The older woman patted her cheek. “You’re still so trusting.” She looked at Cal again. “Take her and go.”
“Okay, okay, we’re going.” Cal started shepherding Catherine toward the door. “I’ve got you, come on.” He got her out to the car, having to stop and support her once or twice, strapping her in with her seat belt and pulling back onto the road.
Catherine sat limply in the passenger seat, looking out the window. She felt as if she’d run a marathon. The anger in her mind, the anger that hadn’t been coming from her, retreated, leaving her with her new memories, the faint burn of their resentment toward Catherine and Iris buried deep. Catherine knew too much now, and that was not in their plan.
What plan?
Oh, but she knew the answer to that now, too.
Neither of them said anything until they were back on the road.
“You doing okay?” Cal asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“You really remember everything?” Catherine could tell he was dying to know, but she couldn’t muster the strength to tell the whole story just yet. “Cal . . . I’ll tell you, I promise. I just . . . I can’t right now.” She looked at him. “But I saw them.”
Cal shot her a startled look.
“They’re not just . . . voices in my head. I saw them. On Sagittarius. And Iris Addy isn’t crazy,” Catherine continued, feeling suddenly defensive. She looked straight ahead and was quiet for a long while.
Cal didn’t push her. All he did was reach for her hand.
He had to drive around for an hour before they found a roadside motel. The sun was starting to set, and Catherine was tired enough by that point that she didn’t care. Everyone at NASA thought they wanted the truth, but it turned out they’d had part of the truth all along and had ignored it, dismissed it, and pushed Iris Addy out for telling it. They’d worked so hard to discredit Iris—would they do the same to Catherine now?
She waited in the car while Cal checked them in. He came back with two room keys and handed her one. “Looks like we’re the only ones here, so we pretty much had our pick. Not that there’s much to choose from,” he added dubiously.
Her room was decorated in timeworn colors that might have once been charitably described as “desert sunset,” but had more likely been eye-bleeding shades of pink, orange, and brown when the paint was fresh. Still, it looked mostly clean. But if she closed her eyes, she could feel the gritty dirt of TRAPPIST-1f on her hands, grimed in her knuckles.
Cal put the key card on the dresser. He handed her a bottle of water and sat down across from her.
She focused on the water bottle, not able to look at him. “I remember everything.”
“Can you tell me?” he asked gently.
“I killed Tom Wetherbee,” she blurted. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I swear I didn’t. He was infected with something and out of his mind, and all I could think was that I couldn’t bring him back like that. I had to at least quarantine him . . .” The words broke open long-forgotten pain, and she swayed with the force of it.
“Okay.” Cal sounded calm, as though she hadn’t just confirmed his worst suspicions of her. “Go back and start from the beginning.”
She told him the rest, about the sabotage, the comms, and finally the Event—everything that happened, everything but sleeping with Tom. That still felt too shameful. Too much like everything that followed really was her fault.
“I didn’t want to kill him,” she said, after describing digging Tom’s grave.
“Catherine. Look at me.”
Catherine met his gaze.
“I believe you.”
Those three words, those three simple words, untied a knot that had been growing inside her. “You do?”
“If he was anything like what I saw from you that night in Johnson, he probably would have killed you before you could get home. You did what you had to do.” Cal reached out and squeezed her hand tight, and she clutched it like a lifeline.
“The stone,” she said, then shuddered. “All that time, there were aliens all around the Habitat. They were there the whole time and we didn’t know it. Pillars of stone, moving so slowly we couldn’t see it. I still don’t know how they infected us, though.”
“They called the lichen their children, right? What if that’s the literal truth? Lichen on Earth spreads by spores, and if you were exposed, and Addy was exposed, and Tom was exposed . . . You know, I bet he carried the same antibody, too.”
For a moment, Catherine felt a flare of hope. If this “possession” was just some form of infection, maybe they could treat it. But . . . “But how did Iris get infected? She never landed.”
“No, but she did send probes out and bring them back in. What was it that it said? ‘We are everywhere,’ and it mentioned traveling through a vacuum?”
“But that’s impossible. Nothing can live in a vacuum,” Catherine protested.
“We know of at least one living creature on Earth that can—the tardigrade. And just like a lichen spore, it’s microscopic,” Cal said. “It all makes sense. Science has thought for years that our first contact with an alien life-form was going to be with a microscopic organism of some kind. We just happened to find one that’s sentient.”
“But I don’t understand why they would want to infect us,” Catherine said. “They hate us. I can feel their revulsion. We’re soft; they see us the way we see slugs. Wrong, somehow.”
“And yet, they don’t want to destroy us completely.”
“What do you mean?”
“Catherine, they could have had you do something much more destructive than just destroying a spaceship.” Cal ticked things off on his fingers. “They haven’t had you sabotage the military. They haven’t had you cause massive death and destruction. They’re not softening us up for an invasion. So if they don’t want that, what are they doing?”
Catherine’s eyes widened, the implication suddenly becoming clear. “They destroyed our settlement, and they’re doing everything they can to stop Sagittarius II. They could have killed Iris, Tom, and me, but they let two of us come back. . . . Cal, they’re not planning to invade us. We invaded them. They’re defending their planet from invading aliens. Us.”
“Of course!” He let go of her hand and started gesticulating as he spoke. “We show up and build a place for our people to live; of course it looks like we’re about to colonize! I mean, that’s why we went, right?” Cal laughed. “God, we’re stupid. Do you know we didn’t even talk about any contingencies in case the planet was already inhabited?”
“To be fair, all our probes showed it was empty.”
“I know, but the thing is, we’re just assuming we can go out there and find any place we want and claim it as ours.” He shook his head, incredulous. “It’s like we haven’t learned a damn thing from our own history.”
Cal was already three steps ahead of her, and that shouldn’t have been a surprise. He was brilliant, already considering the political ramifications while she was still grappling with the idea that she had come in contact with aliens.
“What do we do?” she asked.
He smiled at her, a slow-dawning expression that caught her off guard. “Listen to you. You’ve been through a hell I can’t even imagine, and nobody would blame you if you washed your hands of the whole business and tried to get back to a normal life, but not you, no. You’re ready to jump right back into the fight.”
Catherine focused on her hands, unable to meet his eyes. “Well, considering that I’m partly responsible for us being in this mess . . .”
He covered one of her hands with his. “But you’re not.” He gave her hand a shake. “What’s going on is not your fault. If anything, it’s NASA’s. We might have sent you to an occupied planet. Any conflicts from that are our fault. You are one of the strongest, smartest women I know. And despite everything you’ve gone through, here you are.”
Their eyes met and held. Catherine felt a rush of warmth in her chest at his words, and at the
way he was looking at her right now, his eyes soft and admiring. The moment lingered, then he cleared his throat. “Anything else you remember that I should know about?”
“That’s most of it.” Catherine smiled faintly. “You know, death, destruction, alien contact.”
“When we get back, we’ll go see Lindholm. He’ll have to listen to us now. We’ll have time to call back Sagittarius before they walk into the same situation you did, blind.”
“You really do believe me.”
“I do.”
Catherine wanted to relax, to tell herself that everything would be all right now. Cal believed her. The question was, would anyone else?
34
ONCE HE WAS sure she was okay, Cal left Catherine in her room while he got settled in his. She showered, washing away desert dust along with the feeling of being helpless and trapped. Someone believed her, she wasn’t losing her mind, and now, knowing the past, she was ready to move forward.
They wound up in a roadside diner for dinner. While they were waiting for their food, Catherine said, “Why does everything out here look like it was decorated about fifty or sixty years ago?”
“The Atomic Age,” Cal said. “It’s a side effect no one talks about—all the tests out here; the radiation froze everyone’s aesthetic in time.”
“Ahhh,” Catherine said, nodding with equal seriousness. “That makes sense. Given our motel rooms, I can see why the government wanted to hush that bit up.”
“Shh. Someone might be listening.” Cal cut his eyes left and right dramatically.
That was a little too much like Iris, and Catherine felt her grin faltering. “Yeah, you never know.” She toyed with the water glass.
“Shit. Too soon, huh?”
“Little bit.” Then she managed a smile. “Maybe give it another hour or two before we start joking about paranoia and eavesdropping.”
“Deal.”
They were rescued by dinner—or, in Catherine’s case, breakfast in the form of a western omelet. By silent agreement, they didn’t talk about their afternoon, but instead exchanged childhood stories.
As they were paying the check, Cal said, “Where to? You wanna turn in?”
“Don’t imagine there’s much nightlife out here.”
“It’s a desert. It’s full of nightlife.” He held the door for her as they left the diner. “Let’s go pick one of these side roads and see where it goes.”
“Cal, we’ve been in the car all day; are you really saying you want to go for a drive?” She couldn’t help but smile.
“No, I wanna find somewhere to drive to.”
A short time later, Cal turned onto a side road that wasn’t more than a flat spot of dirt. They’d left every trace of civilization behind, aside from a few power lines they’d passed.
“If you get us lost in the desert in the middle of the night . . .” Catherine started.
“Nah, I was a Boy Scout. I can navigate by the stars.” Cal pulled the car off the dirt road. “And speaking of the stars, c’mon.” He climbed out of the driver’s seat, went to the trunk, and pulled out the bedspread stolen from his motel room.
Catherine laughed as she got out. “You planned this?”
“Hell, yes,” Cal said. “If you didn’t wanna come, I was going to drop you off and come back out here. You think I want to miss this view? Look up.”
She tipped her head to the sky while he laid the bedspread out about twenty feet from the car. A sense of panic threatened to wash over her as she stared up into the vastness above, full of stars brighter than any she’d see in the city, nebulas and the Milky Way visible to the naked eye. Her heart hammered in her chest and she reached out to rest a hand against the warm metal of the car hood to anchor herself. There was dirt beneath her feet, atmosphere around her. Home. She was home.
“Catherine? You okay?”
Catherine drew a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. It just”—she gestured above—“looks a hell of a lot like the view I used to get from Sagittarius.”
“Aw shit. I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought that would be part of the appeal.” He came over and ushered her to the impromptu seating area.
“It is—now that I’m ready for it.”
She sat down, leaning back on her hands. In the distance she could see the shapes of mountains outlined by starlight. Even with no moon, the ambient light was enough to see shapes and washed-out colors.
Cal sprawled on his back and looked up at the stars. “Always wanted to do this. Last time I camped out anywhere dark enough for this was when I was in college.”
“NASA keeps you too busy?”
“NASA keeps everybody too busy,” he said wryly. “I can’t imagine doing anything else, though.”
“Yeah.” She laughed then added, “I’m not camping out here, by the way. Not when I have a perfectly good bed waiting for me.”
“Don’t worry, I outgrew wanting to sleep on the ground a long time ago,” he replied. They were quiet a moment, then he said, “I can’t imagine what it’s like being driven out. From NASA, I mean.”
“That’s exactly what they did to Iris.” Catherine turned to look at him. “Do you believe her, then?”
“As much as I can. You’re both telling the same story. That’s hard to ignore.” Then he voiced Catherine’s own thoughts. “I wonder, though, if NASA could still ignore it, knowing what we know now.”
There was that “we” again, like a balm to her soul. “Maybe they could. I might wind up being a crazy hermit in the desert somewhere, too.” She made a dry sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I wonder if there’s any land available near Iris’s place.”
“Catherine.” Cal looked over at her. “That’s not going to happen.”
“No? Do you know how many people have told me I don’t want to end up like her? It’s starting to sound less like a warning and more like a threat.”
“You’re not doing this alone, though.” He rolled from his back to his side and propped himself up on one elbow, reaching for her with the other hand. “I believe you. And I won’t be the only one.”
That made her feel warm, but something still troubled her. She still hadn’t told him everything.
“Cal . . . there’s something else I should tell you.”
He sat up. “That sounds serious.”
Just get it over with, Wells. Rip off the damn bandage.
Catherine sighed. “There’s one thing I’ve remembered all along, since before I came home. Tom and I slept together on the trip out. It was one night, and I shouldn’t have done it. I still don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Oh, my God,” Cal said, and at first Catherine thought he was shocked or disgusted with her, but she looked at him and he looked . . . happy. “I knew it! I knew you were hiding something! I was right!”
“Cal.”
He stopped, and looked properly chagrined. “I’m sorry. I was going nuts trying to figure out what it was. For what it’s worth, you could have told us. NASA pretty much expected something like that to happen.”
Catherine leaned back on her elbows, her shoulders slumping. “Yeah, well, I guess I was . . . ashamed.”
“I’m glad you told me. I don’t think any less of you. You’re just human.”
Catherine snorted. “I’m not allowed to be human; I’m a NASA astronaut.” She stopped and shook her head. “I can’t help but wonder now if that didn’t contribute to what happened.”
“Maybe that’s what pushed him over the edge,” Cal suggested, “but I imagine alien possession by itself is a lot of stress to carry.”
“Hell, yes it is,” Catherine muttered.
Something about that made Cal laugh. At first Catherine shot him a look, but a moment later she burst into laughter, too.
“I’m sorry I’ve been ineffective at work,” Cal gasped between laughs, “but the aliens are distracting me.”
“Well, if that excuse would fly anywhere, you’d think it would be at NASA.”
“No.” Cal grinned up at her. “SETI, maybe.”
“Oh shit,” Catherine said, as the giggles hit her harder. “We scooped the guys looking for aliens.”
Every time their eyes met, they’d start laughing again, and eventually it wasn’t even that anything was funny. As Catherine was trying to catch her breath, there was something about the way Cal was looking at her, something in his eyes, just visible in the starlight.
To hell with it, said a voice in her head.
She reached for his hand and tugged at it, leaning down toward him. He met her halfway, as if he’d had the same thought. Aside from Tom, Catherine hadn’t kissed anyone new in twenty years.
She’d forgotten what it was like, that heart-racing, sweaty-palmed exhilaration of the unknown, the new. This kiss—it was like a key that had been sitting in the lock, just waiting to be turned. Cal let go of her hand to slide both of his palms against her cheeks, into her hair, keeping her close to him.
Abruptly, he pulled away. “Shit. Shit. Catherine, I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” Whatever came of this, she wanted it. She half expected to see light shooting from her fingertips, feeling alive and bright in a way she hadn’t for—well, a good ten years. “I’m not sorry at all.”
“But, David—”
Catherine shook her head. “We’re finished. The paperwork’s already filed.” She brushed her fingertips down his cheek then surprised herself by curling her fingers in his shirt, pulling him back toward her. “Don’t be sorry.”
This time, Cal didn’t pull away, and the kiss deepened as he slid his arms around her waist. The world shifted around her, and before she knew it, she was lying on her back, half looking at the stars, half looking at Cal. He was warm and real beneath her hands, against her body.
She closed her eyes to the stars overhead and focused on the ones Cal was making her see behind her eyelids. By the time they’d both peeled away their clothing, neither of them was concerned about the nighttime chill, the stars above, or what might await them back home.
35
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