“You cheated on me,” David said flatly. “With him? Jesus, Cath, I didn’t think you even liked him!”
“I sure as hell wasn’t in love with him! Remind me again, had Sagittarius cleared the atmosphere before you brought Maggie around, or did you wait a few days?”
They looked at each other. She knew she’d just shattered something between them irreparably—no, to be fair, they’d both shattered it. Catherine waited to see which of them would be the one to say it. When he didn’t, she did. “Should I go?”
“Catherine, I didn’t want this.”
“Neither did I.”
She just kept looking at him, waiting for his answer. Finally, David stood up and sighed, resigned. “Yeah. Yeah, I think you should go.”
Catherine turned without a word and fetched one of the suitcases from the closet to start packing.
“Where will you go?” David was still standing there, watching her.
“I don’t know yet.”
“What about Aimee?”
Catherine stopped, holding a half-folded blouse. She sighed. “Can you send her up here? Let me tell her?” Christ, I’m leaving her again.
“Fine.” David left and Catherine sank down on the bed. She expected that she might cry later, but for now there was nothing, just a slow-growing sense of relief.
“Mom? Dad said you wanted to talk to me?” Aimee caught sight of the suitcase. “What’s wrong? Is it Grandma?”
“No, honey. Your grandma’s fine.” She patted the bed next to her. “Come sit down.”
Aimee sat down, but before Catherine could speak, she said, “You’re leaving. Why are you leaving?”
“Your father and I just need some time to think about things.” There might be a time to share the details with Aimee, but this wasn’t it. “It’s not anybody’s fault.”
“It’s Maggie, isn’t it?”
“Not really, no. I’m not going far,” Catherine said. “I’ll stay nearby, and you’ll be able to come see me and stay with me whenever you want. I love you, and this is not about you at all, you know that, right?”
Aimee threw her arms around her mother’s neck. “I don’t want you to go. You just got home.”
“I know. I know.” Catherine stroked her back, closing her eyes against tears. “I have to, though; at least for a little while.” Even as she said it, though, Catherine knew her comforting words were delaying the truth; her gut told her she wouldn’t be coming back. She’d already lost her crewmates. And now she’d lost her family, too.
Sagittarius I Mission
DAY 1134, THREE DAYS BEFORE THE EVENT
TRAPPIST-1F, TWILIGHT LANDING AREA HABITAT
“You have to stop beating yourself up, Wells.” Ava pushed a cup of what passed for tea into the air-lock slot. “None of this is your fault.”
“I knew he was acting weird, though.” Catherine waited until Ava had sealed the far side before extracting the molded plastic cup, cradling it in her hands, staring into it. The tea was murky and smelled only faintly of tannins, like a memory of real tea from the ancient tea bags they’d brought with them. “I should have been paying attention.”
“By that logic, I’m the one at fault,” Ava said. “I’m the commander; it’s my job to keep track of each of you, and Tom slipped under my radar.”
“Do you really think he did all this?”
“We have him on video…” Ava paused, considering another possibility. “The only other alternative is that we’ve got someone else messing around with us, too.”
“The oxygenator was months ago…” Catherine could barely stand to look at all the pieces laid out in front of them.
“I know.” Ava sighed and lowered her forehead to her hands. “I should search his quarters, make sure he hasn’t managed to get his hands on anything dangerous.”
“Let me come with you and talk to him again.”
“Cath, you’re in quarantine.”
“I know. I’ll suit up, go through decontamination again.” Regardless of what Ava had to say about it, Catherine couldn’t help feeling guilty. “Come on. You know he might talk to me.”
“All right. I don’t like it, but all right.”
That was how Catherine wound up moving through the Habitat in a full decontamination suit as if she were going on an EVA. She knocked on Tom’s door. “Tom, it’s Catherine. I have Ava and Richie with me. I’m going to open the door, is that all right?”
“Yeah.” Tom’s reply was faint, sullen. When she opened the door, he looked up at them with dull eyes, giving a small snort at the sight of Catherine. “Whatever this is, it’s important enough to drag you out of quarantine, huh?”
“Tom, I’d like to search your quarters,” Ava said, without preamble. “I just want to make sure that everyone, including you, is safe.”
Richie stood by the door. He was the biggest guy on the crew, so if Tom tried to bolt or, God forbid, fight back…
Tom didn’t show any signs of fighting back. His shoulders slumped and he stood up, moving away from his bunk. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
While Ava searched, Catherine pulled him aside. “I’m sorry about all this,” she said. It was hard to radiate sympathy through a pressure suit, but she tried. And Tom looked so utterly lost that the sympathy wasn’t a lie.
“Catherine… I didn’t do this,” he said quietly. “I swear to you.”
“Son of a bitch,” Richie said. “You’re on video.”
Tom grew more agitated. “I don’t know why I’m on that tape! I didn’t do any of this! You have to believe me!”
The look Richie gave him was one of disgust. Ava looked resigned. Catherine… she didn’t know how she felt. He sounded so sincere it broke her heart.
“There’s nothing here that shouldn’t be,” Ava said. She’d collected a few items with sharp edges, anything that might possibly be used as a weapon. “Come on.”
“Catherine, please!”
Catherine followed Ava and Richie out, but the sound of Tom’s voice followed her down the hall. “Ava, hang on. Let me talk to him some more.”
“I don’t think going back in there is a good idea,” Richie said.
“I won’t go in. I’ll talk to him through the door.”
Ava sighed. “All right. Come to the mess when you’re done. I think we need to get the crew together and have a talk.”
Catherine went back to Tom’s door. “Tom, it’s Catherine. What’s going on, really? Can you tell me?”
Tom was silent for such a long time that Catherine didn’t think he was going to answer. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, so quietly she barely heard him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… I don’t know. Cath, something is wrong with me. Really, really wrong.” His voice got stronger, as if he moved over to the door but stayed quiet. “I… I don’t remember doing any of the things that are on the tape. I don’t remember messing with any equipment. But I… I guess I must have.”
Was he lying? Trying to cover his tracks somehow? Catherine didn’t think so, but how could she be sure? “I don’t understand.”
Tom laughed harshly. “Yeah, I don’t either.” There was a soft thump, as if he’d bumped his head on the other side of the door. “I don’t know what I did last night.”
“How do you not know?”
“I mean… I remember having dinner in the mess with everybody, then going back to my quarters, and then… nothing. The next thing I remember is waking up in my bed this morning. It’s happened a few times. Like the night before the oxygenator failed.”
At first Catherine didn’t know what to say. What he was describing was terrifying, both from her perspective and imagining what it must feel like for him. “I-I’m going to have to tell Ava about this, you know that, right?”