The Luminous Dead

by Caitlin Starling

  She didn’t feel like talking either.

  Leaving the tunnel, she left her line in but studded it with markers that she and Em agreed would mean “nothing this way” for if she needed to double back. She moved slowly, pausing to let the scanners do their work in constructing the chamber from multiple angles. Her muscles appreciated the break, though they would have appreciated a massage more. Still, her brain was catching up with her weightlessness, and the disorientation of moving in three dimensions so freely was fading.

  Surveying the rest of the chamber, she mentally checked off four of the tunnels as—probably, unless something had shifted—already mapped. That left only a few new options, two of which were across the chamber from where she was. Both led down, and started from a short, common branch.

  “I’m going to lay line to the path I’m looking at,” she said.

  “All right.”

  Em was growing more and more nervous. Gyre wished she had the bravado left to tell her to buck the fuck up, but the words felt ashen on her tongue. Em’s worry was adding to her own stress, her own nerves. If they weren’t careful, they’d start spiraling into full panic together.

  Gyre began the methodical work of swimming closer, moving along the bottom of the chamber. She could feel the currents plucking and pushing at her back as she went, but they were all weak here, and she lessened her buoyancy until she had the strong tendency to sink.

  It took fifteen minutes to reach the short branch, laying line as she went. Looking in, she could see the markers for strong currents, and she hesitated. Everything was a mess through there, and it wasn’t much bigger than two people. No room to tack back and forth like she had on the way in. “Do you think that they’ll cancel each other out on me, with enough weight?” she asked.

  “It’s—possible,” Em said. “Definitely possible. But you can turn back for the day. Or try one of the low-probability passages.”

  “No, I want to see,” Gyre said. The truth was, she didn’t want to see. She was tired, and it was daunting, knowing that the currents could shift and the tunnel could lead anywhere—or nowhere. That she could get stuck. But she also didn’t trust herself to get back in the water the next day. And she wanted to get a closer look at the tunnels; the floors seemed to wave back and forth in the current. It wasn’t silt. Algae? It was the first sign of life she’d seen in this sump. After placing her anchor at the mouth of the branch, she swam in slowly, drawing close enough to get a better look.

  The floor was covered in small, branching things that looked deep, translucent brown on her readout. She passed her hand over a patch, and they reacted, pulling back.

  “Some kind of algae. Keep moving.”

  “It’s the first we’ve seen, though,” Gyre said. “Shouldn’t it have been in the stiller parts?”

  “Possibly. I—huh.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re not in water anymore.”

  “Uh. I’m pretty sure I am.”

  “You’re—you’re in water, but it’s not freshwater anymore. Or salt water. There’s a host of other chemicals you don’t usually see down there. The suit isn’t equipped to read them all, but it might be what the algae’s living off of, and why we’re just seeing it now.”

  Gyre frowned. “I don’t get it. It was just water when your parents were down here, right?”

  “Yes. Which could mean this passage doesn’t go anywhere, and is just eroding some mineral bed further in. Either way, Gyre, your suit isn’t rated for it. You need to turn back.”

  “Are there any negative effects from it?”

  “Right now? Not yet. But without more data, and without bringing up a sample to the surface so my lab can analyze it, I can’t predict—”

  “Em, we both know this is one of the only sections you haven’t tried yet. I’ll have to go through it at some point.” I either go in now, or not at all.

  She couldn’t make that decision for herself, not when she was in the same water as three dead cavers, as Hanmei. As Laurent.

  Gyre waited for Em to do her calculations, not sure what conclusion she wanted her handler to land on. The suit wasn’t showing any signs of failure; if it was an immediate death sentence, they’d have warning signs by now. But Em had seemed nervous about risking Gyre’s life, ever since she returned at Camp Six.

  If Em could decide Gyre’s safety was more important than an answer, what did that mean?

  “You’re willing to continue?” Em asked, keeping her voice studiedly neutral.

  It was a coward’s answer, but clear enough. Em was still Em. “Just tell me if my suit starts degrading,” she said. “I’ll pull out immediately. I do want to be able to get out of here, after all.”

  “Right,” Em said tightly.

  Gyre nodded, then managed a smile as much for herself as for Em. “Hey—we could be close to the end. Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Trust me. I’ve never died on a mission yet.”

  Em snorted. “You’ve never been on an actual mission.”

  “Yeah, but I also haven’t died on one.”

  Gyre’s smile strengthened, and she kicked up slightly to bring herself closer to the branch point. Neither option looked easier than the other. Both were just as tight, and the currents were already tugging at her suit.

  “Flip a coin?” she asked.

  “Gyre.”

  “Heads is the left branch.”

  Silence. Then the soft clink of a coin on the table. “You’re going right,” Em said.

  Gyre nodded and turned that way. She headed for the pushing side of the current, though it was only as wide as two-thirds the width of her body. She did her best to narrow down her profile, swimming mostly with her legs, arms pressed out before her. She made it several meters up the passage, the current tearing at her, before she couldn’t bear the pressure on the crown of her head. There was no handhold for her to cling to, but the passage was straight. No risk of a ledge smashing her brains out if she let go.

  So she let go.

  The current pushed her back toward the algae foyer. “Let’s try the other one,” Em said. Gyre opened her mouth to agree, swimming toward the left branch.

  Then the suction current from behind her caught her up in it.

  Before she could react, she was in the right-hand tunnel again, the water pulling her backward, faster and faster.

  She shouted, twisting, trying to spread herself out and catch the pushing current again. “Em, I need weight!” she said, and she could feel her suit grow heavier, but the current was only growing stronger. A few meters in, the ejecting current ceased to exist, leaving only the inexorable drag. She jerked her arms and legs in as the passage hooked to one side, curling into a ball and covering her head as she struck the wall, rolling and bouncing along it. Pain blossomed in her shoulder and back, and then she was free of the rock again, just long enough for her to lift her head.

  “Gyre!” Em shouted. “Shelf!”

  She was rocketing toward one, where the passage hooked up suddenly and fanned out into a thin vent. “Buoyancy!”

  “Won’t help! Get ready!”

  On instinct, she kicked with the current and angled herself up, and when the turn came, she flowed with the water around the shelf, chest scraping over the rock and slowing her progress—but her suit wasn’t breached. She felt her line catch on the overhang, tug, and snap away. She shot through the vent.

  The current lessened.

  Her head spun, and she fought down the bile trying to rise in her stomach. Her body was shaking, and all she could hear was the pounding of her pulse in her ears. She couldn’t see anything, and she thrashed, scrubbing her hands over her helmet. “Em? Em?”

  She couldn’t hear her own voice. Blind, she twisted in nothingness. She reached out in every direction and felt nothing except the light buffeting off the current behind her.

  I have to stay put. No. I have to get to air. No. I have to—

  I have to—

  She was g
oing to die.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gyre cried out, a wordless howl, and she kicked, swimming hard in whatever direction she was pointed in. Em had been right all along. Everybody died. This entire project was cursed, and even though she’d thought she was in control, that she’d been smart and known her fears and judged the risk and made her own choices, she’d been wrong. She was going to die. She was going to—

  Her hand spasmed, reached out without a conscious thought. Her fingers brushed rock.

  It was jagged, broken, and she clung to it, urged on by the motors of her suit. Em. Em was controlling her suit. The connection hadn’t been broken, and she shuddered, hauling herself close to the wall and closing her eyes. Deep breaths, she told herself, and the pounding in her head began to lessen. If Em could control her suit, could see this rock wall, then that meant it couldn’t be the sensors. Maybe it was only the display. Which meant the headlamp should still work. She lifted her head to toggle the light, then realized she could see without it.

  “Gyre!”

  Em’s voice was clear and loud in her ears. Gyre bit back a sob of relief. “I’m here,” she whispered.

  “Thank god,” Em said, then exhaled shakily. “The anxiolytics must be taking effect.”

  “What?”

  “You panicked,” she said. “You wouldn’t stop screaming, and then you went quiet and stopped moving. I was afraid that . . . that . . . well.”

  “The comm line, it cut out,” Gyre said, shaking her head and frowning. “The display, too. The suit—”

  “Your suit is fine,” Em said. “A few abrasions, but no damage to speak of. You were lucky.”

  “The comm line,” Gyre repeated.

  “It never closed,” Em said gently.

  Gyre twisted in the water, staring around her. There was no roiling silt here to obscure the reconstruction, and no currents to speak of except for a gentle fan behind her, the one that she had felt at her back. Her display was bright and clear. Gyre’s frown deepened. Her thoughts felt foggy. The medication?

  But all the drugs in the world could only dull the throbbing, aching truth.

  “I . . . I can’t swim back out,” she said. I’m going to die.

  Em appeared in the corner of her display, features drawn, expression hollow. Empty. Gyre knew what was coming. No, Em would say. No, you can’t. End of the line. Do you want to suffocate or be sedated?

  But she said nothing, only frowned, canted her head, her shoulders shifting as she typed. “You may not have to,” she said at last. “Turn around.”

  Gyre stared, unmoving.

  “Do it,” Em said.

  Slowly, Gyre twisted, her hand still clasped to the outcrop of stone Em had guided her to.

  She was perched on the edge of a jagged opening, filled with cracked stone and giant, tumbled boulders that the water had yet to take the edge off of. It was maybe a meter wide at its narrowest point, and on the other side the walls appeared to be smooth.

  Curved.

  Gyre pushed off and kicked for the passage. It was exactly the same as the tunnel on the Long Drop, an oblong resting on its side in cross section, and there, a few meters up from the gap in the wall, her display shimmered at the water’s surface. “This is—”

  “Tunneler,” Em confirmed.

  Heart in her throat, Gyre broke the surface of the water, then dragged herself onto the smooth, sloped floor. The incline was almost too steep to lie on, but not quite, and she rolled onto her back, panting and staring at the arched ceiling.

  Tunneler.

  She was too numb, too exhausted, to be afraid.

  Too numb to hope.

  But maybe all she had to do was climb.

  * * *

  She drifted in and out of consciousness, carried away on the wave of anxiolytics Em slowly weaned her off of. On Em’s suggestion, she fumbled through the setup of a feeding, drifted as the paste pulsed into her. From time to time, she could hear Em’s breathing. She didn’t know if that was intentional or not, but it was alternately comforting and intensely irritating.

  When she stirred and flexed one hand, Em cleared her throat. The video feed was off once more, an illusion of some sort of privacy.

  “I’m awake,” Gyre mumbled, and unscrewed the now-spent canister.

  “Good. I have a plan.”

  Climb. That was the plan. Gyre groaned, closing her eyes.

  “There’s a strong chance this route is connected to the path up to the Long Drop,” Em said. “However, even if it is the same tunnel, it may not be passable the whole way up. There’s no way to know if this is the most recent trail it’s left in the area, or if it’s crossed it again and caused a collapse.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Gyre said, bitterness tingeing her voice. Em still sounded so calm. Analytical. Cold, like usual. There was no trace of the vulnerability she’d shown at Camp Six.

  Well, Gyre had failed, hadn’t she? That sump should have taken her to that last chamber, and instead, she’d fucked up and ended up who knew where. If she’d just put in a stronger anchor before she started swimming against those currents . . .

  Gyre made herself roll over, then pushed up onto her hands and knees. It took every inch of her willpower. Her body ached, and the drugs had left her irritated and foggy now that they were mostly out of her system. Without them, she was teetering on the edge of panic again, but she refused to ask for another dose. Refused to descend back into that numbness. Instead, she let the anger of Em breaking her promise about injecting her at all take over.

  It was amazing what being angry at someone for saving your life could do to clear your head.

  “I’m sorry,” Em said. “I hope it takes you home too, but I’ve lost too many people down there. I have to be practical. That’s my job.”

  “Practical,” Gyre parroted back, lips curling into a snarl. “You’ve already written me off, haven’t you?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Why didn’t you just throw the kill switch when I ended up here? When I lost my chance?”

  She hoped that made Em flinch.

  “Because I’m not a murderer, Gyre,” Em said, her voice tight and high now. “Because you’re still alive, and as long as that’s the case, I’m going to do everything in my power to get you through this.”

  “You put me in this, Em! So drop the act.” Gyre balled one hand into a fist and slammed it into the smooth rock below her. “Can’t you just be scared for one minute?”

  “I’m terrified!” Em shot back, and there it was; the stress turned into anger, turned into something honest. “But as far as I see it, I have two options: one, break down and stop being able to help you, or two, be a fucking professional.”

  God, that was refreshing.

  “I suppose one of us has to be,” Gyre said after a beat, and smiled.

  Em replied with a wordless, strangled shout, followed by audible, heavy breathing. Finally, she composed herself enough to say, “I know that you are under unimaginable stress. I know that you thought you were going to die. I’m sorry. I thought you might die too. But you didn’t.”

  Gyre exhaled shakily and then shook her head. “Okay,” she muttered. I’m sorry. She wanted to take Em by the shoulders, shake her, demand that she apologize specifically for every selfish decision that had brought Gyre here. Except Em had given her a way out yesterday. Except maybe none of this would have happened if Gyre had just hauled gear, talked to Em, stopped her that way. Except it had been Gyre who had looked at Jennie Mercer, looked at Isolde on that tape, and decided that she owed something to people she had never met, people who had never been her responsibility.

  And now here she was, facing death, and she’d never get to set this right.

  Her face burned.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Em said. “If I’m right, it’s just a long walk. You can do this.”

  “Shut up,” Gyre whispered, and shoved herself upright.

  She staggered, unsteady on her rubbery legs, a
nd stared up the smooth tunnel.

  “You can rest more,” Em pointed out. “Sleep, if you need to.”

  “It’s just a long walk,” Gyre replied, then took a step. It was like moving a fifty-kilo weight.

  “Use a line.”

  “I don’t need one.” The slope was steep but manageable, smooth but not glasslike. Her next step was a little easier, then the next a little more.

  You know how to do this.

  She sucked in a deep breath, her ribs spreading with it, pressing into the suit carapace. You know how to do this; you’re built for this. One step followed the next, and soon she’d remembered the rhythm, the strain on her chest and her legs, the bob of her head and the sink of her hips. She didn’t need a line.

  Em was quiet for a long time after that, and the only sound was Gyre’s breathing echoing in her helmet. The path ahead of her curved ever so slightly to the left for the first kilometer, then back to the right after that. Aside from that curve and the incline that kept her calves burning with effort, each step was the same as the last. The composition of the rock around her barely changed. It was all tightly compacted, unnatural, as if the walls had been coated with a sealant. The Tunneler, when it swam through stone, must push the rock out of its path into what little space there was between each molecule, each atom. And from that tight compaction came a faint glimmer, the rock compressed into a refractive matrix.

  It lost any magic it held after the first hour.

  Her head felt full of plastic stuffing the longer she walked without something new to see. She cycled through display options, from full brightness to a sickly pink overlay showing porosity—all homogeneous, all unchanging, all the same disgusting color—to just her headlamp. That last setting brought her nerves back in full force, the first time since washing up on the shore of the tunnel that she’d remembered that sensation in Camp Five of being watched, of that paranoia when Em was still checking her blood for signs of intoxication.

  She switched back to full brightness quickly.

  When her shins began to scream from the constant slope, Gyre stopped walking. She stared back at the empty passage below her, curving gently to one side until the walls seemed to merge into each other in her reconstruction. Should she eat again? How long had it been since she’d eaten at the bottom of the slope? How much should she conserve her now-limited supplies? Should she keep moving? Her head ached.