by Adam Carter
CHAPTER FOUR
“Any sign of the boys, Prof?”
Travers had been going through her paperwork when Garrel entered the room. The group was so small they tried to maintain a semblance of a social order, so eating breakfast in the same room was encouraged. As Garrel helped herself to some cornflakes and opened every cupboard in search of a clean bowl, she had just been trying to make conversation. That Travers was too engrossed in her work to even offer a good morning annoyed Garrel sometimes; but she didn’t much like Travers anyway so quickly got over it.
Locating her bowl, Garrel poured her cereal, drowned each flake in milk and purposefully sat at the same table as the professor, directly opposite, plopping her bowl upon the paperwork.
Travers looked up, mildly annoyed. “Good morning, Sara,” she said tersely.
“There,” Garrel smiled. “Wasn’t so difficult. And a very good morning to you too, Professor.”
Travers glanced at her bowl. “You sure you don’t want any cereal with that milk?”
“Ah, funny lady. Where I come from we have a wonderful name for people like you.”
“If it’s not Professeur I don’t think I want to know.” Travers looked around. “Have you seen Monroe and Allen?”
“You know, for a professor you’re really not very bright sometimes.” She spooned in another mouthful of cornflakes, wishing she hadn’t put quite so much milk on them after all. “They’d better not break my buggy, that’s all I care about.”
“Why would they break the buggy?”
Garrel chewed more cornflakes. “I get the feeling you didn’t authorise their little excursion this morning.”
“What excursion?”
“Are you going to repeat everything I say as a question?”
“What question?”
Garrel’s spoon stopped halfway to her mouth and she studied the Professor’s face, which was desperately trying not to break into a smile. “Funny,” Garrel said, continuing with her breakfast.
“Seriously,” Travers said, setting down her work. “You’re saying Allen and Monroe took the buggy out, right? They’re probably collecting samples or something. I wouldn’t worry.”
“I don’t know; they’ve been gone a while.”
“Well, let’s not panic just yet. At least it’s stopped raining.”
“Yeah, but it’s terrible out there. If they’ve lost my buggy in a muddy ditch I’m not going to be happy.”
“Well if they only went this morning, I’m sure they’re fine.”
Garrel finished off her bowl. “Sure, but it’s three in the afternoon now.”
“It’s what? Then ... why are you eating cornflakes?”
“I like cornflakes. And I had the feeling you were out of whack again on what time of the day it was. Figured I’d wind you up.”
Travers narrowed her eyes. “You really are the most infuriating woman, Sara.”
“I know. I really try.”
“Well if you wouldn’t mind taking a trip after them, I could get back to work,” Travers said. She did not speak with imperious dismissal, although it was clear she thought her decision marked the end of the exchange.
“I’m not a bodyguard, Prof,” Garrel said. “Nor am I a babysitter.”
“I never said you were. But you’re a human being and we have to look out for each other in this place.”
“Then you go out after them.”
“You’re better suited for it. Besides, I need to finish my work before our time runs out. If I don’t discover the secrets of Ceres before we leave my backers aren’t going to be happy.”
“I thought Monroe was your backer?”
“Financial backer, yes. But I don’t report to him.”
Garrel already knew some of this, and didn’t much care about the rest. What Travers was saying was true, in part. They did have to look out for each other on Ceres, and it didn’t matter what Garrel had been hired as: she could not let people face the wildlife alone if she could help it. That Travers simply wanted to carry on with her digging annoyed Garrel, but she was not stubborn enough to refuse to make sure Allen and Monroe were all right.
“Fine, I’ll track them,” Garrel said. “And if I fail and we all disappear, maybe you’ll dig us up some day.”
Travers properly looked at her for the first time since Garrel had sat down with her cornflakes. Her eyes were stern, her expression sour, and Garrel could sense she was about to start one of her lectures.
“You don’t like me do you?” Travers asked.
Garrel thought hard for several moments. “No.”
“Don’t hold back or anything.”
“Professor, you treat the bones of long-dead animals with more gentleness than you do those of us who are still breathing. I know you have targets and I know you’re under pressure to find answers; but the secrets of Ceres have remained unexplained for generations. What makes you think you’re going to solve all the riddles in just a few months?”
“You think we’re wasting our time here?” She seemed genuinely shocked at the suggestion.
“Honestly? Yeah, I do. And even if you could find out all the answers, who says you should? There are some things we don’t need all the answers to.”
“I suppose you think Ceres was God’s second stab at Creation then?”
“I don’t know what to think. No, I don’t necessarily believe that. But I don’t not believe it either.”
Travers shook her head. “You people are insane.”
“What people would that be? I’m not a fanatic sent to sabotage your expedition. Just because I have different religious beliefs than you, you can’t just label me as ‘you people’. I thought science was all about asking questions and formulating theories. Sounds to me as though you’re as narrow-minded as the religious fanatics you seem to hate so much.”
Garrel had not meant to explode like that, nor had she ever wanted to get into a religious debate with Professor Travers. But they had been cooped up together for so long that every little thing was grating on one another’s nerves and Garrel was suddenly looking forward to being away from her.
“You’re right,” Travers surprised her by saying. “I’m sorry. I’m just so frustrated with all of this. All I really have to date are rocks and fossils. If I can work out how long the fossils have been here, I can figure a rough age of Ceres. But I’m not a palaeontologist and I really don’t care about dinosaurs anyway.”
“What does that matter?”
“Ceres is the dinosaur world. I was chosen for this expedition because it was deemed I would be the one most likely to solve the riddle of Ceres. But my backers also want information about the dinosaurs, since no one living has officially even been here.”
Garrel understood. “They’re making you branch out into palaeontology when your specialist field is archaeology.”
“And they’re still expecting me to crack the case. Give me a vase any day, Sara. An ancient piece of pottery I can date to within fifty years. But dinosaur skeletons? That takes far more investigation and examination of the actual rock it came from.”
“And they only let you bring one assistant,” Garrel said. No wonder Professor Travers was frustrated all the time. Suddenly Garrel felt bad about baiting her the way she always did.
“You concentrate on your work, Prof. I’ll go fetch the boys.”
“My work,” Travers said in exasperation. “I could actually do my work if it wasn’t so wet outside. Half my equipment’s not going to operate in all that wetness and my excavation sites are all flooded.”
“I have a bucket.”
Travers did not seem amused, so Garrel rose from the table. “I’ll bring them back as soon as I find them. Might have to grab some heavy equipment to bring back the buggy if it’s in a ditch though.”
She hastened from the room and headed outside. The air was heavy with moisture and the ground was slick with mud, her boots squelching every step she took. It was still blisteringly warm though, and as Garrel l
ooked up at the sun blazing in the sky she knew it was just one more thing about Ceres no one understood. Because that wasn’t the sun. It was some form of artificial light which looked like one, and which was almost always in the sky. It would disappear at night, and night would always quickly set in, and would return come the morning; but there was no physical substance to the thing. Whoever had created Ceres had obviously decided the world was too far from the centre of the solar system to receive adequate lighting from the real sun so had created this artificial construct. But there was no artificial star orbiting Ceres. In fact, no one had even known how Ceres was heated, and had assumed it was either pale light from the sun or else geothermal in nature. When the expedition had landed, they were astounded to see an actual ball of hydrogen burning in the heavens.
For Garrel it was almost definitive proof that God’s hand had been involved in the crafting of this world. She had never known what to think, and had always kept an open mind, but the very fact that she could stand there staring at a sun which was not actually there was the clincher for her.
Yet she could also see Travers’s points of view. Before any decision was reached Travers wanted to examine everything and determine an answer. Garrel could understand that, and certainly if Travers did come up with some interesting results Garrel would be the first to examine them. But what if Travers came up with results which proved the world was indeed pieced together by some higher being? Garrel could not imagine Travers even then admitting the world was anything but artificial.
It was why Garrel was hoping Travers’s research would prove inconclusive. She did not need to know, did not really want to know, and just wanted to get back home so she could tell her family about everything she had seen. It was ironic that before coming to Ceres Garrel had not even been especially religious. She had been born into a Catholic family and had gone to church every Sunday as a child. Since that time she had maintained her religiousness but had never been outspoken about it. Travers had in her obstinate manner torn all these thoughts and feelings from deep within her, which clearly had not been her intent.
Arriving at the transportation storage area, Garrel looked over the remaining vehicles. The actual craft which had brought them to Ceres stood off to one side. It wasn’t much, but it had got them here. It did not belong to Garrel, but she had trained so many hours in craft of the same model that she could have flown the thing drunk and still have been able to crawl her way to the bathroom to throw up. Thankfully she had not used this for an answer during her interview.
The other vehicles were arranged undercover, although the rain had managed to seep through the thin wood of the prefabricated camp and covered each with a sheen of moisture. The buggy was the most useful vehicle, for it was designed to traverse all manner of terrain. But the buggy was gone, leaving only two other vehicles. One was a squat, box-like machine with a propeller. In this, two people could stand and rise into the air for a shaky flight. Garrel had always seen the thing as a cross between a helicopter and the basket of a hot-air balloon. It was a lightweight contraption and easily manoeuvred, but not a machine Garrel would have taken out by choice.
The final vehicle was a two-wheeled motorbike with room enough on the seat for a passenger if they clutched the rider very tightly. Mounting the bike, Garrel affixed the helmet in place and gunned the engine. The bike was faster than the buggy and she would be able to catch up to them fairly easily. However, she would not be able to bring both men back with her at the same time, so would have to make two trips if the buggy was stuck somewhere. She would need one of them to wait with the buggy anyway so she could return with some heavy equipment, so that worked out fine for her.
She liked to consider the vehicles her property, but the truth was they belonged to the expedition’s financiers. However, she had signed a contract saying that she wasn’t liable for any damages to the vehicles, but that if she failed to come back with one of them she would be charged for it out of her pay. And she needed all the money she could get.
The bike hit the muddy ground with a sputter and Garrel realised she would not have been able to achieve quite the speed she was after. A light rain was just starting up once more as she set off, but it was as nothing to the downpour of the previous night and she hoped to be back at the camp before it could repeat the deluge. The tracks of the buggy seemed easy to follow in the mud, although she could already see many of those tracks had been washed away. The initial path the tracks were taking seemed to be skirting the woodland, however, and that gave her somewhere to start. She was glad the men had not entered the woods, for after her last encounter there Garrel had no desire to return any time soon. She was not skittish about any animal, but knew rhinoceroses were purported to have excellent memories; and if one large herbivore could memorise people who had angered it in the past, she did not want to test the ankylosaur in case it held similar grudges.
She tried to think of what animals lived beyond the woods, although seldom did any of their team head out that way. There were herds of herbivores living on the plains, but she didn’t know what types of animals they were. As for carnivores, she still hadn’t seen any at all in the flesh, and wasn’t really afraid of bumping into any. She would admit to a mild curiosity about them, for every child wanted to meet tyrannosaurus rex face-to-face, but she wasn’t afraid to. Garrel had once been confronted by a lion and had survived. That had been something she had raised during her interview, and had embellished it as much as she could. In reality the beast had just feasted so she had been in very little danger. The lion had watched her with lazy eyes but as soon as it realised she was no threat to it, it had rolled over and gone to sleep, with one eye open. She could not imagine reptile predators being any different, especially since reptiles did not need to eat quite as often as mammals.
Thunder rumbled overhead and Garrel drew her bike to a halt, gazing out across the plains which came after the woodland. Much of the land around this area was rocky, and the tracks of the buggy would have been erased by the rain; but some of the land was covered with a grassy veranda and she felt she would be better off checking this area first. At least she would be able to better determine tracks from there, and return to the rocks if she had no luck with the grasses. She checked her watch and was surprised to find half an hour had already passed. Garrel enjoyed feeling the pressure of speed pushing against her while she rode against the storm and knew how easy it was for her to lose track of time in this place. She would have to be careful she didn’t turn this rescue operation into a pleasure jaunt.
Starting the bike once more, Garrel had to admit to herself how nice it was to be alone on this world, riding around without a care, answerable to no one. It was intoxicating and addictive. She would have to be very careful indeed not to just ride away and leave her expedition and all its problems behind her.
She had often wondered what anyone would do about it, considering this world was quarantined, and not even soldiers could come in searching for her.
Garrel arrived at the grassy plains and found what she strongly believed were tyre tracks. That her search was going so well was uplifting, although Garrel had never been one to entrust too much to luck. She checked the fuel gauge on her bike and reasoned she was good for a few more hours yet. Even the time of day was working to her advantage, for the artificial sun would not flee for several hours yet. If the rain would stop she might even enjoy this excursion entirely.
Pressing on, Garrel passed a triceratops herd, but steered well clear of them. She knew full well the noise of her bike would spook the animals and the last thing she wanted was to be caught in the stampede of a frightened herd of five tonne monsters.
The grass began to peter out and Garrel slowed. The rain was intensifying and her visibility was decreasing incredibly. The ground gave way to rocks, made slippery by the rain, and so jagged did the terrain become that she decided if she continued much longer she was going to get herself killed. Bringing the bike to a stop, Garrel stepped off and located an
overhang of rock which would offer the bike at least some protection from the downpour. With the rain came an overbearing chill and Garrel hugged herself tightly as she pressed her back against the rocks, wishing Ceres would make up its mind as to what the temperature was going to be. Shivering, trying desperately to still her chattering teeth, Garrel looked through the storm to try to work out where she was, and whether the buggy might have made it over this terrain. It seemed too haphazard for such a vehicle and she decided she had likely made a wrong turn somewhere along her journey.
The wind shifted and Garrel found herself being blasted with the worst of the deluge, so she headed away from her bike to try to find somewhere better to be hiding from the storm. Walking to the edge of the rocks, she gazed down and realised she was on some form of mountain range. Below she could see valleys and a torrential river which was tearing at the trees growing on the mountainside. Garrel could not be certain, but she got the impression that river had not been there only a week earlier.
She heard a terrible cracking and looked up to see a portion of the mountain give way under the pressure of the storm. Rock and filthy water careened down the side of the mountain, disappearing into the black depths of the river beneath her, and Garrel decided she needed to get away from the area as quickly as possible. Returning to her bike, she gunned the engine and headed back the way she had come. She was driving against the rain now, and it battered her as though some great god wanted to keep her where it could play with her. She moved slowly, fully aware she could at any moment lose her balance and topple over the mountainside, but if the mountain was giving way the worst place she could remain was beneath that overhang.
Garrel swore as something lunged before her. She swerved the bike as the creature, some form of deer, froze in fear at her approach. The bike twisted and she felt her fingers slip from the handlebar. The deer bolted, but Garrel was giving the animal no further thought as she felt herself tumbling away from her bike. Throwing up her arms, she felt the bike brush past her as it sailed over her head, but then she felt the ground give way beneath her and she knew her worst fears were realised. Frantically trying to grasp the slippery sides of the cliff, Garrel scrabbled in vain. She felt her foot tear through the crumbling rock and then she was falling like a plummet into the black depths of the raging river below.