Was I crazy, coming halfway across the galaxy to physically explore a world I could quietly and safely study from behind a desk? I’d stopped asking myself that with any seriousness before I’d even gone into cryosleep on the Earth-side of the wormhole. I might be crazy, but I’d never felt so alive. Thank goodness Shayna had talked me into this.
She was waiting for me at the entrance to the Nithon cave system. The creek that had created the cave entrance rumbled and roared on the west side of the massive opening in the ground. “You ready to start earning your keep?”
The first of the geologists was already attaching her climbing harness to the second drop line. It was at least a twelve-meter plunge to the cavern floor below where the logistics and scouting crews were setting up lights along the subterranean creek bed.
I could be as badass as a geologist. “Sure.”
She held out the titanium carabiner. “I’ll see you down there.”
The carabiner snapped shut with a comfortingly solid click. I wiped my gloves on the back of my pants and took hold of the heavy cable. “I’m ready.”
I tried to focus on making short, controlled hops down the side of the cavern wall, but I kept getting distracted. Every place I looked, some new, never-before-seen species clamored for my attention. Long swags of some black pseudomoss that could have doubled as lace. Outcroppings of pink tufts like pincushions growing out of the stone. My foot caught on a stone, and a group of things like winged snakes burst from the wall, flapping wildly for safety.
I hit bottom too hard, but it didn’t matter. What I’d seen in that five-minute drop could inspire a lifetime’s worth of scientific articles. The ecosystem down here had developed into something wondrous.
The cavern had probably started as a sinkhole, a tiny opening in the ground that had grown larger and larger as a local creek began to chew its way down the side. Now, hundreds or thousands of years later, the hole in the ground was big enough to allow plants and animals a protected environment. A limited amount of sunlight reached the bottom, just enough for an oddball assortment of flora and fauna to thrive.
A hand clapped me on the shoulder. I spun around, my heart pounding. But it was only Jay Bara, outlined in the sudden flare of work lights. “That’s just the beginning of the weird.” He jerked his chin toward the dark opening on the far side of the cavern. “You want to check it out?”
Shayna landed beside me. “That’s what we’re here for.”
Bara gave a gentlemanly bow. “After you, milady.”
I had to hurry to catch up with Shayna.
“I don’t like that guy,” she whispered. “He’s nothing like he was back in D.C.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Jay Bara I sat with was a real outgoing guy. Loved taking pictures, constantly updating his social media sites.” She broke off.
The scout posted at the entrance of the tunnel scanned our badges. “Headlamps, please.” She waved us into the dark passage.
“People change, I guess.”
“He didn’t have a beard then, either. And he hated vapes,” she whispered back at me.
I tapped my headlamp, starting up the LED. “Maybe we should keep an eye on him.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“This place is amazing.” I didn’t mean to change the subject, but I had to pause and absorb the dramatic change from the open cavern to the enclosed tunnel.
The cavern was lush, an entire range of life supported by the limited sunshine and water from the surface. In the tunnel, we stood in absolute darkness. On Earth, few lifeforms made their homes in these spaces, most clustered around areas where cracks and fissures allowed light and moisture to penetrate the depths. Our headlamps dazzled off mineral formations between the columns of rough basalt.
The geologists in our party had come here to look for rare earth minerals to make our company a fortune. I had come to support Songheuser Corp’s biological interests. Big companies used to fight to keep biologists away from their work until they figured out that gene patents could add billions to their bottom line. I felt bad, working for a corporation that only cared about biological diversity if it made them money. But not bad enough to miss my chance to make a mark on history.
“The Writing Wall should be about half a klick through this tunnel.” Blue flashed as Shayna checked the communications unit buckled on her wrist for a map.
We fell silent, picking our way over the rough ground. In a spot or two, we had to turn sideways to fit, and the crushing sense of the vast weight of the stone around me made me ball my hands into fists.
And then we were there. The tunnel’s ceiling had climbed higher and higher without us even noticing, and a milky glow showed a good eight to ten meters above us—pallid, barely visible daylight from the world above. Sunlight invigorated the space. Where the tunnel had smelled only of dust and dry rock, here the chemical tang of guano and plants punctuated the air. A trickle of moisture collected between the tumbled stones that made up the tunnel floor, threads of moss and lichen clustered at the waterline.
Once I saw the wall, though, it held my full attention.
“Amazing,” Shayna breathed.
I was already reaching for my sample bags and forceps. The entire cavern system had been mapped by ground-penetrating radar fifteen years earlier. But the first survey crew had only made it inside the caverns four years ago, and their reports were limited. Nine out of ten surveyors had vanished, and the material the survivor had brought back was sketchy at best. But the biologist on their team had taken initial scrapings of the Writing Wall, and the company had brought me here to explain.
I activated my comm unit. “The mycelium runs across the surface of the wall, forming a dense mat.” I moved closer to the black scribbles running over the stone. There was layer after layer of the stuff, the twists and turns of each black thread offset from the others in a strangely holographic effect. I turned the unit, so it could capture video of the phenomenon. “The complexity of the construction definitely gives it the appearance of some kind of writing.”
There was something eerie about the way the mycelial strands echoed the forms of ancient Earth languages. It was too easy to see Sanskrit or Hindu in those twisting threads. I wanted to keep my objective professional stance, but the pressing walls of the tunnel only made me more nervous. What had it been like for the first surveying crew, down here with no backup and no satellite connection to the rest of humanity?
“The original team claimed it moved when they’d shone different kinds of light on it.” Bara’s headlamp momentarily blinded me before he dialed it down.
“I suppose that could happen.” I wanted to sound like the confident scientist, but I was well aware of the way of my voice wobbled. I cleared my throat. “There are certainly plants with phototropic responses.”
“The team was probably just freaked,” Shayna disagreed. “It had to be creepy down here, especially when they were part of such a small crew.”
“You know, the provincial government has never officially closed the files on the team’s disappearance. To this day, no one is sure what happened to them.” He grinned.
I wasn’t sure what made me more uncomfortable—what he was saying or what Shayna had said about him earlier. His round face no longer looked cherubic or Santa-ish. I wished he hadn’t followed us.
“Oh, shut up,” Shayna snapped. “You’re just trying to scare us.”
Bara laughed. “Is it working?”
“I need to get to work,” I announced. “I’m going to take some flash photos, so you might want to cover your eyes.”
I spent the next ten minutes photographing the wall from as many angles as I could manage. Of course, I didn’t believe that the surveying team had actually seen the mycelium move—but if it did, I wanted to document and measure every micrometer of change. I’d want to bring back some other light sources later to run more tests.
“It’s time to head back to the cavern,” Shayna reminded me. “The on
site lab should be nearly set up.” She began moving back into the narrow confines of the main tunnel.
“Are you really sure it’s just mycelium?” Bara asked.
I pocketed the samples I had taken. “What else could it be?”
“It so looks like writing.”
“Well, it’s underground on a moon that’s never shown any sign of intelligent life. If it was writing, who was going to read it?” On that note, I squeezed into the tunnel after Shayna.
“Us,” he said.
I couldn’t help wondering what an alien species would have to tell a group of colonizing invaders and wished I hadn’t.
* * *
Shayna had to stand watch that night, which was fine because I was too excited to sleep. I sat in our tent reviewing my notes and photos while I waited for her to wrap up her duties. The leather birds made the occasional soft creaking noise, something like a sleepy crow might make, more soothing than eerie. While our orientation instructors had assured us the territorial creatures were harmless creatures whose only dangerous behavior was occasionally dive-bombing those near their nests, this was the first time I wasn’t worried about the presence of the leather bird flock. Tonight, I felt as if they were another watch, set by Huginn to keep an eye on us.
A louder squawk jolted me from my work. I checked the clock on my comm unit. 00:14. Shayna might have spent some time in the latrines, but her watch had been over for nearly fifteen minutes. I tidied my side of the tent, slipping on my coat and boots without really thinking about it. 00:20. Something was definitely wrong.
I slipped past the scout on duty, who seemed intent on the pale glow of his comm unit, and began to follow the trail we’d made that morning. We weren’t forbidden from leaving camp, but it certainly wasn’t encouraged. The first survey crew sprang to mind, nine out of ten dead.
Shit. Where the hell was Shayna?
Something burst under my foot. I froze. If it was a red death puffball, I was as dead as those surveyors.
I aimed my comm unit’s light at the ground and sagged with relief when the light glinted off a foil food pouch. The smell of peaches and cinnamon competed with the acrid smell of crushed bracken. Peach cobbler. Shayna’s favorite.
I hurried down the trail, trying to stick to the well-trampled middle. The horsetail trees here seemed wider and taller than back at the camp, overhanging the path as if to swallow it up. Why would she be out here?
My light caught a smear of something wet and black on a tree trunk. Blood.
I looked back at camp. Should I go for help or trust that Shayna was the help? She’d served three tours of duty with the marines in Bengoslavia. She carried a gun and a knife, and she knew how to use both of them. And if she lost her gun and her knife, her fists were registered as legal weapons in the state of New California. I realized I was babbling inside my head and took off running. I could call for help after I found Shayna.
I saw them. I walked into a patch of slimy Christ’s fingers plant and had to cover my mouth to keep from shouting. Jay Bara was dragging Shayna behind him, circling the open mouth of Nithon Cavern. She didn’t move.
I felt in my pockets. I had empty plastic sample bags, a pair of forceps, a scalpel for tissue samples. I took the scalpel out of its case and held it like I imagined Shayna held a knife. It felt all too small and insignificant.
The light on my comm unit flickered. Low battery. Shit. I jabbed at the buttons and sent a text to HQ. I had no idea if the watch would even get the message, but I didn’t dare make any noise. The battery icon blinked again, warning me it was done for the night. I turned off the light and followed Bara and Shayna.
Back in undergrad, I’d taken a course on tracking. It was the only B I got in four years, and since then, I hadn’t really practiced. My interests lay in plants and fungi, which didn’t usually try to escape. I had learned a little about stealth in the woods, but my every step crackled and snapped like a bowl of puffed quinoa.
Somehow, Bara didn’t seem to notice. He never once looked behind him as he dragged my sister onward through the bracken and mud. He kept the light of his headlamp turned toward the ground, his eyes focused on his feet, his step slow but steadfast. Something seemed to call him onward, a voice I couldn’t hear.
The dull glow of fire—real fire, not a chemical brick or a glowstick—drew both our attention. Bara made a beeline for it. The trickle and drip of water sounded, and I realized a tiny stream ran into the circle of lighted torches. The water spread out over a slab of stone and disappeared into a crevice about the width of my leg.
The location, the crevice, the trickle of water: I knew where we were. The Writing Wall lay below my very feet.
“Come closer, Dr. Smith-Wu.” Bara’s headlamp seared my eyes.
I shielded my face. “You knew I was there.’
“You were always my real target, you know. I chose Shayna as my first offering because I knew she could make trouble for me, but you? You I need.” He left Shayna to grab my hands. He tossed the scalpel into the undergrowth.
“Shayna knew you weren’t the real Jay Bara.”
He smiled as he wound a strip of plastic surveying tape around my wrists. “True. My cousin Jay was a good enough fellow, but his best features were his security clearance and his uncanny resemblance to his favorite cousin Mike.” His face went into a mask of concern. “‘Oh, poor Mike,’” he drawled, his voice a mockery of concern. “‘A librarian. Isn’t that quaint? How will he ever support himself?’”
“You’re a librarian?”
He shoved me hard enough to knock my legs out from under me. “I might have had to scramble to find work, but I know how to find knowledge well enough. And the things I’ve learned! Why, I learned that the new world everyone’s so excited to develop is the place we’ve been seeking for centuries.”
The stress on the word we caught my attention. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“People who know. People who’ve read the right books. People who see that all humanity is a pawn in a game played by gods.”
“Crazy people.”
He kicked me in the side. “Educated people.” He hunkered down, so his eyes could meet mine. The glare from his headlamp was nearly unbearable. “When I first started at Miskatonic, I didn’t know anything, either. But then I became a librarian’s aide. And that librarian opened my eyes to the truth.”
I risked a quick glance at Shayna. She was breathing, right? She was just knocked out?
He jumped to his feet. “Think about it. A wormhole just happened to appear at the edge of our galaxy, just where it was predicted we’d find the dark planet of Yuggoth. The wormhole led us right to Huginn. And what’s the dominant kingdom of life on Huginn? Fungi. If this were a story, you’d say it was too conveniently plotted.”
“If this was a story, I’d be played by a mixed-martial artist, and I’d break your nerdy little neck.” I aimed a kick at his leg and missed. “What do you want me and Shayna for?”
“Oh, I had to get her out of my way, and I’m sure the Great Ones will appreciate her as a meal. But you . . . you understand fungi. You’re going to talk to the wall for me.”
“Fungi doesn’t talk. It doesn’t write, and it doesn’t make wormholes to lure humans into visiting it!”
He grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked me sideways. “Listen and learn.”
My face ground into the rough basalt. I could smell the cool air of the tunnel below, the acrid funk of the mycelium. For a moment, all was still. A soft rustling began. It reminded me of the sounds the leather birds’ wings made, that sound like a sheet of nylon rubbing against itself or an eraser moving over a scribbled sheet of paper. It came from below.
My headlamp-dazzled eyes also detected a glimmer of light.
I almost forgot the cruelty of Bara’s grip on my head. Far down below me and just at the edge of my field of vision, a faint phosphorescent turquoise light bobbed and flickered.
“What are you?” I whispered.
The light
moved until it stood directly beneath the crevice. It was bigger than I thought, nearly two meters, and it moved in a shambling lurch. There were bioluminescent fungi, I knew, but I’d never seen any in person and certainly not in a fungus so large. Or mobile. Jesus fucking Christ, a mobile fungi!
Part of its glowing body extended, burrowing into the thick mat of mycelium that Bara had insisted was writing. Another part of it reached out, grabbing higher up.
“You see it, don’t you?” Bara hissed in my ear. “Talk to it! Tell it I’m here to serve its greatness!”
I couldn’t speak. The glowing figure pulled itself higher up on the wall. What might have been its face turned toward me. There were no eyes, no mouth. But beneath the blue-green glow, dark threads twisted and scribbled. My mouth went dry.
“Let go of my sister, asshole.”
Shayna’s voice cut through the mysticism of the moment. Bara gave a shriek of pain and let go of me.
I rolled away from the crevice.
Bara staggered to his feet, clutching his side. “Not dead yet, Shayna?” He grabbed one of the torches from the ground. “Gotta fix that.”
He charged toward her. I struck out my heel, connecting with his calf. He didn’t fall, but he stumbled into the bracken, his torch swinging wildly. The needles of the nearest horsetail tree hissed and sizzled.
“I’m going to mess you up,” Shayna warned him.
Then the horsetail caught fire. Flames shot up its trunk, and the needles exploded in tiny silicate bursts. Minute splinters drove into my hands and face. I rolled into a ball. Huginn’s dry season had only been underway for two weeks, but the needles on the trees were the driest things in the entire forest.
A wind roared with the slapping of dry wings as an entire flock of leather birds streaked down out of the sky. I peered at them through my fingers. The flames lit up the seams of their bellies, dark slashes against their fire-stained flesh. They fell upon Jay Bara like mother bears defending their cubs.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Shayna ordered, grabbing me by the arm.
Ride the Star Wind: Cthulhu, Space Opera, and the Cosmic Weird Page 24