For a moment Catherine just lay there, taking greedy gulps of air. Then she pushed herself up to kneel beside Tom. His eyes were vacant. “Shit. Shit.”
Tom wasn’t breathing.
“No no no no,” Catherine muttered, fumbling to see if he had a pulse. “Please God, no.”
But Tom wasn’t breathing and he had no pulse.
He was dead.
She sat back on her heels, stunned. Suddenly she had to scramble for the toilet, where she became violently ill. She knelt there, shakily wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
Catherine had killed before, flying planes in service to her country, but this was different. This was personal and bloody and not at all what she’d intended.
And she had to get him (his body) off the ship.
Somewhere down the road, if anyone were to ask her what the worst part of this entire catastrophic mission was, she’d say that it was burying Tom Wetherbee. Assuming she got home to talk about it. By the time she was finished, she was utterly exhausted—mentally, emotionally, and physically.
It had taken six hours to dig Tom’s grave. Half-hysterically, she thought, Claire was our geologist. She should have seen it. She would have been fascinated. All those layers of soil, all those newly exposed rocks…
Now Catherine sat outside the infirmary, the metal of the deck cold beneath her. The cooling systems were working a little too well. She’d need to recalibrate them. Instead of moving to do that, she stared at the red dirt on her hands before wiping them on her pants. Her pants were already filthy anyway, and the dirt on her face had turned to mud thanks to the sweat.
Catherine lowered her head to her upraised knees and took several deep breaths. It was time to go home. She had no way to calculate a launch window, so she’d just have to take her chances. She’d done everything she could do here. The ship was stocked. She was alone.
Once she had washed all the grave dirt off her and put on fresh clothes, she settled into the pilot’s seat and started going through the launch checklist.
The comm panel dinged.
She jumped out of her skin. That was impossible. Tom was dead. She’d just buried him. With a hand that was just starting to shake, she turned on the monitor.
The screen flashed. SURRENDER, CATHERINE WELLS. YOU DESTROYED OUR AGENT. YOU ARE OURS.
Ice went through Catherine’s veins, a fear so profound she felt detached from her body, unable to feel or do anything at first. Instinct told her to run. To take off right now. But logic said if they were calling her their prisoner, taking off might not be an option.
Besides, you’re the first person to talk to an extraterrestrial life-form. She thought about Tom. Maybe second. Her mouth dry as a desert, she flipped on the mic and leaned into it. “Wh-Who are you? Why should I surrender to you?”
SURRENDER OR YOU WILL DIE. YOUR DAUGHTER WILL HAVE NO MOTHER.
Catherine sat back in her chair. Nothing in their training for potential first contact prepared her for anything like this.
“You didn’t answer me,” she said, aiming for calm and reasonable, and not sure she was coming anywhere near it. “Who are you? How are you sending this?”
WE ARE. THERE IS NO WHO.
“Ohh-kay.” That wasn’t helpful at all. “Then where are you?”
EVERYWHERE.
“I’m not surrendering to anyone unless I can see you.”
LOOK BEHIND YOU.
For a single terrified moment, Catherine’s heart stopped. The skin on her neck and back was crawling as she stood and turned around, pulse pounding in her temples, not sure what she was about to see.
There was nothing there. “What…”
The air in front of her shimmered and resolved into a vaguely humanoid shape, humanoid the way a child would sculpt the shape of a body out of Play-Doh: two limb-like extensions reaching the ground, two more coming out on either side, a roundish shape at the top. There was nothing Catherine could call a face. Only blank emptiness where a face should be. Its “head” brushed against the ceiling of the cabin, making it at least eight feet tall, towering over her.
The body didn’t look like flesh, exactly. There was something intensely familiar about the shimmering gray-blue-green of its body, shining like an oil slick without looking wet. With one “arm,” it gestured toward the comms display. She looked and saw another message.
LOWER THE LIGHTS. THEY ARE PAINFUL.
The cabin lights were already fairly low to match the twilight outside, but Catherine dimmed them a little more, and her visitor became more… there. More visible. “How are you using our comms? For that matter, how do you know English?”
WE OBSERVE. WE KNEW YOU MIGHT COME, SO WE OBSERVED YOU. OUR THOUGHTS ARE OUR MESSAGES.
It took Catherine a moment to parse that. Some sort of telepathy? Learning her language through observation? She had too many other pressing questions to linger on this. “Why couldn’t I see you at first?”
OUR MATURE FORMS REQUIRE PROTECTION FROM THE BRIGHT LIGHT OF THE DAY SIDE. WE SHIELD OURSELVES.
“And you… took the shield off, just now?”
TO YOUR LIMITED UNDERSTANDING, YES.
“Why do you plan to hold me prisoner?”
NOT PRISONER. YOU AND YOUR KIND HAVE HARMED OUR PEOPLE. YOU WILL ACT ON OUR BEHALF.
It didn’t move as it “spoke,” but stood as still as a statue. Catherine remembered the strange heat signature she’d seen in the Habitat with Richie not long before the explosion. It was one of them.
“We came to this planet in peace.” Catherine fell back on some of her training. “We meant no—”
PEACE? YOU STOLE OUR CHILDREN FROM THEIR CRADLE COLONIES. CHILDREN WHO WANTED ONLY TO GROW IN THE LIGHT. WE FELT THEIR PAIN AS YOUR KIND DESTROYED THEM.
“We didn’t… we didn’t realize there were advanced life-forms here, I swear we didn’t. We will try to make restitution. Our governments can work together, reach some sort of agreement—”
The comms buzzed loudly as if in negation. NO AGREEMENT. NO GOVERNMENTS.
“But I’m not empowered to make any sort of restitution on my own, I’m sorry.”
YOU KILLED OUR AGENT. YOU ARE OUR AGENT NOW.
Catherine closed her eyes and held on to the pilot’s chair. What she was about to say might cost her her life, and Aimee might well wind up with no mother, but she had no other choice. “I will not. If the choice is to be your agent or die, then I’m afraid you will have to kill me.” She opened her eyes and looked at the alien.
It made a sound, a grinding, rattling sound. Was it… was it laughing at her?
YOU HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD. THE DECISION IS NOT FOR YOUR MIND TO MAKE, BUT YOUR BODY.
“What does that mean?” She stood a little taller, anger starting to filter in in place of the fear.
YOU ALREADY CARRY US INSIDE YOU. YOUR PHYSICAL SYSTEM WILL SURRENDER TO US OR IT WILL DIE.
Catherine stumbled back, landing on the console as her legs started to shake. “What do you mean I carry you inside me?”
WE ARE EVERYWHERE. WE TRAVEL IN THE ATMOSPHERE, IN THE VACUUM, IN THE AIR. WE HAVE ENTERED YOUR SYSTEM AND LIVE THERE.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand…” But then she looked at the creature again. The stone pillars. The ones clustered around the terminator line. It was the same mottled gray-blue pattern. That rock was all over, and in the brighter areas was covered with the lichen they’d been collecting, the lichen that grew thinner the darker the land became. All those pillars. Oh my God…