They broke into a sprint for the stairs.
Behind them, Cal cursed and they heard running feet on the tile floor. They hit the stairwell door with both hands and jogged down the first set of stairs.
(stopstopstopstop)
They tripped as Catherine swept forward, trying to take control of her body again, but they shoved her down. Behave, or you’ll get yourself killed.
It was enough of a stumble that Cal caught up with them, grabbed them by the arm. “Cath, what are you doing?”
Catherine’s smile vanished as he whirled them to face him, and they responded with the instinct of two different species. They hissed at him, a dry, sibilant warning, but Catherine’s body had its own set of defenses when it came under attack and it responded to him as well. They broke free of his hold and drove a hand up into his chin with a solid thunk.
(no!)
Yes. They pushed her advantage, knowing they could be more ruthless with him than he would be with her.
He blocked the next two punches, but a third got through, smashing into his soft cheek and through to the bone with a satisfying crunch. He staggered back into the landing wall.
(Cal run, get away from me if you can’t stop me)
That voice. It was getting louder. Their time was running out. They had to act fast. They grabbed Cal by the shirt, pulling him away from the wall and turning him toward the stairs.
“Cath. Catherine.” He grabbed them by the arms and spoke urgently, looking them in the eyes. “I know this isn’t you. I know you’re in there. Can you hear me? Come on. You can stop this; you have to fight it.”
He was heavier than she was, and stitches in his shirt ripped as they tried to spin him toward the stairs.
“Catherine, come on. Come back. What you’re doing is going to kill six innocent people. You have to stop. Please.”
(I can’t, I can’t stop this)
His feet dragged. Just a few more steps. He stopped trying to hold on to her and started trying to pull free, realizing what they had planned. They could see it, envision it, his body tumbling down the stairs, hitting his head. Would it break?
(YOU CAN’T! DON’T HURT HIM)
But they could, and they were going to. They had to. The mission was waiting. How long did they have now? How many minutes remained?
They hauled Cal up, ready to let go.
(stop this let him go let him go let him—)
“—go, let him go, let go!” Catherine’s eyes widened as everything snapped into focus and she surged forward, taking control of her body again.
29
THE STAIRWELL WAS the first thing that came into focus, and Catherine staggered backward, staring down at the step below her feet as if she’d never seen a step before. Her hands were clenched in Cal’s shirt. There was blood on his face. “Oh my God.” She let him go and took several steps back.
“Catherine?” Cal stepped toward her, his hands out. “Can you hear me?”
“What did I do?” she asked. Everything was vague and fuzzy. She was at Johnson; she could see that much. The clearest thing was the sense of urgency that she had to—she had to—but whatever it was, it was gone. Cal was looking at her with faint horror, and from the way her knuckles ached, she was sure she was the cause of the blood on his cheek. “What did I do?”
“Nothing. You—you tried. But I stopped you.” He reached for her as he got closer, and it took an act of will for her not to step away.
“I hurt you.”
He touched his cheek absently and winced. “You’ve got a good right hook on you. I think you might’ve cracked a molar.”
“I’m so sorry—”
“Shh. No. It’s okay. You didn’t know what you were doing.” He slipped an arm around her and they started back up the stairs.
“You knew what I was doing, though.” She stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at him. “How bad is it?”
He didn’t look at her; instead, he opened the fire door for them to go through.
“Cal. You’re gonna have to tell me sooner or later.” The longer he was silent, the worse things got in her head. What had she done?
“I know; hang on.” He went to his office, expecting her to follow. She did, though she felt unsteady on her feet.
Once in his office, he closed the door behind them. “I’m about to break the law, but really, I can argue that you already broke it, and on some level you already know what I’m about to tell you anyway.”
Catherine resisted the urge to grab him and shake him. The tension was growing unbearable. “What are you talking about? Tell me!”
“I’m talking about the documents you accessed when you broke into Aaron’s office. They contained instructions on how to destroy a Sagittarius mission ship remotely.”
She opened her mouth to interrupt.
“Hang on,” he said, raising a hand. “It was a fail-safe, in case the ship picked up anything that was a threat to Earth. Top secret for a reason, obviously.”
“And you didn’t tell any of us? Cal, I was on that ship, and someone could have—”
“Ava knew,” Cal said quietly. “John Duffy knows. No one else needed to. Chances are so remote that we’ll ever need to use it, we decided there was no need to worry the entire crew.”
“But Jesus, are you saying that I…” The full import of it hit her. Her knees wobbled, and Cal pushed a chair behind her, easing her down into it. “I almost killed them?” She couldn’t say it above a whisper.
“You didn’t, though. You didn’t enter the third code.” He knelt beside the chair and took her hands. “You didn’t. I stopped you. You stopped you.”
“But how did you know I was going to do it?” Her eyes stung.
Cal looked down before he answered. He was debating a lie, so it must be bad. His shoulders dropped and he looked her in the eyes. “It was pure luck. I realized what you’d been looking at that night, and you didn’t answer your phone when I called. I got paranoid. I knew you’d have to start in Aaron’s office and then mine, then Mission Control—so I started looking.”
Catherine started to shudder. She’d— she’d almost— oh God. Cal rose up on his knees and put his arms around her.
“Shh,” he said, and lowered her head to his shoulder. She stared blankly at his office wall, unable to accept his comfort. He held on to her for several minutes, until her shaking stopped, then he helped her to her feet and out the door. He made sure to lock his office door behind him. “Let’s get you home, okay? We’ll figure this out, I promise. You’re not in this alone anymore.”
Sagittarius I Mission
DAY 1138, ONE DAY AFTER THE EVENT
TRAPPIST-1F TWILIGHT LANDING AREA, ON BOARD SAGITTARIUS
Alone.
No human had ever been as alone as Catherine was. She had an entire planet to herself.
Since the explosion, she’d been trying to figure out what happened. Had Tom set a fire? Stayed behind in it to die with the others? The command center was in the middle of the Habitat. The chances that he could have set a fire and gotten out in time… No, she had to assume everyone was dead.
She was no closer to any answers than she’d been a day ago.
She sat in the command module of Sagittarius, eating a cold MRE out of the pouch as she stared blankly out the windshield. Through it, she saw the vast rock formations of TRAPPIST-1f, glinting in the reflected light of her sister planets. The soil was the color of old, dried blood in this light.