Kraken Mare (7 page)

“Cold spot in hallway four, delta level,” she then repeated the numbers back to me. “Running diagnostic test now to confirm.”

“Thanks,” I said.

A moment later she came back on the PDA. “John, readings in the hallway says that the temperature is steady and the same as the rest of the station. All recyclers show green and are running within parameters.”

“Well that's bull,” I muttered. “Negative, Post Three. It's decidedly cooler in this hallway. Feels like it's fifty degrees or colder here.”

“I'm showing everything to be green, John,” she countered in a disbelieving tone. “You running a fever or something?”

“Not that I'm aware,” I said, puzzled. What the hell?

“Do we need to send a maintenance crew down there?” April asked.

“No, I don't think so,” I said after a moment of thought. If I were running a fever, I would be sweaty, so I checked my forehead with my free hand. No sweat. I scowled. I stayed quiet and listened, but I couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary. The gentle hum of the recyclers remained steady, and I couldn’t hear anything that remotely sounded like an air leak. “It's probably nothing. Thanks for checking, April.”

“No problem. Post Three, out.”

I tucked my PDA back into my pants pocket. Methane needed to be both cold and under extreme amounts of pressure in order to remain in liquid form, and Titan had both in spades. I listened carefully but heard nothing that sounded like water bubbling. In fact, the entire hall was eerily silent. I rubbed my exposed arms as goose bumps began to rise. I held up my PDA and tapped into the environmental scanners remotely. According to the sensors, the temperature was normal. I scowled and slapped the stupid machine before I tucked it back into my pocket. I didn't care what the sensors said. It was
cold
.

A tickling sensation ran down my spine. It was a feeling which I'd come to dread while out in the depths of the wilderness. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and goose bumps, which had nothing to do with the temperature, raised on my forearms. My gut churned. This was too familiar.

I was being watched and I didn't know by who.

I glanced up and looked for the security cameras. They were scattered throughout the station and were constantly monitored by the guards back at Control. For a brief instant, I thought that maybe I was being watched electronically but dismissed that notion almost immediately. Whoever was spying on me was closer than the cameras, which was impossible. There was nothing in the hallway that anyone could hide behind and nowhere to hide in, like a utility room, and the space between the walls and the recyclers was too small to fit anyone larger than a child. Yet the sensation remained. It was bizarre, and it was starting to freak me out a little.

Movement flickered in the corner of my eye. I whirled quickly, my hand dropping to where I would normally have had a sidearm. Guards didn't carry actual firearms, though, merely tranquilizer guns. Handy but not something I wanted to trust with my life.

It didn't matter, though. There was nothing there. I let my eyes slide slowly across the hall, though I never took my hand off of the tranq gun. No movement, no sign of whatever I thought I had seen, nothing.
Had I lost my mind
, I wondered as I continued to scan the hallway.
Had I finally snapped?

“Jesus,” I muttered under my breath. I was getting myself all worked up over nothing. It was all in my mind, my brain filling in gaps of what my eyes couldn't see. My imagination gone wild was a far simpler solution than anything else. I made a mental note to talk with Gerry after my shift ended. Maybe I needed to swap shifts with someone for a few days? I rubbed my tired eyes as I turned around.

An apparition of some sort was standing in the hall, facing away from me. I almost screamed but managed to keep my composure, though I still went for my sidearm…which was worthless against something like this. The sweat on the back of my neck was icy cold, my palms were clammy. I was staring at something that wasn't supposed to exist.
Couldn't
exist.

I fumbled for my tranq gun but the nerves in my fingers seemed to be numb. I couldn't feel the release catch for the holster.

Ghosts aren't real
, I thought as I struggled to keep hold of my sanity.
Ghosts can't be real!

Ghosts aren't real, and yet there was one standing right in front of me. It was facing away, looking out into…what? I didn't know. I couldn't even imagine what the ghost was thinking. Or if they even did think. It was too much. I had to be hallucinating…

…but I wasn't. I knew I couldn't be hallucinating. Which meant that the ghost before me was real. Who could it be, though? Had one of the workers died during construction and was now doomed to roam the halls? Or was it something else entirely? And why me? Why would the ghost show itself to me?

The ghost turned and my heart stopped beating in my chest. I knew every single angle of that delicate face, the curve of her lips, the shape of her eyes. I recognized the curious tilt of her head, the slight quirk of her smile, the laughter which was yet to come. I was intimately familiar with everything about her even though I had only seen her in photos taken years before.

A man never forgets his first, last, and only love.

“No,” I whispered as I stared at her. I took a step back. “This is a trick. My brain is playing tricks on me. That's all. That's all this is.”

John…

“Oh fuck no!” I screamed and looked away. “No! I'm not going through this shit again!”

After a minute of silence, I looked back .She was still there, watching me, a strange expression on her face. It was filled with sorrow, but there was something else on the edge of that. It was almost as though Concy –
no, just a ghost, not Concy,
I told myself – looked guilty.

How can the dead look guilty
? I wondered.

John…danger…

“What are you talking about?” I asked in a hushed whisper, terrified that if I spoke too loudly that she would leave or, worse yet, stay. I can't explain why I thought this, it was just there, in the back of my mind. A lingering doubt. “What do you mean?”

Danger…comes…

“Comes from where? What are you talking about?” I knew I was babbling but I couldn't help it.

From…within…below…

Below? From the bottom of the lake? Was there something at the bottom of the lake that was coming for us? I was confused, frightened, and in a hell of a lot of pain. Pain of the heart, of the soul. A deep, dark depression, something I had thought I'd left behind years before, welled up. It threatened to overwhelm me, to drag me back down into that never-ending abyss.

Was I hallucinating? Had I finally snapped and gone crazy? Tears blinded me. The hall wavered in my eyes as my vision blurred. I knew I hadn't snapped, not yet in any case. But I didn't understand any of it. What did she mean? I hastily wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. I had to know. I had to—

She was gone. The hallway was back to normal temperature. The lights were no longer flickering or acting oddly. I leaned against the wall, emotionally exhausted, barely able to contain the soul-wrenching sobs which threatened to tear me apart from the inside out. My heart threatened to tear itself in two for the second time in my life, and I slowly slid down the wall until I was seated. I pressed my head against the cool surface of the wall and closed my eyes. I began to count, slowly, by threes until my breathing began to return to normal. My racing heart slowed and the old, familiar dull ache in my soul faded. I opened my eyes.

There was no sign of anyone in the hall with me. I could hear nothing but the steady, gentle pulsing of the recyclers working in the ducts below. I couldn't smell anything other than my own stale sweat and fear. I bent my head down and pressed it against my knee. I was alone and nobody would be able to see a thing.

I let the last remnants of the festering wound in my soul pour forth. The pain was almost welcome. It was long past overdue.

Chapter Seven

The past is our definition. We may strive with good reason to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it. But we will escape it only by adding something better to it.

-
Wendell Barry

I didn't tell anyone what I had seen in the hallway. I'd finished my shift and immediately made my way to the gym where I could beat up on a punching bag while I sorted through my jumbled emotions. It took long enough that by the time I'd finished punching, all the muscles in my shoulders were numb and I could no longer feel my hands. I was exhausted and needed to go to bed, but I was almost afraid to. I wasn't sure how my dreams would turn and, given how raw my emotions were, I decided to forgo for the time being. Catnaps would suffice, I hoped.

Gerry could tell something was wrong when he saw me come into the gym. He wisely left me alone while I hit the bag. After I'd returned from the showers carrying my dirty workout clothes, however, he pulled me aside.

“What's on your mind?” he asked as soon as we were away from the Things, who were sparring and tossing each other around with what looked like Judo throws. Gary and Kelly were good people, but other than our usual interaction during my shift, we rarely spoke. Plus, I liked to hit things. They liked to throw them. It made working out together awkward.

“Bad shift,” I admitted. I grabbed my workout bag and tossed my shorts and shirt inside.

“Coworkers?” he prodded some more. I shook my head.

“Just…too much time alone with my thoughts,” I said. I looked up and saw that he looked fairly worried. I tried to set his mind at ease. “You think I might be able to swap to daytime hours for a week or two?”

“Bigfoot's been bugging me to go to nights, so it shouldn't be a problem,” Gerry said, referring to our lone Canadian on the team. I’d gotten to know Bigfoot much better over the past few weeks. He also one of the tallest operators I'd ever run across, which had led to the origin of part of his nickname. Like me, he was trained as a sniper, only the majority of his action had taken place a long time ago on battlefields I'd never heard of. He was nearing mandatory retirement age for the company, which put him in some exclusive company. He also sported one of the most impressive beards I had ever seen and, after seeing him naked in the gym shower more often than I cared to, I came to fully understand how he earned his moniker.

Some mental images never went away, no matter how hard you tried to mentally scrub it with bleach.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Anything else going on?” he pressed.

“No, not really,” I lied. I was a little ashamed of lying to my boss, but what the hell was I supposed to do, admit that I was either going crazy or that I'd actually seen a ghost? I liked my job too much for that much honesty.

“Good,” Gerry grunted. “By the way, Doc Marillac is looking for you. Said you haven't been down in a few days. Go on down and spend some time in the Gallery at least. Let the scientists poke around and ask stupid questions.”

Shit
.

“Yeah, fine,” I grumbled. Gerry chuckled softly. I gave him a look.

“I'll come with you, Kraken Whisperer,” he smiled. “At least then I can spend time with, uh, watching the kraken interact with you.”

“Yeah, sure,” I snorted, amused by his lame attempt at hiding his affection for Doctor Marillac. He was an extremely easy person to read. “Kraken.”

ঠ

Watching Gerry try to flirt with the doctor was very similar to observing someone strap a jet rocket onto the ass of a penguin to try and make it fly. He bumbled his way through the start of the conversation, managed to find some footing once he quit trying to impress her and be himself, and finally made her smile a few times. He succeeded, but the bruises to his ego had to hurt. They’d hurt me, and I was a not-so-impartial observer. Fortunately for him, Doctor Marillac seemed just as inept as he was at flirting and reading the signs of interested parties, so they sort of canceled one another out.

Concy would have found it adorably sweet and offered tips for next time. I thought it was funny as hell, and planned on mocking my boss mercilessly once we were in the clear.

For the time being, however, I left him and the doc alone as I wandered through the Gallery. As much as I hated being bugged by the doc and her merry minions, I enjoyed the Gallery and the alien creatures which seemed drawn to it. The kraken were out and about, though not nearly as many as I’d seen a few days before. The six or seven in view were active, flashing their wings in varying colors of red and black. I took a seat on one of the benches which looked out into the lake and watched the aliens swim quickly by, diving, twisting, and turning in dizzying patterns.

After a few minutes of watching them, I realized that there
was
a pattern to their swimming. I leaned closer and stared, intrigued. I could see the pattern repeating over and over again but I had no idea what it meant.

“Mating ritual?” I muttered under my breath. It was something I would mention to the doc. After, of course, Gerry was done trying to flirt with her. The last thing I wanted to do was to interrupt a potentially good thing.

Watching the kraken dance in the liquid methane lake, my mind began to drift back to my first date with Concy. I hadn’t even realized it was a date until she’d grabbed my hand while we were walking to the movies. I’d gone from cocky and self-assured to drooling idiot in the span of about three seconds, which had to be a record of some sort.

I’d been fortunate. My dad had taught me that it was better to be silent and thought an idiot than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt. If it had been anyone else, I would have seemed to be the strong, silent type. Since Concy had already known me for five years before our accidental date, however, she had known just how nervous I was and didn’t laugh too much.

I had already loved her. I just had not realized it until I saw our fingers intertwined.

I didn’t remember the movie we saw. Nor where we went to dinner afterwards. The only thing I could remember were her eyes, bright and assuring, and her hand held gently in mine. Oh, and the lecture I got from my parents for missing curfew. Granted, they hadn’t grounded me for being late once I told them all about the date. However, that had led to the
other
lecture about being careful and birth control and things I was really, really uncomfortable hearing about from my mom. My dad had simply watched me squirm under the constant barrage from my mom and smiled. At least I know where I get my sense of humor from.

Nobody at school had understood. They’d known about our friendship, since we had been inseparable before we’d started dating. Their minds hadn’t been able to make the transition, though, and whispered rumors floated around school. Concy just laughed at them, but I was ready to murder everyone when I started hearing the accusations. They were ugly, hurtful, with the barest hints of truth, which were far more than enough to make everyone believe that I was taking advantage of the “poor immigrant.” I’d gotten into more than a few fights over that and would have been expelled had Concy not put a stop to things.

I never figured out exactly what she had done, but one day the rumors suddenly stopped.

My mind drifted back to the present. The kraken weren’t swimming around as frantically as they had been before. They were drifting through the lake now, occasionally spinning their bodies to reposition themselves within the loop. Instead of hues of black and red, their wings were more demure pinks and soft blues. Melancholy, I supposed. It fit my own mood.

I leaned forward. The kraken were mimicking my mood. I’d seen it before but I hadn’t really put two and two together. How could they know…unless the doctor was right and the aliens could sense human emotion? I grew excited as the implications of it all began to set in. That meant that the doctor’s theories were correct and the aliens were intelligent.

The prospect of it all was exciting. Here was the proof that the doc, hell, the entire human race, needed. Proof that aliens could communicate beyond our level, that they could be more than we were. A terrifying thought, but a slap in the face to the idea that humanity ruled the known galaxy uncontested.

I paused. What they were doing was direct evidence that they had empathic abilities, at a minimum. If they could sense my mood and mimic it, could they sense others moods as well? Evidence suggested just that. But if that were the case, just whose emotions had they been repeating when we had first arrived? Who on the station was in a mood that would cause the kraken to be black and red, colors we traditionally associated with anger and despair?

The question and subsequent internal debate was enough to make me keep silent when Gerry reappeared thirty minutes later, Doctor Marillac in tow. His grin alone led me to believe that more than just some harmless flirting had occurred.
Maybe he had managed to get to second base?
I thought. That would have been a surprise.

I winced as a headache began to form near the back of my skull. I rubbed the sinus cavities on both sides of my face, hoping to relieve the pressure before it could really hit. I’d had a few migraines in the past couple of weeks and recognized the early signs of an impending one. Other than popping a prescription pain pill or a nasal stimulant, there was little which seemed to counter them.

This is going to be a bad one
, I thought as closed my eyes. The throbbing pain grew, pushing at the very edge of my tolerance threshold. The gray was closing in on my mind. A wave of nausea washed over me. It threatened to toss my lunch all over the polished floor.

Just as quickly as the migraine appeared, it was gone. I rubbed the back of my neck and slowly opened my eyes. The lights were bright but not painfully so. I was thankful for that, at least. Still, the random migraines were starting to become a nuisance. I shook my head. Migraines sucked.

“Soooo…?” I let the question hang in the air as the duo stopped a few feet before me. Gerry’s grin never faltered.

“She agreed to let me take her out to dinner once we’re back on Earth,” Gerry proclaimed triumphantly. Doctor Marillac squirmed uncomfortably and frowned at him.

“There were some stipulations,” she reminded him. She looked at me oddly. “You looked as though you had something to say when we walked in. What was it?”

I opened my mouth to say something but paused. Did I? I couldn’t remember. The migraine had taken a lot out of me, and all I wanted to do right then was go take a nap, workout be damned. I thought about it as I stared at the kraken outside, who all seemed to be watching the duo with no small amount of interest.

“Nope, nothing I can think of,” I said. Doctor Marillac gave me another strange look.

“Well, just because I agreed to one date with you, Gerry, doesn’t mean we’re a serious couple now,” she reminded my boss. The admonition didn’t even begin to faze the grin still on his face.

I chuckled. Whatever it was that I had forgotten, it couldn’t have been too important.