Balding.

White hair.

He still had on his jumpsuit like he intended to go crack another mineral seam with us.

But he also had gills.

Fins.

A tail.

Eyes on the sides of his head.

Just like the skeleton we'd unearthed.

Charles Stewart. We buried him in Cavern A17C.

Heart attack.

We were going to cremate him, but his burial instructions had us planting a sapling over the body. I remembered the planting vividly.

That, and the fact that Si sneaked in some cannabis seeds when we weren't looking at the grave.

Every time I go into hydroponics, I see it.

Chuck's Hemp Tree.

Yet the man was standing in my bedroom, silently mouthing words.

I rubbed my eyes, hoping I was dreaming, but the phantom stayed where it was.

Even the baby appeared to be frightened. He only kicked once, then seemed to retreat into my spinal column.

"Go home!" the specter seemed to be saying. Then he mouthed something about danger.

"Chuck?" I said.

He just gave me a sad look and turned away, vanishing through the wall.

Frightened out of my wits, I burst through the door in my pajamas, seeking out the comforting arms of my boyfriend.

The sound of coarse laughter led me to a Blackjack game near the bar.

Brett was holding a three of spades, a four of hearts, a joker and an ace of clubs. He smoked because he didn't expect me to be there.

Gina, beer in hand, Bruce, who I guess was sketching in between deals, and Gordon Mutane, our very difficult to understand communications engineer. Usual rogues gallery.

Si laid down his cards, causing everyone to groan in dismay and throw in their hands. The man is a shark.

While the cards were being shuffled, Brett chomped his cigarette and gave me a grin, wrapping his arm around my waist. "Hey, baby! Having trouble sleeping?"

I wanted to tell him about the ghost, but I felt I'd only get laughed at.

"Yeah," I said with a shrug. "I guess."

He took a puff of his cigarette, giving me this stare like he were trying to figure me out. "Bad dream?"

I grimaced. "You could say that."

"Aww."

He rested his head against my belly, squeezing me close.

The cigarette rolled in his mouth. "How about some Blackjack? You can play for me. Whattaya say? Wanna get dealt in?"

I frowned. "You know what they say about pregnancy and cigarette smoke."

Brett stubbbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. "How's that?"

I sighed as I stared at Gordon and Gina, still puffing away.

"That's all right. I...think I'll just...get some warm milk and ...watch a boring movie or something."

"Titanic?" he laughed.

I smiled a little. "Maybe."

That's pretty much what I did.

It was decades since the film first came out, but it was still watchable. For the first couple hours, at least.

As the boat on the screen sunk deeper and deeper into the Arctic waves, and I set aside my glass of milk, I dreamed I was standing in a child's bedroom on earth, fine brown dressers and bed frames like I'd seen in the movie, the warm sun beating down from the window.

I was combing my son's hair in front of a dirty mirror. He had to be at least twelve, and his hair was long and golden as a girl's. The clothing was also gender ambiguous. I could have been preening a teenaged girl.

The hair was matted and tangled, and as I combed, big clumps of it came off, exposing shiny pink flesh like a salmon.

More and more of this hair fell away, but it remained matted and tangled as ever.

At last, in a fit of frustration, I spun the child around, grasping her by the shoulders as I prepared to shake her. Or him.

I gasped. The face had my skin color, but no eyes. Just a mouth and a dolphin shaped head like that black thing I dreamed about last time.

Instead of attacking, it simply said, "What's wrong, mother?" As if what I saw were completely ordinary.

When I awoke, I found myself back in bed. Brett must have carried me to the room, though it amazed me how he could pull that off without waking me up or throwing his back out.

He slept with his back to me, having more than likely rolled over in his sleep.

Brett wasn't a sleep grabber like some. He was more inclined to roll off the bed, but he hadn't done that in months. Maybe it was the baby that changed him. Or the process of making the baby.

I tossed and turned for a few minutes with my eyes shut, but sleep wouldn't come.

Brett seemed to notice this, for he rolled over, looking kind of groggy, too tired to be playful. "What's wrong."

"I saw Chuck," I said. "Chuck Stewart." I told him what happened.

After a dramatic pause, he said, "Spooky."

We stared at each other in silence for a minute.

At last he said, "You're working too hard. The baby's kicking, the chemicals aren't going in the right place, and it's making you see weird shit."

"Fatigue?" I said.

He nodded. "Fatigue. Take the day off. You're entitled. The foreman will understand."

And then he grins. "Can't have you snap and do something crazy like shoving an auto extractor up Si's rectal cavity and drilling his rocks."

I laughed. "You heard about that?"

"Babe, you can't play Blackjack and not shoot the shit."

"Fine," I relented. "Maybe you're right."

"Honey, you know I'm right."

I gave him a playful jab.

He kissed me, then rolled over and tried to sleep again.

I couldn't. I kept wondering if this planet had some sort of mummy's curse, that we should leave the place alone and just go elsewhere.

I sat up. There's nothing more boring than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling as you try and fail to sleep.

I tapped Brett's leg. "You think they'll let me assist Team D3?"

He dragged me back down to my pillow.

"Chill, you workaholic. Do you want to see Mr. Stewart again, or do you want to get some rest?"

"I can't," I said.

"You can't what?"

"I can't sleep."

He rubbed his face, appearing to have given up on sleep himself. "It's too bad I can't give you my normal prescription. A little whiskey, a little roll in the sack...instant sleepy time."

I rolled my eyes. "For you, maybe."

"I'd suggest the Green Haze, but I don't know if Junior will like that one any better."

"I'll go ask Venn," I said.

The good doctor was plugged into the wall like a toaster. He stood rigid against the wall, eyelids shut like he were sleeping as a cord ran electricity into his spinal column. His stomach synthesized electricity through various chemical processes, but during the night when no one's looking, he prefers the direct approach.

"Odd hour for a visit," he said when I came in.

He never really sleeps.

I watched him unplug himself.

"What's going on? Back pain? Nausea? Overactive bladder?"

"I don't know," I said. "I just can't sleep."

"How many hours ago have you ingested caffeine?"

I shook my head. "Yesterday at breakfast."

"Is it the baby?"

I frowned, rubbing my face. "I'm having nightmares."

"Describe them."

He gestured for me to lay on a futon in the corner of the room.

"The act of writing or describing the nightmare is often cathartic. Often the phrase you use to describe the situations provide clues about the underlying real life emotional distress."

And so I unraveled the dream to him, and we decided it had something to do with my fears of miscarriage and dying during childbirth, the `bug' possibly being Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or some other child killing disease, evident in the Grim Reaper-like image that faced me.

It all sounded plausible except for the fact I could swear I remembered seeing the creatures before, and not just from another dream as he prompted me to speculate.

He prescribed a recording of meditation techniques for a few days and told me to see him if it didn't work after that time.

As he was slowly loping his way back to the charger, he suddenly turned to me and said, "Oh, by the way. You're going to need to find new site for the skeleton. Mr. Goldike has been tampering with your find."

"What!" I cried. "That bastard!"

Dennis Goldike is the project manager. Big, intimidating man with glasses, a goatee and a mustache. With his thick muscles and shiny shaved head, he looked like a member of an Aryan Nation prison gang, and his cold blue-gray eyes would be at home on a serial killer. Even his gray jumpsuit could have worked as a prison uniform. I often pictured bolts on that thick neck, and tried not to smile.

When I showed up at the job site roughly four hours before my shift, I wasn't in a smiling mood.

The skeleton had been carelessly scattered on the floor, replaced by busy sample analyzers and a large machine that strips Haddanium off chunks of ore.

The skull of our fossil was crushed, the tibia and fibia snapped into smaller pieces, ribs tossed every which way, mostly shattered like the discarded breast bones from a Thanksgiving turkey.

I've lived in this male oriented mining facility for months, so I'm not afraid of any man, especially my skinhead boss. If he fired me, it would be a blessing, because then I'd be able to go home. If he tried to kill me, or something worse, I'd know exactly where to hit a man to leave him crying on the floor in a fetal position.

The man was sipping coffee, studying one of his precious swirling turquoise samples like nothing were wrong. Behind him, Watson, Miller and Hetfield were busy ripping my mineral seam apart, doubtless pulverizing bones, pottery and other important discoveries to powder.

I was dressed in carnation pink cable knit maternity wear patterned with little dogs, but my anger burned so hot, it wouldn't have mattered if I had on a clown costume.

"What is the meaning of this!" I shouted.

"A mining operation, Ms. Ripley," he said matter-of-factly. "What does it look like?"

"It looks like you're ruining fossils and demolishing valuable scientific evidence! Erasing whole histories for the sake of a few shiny rocks!"

Mr. Goldike slapped his hands on my shoulders, glaring at me like an enraged but strangely calm bull. "Ms. Ripley, this is a mining operation, not a scientific expedition. You were brought here solely for the purpose of extracting valuable minerals, not collecting archeological specimens for a museum. This is the charter you signed, so that's what you presumably agreed to. Are we reading from the same page, Ms. Ripley?"

I reluctantly nodded, but didn't look in his eyes. I might not be afraid of men, but I am not immune to psychological manipulation, especially when the manipulator insists in breathing in my face.

"You seem uncertain, Ellen. Am I wrong in saying that you were hired to this outfit for the specific purpose of extracting mineral ores, or is it I who am mistaken? I want you to tell me, because both answers can't possibly be right."

Using my first name. Like we were friends.

"You're right," I muttered reluctantly.

"What?" he said, adding insult to injury.

"I said you're right!"

"Are you sure? I still don't see much certainty, Ms. Ripley."

I glared at him looking dead in his eyes. "Go to hell."

He rubbed my shoulder. "Look. Ellen," he said in condescending tones. "I know you're pregnant, but this isn't how you speak to a superior officer."

"I can talk to you any damn way I want," I growled. "What are you going to do? Fire me? It's not like you can afford to ship me away..."

His eyes bore down on me like impassive ice chips. "Would you like me to put you back on mercury mining?"

I gasped. "You bastard!"

Goldike waved his hands like it were outside his control to avoid doing so.

"You can't force me to do that, either."

"Can't I? What if I put a restriction on the supplies you need? Might make things kind of difficult for the baby, but if you want to play this game..."

"What jail did you escape from," I muttered.

There he was, rubbing my shoulders like I gave him permission, talking to me like he talked to Gina when she asked him to help her take off those extra pounds. I was glad he didn't feel the urge to rub anything else.

"Ellen. I really don't want to hurt you or your baby if I don't have to. You've done a lot of good work for this site. Could have been better had you been able to run the machines like the others..."

In other words, `had I not gotten knocked up.'

"But you're doing well. I always see you as my special project, looking for ways to improve your work."

I shuddered at the thought of him singling me out.

"My advice: Forget about the archeology until you leave. Just do your job. Take care of the baby, and you can go home with a nice bonus in a few months. Ninety solar days. That's all I'm asking. That's not too much for you, is it, Ellen?"

I sighed. "Fine. You don't care about science. I understand that. Can I go now?"

He didn't let go.

"That's not the answer I wanted to hear."

"What the fuck do you want me to say!" I shouted. "You say you're going to get ores, hell or high water, you say forget the fossils, and then you threaten me!

"How's this: This is bullshit, you're an asshole, but I won't fight your decision because you're the boss! How's that!"

"Ellen," he scolded.

"Can I go now."

Before he could continue his attempts to force words into my mouth, I see a chunky Navajo woman marching up to him. Spotted Owl Gonzalo, the woman who always sings showtunes in Diné when she's drilling.

"Sir," she said in an urgent tone. "We've found another fossil."

"Plow through it," Dennis said indifferently.

"That's the problem, sir. We can't."