Tethers Read online

  The infirmary was empty, and she crept into the adjoining room. Eric appeared to be sleeping. There were several IVs hooked up to him, dripping mysterious clear liquids into him.

  He looked so peaceful.

  Kat reached out and took his hand. His fingers were unresponsive, but very soft and warm. “Eric,” she whispered, squeezing his hand. She touched his face. “Eric, can you hear me?”

  His fingers tightened slightly, pressing against hers. His eyes opened half-mast, and he blinked at her sleepily, dazed. “Kat,” he murmured. His voice seemed to come from miles away. He closed his eyes again.

  “Eric, how…how are you…?” she said, and suddenly her eyes burned. She felt tears coming, swelling into fat beads, and starting to drip down her cheeks. She reached up and rubbed at them, ashamed, guilty, embarrassed and lonely.

  “How were your pancakes?” he asked in an exhausted, stoned voice.

  “Please don’t hate me, Eric. I’m sorry. I thought…I thought I was doing the right thing…”

  His eyes opened. He looked at her. “Please…” He tugged weakly against the wrist restraints. “Please, Kat…you can’t keep me here…like this…”

  “Eric, no, no, you have to. You’re in so much pain, and—”

  “No,” Eric said, his voice stronger. “No, Kat. I can…I can deal with the pain. I’ve been through worse…much worse…and you and Jerica…you can’t be alone with him…you can’t…”

  “What?” Kat leaned forward. “What do you mean, Eric?”

  He closed his eyes and was so quiet, she thought he had drifted back to sleep.

  “Kat,” he murmured, semiconscious. “Kat…he’ll hurt you…he’ll…”

  “Who will? Frank?”

  Eric nodded once, not opening his eyes.

  “Eric, no, Frank’s not going to hurt us.” She stroked his hair. “It’s okay. Frank’s a good man. He’s our friend. I know it must not seem like that to you, but he’s worried about you. He wants to help you. That’s why he—”

  “You…you don’t…” Eric gasped, and she could tell he was struggling to remain conscious. “You don’t know…what he is…what he does…he’s not…”

  His voice faded off, and he lay still and silent, asleep again.

  Kat felt his fingers relax and go limp in hers.

  ***

  She found Jerica and Frank in the TV room. They were watching a movie and sharing a huge bowl of popcorn.

  Jerica saw her coming, and rushed over to her. She leaped up into Kat’s arms and hugged her. “Mommy!” she cried with a grin. “Mommy! You’re okay now!”

  “I’m fine, pup,” Kat said, and Jerica kissed her lips. Her small mouth tasted salty from the popcorn. “I’m just fine now.”

  Jerica’s long golden hair was piled up into a ponytail on top of her head. “This is pretty.” Kat tugged on it playfully.

  Jerica giggled. “Frank did it.”

  “He did?”

  Jerica nodded. “Are you gonna be better?” she asked, her pretty, porcelain-doll features pinched with stern, parental concern. “I was worried about you.”

  “Positively. I promise.”

  “Cross your heart?” Jerica still didn’t look convinced.

  “Of course.” Kat kissed the tip of Jerica’s nose. “I love you, pup.”

  She sat on the couch opposite where Frank was stretched out. Jerica plopped down next to her, wiggling happily. “How is Eric?” Kat asked.

  Frank smiled. “He’s just fine. The drugs have slowed his systems down. It should keep the stuff that’s leaking from spreading so fast through his body. His swelling has slowed tremendously, and he’s resting comfortably.”

  “When are you going to do the surgery?”

  He acted like he was absorbed in the television. “Soon. Maybe tomorrow.”

  What are you waiting for? Kat wanted to ask. She pressed her lips together. She didn’t know what Eric had meant when he’d said Frank would hurt them.

  You don’t know…what he is…what he does…he’s not…

  What? she wondered. He’s not what?

  “I’d like to see him,” Kat said and Frank cut her a sideways glance.

  “Ah, Kat, I don’t know if that’s such a great idea right now. This is a critical time. I don’t want to take a chance of upsetting him. It’d just make things worse. Maybe after the surgery, a few days, when I can be sure he’s going be okay. I promise you can see him then. As much as you want.”

  “Me, too?” Jerica asked.

  “Of course, Jerica,” Frank said. “I know how much you both care for him.”

  This seemed satisfactory to Jerica, and she tucked her legs underneath her like some sort of small egret. “Quit hogging the popcorn, Frank!”

  He handed her the bowl. It was almost twice again as wide as her lap.

  “Want some, Mommy?” Jerica offered the bowl.

  “Sure.” Kat glanced over at Frank, but he was lost in the movie again, his gaze riveted away from her. “I’m starving.”

  ***

  They stayed up late. In Kat’s absence, Jerica and Frank had uncovered a horde of games that had been put into storage for the colonists. After they grew bored with the movie, Frank produced a deck of cards and they all sat around the coffee table, munching popcorn and laughing while they played spades. Jerica grew sleepy the longer they played, and finally Kat called it quits so that they could all turn in.

  “Oh, Mom!” Jerica protested, but it was just for the principle of the whole thing. She was tired and wanted to go to bed.

  “You want to sleep in with me?” Kat stood, holding out her hand.

  “No, I have my own room now,” Jerica replied primly, hopping to her feet. “I’m not a baby, you know.”

  “No, of course not,” Kat said. “Lead the way.”

  Frank walked with them to Jerica’s room, and stood in the doorway while Kat tucked the little girl in. “Good night, pup,” Kat told her and kissed her. “Sweet dreams.”

  “You, too, Mommy. I love you.”

  Kat walked with Frank to his room, only a few doors down the corridor.

  “This is my stop,” Frank said with a smile.

  Kat paused for a moment. “Thanks for looking out for Jerica, Frank. These past few days, I mean…I…”

  “I didn’t mind. She’s a great kid.”

  You don’t know…what he is…what he does…he’s not…

  Kat studied Frank’s face for a moment before walking away. What were you trying to tell me, Eric?

  She didn’t go straight to her room. She waited until the light under Frank’s door went out and then tiptoed up the hallway, toward the command center.

  To her great surprise, she found all of the monitors operational, and all of the surveillance cameras apparently functioning. There were bird’s-eye vantages of all different areas of the compound. She observed the empty TV room, and Jerica’s darkened bedroom. She could see the little girl, curled up in her bed, her hand in her hair, snoozing. In another, she saw Frank lying on his back in bed, his eyes closed. In other monitors she saw the darkened and empty kitchen, the infirmary and the small room where Eric lay in his induced coma. She also saw her room, and her messy, empty bed.

  Someone had pulled a chair up close to the monitors, like they’d had a seat and just observed.

  She found Eric’s room on one of the screens. There was some kind of recording device underneath the screen, and Kat examined it for a few minutes before figuring out how the “rewind” worked.

  She stopped it after a moment. She saw herself, lying on Eric’s bed. Eric was next to her, propped on his elbow. There was no sound, but Kat watched as Eric leaned over and kissed her. She watched as in the video, she spread her fingers in his hair and pulled him down toward her.

  Kat’s hand shot out and she slapped the “stop” button. The monitor obediently jumped back to its current view of the empty bedroom.

  “What the fuck…?” She could have sworn Eric had told her on the
ir first day that none of that kind of stuff was hooked up. Only the most primary computer functions were supposed to be active upon their arrival. It was to have been Doc’s job to bring everything else, including the security system, online. And it had never been online before, when she and Frank had been examining the Daedalus’ black box.

  Frank must have brought them online. She couldn’t imagine Jerica doing it, even if the child had been able. Why would she want to?

  But then again, why would Frank?

  Again, her mind turned to Eric, and the delirious warning he’d offered. You don’t know…what he is…what he does…he’s not…

  There’s four people in this compound, she thought. Why in the hell would you want to spy on four people?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The next day, Kat woke up and dressed without showering. She didn’t pull her boots on. She walked down the hall in her bare feet. Her footsteps were quiet, although she wasn’t really trying to be discreet. She decided if Frank was up and about, if he cross-examined her, she would be up front and honest with him. And then tell him to go to hell.

  She had tossed and turned most of the night, too troubled to sleep. The surveillance cameras bothered her. The images of her and Eric making love bothered her.

  He was watching us, she thought, the idea making her shiver. Frank sat there in the dark and watched us. He recorded it so he could watch it over and over again.

  You don’t know…what he is…what he does…he’ll hurt you.

  What did Eric know about Frank that she didn’t? He’d tried to tell her; the morning that they’d tricked him, in the kitchen as he’d reached for the milk, he’d started to tell her. I saw something today, this morning, a mark on his back…

  What were you trying to tell me, Eric? And why the hell didn’t I listen?

  The infirmary was dark and quiet. The tiled floor was cold against the soles of her feet. She went into the small adjoining room. She hesitated, lingering in the doorway. She watched Eric sleeping.

  His face was turned toward the doorway, his expression peaceful and serene. Kat walked over to the bed. She reached down and touched his hand, tracing along his fingers. “What were you trying to tell me?” she whispered.

  Her eyes flew wide and she abruptly jerked her hand away. It fluttered up to her breast like a small dove with a broken wing.

  Eric’s skin was cold.

  Oh, my God.

  “Eric?” Kat whispered.

  She pressed her forefingers against the side of his neck.

  Oh, my God.

  His throat was cool. There was no pulse. She could see that he wasn’t breathing.

  “Oh, my God!” Kat sucked in a whistling mouthful of air. She jerked her hand away from him. She held it suspended in midair, out in front of her and floundered back away from the bed. She could hear herself gasping for breath, wheezing, nearly hyperventilating. “Eric…oh…!”

  She thought of making love to him, the incredible warmth of his body against hers, the press of his breath against her face, the sound of his voice as he’d gasped her name over and over with mounting insistence.

  She thought of his kiss, his touch, his smile; that day on the Illinois tarmac so long ago, when she had first fallen in love with him, when he had been her hero for the first in a long series of countless times.

  Her shoulders hit the doorframe, and she stumbled. She was making strange mewling, hiccupping sounds. Her knees folded and her legs buckled underneath her. Her spine slid down the wall until her ass met the floor.

  She thought of him telling her about crashing his Sovereign fighter, of how frightened he had been in the ruins of his spacecraft. All I kept thinking was that I didn’t want to die. Not like that. Not in some piece of shit corner of space where no one would ever find me. Not all alone. That’s a scary fucking thing…to be all alone.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, because that’s exactly what had happened. Eric had died alone in the infirmary, tucked in the corner of some wretched compound in some piece of shit corner of space where no one would ever find them. And it’s all my fault…!

  She didn’t cry. She couldn’t breathe. Her chest hurt, deep down beneath her breast. Her throat tightened and constricted.

  “Mommy?”

  Jerica stood in the door to the infirmary. Her hair was fuzzy and disheveled, and her eyes were swollen and sleepy.

  “Jerica, get out of here,” Kat gasped at her.

  “Mommy, what is it?” Jerica walked in, bare-legged and bare-footed. “Is it…is it Eric?”

  She started to move past Kat, to go to him but Kat grabbed her small wrists. “Jerica, no.”

  Jerica tried to pull away. “Stop it, let me go.”

  Kat held her easily. “You can’t go in there, pup, let me explain…you just—”

  “Let me go!” Jerica screeched, struggling violently. Kat realized that the girl understood what had happened. “Let me go, Mommy, let me go! Let me go!”

  Kat released her, and Jerica stumbled. Her cheeks were bright with color, and her eyes glistened moistly. She brushed by Kat and scurried over to Eric’s bedside.

  Kat turned her face down to the floor. She touched her bottom lip with her fingers.

  “Eric?” she heard Jerica say, so quietly and tenderly it nearly broke her heart. She watched Jerica take his hand, either oblivious to or unafraid of the coldness of his skin.

  “It’s okay.” Jerica reached up through the bars around the bed and touched his face. Her tiny fingers traced along his brow, his eyelids, the slope of his nose. She touched his mouth, and ran her fingertip along the arch of his cheek. She pushed his hair off of his forehead. “It’s okay, Eric.”

  “Jerica… Pup, Eric is…he’s…”

  “No,” Jerica said calmly. “He’s okay. He’s just sleeping.”

  Kat slowly got to her feet. She felt light-headed. She swayed, and struggled to focus on her land legs. She didn’t want to go near Eric again. She thought it would shatter her heart to look at him.

  She made herself walk toward her daughter. “He’s dead, pup,” she whispered, and then she thought for sure she would cry. But there was nothing.

  “No, he’s not. He’s just sleeping. He’s okay.”

  “He’s not sleeping, pup.”

  “Yes, he is!” Jerica jerked away from her, her eyes flashing angrily. “He’s not dead, he’s sleeping! I told him I wouldn’t let anything happen to him. He’s my friend.”

  “I know, Jerica,” Kat said. “He’s my friend, too, and I love him as much as—”

  “No, you don’t!” Jerica’s hands were balled into angry fists. She glared up at Kat, and she was suddenly the little woman again, with her ramrod-straight spine and her furious, adult eyes. “You let this happen to him! You don’t love him! Look what you’ve done to him!”

  Kat drew back, hurt.

  But there’s more than that, isn’t there? a hateful, scolding part of her mind—Chris’s voice within her—hissed. You stupid bitch, you did let this happen to him—and you know it. Frank may have done the dirty work, but you didn’t stop it. You’re in charge. You had the power to prevent this, to take control, but it’s too late now.

  “Jerica, please don’t say that…I…”

  Jerica shoved past her, fleeing the infirmary, her voice choked with loud, distraught tears. “Leave me alone! I hate you! Leave me alone!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Frank sat in front the little monitors, watching them. It was dark in the command center except for the soft blue glow of the screens, which bathed his face in dim, eerie light.

  You don’t know…what he is…what he does. Eric’s words echoed in her mind. He’ll hurt you.

  “Frank.”

  He looked over at her. His expression was unreadable; she could have sworn he was bored.

  “Frank, Eric’s dead.”

  He just kept looking at her in that blank, dull, what-the-fuck-do-you-want way. It made her nervous, and she took a hedging step
back.

  “I know he’s dead, Kat. I killed him.”

  Kat blinked at him. Her breath drew abruptly still and she struggled to find her voice. I misheard him, that’s all, she thought. “I…I’m sorry…?”

  “I said I killed him, Kat.” Frank leaned forward and crossed his arms in his lap. “I gave him an overdose of morphine.”

  She thought she was going to faint, or throw up. She couldn’t believe what he’d just said. Her legs shook and weakened under her. She caught herself on the back of the closest chair. It swung in her grip and she stumbled again. She fell to her knees.

  Eric’s words resounded in her mind—You don’t know…what he is…what he does…he’ll hurt you—and she looked around quickly, frantically for some sort of escape. She hadn’t closed the command center door behind her. She could bolt for it, but Frank was less than three feet away. She couldn’t be sure that she could beat him.

  “Here, I’ll show you.” Frank held his hand out to her, his wrist cocked. She saw he was holding some kind of remote control.

  All of the screens jumped in unison and flashed to show the same scene. It was the room where Eric lay, prone in bed. She saw Frank standing next to the bed, his hands in his pockets.

  She watched Eric’s head roll toward Frank.

  “Now listen closely,” Frank said. There was something in his voice that was nearly gleeful. “The sound quality is for shit, but you can make it out.”

  “Frank…” Kat heard Eric say, his voice low and clouded with static.

  “How are you feeling, Lieutenant Nagel?” Frank asked, sounding cheerful.

  Eric tried to raise his arms, but the restraining straps held him securely.

  On the screen, Frank chuckled. “Whoah, that was effective, wasn’t it? Might as well lie still. You aren’t going anywhere.”

  “I know you,” Eric said, surprisingly lucid. “That mark on your back…that brand…I…I know what you are…”

  “Yeah, well, I’m really fucking worried, can’t you tell, Lieutenant?” Frank reached down and grasped Eric firmly by the chin, forcing his head back.