Vessel

24

CAL STAGGERED DOWNSTAIRS in his condo, fumbling to get his glasses on. Christ, he really needed to talk to his neighbor about making sure his ex-girlfriends knew which door was his and which was Cal’s. This was the third time in a month he’d had a drunk, crying girl on his doorstep at two in the morning.

He swung the door open. “Look, Steve lives next—”

There wasn’t a drunk, crying twenty-year-old on his doorstep.

Catherine Wells wasn’t crying and she wasn’t twenty. Cal wouldn’t vouch for whether or not she was drunk. He stared at her blankly.

“I’m sorry to bother you so late,” she said. “I didn’t know where else to go.” God, she looked like hell. The circles under her eyes were as dark as bruises, and her clothes were mismatched and dirty.

Not knowing what else to do, he stepped back. “No, of course. Come in. What happened?” He had to ask because he couldn’t think of a single solitary thing that would cause Catherine to come to him, of all people.

She stepped into his kitchen, her shoulders hunched like a wounded animal’s.

“Here. Sit down,” Cal ushered her to one of the kitchen chairs. “Are you hurt? Do you need me to call someone?” He didn’t miss the smell of alcohol floating around her, although she seemed coherent enough.

Catherine sank into the offered chair, her dark eyes solemn. “I need to talk to someone. You were the only person I could think of who might believe me.”

That got his attention, instantly zapping him awake. “Sure, of course. Uh, do you want some coffee or something?”

“That would be great.”

He expected her to start talking while he made a pot of coffee, but she sat there, twisting her fingers together with her hands resting on the table. When he pushed the steaming mug in front of her, she ignored the cream and sugar on the table and took a long swallow, wrapping her hands around the ceramic as if it were a lifeline.

Cal couldn’t take the silence anymore. “What’s going on, Catherine?”

She didn’t answer right away.

“Look, if I’m going to help you—and I’m guessing you came here for help—you have to tell me everything.”

Her eyes darted left and right like she was looking for an escape. “I… haven’t told anybody this. Not even Dr. Darzi. Nobody wants to know. Nobody wants to figure out what really happened.”

Suddenly it became clear why she’d come to him. He nodded. “Except for me.”

“Shut up and be a hero, Catherine,” she said bitterly.

“NASA loves its happy endings,” he agreed. “So… what is it you haven’t told anyone?”

When she spoke, she spoke to her hands rather than look him in the face. “I… I keep losing time. Like, I’ll be somewhere one minute, and the next I’m somewhere else and hours might have passed.”

“Like a blackout drunk?”

She winced. “It began before I started drinking.”

Cal had a sudden image of the surprise on her face when he’d asked her about visiting NASA the night of her daughter’s graduation party. And earlier, finding her down by the archives. “So that night I met you at NASA…”

“There weren’t any graduation cards in my office. I don’t know why I was there.” Her voice cracked. “I woke up the next morning and my feet were dirty and I was tired. I had no idea why.”

“Okay, okay.” Without thinking, Cal reached out a hand and covered hers in a calming gesture. She grabbed his hand with the same force that she’d grabbed the mug, clinging to it for dear life. “What happened tonight, Catherine? What brought you here?”

She took a deep breath. “Cal, I was in Aaron’s office. On his computer.”

“How’d you get past the locked door, and his password?”

“I don’t know. But I did.”

“What were you looking at?”

“I don’t know that either. It was top secret, so I closed it.”

“Damn. That might’ve been a clue.” He was startled at how easily he believed her, but then again, everything she’d said so far fit with what he knew.

“Cal, what if I hurt someone? What if this happened to me planetside and I hurt my crew?”

Her words had a chilling effect on him. “Have you hurt anyone here?”

“I don’t think so. But Cal…” Catherine turned pale. “I’ve wanted to.”

He didn’t say anything, just watched her and listened.

“A couple of times since coming home I’ve had these… urges.”

“What sorts of urges?”

“To hurt people. It’s like this haze, like something’s taken over me, and all I want to do is strike out against whoever’s in front of me. It… It happened with you once. When you found me downstairs by the archives.”

Cal tried not to let his surprise show. She’d been so busy looking guilty, he hadn’t seen so much as a hint of anything else. “Some anger is understandable—”

“No. It’s not like that. When that happens… people stop looking human to me. They—you—look like monsters. I’m not angry, I’m repulsed.” Catherine ran her hands the length of her face. “I really could hurt someone like this.”

“You’re not going to.” A course of action was slowly taking shape in his mind. “Because we’re going to keep an eye on you.”

“ ‘We’—you believe me?”

Time for a few confessions of his own. “I’ve been looking into what might have happened—strictly off the books. There are… a few anomalies.”

“How do you mean?”

“Hang on. Come into the living room.” He led her there and sat next to her on the couch so they could both see the screen. He pulled up the telemetry reports he’d received. “Look, right here. Here are the readings from the ship shortly after the explosion.”

Catherine leaned in to the screen. “That can’t be right. That’s too high.”

“Look at the CO₂ and oxygen. It’s about right for two people.”

“I wish I could confirm it for you.” She shook her head and sat back, looking at him. “You really do believe me. Why?”

He gestured at his laptop. “Your story fits the data I have so far. It explains some of the strangeness I’ve seen in you. It makes more sense than the story you told us initially.” He should tell her about the antibody, but he didn’t want to frighten her. She’d had a bad enough night as it was. Instead he groped for something to explain the gut feeling he had. “Plus, there’s no real reason for you to lie to me about this. The bosses at NASA are happy with your story. And—frankly—they’re not listening to me.”

“You’ve talked to them?”

“To Aaron. If it makes you feel any better, he threatened to fire my nosy ass over it.” He gave her a small smile. “I was the only holdout, and I can’t do anything to you. There’s nothing to be gained by giving me a new story. It’d just be more ammunition—if I were still looking for ammunition.”

“I get that Aaron wants this story to go away, but why the hell would he threaten your job?”

Cal ducked his head. “I… might’ve stretched a few rules while I was investigating.” He looked up to see suspicion in her eyes, and found that it stung more than he thought it would.

“Cal, what were you doing at NASA in the middle of the night?” Catherine asked suddenly. “The night you saw me there.”

Paperwork. He’d lied and told her paperwork, that he’d been working. He stood at a crossroads. She’d just told him the truth, as much of it as she knew. Didn’t he owe her the same? “That’s one of the ways I overstepped.” There was no way to make this sound okay. “I, um— I followed you there.”

“Followed me?”

God, he didn’t want to have this conversation. “From your house.”

“What were you doing at my house?” She didn’t sound angry, yet. Just puzzled.

“Um. Watching you.”

Catherine shook her head. “Why the hell would you be watching my daughter’s graduation party?”

“I didn’t know there was going to be a party.”

“So you… what, sat outside my house? What were you expecting me to do?” Now there was a flash of irritation. “I had a houseful of people, I wasn’t exactly going to go on a rampage.” She paused, her eyes widening. “Were you in my yard?”

He knew exactly what she was talking about and did his best to look apologetic. “I was there when you were saying good-bye to Leah Morrison.”

“Jesus Christ. I’ve already spent months thinking I was going insane. Thinking I was being watched didn’t help.”

“At least you weren’t imagining things.” It sounded lame as he said it, but she gave a startled laugh.

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” She was grinning as she said it. There was the Catherine he saw at the party. The one he wished he’d met sooner.

He grinned back. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

Some of the tension dissolved. Catherine looked worlds better than she had when she first came in. Her shoulders sat lower, her face was less tight.

“Hey,” he said, “if I hadn’t followed you, we might not know you ever went to NASA.”

She sobered. “I wonder how many times I’ve gone there without anyone knowing.”

“We can find out,” he said. “We both want the truth, right?”

“I do. I don’t care how bad it is. I have to know. Not knowing is driving me mad.”

“All right. We’ll work together, okay?” Maybe it was too soon for him to be optimistic, but with Catherine giving him information instead of hiding it, surely they’d find some answers.

Catherine stifled a yawn against the back of her hand. “Thank you. I think— I think I’ve been sitting on this for too long.”

“Wait, I have some questions for you. I’ve got some printouts in my office that you need to see. Maybe you can help me make sense of them.” He jumped up, not waiting for her to nod, and left the room. He flipped on the lights in his home office and rummaged for the transcripts he had of her original debriefings, especially the sections he’d highlighted.

“Okay,” he said, coming back in. “When you were interviewed the first time, you said—” Cal stopped. Catherine lay on her side on his couch, eyes closed. “Catherine?” he said softly.

No answer except her quiet breathing.

Cal gathered up their coffee mugs and took them back to the kitchen. When he returned, she was still sound asleep. It was close to 3:00 a.m., and he didn’t have the heart to wake her. He fetched a blanket from the hall closet and draped it over her, turning off all the downstairs lights except one dim one in the hallway. He may as well go back to bed, too. They would have plenty to talk about later.