Mothership Read online

  “Implant their seed?” I finish for him.

  “Well. Yeah.”

  Lovely.

  I hear Cole standing on the other side of the door, and when he speaks, his voice is gentle. “Elvs, why don’t you come out here? I want to see you. We can’t really talk like this. It isn’t—”

  “I prefer to stay well away from tapeworms, thank you,” I tell him. I like having the stall door between us. Half a dozen centimeters of aluminum alloy might not be much distance, but right now it feels like a force field.

  “Elvs . . .”

  “So when were you planning on telling me all this?” I ask. “Tomorrow? On the kid’s fifth birthday? When?” I gaze down at my swollen stomach, and I swear to God, if I wasn’t mad about the Goober before, now I am absolutely livid. “You know, you had a really good chance to tell me this story when I let you know I was knocked up in the first place. But you didn’t. You left.” On the other side of the door, Cole squirms. I can tell I’m skewering the guy, that he feels downright shitty, and I guess that ought to make me happy, but it doesn’t. “It’s bad enough you put me in this position,” I say with a sigh, “but Britta, too? Jesus, Cole, how much seed did you need to implant?”

  “No,” Cole replies quickly. “I didn’t . . . With Britta it was . . . I didn’t mean . . . It was an accident, Elvie.”

  “Some accident,” I say with a snort. He does not reply. “I would say you’re a shit of a human being. But, you know.”

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says. “Really.” And I can tell by the tone in his voice that he means it. But the eight-plus-month-old fetus that’s currently practicing karate on my large intestine begs to differ. “Look, it’s not so bad, Elvs. I know the little guy won’t technically be human, but . . . Almiri have lived peacefully with humans for five thousand years, virtually undiscovered. We have excellent genes. We, uh, heal well. We’re always very handsome.” I snort, but Cole goes on, undeterred. “No, seriously. That’s how we, uh, attract our mates. And our life span is far longer than that of a human. Hundreds of years. In some cases even longer. Without ever aging.”

  “Shit,” I spit. This is just what I need. “You’re not going to tell me you’re, like, a thousand years old or something, are you? God, if I did it with a senior citizen alien . . .” I suddenly feel like upchucking again. “You know I’m a minor. You can do some serious time for that, right?”

  “Elvs, calm down.” I can almost hear him rolling his eyes. “I’m nineteen. You can tell because my starkiss hasn’t faded yet.”

  “Your what?” I ask. “What does tuna have to do with this?”

  “No, my starkiss. Every Almiri is born with one. It’s like a birthmark. A little pattern of freckles on the left cheek. It always fades completely after thirty or forty years. I still have mine.”

  “Really?” I say casually. I can picture it exactly. “I never noticed.”

  “Anyway,” he goes on, “listen to this, Elvs. This may cheer you up.” And I can hear the soft whisk of his fingers across the screen of his phone as he scrolls through the history once more. “Since their arrival on Earth, Almiri have contributed enormously to human society, in nearly every field of cultural and physical advancement, including politics, science, and the arts. Some of the most famous ‘people’ in human history were in fact Almiri. Alexander the Great, Dmitry Venevitinov, Pope Gregory V, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Christopher Marlowe—”

  “James Dean,” I finish for him.

  “Yeah,” Cole replies. “He’s on the list.”

  I think on that. My mom’s favorite movie star, an alien. Well, he was inhumanly handsome. “So why does everyone think James Dean died in a car crash?” I ask.

  Cole sighs. “Well, since we live so long, and we don’t age at the normal rate, some of us—especially those who are sort of famous—have to fake an early death, so no one catches on. Can you imagine if movie stars seemed to look twenty-two forever? Byron’s actually officially ‘died’ about five times now. He’s sort of sick of it at this point, so he tries to keep a low profile. I’m probably going to have to fake my own death in a couple years, depending on how often I’m willing to move. I’m thinking tractor trailer accident.”

  As fascinating as this tangent is, there are other things weighing more heavily on my mind than the way in which Cole intends to fake off himself. “All right, fine,” I say. “So you’re an alien.”

  “An Almiri.”

  “Whatever. I guess I can deal with that.” I’m gonna need some serious therapy, but just at the moment I’m busy wrapping my head around things. “And I’m guessing Captain Bob and everyone else involved in your rescue mission of crap is Almiri too.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And I’m further assuming that all of us on board this space school—me, Ramona, Natty, all of us—we’re all unwitting hosts for freaking bastard alien children?”

  “In a nutshell.”

  I clear my throat. “So that would make our teachers, what, like, Almiri gone bad?”

  “It’s complicated,” Cole says, and he ignores my snort. “But basically your teachers are another race, similar to the Almiri. It used to be that we were all one species—the Klahnia, they were called. But when we left to come to Earth, they traveled to a different planet, and they started to evolve a little . . . differently. They call themselves the Jin’Kai now. They only came to Earth a few decades ago, as far as I know. And they’re doing their best to wipe us out completely.”

  I try to wrap my head around the idea of alien ethnic cleansing. “So these Jin’Kai or whatever,” I say, “they, what? Signed up for teaching positions on this space school so they could get close to all our Almiri fetuses?”

  I can hear the air whistle through Cole’s nose as he takes a deep breath. “Elvs,” he says slowly. “They created this school, to lure you guys here.”

  Da-fuh?

  “So what were they planning on doing with our babies?” I ask. “Were they going to . . .” I look down at the lump that’s the Goober. Well, more like a parasitic freakazoid. I can’t quite bring myself to put my hand on my own stomach. “Kill them?”

  “Honestly, we have no idea what their plans were,” Cole replies. “But given the way they freaked out when we landed on their ship, we can be pretty sure they weren’t going to treat all the kids to hot fudge sundaes.”

  “I see.” I fix my eyes on the door lock, thinking about finally exiting my little hidey-hole. Because as much as I don’t want to, as much as I’d rather not face Cole ever again, like it or not I probably have to get out of here fairly soon. If I’m going to plummet to Earth in a fiery blaze, I’d rather not do it in a toilet stall.

  But I take one more second to myself.

  “Elvs,” Cole says from the other side of the door. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

  “Oh?” I reply. “What, you forgot to tell me about your X-ray vision?”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s . . .” He rises to his feet and walks closer to the stall door. He’s right on the other side now, talking to me in a hush. “The Almiri, we’re . . . very particular about who we’re supposed to, um, mate with. There’s a Code, and the penalties for breaking it are . . .” He lets out a puff of air like he’s having trouble solving a difficult trig problem. “What I’m trying to say is . . . When I said I never meant for this to happen, I was serious.” He swallows audibly. “Elvs, I wasn’t supposed to get involved with you. I was . . . I was only meant to be with Britta.”

  And if I thought this day couldn’t get any shittier, well, it just has. “Wonderful,” I spit. “So good to know, Cole. I hope you and Britta will be very happy togeth—”

  “No.” Cole cuts me off. “Elvie, that’s not what I’m saying. I was supposed to be with Britta, but I . . . I chose you. I know you’ll probably never forgive me for leaving, or for anything else, really. And I totally understand that. But.” He pauses, and I can feel my whole body aching, waiting to hear wh
at will come after that “but.” “But,” he goes on, “I freaked out, Elvie, when you told me you were pregnant. I knew if my superiors found out, I’d be in serious trouble. The Code isn’t something they take lightly. So I panicked. I raced back to headquarters and stopped returning your phone calls, hoping that somehow no one would ever find out. But then I heard you were on board this ship with the Jin’Kai, and I . . . God, Elvie, right then I didn’t care who found out about me. I begged to be a part of the rescue mission.”

  “How’d you know I was here?” I ask.

  “It’s, uh”—he raps his knuckles on the door—“classified.”

  “What in the hell does that mean? Have you been, like, spying on me?”

  “No, Elvie. It’s just . . . we’re advanced, all right? We’ve got all kinds of advanced . . . stuff. To, you know, learn things. Look, it’s not important how I found out. What’s important is that when I did, I just . . . I needed to save you.”

  My heart skips a beat. Suddenly I’m not sure if I want to leap out and kiss Cole all over, or kick down the door and smash his pretty face in.

  “Please don’t kick me in the face, all right, Elvs?” Cole says, as if reading my mind. “And I’m not reading your mind,” he states, seemingly contradicting his own statement. “I just . . . I guess I know you pretty well. Or I like to think I do anyway.”

  I take a deep breath then, and I make up my mind. I do not kick Cole’s face in. Nor do I kiss him. I reach out a hand, slowly, and unlock the stall door. It swings open, and there’s Cole on the other side, smiling at me.

  “So?” he says.

  For the first time in what feels like ages, I place a hand on my belly and feel around, making slow circles. Yep, there’s the Goober. I always sort of thought he had an alien quality about him. I look up at Cole.

  “Let’s get off this spaceship,” I tell him. And together we leave the bathroom.

  • • •

  To say that there’s a bit of an uproar when we return to the bridge would be the understatement of the millennium. I can tell just from the wailing and screeching that the rest of the girls have been getting the same history lesson from Captain Bob that I got from Cole, and based on their responses, I’m thinking I should get an A-plus for keeping my shit together. Carrie is sobbing in a heap in the corner, Ramona is wrestling back Danielle, who is making a surprisingly good attempt at knocking out Captain Bob’s teeth, and Chewie is practically bald on the left side of her head. But worst of all is Britta, who has splayed herself across the control panel, screeching at Captain Bob in supersonic tones.

  “Get it out!” she’s screaming, writhing in a panic. “Cut the alien out of me! Just chop it out! I don’t want it! I don’t want—” That’s when Cole, pulling a trick I can only assume he learned from Captain Bob, aims his ray gun at the ceiling and shoots.

  The room goes silent.

  Captain Bob is the first to speak. “Thank you, Archer,” he says. He looks like he’s aged about forty years in the last ten minutes, the weight of this rescue mission hanging heavy on his face. He blinks a few times, gathering himself, then reaches out a hand to help Britta off the control panel. Reluctantly she accepts it, and he hoists her to her feet. Cole reaches out an arm to hug her, but—giving him a sneer I thought she reserved only for non-designer swimwear—she scuttles across the room to huddle with Other Cheerleader instead.

  “Ladies,” Captain Bob addresses us, “I am truly sorry about the way things have transpired today. I realize that asking for your trust, after the information I’ve just given you, seems somewhat ridiculous. But I can only hope that you believe me when I tell you that the survival of each and every one of you—and your babies—is truly important to me and Archer, and all of the Almiri. Any one of us would give our lives to save just one of you, and I think my fallen men speak to that. Our focus at the moment needs to be to get all of you off this ship, and we have a very limited window to do that. So we need to move. Now.”

  Cuddling Britta in the corner, Other Cheerleader swipes the hair out of her eyes. “What about these alien freak babies?” she says. “I want a termination. I don’t care how far along I am. I can’t bring a thing home to my parents. They’ll totally spaz out.”

  “I can guarantee you that any unwanted babies will be cared for by the Almiri,” Captain Bob tells us. “But these are not decisions to make now. As I said, we need to get moving, for all of our sakes. We are heading to the captain’s yacht. You can go willingly, or you can go by force, but you need to go. Do we all understand one another?”

  Around the room there are slow nods of heads. Natty is smiling in a dreamy sort of way that makes me wonder if she heard any of the captain’s speech at all. But somehow, when the captain leads the way off the bridge, every one of us follows, without further complaint. Even me. Because, you know, the day couldn’t possibly get any worse, now, could it?

  CHAPTER NINE

  IN WHICH OUR HEROINE STOPS BREATHING AND LEARNS TO FLY

  I look down into the abyss. A hundred meters, give or take. The ladder bolted to the wall is narrow, with thin rungs, and the passage down would be tight even if we weren’t trying to cram a bunch of swollen mommies-to-be down it.

  “You can’t be serious,” I say, staring over the edge and imagining the gooey fate that would await me if my foot missed a rung.

  “This is the fastest way down,” Captain Bob replies. “You said so yourself.”

  And I guess I can’t argue with that.

  Cole seems to share my concern for free-falling pregnant girls, because he presents Captain Bob with a large coil of thin metallic cable that resembles old piano wire.

  “I found this fastening cable in the depository back there,” he tells Bob, gesturing to the large storage compartment we just passed. “Figured we could use it to secure the girls for the descent. It’s certified for six, seven tons of resistance, easy.”

  “Then how’s it going to hold Elvie’s fat ass?” Britta says, shoving past me. Apparently that ankle of hers isn’t quite as busted as she let on. “Hook me up. I’m going down first.”

  “No,” Bob says. “Archer, you go first. If anyone loses their grip, I’d prefer they fall on you.”

  “Fine by me,” Britta says. She gives Cole a cold stare and a face like Come on with the cable already. It’s almost as if finding out that Cole isn’t human and had been assigned by a secret society to inseminate her with a parasitic embryo has put him on her shit list for good.

  Go figure.

  Ramona nudges me with her elbow as Cole begins fastening the cable under each of the girls’ baby bumps. “Why do you put up with that shit?” she asks me, jerking her head in Britta’s direction. “You never slam that bitch back.”

  Cole and Britta are both several meters away, out of earshot, but still I hesitate to respond. “It’s just . . .” I begin. I stare down at the bump that is the Goober. “She doesn’t know,” I say at last, turning back to Ramona. “She was with Cole first, and I sort of . . . I guess I kind of stole him.”

  “Don’t tell me you feel like you deserve that shit,” Ramona spits. “If you ask me, leaving that chrometard was the only smart move your boyfriend ever made.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I reply. “Never was.”

  Ramona rolls her eyes. “Anyway”—she pokes an index finger into my stomach—“I’d say you’ve suffered enough for your sins, Elvie.”

  When we’re all tied together like a string of novelty Christmas lights, Cole starts down the ladder. We all trail behind, Captain Bob coming last. It’s very slow going—the sort of speed at which you might be able to squeeze peas through a drinking straw—and the metal tubing scrapes against our skin as we slide down. It’s rough and surprisingly chilly and my clothes are still slightly damp from the pool, which isn’t helping my comfort level any. But worst of all is the fact that I have somehow ended up right underneath Carrie.

  “Jesus, Carrie,” I say. “Would it have killed you to wear some underwea
r?”

  “Oh, did I forget again?” she asks blithely. “I thought it felt colder than usual.”

  I swear that even from ten meters up I can hear Cole choke on his own spit.

  “Explain to me why we’re going down here again,” Danielle says in between grunts. “I thought the captain’s quarters were at the rear of the ship. So why are we heading toward the hangar? That’s at the front, isn’t it? We’re traveling backward.”

  Danielle is right, of course. We are making a slight detour. Which, I might point out, was my idea. But Captain Bob agreed with me, once I explained my reasoning.

  “Because,” I tell her, “the hangar stretches across nearly half of the ship. So even though we’re backtracking to get there, it’ll be much faster, because we’ll be able to bypass most of the areas that have been either damaged or tampered with.”

  “Yeah, but there’s no air in the hangar,” Chewie points out. “What do you expect us to do, snorkel?”

  “And even if we can get down to the hangar floor,” Ramona adds from above me—I can hear her huffing as she pushes her belly over a rung—“how are we supposed to climb back out? There aren’t any stairs at the far end.”

  “True,” I say, up in Ramona’s direction. I quickly look down again, however, after another unfortunate Carrie upskirt. “But there’s no gravity in there either. So we’re not exactly going to be, uh, walking it.”

  “Maybe we should have packed snorkels,” Ramona says with a sigh.

  We reach the bottom unscathed, if a little sweatier than I’d like, and we wriggle out of our cable harnesses. From there it’s only a few short steps to the hangar entrance.

  We cram into the tiny dock that normally serves as the staging area for crewmen entering the hangar deck to perform maintenance on shuttlecraft or the hangar itself. All that separates us from the long, empty space of the hangar is the narrow hatch door with one of those little turn-wheel locks. I can’t see out the hatch window because I’m stuck near the back of the group, pressed up so tightly against Ramona that I can tell what kind of deodorant she didn’t use this morning, but it wouldn’t be much of a view anyway. The maintenance dock is a half level up from the floor of the hangar bay, so all I’d be able to see if I looked out the window is a ten-meter-long ladder down to the electromagnetic plates that line the floor. When activated, the plates serve to secure incoming shuttlecraft at both the bottom and top, eliminating the need for any mechanical locking systems, and allowing the Echidna to berth crafts of all sizes. So, useful, but also dangerous—’cause I’m pretty sure those plates could fry a person to a crisp in a nanosecond. Fortunately for us, like most things at this level of the ship right now, the plates appear to have been disabled.