Chapter 68
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Connor left the Moon twins guarding the airlock hatch. He would come back later with Aubriella to relieve them.
After he washed the filth of the bugs and lizards away.
Fortunately, Selen was back in her own cabin, too angry to pull her crazy seduction stunts. That gave Connor the opportunity to shower in peace. The hot water, the soap, the removal of the stain the planet had left on him…
He stepped out of the shower feeling refreshed, restored.
It was a lie, of course. No soap could really scrub away what had been on him, regardless of him smelling woodsy or like a river in the spring.
And if he sat still, he would pass out.
The redness from the hot shower would pass, too, and when the stinging was gone, the aches would return.
So, he brushed his teeth until his breath was minty, put on a clean T-shirt, cargo pants, and sneakers, then headed down to the galley, where he prepped a plate for each of the Moon brothers and took that down to them.
While they ate, he watched over the airlock.
Tim finished first and handed his empty plate back to Connor, who tried not to wince at the garlic rolling off the other man. “Thanks.”
When Tom finished, he did the same: handed over the plate and thanked Connor.
Then they both turned as Connor headed back to the ramp.
“Connor?” It was Tim. “What you said earlier?”
Tom nodded. “Yeah. We agree. We want to know what happened.”
Connor blushed. “We all do.”
“Do we?” Tom looked around the cargo bay. “I don’t know.”
Tim belched. “Why don’t you have your security fixed yet? You’re the second-in-command.”
At that, Tom nodded vigorously. “Maybe you should talk to Gregor.”
Connor’s head jerked backwards. Gregor? The hunt-and-peck typist? “Why?”
“Because he knows computer security.”
Tim leaned in. “He helped us buy some stock in Moon Corporation.”
Tom winced. “Illegally. When Chung-hee was appointed chief communications officer.”
“And the prices tanked.”
The twins gave each other a fist bump.
Connor shoved his hands in his pockets. “Selen’s trying to focus on her priorities.”
Tom turned at a particularly loud bang on the airlock hatch. “Our priorities.”
“We’ll work it out.”
“Do you think—” Tom turned to his fellow clone.
Tim bit his lip. “Do you think we’ll have to go back down there?”
That question had been haunting Connor since they’d fled. “Let’s worry about our survival first, okay?”
They nodded and returned to the airlock.
Connor found Selen and Mosiah in the galley, hunched close over coffee mugs. Kalpana and Aubriella were in there, too, but when Connor entered, they scarfed down the last of their meals and tossed their plates in the recycler.
As she passed, Kalpana squeezed Connor’s forearm. Instead of the strange heat that had been in her dark eyes in the woods, there was…reassurance.
She supported him.
Great. Lines were being drawn.
Rudy would have hated that. Yet Rudy had shown the same support…
Connor pulled a chair out from Kalpana’s table and dropped into it. It was still warm from her and had the pleasant, cloves perfume she sometimes wore.
Mosiah looked up from his huddled conversation with Selen. “Connor.”
“You look like a mess.”
The old man ran a hand over his bruised and scraped face. “We all suffered out there, wouldn’t you agree?”
“We did.” Connor caught a hint of anger when Selen sat back in her chair but continued. “Why didn’t you tell us about those things?”
“I had no idea they would be there.”
“You were expecting something—you hired mercenaries.”
Mosiah glanced at Selen. “Well, yes. Things had gotten crazy in my life of late. People have died.”
“Some of the people you came here with.”
“All of the people I came here with decades ago. I’m the last survivor.”
He’d mentioned that, hadn’t he? Connor was too tired to be sure. “You knew there would be trouble here, but you didn’t know what?”
“That’s correct.”
Connor could see that Selen was having as hard a time as he was believing that. “When you came here before, it was just you and you’re friends?”
Mosiah nodded. “We had weapons, but we encountered nothing whatsoever like…” He nodded toward the rear of the ship, where the lizards were still banging on the airlock hatch.
“I find it hard to believe those creatures evolved like that in the last fifty years or whatever.”
“I would never make such a claim. What I’m telling you is that we didn’t encounter them.”
Selen pushed her mug around. “Maybe they migrated.”
The old man shrugged. “I’ve told you what I know.”
There was no indication the old man was lying.
Connor tapped his toes. “Your friends who died—”
“Comrades. I would hope you might respect me enough to appreciate my taking offense at labeling them friends.”
“All right.”
“The way they died, though.” Mosiah closed his eyes. “It began innocently enough. None of us pieced it together until the sixth death. At that point, we looked at the timing. Every few months, someone died—unexpectedly and quite horribly.”
“Every few months?”
“Like a clock. And each new death shook me worse than the previous one.”
“You said they weren’t friends.”
“My concern wasn’t for their deaths but mine. It felt as if something was getting closer.”
Selen snorted. “Yeah—justice. You were all scum.”
“I won’t pretend that my youthful acts can be defended.”
Connor leaned forward, elbows braced on knees. “You lived close to them?”
The old man cocked his head. “And why would that matter?”
“Because if someone wanted you dead, they should have simply used a bomb or hired a mercenary team to kill you all at once.”
“I never said that we lived close—”
A ringing ran through the hull, drawing their attention to the ceiling. That was where the sound originated, Connor thought.
He got to his feet. “Are they on top of the ship now?”
Selen shook her head. “Shouldn’t matter. They can’t penetrate—”
The ringing sound came again, this time louder.
Mosiah licked his lips. “Why would they climb to the—”
A third ring resonated through the ship: deep and sustained.
This time, an alarm rang, and the lights went out.
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