The Luminous Dead

by Caitlin Starling

  Gyre took a few steps into the lake, and her other foot was awash in water—or, well, the recycled solution of water and several other components that the cleaning mechanisms in the suit used. It didn’t really feel like standing in a pool, but it felt better than nothing, and was stronger and more controlled than the diffusion she’d felt from changing the water out. She wiggled her toes, imagining the crusted sweat being washed away, the film resettling into an invisible skin.

  The lichen below the surface crunched under her boots as she waded farther in, illuminating the depths. Out toward the center, the lake grew noticeably deeper, but even here, it would quickly rise to over waist height. Gyre walked in to her knees, then jumped out, remembering the relief at Camp Five from diving in, before it had all gone wrong.

  “Hold your breath,” Em said, and she hit the water.

  Her entire suit was flooded, though Em graciously left her head for last, giving her enough time to close her eyes and puff out her cheeks. She wriggled the muscles of her face and shook her head, enjoying the flood over her scalp, between the tight knots of her hair. The sensation of cool water was bliss, and she floated herself back up to the surface, rolling onto her back. Em drained some of the water in her suit, and Gyre inhaled sharply and opened her eyes.

  She relaxed.

  The ceiling was beautiful. It almost looked like a night sky, with the trails of faint light from distant lichen, and the shadows between stalactites and other formations creating a rich, roiling heaven.

  “How is it?” Em asked.

  “Better than I expected,” Gyre said.

  “I can always pipe in some light music, too,” Em said, finally glancing at the camera again with a quick smile. Those smiles weren’t getting any stronger, but they were coming more readily, softening Em’s jagged edges.

  Gyre shook her head, the water in her suit sloshing and shifting her hair slightly. “No. Just like this. This is fine.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  She slept heavily that night.

  When she woke, Em’s camera feed was off, but her comm line was open. It was comforting, to know she’d been watched over while she slept. Em had remained visible on her helmet’s screen until Gyre had drifted off the night before, working in silence, and the odd companionship had made things . . . easier.

  It shouldn’t have, but Gyre had been too tired to feel guilt, either for enjoying the other woman’s presence or for the recording indicator that had remained, unchanged, throughout the night.

  As she plugged in her morning canister, she considered the indicator.

  “Good morning,” Em said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Hey,” Gyre said. She made herself smile, lean back on her heels. “Have you slept yet?”

  “Briefly, yes.”

  Now or never. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “The new amendment,” Em said, and it popped up on her screen before Gyre could protest. “It’s here. I wouldn’t have withheld it from you the other . . . last night, but I wanted you to feel rested and alert when you signed it.”

  Turn back, turn back. Be selfish. You’ve always been selfish; don’t stop now.

  “I don’t want to sign it,” she said. It didn’t feel right.

  Em let out an involuntary sound, like a hitched breath, but it wasn’t clear if it was a whimper or a gasp. “I . . . I . . . What?”

  “I don’t want to sign it,” she repeated, her shoulders drawing up toward her ears. Her gut filled with nutritional paste. She felt sick. “Look, I’ve come this far. Right? There’s just this last push?”

  “Yes,” Em said. She sounded desperately confused, desperately hopeful. Like she was edging up on a skittish beast.

  “Then I might as well continue, right?”

  “It’s dangerous.” Em swallowed audibly. “You read the dossiers. Saw the video. You’re saying you’re willing to risk that, even though you don’t have to?”

  But she did have to. It was the only way to stop Em from doing this again, the only way that would work for good. Finish the mission and get it all on record as insurance. Everything wrapped up in a neat little bow.

  Gyre swallowed, looking skyward, to the vault of stone above her. “What does my personality inventory say about me?”

  Em tapped a few keys. The document sprung up in front of her, replacing the contract. “That you’re strongheaded,” she said. “That your willingness to lie about your professional history wasn’t to cover a lack of skill, but to let you jump over entry-level risk. That you have few connections outside yourself, and that your only goals relate to your own success.” She paused. Then: “Not to your own enrichment.”

  Yeah. That sounded about right.

  “That’s why, then,” Gyre said. “I’m a stubborn bitch who knows best. That work for you?”

  Em hesitated, and Gyre waited for her to try to argue, to try to dissuade her. She had so much ammunition she could use. She could list every danger, or even invoke the contract to close the expedition out.

  But she didn’t. Instead, she said, “I understand. We’ll continue.”

  Gyre unhooked the used canister. “Is there any equipment at Camp Three that isn’t also at Five or here?”

  “No. There’s just more of it,” Em said.

  “Hauling that gear sounds like a stupid idea, then,” she said, standing. “If the goal is just to get to the chamber on the other side of the sump—” She paused when Em snorted, no doubt at just. “If it is,” she continued after a moment, reaching the battery box and crouching to unlatch it, “then there’s no point in trekking between Three and Five that many times. It’ll just increase ration consumption and battery usage, and increase the chance for injury. If we’d been able to go between Three and Four as planned, it would make more sense, but with the Long Drop and the first sump, and the climb between them . . .”

  “I can see the logic in it. But for the next caver—”

  “You haven’t been listening—there won’t be another caver,” she said. She closed the case and stood. “I’ve come this far, and I don’t intend to die for you.”

  Em let out another shaky breath.

  “So are we good to go today? Take a first stab at it?”

  “I should be rested enough, yes. And your biometrics look good.” She hesitated. “If you’d like to have more time to think it over—”

  Gyre cut her off. “How much sleep did you get?”

  “I managed five hours.”

  “In the last how many?”

  “That’s . . . difficult to answer. When I’m manning the systems up here, I usually sleep for only ninety minutes at a time. Just enough time for REM sleep, and I do it every several hours as necessary. This was one of my longer rests.”

  “Sounds miserable.”

  “Less miserable than living in a suit for several weeks,” she pointed out.

  Gyre snorted.

  “Are you ready, then?”

  She looked over at the sump entrance. Last chance. She’ll still let you leave.

  Probably.

  “Yeah,” she said. She felt good. Surprisingly good. Like she’d slept for days instead of hours. She stood and stretched, finding only the stiffness that came from sleeping in a suit. “I mean, assuming those tests you ran on the spores came back fine?”

  “I would have woken you up if there was a problem. You’re clear; there was no trace of anything in your system. Looks like we were worried for nothing.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Gyre said. She crouched again and swapped her battery; the level on her current one had looked lower than she liked, no doubt because of the tests the suit had been running on her blood and body while she slept. Besides, it was best to go in fresh.

  Best to go in clear-headed.

  “No drugs,” she said as she stood up and stretched. “No adrenaline, no nothing.”

  “If you get into a situation where—”

  “Have you actually experienced what it feels like to have that stuff dumped int
o your system without your say-so? It’s going to fuck with me, not help me. I’ll go slow today. We shouldn’t even get into a situation where it might be necessary.”

  Em didn’t respond, clearly not pleased with the idea. Gyre ignored her in turn and began opening the supply boxes, separating everything into organized piles.

  “There’s an anchor by the pool edge,” Em said. “Check the integrity of it, but you should be able to go from there.”

  “Can I take extra spools of diving line?” Gyre said, tapping one of them.

  “Yes, but you only have space in your suit for two. I have an array of lengths and sizes. Not all of them slot easily into your suit—they’re from earlier expeditions—but they should be fairly easy to carry. My suggestion is to stock your suit, then take one or two handhelds, and use those up first.”

  Gyre reloaded the slots on her suit with the appropriate spools before looking through the other options. There was a small handheld spool, easy to manage; she set that aside as well.

  “There are also silt screws, for if you can’t find a good place to attach a line. General practice is to do what you did in the first sump, looping the line around formations to keep it steady, but that might not always be possible. These handle the muck better than climbing bolts, and are faster and easier to place, since they don’t need to take your whole weight. Swap out your climbing bolts to the ones in the cache. Your main bolt drill will work with both.”

  “Can I take both kinds?” Gyre asked, hesitating. “In case there’s dry climbing, or there’s too much muck and no outcroppings?”

  Em thought it over. “Usually I’d tell you to not to split them given your limited carrying capacity, but there should be a small pod in your equipment hump filled with cold-light sticks.”

  “The techs topside mentioned them. Said they were experimental?”

  “Not in design, but in effect. I don’t have data on how things . . . react to them.”

  She didn’t need to say what “things.”

  Tunnelers.

  Gyre nodded and then reached back, running her hand over the various compartments until her screen showed she was above the right one.

  “They’re for an emergency situation where your headlamp and reconstruction no longer work. A suit breach.” Em’s voice was uneasy at the thought, and Gyre tried not to picture that scenario. “But that’s unlikely,” Em said quickly, “and trading them for more equipment to prevent a suit breach is a solid alternative. Move the extra climbing bolts to the small pod, and load the bigger space with the silt screws. I don’t want you running out, and you’ll still have to manually swap back, but it should give you the best of both worlds.”

  “Small price to pay,” Gyre said, opening the compartment catch and thumbing out all the plastic sticks inside. She tucked them into the gear box she’d taken the silt screws out of, then began moving the old bolts over, going slowly and taking inventory as she went.

  She was left with twenty extra once she’d packed the small space. Grudgingly, she put them away.

  Closing the pod on her back and starting the fiddlier work of emptying her bolt drill’s storage chamber and swapping over to the silt screws, she glanced at the pool again. “I shouldn’t trust the old anchors in there, right?”

  “They may not lead in the right direction anymore,” Em confirmed grimly. “There may also be existing line in there, so go slow, and make sure to add those directional markers consistently. I’ll do my best to record where you are on them from what I can see on my camera, but there’s always a chance I’ll miss something, and have an—incorrect calculation of how far you are from safety.”

  Gyre shivered. That had almost killed one of the other cavers on a dive, she remembered.

  Turn back, turn back.

  She ignored it, forcing down the fear and her selfishness, ignoring that they were the reasonable things to feel now.

  She continued inventorying and kitting out. Her adrenaline was up, but not in a helpful way; she was shaking slightly, and nervous of having her back to the pool. Em needed an experienced diver, not—her. Her earlier bravado was once again beginning to fail, leaving her uneasy and vulnerable.

  Maybe she should haul gear. Take another day.

  No—waiting would make it worse. If she was nervous now, how would she feel after a day of just thinking about it? Her options were to do this now or bail, and she was already in it. She was diving today.

  “One last thing,” Em said. She sounded hesitant, almost apologetic.

  Gyre stiffened. “Yeah?”

  “In case you’re trapped, and cut off from me, there are . . . kill switches built into the suit. In case there’s no way out.”

  Trapped in her suit, starving or suffocating, crushed half to death. The images came to mind far too readily, and she forced herself to focus on packing up the unused gear. “Won’t need them.”

  “Hopefully not. But if you do—”

  “This isn’t the time, Em.”

  “It’s the only time.”

  Her HUD shifted, flowing through a sequence of menus slowly enough that she could have tracked how to do it. She did her best to ignore it. The image settled on dosage information of various drugs.

  “Stop,” Gyre said.

  “No. Look. You have options. I recommend an overdose of morphine, but both sedatives will also work if they’re above these volumes.” The numbers flared yellow, throbbed. “Any less and it won’t definitely kill you, or it might make you suffer needlessly. There’s also a way to suffocate yourself. You could just turn off the exchanger fans, but I recommend coming here”—the screen shifted again and Gyre tried to turn away, but of course it followed her, hovering just in front of her eyes—“and using this command to make the suit shunt the helium it uses for your buoyancy sacs into your suit proper. It will displace the air and make for a much easier death.”

  “Stop telling me how to die,” Gyre hissed, her hackles raising at how easily Em could discuss this. Like it was just hitting a switch.

  “I need to know that you know. Things can go wrong in there. Things do go wrong.”

  Gyre growled, then shut down the option menus, clearing her field of view. “Fine. I saw it. I understand. Let’s just get this started.”

  Em didn’t respond. Gyre took that as agreement.

  They ran down a checklist of gear one more time, and then she approached the pool. She found the original anchor at the lip of the pool, and tested it while Em ran confirming diagnostics. It was still strong, so she attached the start of her first short handheld reel to it.

  “No water in the suit this time,” she said.

  “No water,” Em agreed.

  “Diving,” she said.

  “Dive,” Em called back, unable to hide the tightness in her voice.

  Gyre glanced skyward one more time, then slipped into the pool. She sank quickly, the water covering her head, and she kept desperate hold of the line as she turned and oriented herself toward the first passage. Her suit adjusted automatically, extending her small diving fins, switching from air exchange to her rebreather without so much as a shiver.

  The sonar reconstruction she looked out on was clear close to her, but quickly became hazy the farther away she looked. Even though the reconstruction had changed to bright, artificial daylight colors for ease of use, she felt closed in and, almost immediately, lost. It was one thing to embrace tight spaces, but another for there to be no clear way out. Her heart pounded as she looked around. The stone surrounding her protruded and fell away in odd formations, tunnels leading in three or four directions off the shaft she was in, and in the distance she could see overlays of what she assumed were currents, different-colored explosions of lines mapping water flow that wavered and disappeared every so often as her sensors couldn’t locate them. Flashes of white danced across her screen, old line flapping through the maelstrom.

  “Sorry for the chaos. It’s the silt,” Em said. “I’ve improved the sonar capabilities of the suit
over the last few years, but it’s harder to change the laws of physics. The silt bounces sound back and confuses the sensors.”

  “I get it,” Gyre said, her suit’s buoyancy returning to neutral as she came in line with a passage that branched off directly ahead of her. That odd weightless feeling was almost worse than sinking. She turned herself slightly, but it took a forceful motion, one that immediately made part of her view shudder as her turning upset the silt flowing around her.

  She closed her eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them wide as she realized she could be moving without even feeling it. She was right where she’d left herself, but she clung to the wall all the same. Apparently, her panic at Camp Five had made things seem a lot easier than they really were.

  Or maybe they were that easy. Maybe she was just letting herself get spooked. She rolled her shoulders, trying to relax.

  “Drive a second anchor bolt here,” Em said. “A hard one, not looping it on anything. That way, if the line were to break up at the surface for any reason, you’d still know this is the exit.”

  For any reason. “God damn it, Em,” she muttered, but prepared to drive the bolt.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said, then flinched as the sound wave from the drill made everything ripple and shift. She ran her line through the anchor as she waited for it to still, tying it off securely like she had up at the surface. Just in case. Just in case the cache stealer comes back and takes my gear and I need to pump myself full of drugs instead of dying a slow—

  Why would Em say something like that? It didn’t do either of them any good. Muscles tense, she used the bolt as a leverage point to turn herself back to the cave.

  “Which tunnel am I going down?”