Ghost Planet (16 page)

And if there
is
a connection?
I wondered. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

Then I realized she’d overlooked a possible complication. “What if detachment triggers a replacement, just like when a ghost dies? Won’t this all turn out to have been a waste of time?”

“Not exactly.” The reply and the tight smile made it clear Mitchell hadn’t told me everything, and didn’t intend to.

She crossed to the door saying, “I’m giving you the day off, Elizabeth. Rest, and think more about your hypothesis.”

*   *   *

I had clung to a cloak of clinical reserve during the conversation with Mitchell, but as soon as she left, the full weight of it came down on me. The trials she’d described were almost enough to make me rethink my obsession with detachment.

And what if she was right about the connection between the problems on the planet and the ghosts? Humanity had wiped out whole populations for lesser offenses.

Alone in my room with nothing else to do, I spent longer than I should have turning it all over in my mind. Despair had gotten a firm foothold by the time I managed to steer myself toward the only positive outcome of our meeting.

Reverse symbiogenesis
. This was my unscientific label for the idea that had occurred to me when Mitchell confirmed detachment was possible. Maybe instead of hosts absorbing symbionts, symbionts could absorb something from their hosts and detach as whole, independent organisms.

I itched for Net access. It was how I worked—I couldn’t sit quietly pondering, I needed to be doing something. Surfing academic resources, scribbling notes, bouncing ideas off colleagues. I played around with the display in my room and discovered it was Net-capable, but locked. When an orderly came with my dinner, I asked him to request that I be given access.

After pacing back and forth the rest of the long evening, I concluded that scans and interviews were preferable to fidgeting alone in my room. I was heading for the shower to settle my nerves when Sarah came in.

“Come with me,” she said.

I looked at the clock on the display. “It’s after ten. Where are we going?”

“You’ll see. Let’s go.”

I studied her face, and was not encouraged by the depth of her frown lines. “Sarah, please tell me what’s going on.”

She walked out into the corridor and stood waiting for me. What choice did I have?

Baseboard lights cast spooky, elongated shadows in the hallway. Except for Sarah and her ghost, no one else was around. I could hear low murmurs at the nurses’ station down the hall. There were eight other doors on this wing, and I only knew what was behind three of them. I never saw other inmates on my trips back and forth to the labs, and I wondered what was going on behind those other doors.

I was about to find out. Instead of taking me to one of the exam rooms, Sarah steered me to the door right next to mine. She gripped my arm and reached for the thumb reader.

“I’ll be back for you in fifteen minutes.”

I gasped as she opened the door and pushed me into a dark room. The panel closed behind me and I fell against it, heart racing. Low lights came up automatically, revealing a cell almost identical to my own.

“Elizabeth?”

My head jerked toward the voice.

There was a blur of hurried movement on my left, and the next moment I found myself in Murphy’s arms. He buried his face in my hair, squeezing me so hard I couldn’t breathe.

“Jesus, how did you get in here?”

“Murphy!” I choked out.

I braced myself against his chest, shocked and confused. Staggered by the sudden surge of relief. Like my mother, Murphy had been carefully folded and tucked into my box of lost persons. And now here he stood, warm and solid under my hands.

He took my face between his hands, scrutinizing me closely. “It
is
you, isn’t it? You remember New Seattle?” He grasped one of my hands and looked at it, rubbing his thumb over the scar from the tea mug.

“I … Murphy, they told me you’d gone back to Earth!”

“They
what
? Elizabeth, no, I’ve been right here. I’ve been so worried about you. They wouldn’t tell me anything.”

He led me to the bed, and I pretty much fell onto it as my knees buckled. He knelt at my feet, holding my hands. “Where have you been, love?”

I looked into his face, trembling. Fearing a narcotic-induced hallucination. The relief in his eyes mirrored my own. Murphy was glad to see me. Murphy hadn’t left me.

Knots of tension and suppressed emotion worked themselves loose in my chest. I cleared my throat, hoping to steady my voice before I spoke. “I’m in the cell next door. They told me you decided to go home. They told me I’d be dead in two weeks.”

Two tears slipped onto my cheek, one following in the track of the other, and he moved to sit beside me, clasping me to his chest. “You couldn’t have believed that,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t abandon you, Elizabeth. They’re playing some kind of game with you.”

He drew back, drying my cheek with his thumb. “This is a separation. I don’t know who authorized it, but—” He shook his head. “I was an arrogant ass. I didn’t think anyone would dare.”

“Lex,” I said softly.

He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to believe that. But I can’t imagine it was Braden’s idea.” I had nothing to say to this. No doubt Lex had convinced herself she was doing the right thing, but I didn’t want to talk about her.

“Who brought you here?” Murphy asked.

“My guard, Sarah.”

“Did she say why?”

I shook my head. “She said we only have fifteen minutes.”

“Do you think it was her idea?”

“I don’t know.” I hesitated, thinking. “She didn’t seem comfortable about it, but I’m not sure what that means. Murphy, she’s told me some stuff, Mitchell has too—”

“Shh, wait a moment.” He pulled me close, slipping an arm under my legs and lifting them over his. I shivered as his voice came low in my ear. “If Mitchell set this up, they may be monitoring us. Let’s talk quietly as we can.”

I relaxed against him, basking in the warmth of his body. His familiar smell. I rested my palm against his bare chest and felt his heart marking time as I murmured in his ear.

I told him everything I could remember. The conversation I’d overheard between Mitchell and her client. The scans and tests. Detachment. What Mitchell had told me about their experiments.

“We have to get out of here,” he said.

We.
I pressed the tips of my fingers against his skin. “Is that possible?”

He covered my hand with his, playing with one of my fingers as he thought. “I’ve been trying to work something out, but they never let me out of this goddamn room. They’re counseling me, but that’s a sham. And they do that in here too. I was going completely fucking mental until you showed up.”

He rubbed slow circles in my back with his free hand. I rested my cheek on his shoulder and let my thumb stroke his chest. He bent his head, pressing his lips to my forehead.

Back in New Seattle, I’d voiced practical, legitimate reasons for wanting to maintain a professional distance between us. At the moment it all seemed ridiculous. How could anyone turn away from feeling so alive?

But it scared me how much I’d missed him. It scared me how safe I felt in his arms.

The door suddenly opened and Sarah came in. “Come on, Elizabeth. Time to go back.”

My whole body ached at the thought of going back to my empty cell.

Before I could swing my legs down, Murphy’s hand came to my hip, holding me in place. “Give us a few more minutes.”

“Vasco is going to pry you apart if you don’t get up.” The big guard from the medical lab moved into the doorway behind Sarah. “You don’t want to fuck with Vasco.” The threat in the guard’s face made me wonder if Murphy had been giving them trouble.

We stood up and Murphy wrapped his arms around me, kissing my earlobe. “Watch for an opportunity,” he whispered.

He released me and I joined Sarah, glancing back once more. He winked at me, and this small gesture of reassurance, of his own confidence (or at least pretended confidence), gave me hope.

Sarah ushered me back to my own room, leaving me without a word of explanation.

*   *   *

“Why did you lie to me?” I demanded the moment Mitchell came through my door the next morning.

I’d considered whether I was exposing Sarah by confronting her, but Sarah’s behavior, coupled with the involvement of the other security guard, had convinced me Mitchell had ordered the visitation.

“What kind of game are you playing with us?”

Mitchell eyed me with curiosity, unruffled. “Have you forgotten you’re a research subject and not a patient, Elizabeth?”

“Hardly.”

“And you have no experience with intentionally misleading an experiment participant?”

“
Misleading
?” I shook my head in disgust. “You have a justification for everything, don’t you?”

“You’re uncomfortable hearing painful truths. I don’t blame you.”

“There is no separation drug, is there?”

“Oh, there is. And you have been on it. It has a calming effect when symbionts are kept away from their hosts for an extended period. Higher doses enable greater distances for more limited periods.”

“Like two weeks?”

“More like two days. Dr. Murphy has never been far from you here. In your case we’ve used it to make you more comfortable.”

“Very considerate. You realize, of course, I’ll never believe anything else you say.”

Mitchell slipped her hands in the pockets of her lab coat, smiling. “I’d thought perhaps you’d thank me. Don’t you feel better after seeing Dr. Murphy? Comforted? Less isolated?”

“I’m not answering any more of your questions.”

She came a step closer. Her amused curiosity morphed into something dark. “That’s all right, Elizabeth. Just listen to me. I’m going to guess that you’re suddenly less interested in detachment, but you were correct to assume that’s our plan for you. If you don’t want to try any of our existing methods, I suggest you work on coming up with a better one.” She turned to go, but called back over her shoulder, “Net access has been unlocked on your display. I’ll be back to discuss your progress in a few days.”

Starts

It was a bizarre arrangement. For a week I’d believed I was going to die, and now my jailer was encouraging me to do the very research I’d planned to do with Murphy back in New Seattle. Different as our motivations might be, Mitchell and I shared a common goal.

I took advantage of the time and resources I’d been given, uncertain how long it might last. I was sure Mitchell would be keeping tabs on my research, and I didn’t want her knowing everything I knew. So I tried to keep things unfocused by searching and reading on many different topics. The digressions made everything take longer, but they also sparked ideas. I spent a couple hours reading about organisms with multi-stage development, like butterflies and frogs.

The following evening I lay in bed thinking about the couple that had detached. My hypothesis was based on the assumption detachment was possible for everyone. That it was
supposed
to happen. So why had it only happened once? I’d never get anywhere without a good answer to this question.

I groaned and sat up in the bed, rubbing my temples. My eyes ached from all the screen reading.

My door slid open and I glanced up in time to see two guards thrusting Murphy into the room.

The door closed behind him, and he came and sank down beside me.

My heart tried to drag the rest of me into his arms, but I resisted and gave him a smile instead. “What is that hag up to now?”

“I’m glad to see you too,” he laughed. But he looked tired. And troubled. His smile faded as his gaze slipped to the floor.

“Are you okay?”

“You mean aside from feeling useless and trapped?”

So much for the confident optimism. “What’s happened?”

Shaking his head, he reached for my hand. “Nothing’s happened. Just wishing we were anywhere else. How about you, love? Are you okay?”

The barest hint of a fond smile, the slight widening of his blue eyes as he trained them on me—my heart almost won the tug-of-war.

“I’m fine. I’ve just been trying to work something out, and it’s making me crazy. Want to help me?” I was hoping to distract him. To distract
myself
from what he was doing to me. But also I meant it—my brain needed backup.

“I’d like nothing better,” he said.

Murphy scooted back against the wall, holding out his hand and inviting me closer. I hesitated, knowing how hard it was going to be to focus over there. But I didn’t want to be overheard by anyone who might be listening in.

I crawled over next to him, and his arm came snug around me. “What is it you want my help with?” he murmured in my ear.

Uh, good question …

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block the messages my body was sending to my brain.

“Remember what I told you about the ghost who detached, and about the idea it gave me?”

Murphy nodded. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that.”

“I’m stuck on the fact it only happened once. Maybe I’m on the wrong track. Do you think that woman may have just been an anomaly?”

Murphy was quiet a moment. I felt his breath moving in my hair as his hand slid up to the nape of my neck.

“No, I don’t,” he said. “I think I know why it only happened once.”

Surprised, I drew back to look at him. “Tell me.”

“You said this was soon after colonization began, before we were managing ghosts. People’s reactions back then ranged from embracing them, to ignoring them, to killing them. I don’t know anything about the specific case, but Mitchell told you the husband took his own life after his ghost was killed. We could assume his suicide was motivated by her death, and from that I think we could assume they were interacting. Maybe even living as man and wife.”

I gave a quiet gasp. “Interaction. Murphy, of
course
.”

“The Ghost Protocol put a stop to interaction. Maybe it’s necessary for detachment.”