by Barry Kirwan
Kat made it outside in record time. Blake ran over to her.
"What the hell happened? There had better be a damned good reason!"
Rashid dropped down the ladder. "Captain, the solenoid in the thruster power centre fused – we would not have been able to dock or achieve a stable orbit. Luckily the pre-flight checks found it."
"Dammit! But it was fine earlier." Blake turned away to look at the hill-top, toward the cave.
She scrutinized Rashid, but he avoided her gaze, and spoke to Blake. "There must have been a power surge as we started up," Rashid said. "These things happen, and your ship took quite a few knocks on landing."
During that last sentence she thought, but couldn’t be sure, that Rashid’s left eye twitched. But at that moment, Zack emerged from the ship hefting a toolbox down to the ground.
"We’re here another six hours at least, Skip. Why don’t you take Kat with you while Rashid and I finish the repairs? We don’t need her here."
Blake gave his friend a measured, questioning stare. "You’ll be pretty vulnerable out here."
"You mean it’ll be safer inside the cave?"
Blake managed a thread of a smile. "I take your point. You want Kat here and Rashid comes with me?"
Kat’s eyes flicked sideways to Zack, but he replied directly to the open toolbox, where he fished for all manner of tools.
"No, Skip. Too much testosterone for my liking. She’s developed the killer instinct. Might come in handy where you’re headed."
Zack stooped under the Lander’s hull, reaching towards an underside hatch. When Kat turned back to Blake, she encountered a penetrating stare, as if Blake hadn’t really looked at her, hadn’t noticed her, for a long time.
Blake said quietly, "What was that all about?"
She shrugged. She didn’t feel like talking.
"Okay, Kat. Bring an extra rifle and your night goggles. I’ve already got the explosives over there in the bushes."
She walked to the ship to get her gear together, not once looking in Zack’s direction. Just before departing with Blake, she noticed the ground was redder, and the bushes were fewer. The desert had arrived.
Zack and Rashid removed the plating, after twenty minutes of difficult coaxing, revealing the brown carbonized solenoid. "Hot damn!" Zack said. "Well, I guess I’ll leave the rest to you, Rashid. I’m gonna’ go patrol the perimeter."
"Zack, you honor me with your faith in my maintenance aptitudes. But I would indeed benefit from your assistance."
Zack, though, was already heading away from him, limping badly, using the pulse rifle as a crutch again.
"Nonsense, Rashid," he said, without turning around, "you’ll do just fine. Besides, we had a saying back in the War – he who breaks it, fixes it." Zack drifted away, whistling tunelessly.
Rashid dared say no more, and focused on the rather tricky job of repairing his handiwork.
***
Deep below the surface, Pierre had reached the bottom of the steeply sloping corridor, carved through solid rock, leaving a scalloped effect on smooth walls. He’d found Blake’s trimorph kit, and tucked it into a side-pocket for near-term use. But he was mesmerized by a dark blue metallic console, its stand extruding upwards from the floor like a plant’s stem. Small lights sparkled across its flat, translucent upper surface. He heaved himself up to see the controls. It was obviously built for a Q’Roth, as it was so tall; he felt like a small child trying to gain access to an adult’s kitchen table.
The controls on its upper surface were large, and he had no clue how to activate any of them, or even if they were controls at all. Some looked like baroque joysticks, with spindles jutting out in shards; others were like oval pushbuttons pulsing with a dark backlight. The whole console was the color of deep ocean water. The centre-piece was a large vertical control resembling a double-stacked punch-ball – the type a four-handed boxer might use. Pierre decided not to touch it. There were recesses that looked as if the Q’Roth "feet" or hands, from what Pierre had seen of them, could fit into them.
But it was the displays that interested him. He wasn’t sure, but one of them appeared to show a cross-section of Eden, from the external crust to the centre of the planet. Thin lines, like tendrils, drilled down from the surface to the central molten core. About half were light blue, the others a ruddy brown.
"I’m betting you’re the terraformer control panel," he said to the display. He then noticed another display to the left, on the far side of this inner cave. He dragged his self-splinted leg – he’d used a strut from his backpack – over towards it, grimacing with every step, and studied a mosaic displaying thousands of tiny silver beads winking in unison. Here and there were a few blobs of red. He presumed it was a health monitor for the egg chamber lying a hundred meters or so above him. There was also a thick horizontal line underneath the bead layer that was silver along almost its entire length, except for the very end.
"Egg timer; almost cooked." And with the weight of that thought, the dull throbbing from his leg washed over him, and he crumpled to the floor, moaning with pain. He rolled over onto his back, and lay there panting through gritted teeth. He glanced at his wristcom. Three hours since his fall, so three hours left before Blake returned. He had zero idea how he would climb the corridor, or even get upright again. Ideally he should wait and conserve the trimorph, but he was worried he would black out, and if that happened he would die there for sure.
Taking out the small canister, he broke the seal roughly, held it to his mouth and inhaled. Immediately his head felt lighter, as if on a soft silk cushion, as the pain flushed away. It was tempting to lie there. His leg, which had felt a moment earlier as if there were ground glass inside it, began to feel like warm cotton wool, but he heard a beating noise deep inside his body. It was the pain, held at bay for now; it would return soon enough. He propped himself up against a wall, careful not to injure his broken leg further, now that pain receptors could no longer warn him.
He stared back to the corridor where he had entered. From his current perspective, he noticed two things. First, another corridor leading upwards – so, there was another route down there. But it was the second structure that captured his attention: a large church-like door made of a slate-grey metal. He had a sneaking idea of what lay behind the door. He had to make his choice quickly – he could go back up "his" corridor or he could take the new one, or he could try and see what lay behind the door. He recalled how his mother chided him when he was younger and first accidentally created nitroglycerine, blowing up their garden shed. "Curiosity killed the cat!" she’d said. He never really understood that quaint aphorism until now. Heady from the trimorph, he tried his best to put on a Cheshire cat grin, and crawled towards the large metallic door.
When he got there, he pulled out a phial from his jacket, containing what looked like a swirling liquid of iron filings. They shimmered in the dim lighting from the console. ‘Hope you were right about these, Dad.’ He took out a syringe and extracted a thimbleful, and injected it into his neck. An ice-burn feeling shot from his throat to his head for ten seconds before dissipating, and his vision blurred temporarily. He was glad he’d just taken trimorph.
While his head was clear, he unholstered his pulse pistol and discarded the pulse charge from the handle, inserting the half-full phial in its place. He snapped the handle closed, and switched the pistol mode to "Monopulse". One shot. He took a few deep breaths. "Okay," he said aloud, "time to make some new friends." He activated a pad on the side of the wall next to him, and the door slid open revealing a cavern.
On the floor in front of him was possibly the last thing he expected to see: a human skeleton, and a date etched into the ground: 1756 anno domini. He shook his head in disbelief – someone had arrived here more than three hundred years earlier. In the distance, as a backdrop, was the largest ship Pierre had ever seen. But the skeleton’s left arm pointed to a much smaller craft, green in color, and in front of it stood a Hohash; except it wasn’t the same o
ne they’d met earlier. Pierre lowered the pistol and slid to a seated position, back against the door, as the pain reasserted itself. "Papa," he said, "you really should see this."
Chapter 40
Warriors
Rashid hung underneath Eden’s rocket boosters via a trapeze system of uncomfortable wires, occasionally pausing to wipe the sweat off his brow. He’d been working for three hours straight. It was dark, and the halogen lights necessary to see the wiring detail basted him as if he was on a rotisserie. He thought Zack would have come over to check how he was doing, or even to help him but, truth was, he had no idea of Zack’s whereabouts. Rashid was lit up like a Christmas tree right now, just in case any Q’Roth guardian happened to be passing by and wanted some target practice. Maybe that was it, he thought, perhaps Zack was using him as bait. It made sense, but it would be nice to know, to be asked, even. Enough – work! Undo what your momentary caprice has done. Having scolded himself, and wiped his brow one more time, he carried on with renewed fervor.
An hour later, he finished the job and re-sealed the external plate. As he disentangled himself from the trapeze harnesses, he became aware of another presence.
"Zack! Is that you?" He couldn’t turn his head yet in the right direction. "If you want an apology please don’t resort to scaring me – just ask!" There was no reply. He got his legs free, and twisted his torso and legs out of the wires. "It’s finished, you know." He fumbled and dropped his torch. Rashid was limber, but after so much time in a contorted position, he had difficulty getting to the ground and then upright. He fell out of the trapeze, hit the ground hard, and groped for the torch, crawling out from under the ship. He caught a glimpse of something golden. He clambered to his feet, and saw that it was the Hohash, standing upright, a few inches from the ground, a short distance away, facing him. Zack stepped down gingerly from the ship.
"I thought you were outside," Rashid said, more than a little worried.
"Getting some sleep. You woke me."
Rashid doubted both these statements, but did not pursue it. "Look, over there."
Zack pointed a substantially larger flashlight. "Ah, your friend is back." And then, it seemed to Rashid in jest, Zack continued, addressing the Mirror. "No ND’s here – up there!" Zack grinned, pointing the flashlight upward. Rashid didn’t appreciate the humour. Of all the crew members he’d like to be left alone with, Zack was last on the list.
Rashid saw something stir in the mirror. He was seeing a world, Eden, with their side in the night time. "Look!" he said.
"I see it." Zack replied, in a measured tone.
Rashid saw Eden getting larger, very rapidly, so that now it filled the whole of the mirror.
"Rashid!" shouted Zack.
"Yes, I’m watching," he said, a little irritated.
He suddenly felt Zack’s hand clamp down on his shoulder. "No – up there!"
Confused, Rashid tore his eyes away from the mirror and followed Zack’s other hand to see a huge silhouette of waxing darkness etching itself into the sky, first rippling, and then blotting out the stars. Zack limped back to the space-ship entrance and clambered up the ladder. Rashid followed, chased by a bow wave of wind crushing down on him. Zack plucked Rashid’s relatively lightweight frame inside as he slammed his fist on the button to emergency-seal the door.
The thunderclap arrived less than a second later, rocking the ship. Rashid was sure it would roll over, or worse, be crushed underneath the descending craft. But the sonic booms and after-shocks abruptly ceased. They both lay inside the airlock, Zack gasping from the effort and the pain in his leg. His cast had split open. He swore continuously until he had managed to wrench it off.
"Is that wise?" Rashid asked, but got no reply. "Thank you, in any case," he added, still on the floor, "you just saved my life."
"Help me up, then," Zack groaned, searching for his pulse rifle, "my leg’s suing for divorce right now."
Rashid maneuvered himself under Zack’s shoulder, steering his heavy form past the weapons and spacesuit rack into the cockpit. The screen showed swirling clouds of dust. Zack groped inside a compartment and stuck a low-dose trimorph patch on the side of his neck, while Rashid switched screen views to check to the rear, but all around them it was the same. He left it on front view, which was where the radar showed the ship had actually landed, about half a kilometer away, in the forested area. Several minutes later, the dust cloud settled.
"Where have the stars gone?" Rashid said. Although he knew the answer, he couldn’t believe how tall and wide this ship was. Yet the evidence was there: it occluded nearly a fifth of their forward view. He glanced back at Zack, but found he had his elbow over his eyes, his jaw clenched closed.
Rashid went to get another trimorph capsule from the med-cabinet.
"You need to take more – "
"No," said Zack, breathlessly, "can’t fly with that stuff."
Rashid hated to watch people suffer needlessly; he’d seen too much during the War. Real pain twisted people, and too often soldiers avoided painkillers only to die shortly afterwards anyway, no longer themselves.
"But you cannot fly if unconscious, or in agony." Rashid said, as he considered administering the dose anyway – Zack was in no state to resist. Rashid was beginning to respect Zack, even if he didn’t like him.
"I know my limits," said Zack. "Any more and I’ll be more liability than help. But you do the extra-vehicular stuff from now on. And no more fun and games, Rashid."
"Agreed. I will go and investigate."
"Wait. Listen up. While you fixed your own sabotage, I rigged up the micro-fusion reactor." He pulled out a black makeshift pushbutton ensemble with a key inserted. Rashid backed away from the detonator.
"You’re a soldier, right?" Zack sputtered. "You damn well know what to do if we’re caught here. We take out as many as possible when they come out of the cave, or," he jabbed a finger toward the viewscreen, "off that ship!"
Rashid abhorred the very idea of suicide, even if for a greater cause – his native land suffered a plague of it just before the War. But he knew Zack was right, even if he doubted whether he could activate it. He didn’t want to waste effort arguing right now, so he took the small metal box.
Zack’s breath was ragged. He gripped Rashid’s arm hard. "Turn the key; lift the lid; press the button; instantaneous; one kilometer range around the Lander." His face contorted with pain, eyes rolling up under barely opened eyelids. Then he slumped again, exhausted, his chest heaving. His arm let Rashid go.
Rashid noticed a glistening trail of blood trickling down Zack’s leg. He traced it to a bloody piece of white bone protruding through the side of Zack’s upper right thigh. He made sure Zack was firmly in the seat, with his head on the head-rest, then he picked up a large dose trimorph ampoule, snapped it open and whisked it under Zack’s nose. After a few seconds, his body went completely slack.
It took twenty minutes and all of Rashid’s field-medic training to retract the shard of bone back under the skin, plaster the hole with anti-septic sim-skin, and splint the entire leg. There was little else he could do, except haul Zack’s bulk to a cot and activate a stasis field.
He felt as if he was back in the war he had thought long behind him. He stared at Zack’s bulky features under the already-frosting glass.
"Sleep well. I cannot yet call you friend, but if I activate this button, we will have plenty of time to get to know each other in the after-life." He walked to the weapons rack and put a pistol in his belt, two grenades in his jacket, and slung a pulse rifle over his shoulder. Night goggles hung around his neck.
As he opened the hatch, he added to himself. "Why does everyone forget that I am a pilot, too?" But he knew that tonight different services were required. He had been a commando before, holed up in the Nepalese highlands. It was not a skill one forgot, no matter how he’d tried. Sealing the hatch behind him, he slipped silently into the night, heading toward the large Q’Roth ship.
***
&n
bsp; Kat was jittery, and for good reason. As she circled the perimeter of the vast egg chamber, with Blake far away on the other side walking in the opposite direction, not a minute went by without a cracking sound shattering the pregnant silence. They had no idea how quickly these eggs hatched, and whether or not they would emerge ready for fighting, but both knew they were on borrowed time.
Blake’s voice cut through on the radio. "Anything, Kat?"
She turned towards where she thought he was, eight hundred meters away on the other side of the chamber. They were both searching for another way down to where Pierre lay. They had decided that it seemed logical, or at least plausible, that there would be more than one way out of the cave, and more than one way down to whatever was below. They’d already confirmed that the direct route Pierre had fallen through was impassible, even for the Q’Roth. Blake had used a special long-lasting magnesium white flare, impaled in the centre of the domed chamber some fifty meters above them, to give a basic low level lighting, preventing them from stumbling over rocks every other step. The relentless maze of upright eggs, each one three meters high, trickled piano-like arpeggios down her spine.
"Nothing yet, Sir."
"Okay, keep moving. If there’s another entrance it’s bound to be on the perimeter. And keep your eyes open. If you see one hatching, do what I plan to do – discharge your entire pulse rifle into it and run like hell."
"I read you loud and clear, Sir." She wondered if Blake was trying to comfort her. They’d discussed the possibility of trying to trigger a massive cave in, but their small charges wouldn’t be nearly enough. They also considered trying to blow up a few eggs, but since they estimated there were close to half a million in this chamber alone, that would also be futile. Blake had rigged most of the explosives up to the single entrance tunnel they had found so far, which might stop the young Q’Roth getting out for at least a short time. But they knew that everything they had thought of so far was like building kids’ sandcastles and moats to stop an oncoming tide. When these creatures started hatching, they would be unstoppable.