Ghost Planet

by Sharon Lynn Fisher

  “I think you’re safe enough on that count, even with Tobias. You have witnesses, and that damning recording. Everyone knows what this planet does to people.”

  My ears pricked up. I almost opened my eyes. Julian Tobias was the Ecosystem Recovery Project chief administrator.

  “It’s a shame to lose him,” sighed the woman. “He’s very bright. Nearly single-handedly saved ERP. I know he was a favorite of yours.”

  Could they be talking about Murphy? What did she mean by lose him?

  “The irony’s not lost on me, Maria.”

  Maria Mitchell. The ghost researcher. I waited for some answering clue about the man’s identity, but a door slid open.

  “You’re sure you won’t stay for the day?” asked Mitchell. “Have dinner with me? Our chef is quite good.”

  “I wish I could. I have a meeting early in the morning. But there may be another contract in it for you.”

  I remembered Murphy saying Mitchell worked for a private firm. So the man could be a client—an ERP scientist or administrator.

  “Then please do have a safe trip back.”

  They both laughed, and I opened my eyes just as the man slipped out the door. I glimpsed only enough of him to note that he was tall as a basketball player.

  The woman’s eyes drifted to my face and I watched her expression transform from friendly and open to coolly appraising.

  “Where—?” My voice grated from disuse and I stopped to clear my throat. “Where am I?”

  She came closer to the bed. She was fortyish, with fair skin and black hair like Murphy. Her hair fell in layers around her face, deemphasizing her angular features. She reached down and clamped her fingers over my wrist, checking my pulse, and I discovered I was strapped to the bed.

  “Who are you?” My eyes darted around the room, taking in nothing but the fact I was alone with her. “Where is Dr. Murphy?”

  She fixed her dark eyes on me. A slight smile curved the corners of her lips, but there was nothing warm about it. “Let’s see, in order: This is the Symbiont Research Institute. I am Dr. Maria Mitchell, the lead researcher. And as for Dr. Murphy, he has been sent back to Earth.”

  I stared at her. Despite the fact there was some kind of strong drug in my system, my brain managed to pinpoint the problem with her last statement. “That’s not possible.”

  She released my wrist and folded her arms. “I assure you it is.”

  I shook my head, wincing at the pain in my stiffened neck. “How can we even be having this conversation? I tried walking away from him. I thought it would kill me.”

  Mitchell lifted her eyebrows. “Oh, it will. Eventually. We’ve developed a drug that’s very effective in managing separation symptoms, which are not very conducive to our research. The drug also extends the life of permanently separated symbionts by a couple of weeks.”

  My heart, sluggish from the medication, pounded out a labored distress call. I tried to focus. Ask more questions.

  “Who authorized his return to Earth? I know how important his work here is. I know he’s highly respected.”

  “He went voluntarily.” She paused to observe my reaction, but I couldn’t react. I couldn’t even breathe. I felt like she’d punched me in the stomach.

  “As you point out, he’d made an impressive career for himself here. But you must realize you ended that for him. Your existence threatens the fragile progress we’ve made with the symbionts. As long as he is on the planet, you will continue to exist. That was reason enough for someone as committed to ERP as Dr. Murphy. But you’ve also made a hypocrite of him. Damaged his reputation in the eyes of both his peers and his patients. That’s not something a man with Dr. Murphy’s professional integrity can easily live with.”

  Every word of this was true. I had a pretty clear understanding of the damage I’d done to Murphy. His return to Earth would be viewed as a failure. His career might never recover. He might never recover.

  Before I could ask anything else, Mitchell turned and crossed to the door. Pausing in the doorway, she said, “What days you have left with us are going to be busy. I suggest you rest while you can.”

  The door closed behind her and I blinked at it in disbelief. Rest? I was going to die. Again. And Murphy had made his choice knowing it would kill me.

  * * *

  Shortly after Mitchell’s departure, a guard came in with a tray of food. A display panel mounted to my wall flashed the time in one corner—12:05 P.M. I’d been here at least twenty-four hours. Glancing down at my arm, I saw a catheter taped in place—this wasn’t my first meal.

  The guard was a woman, my age or perhaps younger, with cropped blond hair and a temperament to match. I knew she was a guard by her clothing; like the men who had taken me from Murphy’s office, she wore close-fitting gray fatigues. She had all the tools of the trade secured to her belt—wrist restraints, stun stick, and a currently empty handgun holster. From the SRI stamp on the breast of her t-shirt I assumed she was private rather than planet security.

  After placing the tray on a table, she came over to release the straps at my chest, middle, and feet. I sat up too quickly and teetered, light-headed from the drugs. I felt stiff and sore all over.

  The guard gave me a stern look. “They want you to eat this.” She pointed at the tray. “If you don’t, they’ll put a tube in your stomach, and I promise you won’t like that.”

  I stared at the tray, wondering why they cared if I ate.

  “Do you know how long I’ve been here?” I asked, my voice still grating like gravel.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and left me alone.

  I considered the possibilities … I’m sorry, I don’t know … I’m sorry, I can’t tell you … I’m sorry, you’ve been asleep for fifty years and everyone you know is dead …

  No, wait, I was the one who was dead.

  I reached for the table, pulling it close to the bed. I’d had no appetite before, and the naked chicken breast and limp spears of asparagus did nothing to change that. Still, a feeding tube held even less appeal. I grabbed a slice of bread and took a bite. It traveled down as a thick, dry mass and lodged against the lump in my throat. I swallowed harder and the bread went down; the lump stayed.

  Setting down the bread, I took a minute to survey my surroundings. The room was a narrow cell, much like those I’d seen in psychiatric wards back home, though newer and more comfortable. As for furnishings, there was the bed, the wheeled table, a visitor’s chair, and the display panel. There was one tiny rectangle of a window high up on the outer wall. I had my own bathroom, including a three-foot-square shower stall. Some effort had been made to avoid a clinical feel. The walls were painted a soft yellow, and the floor was more of the rubbery laminate from the counseling center, here in a swirling blue pattern.

  As I sat staring at the floor, the weight of my loneliness settled over me. Murphy was gone. No chance of seeing Ian again.

  Murphy is gone.

  My new friends were the cold-fish researcher Mitchell and the severe guard who’d brought my lunch. I had formed the impression Mitchell might be more than cold. She had seemed to enjoy watching the effect her words had on me. I had written a paper on narcissistic personality disorder for an abnormal psychology class, and one subject I’d profiled had a habit of picking out gruesome stories from the news and sharing them with family members to watch their reactions.

  I ripped the chicken into stringy strips and considered my options. I could give up and force them to resort to a feeding tube, and hope my life ended quickly. I could fight them and cause as much disruption as possible while I was still alive. Or I could cooperate and try to learn about what they were doing. The second option had by far the most appeal, but the end result would be the same as the first option. The third option seemed pointless. Yet if there was even the slightest chance I might find some way to stay alive, it made sense for me to prove myself valuable so they would have an interest in keeping me that way.

  The conversation I’d
overheard when I woke made it clear they had very specific plans for me, and the phrase they had used—“detachment experiments”—hinted to my grasping brain that there might be some hope of severing from Murphy. I hadn’t missed the fact that Mitchell had mentioned a high level of risk associated with these experiments, but my clock was ticking as it was.

  By the time the guard returned I’d cleaned my plate. She glanced at it and nodded acknowledgment, and then said, “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Just down the hall.”

  “Can I get dressed first?” I was wearing thin, light-colored hospital pajamas and nothing else. I glanced around for my own clothes, but there was neither dresser nor closet in the room.

  “There are slippers by the door. You can pull the blanket off the bed if you’re cold.” In other words, no. Though the guard was terse, at least there was nothing nasty in the way she spoke to me.

  Wrapping the blanket around me, I rose on unsteady legs and followed her into the corridor. A couple of orderlies bustled by, identifiable by their white uniforms, and a man in what looked like military fatigues leaned against the wall directly across from my door. Arms crossed and grim looking, his eyes followed us, and it occurred to me that maybe he was my guard’s ghost.

  As she grasped my arm to guide me down the hall, I said, “Can I ask your name?”

  She kept her eyes forward, like she hadn’t heard me.

  “I’m Elizabeth,” I offered.

  “I know who you are. I’m Sarah.”

  I glanced behind us and confirmed the soldier was following. “Is he your ghost?”

  “Yup.” She cut her eyes at me. “You’re one of the ones who died in that transport accident about a week ago, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Welcome to Ardagh 1,” she muttered. “You’ve sure got them pissing all over themselves.”

  Before I could swallow my surprise and ask her to elaborate, we stopped in front of a door. She reached out to thumb the reader, but I grabbed her hand, making her jump.

  “What’s going to happen now, Sarah? Are they going to hurt me?”

  She twisted her hand free, but the hard lines around her mouth and eyes had softened. “I don’t think so. Just a bunch of medical scans if they’re following the usual routine. Do what they tell you and you’ll be okay.”

  Behind the door was a shiny, modern medical lab. There were half a dozen exam tables fitted with scanning equipment, shelves of medical supplies, and displays everywhere. Three lab technicians sat at different displays, and a security guard stood at the back of the room. I didn’t see any ghosts, but the lab had two other doors. They may have been in an adjacent room.

  Or they may have been doped up somewhere. I wondered about the drug they were giving me. If it was so effective for managing ghosts, why weren’t they using it planetwide? Maybe it was expensive, or in short supply.

  One of the technicians came and took charge of me, dismissing Sarah.

  “Where are your ghosts?” I asked the technician. She ignored the question and led me to an exam table.

  “We’re doing a full workup, so you’re going to be here a while. If you cooperate and lie still, we’ll leave you unstrapped.”

  “Full workup” was an understatement. I lost count of the medical scans. They drew a dozen vials of blood. They monitored my heart rate and brain activity. They noted my body temperature once per hour. They made me pee in a cup. They even checked my vision and hearing.

  About halfway through, at the point the technician appeared to be focusing on my reproductive system, Mitchell came in to check her progress.

  She watched as the technician manipulated the scanner via the control panel and stopped every few moments to type notes.

  “Were you aware that you’re sterile, Elizabeth?” Mitchell asked, studying the display.

  “What?” I’d been going for gynecological exams for ten years and no one had ever told me this.

  That was the Earth Elizabeth, I reminded myself.

  Fighting the urge to get up and look at the scan, I said, “I’ve never heard any mention of that sort of … abnormality.”

  “Your uterus and ovaries are flawless, but you’re not capable of reproduction. A dead-end organism, just like the others. Seems pointless, doesn’t it?”

  “How do you know we’re sterile?”

  Ignoring my question, Mitchell pointed at the display, directing the technician to take a few more detailed scans.

  “Please be still a moment,” said the technician.

  As she keyed in the new information, Mitchell said, “How are you feeling, Elizabeth?”

  I lifted an eyebrow, wondering whether she was patronizing me or fishing for something. Possibly both.

  “Frustrated,” I snapped. “I can’t get more than a question or two deep with you people.”

  Mitchell laughed. “I’m afraid answering your questions is not a high priority for my staff. Continue to cooperate with us, and you and I will talk more soon.”

  She started for the door, but I stopped her, saying, “I want to participate in your detachment experiments.”

  As she turned, I noted the surprise in her expression with immense satisfaction. “Do you understand what detachment experiments are?”

  “I assume you’re trying to find a way to detach symbionts from their hosts.”

  “And you wish to detach from Dr. Murphy now that he’s gone, so you can go on living.”

  “I’ve always wanted to detach. His return to Earth hasn’t changed anything. Except that now I have a deadline.” And except that now every time someone says his name, it feels like they’ve hole-punched my heart.

  Mitchell stared at me, processing what I’d said, but I couldn’t see past her neutral expression. “You continue to do as you’re told, and we’ll see.”

  I laughed grimly. “I expect you’ll do whatever suits you, Dr. Mitchell, and that my preferences won’t be taken into consideration at all. But I wanted you to understand that I will cooperate, no matter the risks.”

  She gave me a brittle smile. “I’ll take that under advisement. Now if you’ll excuse me, you’re far from my only subject.”

  * * *

  The tests wrapped up in the evening, and Sarah came to escort me to my room.

  The corridor was quiet, and as we walked I screwed up my courage to ask, “Do you know anything about Mitchell’s detachment experiments?”

  I watched her shields lock into place. “I can’t help you.”

  “Why not?” I cried, exasperated. “What are you worried about? I’ll be dead in a couple weeks.”

  Sarah glanced up as an orderly approached us. When he passed, she said, “No offense, but I’m really not supposed to be talking to you.”

  “Right,” I muttered. “I’m a ghost.”

  Outside my door she suddenly turned to me, speaking in a low voice. “All I know is it kills a lot of them.”

  “Do you have any idea why she thinks it’s possible?” I asked, matching her volume.

  Sarah frowned and scanned the corridor. There was no one but us, and her ghost lurking a few meters back.

  “I think it happened once.”

  “What?” My heart bounced over a beat. “When?”

  “Not long after the ghosts started showing up. Before Dr. Mitchell, or any of this. It’s just what I’ve heard.”

  “Is that ghost still alive?”

  Sarah punched the reader to open the door. “I don’t know. And I have to go.”

  I felt a physical wrenching as the door closed between us, cutting off the flow of information.

  Tossing the blanket onto the bed, I sank down exhausted. But what she’d told me kept me up half the night. Detachment was my one shot at survival, and I had two weeks to figure it out.

  * * *

  The next day we moved from physiological to psychological workup. Sarah came for me again, taking me this time to a room adjacent to the exam room. It was a qu
arter the size, with only a couch, a chair, and a few potted ferns by the window. The window in the lab had been covered by a shade, but this one was bare, revealing gray sky over gargantuan evergreens, just like in New Seattle. I wondered if we were still in New Seattle.

  The room had a single occupant, a man who introduced himself as Cooper. The fact that he’d introduced himself was a change from yesterday.

  There was some discussion between Cooper and Sarah about whether she should stay, during which I was able to confirm that Sarah had been assigned to me, and that it was the first time she had been relegated to babysitting an inmate. In the end, she did stay.

  The evaluation was a sort of hybrid psychological/neuropsychological assessment, focusing on cognitive, motor, behavioral, and emotional functioning. I’d both conducted and completed these kinds of tests ad nauseam in grad school and could have done them in my sleep. When I became hoarse from answering questions—and cross-eyed from playing IQ-assessment games on Cooper’s laptop—we took a break, and an orderly brought us lunch.

  They made me take pills at mealtimes and I felt groggy for an hour or so after. I’d sunk into the couch and started to doze when Cooper said, “I’m going to ask you questions about your time in New Seattle now.”

  I gazed down my nose at him. He was soft-spoken and had been kind to me so far, neither chilly like the technician nor callous like Mitchell. He was also young, eager, and a little nervous.

  “Are you doing your residency here, Cooper?”

  “I am.”

  “I came here for the same reason. Did you know that?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  I toyed with a loose bit of thread on one of the couch cushions. “Am I still in New Seattle?”

  He glanced over at Sarah. “Um, no, actually.”

  “Somewhere close?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m not able to answer your questions.”

  “Right. I’m answering yours. What do you want to ask me?”

  The door opened, and Mitchell joined us. She sat down in a chair by the door. I did my best to maintain my relaxed position, but internally I bumped up to yellow alert. I was learning that Mitchell did not make incidental appearances.