by Hugo Huesca
Quark had chased the signal from Orion for hours. The Coaster dashing in the Martian landscape while he fought to keep the signal within the reach of the tablet Lizzy held in her right hand. He had lost the signal several times and several times had found it again, pulling the Coaster to its maximum speed with mad dives towards the ground.
Finally, the Coaster was running out of power, just a couple kilometers away from the blinking dot on the map that was Orion. He had just stopped, which meant that either Sullivan had found the cameras and thrown them out, or he had finally stopped.
“Go down, go down!” exclaimed Lizzy. The jets of the Coaster were already shutting down; they were on their last breaths. But Quark kept flying in a straight line. “We will crash!”
“They are still too far away!” he yelled back. He lowered the engines to minimal power and the Coaster instantly fell from the sky like a rock. Lizzy let out a surprised scream and dug her fingers into his ribs. He turned the power up again and the Coaster regained altitude.
“What are you doing?!” Lizzy yelled.
“I want to glide there, make the energy last longer!” He yelled back.
“Dear god! You have to point the nose down before lowering the power, then raise it and pull up!”
Quark did as she told him. The Coaster glided painfully to the ground, threatening to plummet at almost every chance. But when the Coaster burned the final drenches of fuel, they were less than two meters from the ground. The vehicle slid on the rocky Martian soil until it halted after hitting a boulder. Quark fell to the ground in a heap and felt Lizzy falling nearby, over his legs.
He lay there for a second, over the orange rocky soil. The suit absorbed the impact. Quark jumped up and checked the integrity of his polyplastic helmet. No cracks. He looked at Lizzy.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she said, raising her thumb.
“Where did you learn that trick? With the Coaster.”
“I’m a Futurisian, silly. Now let’s get moving, it is dark already. It’s going to be harder finding them with only lantern-light.”
“Yeah,” he told her and pointed towards a cave entrance a couple hundred meters from them, raising atop a steep rise surrounded by jagged stones and loose boulders. It was dark, darker than the darkness Quark saw when he closed his eyes. “I think we are going to need the lanterns anyways…”
Frank Campbell soared at full speed upon the Martian night sky, so fast the wind pushing against him threatened to tear his grip from the Coaster. Yet he held on. He divided his attention on the signal from his son and on the road ahead, to make sure the map was in sync with him.
He saw the signal from his son’s Coaster blink out after it stopped. He looked up and realized night was coming, and not even the powerful lenses of his vehicle might be enough to light the road ahead. He phoned his wife on the radio, while she was still in range.
“I just lost Quark’s signal. He must’ve run out of power,” he explained, quickly, before the distance was too much. Already the response from Catherine came distanced and jumbled:
“He won’t survive the night with only his suit…”
“I know. I’m flying blind, then. Tell Porter to track my location.”
He could see in her eyes the pain of a woman who knows she may be about to lose both husband and child.
“You’ll never find him in the darkness…” Perhaps she was right. The mountain was so incredibly huge; it could be covered by hundreds of Colonies like theirs without trouble. And yet—
“Yes, I will,” he said, and pressed on. He barely had time to mouth an ‘I love you’ to her before the connection broke.
A lone Coaster soared through the Martian darkness, it’s lamp a single ray of light in the night sky.
The cave rose and rose on the side of the mountain, a constant stair-like climb of the rocks’ natural formations. It was a large cave, that could fit easily three or more buggies side by side, and give them space to maneuver. It was dark, and dry, and treacherous. Quark and Lizzy’s flashlights, installed in their suit’s necks, barely managed to let them see enough forwards so they would not trip or slide on a patch of fine sand.
Lizzy had lost Orion’s signal inside the cave when they came in deep enough into the mountain’s wall, but so far they had not come across any forks in their straight road ahead.
“These mountains used to be volcanoes, right?” asked Quark, looking around.
“Yes, I don’t think they are active anymore,” answered Lizzy, who wasn’t sure at all about that, “why do you ask?”
“This cave doesn’t seem volcano-y at all,” Quark told her. He had learned a bit from watching his mother’s work, and the walls of the cave around them and the floor felt somehow wrong to him. Too jagged, and sandy. And the more they went upwards, the more it felt as they were inside a long, carved path into the mountain.
“He said he had slept for a long time,” thought Quark, remembering the dark eyes that managed to be blacker than the darkness of his room after the lights were turned off. He began to suspect just how big that time-frame was.
“Look, up there,” said Lizzy. Her lantern pointed up and showed them a straight wall at the end of the cave. There was an artificial doorstep there, and beyond it, darkness so dense the lantern could not penetrate it yet, so it looked like the open mouth of a giant monster.
Quark shivered, and tried to act brave, “Orion is in there,” he thought. “We are his only hope, there is no way I’m leaving him with Sullivan.”
“Ready?” he asked Lizzy, and she nodded. The entryway was close now. Quark checked his air reserves. The energy of the flashlight was a minor drain on the portable atomic batteries, and the air recycler in his back could sustain him for days. Just not enough to go back to the Colony while walking. But he would deal with that later.
They crossed the threshold and arrived at a chamber so big the flashlights couldn’t reach its walls or roof. The floor was polished Martian rock, which shone with red, green and purple veins when hit by the flashlight beams like multi-colored worms swimming in the stone.
Steeling himself, Quark delved into the chamber, with Lizzy at his side. The girl was silent, alert like a cat, ready to react if something jumped at them from the dark.
They would never find Orion, wandering in the dark like this they would only get lost. So Quark took a risk, and called out: “Orion? Orion, are you there?”
“Sullivan will find us!” Lizzy chided him, with a whisper.
“I don’t think the dark bothers him, Liz.”
Nothing answered. The void carried his voice away, echoing across the invisible walls. Then Quark heard a muffled cry. “Orion!”
He didn’t dare run towards the noise. The ground could give way to a hole or a trap and he would never see it in time. Instead, he checked his suits settings, overrode their safety and increased the power output the batteries fed towards the flashlight in the side of his chest. The light got stronger instantly, more and more, while Quark kept raising its energy pool.
“You’ll run out of power for air!” Lizzy warned him. Quark nodded and stopped just a tad before the meter reached 100%. He had now ten minutes of air, but he could cut the feed before that, and gain back most of it.
Now they could see. The beam of light revealed walls of the same polished Martian mineral, carved with drawings. Small, vaguely human-looking beings worshiping strange, amorphous beings atop a mountain. It was a strange mix of Mayan tomb and Egyptian pyramid and somehow managed to be older than the two put together.
There were many passageways deeper into the Tomb if that’s what this was, and Quark had the suspicion the chamber was just the beginning of it. Were they at the threshold of a mansion? A city?
He pointed the beam straight ahead and he saw a stone throne carved right out of the floor with rigid lines, raised atop a block with carved steps. And at the end of those steps, crumpled on the floor…
“Orion!” Lizzy and Quark exclaimed. They ran to his friend, co
vering at full speed the hundred meters that separated them from him.
“Is he alive? He has to be alive,” Quark muttered when they reached him. Panting, they turned him on his back. He had his helmet put on, so he must’ve been able to breathe during the trip. He had his eyes closed and his lips were blue and cracked. He moaned deeply. “He fed on him,” Quark realized.
Orion opened his eyes, which were bloodshot. “Water,” he groaned, with a jagged edge to his voice, “oh, I’m so thirsty…”
Then he swallowed, with a pained expression, like he had glass in his mouth, then added: “He wanted you to follow us. Get us alone…”
“How did he get you here? A Coaster?” Lizzy asked him. They needed one with fuel if they wanted to leave the mountain range, and get back to the Colony.
“He flew… he carried me and flew by himself. Like a vampire—” Orion coughed.
Lizzy patted her suit’s pocket, but they hadn’t brought water bottles with them. She said to Quark: “We need to get him out of here, quick. He won’t last long by himself.”
The kid’s weight was too much for one of them to carry with the suit on, so they placed his arms on their shoulders and got him up on his feet, barely. Orion weakly helped them, trying to walk on his own as much as he could.
“I’m reducing my power drain now,” said Quark, and fidgeted again with his suit’s settings until the flashlight dimmed until it was half its previous strength. That would give them enough light to get out of there and gave Quark a couple of hours of air, too.
Together, they turned around and confronted the darkness that threatened to envelop them. For one terrible moment, Quark realized that he wasn’t sure where the exit was. In the dark, they could easily get lost, walk in circles, fall into a chasm… He began to panic.
“Lizzy, I don’t think we can find the entrance like this,” he told his friend.
“I can power up my flashlight too. I’ll have a go when we are close enough to a wall,” she offered, “later we can share the energy supply between us, until… well, until help arrives.”
Quark nodded, grimly, and did the math on his head. There was no way the three of them would survive the Martian night with the Life support systems of their suits working at full power to deflect the brutal cold. But staying in the lair of the Count wasn’t an option.
They took one step towards the exit, and then Old Sullivan dropped from the dark above their heads, and fell with grace in front of them, not even bending his knees. The kids screamed.
“I always enjoy when my food is polite enough to come into my home, and present itself on my platter,” he said, jovially, with the same kind voice he had used with Quark’s dad. Except that those eyes weren’t kind at all, and even when Quark pointed his flashlight at his face, his eyes remained in shadows. “That’s the natural order, after all, the weak presenting their water as tribute for the strong.”
“Stay away from us, you monster,” growled Lizzy.
Old Sullivan took one step towards them, making them pull back. Quark almost tripped. They couldn’t outrun him, not while carrying Orion. And the man could fly, so fast…
“You will never get away with this,” Quark told the monster. “The Colony knows we are missing; they will come looking for us anytime now. They will find this lair.”
“Oh, let them come. They will find this temple, with its unending passageways, and will search, and search, and search. They will realize brave good Sullivan followed you three when you got lost in the cave, tried to get to you before you ran out of air. They will give me a medal,” the man said, “the tragedy will be that I didn’t reach you fast enough. Poor little larvae, all alone in here, wandering in the dark.”
A shiver ran through Quark’s back.
“They will never believe you!” yelled Lizzy, “you are not even wearing a space-suit!”
Old Sullivan smiled without mirth, “they will believe whatever I want them to believe, dear Elizabeth. I don’t know why you humid-men larvae are so resistant to my cloak, but your adults do not enjoy such privilege. And not even that will help you out here, with me, will it?”
“That’s why you brought us here,” Quark realized, “you wanted no one to see through your disguise.”
Sad thing is, the deal I offered you was real, yet the three of you refused. You could’ve lived a long life, as leaders of your people, if only you had bent the knee to me. No matter, others will come, they will learn to serve. But now, oh, now I’m thirsty, and you are in my way,” he said, and Quark could hear ravenous thirst and longing behind the calm appearance of the monster wearing human likeness.
Orion shook weakly in Lizzy and Quark’s arms.
“Why?” he whispered with a dry throat. “Why do this…?”
“Why does the lion on earth hunts and eat the antelope? He is hungry,” Sullivan laughed. “And you are so… fulfilling! This planet was so full of life once, and it was delicious. And look at it now, a barren wasteland, our temples reduced to dust, long before you left your own caves.
Even while hibernating, I could feel the thirst, day after day after day... And now here you are, cattle by the hundreds, warm bags of water and nutrients. I will be so fat, so strong! I may as well have some heirs again, a strong bloodline just like the old times. Have a couple hundred of my own…”
Quark imagined the slim, pale man, wandering around the Colony with his hat and his moth-eaten suit. Feeding… He got a brief image of Sullivan going near his parents, into their room with the same ease he had into Quark’s. The ink-like mist pouring into the room, flowing in black tendrils closer to his parents’ bed…
The kid jumped towards Old Sullivan and kicked at him with all his strength, putting the weight of the suit towards the sole of his metal-tipped boot... The kick came straight where Sullivan’s knee was, but it then struck only air. Quark yelled in surprise and lost his balance, and fell and rolled on the hard floor, while the monster laughed in front of him.
Then an invisible pressure hit Quark’s mind like a jackhammer, just as he tried to get up. Somewhere near, Lizzy screamed, but the kid had closed his eyes. It was like someone squeezed his brain, and yanked it, trying to break it out of his skull.
He was still on Danglers’ garden, hanging out with his friends Orion and Lizzy and good Old Sullivan, planning the new adventure of the Futurisians. They would launch their own scientific expedition, take soil samples from the mountain range. It was going to be so much fun… But why did he have his helmet on? He looked ridiculous, he should take it off, he looked just like Orion when his dad forced him to wear his inside the Colony.
Quark pressed his hands around his helmet, clenching his teeth in flashes of pain.
It would be so easy to give in… With his eyes closed, he could almost see the garden, and breathe the distinct medical smell of the Life Support air of the Administrative complex. So he opened his eyes and saw Sullivan looking at him with a blank expression, like a hungry carrion-bird waiting for its food. And beside him, Lizzy was barely able to stand up, holding to Orion tightly as if a current had them trapped, and it was close to carrying them away.
They were waving at him, at the garden, playing with the tomatoes and asking him why he still had his helmet on. His fingers reached for the unlocking mechanism... He saw the hands of his friends start to do the same, and someplace far away, he heard a dark, lustful laugh, dry like the desert.
No, Quark was in a vampire’s lair, and everyone he loved was in danger.
He forced himself to pry his hands away from his helmet. Orion was too weak to try anything with his own, but Lizzy’s fingers were playing with the latch… He tried to reach her and push her hands away, but he could not move at all. He tried to reach her anyways, called to her inside his head, and reached to her with all his strength.
Instead of her hands, he felt her then, in the middle of the storm that besieged their minds; she was a warm presence inside the blackness that was Old Sullivan. Lizzy reacted to him, sensing him t
oo. They gained strength from each other’s presence and Quark could feel the pressure in his head fade slightly away.
“So the larvae can fight?” asked Sullivan’s voice, in that faraway void where it hid. It attacked them once again, with more strength, as if its own mind were a sledgehammer and it was trying to crush the kids’ heads.
“Surrender to me,” it seemed to say, as it attacked again and again. “Surrender and the pain will stop.”
Quark screamed. It felt as if his skull were tearing apart. He saw stars and felt his breath escape him. Something cruel and old told him that resisting would only make it more painful, giving in would cease all pain… Quark knew this to be true.
Instinctively, he reached blindly in the same way he had found Lizzy’s brightness. Instead, he found Orion. The kid was weak, almost unconscious, but he managed to hold on. Quark could sense him bolstering Lizzy’s own resistance, and then, the three Futurisians resisted together. The onslaught stopped to a crawl.
Quark opened his eyes. He was face to face with Old Sullivan, who had his expression twisted in a hateful grin. The mask-face was contorted, and Quark could see something leathery and oily behind…
“I have stood as a god among mortals, little larva. I am a Count of the Old People, better beings than you have hailed me as royalty, and they will do so again. This game tires me. You. Will. Surrender…”
Again came blows as strong as a hammer upon Quark’s head. The kid screamed again and tried to strike at Sullivan, but his fists only hit the air. He could feel the Futurisians’ connection bend and twist over the assault, trying to hold itself together. Lizzy was screaming, too, somewhere. And Orion’s link weakened with every second. It would break at any moment, and then the three would fall.
And yet…
“If he is as strong as he says, why can’t he just kill us already?” some defiant part of Quark told him amid the pain and the super-human effort of will to resist Sullivan’s influence. Instead, the Count had wandered for a day inside the Colony. Hiding in plain sight using that telepathy of his, and had chosen to feed on and kill Mr. Danglers, an old man who lived alone.