Offworld (22 page)

"It'll keep," Mae replied with a half frown. She pulled her arm
away from Trisha's strong grasp and disappeared from her sight.

Trisha watched her go, hands on her hips and fuming.

That girl was not right in the head. And with all the strange things
happening to Chris, Trisha was beginning to wonder if there was
more to Mae and her creepy eyes than any of them could see.

Mae wandered the wide, unwelcoming halls of this sterile place
and wanted more than anything to be somewhere else. Anywhere
else.

These people didn't know her, didn't trust her, and probably
never would.

It always happened this way. The few times she ever tried to make
a friend or join up with a group, it happened just like this.

"Hey, Mae-day," chimed Terry's voice.

She turned to see he was following her.

"How's it going?" he said, smiling.

"Dunno," she said, deflated.

He was more cheerful than usual and didn't seem to notice her
gloominess. Not that anyone ever did.

"Well, I'm feeling pretty good," he went on. "It's not every day
you get to save the lives of all your friends by flying through a tropical storm to a midair rescue. Did you see how smooth I kept the
chopper while everyone climbed onboard? It was poetry in motion.
In fact, I may just have to write a poem about it."

Mae wanted to roll her eyes, but didn't. "What do you want?"

"Have you had lunch yet? I saw some frozen dinners in the cafeteria I could whip up for us, and of course we'd have our choice of
any table in the house...

She shifted her weight away from him and crossed her arms.
"This a date?" she asked, incredulous.

Terry froze, his jubilant attitude sinking. "No! I mean, I don't know.
I just felt like celebrating, and wondered if maybe we could-"

"Well we can't," Mae interrupted. `Ain't nothing worth celebrating, nohow."

She turned and stalked away in ice-cold silence, her arms still
folded.

Every step Terry took closer to his room, the angrier he became.
What was Mae's problem? Offering her lunch didn't mean he was
trying anything. Not that he was altogether opposed to the idea. She
wasn't his usual type-the cracked teeth and dirty clothes didn't
exactly scream "sweep me off my feet! "-but it's not like there was
a smorgasbord for either of them to pick from.

And he'd just saved all of their lives. Single-handedly.

What was her problem?

Since they met, he'd enjoyed talking to her, because she was the
one person whose responses he couldn't predict. He knew Chris,
Trisha, and Owen so well that there was very little they could say to him that was unexpected. But with Mae, every encounter was random,
arbitrary, and even weird.

But apparently she wasn't in the mood to socialize today. She
was so odd ... he was better off eating alone. Yeah.

Way to ruin everything, Mae. Thanks for being such a whack
job.

Only he still didn't want to eat alone. Maybe he would just skip
lunch.

Or maybe Owen was hungry.

"Hey, Beech, you want to grab a bite?" Terry called out. Owen's
room was a few doors down from his own.

But Owen gave no reply. Terry could hear the silent sounds of
movement in the room, so he knew Owen was inside.

The door stood partially open. Terry knocked and pushed it
aside.

Owen sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his left hand.

"What's wrong?" Terry asked.

"Nothing," Owen replied, not looking up. "Not one thing."

Terry stepped inside and leaned back against the opposite wall
from where Owen sat. He bent forward, inspecting the hand Owen
was looking at.

"What happened, you hurt yourself?"

"No, nothing like that."

Terry forced his mind to slow down. "What's going on?"

Owen reared back and examined the ceiling for a moment, then
finally he looked back down but couldn't seem to make eye contact
with Terry.

"I shouldn't have gone," said Owen, a somber, despondent sound
in his voice. "On the mission."

"What? Where's this coming from?" said Terry. "You missing your
family?"

"If you count training and mission prep, I wasn't there for over
three years. Three years of their lives. My son was eight when I left; he'd be eleven now. I wonder how tall he is. I wonder if he remembers
me. Or if I would recognize him if I could see him."

"But they supported your decision," Terry protested. All those
TV interviews Clara gave, where she talked about how historic the
mission was and what an honor it was for you to ..

Terry stopped talking when he saw Owen sadly shaking his
head.

"She was playing the `proper astronaut's wife' role for the media,
just as she was expected to. Did you know NASA prepped her for
those interviews? They gave her an eleven-page document full of
talking points to memorize. She did her job; she put on a good show.
The truth was something different than what the public saw."

Terry was starting to feel like they were venturing into sensitive
territory. Things that had been hidden away. He wasn't used to seeing
the big man this way, and it was uncomfortable.

"It's not like you haven't seen them, man. You got vid greetings
from them every week."

"You can't know anything about anyone in a one-minute recording
once a week. I missed so many birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases,
vacations.... Did you know Joey had a two-night hospital stay about
a year ago? I don't think I told anyone. I still don't know exactly what
happened, some kind of viral stomach infection. Clara had to take
him to the hospital all by herself, and stay with him there, worried
and afraid and alone." Owen shook his head bitterly. "I should have
been there."

"Don't do this to yourself, man," said Terry. "You can't
control-"

Owen kept talking as if he hadn't heard anything. "I don't know
anything about Joey anymore. I don't know what his interests are, I
don't know who his friends are, what he's learned in school while I
was away, or if he finally outgrew his fear of thunderstorms. I gave
him a stuffed bear for his third birthday that he used to sleep with
every night. I couldn't tell you if he even still has it.

`And Clara ... She's slept in bed without me next to her for over
three years. Would she even be able to sleep if I were there now? And
I used to empty the trash. I swept up the kitchen floor. I washed the
car, mowed the lawn, and a hundred other little things. She's had to
do all of that stuff. Without me. What if she doesn't need me to do
those things anymore? What if she doesn't need me?"

"But if you hadn't gone on the mission," Terry suggested, "you
wouldn't be here, you'd have disappeared just like everyone else."

"I'd be with them," Owen said. "Wherever they are, I'd be with
them now. Even if they're dead ... a part of me would take that over
this. I should've been here when it happened, I should have been
with them. They shouldn't have been alone. Especially Joey.

"You know how they say that little boys need their dads? Until
I went to Mars ... I never realized how much dads need their little
boys."

Terry didn't know what to say. And his thoughts were half here,
half back at Mae's bad mood. Was everyone losing hope all of a
sudden? Did none of their spirits get a boost from his spectacular
heroics last night?

"I'm sorry, man," Terry said. "I feel so naive ... I really thought
you were doing okay."

"I was." Owen smiled a heartbroken smile. He held up his left
hand-the same one he'd been examining when Terry walked in the
room. "But I lost something."

Terry looked again at Owen's bare hand. A hand that was too
bare.

Owen's wedding ring wasn't there anymore.

"How, when-?"

"I don't know," replied Owen. "I think it's been gone since Biloxi,
probably sometime at the lighthouse. The really sad thing is that I
only noticed it a few minutes ago. How could I not notice a thing
like that when it happened?"

Terry had no comfort, no joke, nothing to offer his friend.

Chris was injured, Trisha was wiped out, Mae had blown him
off, and now the steady rock that was Owen was falling apart before
his eyes. They were crumbling in. Imploding.

"They're out there, man," said Terry, trying hard to believe his
own words. "Somewhere. We're going to find them. You will see
them again."

"Yeah," said Owen without inflection. "Sure"

No one slept. Under one roof but separated, all five of them tossed
and turned and tangled themselves up in their bed sheets.

It was a long night made longer when the eardrum-piercing alarms
of Methodist Hospital started blaring around two in the morning.
The rooms they were using each contained an alarm of their own,
and those quiet, lonely rooms went straight from stifling silence to
DEFCON 1, catapulting everyone from their beds.

Burke, despite his injury, was the first out of his room. Smoke
filled the hallways at the ceiling, so he crouched low. Adrenaline
coursed through his system despite his lack of sleep and the burning
sensations in his immobilized shoulder.

"Everybody out!" he screamed. "Outside now, leave everything!"

Trisha appeared right behind him, her features gaunt, dark rings
under her eyes. She braced her lower back with one hand as she bent
over to match his posture.

"Get outside, now!" he shouted, and though he knew she
would rather stay inside and help him ensure everyone got out, she
complied.

Chris moved as fast as he could, rounding a handful of corners
until he'd reached the adjacent ward where Owen and Terry were
staying. Owen was emerging from his room just as Chris arrived; he
clutched his satellite-linked laptop, to which Chris attributed his lateness at getting out of his room. The smoke was beginning to drop
lower....

"Where's Terry!" Chris shouted between coughs.

Owen shook his head, coughing as he inhaled smoke.

Chris placed his one good hand on Owen's shoulder, guiding
him along the corridor until he was in sight of the exit. Chris had no
doubt that Owen knew exactly where the exit was, but he wanted
to make sure no one got confused in the smoke.

He noticed that the smoke had taken on an orange hue as he
rounded another corner, moving toward the room Mae had chosen
for herself. It could only mean that he was getting closer to the
source of the fire. The temperature rose quickly as if to confirm his
suspicions.

"Terry!" he yelled. "Mae!"

Terry emerged through the thick smoke, sprinting, and would
have knocked Chris over had he not pulled up at the last second, the
momentum forcing him to land on his back.

"Where's Mae?" shouted Chris, helping him up.

"Not in her room!" Terry replied. "I don't know where she is,
she-"

"Maybe she already got out!" said Chris. "Go outside and see if
you find her. I'm going to make a quick run-through to be sure!"

"I won't leave her behind! And I'm not gonna ditch you either!"