by B. V. Larson
Kivi shook her head. “Same old McGill.”
That bugged me, and I almost told her what she’d done to Cooper—but I held off.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s think this through. There’s no reason to panic, and this place has to make sense to an alien mind, at least.”
“All right… Let’s go over it,” she said. “The tubes don’t carry power. They don’t distribute food. They might drain the forests to the ocean—but we haven’t seen much evidence of that yet.”
“They could just be a tunnel network—a way to get around without having to walk on the surface.”
“A subway system? You already mentioned that idea. Where are the trains?”
“They might come along…” I admitted. “Any minute.”
Kivi looked alarmed at the thought. “We’ll be run over. There’s nowhere to go. We’ll be crushed against these walls and permed!”
She was winding up again, so I snaked one of my long thick arms around her shoulders.
“Hey, it’s going to be fine. Old McGill is on the case.”
“That doesn’t fill me with confidence, I’m afraid.”
Letting go of her, I paced the circular chamber and tested all the walls again. “Maybe there’s a way to trigger this thing. I mean, if it’s a transportation system, there has to be some way of calling a train, or something.”
Circling around, I tried many things. I crouched low, I felt the walls for tiny buttons, I pounded and stomped.
Heading out into one of the side chutes, I repeated all my moves. Kivi sat down and watched me with one fist pressed up against her cheek. She clearly didn’t have a lot faith in my efforts.
After tapping every wall, I finally tried hopping up and down. Maybe there was a floor plate I couldn’t see. After all, alien tech didn’t always work like human tech did. Especially when the aliens in question were some kind of tree-frog.
It was the second hop that was magical. For a fraction of a second, all four of my limbs left contact with the tunnel walls.
That did the trick. I was suddenly falling—sideways. As I fell, I whooped and howled. Naturally, I reached out a hand and touched the sides of the tunnel, trying to grab a handhold.
There were no handholds. The walls of the tunnel were quite smooth and rounded—but the sensation changed abruptly anyhow.
Slam! I was down and tumbling. Like a man thrown out of a moving tram, I rolled and flopped. It was a wonder I didn’t break my neck.
Sharp clangs approached. Kivi was rushing to my side.
“Careful!” I hollered, but I was too late.
She took flight, the same as I had. I reached out as she flew by and batted her out of the air. She did a flipping, flopping fall.
I crawled up to her, and I grimaced.
Her helmet had been off, and she’d landed badly. Her neck was broken, and she was as dead as a doornail.
“Shit,” I said.
I was alone again.
-34-
It had cost Kivi her life, but at least I now understood where I was and how this tunnel system operated.
It was a transportation system, but there were no trains or cars. All you had to do was hop into the air. Gravity was diverted if no part of your body was touching the walls. That meant you “fell” in whatever direction the tube was built to send you.
What a beautiful system it was, when you thought about it. We’d been as dumb as a couple of dogs wandering around on a highway with the same predictable result: violent death. That didn’t mean the system wasn’t workable, however. I just had to figure out the details.
So far, I knew that if I hopped into the air, getting all my limbs airborne at the same moment while inside any given tube, I’d begin to fall toward the end of that tube. That part I understood.
But how did you stop the effect? Even falling sideways was pretty dangerous. Kivi gave mute testimony to this fact with her lifeless, staring eyes.
I read her tapper with mine, in case I managed to get a chance to revive her. Then, I stood up and took a deep breath.
It was going to take both balls and luck to survive this. I couldn’t think of a better way than to just start hopping into the air for short falls. I couldn’t just walk—the tunnels went on for countless kilometers. Worse, they went every which-way. I was already hopelessly lost. The only way to find my way out, before I ran out of supplies, was to fly.
Grimacing, I hopped into the air. Immediately, I was swept away down the tunnel. I only let that go on for about a second before reaching a hand out to touch the walls.
As before, I fell to the floor. Tucking my head down and curling up into a ball, I bounced and thumped, grunting until I came to a stop.
I lay there, feeling my bones. Bruises, maybe a sprain on my left wrist—I was okay.
Sitting up, I stared back the way I’d come. Kivi’s body was a crumpled figure on the floor, no more than ten meters away.
“How the hell do I stop?” I asked no one.
Sighing, I looked up and down the tunnel. I was screwed. If I let myself fall for a long time, I’d keep speeding up. Pretty soon, I’d reach terminal velocity—about two hundred kilometers an hour. With that kind of speed, there was no way I could land without being seriously hurt or, more likely, killed.
How the hell did the aliens do it? Obviously, there must be a way. I thought about possibilities, such as wearing a parachute, or having a control mechanism on your person. There had to be something that slowed them down at each junction. Every hatch at the end of each tunnel was closed, and that meant the falling effect had to cut out in time to let you open the next door to go on another leg of your journey.
After a few more hops, none of which ended any better than the first one did, I finally got annoyed and hopped up into the air again.
This time, I let it go.
“Whoa! Whoa!” I found myself shouting.
My hands flailed, and I tumbled a little, but I did my best to avoid that. I was speeding up, and the walls became a blur. My heart raced.
I’ve permed myself.
That was the only thought that could clearly be heard in my chaotic brain.
James McGill, I thought, you are some kind of a special breed of moron.
My own grandma had often told me I was one part genius and three parts retard. This was one of the moments that proved it, to my mind.
Once I was really falling fast, I dared do nothing. Sure I knew at the end of this tunnel there had to be a hatch. It was almost certainly closed, and when I got there, I’d smash into it, crushing the life out of me.
But by now there was no jumping off this train, either. The tube was flashing by at an incredible rate. Just one touch, one brush with those walls, and splat—I’d be a goner.
With no better plan, I kept it going as long as I could. Sure, I wasn’t likely to survive—but that didn’t mean I wanted to check out early. In fact, it became kind of a game to keep the effect going as long as I humanly could.
Rolling a bit, I realized I was falling headfirst. In order not to touch the walls, I had to ball up, looking like a kid doing a cannonball. The wind whistled past me. It was scary.
A spin. I was in a spin.
I’d jumped out of a few aircraft before, and I’d learned a few things. There were postures you could take as a skydiver that would level you off. I used one of them now, putting “my dick into the wind” as they say. Curling back my arms and legs, I formed a potato chip shape, arching my back.
That did the trick. The spin stopped, but I almost grazed the walls of tube. I curled again immediately, imitating a cannonball again.
Why go to all this effort? I don’t know. When you’re dancing with death, I guess it’s natural to try to keep the music going for as long as you could. I mean, why not? One touch against any of the walls of the tube, and it was all over…
The door.
It had to be coming up soon. I just felt it.
Sneaking a peak ahead, I almost panicked and began to
flail about. I could see it now, right “below” me, coming up fast.
The end of the line. Old James McGill was going to be the biggest damned splat anyone had ever seen. For some reason, this struck me as funny.
The final second or so passed, and I wondered if I’d ever get another revive. In my honest opinion, the odds were slim.
That wheel that sealed the door—it was going to drive right through my chest and out the backside. I’d be flatter than a stray dog on a sky-train launch pad.
But something unexpected happened during the last second of my plunge to certain death: I slowed down.
It was shocking and kind of painful, to tell the truth. My guts were wrenched, twisted up. It felt like the fastest express elevator in the world was pulling at me, all over—but a little unevenly.
The effect would have made me sick if it had gone on for long, but thankfully, it didn’t. I found myself landing on my butt and skidding a few feet to a stop.
Getting up with a groan, I looked around. The door was very close—less than a dozen steps away.
I began to laugh. “I almost shit my pants,” I muttered aloud to myself.
It wasn’t chance that had eased me down in front of the door. I knew that now. The transportation system was dead-simple and very fast. All you had to do was hop into the air, fall to the end of any given tunnel, then wait until it deposited you in front of the next door.
Experimentally, I gave a little hop.
As I expected, I began falling away from the door. I was headed back the way I’d come, toward the end of the tunnel where Kivi lay dead in the darkness.
My hand snapped out and touched the wall, and I tumbled again.
Climbing back to my feet and cursing, I thought I’d pretty much figured out this little bit of alien tech. Now, it was time to do some exploring.
Unfortunately, I heard something about then. It was a flapping sound, like a sail on a sailboat in a stiff wind.
Looking back down the tunnel, I didn’t see anything, but a moment later I was struck by something all the same. I rolled and tumbled again.
I came up with my knife in my hand, and so did other guy. Then, recognition set in as the object that had slammed into me stripped off its stealth suit.
“Damn you, boy,” I said. “That wasn’t funny. I almost gutted you.”
Cooper laughed hard.
“I just had to do it,” he said. “Haven’t you figured out how these tunnels work yet, McGill? Don’t tell me you walked all the way down here from the last station.”
“Nah, I flew. Kivi and I figured it out the hard way.”
“Yeah…” he said, looking back the way we’d both come. “I saw her stretched out back there. Did she break her neck, or was she talking too much?”
I glared at Cooper, and he grinned back.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s explore.”
“After you, sir.”
“No way. You’re going first. Get out of the way fast when we reach the end of the next tunnel, or my size-thirteen boots will go right up your ass.”
Cooper grumbled a little, but he led the way. He didn’t bother with his stealth suit this time. The odds of an accident were higher if I couldn’t see him.
Working together, we covered the local region of jumps. While we were falling through the tunnels with increasing confidence, we had time to talk.
“So,” Cooper began, “I get this place. I can see why the salamanders built it and all. They have a permanently wet planet, and so aircraft or trains are never going to work here. This system is simple and pretty sweet if you don’t kill yourself accidently.”
“Yep, makes good sense. What I don’t understand is how we got down here from the surface, though.”
“Yeah, that was weird. I think there are access tunnels. Holes to the surface that we stumbled into.”
“No markings, though?” I asked. “No signs, no way to know they’re there?”
“Well, these are aliens we’re talking about. Maybe the access points are obvious to them.”
“You mean they might be using pheromones to mark them, or something like that?”
He laughed again. “Yeah, sure. Why not? Maybe they piss all over them and sniff them out like dogs. Who knows? Aliens are weird.”
The kid had me there.
We kept falling, taking each tunnel we could that fell “upward” hoping to reach the surface eventually. When we finally reached the end of the line, though, we were in for a big surprise.
-35-
The last exit wasn’t a hatch. It was different.
Looking like a spongy dark mass, I thought we were falling into a mud pit of some kind—but how could a mud pit be sitting on the ceiling?
Cooper gave a war-whoop as he fell into it first and vanished.
We were slowing down—but not enough. I hit at speed—maybe thirty kilometers an hour.
I clenched my teeth and hunkered down, bracing for what looked like a bone-breaking impact.
To my surprise, it wasn’t that bad. It felt like I’d hit something—fabric, maybe. Something big and gauzy that covered me, then gave way and let me fall through.
A moment later, I found myself vomited out of the ground. I was back on the surface in gloomy daylight.
The next thing I noticed was that the forest was gone. We were on the beach. I staggered around in a circle, trying to take it all in.
“Careful, Centurion!” Cooper said. “You’ll fall back in!”
I froze, looking around at the sandy beach. There were rocks, sand… but I didn’t see a hole.
“Where is it?”
“Right near that rock, I think. Just walk toward me, sir. You should be able to get to my position without falling. I managed it.”
I looked around, but of course, Cooper wasn’t visible. I studied the ground next. I spotted footprints, and I followed them.
He trudged away then, and I continued to follow his trail. We headed inland, leaving the beach behind, as it was too open for my taste.
Using my tapper on high-gain, I managed to beam a short message to headquarters. We had com satellites strung around the planet by now, and it wasn’t a hard thing to do.
“Did you report our dead?”
“Yep,” I said. “Kivi will now get a revive.”
“That lucky bitch,” he said. “God only knows where we are.”
“We’re on a slate-gray beach,” I said. “Why so glum? This has to be about the best summer day anyone has seen on this planet for a while.”
“Yeah, but a storm is coming, sir. It’s on your tapper.”
I checked, and he was right. I cursed.
The storms on Storm World didn’t seem natural to an Earthman. They were hurricanes—pretty much always.
In fact, the beach we were on wasn’t all that normal-looking. On Earth, even a wide stretch of sand between the sea and the first grassy tufts wasn’t usually more than a hundred meters or so.
This beach was different. It had to be a half-kilometer wide, made up of open sand and rocks. That was because the tides here were serious. They shifted the water level by up to fifty meters—every day.
As a consequence, the ocean itself was a stewing cauldron. Looking out to sea, I witnessed a terrifying series of whitecaps. Instead of nice, man-high waves, I was watching ten meter crashers out there. They came in hard too, and they meant business.
In the other direction, away from the beach, the mainland began with a black cliff. The rest of the land had been eroded away by harsh weather combined with relentless waves and tides.
We headed toward the higher ground, seeking a way to escape the churning ocean before the tide swept in to cover the beach.
“We’re in for a climb,” Cooper said
Looking up at the dark, rocky walls ahead, I grunted. “You got that right. I guess we should be happy we didn’t find an exit that was entirely underwater.”
“Why would lizards build something that terminated underwater?
&n
bsp; “They’re amphibious, remember? They can walk on the sea bottom or the land—it’s all the same to them.”
“That’s weird,” Cooper said. “Aliens are always so damned weird. Kind of makes you want to kill them all, doesn’t it?”
“Uh… sometimes meeting a life form you don’t understand can bring out the worst in a fellow,” I admitted.
Cooper was a man with rough edges. I’d made a special effort to recruit him years back. Since then, he’d become a first-class regular who might become my unit’s first ghost specialist.
That was all well and good, but I couldn’t help wondering if moving a mean man like him up in the ranks would reflect badly on me someday…
That moment of doubt passed quickly. I didn’t really care what people thought of my choices. Cooper was a good killer, and he was loyal enough to his own side. That was good enough for a man who was expected to fight and die over and over on shithole planets like Storm World.
A hundred steps later, Cooper spoke up again. “Uh-oh… the sky is darkening.”
I glanced back and looked out to sea. Most of the really big storms started in these turbulent oceans, and what I saw out there didn’t look good. There were black clouds now, pregnant with rain. As I watched they roiled and swelled, coming closer to the coastline. In the center of the blackest cloud, lightning flickered. A rumble of thunder rolled over us.
“Hmm…” I said. “We should probably get moving.”
Picking up the pace, we began to hike up the crumbling cliffs. Fortunately, there was a path of sorts. It had probably started as a run-off for water spilling down the side of the rocky cliff, but I doubted it was completely natural now. There were marks from tools and even a few flat slabs of stone wedged into place here and there. I thought it likely our salamander friends had cut into the wall of the cliff, creating a slanted series of rough steps.
“This rock is so weathered and stained that the path looks like a random jog in the granite,” Cooper said, “but it isn’t. I think these lizard guys cut this into the cliff face. Good thing they did it, too.”
“Salamanders,” I said.
“What?”
“You keep calling them lizards. The Scuppers are more like Salamanders. Lizards have dry skin. These guys have wet-looking skin, and it comes in a variety of colors.”