“What is that? What the fuck is that?” Liana demands, her voice gone shrill.
She and Ethan are staring at something on the ground when Ophelia reaches them, panting.
Ophelia follows their gaze to Denise, now deactivated, on its side, legs slightly curled up toward its body. And then to the ice core, ejected from the drill’s sample tube. The sample itself, about ten centimeters in diameter, is a frosty white at the top and then clear until the end, where the final chunk is a dark purplish-red with flecks of lighter shades within. An unmistakably bright red liquid, thawed temporarily by the heat of the drill, trickles down the edges to the bright white snow.
Uh-oh. Ophelia’s stomach sinks.
“It’s not possible, not possible,” Liana mutters to herself.
“Someone tell me what’s going on,” Kate says grimly over the comm channel. “You have three seconds before I’m coming in hot.”
“Negative,” Ethan says. “We’re fine here. Just an … unexpected development with the samples.” He grimaces. Then he turns to Liana, moving in front of her, blocking her view. A moment later, Liana’s mouth is moving rapidly, hands gesturing. Ethan must have switched them to a private channel.
Ophelia hesitates for a beat, then skirts around dead Denise and the drill hole to get a better look at the sample.
Ethan turns, keeping himself in front of Liana. “Doctor,” he says, in that same warning tone he used with Liana. “Ophelia.”
The sound of her first name from him makes her waver, almost turn back. A sudden yearning to be someone he should care about, to be a member of his team, under his fierce protection, is a hot coal in her chest.
Don’t, Phe. Just don’t. Even her internal voice sounds weary.
“We have protocols for quarantining—” Ethan begins.
“I’m not going to touch it. Believe me,” she says. And if there’s any airborne contagion that can penetrate through their suits, they’re likely screwed anyway, which he knows.
He exhales in exasperation, loudly enough that it comes across the comm channel. But he doesn’t move. If Liana weren’t here, Ophelia suspects he would try to block her instead.
Ophelia kneels next to the discarded sample, which is rapidly refreezing to the icy surface beneath it. Yeah, that’s definitely blood. And, uh, meat. Striations of skin, muscle, and grayish-pink tubing … intestines.
Her gag reflex kicks in and she presses her hand against the outside of her helmet, as if that will help.
Chips of bone along the bottom explain what stopped Denise. But that doesn’t explain what this is doing here. She leans around for a better look at the other side of the mystery sample, but the top of it catches her eye. A scrap of bright blue fabric is stuck in the ice core, and beneath that, on the surface of the gray skin, mysterious dark lines that wind around in a familiar-seeming pattern that—
Fuck.
Ophelia jerks back. She blows out a breath as quietly as possible, trying to keep her stomach from lurching.
“Is it an animal?” Liana asks, leaning around Ethan. “There aren’t supposed to be animals here!”
“Whatever it is, it was dead a long time before we got here,” Ethan assures her. “Right, Dr. Bray?” The tension in his voice tells Ophelia he’s not sure at all, and he’s right not to be. Because none of this makes sense.
“Not an animal,” Ophelia manages.
Unless animals on this planet were prone to wearing clothes and tattooing themselves with what she’s fairly sure is an outline of Silly Bird, a popular sarcastic, cigar-smoking animated character from Earth.
“Did I clip … one of them? The Lyrians or whatever?” Liana’s teeth are chattering. Shock. They need to get her inside. “Their remains should be much farther down.”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Ophelia pushes to her feet, swaying in the increased wind. “I think we should go back in before the storm gets worse.”
“What the hell is going on?” Kate demands in her ear.
“We can talk about it inside,” Ophelia says firmly. “I think that’s the best option.”
She looks to Ethan, hoping he’ll get what she’s trying not to say aloud, or at least that there’s something she can’t say without switching to a private channel.
After a moment, he gives a decisive nod in acknowledgment. “Liana, pull Mabel and Marvin in. Kate and Suresh, do you have what you need?”
“We can make it work,” Kate says. “But—”
“Good. Birch, we’re heading back. Now,” Ethan says, leaving no room for argument.
Birch. Ophelia completely forgot about him. She’s expecting an alarming silence, but it’s only a few seconds before he responds.
“Acknowledged.”
Relief scores her insides, a cool balm against the preemptive panic.
“We’ll regroup inside,” Ethan says.
Liana steps back from Ethan to tend to Mabel and Marvin. Or so Ophelia assumes, until she makes a sharp right and pivots to come alongside Denise and the core sample, opposite Ophelia.
“Wait, Liana—” Ophelia starts.
From that angle, it must be clearer, or perhaps it’s just an easier leap to make when you already know something is horribly wrong.
“Oh my God, it’s a person,” Liana whispers. “There’s a person under here.”
Denise managed to core right through the bottom half of an oversize Silly Bird, which, in combination with the intestines, suggests placement somewhere on an abdomen. A human abdomen.
Suresh has pulled together images from their collective feeds and stitched them together. His tablet runs through the grainy footage from Liana’s helmet cam, and Ophelia’s, as everyone huddles around the end of the table in the central hub to watch. Outside, the storm shrieks in outrage, as if furious at being denied the opportunity to have them join their poor compatriot outside.
With an irritable twitch, Liana shakes off the thermal blanket Ophelia tucked around her shoulders, even though she’s still shivering. “This shouldn’t be possible. The ground scans didn’t show anything. I checked, multiple times!” She pounds her fist on the table.
“No one is doubting you, love,” Kate says gently, before she turns away and heads for the galley.
“It’s possible the scans weren’t updated after…” Ethan pauses, seeming to search for the right word. “After,” he finally finishes. He scrubs his hand over his face, the bristle of his stubble rasping against his palm, before moving up to press his fingertips between his eyebrows. His nail beds turn white with the pressure he’s exerting.
“Do you have a headache?” Ophelia asks, alert.
Ethan lets go instantly, waving his hand in dismissal. “I’m fine.”
“I’m going to go clean up,” Birch says abruptly, straightening up and pulling away from the table.
Ethan’s gaze meets Ophelia’s for a fraction of a second in a silent question.
A bubble of inward elation—utterly inappropriate, and badly timed besides—rises in her. She shoves it down and lifts her shoulder in the slightest gesture she can manage, in what she hopes is a subtle communication of It’s okay with me if it’s okay with you.
After all, how much trouble can Birch get into if he’s inside and everyone is here and awake, paying attention?
And though Birch hadn’t phrased it as a question, Ethan nods. “Fine.” He watches Birch leave, though, with a troubled expression.
“But I mean, who fucking buries someone this close to their front door?” Suresh demands, pulling their attention back to the tablet. He replays the footage. “They’d have to walk past him every single time they went out to do anything.”
Liana makes a pained noise.
“Where’s the fucking dignity in that?” Suresh shakes his head. “They had the whole planet to choose from.”
“It’s definitely not ISEC protocol,” Ethan says. “There are regulations around handling remains.”
“I hate to be the morbid one, but he—or she—wasn’t buried,” Kate says, returning from the galley with a steaming mug of coffee.
She puts the mug in front of Liana, who wraps her fingers around it, not even seeming to notice its sudden appearance with her focus on Suresh’s tablet. Probably not the healthiest fixation at the moment. But pulling her away from it right now would likely only serve to increase her anxiety.
“What are you talking about?” Suresh asks. “Dude was literally underground. Or ice or whatever.”
Kate opens her mouth, but before she can say anything, he holds up his hand to stop her.
“And before you jump all over me, how many female-identifying or nonbinary people do you know with Silly Bird tattoos? Particularly that one.” He gestures toward the tablet.
The bottom half of Silly Bird does seem to be sporting exceptionally large testicles—probably anatomically impossible for birds or humans, proportionally speaking. Though, what does Ophelia know about bird reproductive systems? Absolutely nothing.
“No, it’s not that,” Kate says to Suresh in exasperation. “He’s not deep enough.”
“The ground is solid ice and snow.” Suresh taps his finger against the table for emphasis. “They aren’t going to be able to get much deeper without heavy equipment, which they wouldn’t have had at the hab.”
Kate rolls her eyes. “What’s the average accumulation per year?” she asks Liana.
“Five centimeters, roughly,” Liana says automatically. “Depending on conditions—”
“And we’re assuming this is an R&E team member from Pinnacle,” Kate adds.
Collectively, Ophelia feels their attention shift to her.
“Claim jumpers are always a possibility,” she points out. She’s not even sure why; it’s not as if she has any loyalty to her family’s capitalistic endeavors. But it’s true—some smaller corporations or groups have attempted to claim planetary rights when there’s been no activity and they think they can get away with it. But not usually with a company as litigious as Pinnacle. Or even Montrose.
Hard to hold a planet if you’re blacklisted on all major transport companies and suppliers.
That said, Ophelia also has to be willing to consider that, selfishly, she just doesn’t want to be associated with yet more awfulness from the people with whom she shares unalterable genetic ties.
“Dr. Bray,” Ethan begins.
Ophelia sighs. “If that’s part of a jumpsuit”—she gestures toward the images on the tablet and the captured scrap of fabric—“then, yes, the color looks right for Pinnacle. But there’s no mention of any deaths in the reports that came with the rights package.”
As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she wishes she could pull them back. As if they’re all not well aware of how mission reports can be redacted, manipulated, or straight-up fabricated.
An awkward silence hangs for a few seconds, but then Kate clears her throat. “Well, let’s just assume that was an … oversight.”
Right.
“Pinnacle hasn’t had a team here in, what, six years?” Kate asks.
Ophelia nods absently. If anything in the report can be relied on, which … who knows?
“Shit,” Ethan says, letting his head hang down for a second, revealing the pale vulnerability of the back of his neck, the top knob or two of his spine.
The surprise of hearing the obscenity from him delays Ophelia’s realization, but then it clicks. Basic math. “It just built up over the years,” she says slowly. “The snow and ice.”
Kate nods.
“So they didn’t bury him,” Suresh says, sinking back into his chair. “They just … left him.”
This time the silence that lingers is heavy with grief and guilt.
“Who does that?” Liana asks softly. “Who does that?” Her voice grows louder, and she shoves back her chair to stand. “He was right there!” She flings her hand toward the airlock. “They could have easily gotten him, brought him back with them. It’s not as if they didn’t know where he was or they couldn’t get to him no matter how hard they tried.” Her voice breaks, and tears slip down her cheeks.
What happened out there? Tell me, please!
But Ophelia swallows the urge to shout the words, because while she doesn’t know the actual circumstances of Ava Olberman’s death or why Ethan almost certainly falsified their mission report, she’s fairly certain, for the first time, that Ava’s teammates didn’t have anything to do with her death.
Liana swipes at her face angrily and empathy pulls at Ophelia.
“I know this is hard.” Ophelia leaves a pause, giving Liana space to respond, to engage.
After a moment, Liana gives a tiny nod.
“But the thing to keep in mind is that we don’t control everything.” Ophelia chooses her words carefully. “Other people make choices that we may or may not agree with, that we may not even know about. We don’t have power over every variable, every outcome.”
Ethan’s dark-eyed focus holds on Ophelia like a physical touch, a firm hand pressing at the back of her neck. But he says nothing to stop her.
“You can’t take that burden of responsibility on yourself,” Ophelia continues. “It doesn’t help anyone, even … the ones who are lost.” She’s walking a tightrope here, talking about Ava without talking about Ava. “We are just people. We do our best, but that’s all we can do. You caused no harm here. In fact, you found him, so maybe in the end you’re helping, acknowledging his death and loss.”
Liana straightens up, taking a deep breath. The tension eases slightly, and Kate reaches out awkwardly and pats Liana on the shoulder.
“It’s just … we can’t even notify anyone,” Liana says. “His family might not know what happened to him, if it wasn’t in the reports. But we don’t know his name.”
Ethan clears his throat. “As soon as we can get a message through, Liana, I’ll make sure mission control knows what we found. Someone will figure it out.” He nods at her in reassurance.
Which may or may not do any good, given Montrose’s history of petty competitiveness with Pinnacle, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment.
If Montrose refuses to address it, Ophelia could always reach out to her—
She cuts off the thought before it reaches completion, ripples of shock shuddering through her. No. Absolutely not. Not even to respect the dead. Not even to help Liana.
Suresh holds his hand up. “Uh, Katey, your nose? It’s … there’s blood.” He looks queasy.
Ophelia leans around Ethan immediately, in time to see Kate swipe her hand under her nose. It comes away bright red.
Ophelia’s mind flashes to Birch’s pink teeth earlier, and that lingering sensation of wrongness grows stronger.
“Excuse me.” Ophelia pushes through the others to reach Kate. This, at least, she feels a little more confident with handling, as she used to have a patient who would get nosebleeds in times of high stress—or in recounting those times on her couch.
“Pinch closed,” Ophelia says.
Kate nods, doing so. “I know,” she says, her exasperation almost comically nasal, but then she leans her head back.
Ophelia reaches up and corrects her position. “Tip forward, not backward, unless you want it going down your throat.”
Kate rolls her eyes, but she allows it.
“Does this happen often?” Ophelia asks.
“It’s the dry air,” Kate says with a muted huff. “That’s all. The sooner we get the genny up to full capacity, the sooner I can bring secondary systems online, like adding some fucking humidity to make it more breathable in here.”
Ophelia heads to the galley and grabs a handful of the general purpose cloths—though on this mission they seem to have a very specific purpose, soaking up more blood than spills.
“Any headache?” Ophelia asks, pressing a cloth into Kate’s free hand. She releases her nose long enough to take the cloth with her pinching hand.
Kate starts to shake her head, then thinks better of it. “Just the normal one. It’s because of cold sleep.” Her voice is muffled.
“Still?” Ophelia asks.
Kate nods.
“How about your gums? Have you noticed any unusual bleeding?” Ophelia continues.
“Nooo,” Kate says, drawing out the word in a manner that suggests Ophelia asked her whether she’s experienced any unexpected finger growth. “I’ve been taking my iron tabs, like a good girl.”
How about anything resembling hallucinations? How about that?
“Itchy skin?” Ethan interjects, arms folded across his chest. He’s paying more attention than Ophelia thought.
Suresh exchanges a What the fuck? look with Liana.
“You know you can tell me,” Ethan continues with an enviable calmness, though frustration tinges his words. “Any of you,” he adds. “I expect you to tell me when something might be wrong, even if you’re not sure.”
Liana and Suresh are suddenly studying the table, and Kate shifts uncomfortably.
Kate’s hand flies to her opposite wrist, before she forces herself to drop it. “It’s just dry in here, I told you. That’s all.”
Ethan doesn’t seem inclined to respond, just continues staring her down until she raises her chin defiantly. “I said no, didn’t I?”
Liana raises her hand. “Uh, why are you asking these questions?” she asks Ophelia. Though quite reasonably that question should have been directed to her commander, the last one to ask a question. Something is definitely going on here.
Ophelia could defer her question to Ethan, but that feels somehow like a rejection of an overture, for reasons she doesn’t understand.
“Just making sure I don’t overlook anything,” Ophelia says finally.
Suresh eyes her with suspicion. “No offense, Doc, but I thought you were more the type to worry about itchiness inside the old pate rather than the top of it.”
“As I said, being thorough.” Ophelia meets his gaze without flinching, and that seems to be enough for him to let it go. For now.
Fortunately, it doesn’t take long for Kate’s nose to stop bleeding, leaving her with sticky red smears on her hands and face.
“There. See?” She waves a hand in front of her gruesome but non-bleeding nose. “Fine.”
Ethan studies her for a long moment, then seems to come to some conclusion. “Suresh, work with Kate as soon as she’s ready. We want everything up to full operating capacity as soon as possible. We don’t know how long this storm will last.”
Kate turns away without acknowledging Ethan. Still in a huff about … Ophelia is not sure what exactly. But Suresh follows her quickly and they head toward syscon, behind the galley, heads together and whispering.
“Liana, if you’re up to it, can you catalog the reports from Mabel and Marvin?” Ethan asks. “Write up the TLA summary and add it to the file.”
TLA summary. In spite of everything, a laugh burbles up inside Ophelia. TLA. Top Level Assholes summary. In other words, break it down into small sentences, use short paragraphs, and include pictures, if possible, for the people making the decisions, who have no idea what they’re talking about.
It’s a term she’s heard before from patients, but usually only the retired ones who have nothing to lose. So, either Ethan has decided she’s worthy of that trust or he just doesn’t care anymore.
“Sure. Of course,” Liana agrees hastily, leaving even as the words are still exiting her mouth.
Ethan remains at the table, watching her go, then he turns to Ophelia, and the intensity in his expression makes her take a step back. “I’ve been doing this for twelve years, been on dozens of planets and asteroids,” he says in a low voice. “First as a pilot and then a mission commander. I’ve never found a body like that. Never found a body, period. Any deaths have always been clearly recorded and the remains returned or properly disposed of. Leaving a body just out there, in plain view…” He takes a deep breath. “That does not happen. At the very least, it’s a potential contamination source for the existing planetary biome. And that says nothing about the disrespect and degradation for the person that used to be.” His tone harsh, he jerks his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of Silly Bird’s owner. “Combine that with what we found yesterday, and I have no idea what the fuck is going on here.”
Ophelia opens her mouth. “It’s not ERS,” she blurts, before she can stop herself.
He frowns at her. “I never said that it was.”
No, Ophelia is the one who is fixated with worry. Why? Because of a couple of admittedly strange incidents. Because she and Birch are both from Goliath. Or perhaps simply because it is her worst nightmare, what she’s feared since she was eleven years old.
“I’m more concerned that something happened here, and that’s why Pinnacle bailed without documenting anything.” He jerks his head in the rough direction of the city ruins. Or possibly to indicate the dead Pinnacle crew member again. Both, maybe.
“It’s possible,” she admits. “But I don’t think they would have sold the planetary rights, then. That would have just brought more attention to … whatever.”
He eyes her for a few seconds without saying anything, as if weighing his words and her potential response. “Have you known them to do something like—”
“No.” Not that. But it wouldn’t surprise her if they had. “I did find some odd things in here, though, the other day,” she adds belatedly.
Ethan is not impressed by the wedding ring or the dog digi-foto, for all the reasons she imagined. But the removed molar implant and old bloody scratch marks on the desk are more intriguing to him.
“I don’t like this. Any of it,” he says, rubbing his forehead. “Not the dead guy outside, not the weird itching, nosebleeds, and headaches, or … the other stuff. When we got here, Kate found that the Pinnacle team had just left the generator running until it burned out. No one does that. They might trash the place, but not that. It might all be coincidence, but I don’t like that so many of these things are piling up all at once.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m going to ask Kate to run another diagnostic on our bio filters and the environmental systems. Just to be sure.”
She nods. “Okay.” Relieved—why does she feel relieved? He’s talking about some kind of alien contagion so tiny or unrecognizable that it could bypass all their precautions.
It’s not possible. As long as they’ve been following safety and decon protocols, which they have.
Ethan starts to move past her and then stops. “But, Ophelia, to be clear … this is not Eckhart-Reiser syndrome. Correct?”
Guilt twists in her, a thick, knotty braid of regret, uncertainty, and frustration. “Myriad physical symptoms can accompany Eckhart-Reiser, including some of the ones we’re seeing, but others too. Psychogenic itch, hair loss, agitation, lethargy, for example. The problem is those can all belong to other diagnoses as well.” Ophelia folds her arms across her chest. What is the game plan here, Phe? When are you going to say something?
Not until I see more, not until I’m sure. There’s too much at stake.
And not just for her, either. With two black marks in a row, this team will be locked out of any R&E work. Deemed too high risk. And not just with Montrose but any of the reputable corporations in this business. That matters, too. Ethan told her that himself.
Ethan’s mouth flattens, but he doesn’t press her on her nonanswer. He just nods at where her arms are folded. “You’re scratching, Doctor.”
She looks down and sucks in a breath. Her fingers, clawlike, are dug into her opposite sleeve at the elbow, nails reflexively sinking in and dragging back and forth. She drops her arms immediately. “I—”
But Ethan is walking away.