Obscura

by Joe Hart

  As she took in the room, her fingers found the bottle in her pocket and opened it. Gillian glanced down at her palm, where two hydros had appeared magically in all their pale-pink glory.

  It took actual physical restraint not to take them both. With sharp-edged regret, she slid one back inside the bottle and palmed the other into her mouth, snapping her head back and dry-swallowing in one motion.

  She sighed, moving to the bed. It was firm, and the comforter on top was plush. She lay down, tucking one hand behind her head. A few hours ago, she’d been on Earth. Last night she’d kissed the crown of her daughter’s head, the smell of her shampoo strong and sweet, then watched her fall asleep.

  Gillian closed her eyes, willing the hydro to move its ass.

  She should rest. She was tired, and no doubt the next twelve hours would be a whirlwind of action. They would be briefed, and she would meet the personnel who were working on—well, she didn’t exactly know what they were working on besides Ander’s transportation project. Carson had been cagey in his answers when she’d pressed him, so she’d assumed there might be some other government involvement he couldn’t talk about, at least not until she was safely stowed away on the ship without any recourse or option for backing out.

  Her eyes came open.

  Ship.

  Shit.

  Carson had said “ship,” not “station,” when he was guiding them through the hall.

  And the initials Lien used on the shuttle. EXPX. Not UNSS.

  She sat up. That’s why she had kept thinking of an airplane when she first saw the facility materializing out of the dark.

  Because this wasn’t a space station.

  It was a ship.

  A lurching sensation overcame her as if she were on a carnival ride that had just malfunctioned. She stood and moved around the end of the bed to the slim panel mounted in the wall, a single fingerhold grooved in the bottom. With a jerk she threw up the shutter covering the window.

  Stars rotated past in a dazzling array. She adjusted her gaze and waited, what she was looking for coming into view a moment later.

  Gillian watched for two more full rotations of the wheel before confirming what she already knew.

  Earth was getting smaller.

  They were moving swiftly away from it.

  TWELVE

  She found Carson in Quad Two.

  She’d had to use the lanyard and key card attached to it on the door to stasis and control by waving it across a scanner outside before gaining entry. Inside, the room opened up to the full width of the wheel, which was considerable. One wall was composed of high-resolution screens that changed their displays every few seconds, flicking from the dark view of space, which she guessed was their trajectory, to a room filled with thick bundles of wires and circuit boards, to one of the many hallways. The rest of the area was filled with sleek banks of touchscreens on pedestal mounts with rolling chairs before them.

  Carson sat at the farthest pedestal to the left.

  His attention shot to her as soon as she cleared the door, almost like he was expecting and fearing her appearance.

  Good.

  As she closed on him, he stood, mouth already opening in defense, and it was all she could do not to ball up a fist and punch it shut again.

  “Gillian, listen—”

  “You fucking lied to me, Carson,” she said, stabbing him in the chest with her index finger. “This isn’t the station. It’s a ship.”

  Carson deflated, looking at the floor before meeting her eyes again. “You’re right. It is a ship. The Explorer Ten.”

  “That’s a great name. I don’t care. Let’s go get suited back up.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about putting our suits back on, getting in the shuttle, and you taking me back to Earth. If you do that right now, I’ll ask them to go easy on you when I file charges.”

  The door she had come through slid open, and a man she’d never seen before walked into the room. He had a square face matched with square glasses below neatly combed white hair. He hesitated, easily reading her expression.

  “Sorry, I—”

  “It’s okay, Leo. We’re just—” Carson started to say.

  “Just leaving,” Gillian finished, daring Carson to say differently.

  “I’ll be in the lounge if you need me,” Leo said, backing out of the room.

  When they were alone again, Carson sighed and sat down in his chair. “There’s some things I need to fill you in on.”

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  “First, I wasn’t really lying. There is a space station, and we are going to it, but it’s not in orbit around Earth. It’s in orbit around Mars.”

  She blinked. “Mars.”

  “It was launched in pieces disguised as deep-space probes and assembled in Mars’s orbit. Look, it’s complicated, and I wanted to go over all this at the briefing, but there’s been an incident on the station—a death. A murder.”

  “This is all really intriguing, but I’m serious, Carson. You need to get out of that chair and take me back.”

  “Maybe you should sit down and we can talk.”

  “Maybe I should go get Birk and have him break your neck.”

  “Gillian, please. There’s nothing I can do. I have my orders, and this is the mission. The ship’s course is set. We’ve traveled nearly thirty thousand miles already.”

  She stared at him, anger boiling so black and thick within her, it was like she’d swallowed hot tar. “Listen to me carefully, Carson. I don’t care who’s dead and who did it. I don’t care about your mission or what your superiors are going to say. The next words out of your mouth better be, ‘Okay, Gillian. Let’s go home.’”

  “I’m sorry. I really am, but there’s so much more riding on this than you know. You’re desperately needed.”

  “My daughter needs me!” Her voice broke in the middle of the yell, and she hated how desperate she sounded. But the anger was distilling into something else now.

  Panic.

  Fear.

  “I know that. Nothing’s changed as far as the mission goes. We need your help, and the time frame is no different, six months is six months whether we’re orbiting Earth or traveling to Mars.”

  “You know fucking well it’s different.”

  “It was the only way I could get you to come along.”

  She imagined slapping him but was afraid if she did she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  Instead, she walked away, scanning her key card at the door, which opened, releasing her into the hall. The walls blurred, and she wiped away tears as she stalked around the vertical corner into the next corridor and through the doorway into Quad One. When she stopped before Birk’s berth, it didn’t whisk open like her own had earlier, and she waited before knocking a fist against it.

  “Birk?” Nothing. No sounds of footsteps or stirring within. Only the close silence of the hall. She knocked again, calling his name louder this time. She tried pushing against the door, but it remained steadfast. He must’ve locked it from the inside and was asleep. She raised her hand and resumed pounding on the door until her hand ached. “Damn it!”

  She stepped back from the berth, breathing hard, sweat sticking hair to her forehead. What could she do? Stop the ship. But short of that, call for help. Yes. She could radio NASA and let them know what Carson had done.

  She searched her memories of Frank’s tutelage on comms. It had been brief and rudimentary. Everything he’d taught her had been concerning the shuttle’s communications.

  Okay, she had to get to the shuttle. As she started back down the hallway, the possibility that Carson was telling the truth about being unable to return to Earth gave her pause, her mind already doing the calculations.

  It would be a little more than two months to Mars. Six round-trip. They wouldn’t be orbiting just above Earth’s atmosphere; they’d be flying millions of miles away. Away from Carrie.

  “No,” she said so quiet
ly the word was nearly lost to her in the silence of the hall. Any semblance of control and comfort the hydro had given her was gone, smothered by an avalanche of dread. She couldn’t be that far away from Carrie. What if something happened to her? There’d be no emergency return flight that would have her back on Earth in a matter of days. And what if something went wrong with the mission? There’d be no rescue from ground control. They’d be helpless, completely on their own. Carrie would be on her own.

  She let out a small cry as the door to the main hall opened, and she nearly ran into Carson. He caught her by the arms as she tried pushing him away.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she managed. She felt a wasplike sting in her shoulder and caught a glimpse of movement behind her, someone there as a strange film slid across her vision.

  Tinsel. One of his hands grasping something. A syringe.

  “What?” she said, her legs weakening. Folding.

  Carson eased her down gently, his face eclipsing her vision, features wavering as if she were looking at him through an intense heat.

  “I’m sorry, Gillian. I’m sorry.”

  She tried to form words, a threat, a curse, but her eyes slid closed, and darkness swallowed her whole.

  THIRTEEN

  Thudding pain from her leg.

  It was the first sensation she became aware of. Gillian opened her eyes and saw a sheen of red. Beyond it the upside-down interior of their old Tahoe.

  She was in the car again. In the crash.

  Her leg was multijointed in all the wrong places. Blood, leaking from the gashes in her face, seeping into her mouth, into her hair.

  She moaned, head throbbing in time with her leg. She tried to sit up, pulling herself sideways to avoid the crushed-in passenger door. But instead of the tree that had bashed it in, outside the broken window, there was nothing.

  No. Not nothing. Lights.

  Stars. Space. And something blue receding into darkness.

  She blinked, eyes trying to roll away into unconsciousness again.

  “Gillian.”

  The voice was clear and so close she nearly screamed.

  Kent hung from his seat belt beside her, and she braced herself for what she knew she would see. But it wasn’t Kent. It was Carson.

  He wasn’t fastened to the seat at all. He floated upside down, staring at her blankly. Blood dripped from his face in a metronomic rhythm, but instead of falling to the ceiling of the Tahoe, it floated away in crimson droplets, hanging like weightless rain.

  “Thank you,” he said, his voice oddly flat. “Thank you for your sacrifice.” He pointed to her lower body, and she managed to raise her head and look down.

  Blood pooled out from between her legs, soaking her jeans black.

  “No,” she whispered. “No, the baby. Carrie.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No! Carrie!”

  Gillian.

  Carson’s voice changed as she tried to roll herself over.

  Something snagged her shoulder, and she lashed out with a fist.

  “Gillian, stop. You’re all right. You’re dreaming.”

  She opened her eyes, and everything spun for a sickening moment before locking into place.

  She was lying on a narrow bed in a small, nearly featureless room, and a man stood over her. Not Carson. There was something vaguely familiar about him. Older, carefully parted hair, glasses. He held her shoulder gently, keeping her from rolling off the bed onto the floor.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  “In your room.”

  “This isn’t my room.”

  He frowned. “Do you feel like sitting up?”

  “I feel like my head’s underwater.”

  “It’ll pass soon.”

  She managed to swing her legs over the side of the bed and sat, leaning over, trying not to be sick. The man walked to the bathroom, and she heard the tap running. He came back holding a plastic cup filled with water. “Here. This will help.”

  Gillian drank, stilling her shaking hand. When she was finished, she gave the cup to him.

  “Thank you.” Leo. She looked up at him. “Leo. Your name’s Leo.”

  He smiled. “Leo Fuller, that’s right. Glad it’s coming back.”

  “And I’m . . .” The rush of memory was a dam breaking in her mind.

  The launch.

  The lies.

  Carson and Tinsel drugging her.

  And the sight of Earth retreating in the distance.

  She sprung off the bed, triggering another wave of dizziness. The window shutter was down, and she flung it up.

  Stars rotated past, speckling the dark like strewn diamonds. But that was all. No blue-white orb. Nothing but endless space.

  She let her head drop, closing her eyes. “How long have I been out?”

  Leo took his time answering. “Almost twenty-four hours.”

  Gillian slumped onto the foot of the bed.

  The room began to tip, and Leo’s hand was there again, steadying her.

  “Whoa, it’s okay. Moving too fast. I’m going to check your pulse, okay?” Soft fingers found her wrist and pressed there. “You’re going to be fine, Gillian.”

  “My daughter . . . she’s . . .”

  “I know.” Her head snapped around, and she yanked her wrist from him. Leo held his hands up. “I should clarify. I know, now. I was completely unaware of what you were told before and during your training. All the information I was given stated you were a consultant dedicated to the mission.”

  “Why should I believe that? Carson probably sent you in here.”

  “He did. But it was to make sure you were safe. I’m the flight medical officer. I’m disgusted that they did this, and I’ll be more than happy to help file charges when we get back.”

  She watched him, trying to see any gap in his sincerity, but there was none. “So that’s it.”

  Leo sighed and crossed to the stool bolted before the desk, then sat down heavily. “Yes. But to be honest, I’m not sure how far the charges will go even if they’re filed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Carson couldn’t do this on his own. He had to get clearance from higher up. You can’t wipe your ass at NASA without someone okaying it first.”

  She shook her head, the waterlogged quality less but still there. “This is unbelievable.” Frank’s slipup came back to her then. He had mistakenly mentioned stasis before correcting himself. “I need to contact NASA,” she said.

  “You could try. But I don’t think it would do any good.”

  “Why?”

  “Like I said, you’d be dealing with the people who gave Carson the okay to go through with this. They’re not going to abort the mission now.”

  “You don’t understand, my daughter is sick. I can’t be that far away from her. It was bad enough when we were going to be in orbit.”

  “Believe me, Gillian, I’m pissed too, but I don’t know what we can do till we return.” He shrugged. “There’s a briefing in a few minutes if you feel up to it.”

  The room swayed. “I’m going to throw up.”

  “Here, let me help.” Leo held out his arm, and she steadied herself on it as she moved to the bathroom and shut the door.

  Hot tears filled her eyes, and she trembled silently as they slipped down her face and fell into the stainless-steel basin. When she was able to see herself again, she glanced at the mirror.

  “You’re not giving up,” she said in a low voice. She ran cold water into her hands and splashed her face until her skin buzzed. Then she dried off and opened the door.

  Leo was sitting at the desk again, leaning forward, elbows on knees. Summoning courage she wasn’t sure she had, she said, “Okay, let’s go.”

  FOURTEEN

  They found everyone in the lounge.

  It was a long room with tall shades lining a wall that she guessed was composed of massive windows. To the left was a bar paired with six stools, and beside it padded bench seating ran below the
shades for a dozen steps before ending at a kitchenette complete with stove, microwave, pantry, and dining table. A huge digital screen hung opposite the bench seating, and it was this the others, minus Birk, were watching.

  Carson stood beside the screen and had been pointing at something on the display when she and Leo entered, some kind of complex diagram, but his arm dropped to his side when he saw her.

  “Gillian, glad to see you up—”

  “Save it,” she said. “I’m going to say this once. Everyone who was complicit in what was done to me will be facing charges when we get back to Earth.” She ran her gaze across Lien, who looked away, while Tinsel stared at her unblinking. A lanky man lounged at the far end of the seating away from the others, slowly chewing on a plastic toothpick. She pointed at Tinsel then Carson. “And if the two of you ever lay a hand on me again, you’ll lose it.”

  “I know you’re upset, but please listen to what we have to say,” Carson said.

  “What choice do I have?”

  “You can leave the room at any time you’d like, but I hope you’ll stay.”

  Gillian fixed him with a glare, pouring as much malice as she could into it before moving to an empty spot on the seating well away from Tinsel. Leo joined her, giving her a small nod as he sat.

  The tall man raised a hand at Carson, who nodded in his direction. “Yes, Easton?”

  Easton held up a small bottle of vodka. “This a dry meeting, sir?” Carson gave him a long withering stare. “Trying to ease the tension is all,” he said, tucking the bottle away.

  Carson glanced at the rest of them before taking a deep breath. “Okay. Everyone’s aware of Dr. Ander’s breakthrough along with the possible complications it’s suffered.” He touched the digital display, and the diagram vanished, replaced by a headshot of a middle-aged man smiling into the camera. His head was shaved, and he wore a manicured, graying goatee. “This is Dr. Ivan Pendrake. He was Ander’s partner from the beginning on the research, a psychologist, highly regarded in the field. He was murdered three months ago.”