by Set Wagner
The descent through the shaft lasted a long time in complete darkness, but when the platform hit bottom, some lights instantly lit. The light faded away into a straight gallery, about two meters high, that had been dug through very compact rock and thus needed no additional reinforcing. The walls and floor were rough, almost primitive. The vehicles used to transport scrap were positioned in a tunnel perpendicular to the gallery, that is, in the direction of the defractor.
Right beside the platform was a hoist equipped with a pair of pincers insulated at the ends, and directly in front of that was an armored truck with a retractable roof. I opened the rear door to check if it was loaded with anything at the moment. It was empty.
I climbed in the truck and drove through the gallery, which slanted smoothly downhill. The rock layer was reddish in color with rich deposits of mica, which gleamed in the dim light. Here and there one could see the black openings of crossing installation, cemented passages, concrete lintels with supporting trestles, and steel nets stretched alongside some eroded areas, but nothing that suggested what the bunker was used for. I already knew some facts, though: it was built deep underground; the straight gallery was without branches and had been dug in a hurry and economically, using machinery not really suited to the purpose. Of course it was built in secret and without the knowledge of the Yusians.
I could see a little farther down that the gallery was completely blocked by a two-winged metal gate on rails—rather inappropriately, considering its complex electronic access system. I stopped the truck a few meters away from the gate and climbed down to take a better look. I tried to open it in every mechanical way possible but without success.
Then I climbed back in the truck. I could not accept the thought of returning to the surface still ignorant of what was going on here, but I was making no progress either. I sat staring at the gate, wondering what to do, when it dawned on me that the truck had to have its own mechanism for accessing the room on the other side because such vehicles usually move without a driver on a preset program. If we exclude the rather wide space back at the entrance, there was no place else it could dispose of its load or make a turn.
I gave a command for the truck to proceed but hardly expected that the gate would open while I was inside. However, as soon as we approached, the two wings slid sideways and disappeared into the opposing walls. Apparently the gate’s receptors were programmed to let in this truck regardless of its load, a fact puzzling in itself.
Only seconds after the gates opened, the darkness inside gave way to bright light. I blinked with astonishment when I recognized where I was. This room was a surgery unit! Without any command on my part, the truck stopped at its center, where an operating table sat beside another hoist, similar to the one in the vertical shaft. Now its chrome pincers hung motionless just over the truck’s retractable roof.
I walked around the room, anxiety growing in me. A surgery unit was the last thing I expected to see in this bunker. Locked boxes with secret materials, spying devices, food supply, ammunition, and even bombs—all this could be explained, but an operating room. What would they need it for? They already had an entire medical wing at their disposal. Or were they expecting some disaster with victims and injured who would have to be operated on in secret?
Instead of sterile conditions, the floor here was covered with coarse sand that crunched unpleasantly under my feet, and the walls and ceiling were as rough as those in the gallery. Light bulbs dangled above like huge balloons tied to a net of cables. Yes, the room had been constructed cheaply, but the ample equipment it held could arouse envy even among surgeons from the renowned surgery unit at the Seattle Medical Institute.
Behind the operating table was a panel with built-in radar screens; in a huge booth behind black metal blinds stood a Blick electronic microscope and, right across from it on a carefully secluded platform, a biogenerator with iridium reductors. There was an MRI scanner too, computer tomograph, microstructural analyzer, infiltration chambers, autostethoscope with amplifiers and remote control, a stand with selectors, cooler and cryoscope, five refrigerators, and so on—not to mention the many pieces of equipment I couldn’t even hope to identify. There were also shelves with drainage systems, aspirators, clamps, lancets, scalpels, and stilettos—with tinctures, catalyzers, absorbents, sterile uniforms, masks, gloves, filters, and so on. Yet I had the feeling that something was missing in this amazing room—something very important.
I admit I had been wandering around dazzled and dizzy by what I had seen, but what was all this for? How did they manage to get complex machinery and equipment down here? Actually, I had an answer to the last question—it had been delivered through the Yusians, naturally. They certainly would have been unwilling to accept shipments from Earth without first checking the contents. So what was the point of hiding all this equipment in a bunker? Or had the infirmary been built just to divert them from the fact that all this would be installed here?
A little to the side of the operating table, two objects identical in appearance caught my attention. I went to take a closer look. I tried to remember where I had seen something like them: metal half hoops that could be tightened with a screw until the ends met. Then I remembered! In an old history book about the Spanish Inquisition, that’s where! Among its illustrations was a picture of almost the same—a garrote, that’s what it was called. A medieval device that caused strangulation by suffocation. Of course these were much more complex and obviously jammed with high-tech electronics, but their blatant similarity to that instrument of torture was most unnerving.
I walked around the room one more time, hoping to find some clue to help explain its existence or at least some trace of Elia and Vernie’s visit today, but I found nothing. I climbed the stairs to the observation room on the second floor; it was completely empty. I came back down, got in the truck, and drove to the gate opposite the one I had come through. These were the only two gates anyway.
I had no difficulties entering the other gallery, driving for a minute or two along its shimmering walls and reaching another metal platform at its widened end. According to the truck’s odometer, the total length of the two galleries was about three miles.
I stepped on the platform, and it automatically ascended. I saw another exterior metal plate, probably camouflaged as well, rising above my head, and then the platform stopped on the surface. Of course I didn’t get off, only used the pause to orient myself as to where this exit of the bunker was located. That was easy to do because it was deadly cold all around me and, a few meters away, in their transparent sarcophaguses, lay Odesta, Fowler, and Stein.
When I returned to the other end of the bunker, I parked the truck exactly where it had been before and in exactly the same position so that Elia and Vernie could only guess that I was here if they remembered what the odometer read before, which was not very likely.
I went upstairs and headed for my shuttle. While walking there, it dawned on me what was missing in that superequipped room. There had been no anesthetics or painkillers anywhere, not even an aspirin.
Chapter 29
“If you find yourself angry at being on the losing side, take advantage of it,” my boss says. “It will help you do what you couldn’t before.”
Only half an hour after I left the bunker, I was underground again—this time in the Yusian base still in operation. I barged into the premises without giving any prior notice, determined to ignore any shocking sights. I planned to concentrate all my attention on the Yusians themselves. I found two of them in the spacious entranceway and headed straight toward them.
“I’m looking for Chuks,” I said in English and then repeated it in Russian and German.
They showed no signs that they had heard me, simply stood with their eyes firmly closed, as if asleep in their space suits. I was bewildered until I remembered seeing Chuks react that way at the beginning of our meetings. Suddenly I understood: Yusians also experience stress, maybe even paralysis, in immediate proximity to humans!
Our effect on them is perhaps as painful as the way they affect us. Absorbed in our own feelings, we never even considered the possibility that they might experience similar ones. How could we have guessed that when we were firmly convinced of their universal superiority?
I took a couple steps backward and half closed my eyes. Now that I understood them better, I could show some tolerance. One of the Yusians moved.
“I’m looking for Chuks,” I repeated.
“Oukay!” he said pathetically, “Wew’ll be, are Chuks!”
Another discovery! Yusians are not good linguists, at least not as good as I thought they were, judging by Chuks, as this Yusian clearly proved by his absurd English.
“I’m looking for the Yusian I met with a couple of days ago outside our bases,” I explained, very encouraged.
He opened his eyes, and I was quickly affected with similar phobic symptoms. When I regained my composure, the Yusian asked, with their usual unearthly exuberance, “Spac-c-c-e suits, ginto one?”
“Yes. I will,” I said.
The other Yusian moved too and joined us. We walked to the end of the hallway, where at least thirty deep vertical clefts were located, similar to the one that had provided me with my space suit in the starship. When the Yusians paused in front of one, I let myself be swallowed by it without hesitation. Knowing the procedure didn’t make it any more pleasant than the first time.
At last, packed like a space shipment in a protective membrane, I was pushed to the other side of the cleft, which looked nothing like the first space. Here it was dank and misty, and the ground was strewn with gigantic mushrooms. They were as tall as oak trees, but I had no doubt that they too originated from Earth, although their stems and crowns were covered with knotted, wrinkled bumps. I couldn’t ignore the implications of that analogy: these further examples of Yusian transformations, of modified life forms from Earth, seemed to confirm that the future would include modified human beings as well!
A few minutes later, Chuks also entered the dank “mushroom greenhouse.” Since he had no need to wear his space suit here, naturally he appeared before my eyes in dozens of colors softened by the mist.
“Chuks!” he shouted from a distance. “Not even had the most grumble expectation!”
“Has another human been in this base before?”
“Three just as voices.”
Three, I thought. Larsen, Odesta, and somebody else from our base had contacted the Yusians. I already knew who, and what the motive was.
Chuks approached me with a familiar reluctance, and our eyes met. We stood like that for a moment, paying the inevitable price for our proximity, before he said politely, “Will provide you effect of our stuff. Judge with tendencies!”
“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t come to be amazed by you. From what I see here, these hybrids are not yours at all.”
“Mutual! Mutual!” Chuks exclaimed joyfully. “Those and many others, all over place. Realizing them again with compatible life successfulness!”
“Do you ever consider the human point of view on this problem?”
“We divine equal view. And not from point!”
“Stop the nonsense, Chuks. And don’t talk to me in that overly polite tone.”
There ensued a long pause. I had started the most dangerous game—the truth-telling game—and Chuks had definitely figured that out after my opening words. Now he had to learn that he too must play his part in the game. Our eyes met again, insistently, with a glint of hostility.
“‘Polite tone,’” Chuks responded flatly, “brings comfortable predisposition of—”
“It is fake,” I interrupted him, “and only brings mutual distrust.”
“But must to give your trust, Ter!”
“That is arrogance, pure and simple! For ten years now, you’ve done nothing but dig into our lives, turning Earth organisms into monsters!” I said, waving my hand toward the knotted mushroom towering high above us. “You’re manipulating us psychologically, and you tell me that we have to trust you? Just give me one reason why I should do that!”
“Reason one,” said Chuks, “to leave beyond your hopes.”
“Well, yes.” I grinned scornfully. “You feel good with us because you are stronger.”
“No, Ter”—he seemed to sigh—“feeling not good.”
He walked away over the meandering ditches of the floor’s uneven surface. Suppressing my resentment, I caught up and started walking with him, ignoring the sharp splashing sound my feet made, since water was gurgling and foaming under Chuks’s bulky body. I didn’t know where he was leading me but didn’t care too much either. I had other, much more serious, concerns on my mind.
Soon I was convinced that, in this Yusian base, I would see more earthborn creatures with “transformed futures.” The walls of the corridors and rooms were covered with bright phosphorescent mold that actually provided illumination. On the ceiling crawled all sorts of phosphorescent crustaceans. We were being propelled by some flat coral islets sliding along grooves made exclusively for that purpose.
As I understood from the laconic, purposely impolite, explanation Chuks offered, the corals were connected by a metal “cobweb,” the grooves were filled with concentrated saline solution, and the sliding was possible with the help of electrolysis, which “reacted according to our postures.” In addition, it turned out that the metal network did not corrode because of “objections of torpid infusoria with no posterity.” Well, this was crazy, complex, and impractical.
I turned to Chuks again. “Are you having difficulties adapting to this new environment?”
“Lots!” he exclaimed as was his habit but then repeated more calmly, “Lots.”
Then he fell silent again.
Our coral islet passed under a low molded arch, slid down a groove, and before long we found ourselves in a dank pool full of seaweed. We were almost at its center when Chuks abruptly gestured, as if giving someone a signal. Only a moment later, brown, symmetrically positioned, posts appeared on either side of the pool and rose about two meters high and froze there. Then a bright light squirted from their tops, and the seaweed in the pool went crazy!
They dashed for the posts like swarms of ravenous snakes. They rammed into each other, entangling into frantically tossing balls, and then pulled and tore themselves and others trying to break free. Only shabby tatters made it to the posts, crawled up, fell down, and then crawled up all over again. They turned an impossibly intense green, the like of which I had never seen on Earth. They were starved to death for light.
“Panic incited to put into ourselves,” Chuks explained triumphantly. “Will redirect against it redundant body resistance and make Eyrena more bearable place.”
I understood him, or so I thought, when I recalled Stein’s notes: “Compared to their native planet, Eyrena and Earth are too peaceful, even painfully so, for the complex protective mechanisms of the Yusian organism.”
“At least I hope that the panic of our seaweed helps you,” I said sarcastically.
“Will so,” said Chuks, trying to comfort me.
Meanwhile, our islet left the pool, moving along one of the ramifications of the groove, and entered a spacious, profusely lit, cave. Inside the cave were half spheres scattered everywhere, each with a radius of over a meter and apparently organic. Just like everything else at the base, they were hardly pleasant to look at. They resembled eyes torn off gigantic insects. They were also covered by thousands of bulging lenses of some glassy substance, through which could be seen a thin network of capillaries. The coating around them had the repulsive look of rosy lung tissue and undoubtedly was used for food. Yes, they were so much like…
They really were insect eyes. Multifaceted and glossy, staring with dead stiffness up at the mossy vault.
“Grown in symbiosis to Yusian episodes,” Chuks’s voice startled me.
“Episodes,” I repeated senselessly, “in the eyes?”
“In each,” he confirmed. “Brought you here to pr
ovoke them together.”
“No, Yusian! You’re not getting out of our conversation by giving me some—eyes.”
“Ter, must meet in one such episode.”
“Why? For what purpose?”
“To reach there our necessary impersonal understanding.” Chuks hesitated momentarily and then added, “You ask just for words, human! But in me suitability for more convincing risk.”
He moved aside and, as soon as the coral isle reached the edge of the groove, moved to the eyes. The rosy coating crumpled under his weight as if wounded, its bubbles bursting out fountains of some lymphatic liquid. Chuks addressed me provocatively. Now he too had started our truth-telling game. Even worse, he was offering me an inevitable choice—either to continue it by voluntarily allowing into my consciousness that familiar and frightening alien influence or to give it up, thus confessing my fear of the nonhuman.
I stepped on the rosy coating and folded my hands. My pulse was racing, and no doubt the Yusians were registering it as well as everything else in me that they could register. I hoped, though, that I would leave their base with more information about them than what they could get from me.
Chuks stepped back. I watched him warily, trying to mobilize my psychic resistance to the maximum but, at the same time, feeling sympathy and even compassion for him. I found him touchingly lonely under the vault of this artificial cave. What did he think of me?
Reaching a circle surrounded by white rings, he paused in its center and sank there, seeming to take on himself an enormous burden. His color zones were sated with an inner light and started glowing. The surrounding air rustled with the lightness of an imaginary bird landing warmly on my chest. As I breathed it in, my alarming pulse slowed down. I knew this was more than just a puff of air, which I wouldn’t be able to feel through my space suit; I knew its warmth was a distant echo of some alien emotion just beyond my senses, something I couldn’t fully assess. There I was, reclining my head as if I were hard of hearing, trying to catch this quiet tune. My previous hesitations, hopes, and fears were losing their meaning now, pitiful and small before this new despairing revelation of my spiritual deafness.