The Pedestal (35 page)

Grogan glances at me, then back to Skelly, who shrugs, as if to say,
What can you do?
Grogan sees the knife—surely he must see the knife—and isn’t alarmed. He shuts the door quietly and locks it behind him. As the lock clicks home, so do my thoughts.

I understand now.

To Skelly, Grogan growls, “What’re you doing?”

Skelly shrugs. “I’m just about done here.”

“Fine, but what’s with the knife?”

“We need his implant,” Skelly replies, grinning mischievously.

Grogan’s cheeks flush red. “You crank idiot! We need the implant
in
him; take that thing out of him and no one’ll ever be able to read those files. Their decryption could be tied to his vitals or something.”

The larger man crosses his arms, eyes narrowing. “My thoughts exactly.”

“Skelly, you’re not using your head, okay? Gunn wants the files—all of them—and not just to destroy them. There’s something in them that he wants, and I mean to give it to him.”

Skelly smirks with disregard. “Believe me, he’ll be happy just to know those files’ll never see the light of day.”

“Listen, Skelly, that’s his decision to make, not ours.”

Skelly shakes his head—no, it’s more of a twitch—and digs in his ear again. Suddenly, he doesn’t look so good. His arms fumble behind him as if clearing a path, and then he collapses to the floor, landing solidly on his rear.

“What’s wrong with you?” demands Grogan. “Are you drunk?”

Skelly shakes his head emphatically—wait, nope; just more twitching. “Something’s wrong,” he murmurs. A tear streaks down one cheek and disappears into a heath of dark stubble. “It hurts.”

“What is it?” Grogan rushes to him, grasping him by the shoulders. “Did you take something?”

In response, Skelly slumps forward into a moaning heap. Flustered, Grogan storms to my side, jabbing an accusatory finger at my face. “What’d you do to him?”

I’m as alarmed as he, even if I’m also equally relieved. More than anything, though, I’m angry. “You mean other than lay here tied to this scrap cot?” I seethe. “I guess you’re not only a backstabbing traitor, you’re also a stupid moron.”

Throughout the b-hive, the corridors are still; it’s very late—or early, depending on your perspective—and with the exception of our shuffling footfalls, the silence of the dorms is broken only by the monotonous pulse of snoring. Skelly remains in the sick bay, unconscious.

“You’re bunking in my room tonight,” Grogan whispers. “I don’t trust you to be alone.”

“Trust
me
?” I scoff. “That’s a laugh.”

Here’s the thing: Skelly is a dang scary crank—he’s a muscle-bound killer, and he works for a man who has carved out a wide niche in infamy. And given that Skelly’s stuck here on Mars with no entertainment, I don’t have any doubt that he’d dismember me just for kicks. In stark contrast, Grogan—at least, in my estimation—is nothing but a loud-mouthed, nerdy tightwad—just like yours truly—and I’m pretty sure I can take him. Actually, if I’m being completely honest, I’ve been sort of hoping to find out since the first time he belittled me in front of the others. In front of Fiona.

The only thing holding me back now is the long arm of uncertainty. What if the other PRMC consultants are working for Gunn, too? Will they come running to Grogan’s aid? Are they, like Skelly, itching to cut the life out of me? Though my ego wants so much to provoke confrontation—to prove itself more worthy of Fiona, I suppose—I must admit that I’m not ready for the answers to these questions.

A few feet from Grogan’s bed, I lie on the hard floor, watching tiny green diodes blink happily from the control panels across the room. Angrily, I seethe the seconds away until dawn finally begins to stir the darkness.

If there’s any silver lining to be found on this situation, it’s that Grogan probably hasn’t slept a wink either; the comforts of mattress and pillow are poor substitutions for a clean conscience. It’s a small consolation.

It blows my mind that this crank—a man I’ve disliked on such a trivial level—has emerged from this chapter of my life as a villain. Maybe I’m jaded—forgive me if I feel a little entitled to some cynicism—but I honestly didn’t think he had it in him. This makes twice that I’ve underestimated the nefariousness of a coworker.

Just as the sun breaches the horizon, Grogan rolls out of bed, rudely jostling me with a bare foot—rude not necessarily for any use of excessive force, but because Grogan knows perfectly well that I’m already awake. “Get up,” he says in a hoarse bark. “We’re leaving in an hour.”

True to his word—yeah, I know;
now
he bothers—fifty-five minutes later, we’re headed toward the airlock, showered and sparingly fed. The others are still asleep, which is as Grogan planned, I’m sure. All the while, a voice harps at me:
Why are you going along with this? This crank has no power over you!

I can’t really blame the unknown for ignoring that voice—not exclusively, anyway. Sure, Grogan could call for backup and I’d be swarmed with members of his sleeper cell, but what does that really matter? Dead today or tomorrow—what’s the difference? I suppose if it’s going to happen anyway, I’d rather die on Earth than here.

On our way out, we stop by the infirmary to check on Skelly. Just to be clear: I don’t give a strand of rotting circuit scrap about his well-being. He’s a murderer, and while I doubt I could ever bring myself to kill another man, I can certainly let this one die without blemishing my conscience. Nevertheless, for reasons that are presently his and his alone, Grogan seems almost desperately concerned about him, and I suppose my morbid curiosity is sufficient to tame my indignant tongue. As it turns out, my curiosity and Grogan’s ambiguous agitation don’t come close to preparing us for what we find.

Skelly’s lying on his side, just as we left him. Completely relaxed, his body is a still life of tranquility—motionless, arms tucked snugly against the contour of his torso, legs extending the lazy, serpentine flow of his spine. From the neck up, the view sours with eye-puckering intensity. The space once occupied by Skelly’s head is now an eruption of blood-red vegetation, every blot of skin obscured by ghoulish shoots of sinister foliage. Sprouting from his ear—and undoubtedly rooted into the depths of his tiny brain—is a female BP7.

I’ve been wrong before, but I’m betting that our debarking from Mars is now on the backburner.

“So the buggers are completely bypassing the gametophyte phase now,” Cutterly notes with a grave frown. He’s still sweaty from an excursion outside, during which he and Rogers grudgingly buried Skelly near the mother tree. It’s the first time I’ve seen either approach the Queen since Winkley’s death. “The Queen’s acting more like bamboo than fern anymore.”

If we were solely interested in producing the BPs en masse, this observation might actually raise our spirits. But for the moment, the name of the game is containment—and I have a hunch that we’ve already lost our grip, even if no one’s willing to admit it.

Rogers clears his throat and says: “Spent two hours uprooting saplings yesterday from when the seedpods blew. Half a dozen sprouted on our roof—even a few on our walls. Sent out roots right into the metal.” As if on cue, the distant pop of an exploding seedpod resounds outside. He smiles nervously, larynx bobbing in his throat as he harrumphs a very Rogers harrumph. “It’s only been a few days and some were already three and four feet tall.”

A couple of our consultants pale noticeably.

“Those seeds aren’t supposed to be able to germinate,” I remind the group with a hint of irony. “Sounds like Fiona jumped the gun a little, doesn’t it?”

Cutterly grunts in agreement.

“Kind of weird,” I add. “Don’t you think? That she would invest so many years in her experiments and then fly out the coop when all that remains is a few more weeks to confirm her findings?”

“Uh, I think the saying is ‘fly the coop,’” offers one of the consultants.

“What’s a coop?” Rogers mumbles to no one in particular.

Grogan coughs and when I glance at him, his eyes are smoldering as if screaming for my silence.

My eyes roll sharply to the ceiling. “Whatever,” I growl, both at the unwanted—and unverified—correction of phrase, and at Grogan’s wordless, nonsensical threat. “Seems like she ought to have known better, that’s all I’m saying.”

Following a long pause, one of the PRMC guys tosses in his two credits—and to my ear, it’s the best advice I’ve heard in a while. “If we’re gonna keep the blood plants in check, we need to get a greenhouse erected immediately. Maybe structured with acrylic or carbon fiber—something with little or no mineral content. At the very least, we should layer it with something they can’t eat through. Probably ought to do likewise with the rest of the buildings as well.”

If my death warrant hadn’t already been signed, I might feel relieved that someone is finally pushing a proactive agenda. It sounds like a practical solution to me, one that any engineer ought to approve of—or at least weigh in on—yet ours provides no assessment whatsoever. For all intents and purposes, Grogan has left the building; he stares into space as if half-asleep.

Cutterly gives him a gentle elbow. “Okay there, Grog?”

Grogan blinks and quickly recovers. “Sorry about that. Great idea. I’ll look into it ASAP.”

For the first time since I learned of his duplicity, I begin to wonder about his motivations. He’s been here for half a decade, after all. Currency has no value among us, so what’s the appeal?

Not long ago, Cutterly revealed that our original crew—Fiona, Rogers, Cutterly, Winkley, Montague, and even Emmers—was staffed primarily of exiles, each of whom was running from something. Just like me. Grogan is the definitive exception. Now that I think about it, this place seems to drive him crazy. So why has he stuck around for all these years? And for him to have turned on me so suddenly, something must’ve changed.

Pondering this, I scrutinize the engineer, trying to glean something from his expression that might reveal the truth. To my surprise, I
do
see something there, and though I’m no student of psychology, the panic welling up in his eyes sheds a glimmer of light on things.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m still screwed, but I think I might understand a little of
why
.

When Grogan announces that we’re headed out soon, it becomes very clear that I was right to wonder about the new PRMC crew. Two are visibly nonplussed at the poor timing as well as the flimsy explanation that came with our unplanned departure. The third, though—a mousy little guy I’ve hardly noticed until now—smiles serenely. I’m not surprised when Willace—no, it’s
Wallace
—conjures an excuse to accompany us, nor am I immediately concerned. A moment later, though, he engages Grogan in a stony glance, punctuated by a snide wink. In that instant, despite my initial impression of him, I know I’m in the presence of something evil—a killer like Skelly, only worse; you see a troll like Skelly coming, but a guy like this slips right under your guard and slits your throat before you even realize he’s a threat. Stealing a glance at Grogan, I see that he’s equally unnerved.

We leave just after lunch. Though I’ve scarcely gotten to know them, Rogers and Cutterly are as close to friends as I’ve got, and this is the last time I’ll see either of them. At the mercy of my fragile emotional state, I give them each a handshake—heartier than usual, and embarrassingly tearful—and wish them the best of luck. They look at me as if I’ve gone a little daft. Neither has bothered to question the nature of my trip. They’ve been fed a lie—that we’re off to fetch supplies for the new greenhouse, and that I’m tagging along for my own amusement—one that apparently doesn’t quite jive with the finality of my farewell. Cutterly walks away in a chuckle, but it’s a nervous sound—the kind you make when you only half get a joke and you’re trying feverishly to figure out if it’s actually funny. Rogers hesitates, lingering as if he senses something amiss. I wish I could confide in him—to warn him, really—because I doubt he’s immune to the craziness that somehow managed to follow me here.