Offworld (26 page)

It was midevening, the sun all but gone, and in the distance to
the west they could just make out the faint outline of a vertical beam
of light. It was the size of a thread from this distance, yet it was more
than bright enough to be visible against the night sky.

"I'm not aware of any man-made light that could shine with such
strength," Owen remarked. "Its luminosity must be off the chart."

"It's a beacon. It's how the aliens summon the mother ship," said
Terry in a mocking tone. He held a glass in his hand and took a sip
from it.

Trisha was ready to smack him. She wasn't sure exactly when it
was he'd developed this attitude problem, but it was unbefitting an
astronaut, and worse, it was getting on her very last nerve. She was
going to put a stop to it soon if Chris didn't.

`Aliens got no need for big lights," Mae replied, utterly serious.
"They talk to each other telepathetically."

Trisha's thoughts stopped. She cast her eyes left and right to the
others, wondering if anyone was going to reply to Mae's comment, or
if they were all trying to sort out her latest mangling of a big word. Chris barely seemed to have noticed. Owen's mind was probably
somewhere else, deep in concentration.

But Terry smacked himself on the forehead and said, "You know,
I always forget that about the aliens...

Mae turned and walked away while the others remained at the
windows. Her posture gave away nothing, so there was no way of
knowing if she felt insulted, or if she even understood Terry was mocking her. She marched to the women's restroom and went inside.

When she was out of earshot, Chris leaned over and said, "Don't
make fun of her."

"Oh, like she even noticed," Terry said with a smirk.

Chris' eyes bored into Terry's for a moment before he recovered.
He turned to Owen, but said loud enough for everyone to hear, "It's
dark enough; let's go ahead and start packing up. I'd like to be on
the road before Terry finds something new to gripe about."

Ten minutes later, the four astronauts were at the front door, but
Mae still hadn't exited the bathroom.

Chris shot a glance at his second in command. "Would you
mind ... ?"

Trisha sighed. "Little bit, yeah," she admitted. "But okay, fine."

She trod with heavy feet to the restroom and went inside. Chris
almost wondered if Mae might have run off again. She'd wanted them
to leave her behind, after all. Maybe it would be easier on all of them
if she were gone. Including Mae.

It was seven long minutes before Trisha returned from the restroom, Mae in tow. The young girl had no telltale signs of emotionno puffy cheeks or moist eyes. She was deep within her own private
world, her silver eyes not locking onto any of them. And she made
no attempt to avoid Terry, walking between him and Owen to get
to the front door.

Maybe she was so detached, she just didn't feel things the way other people did, Chris reasoned. Or maybe she was better at compartmentalizing than the four people surrounding her, who had been
taught how to do it by professionals.

Chris was turning to exit the building when Trisha let out a soft
moan. It was so faint, he almost hadn't heard it.

He spun around; Trisha was leaning against a dining room table,
both arms stiff, supporting her torso.

"What's wrong?" he asked, walking quickly to her.

"Nothing," she replied. `Just a headache."

"You sure?"

"Well, maybe a migraine," she admitted with a forced smile, closing her eyes tight and swaying a little to one side.

"Sit down," he said as he pulled out a chair for her and then sat
next to her. "Beech, could you locate some painkillers?"

Owen reentered the restaurant and opened a large bag he'd been
carrying. He sifted around in it in silence. Terry dropped his supplies
as well, but held tight to the glass he still carried, and began pacing
back and forth, stealing furtive, concerned glances at Trisha.

Mae watched the others for a moment before returning inside and
taking a seat opposite of Trisha. When Trisha let out another gasp
of shooting pain, Mae did something no one expected: she grasped
Trisha by the hand.

Trisha froze and opened her eyes; they slowly traced across the
table until she saw who'd taken her hand in comfort. "Um, thanks," she
said awkwardly. "I'll be okay, really." She allowed the gesture to linger
for a few moments longer before pulling away from Mae's grasp.

"What's taking so long on those pain pills?" Chris asked, filling
the uncomfortable silence.

"Our supplies were wiped out in a flood," Owen replied, in an
uncharacteristic moment of tension, but he quickly relaxed. "There
wasn't time to gather much at the hospital before it caught fire. I'm
afraid we don't have a lot to choose from, Commander."

Mae got up from the table and disappeared.

`Anything, I'll take anything," Trisha said through a profound
grimace.

Owen produced a bottle of pills from one bag and tossed them
to Chris. "Best I can find," he said.

"Thank you," replied Chris in a hushed voice.

After a moment, Owen replied with an equally calm voice, "You're
welcome."

Mae returned, a glass of water in her hand. She placed it on the
table beside Trisha.

Trisha swallowed three of the pills with a single gulp, and ten
minutes passed in silence as everyone waited for them to take effect
and to be sure Trisha was okay. She kept her head bent over the table,
buried in her hands. Terry never stopped pacing.

At last, Trisha's face emerged from her hands. Her eyes were
bleary and out of focus, but the color had returned to her cheeks. "I
think it's easing up," she said, nodding.

Chris couldn't stand seeing her this way. As much as he wanted
to get on the road and get everyone safely to Houston and find out
what was happening there, he was suffering alongside Trisha just
from watching her, and all the little ways she was trying to hide the
severity of her hurting. Her carefully regimented routine, followed
so rigorously on the Ares, had fallen apart after they returned home,
and the ramifications were catching up with her.

"Perhaps we should go," Owen suggested, turning to Trisha.
"The movement of riding could help lull you to sleep, and the rest
can only help."

"Oh, don't be too sure about that," Trisha replied with a brave
smile on her face. "But I agree, we should get moving."

Terry stopped walking as Chris rose to his feet. "Why are we in
such a hurry to get to Houston?" he asked. "Isn't Trisha's health the
important thing right now? We should go raid a doctor's office or
something."

"That's not a bad idea," Chris said. "We'll watch along the way
and stop at the first one we see."

Terry looked at Chris in disgust. "Do you even care that something's wrong with her? She's got the flu or something, but all you
care about is getting to the big spotlight."

Chris took a step forward, his eyes flaring. "Do not ever question
my concern for a member of this crew."

The temperature was rising in the room, and the tension along
with it.

"Then what are we doing? What's the rush in getting to Houston?
Are we afraid it's going to disappear too?"

Chris folded his arms. "We have a responsibility to mankind to figure out what happened to them, and that light is our best lead-"

"Oh, the light, the light-who cares about the stupid light?!"
Terry said, shouting now. "It's probably just a really, really big laser
pointer. Or maybe it's Elvis on his comeback tour, playing to a soldout arena... .

"This isn't helping anything, Terry," said Owen, standing.

"No kidding, Beech! You know what else isn't helping? Risking our
lives to get to this great big light in the sky when the entire world is
dead! Don't you people recognize the end of the world when you're
living in it?!"

"Hey, this is good," Trisha said lightly, resting her head on one
arm again. "Why don't we just build a big testosterone mud pit in
here and let you three go at it?"

"Terry, I'm going to ask you one last time to settle down and drop
the attitude," Chris said, ignoring Trisha.

"Or what?" Terry shouted as he tramped forward until he stood
toe-to-toe with Chris. "What are you going to do? Throw me in jail?
Send me to my room with no supper? Demote me? What is the matter with you?! We! Are! The! Only! People! Here!" he screamed into
Chris' face.

"No, we're not," Owen replied.

"Oh come off it!" Terry raged. "That was a fluke! The bridge was
rusted and falling apart. There wasn't anybody else there! Come on,
I can't be the only one thinking it...."

Chris looked around the room, pausing for a moment on each
face. "How about it? Anybody else think I was just seeing things that
aren't there?"

Owen was the first to speak. "If you say it, then I believe it,
Commander."

"Me too," Trisha crooned in a woozy voice from her chair.

Chris waited for Mae to speak, but she looked as if she barely
knew what they were talking about.

"Fine!" Terry shouted. "But even Beech thinks we're taking unnecessary risks, he already said so."

"What I said," Owen corrected, "was that it could be argued that
it is our moral responsibility to repopulate the human species. And
that risking our lives in any way is tantamount to endangering the
future of this planet. But I was merely playing devil's advocate."

"Our one responsibility," Chris said, "is to locate the ten billion
inhabitants of this world."

Terry didn't seem to have fully followed Owen's explanation.
"You know what? If you guys want to play Sherlock Holmes and
Dr. Watson-or even Adam and Eve-then have at it. I've got better
things to do."

Chris looked down, studying Terry's hand. "What's in that glass,
Terry?"

"What? It's a beer."

"How many times have you refilled it?"

Terry stretched his spine, attempting to stand taller, but it still
placed him a full head shorter than Chris. "You insinuating something,
Commander?"

"Stand down, Mr. Kessler."

Terry tossed his glass to the side, where it broke against the restaurant wall, and he crossed his arms. "Maybe you haven't been hearing me, but we're not in a command structure anymore! Matter of fact,
we're not in anything! There's no society here, no laws, no rules! We
can run around naked, paint the town red, have anything we want,
plunder, deface, and destroy at our pleasure. Who cares?! No one!
There's nobody here, nobody anywhere! You're leading us around
on a wild goose chase, getting us into one disaster after another, and
for what?! It's all for nothing! Don't you get it? Everybody's gone, we
can't bring them back, and we are going to die alone!"

There was a quick thud as a bare, open palm clocked Terry
straight on the nose.

He blinked and staggered backward before falling onto his
butt.

He looked up in shock.

"I am truly sorry, Terry," Owen said, his open hand still held out
in front of him, "but you cannot drag everyone down to wherever
you're headed. We all know you're a better man than this; the isolation is just getting to you. It's getting to us all. Take a moment and
calm yourself-"

Terry climbed to his feet and launched himself like a tiger in
Owen's direction.

Without missing a beat, Owen slid sideways and grabbed Terry's
passing arm by the wrist. Terry was suddenly lying on his back, with
Owen cocking the man's wrist, twisted and pointed at a painful angle
away from his arm, refusing to let go.

"Stay down," Owen said, and there was no mistaking the change
in his voice. He had just uttered a threat, and it was a dangerous one
that everyone in the room could feel.

Chris and Trisha and even Mae had stopped moving, stopped
breathing, staring not at Terry anymore, but at Owen. Chris slowly
took a small step backward.

Mae, on the other hand, stepped forward. She let out a guttural
"huh" that wasn't a question. It was an observation, maybe even a
vindication. Owen glanced at her, but then refocused on Chris.

"I, uh ... I don't remember them teaching us that in astronaut
training, Beech," said Chris. "Matter of fact, I don't even remember
that from my Air Force basic. And if I recall correctly, you were never
in the military."

Owen averted his gaze momentarily, before turning Terry loose
and standing up to his full height. Terry backed away slowly on his
hands and knees toward the front door.

Chris stood his ground. "Don't try and tell me you studied tae
kwon do as a kid, or some crap like that," he said, folding his arms and
scowling. "That thing you just did, that move-it was too perfect."

Owen stood stock-still, but something about his manner had
transformed right before their eyes. With a simple change in posture
and expression, he was very nearly a different person. He didn't look
like a bulky scientist any longer; his shoulders were broad, his muscles
flexed, and he stood ready to launch an offensive.