enough to touch. I folded my arms over my stomach and leaned closer.

“Do you always fly so low?” I asked.

“Not always. But it’s safer for us.”

I couldn’t understand why that would be, and my brain was still reeling too hard to puzzle it out.

“Shall I tell you a secret about this ship?” She cut her eyes at me, smiling. “You mustn’t ever tell Garvey I’ve told you.”

“Okay.”

“No one above our altitude can see us.”

I thought about this for a second, but again came up blank. I didn’t know anything about transports. “Why?”

She laughed, and it was a soothing, guileless sound. “We don’t know for sure, but we’re pretty sure it has something to do with our shipmates.” She stroked a broad fern frond. “It took a few narrow escapes from planet security to figure out something strange was going on. Even then, we didn’t understand what. Finally another transport captain noticed we’re invisible from above. The surface of the ship projects whatever is below us, as long as it’s living. Trees. Grass. Even ocean.”

I spun my chair toward her. She had my full attention now. “That’s amazing. So you’re still visible from the ground?”

“Yes. Though if we’re actually
on
the ground it’s a little more complicated.” Yasmina checked one of Garvey’s displays and typed a few strokes on her keypad. Then she glanced at me. “We’re not registered. We operate completely off the grid. Some of our cargo could get us in a lot of trouble. So we fly low and avoid the larger colonies.”

“Do you know of other ships with this capability?”

“Oh sure. There are plenty of military ships on Earth that use advanced camouflaging. But it requires a special hull design, and as far as I know there are no ships like that on Ardagh 1.” She smiled. “Gives us a competitive advantage.”

The ship climbed with the rising topography as we approached a mountain range. I leaned toward the window again as we sailed over an alpine lake, still mostly frozen. We were so close to the ground I saw a herd of elk flee the water’s edge at our approach.

“I wonder if it has to do with your relationship with Garvey.”

Yasmina’s chair creaked. “How do you mean?”

“Well, you work together. Beneath what seems to me a pretty thin veneer of contempt, it’s obvious you respect each other.” Yasmina chuckled, and I went on. “I’m convinced the bond between you is responsible for the vegetable matter in your cockpit. Maybe it’s also somehow responsible for your protective cloak.”

As I said this, the view out the cockpit window abruptly changed. Forest still stretched as far as the eye could see, but we were approaching a wide band of dry, dead trees.

“Look at that,” I murmured.

“We see a lot of this,” Yasmina replied. “More all the time. Sometimes they’re on fire. You can see the smoke for miles. We’ve seen dead animals too.”

I looked at her. “Animals?”

“Yesterday we made a grain pickup in Mill Town, and we flew over a dozen buffalo carcasses in one of those high meadows south of Big Sky. There were a couple of calves, and I got all weepy over it. Garvey gave me hell. Then he started talking about steaks. He’s a heartless old bastard.”