Ghost Planet (25 page)

I moved toward her, but she pressed her back against the door and I stopped.

“Murphy, why don’t you say something to her?” Ian and I were both ghosts. Once upon a time she’d been told not to talk to us.

“Julia, we’ve had a bit of a row in here, and Elizabeth thinks I need a doctor. Do you mind having a look?”

She took a couple of halting steps toward him and then gasped. “Who—who did that to your face?” Her voice came out low and hoarse, and I wondered how long it had been since she’d used it.

“Rude couple of fellas. Didn’t give their names.”

She crouched down and went right to examining him, and now Ian hung back, looking increasingly uncomfortable. I asked him about the first aid kit, and he dug through the container of stuff he’d brought and handed me a metal box.

“Want to make us all some breakfast?” I suggested.

“Happy to,” he replied, clearly relieved to be given something to do.

I knelt beside Julia, opening the box. She pulled off Murphy’s shirt and made him lie back so she could press her fingers along his sides and abdomen. I was so relieved she’d snapped out of it I almost didn’t care that she was curvy and beautiful and had her hands on Murphy’s stomach. Almost.

But the grunts coming out of him were not the kind that suggested he was enjoying himself.

“Do you want to soak a pad in antiseptic and clean his face, Elizabeth?” It was the first time Julia had ever spoken to me.

“Okay,” I replied, fishing the things out of the box.

“I’ll wash up before I seal those cuts. Though you could probably do that yourself too.”

“I’d feel better if you did it,” I assured her. “Did you find anything serious?”

Ian made room for her at the sink and she started scrubbing her hands and arms. “He’s got two broken ribs. Lacerations and contusions. It was a brutal beating, but he’ll live.”

“
Ouch
, love!”

“I’m sorry!” I was listening to Julia and not being very gentle with the antiseptic. “What do we do about the ribs?”

“Nothing. He just needs to stay off his feet.”

“For how long?” asked Murphy.

“Until it doesn’t hurt to get up.”

I finished cleaning his face and Julia squeezed surgical glue into a cut above his eye and another above his lip. I put the first aid kit back together, and she helped me pull his shirt on, which elicited more grunted protests from Murphy.

“I’ve had enough healing for one day, thank you.”

Leaning over him, I smoothed hair back from the cut on his forehead. “Don’t be cranky with Julia. She’s made a house call, and we can’t pay her bill.”

He slipped his arms around my waist, replying, “Now love, I liked it better when you felt sorry for me. Maybe I need to work up some internal bleeding.”

“Bite your tongue.”

I tried to get up to help Ian, but Murphy held me in place, murmuring, “Come closer and bite it for me.”

“We just fixed your lip!” I laughed, incredulous.

“Fine,” sighed Murphy, releasing me. “You’ve a hard heart, love.”

I studied his sulky face. He looked like a little boy who’d gotten the worst of it in a playground fight. It was impossible not to be moved by his efforts to make light of the situation. Not to mention the fact he was in terrible pain and still trying to woo me.

Bending closer, I took his bottom lip, the least damaged of the two, gently between mine. He gave a moan of satisfaction and pulled me closer.

Before we could progress to undoing Julia’s repair work, Ian called, “Eggs are done.”

“Okay, you,” I murmured against Murphy’s lips. “Lie still now and I’ll get you some breakfast.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered, nuzzling my cheek.

I filled a plate for the two of us and returned to sit beside him. The room fell silent as Murphy and I made quick work of our breakfast and Julia and Ian played with theirs. Julia had lost the skittish look she’d had when they first came in, but she was quiet and looked miserable. Ian wasn’t much better off.

Murphy cleared his throat like he was about to say something, but before he could, Julia said, “I want to apologize to both of you.” Her gaze moved between Murphy and me, and settled on Murphy. “At the counseling center they told me it was the right thing to do. They said we were helping you. I believed them at the time.” She glanced down at her plate. “I was angry too. It seemed to me you were doing exactly what I’d been told I couldn’t do with Ian.”

“You’re right, I was,” said Murphy. “I don’t blame you for being angry.”

I glanced at Ian, who avoided looking at her.

Julia went on like she hadn’t heard Murphy. “But then one day I heard one of them say that Elizabeth was likely to die there. They said it like it was a good thing—like maybe a replacement would be easier to deal with. I couldn’t stop thinking about that.” Again she looked at Murphy. “Lex told me they’re just imitations of us—not human.
You
told me they’re not human.”

“That was narrow, Julia,” Murphy said in a low voice. “And arrogant. Lex doesn’t get to define what’s human, and neither do I.”

“I’m a doctor.” Julia’s eyes moved to Ian, and his gaze lifted to hers. “They breathe. They bleed. They die. Their bodies work almost exactly like ours. And their minds. They can love and hate. They can fight back against people who hurt them.” Her eyes came back to me. “They can make babies. What do they lack, Murphy?”

Murphy raised a hand to my cheek. “Nothing.”

Ian rose from the table, clearing their dishes. “Why don’t you two finish up what’s left of breakfast. I brought you enough food for a couple days—it’s all put away. We’ll check on you again a little later.”

Julia rose too, and suddenly I remembered something. I dug a hand into my pocket, pulling out a drying sprig of ivy.

“Before you go…” I held up the ivy and Ian approached to have a look. “I found this sticking out from under one of our neighbor’s doors. It might mean nothing—maybe they like houseplants. But it made me think of what I told you and Blake last night—about the clover, and the stuff growing on the transport.”

Ian rubbed a leaf between his fingers.

“So maybe there are other people only paying lip service to Blake’s rules,” Murphy observed.

“Exactly,” I agreed. “You might keep an eye out for stuff like that—stuff growing where it shouldn’t be. Plants that stand out from the native ecology. There appears to be some, um …
personalization
in the phenomenon.”

“How do you mean?” asked Ian.

“Well, the woman on the transport, Yasmina, she had jasmine growing over her bed. I had clover growing under mine.” Ian looked blank, and I shrugged, embarrassed to even say it. “Murphy’s Irish. I know, it’s stupid.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Murphy. “It hadn’t even occurred to me. But if the growth is triggered by the symbiont/host bond, why wouldn’t it manifest something personal about the pair? Symbionts are manifestations of something personal about their hosts. The planet itself is a manifestation of something personal about the colonists.”

Murphy always listened to me. He always took me seriously—even
before
I’d grown into a human in his eyes—and right then, more than anything, I wanted to kiss those ruined lips again.

“It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” said Ian, still turning the ivy in his hands. “I wonder if it’s a subconscious connection with the planet. Or maybe even a biological connection—an interaction on a microbial or cellular level.”

“Maybe both,” I said. “If we can get Blake to loosen up, we can spend some time exploring the possibilities. In the more immediate future, it could serve to point out others in camp who might be sympathetic, or even interested in working with us.”

Ian nodded. “Agreed. I’ll keep an eye out for it.”

They left us, and we finished the rest of the eggs before I washed the dishes and made more tea. Murphy’s pain worsened, and after he’d spent half an hour trying to get comfortable, I persuaded him to take a painkiller from the first aid kit. Then he slept.

I passed the time on the flat-reader Blake had left me. I spent a few minutes looking up recovery times for broken ribs (which varied greatly), and then I found myself perusing information on the different trimesters of pregnancy and familiarizing myself with what pregnant women were and weren’t supposed to eat. The banned food list mostly didn’t apply—the fish on this planet weren’t contaminated with heavy metals—but I discovered I was probably going to need to reduce my tea consumption.

Of course, the most critical questions I had about my pregnancy—and my baby—no one could answer. No one but me—by going through the process. And I couldn’t imagine having a baby in this camp, or on this world, for that matter. To carry and deliver a child, only to see it taken away from me by someone like Blake or Mitchell … I was pretty sure it would kill me.

Once again bemoaning the complexity of the trap I found myself in, I groaned and pushed the flat-reader away.

“What’s wrong, love?” Murphy blinked at me, groggy from the painkillers.

I smiled at him, shaking my head. “Nothing. How do you feel?”

“Hungry.”

I got up from the table. “Me too. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Err—”

“Take it easy. Even I can’t screw up pasta and dehydrated sauce.” He gave a raspy chuckle, and I said, “Watch yourself. I don’t have to feed you at all.”

“Yes, ma’am. Just promise me not to cut off—or in any way maim—any of those lovely fingers.”

*   *   *

We made it through dinner without event, but as it got later Murphy became increasingly cranky. He made a poor patient. He couldn’t stand being bedridden, but even sitting up caused him intense pain. Finally he took another pill, and then I sat down beside him with the flat-reader.

“How about if I read to you? That always put my ex right to sleep.”

“So he was surly
and
illiterate.”

Mentioning Peter to the cranky invalid had perhaps been a mistake.

“I don’t know that you have any business calling anyone surly right now.”

“I’ll go one further. If he preferred sleep to your company, he was also an idiot.”

“That’s very sweet, but what does it say about my taste in men?”

He lay thinking about this a moment. Resting a hand on my thigh, he said, “What are we reading, love?”

I smiled. “What would you like?”

“Whatever is your favorite.”

I searched for and quickly found an online version of my favorite novel. “I’ll read, and you see if you can guess.”

“
Pride and Prejudice
.”

“You’re not nearly as clever as you think you are.”

“So I’m discovering. What do I get if I guess right?”

“The satisfaction of knowing you’re smarter than Peter. Now be still.”

“‘
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery
…’”

Genesis

Warning signals blared. Lights flashed above the exits.

A voice sounded over the com, warning us of primary engine failure and instructing us to prepare for impact. The pilot was ditching into the ocean.

My hand moved to my harness, double-checking the buckle on instinct rather than from any sense it would make a difference. Could we survive crashing into the ocean? Did I want to? The idea of riding to the seafloor on an alien world in the belly of this transport—it frightened me more than the idea of a sudden, violent death.

The man in the seat beside me turned, shouting something I couldn’t understand. He grabbed my hand, squeezing so hard I felt the bones in my fingers grinding together.

Our ship raced over the water—dropping, dropping, dropping, then striking the surface so hard I slammed breathless against the harness. We skipped along with bone-jarring impacts, as if the water was solid ground.

The transport had held together, but just as this was leading me to hope, something went wrong. The craft’s aft end flew forward and it flipped. My harness wrenched my body in a rib-snapping embrace.

Pain exploded in my head and chest as we spun and tumbled, finally slamming to a halt. A groan came from somewhere deep in the ship as the nose angled down, and people started screaming.

I dangled in my harness as seawater spewed through a slit between the cockpit doors. Glancing frantically at the window, I could see our precious air bubbling toward the surface. I sobbed from pain and terror. From loneliness, and regret over impulsive decisions.

A hand gripped mine.

I’m here, Elizabeth.

As I angled my head toward the voice, a punishing heat scorched down my spine.

A different man hung in the harness next to me. He held my hand between his.

You’re not going to die. I’m coming for you.

The cockpit doors burst open and water roared into the passenger cabin.

*   *   *

“Elizabeth,
wake up!
”

A scream ripped from my throat. I felt hands moving over my face.

“
Shh, shh, shh.
”

“The water!” I cried, panting.

“There’s no water. You’re here with me. I’ve got you.”

I pressed myself closer against the warm body holding me and felt it shudder and groan like the ship.

As I breathed him in, it came back to me—where I was, who was holding me—with a swell of relief.

Then I remembered his body was broken. I let go of him and scooted back. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said, reaching for me. “Come back here.”

Slowly, carefully, I let my body come to rest along the length of his. I didn’t want to hurt him, but the renewal of this physical closeness was irresistibly soothing.

He folded an arm around me. “Better.”

“I had a horrible dream,” I murmured against his neck.

“I know. The transport crash. I didn’t know you remembered it.”

“I didn’t until now.” I tilted my face up. “How did you know I was dreaming about that?”

“I was there with you.” He stroked my hair back from my face. “Something interesting has happened, Elizabeth.”

“I dreamed you were there, but … I don’t understand.”