Offworld (42 page)

This was the void's doing again, he knew, and he waited for the
world as he knew it to return. But minutes passed and nothing happened. He was trapped here in this peculiar and dangerous place.
He wouldn't be able to survive here for long. The water's turbulence
increased, flinging him back and forth and tugging him under the
water. It was bitter cold down there, and the frostbite was quickly
spreading to his feet and up his ankles. But when he broke through
above the surface, he could barely breathe the air. It was like trying
to inhale at the rim of an erupting volcano.

He spun around as best he could, but there was no land in sight.
There was nothing, merely this endless frozen sea that went on forever
in all directions, and the starless, pitiless atmosphere above, which
might as well have been made of brimstone.

The conflicting sensations were overpowering him, and he was
still groggy from the crash and the gunfight, though that felt like a
different lifetime now, here in this desolate place.

All alone.

The air and sky and ocean seemed to twinkle, and he was back
on solid ground again, outside the skyscraper in downtown Houston. He was sopping wet, his lungs were on fire, and his feet badly
frozen-so much so that he couldn't feel them and so collapsed to
his knees.

He felt a hand tuck under his armpit and help him up. Deliriously,
he swiveled his head and looked into the spectacled eyes of the tall
man with the ponytail-who had become just as wet as Chris was.

"Get in, come on! Hurry!"

Mae awoke flat on her back in what at first glance looked like some
kind of lobby. She didn't feel like getting up, so she rolled onto her
side and looked around. She was still downtown, but she couldn't tell
where. And the lobby, on second glance, was demolished, evidently
destroyed in some kind of fight.

How much time had passed while she slept?

And more important, where were the others?

There were people milling about. A lot of them. Had Chris and
Trisha and Terry and Owen done it? Had they found a way to bring
everyone back? Was it over? Were these regular people who had been
taken away but now returned?

A man stepped into her view, towering over her. A tall man,
wearing a gray camouflage uniform. She focused on his folded arms,
his violent expression, and she recognized him. It was Major Griffin,
the one who'd pursued them throughout Houston. He was sweating
and his face was red, though she thought this was more the result
of anger than exertion.

He picked up his gigantic boot and placed it on the side of her
head, mashing it down to the ground. Mae was forced to keep her
head still, turned to one side.

"Who are you?" he asked, his words coming out slowly, utterly
devoid of humor or compassion.

Mae thought for a moment and then smirked to herself.

"I'm the fly in the ointment," she replied, her voice strong.

"That's an understatement, girl," snarled Griffin. "We've been
keeping an eye on you, and we're all wondering what your part is
in this."

"Wondering the same thing," said Mae.

"Then I guess we'll have to find out," replied Griffin. He raised his
boot from her face, and she felt indentations that had been pressed
into her skin.

But instead of putting his foot on the floor, he reared back and
stomped her head with his heel.

Her world went dark again.

Chris' head rolled around, uncontrollable on his neck. For a long
time, despite his best efforts, he simply didn't have the strength to
stop it.

Finally, his mind clawed its way into consciousness. This time, his
head was leaning far back against a headrest, and Trisha was applying
a bandage to the cut on his forehead. When she was done, he sat up
straight, and the movement made him feel light-headed again.

He was strapped into the back of a jeep. Trisha was next to him.
And the two men from his vision on Mars were in the front seat, the
one with the ponytail driving.

"What are ... ?" Chris tried to ask, but found the words difficult
to generate. "Who-where ... where are we?"

"Everything will be explained, Commander Burke," replied the
chubby, white-headed one in the passenger's seat. He wasn't looking back, only facing the road ahead. "Colonel Roston and his men have
ways of monitoring us, so we're taking you to a place that they can't
monitor."

"Where?" Chris demanded.

A government facility," the white-haired man went on. As you
know, since the war, all government installations have been outfitted
with protection from all forms of surveillance."

"We escaped from Roston three days ago," added the ponytail
11
man. "Since then, we've been waiting for you to arrive in Houston.

"I saw you," Chris blurted out, trying to shake the cobwebs from
his head. "On Mars! Who are you?"

Ponytail man gestured to himself and said, "Parks. And this is
Rowley." He pointed at his white-haired friend. "We've got a good
drive ahead of us, plenty of time for you to rest. Please do. You're
safe for the moment; they don't seem to be following us."

"I want to know who you are!"

Rowley, the white-haired one, replied, "We are the reason Colonel
Roston was able to do what he's done. We helped him do it."

The vehicle's engine rumbled along the freeway, but no other
sounds came from the jeep's interior. It felt as if a collective breath
had just been sucked in and was now being held.

Helped him do it? How?

A flood of nausea washed over Chris, but he fought it off.

Parks and Rowley. Chris turned the names over in his head. They
were unfamiliar.

Before he could reflect on this further, he blacked out.

Twenty minutes later, Chris awoke again, and felt a bit more
coherent than before. The bandage on his forehead was damp but
crusty; the bleeding had stopped.

He sat up taller than before and got his bearings. Trisha still sat
next to him. She looked like death, drained and weary. The two strangers were in the front seat. Terry was in the back seat with Owen,
who was putting the finishing touches on patches applied to both
the entry and exit points of Terry's leg wound. Terry was awake and
looking around, but not managing to cover the fact that he was in a
lot of pain. Owen himself had a number of nasty cuts and scrapes.

Chris could feel Trisha watching him, but he didn't feel like looking
back at her just now. Instead, he searched beyond his window. He
saw that they'd left downtown far behind. He thought they might he
headed south, but was too tired and unfocused to think of where.

Mae.

What had become of Mae? He remembered her in the firefight, but
she'd been left. And had to be in Roston's custody. What would they
do to her? Surely they wouldn't kill her. Did they know she existed?
Would they try and figure out why she'd been left behind?

Chris deliriously wished the colonel good luck at figuring that
one out.

He glanced to his right, his vision dark and hazy. Trisha hadn't
stopped staring at him. For the first time in a long time, he couldn't
read her expression.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered, the rumble of the jeep
chewing up pavement, keeping the others from hearing her. He got
the impression that she was trying to be gentle or tactful, but he saw
through it-her gaze was hard and unblinking, and he knew that
look.

Chris wasn't surprised she asked this question. He'd known it was
coming. It was inevitable. It was the only thing left that she could say
to him, before either of them could talk about anything else. But he'd
hoped she might put it off until he was a little more coherent.

What was he supposed to say? She'd been seeing someone for
years; it wouldn't have been right to butt in. And she was Chris' best
friend. He had no idea how to tell his best friend something like this
without overstepping his bounds.

"Because you were happy ... Already .. " The words came out lazily, and Chris found it hard to stay awake again. "And I care
about . . . your . . .

His voice trailed off, and he was asleep.

Chris had no idea how much later it was when he was stirred
awake again. This time by Trisha prodding him. His mind and vision
were clearing now, but his head still throbbed. His feet ached from
the frostbite, but he found that he was able to walk.

The jeep was stopped. He looked out to see where they were,
and he was both surprised and unsurprised at what he saw.

Johnson Space Center.

Their old stomping grounds. It didn't really look any different
from the last time he saw it, before he traveled down to Kennedy for
the Ares launch. Fresh paint had been applied to some buildings that
he remembered as peeling. Plenty of overgrown shrubs, trees, and
grass. And though the light coming from the beacon made it hard to
see into the distance, he thought he spotted a new building or two
around the campus.

Parks had left the jeep right at the front door to Building 2, home
to a large auditorium where NASA had conducted employee meetings
and large media briefings in the past. It wasn't far from Johnson's
outer periphery.

The front door of Budding 2 was locked, but Rowley unlocked it
and the six of them filed inside. Parks and Rowley pulled up the rear,
closing the door behind them and relocking it. They went straight
to the large auditorium, which they found dusty and stale-smelling.
The room was so old that even when Chris was in training here, he'd
seldom seen Building 2's auditorium put to use. It was kept up mostly
for its historical significance.

The group settled in one corner of the big room. Chris didn't feel
like sitting anymore, so he stood. The pain in his feet wouldn't allow
him to do it for too long, but for now the pins and needles of blood flowing again felt good. Owen and Trisha did likewise, positioning
themselves with their backs against the corner walls. Terry was provided with two chairs-one for sitting, and one for propping up his
injured leg. Parks and Rowley stood opposite them, out in the middle
where there was nothing to lean on.