“It’s a long walk from here,” Channarong told them. “These arches mostly connect up, so we can stay off the ground level and away from the worms. There’s a couple places we’ll need to climb, and a couple where we’ll need to rope our way across.”
Hawkins pointed south, toward the south pole and the brain, and Channarong nodded. That was clearly all Hawkins needed. He set off at a quick pace, sticking close to the center line of the arch.
The top of the bone wasn’t perfectly flat, Rao saw. It was gently curved, so if you walked too close to the edges you would constantly be in danger of falling off. The footing in the center was good, though, the fibrous material of the arch giving good traction for their space suit boots. They would probably make better time up there than they had on the island.
Jansen reached down and helped Rao up to her feet, and together they got moving, with Channarong bringing up the rear. Rao turned and walked backward for a couple steps so she could face the KSpace astronaut.
“Do you want me to take a look at that?” she asked, pointing to Channarong’s missing arm.
The other woman scowled and picked up her pace until they were walking side by side.
“It’s all right. I’m a doctor.”
“I know who you are,” Channarong said. “Back at the Hive, your pictures were all over our training space. You’re the enemy. Our competition.”
“This place is too dangerous for that kind of thinking,” Rao suggested.
Channarong didn’t even bother to scoff. “Tell him that,” she said, tilting her head in Hawkins’s direction. “He’s a real piece of work. Then there’s her,” Channarong added, cutting her eyes sideways to indicate Jansen. “The woman who almost went to Mars. I can’t believe they put her in charge of you guys. Though it looks like she screwed that up, too.”
“They removed her from command because she got too interested in rescuing you and Foster, to the point she lost focus on our official mission,” Rao said. It wasn’t entirely true, but she felt she needed to defend Jansen. Even if she wasn’t sure why.
“She made it about herself, in other words.” Channarong shrugged. “You I know the least about. You’re supposed to be some hot-shit scientist. Taryn was smart, too. Super smart. People like that don’t last long in here. They get the idea they can understand this place. They’re always wrong—this thing doesn’t play by any human rules.”
Rao bit back the words she wanted to say. They were cruel and wouldn’t help with anything. Besides, there was something else she needed to confront.
“You haven’t asked about Stevens yet. Why he isn’t with us.”
Channarong’s shoulders fell. The scowl on her face, which Rao had begun to think was permanent, slipped, and for a second she saw the woman Channarong must have been before she left Earth. The woman from the official KSpace photograph, a woman who had a good-natured smirk and laugh lines around her eyes. She must be remembering him, Rao thought. She’s thinking about good days.
But the transformation didn’t last. Channarong’s face fell again.
“I know he’s dead.”
How? But now wasn’t the time to ask where she got her information. “I’m so sorry,” Rao tried instead.
Channarong shrugged. “He always was an idiot. He would get these ideas, and nobody could ever convince him they were dumb, or they wouldn’t work. He’s the reason we’re all here.” She spit over the side of the bone arch. “This is his fault.”
Then she picked up her pace, catching up with Hawkins so she could use her flashlight arm to point out where their route crossed another arch. Rao got the point. She shouldn’t mention Stevens again, not in Channarong’s presence. There was no time for sentiment now. No place for that inside 2I.
“We could go around,” Channarong said, “but that’ll add a couple kilometers. Better to just go across.”
Ahead of them the arch curved steeply to the left, away from their prior course. Another bridge was visible at the edge of their light, about twenty meters away. In between was nothing but dark air.
Channarong had a long bright-orange length of rope with a grappling hook clipped to one end. She started uncoiling it.
Jansen stepped as close to the edge as she dared. There was something she’d noticed before, but on the long march she hadn’t really given it much thought. Now it mattered. “We’ve climbed pretty high,” she said. “The gravity feels different here. Lower. The air’s getting thinner, too.”
Channarong smiled a little at that. “Whatever you do, when we’re crossing—don’t look down.” Then she swung herself around like a discus thrower and cast the hook. It sailed in a higher arc than it would have on Earth and struck the far arch with a dull thud. When Channarong pulled on the line the hook snagged for a second on a ridge of bone, then popped loose. She swore and drew the rope back, then cast again. And again. Eventually the hook caught on a round cave opening on the far side, and the line went taut.
“One at a time,” she said. “We go across one at a time.”
Hawkins went first. He protested that it would be a lot easier if they could use their motorized ascenders, but in the end he just wrapped his legs around the rope and climbed across hand over hand. Rao went next, using the same technique he had. She made it just fine.
“After you,” Channarong said.
Jansen took a deep breath, then climbed out onto the rope. It was easier than she’d expected—the lower gravity probably explained that. She was halfway across before she even thought about it. Before she heard something, a faint sound coming up from below.
It was not a pleasant sound. There was an element of crunching to it, and then a series of flabby pops. And then a sound she knew she recognized—the whirring of rows of circular teeth. She’d heard that sound when the worm was chasing them. She doubted she would ever forget it.
She reached the far side and scrambled off the rope, not wanting to be on it a moment longer. Channarong came after her, using her legs more than her single hand. When she was standing on the far arch, she grabbed the rope and shook it back and forth vigorously. The knot she’d used to anchor it pulled apart, and she was able to haul the rope back and wind it around her waist again.
Then she stepped to the edge of the abyss they’d just crossed. “You really sure you want to see this?”
Jansen nodded.
Channarong pointed her flashlight at the ground. It was far enough away that the light gave Jansen only a rough idea of what was down there. It was enough.
Back when they’d been on their ice floe raft, they’d seen mounds of greasy bubbles rise from the water, bubbles that swelled up in great profusion. This had to be the final stage of those growths—a massive pyramid of bubbles, millions of them, each the size of a beach ball, with tendrils snaking across their translucent surfaces.
A dozen or so worms were down there, devouring the bubbles and whatever they contained. They tore into the pyramid with a frenzied intensity, slashing them open with their massive teeth. One especially big worm butted its way through the melee, using its claws to shove the others back as it gnawed its way toward the top of the heap.
“Foster thinks those bubbles are some kind of super-advanced hydrogen fuel cell,” Channarong said. “That’s a power plant.”
“Interesting,” Rao said. “I wonder if the worms can directly use electrical energy, or if the bubbles are just rich in calories.”
“Whatever. The worms can’t get enough of the stuff.” Channarong kept her flashlight focused on the mound. One worm lifted its toothy head, as if it had sensed her light somehow. “We think that’s why they chase anybody using electricity. Why we had to get rid of our suits. Even lights are enough to get their attention.”
“It’s amazing, how fast you’ve learned how to stay alive in here,” Jansen said.
Channarong shone her light right in Jansen’s face. “Tell me something,” she said. “You came in here, the first time, to save us.”
Jansen blinked in the
light. “Yes,” she said.
“What did you think you were saving us from? You didn’t know about the worms back then. You didn’t even know about the tendrils. What did you think was going to happen to us?”
The answer was so obvious Jansen sputtered in surprise. She laughed and looked away, away from the light. She tried to frame her answer carefully, tried to think of how best to explain it, the feeling she’d had that KSpace was in trouble. Her instinct.
Except in the end she couldn’t come up with anything to say. She had no good answer.
She stood there for a long time trying. Rao and Channarong moved away, maybe just getting away from the edge.
Eventually Jansen went to join them.
They climbed up a slope to another arch, this one broader and longer. It rose gently before them, ascending into the black air of 2I. When Channarong pointed her light upward, Hawkins had to admit the sight took his breath away.
Ribbons of bone crisscrossed the sky. The arches built on each other, branching and curling away in giant spirals. It looked like a more chaotic version of one of Escher’s paintings of staircases, he thought—the way the arches connected and reinforced each other made it look as if they headed off at impossible angles, reconnecting to arches that should be lower. It made him feel a little as he had when they’d left Orion and floated across to 2I through empty space, as if up and down had stopped meaning anything, as if he would just drift off forever into an endless skyscape of bone bridges if he fell. The only real way to tell which way was down was to look for the ubiquitous cocoons, which dangled from the underside of every arch.
Many of them, he saw, were empty now. They hung slack and dry. There wasn’t any breeze to stir them. The ones that moved were all getting ready to hatch.
He was very glad he wasn’t down at ground level to see the worms down there, which must be gathering in multitudes.
Ahead of him Channarong scampered up the side of an arch, lifting herself up high so she could shine her light farther. Making sure their route was clear.
They had to rest. There came a time when even Hawkins had to admit it. Rao wanted to check Jansen’s leg, for one thing. “I should take a look at your head, as well,” she said.
“My head’s just fine,” he barked at her.
“It doesn’t hurt? I’ve seen you rubbing your temples, and—”
He flapped one hand at her in a gesture of frustration. “Find a cave,” he told Channarong. She nodded and loped ahead. Soon her light flashed back at them, three times. She’d found one of the spherical cavities in the bone, big enough they could all huddle inside. The shelter it offered was, Rao knew, mostly psychological. There was no rain or wind to hide from, and the cave would be just as hot as the outside air of 2I. If she used one of her glow sticks inside, though, it would be a little pocket of light in the dark. It would do them all some good.
She helped Jansen climb into the cave. Inside, however, she stopped. Hawkins and Channarong were standing near the round opening, in her way. It looked as if they’d seen something that worried them—Channarong was down in a crouch as if she might turn and run at any moment, while Hawkins was standing very straight, very tall, with his chin up in the air.
“What is it?” he demanded.
Channarong’s light speared something stuck to the far wall of the cave. Something shiny.
Rao moved to get a better look. It looked like a ball of glass, small enough she could have held it in the palm of her hand. She looked up and around and saw more of them, in the shadows, glinting in reflected light. The back half of the cave was dotted with them, maybe a dozen in all.
She flinched backward and nearly fell on her ass when something inside it stirred. When the globe didn’t immediately jump at her, she took another look.
A tiny creature swam around and around inside the globe. A thin, muscular body lashed back and forth, nub-like limbs twitching as it raced in circles. Its head was the biggest part of it, a swollen ring of tiny, very sharp-looking teeth. The teeth spun in concentric circles.
“It’s a worm egg,” Rao said, taking a step back before she looked at the others. She held up one hand to keep Channarong’s light out of her eyes. “They must incubate in these bubbles, then migrate out to—”
She yelped in surprise as Hawkins grabbed the egg off the wall and tossed it to the ground, then stomped on it with his heavy boot. Liquid and parts of the embryonic worm splattered Rao’s suit.
One by one he tore the eggs down and destroyed them. The eggs had been attached to the wall by very thin tendrils, which writhed when he snapped them, then drooled dark liquid down the wall.
“Christ,” Jansen said. “What is that smell? Iodine and—cinnamon? Cloves?”
Rao realized she was the only one wearing a suit with a helmet, the only one breathing air brought up from Earth. “Stop,” she said, when Hawkins grabbed an egg and started to squeeze it. The worm inside twisted around as if it might bite at his fingers. “Those could be toxic. You don’t want to touch them. Stop!”
He didn’t stop. Not until he’d smashed every last egg. Then, breathing heavily, he turned and looked at the others. Searching their faces. Did he expect to be congratulated for what he’d done?
“We’ll rest outside,” he said. He rubbed his gloves on the hips of his suit. “It stinks in here.”
TERMINAL ORBIT
Hawkins didn’t dream anymore. He wasn’t sure he slept. It didn’t feel like sleep, more like dying. Temporary dying.
He tried to get some rest, anyway. He rolled away from the light, pressed his hands over his eyes. He tried to slow his mind down, tried to think restful thoughts. His body hurt. He was sore all over, and he knew it wasn’t going to get better. He stank—both his own body, the sweat and grime that covered him head to toe, and his gloves where they’d touched the alien eggs. The smell kept him from sleeping. The smell was bad.
Nothing had been good since he woke up on the island with his helmet off. Since Jansen took his helmet off.
Since she’d tried to kill him. He was pretty sure of that now. She had a good cover story—she even had Rao vouching for her, saying that it had been necessary. That Rao had to check him and make sure he didn’t have a concussion. It had made the perfect excuse. Jansen had thought the air inside 2I would kill him. That it would infect him, the way Stevens had been infected, perhaps.
Smart thinking on her part. He had taken over command of what she must think of as her mission. Eliminate him and she could be in charge again. It was basic military strategy—cut off the head and you kill the snake. He wasn’t sure what her larger plans were. Maybe sabotage his attempts to find the brain and destroy 2I. Or maybe she just wanted the honor of being the one who called in the fatal strike. He didn’t truly understand her reasoning. He didn’t need to. He knew she’d made one crucial mistake. Her plan hadn’t worked. He was still alive.
He wondered if she would try again. Whether she had it in her to kill him. Well, let her try. He patted a pocket on the front of his suit. There was a surprise for her in there, if she tried something. He could protect himself.
It hurt to close his eyes. He tried anyway. He needed to sleep. Even if it felt like trying to die. He wouldn’t die. He would will himself to stay alive, no matter what happened. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of watching him die.
It was dark outside. It was dark inside his head, too.
“The kill vehicle is in position, it’s got a good fire angle,” the disembodied voice of General Kalitzakis told McAllister. They were deep in a VR projection of imagery from a space telescope. Even under magnification, the spaceplane was in such a high orbit that Earth looked small and indistinct. The sun passed behind it as the view shifted, and McAllister watched its robotic arm extend its deadly payload, like a mantis lifting a bundle of sticks. “The president called me personally to give me authorization to take this step. We can deploy as soon as Hawkins identifies a target. One shot and we can blow this thing’s brains out. I�
�m feeling good about this, Roy. I’m feeling like this is the right decision.”
McAllister wasn’t so sure. “What if there are more of them?” he asked.
It had been weighing on his mind for a while now.
“I beg your pardon?”
“This isn’t the first of these things to cross our path. We saw ‘Oumuamua pass through the solar system thirty-eight years ago. Now 2I is coming straight at us. Maybe we can destroy it, fine. But we know it isn’t the only one of its kind. More of them may follow. We’ll have set a precedent here. The next one to arrive will know we’re hostile.”
“They’ll know not to fuck with us,” Kalitzakis said.
“Hmm. You’ll wait for my OK before you deploy. Right?”
Kalitzakis sighed in resignation. “Of course. This has to be a joint decision. You and I need to agree before we pull the trigger.”
The president of the United States had given that order. Kalitzakis would follow it to the letter, McAllister knew.
The president had given McAllister an order, too. The very second that McAllister decided communication with 2I was impossible, he was to let Kalitzakis loose. Authorize the military strike. McAllister was certain he could do it. No matter the cost—no matter what the repercussions might be in some theoretical future.
“I’ll be here,” he said, “ready when the time comes. General… you’re sure this is going to work?” he asked.
“I feel it in my bones,” Kalitzakis told him. “The numbers show at least a forty percent chance of success with one shot.”
“Forty? I thought it was seventy.”
“We’ve had to update our models, based on the better map we have of 2I’s interior now. There’s a lot of structural complexity inside there, stuff we can’t easily plug into our equations, but… Roy, in the space force we always say: you miss all the shots you don’t take. This is what we’ve got. It’s the best we’re going to get.”
Unless Foster really is talking to the thing, McAllister thought. Unless we can convince it to turn away from its course.
The Last Astronaut Page 32