Species II (15 page)

11

A
nne thought she would remember forever the expression on Harry’s face as he touched a flame to the last of the three dozen candles she’d placed around their bedroom. Big ones, small ones, tall, short—all spilling scented, golden light across where she waited on the bed. She’d gone all-out on the ambiance, the decorations, on
herself—
money wasn’t something they worried about in the Friedman/Sampas household, but they didn’t throw it away, either. And she certainly didn’t normally go for things like the manicure and pedicure she’d had this morning, not to mention the trip to the hairdresser and the facial.

The “good” linens were on the bed, the satin sheets and matching deep gold comforter she usually reserved for their anniversary and Valentine’s Day. A new Chopin CD—sweet, unobtrusive mood music—played on the stereo. They’d been college sweethearts and nine years of marriage hadn’t even put a smudge in their affection for each other; when Harry dropped the spent matchstick in the ashtray and turned to look at her, Anne knew, as she always had, that she’d gotten the best of everything.

“Surprise,” he said. She smiled with delight when he reached to the side of the dresser and held up the crystal ice bucket they’d received as a long-ago wedding gift. Inside was a bottle of well-chilled Dom Perignon, glistening in the candlelight. He set the bucket on the carpet next to the bed, then went back for the matching champagne flutes. He had a slightly comical fight involving the cork and a hand towel from the bathroom; then he was pouring expensive bubbly, trying vainly to look offended at Anne’s laughter.

“I’ve missed you,” she said suddenly. “This week . . . it’s definitely been the longest of my life.” Unaccountably embarrassed, her gaze dropped to the sparkling liquid in her glass. Funny how abstinence bred, among other things, awkwardness. She’d felt so poorly all week—dizzy, feverish, just
off—
and had been afraid about tonight, worried that she’d be too ill to finally break the quarantine. Beyond the required public appearances—the fund-raiser had been the worst—for today’s pampering, she’d stayed close to home most of the time. Now that their special time was here though, she’d never felt better.

Harry sat next to her on the bed and stroked her cheek, his fingers warm. “You look lovely, you know. You get more beautiful each year. And this color, it really becomes you. It brings out the red in your hair.” He smoothed the fabric of the forest-green silk-and-lace teddy, pressing it against the sleek line of her hip.

Anne’s breath caught in her throat as his touch sent heat, unexpectedly fierce, racing through her blood. “Thank you,” she managed. She reached past him and set her champagne glass on the nightstand, desire making her hand shake.

Attuned to Anne as always, Harry did the same. At last he stretched out next to her and took her in his arms.

After almost a year of waiting, he could finally,
finally,
make love to his wife again.

“I
f you’re not going to listen to what we have to say, then why the hell did you solicit our help to begin with?” Laura whirled, then strode to the glass of the viewing booth and gestured angrily at the young woman imprisoned in the glass living quarters below. On the main floor was the rest of her team, monitoring Eve’s every move; and the reports Laura had been getting from her top staff were disturbing indeed.

“I am listening,” Carter Burgess said stiffly. “But you’re not making any sense.”

“The hell she’s not!” Press exploded. “You used to be an intelligent man—when did you get a damned lobotomy?”

He drew in a breath to keep going, but Laura’s voice, cold and brittle with anger, stopped him. “Then let me try again.” Her words were grinding out from between clenched teeth. “What I am telling you, Colonel Burgess, is that during its polar nights, the temperature on Mars drops to nearly two hundred degrees Fahrenheit below zero, but at perihelion—when the planet is closest to the sun—the surface temperature along the Martian equator can be as high as a pleasant eighty degrees. The average surface temperature of the Red Planet, however, is approximately minus sixty-four degrees Fahrenheit, which is generally high enough that an advanced life-form might be able to suspend its life processes and go dormant, but
not
die. Once initiated into that state, it would most likely remain that way throughout the planet’s change of seasons until a specific chain of events terminated that state.”

Colonel Burgess folded his arms and stared out the window of the viewing booth, refusing to look at her. Frustrated, Laura strode to his side and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. “Damn it, open your eyes! You’re looking at living proof that alien DNA can successfully merge with human DNA! It’s possible the samples Patrick Ross brought back onboard the
Excursion
were contaminated. If so, the contents—DNA-rich cells, larvae, spores, whatever you want to call it—would have been exposed to a perfect environment in which to revive: regulated warm temperatures, optimal humidity, and a suddenly rich supply of oxygen. If this happened, the revived DNA could have infected the astronauts.”

Burgess turned from the window with a black expression on his face; the sinister effect magnified by the blank, glass eye. “This isn’t the
X-Files,
damn it. You’re dreaming up a far-fetched solution based on a lead you got from the interrogation of a certified nut case.”

Now it was Press’s turn to be enraged. “So you think Cromwell’s a nut case, huh? It’s pretty damned interesting he got slapped into a psychiatric institute after he warned the government—good people like
you
—about going to Mars in the first place. Besides that, you’ve got an NSEG doctor who was eviscerated by something unknown before he had the chance to record his findings, the blood he was working on is missing, and hey—in case you forgot—an unexplained seven-minute time gap while the U.S. of A.’s top space team was floating around another planet.”

“We have
got
to perform blood-analysis tests on Gamble, Ross, and Sampas,” Laura put in.

Colonel Burgess sighed, his face relaxing a little. “This is going to be very hard to explain to a lot of people—”

“I’m sure you’re aware of the ten-day sexual quarantine that NSEG imposes on all interplanetary missions. The Mars quarantine ends
tonight.”
She put her hands on her hips, waiting.

“Keep thinking about it.” Press sent the older man a disgusted glance. “And in the meantime, the three of them can fuck the human race right into extinction. Try explaining
that
to all your highbrow generals.” His mouth pulled up at one corner. “Do you really want to be responsible for what might happen if Laura’s right and we don’t check them out?”

Burgess scowled and stared down at Eve. When Laura followed his gaze, she saw the half-human, half-alien woman staring with fascination at an old rerun of
The Dukes of Hazard,
drawn, for some reason, to the plight of the Duke boys and their souped-up orange Charger. Sitting inside her glass home and carefully painting her toenails with bright red nail polish, she looked like nothing more than a harmless, attentive college girl. But Laura knew, as did Colonel Burgess and Press, exactly what dangers were hiding beneath that perfectly creamy complexion.

Burgess turned away from the window. “Test the woman first,” he ordered. “Then the others.”

“Fine.” Press and Laura headed for the door, bent on packing their gear and making up for wasted time.

Burgess’s icy voice stopped them. “The
Excursion
mission was the best thing to happen to this country in more than thirty years,” he said. “I believe in this country completely, and I believe what we did by going to Mars was
right.
If some son of a bitch from . . . say,
The National Enquirer,
were to get ahold of this bullshit and splash it across the front page at the supermarket checkout lines, there would be hell to pay.” He paused. “No,” he said softly. “There would be
more
than hell to pay.” He spun without waiting for an answer and stalked out the door of the viewing room.

Laura stared after him. “Am I crazy, or did that hard ass just threaten us?”

For a long moment, Press didn’t answer. “Once,” he finally said, “on a covert op in Costa Rica, Burgess took out a guerrilla-controlled village. He did it by himself, with no backup, and he carried three hostages to safety. Trainers across the board—Army, WACs, SEALS, Jarheads, you name it—they all use the mission as an example of excellence.”

“But you don’t think it was.” Laura frowned and rubbed her arms. For some reason, this story chilled her. Nonetheless, she grabbed the rest of their gear and followed after Press, listening intently to the rest of the tale.

Press shrugged as they made their way to the exit. “I . . . don’t know. I suppose it depends on how you define ‘excellence.’ They say he killed everyone and everything that stood in his path. For Burgess, anything goes if it’s for his God or his country. It’s not my job to make judgment calls, but I can’t decide if he’s America’s greatest patriot . . .

“Or just a psychotic with way too much power.”

“M
mmm.” Anne Sampas smiled contently and snuggled deeper against Harry’s chest. “That was soooo nice.”

“Wow,” was all Harry said.

He stroked her hair, fingering the deep copper strands highlighted in the candlelight before his hand trailed down her shoulder to rest against her breast. God, how she’d missed him all those months. Not just the sex, but the tenderness, the
love.
The nights like this one, when she could go to sleep safe and warm in the arms of the man she loved. Everything she did—the interstellar missions, her work as an M.I.T. scientist—none of it would mean anything without this man at her side. This, of all things, was what made her complete.

“You were worth the wait,” Harry said as he leaned over and kissed her. Their faces were flushed in the slowly lowering candlelight and perspiration shone along the fine line of his collarbone, a drop of it hanging there before falling on her arm. Anne lifted her mouth to meet his, then stopped, the pleasant rush of long-ignored desire stifled by a sudden wave of nausea and dizziness.

“Sweetheart,” she managed. “I-I don’t feel very well.”

“Oh, hey,” her husband said teasingly, “if that didn’t do it for you, I’ll be glad to try again.”

“I’m
serious!”
The words came out as a series of gasps and she tried to push herself upright, then clutched at the sheets covering her stomach.

“Annie, what’s wrong?” Alarmed now, Harry sat up straight and tried to help her up. “Was it dinner—something you ate?”

“My s-s-stomach,” she cried. “Hurts—oh God, it
hurts!”
She twisted on the bed and felt Harry trying futilely to hold her down, sensed more than saw the change in his demeanor right before he abruptly let go of her arms.

“Your stomach—Jesus, I’ve got to call an ambulance, find someone to help—”

Unspeakable overwhelming agony cut through her lower body and she screamed and clutched at the bedpost for support, the pain giving her enough strength to pull herself up and free of the sheets twisted around her. Less than a minute ago she’d been at the height of ecstasy, belly against belly with her husband; now her abdomen was hugely distended, an oversized mound that would have more rightfully belonged to a soon-to-be mother of twins. Gaping with terror, she saw the surface of her belly undulate, as though something inside were stretching itself in readiness.

Another wave of torment, but she had hope, oh God yes, because there was Harry, clawing his way to the nightstand on his side and yanking up the telephone, panicked and clumsy but determined to dial 911. She would make it, she
would
—some kind of parasite or something, some freak of nature, they’d had sushi earlier in the evening, that must have—

She shrieked, a long, drawn-out howl that felt like it would never end, as her stomach split open from sternum to crotch. Blood splattered her body, the walls, Harry’s face as he stood there with the telephone receiver gripped in one hand, paralyzed by what he was seeing, helpless to do anything to stop it.

Then it got worse.

Something
burst
from the gaping chasm in Anne’s midsection. A tentacle, brown and covered in blood and mucous, waving in the air with the hypnotic grace of underwater plant life. Her cries now reduced to moans, Anne instinctively slammed her hands against the bleeding crater across the still-high mound of her belly, feeling the horrible tentacle slide against her skin as something so much larger and unspeakable still thrashed inside her.

Harry’s paralysis broke. He backstepped and brought the phone back up, intent on getting his call for help to the outside world. When the tentacle, this part of whatever had taken control of her body, snapped toward him and wrapped around his neck, then lifted him clear of the floor as though he weighed no more than a bag of flour—

—Anne Sampas somehow found the lung power to scream again.

And again . . .

“S
tupid piece of government-issued garbage!” Press raged. His foot was jammed so hard on the accelerator that he was practically forcing it through the floor, but the bucket of useless metal just wouldn’t go any faster. Slow and ponderous, the damned Chevrolet sedan was taking the turns like an overbalanced flatbed, threatening to roll on nearly every one, even though he was trying his best to allow for its shortcomings. If he just had his Boxster, he and Laura would’ve been at the Sampas residence by now—