Ghost Planet (28 page)

“Blake?” Ian appeared at the entrance. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

The rifle fired. The moment Ian interrupted, Murphy had launched at Blake, and the two of them slammed to the floor. The bullet ricocheted into the rock tunnel behind us.

“
Down
, Elizabeth!” Murphy shouted. The gun went off again, and I dropped and scrambled over to the wall.

The moment my back scraped against the rough surface, I felt a low vibration. The ground under me shifted, and I gave a cry of alarm.

“Earthquake!” warned Ian.

My eyes darted toward the ceiling, panic cresting as I watched the joined rock faces rub together like giant blocks of cement. I thought their horrific, grating protest alone would grind my bones to dust. Rock particles rained down and I ducked my head, crawling toward the cave entrance.

“Murphy, let’s go!” I yelled.

In the mouth of the cave, Blake’s host and Ian struggled with our guards, blocking the way out.

I glanced behind me in time to see Murphy stagger to his feet holding the rifle. I couldn’t understand how he was a match for Blake with his injuries—he had to be running on pure adrenaline.

“Murphy, we have to get out!”

Again the earth below us rocked and he stumbled. Blake lunged at him, wrestling him for the gun. I flattened against the floor, worried it would go off again.

Murphy and Blake rolled toward the back of the cave, and larger chunks of rock began dropping from above us. With a sound like a near-miss lightning strike, a crack shot up the wall just a few feet away from me.

There was nothing I could do to stop Blake and Murphy. But I was sure this explosion of conflict in Blake’s camp had triggered the violent reaction from the planet. Maybe there
was
something I could do about that.

Outside the cave I found that Ian and a handful of others had overcome the men left to guard us. They struggled to confine their prisoners against the continued tremors.

“Stay here,” I shouted at Ian. “Help Murphy if you can.”

“Where are you going?” he shouted back.

“To talk to the others.”

I didn’t wait for him to answer but started for the ledge, making painfully slow progress with the ground pitching like a ship beneath me. In the distance I could see the rest of the camp gathered halfway between the overhang and the river, which was swelling to crest level. The bridge I had crossed just that morning was gone.

I half scrambled, half fell down from the ledge. As soon as I had earth under me again, I headed for the others. Every inch of forward progress was hard earned. The motion and the mud forced my feet out from under me, and for much of the way I clawed my way forward on hands and knees.

“Someone’s coming!” a woman shouted as I approached. “It’s the new one—Dr. Murphy’s ghost.”

“I’m here to help you,” I shouted back. “If you want all this to stop you need to listen to me.”

“Blake told us you work for security,” challenged the woman.

“Blake lied to you.”

A hundred sets of eyes watched me warily. The earthquake had for the moment subsided, but the wind whipped rain into my face. I would have to continue shouting for them to hear me.

I’d had no time to plan this. It was off-the-cuff or nothing.

“The conflict between hosts and ghosts is causing this. It will destroy this planet if we let it. We have to shift gears now. We’re supposed to be working together.”

Water streamed down my face and I cleared my eyes with the back of my hand.

“Murphy and Blake are up there trying to kill each other. Their conflict triggered the storm and the earthquake. We have to do something to counter it.”

“How can you know all this?” someone demanded.

I shook my head. “I can’t prove it, but I believe it. I’d like to give you my reasons and let you decide for yourselves, but we don’t have time for that. The river is rising, and we have nowhere to go.”

The silent deliberation that followed was not truly silent, as the shrieking of the wind continued, punctuated by flashes of lightning and thunderclaps. A series of crashes sounded from across the valley, and I remembered there was a slope covered with boulders adjacent to Devil’s Rock. As the huge rocks struck the ground, another tremor rumbled under our feet.

“What is it you want us to do?” the first woman cried. She stood a little apart from the others, and from the way she spoke out I suspected she was one of the camp’s leaders.

“You have to start talking to each other. Helping each other. Ghosts and colonists. You have to start working together. And I mean
right now
.”

“Blake says that’s dangerous. That’s why we have rules against it.”

“I know Blake has helped all of you, and he’s done what he thought was right. But his rules are as misguided as the Ghost Protocol. You could all have detached by now if you hadn’t been following them. You’ll have to take my word on that for now.”

*   *   *

I hurried back to the overhang, afraid to hope I’d gotten through to the others. But no question—the rain had gentled from a windy blast to a steady, downward pelting.

My legs still signaled my brain that the ground was shaking, but since I couldn’t detect any movement with my eyes, I was pretty sure this was residual. Like the first steps on land after an ocean cruise.

The first thing I discovered at the top was that rocky debris had piled up around the entrance to the cave. My heart dropped right through to my stomach. But then I heard shouting and saw a group gathered farther out on the ledge.

I ran to meet them, in time to watch helplessly as Blake tossed Murphy onto his back, landing him only inches from the edge. The drop at that point was sheer, with a fall of more than six meters.

“Somebody stop them!” I yelled. And then saw why nobody had—they were still struggling over the rifle.

Murphy grunted loudly as he used the rifle to shove Blake away, but Blake didn’t let go. Murphy was jerked forward, and Blake hauled him toward the edge.

I gasped and rushed forward as Murphy slipped over. Both men kept hold of the gun and the barrel wrenched toward Blake.

The rifle discharged with an echoing bang, blowing Blake backward.

With a cry of panic I lurched past Blake’s body toward the edge, but someone caught me from behind.

“Careful, Elizabeth!” warned Ian.

I twisted free and scrambled closer until I could see over. “Murphy!”

“Shite!”
bayed the Irishman, rolling onto his back.

“Are you okay?” He’d ripped through a tarp and landed in the bin it was covering.

“I’m okay,” he replied hoarsely. “Believe I’ve found what they’re using to fertilize the garden.”

I ran back toward the less direct route off the ledge and reached Murphy as he was crawling out of the bin. Flying into his arms, I almost knocked him back into it.

“Mind the stench, love,” he warned.

“Look at you!” I cried, holding his face in my hands. “What happened to your bruises?” With the exception of a fresh scratch under one eye, there was not a mark on his face.

“All of it’s healed.”

The others had come down to join us, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Murphy’s face.

“How, Murphy?”

“I don’t know. I remember my head was throbbing, and I think I blacked out. But I remember feeling warm, and sort of … tingling. Did you connect with me?”

“I did. You were out cold, and I was worried after the beating you took. I guess I was trying to make sure you were still in there somewhere.”

“I think that has to be it. It was our connection—it was
you
.” He touched the side of my face, where Blake had struck me. “How’s your jaw?”

I worked my chin around and discovered the pain was gone. “It’s fine,” I replied, staring at him in wonder. “You think our connection cured us?”

“All this talk about symbiosis and you’re going to question my brilliant deduction?”

He was right. It made sense. But my brain had no time to process the implications, because what he did to me next laid claim to every thought and every nerve ending. It involved his lips, and mine. His tongue, and mine. And our connection. As he kissed me, as his hands massaged my shoulders and back, he sent me visual and tactile flashes. Little glimpses of things he had done—and things he now wanted to do—to my body with his. Piggybacking onto some of these were flashes of Blake striking me, pointing his gun at me, and Murphy’s accompanying rage.

We were the only two people in the world, and Murphy’s fire was consuming us both.

“I take it you two are okay,” said Ian, rather louder than necessary.

Murphy drew back, eyes still on me. I stood blinking up at him, adrift in a river of desire. I had unfinished business with his mended body, but for the moment it would have to stay that way.

“He’ll be back, won’t he?” someone asked in a coarse voice, snapping us out of our trance. Blake’s host, Gavin.

“Blake’s dead,” Ian told Murphy.

Murphy nodded, finally releasing me. “He’ll be back. But he won’t remember all this. You’ll have a fresh start, and we’ll manage things differently this time.” Murphy looked at Ian. “How is the rest of the camp going to react to this? Do we need to clear out right away?”

“I’m not sure,” Ian replied. “I’ve only been here a couple weeks longer than you. But I started paying closer attention since we talked yesterday. I spoke to a few people. Everyone was shocked by the rough way he treated you. It’s not the first time we’ve watched him beat a colonist, but I don’t think he’s ever hit one of
us
.” Ian’s gaze settled on me. “It didn’t help his case much when I told them you’re pregnant.”

I flushed as everyone looked at me, but my brain was already turning over our new prospects. “We have to go and talk to them.” I explained what I’d done in an attempt to stop the violent upheaval. “I don’t know how much of what I said they bought, but the fact that it seems to have worked is probably a good sign.”

I looked at Murphy. “We can offer to help them with detachment. Counsel the ones with difficult relationships. Make sure no one takes advantage. If we had a whole colony of detached ghosts, and a protocol expert and protégé of John Ardagh as an advocate…”

Murphy nodded as I trailed off. “Planet administrators will have to pay attention.”

*   *   *

“How many in camp have weapons?” Murphy asked Ian as they used our guards’ nylon restraints to secure their wrists.

“I don’t know for sure.”

“Blake only issued weapons to his inner circle,” offered Gavin, running a hand through his scarecrow hair. “Those he believed would never be swayed by their hosts—these two, and Hank, down with the others.”

“So only four guns?” Murphy asked, sounding doubtful.

“Oh, no,” replied Gavin. “There’s a huge stash. Blake’s been arming for months now.”

“You know where the rest of them are?”

“There’s a cave up on Devil’s Rock, only accessible by rope. They have a container rigged to move them up and down. It takes at least two people.”

“Okay, good. Let’s go talk to the others.”

Warm moisture rose from the rock as bright afternoon sunshine erased evidence of the earlier tempest. I laid a hand on Murphy’s arm as we walked.

“Let’s think a minute about our next steps.”

He studied me. “You have that look on your face.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What look?”

Before he could answer, Ian said, “Like you’re extracting the secrets of the universe from the depths of your brain.”

“That look,” agreed Murphy.

“I don’t know about
that
,” I said with a laugh, “but I do feel like we’ve stumbled on a huge opportunity. I think we should take what Blake started here and turn it into an experiment in collaborative existence. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what’s possible. We’ve seen accelerated plant growth. Detachment. Healing abilities. If we can get the rest of the camp to participate, what else might happen?”

Murphy nodded. “If we could show that interaction has a positive effect on the local ecology, we would have a solid argument for planetwide change. A tangible benefit could help us negotiate an end to the protocol.”

I smiled at him. “Very pragmatic, Dr. Murphy.”

He slipped an arm around me. “Before we get too full of ourselves we’d best assess the mood down in camp.”

As we made our way toward the swollen river, we discovered that falling rock had smashed the north end of the living structure. We met the rest of the camp on their way to assess the damage. As the woman in front approached us—the same woman who’d questioned me in the storm—their low, nervous conversation faded to expectant silence.

She was tall, with two dark, dripping braids, and she held a rifle in front of her. “Where’s Blake?”

Murphy stepped toward her. “Why don’t you lower your weapon, and we’ll talk about that.”

Her mouth set in a hard line. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Surprised murmurs started up behind her.

“He tried to kill us,” I said.

This didn’t seem to impress her one way or the other. “Your name’s Elizabeth?”

I nodded. “You are…?”

“Hank.” She chewed her bottom lip. “Bastard shouldn’t have hit you.” She held out her hand to me.

I stepped forward to shake it, and Murphy touched my back in a protective gesture. The moment our fingers touched, a wave of grief slapped against me—so sudden, so intense, I staggered and my backside hit the dirt.

“Jesus!” Murphy reached a hand down and helped me up. “You okay?”

I nodded, staring up at Hank. Tears welled in my eyes—someone else’s sorrow. It was strange and disorienting. And it hadn’t come from Murphy.

Hank raised an eyebrow at me. “What the hell was that?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Let’s have this conversation later,” Murphy said quietly. “Can we agree we’re not going to shoot each other?”

Hank lowered her rifle, and I watched and listened as Murphy explained, far more articulately than I could have, who we were and what we were proposing. It wasn’t hard to see how such a young man had climbed so high so fast. By the end he had everyone excited and shouting questions.