“Why did he kill all those people in the camp? Really, don’t tell me that we somehow provoked him.”
“No. I think that somebody infuriated him much, much earlier, maybe at the time when Absolute was still inhabited.”
Diana, Gordon, and Nelly looked at each other a bit confused.
“You’re saying that the Being has been here for thousands of years?” Diana let out her surprise.
“Yes. And I also think that he was the main cause of their downfall.”
“Why do you think so?”
“The whole time I have asked myself why the Anskers gave us this planet. Now I know. They wanted to rid themselves of him regardless of the richness of this planet’s very rare minerals and metals, not to mention the archaeological finds and potential to discover unusual hitherto unknown objects. Who knows how many of their explorers and soldiers disappeared here. They controlled this area for thirty years after they took it from the Menars.”
Diana shook a thin layer of sand with her boots, “And you are convinced that they gave us this rotten apple?”
“Is there any doubt? A comparatively lesser potential planet which can be inhabited is more valuable to them than a richer one ruled by a crazy Being like this one, who doesn’t like anybody coming to its planet.”
“You think this is His planet!” Diana wanted to protest.
“You think it is not? He has studied us for ten days, a new species which appeared on his planet after a long time. We probably are interesting to him.” Vera drew her legs together, leaned her head on her knees and added, scared, “If you haven’t noticed, there aren’t any other creatures on this planet. Isn’t it a little unnatural?”
“True, I haven’t seen even a tiny insect either, and yet the planet is capable of hosting a swarm of land and sea creatures.”
“I think that the Being has destroyed all that lived, walked, flew or swam…” She stopped for a moment and added, resigned, “Why?”
“I think that it is totally crazy,” Gordon claimed.
Vera closed her eyes. “Crazy, but he is looking for us, so I’m not that sure that we’ll be able to get out of this trap…”
“Shut up, Vera!” Diana shouted, “I don’t want to lose hope just because he seems to control things beyond our abilities. Besides, he can’t find us while we’re in our space suits. We have a small advantage there.”
When Vera looked up, Diana noticed they were full of tears, so she sat next to her and embraced her gently.
“I didn’t want you’ll to despair our situation. It’s just me,” she said, sobbing.
“It’s all right, Vera. I didn’t have to flare up like that either.”
After that they sat in silence, everyone engrossed in their own thoughts.
Diana was upset and shocked too but didn’t want to express it to her team. She was their leader and had to do something. She, asked Vera “You said that he lives somewhere in Absolute.”
Vera moved away from Diana and, wiping her tears lowered her visor, leaned against the hull and shook her head. Vera looked afraid, but she clearly didn’t want to allow herself to be gripped by panic and the ever so unpleasant feeling of weakness. She looked at Diana and said, “We should run as far away from this city as we can. I’m sure we mustn’t stay near him. The Being could be strongest in Absolute. I hope the further we get from the city, the more his will might weaken.”
Diana went to fetch the planet map and looked at the place of their crash. They were about a thousand miles deep in the middle of the desert. Southward there was the Mauta Lake, and northwards the large Hadal Ocean between them and a small continent, Jasek, in which were the ruins of the city of Absolute. In front of them, eastwards were almost a thousand more miles of desert. She gathered all of them to see the map.
“Come closer.” She pointed out their position on the map with a finger. “Here we are. We mustn’t go back, and we can’t go south or west – the ground is too stony and unsafe for walking – so all that’s left is to cross the desert.”
“That’s a thousand-odd mile!” Gordon stressed loudly, nervously stepping from one leg to the other.
“There is no another choice.”
He looked at the map again and thumped the hull of the transporter with his hand. “I know you are making sense yet would want you to be wrong. Anyways, only if we want were a bit deeper in the desert.”
Diana shrugged her shoulders. “What do you think we should take along? This trip will be long and grueling.”
“We’ll have to take all the food we have, and even then I can’t be sure that it will do. Water is no problem – all of us have a water collector which I prepared before we set off.”
“It means that we’ll have to reduce food consumption!”
“We eat only one meal a day. As Vera told us, there is nothing to hunt and eat on this planet.”
“How… How long will it take us to cross the desert?” stammered Nelly, who hadn’t uttered a word since Aron had been killed.
“A fair question, Nelly, but I don’t think the answer would be encouraging,” Gordon responded. “We’ll have to walk for a month at least.”
“That means that we’ll have to walk about 30 miles a day,” Nelly concluded with disbelief in his voice.
“Maybe even a mile more. We’ll march only at night, and by day we’ll hide from the sun so as not to boil in the space suits. It’s our only solution unless our rescuers find us and take us off this planet.”
Vera sighed and said, “Don’t hope too much, Gordon. I’m not that sure that the Being will allow anybody to take us away from here. And if they come they will first go to the camp, and there they won’t have a chance.”
Gordon was furious that she always contradicted him, but it was true anyway. “And what about sending the first signal right now?”
Diana stopped him abruptly, “I think it won’t go. We all saw what he did at the pilot’s cabin in that transporter and believe me nobody would survive if he did the same here. Besides, we have barely thirty transmitters.”
Gordon snapped, “It would be a miracle if anybody received the signal in the first place. Morse is totally outdated.”
Diana found it difficult to hide her anger but understood that it was the circumstance more than the person that led to the comment. She answered him, “It may be out of date, but it’s still used in the Army and still learned at military academies. Do you have any better suggestions or just trying to judge things around?”
“Nothing clever, but if we are lucky, maybe the Being won’t pick that signal.”
“We don’t know that – I think he’ll detect it soon. We have to be far from the signal if we want to survive his fury. What is the farthest that we can activate the signal from?”
“I think five miles.”
“That will do, I guess.”
“As of now, let’s get some rest and let the storm calm down. The transporter is not a bad place to be in.”
*
For two days they didn’t move from the transporter. They soon discovered that the worst thing of all was relieving oneself because the space suit wasn’t appropriate for that. They had to take off the upper part of the space suit completely and therefore be under the constant danger of exposing themselves to the Being. Fortuitously, the toilet in the rear part of the transporter was in a good state, and they could use it, but nobody could stay there too long because it might be fatal for all of them.
When the storm finally stopped, they packed and readied all the intact equipment and only then did they even attempt to leave. The pilot’s cabin was buried deep under layers of desert sand, and when they opened the hatch, the sand poured like a river into the inner room of the transporter. So, they closed it and were lucky to find the rear door to be covered with a thinner layer of sand, and they used that door and were soon out. They enjoyed the open air and the sun after two days of being trapped inside the transporter.
T
he space suit could endure temperatures of 100˚C, but not for long hours. Just after two hours in the hot sun, the suit was unbearable. Inbuilt safety system started to warn about overheating, and that’s when they took shelter inside the transporter again. Like Gordon had said, spending longer in the desert sun could be risky for the suits. They needed some safe shelter during the day, so they brought with them a spare tent which they had used in Absolute. It could cover four adults and was of a solid material that could endure those added layers of sand were they caught in a storm. They also carried navigation instruments from the camp so that they continued moving in the right direction.
After sunset they set off across the desert, proceeding across the sandy surface which spread for hundreds of miles. The first night they crossed about 18 miles and were totally exhausted, so they set up the tent which was like a punishment considering the tiresome journey. The sun was already high when they set up and covered the tent with layers of sand. So, jaded, they crept into its innermost room and slept for a long part of the day.
When Diana woke up, Gordon was already sitting up and meditating. She slowly raised her body to a sitting position so as not to disturb him, but he opened his eyes. “Good morning. How have you slept?”
Diana stretched and yawned. “Good morning. Considering the circumstances is not that bad, although the suit chafed me a little.”
“I have to admit that I didn’t sleep well.”
“Did you have bad dreams?”
Gordon’s face darkened, he quietly sighed and replied, “Yes, the scene from the camp were still in my head.”
“You aren’t alone, but it is time to forget and move on.”
He looked at Diana with a sad expression on his face. He was trying to be tough, but he was only a scientist, a researcher of a lost civilization. The death that was so unreal while excavating and studying the graves seemed to be within arm’s reach, bloody and terribly real now. He was overwhelmed by the thought of the massacre and the dismembered bodies. “It’s easy to say that. I had hoped to get all those pictures out of my head through meditation, but they are always there, and they hit me like a fist in the solar plexus.”
“I have to acknowledge that it isn’t that simple…” Diana reached for the water collector and took a gulp, to soothe her parched throat which was as dry as the seemingly insurmountable desert. She wanted to change the subject and dispel his thoughts about the massacre. “I wanted to ask you something else.”
“Go ahead, shoot!”
“When do you think is the most appropriate time to send the initial signal?”
“Last night we crossed only 18 miles and I doubt that we’ll cross any better this evening. This walking is exhausting for us, so I’d suggest sending a message from where we are now. The next message we’ll send in three days, to show them at the same time which direction we’re proceeding in.”
Diana stopped for a moment and thought about what he had said. “That would be sensible. So they can follow us through the desert.”
“Only if they notice the signals…”
“They will. You don’t have to worry about that.”
He laughed and closed his eyes. “I’m more worried about this heat.”
“We’ll have to get used to it, whether we like it or not.”
*
The afternoon heat became almost unbearable. The temperature in the overalls was rising more and more, although the cooling system was working normally. They had to drink more water out of the peculiar water containers, which made things worse because they were sweating rather a lot.
After some time Nelly, whose face was covered with sweat, said, “I wouldn’t mind a bath now!” They all laughed, but she retorted angrily, “Why are you laughing? I can smell myself in this suit, and I’m not able to do anything about it.”
“This is nothing compared to what is awaiting us, and I doubt that you are gonna have a bath before they take us on this shit planet,” Gordon commented.
“I know, but I can dream about it for sure.”
Diana laughed and praised Nelly. “We can barely imagine it. And the first thing I will do when we get out of this place is taking a cold shower.”
“That sounds nice!” Vera laughed. “I’d rather choose a massaging Jacuzzi bath, and I’ll throw in all the fragrance available and enjoy to my heart’s content; not to mention have every single pore cleaned.”
Gordon shook his head and then he closed his eyes getting back to his meditation. “Now that all of you have told your wishes allowed me to let I share mine. At the moment I’m thinking about a swift little mountain river which flows past my house. As a child, I used to bathe in it. First I would wet my neck and wrists and then I would throw myself into it. That was an experience. Every hair on my body would stand upright in the cold.”
“You’re missing bathing in an open cold mountain river?” Diana asked with a touch of surprise.
“Yes.”
“But I prefer a Jacuzzi bath.”
“Diana, I think that’s more of a choice and taste. Cold is mine warm is yours.”
*
Tears swelled when Diana remembered that chat. There was nobody anymore. She missed them so much. Occurrences of the preceding days were welling forth, and now she could only talk to the ghosts in her head.
Diana remembered the instance when they activated the primary transmitter in the hope that somebody would get their Mayday signal. They had a distance of almost four miles from the transmitter when Vera, who was at the rear, noticed the storm and shouted, panic-stricken, “The Being has noticed the signal!”
They all looked at the sandy tempest which was swiftly passing across the horizon toward the place where the transmitter was. Gordon was the first to speak up.
“Now we know that the transmitter is working.”
Diana with resignation in her voice said, “I hope that somebody still got the signal.”
“That’s what we’re all hoping…” Vera added with alarm, “...but now we have to speed up – the edge of the tempest could get us.”
“I agree with you, Vera.” Diana adjusted her knapsack and set off to the place that they had marked on the map. They were at a safe distance from the storm and before morning they arrived to position the next camp. In that part of the desert high, black stone cliffs protruded from the sand detritus like bared fingers. After a brief search, they found a deep cave under a large boulder where there was sufficient space for accommodation and sleeping during the day. They were thankful to God that they didn’t have to put up a tent.
When they took off their equipment Vera started jumping in place. “I have to relieve myself. My bladder will burst.”
Diana with a smile is looking at Vera, as she nervously jumped said, “Go to the end of the cave.”
Vera with a satisfied look on her face, watching the walls of the small cave and with fascination in his voice said, “I’ll go outside, I want to look around. These rocks are fascinating.”
Diana wasn’t sure how much time had passed from the time Vera went out to when they heard the scream. They ran out of the cave, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. After a short search, they found the place where she had fallen down; tracks in the sand ended at a wide hole near the cave. The sand around the opening was still flowing in slowly, dripping into the depths like water flow at a cliff. Diana knelt near the openings, crawled to the edge, looked tensely into the darkness beneath her and shouted loudly, “Vera! Vera! Are you all right?”
From the depths, she heard Vera’s barely discernible voice. “Not quite well… be careful where ahh.”
She turned to Gordon and ordered, “Bring the ropes from the equipment and the first aid box! I have to get down into the hole.”
He ran to fetch the equipment. Diana came nearer to the brink and asked Vera loudly, “Are you able to move?”
Only a soft whisper reached her from the depths, “Yes, it hurts like the Devil himself…”
Behind her, Gordon appeared with a rope and a first aid box in his hand. Diana looked around to find where it would be most appropriate to tie the rope and then she pointed with a finger. “Tie the rope around the big rock over there. I think it is solid enough.”
Gordon handed her a belt and buckles for descending and added, “I also brought two battery flashlights – it’s pretty dark down there.”
Diana nodded and with a grateful voice, stated, “Very good; I totally forgot about that. When you tie the rope, I’ll go down first.”
“It’s all right.”
While he was tying the rope, Nelly asked Diana softly, “What am I going to do? I don’t want to be just an onlooker.”
“Get bandages and the spray injector for the pain. I am sure Vera must be in a lot of pain and would need it.”
Nelly brought her the first aid and Diana put the box on her shoulder. Then she threw the rope into the hole and slowly started descending through the opening onto the darkness. Down below she could see a large oval shaped cave; the hole that made was in the domed ceiling, which had collapsed. Diana lit the torch light and five yards beneath she spotted Vera. She was lying on her back immobile on the uneven ground. From her chest protruded the tops of stalagmites and a puddle of blood spread around the place where she was lying.
Diana gasped in shock. “Dear God!”
Vera slowly opened her eyes and asked, hardly audible, “Is it… that bad?”
Quickly Diana descended to her, unbuckled the equipment and at once injected the counter pain spray into her shoulder because it was the only thing that she could do at that moment. Then with a trembling voice, Diana replied, “Yes. It is bad.”
Diana gently stroked her hand and then she stood up and shouted toward the opening above, over which Gordon and Nelly were peering, “Gordon, I am down. Hurry up; I need you!”
While he was descending Diana caught Vera’s ice-cold hand and, tears gliding, she asked, “What happened?”
Vera screamed with pain and coughed out a little blood. “It was so quick… I lost the ground beneath me…” She looked at Diana with a painful expression in her bloodshot eyes. “No. There is no help for me, Take care of them…”
Godeena: SF Novel Page 16