by Jonah Buck
There was another door at the far end of the miniature prison. Denise moved toward it. They seemed to be on the right track here. The main security annex was almost certainly somewhere near the prisoners.
The inside of the room led to what was obviously a senior military administrator’s office, with smaller rooms for other personnel nearby. There was both a French flag and a flag for the French Antarctic territories. The territorial flag had a small French flag in the upper left, and the rest was primarily plain blue with a few stars and some lettering that was probably an acronym in French.
There were also pictures on the wall. A young man in an officer’s uniform standing in a muddy trench, one hand holding a scruffy little mutt dog under an arm, the other resting on the breach of a piece of heavy artillery. Another showed a slightly older version of the same man standing in front of a row of tanks. The little dog in his arm had been replaced with a woman in a bridal veil. A third picture showed two young boys in playtime soldier outfits. The pictures told a little story about a man dedicated to his craft.
The nameplate that still sat on the desk added context to that story. Col. Ozias Dagenais. He had been in charge of security on the station. Obviously, he’d failed. Based on what she’d seen, only he and a few others, probably mostly from the armed security team, had survived the collapse of the station’s defenses.
Aside from a layer of dust, the desk looked like it was ready for use. A typewriter sat off to the side. Forms sat in neat little piles, ready to be read or carried off to the appropriate recipient. Most of the room was almost pristine.
One of the few things that had been disturbed was a large vault that took up part of the sidewall. It was the station’s armory. There were maybe a dozen racks for rifles, all of them empty. A half-empty box of rifle ammunition sat on the floor, brass spilling out and rolling onto the room’s carpet.
There was exactly one weapon left in the armory, a standard-issue pistol. There were a couple of boxes of ammunition for it. Everything else had been pillaged in the original defense of the station. Denise reached in and tossed the pistol to Cornelia, handing the extra ammo boxes over next.
“That’s it?” Fletch asked.
“There’s some rifle rounds. Maybe if we run really fast when can shove them into anything that attacks us,” Cornelia said, scowling.
“We can probably find a couple more guns around the station, but they’re almost certainly locked in somebody’s cold, dead hands,” Denise said. “We’ll keep looking, but this is a start. Eventually, I want to start working on securing the area and finding some sort of communications system.”
She looked back at the desk that used to belong to Dagenais. She felt like she understood the man a little bit better now that she knew he’d been the head of security here. A man of his obvious military pride probably felt a stain of shame and dishonor from being forced out of his own headquarters. Neither ambition nor honor were well-served by such a situation, and Denise had the suspicion that Dagenais was the type who had a lot of the former and paid a lot of lip service to the latter.
He’d probably been looking for an excuse to either destroy or retake this place. Either option would ensure that there was never any public evidence of what transpired here. Human experimentation and a monstrous invasion from outer space wouldn’t look good on anyone’s service record. If there were no survivors, there wouldn’t be anyone to dispute his account of things, though.
And that meant there would be no negotiating with him. In all likelihood, no quarter would be given, even if asked for. The twin forces of pride and fear of censure were hard to overcome, especially given that Dagenais clearly had the upper hand. If his troops showed up outside the station right now, the four of them only had two guns to defend themselves.
Denise and the others checked the extra rooms that branched off of the main security office. There were some personal items left behind but nothing that was especially useful to them. Moving back out through the cell block, they returned to the central chamber and the meteor. The giant rock loomed over them, as if sitting in judgement.
They tried another passageway and found the station’s communication center. Radio equipment sat on tables, unused but activated again after the power had been restored.
“Jackpot,” Cornelia said.
“Does anybody know how to work this equipment?” Denise asked.
“I can figure it out,” Fletch said.
“Perfect. At some point, we’re going to need to get out of here. We need to get on the horn with anybody we can. Anybody who isn’t Dagenais. A passing ship is probably our best shot. They can pass on word to somebody else that we need help getting away from here. If we can arrange to be picked up at some stretch of coast far away from whatever’s left of Delambre Station and Dagenais, maybe we can trek out there and escape. With food, fuel, and tents, we can keep going for days. That’ll give us a chance.”
Denise knew it wasn’t a perfect plan. Even if they could arrange a secret extraction at some anonymous stretch of shore, there were still threats from the air. The dragon creature was the most obvious. If it found them out in the open, it would make short work of them. That French scout plane could be just as dangerous, though. If it spotted them, it would report their position right back to Dagenais. And if Dagenais knew where they were, he would no doubt try to stop them, even if it meant sinking another civilian ship.
A voice squawked to life over the radio. There was a jabber of French. Another voice responded, also in French. Then, the voices cut off.
The system must still be tuned in to the French military signals it had been using when the station’s population was killed. They could listen in on the French military here. Not that it did them any good. They could be listening to French commandos sneak up on the outside of the building right this very instant, and none of them would be able to understand the conversation or orders.
Then a voice came through the radio in English. Denise recognized the voice’s controlled, dulcet tones in a second.
“This is Colonel Ozias Dagenais. I am addressing the people who have fled inland to Merovée Station. I see your transmitter has reactivated. Our equipment has been picking up your signal for several minutes. Are you there?”
Denise was tempted to pick up the receiver and tell Dagenais that they had seen the cells and the starved bodies. They knew about the experiments that must have been conducted here. Nobody took a step forward, though. The thought that this might be some sort of trick must have crossed all their minds at some point.
“I will repeat this message every fifteen minutes for the next two hours. After that, I will assume you are all dead. Surrender now. We know you are there. Even now, my men are preparing to retake the station. They have been warned about the extremely dangerous situation inside and its infectious nature. I’m sure you have seen the noxious nature of this threat by now, too. It must be contained at all costs, and your presence is only complicating matters and putting lives at risk. Agree to turn yourselves in to my men, and we will see to it that you are given medical testing to ensure you are not infected, and then we will allow you to leave. I will issue this message again in another fifteen minutes. This offer will expire after the end of two hours.”
“Do you believe any of that? About letting us go?” Metrodora asked.
“Not for a minute,” Denise said. “He just wants to get us out of here, so he can be done with us faster. He blew up a civilian ship without warning, and he shelled French citizens. He wants this contained, and I don’t think he cares how he goes about that. He’s not going to let us surrender. Not after all he’s already done. He just wants us to make things easy for him.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“This part of the facility is relatively free of monsters. Most of them don’t seem to have stuck around since they took over the station. Makes sense. Not much prey around here at this point. That’s too our advantage, though. We can secure this area and stay safe for a little
while.”
“A few barricades won’t hold off Dagenais for very long,” Cornelia said.
“No. No, they won’t. That’s why we’re going to do what we can to get out of here. This is just a layover. We take what we can, and then we move on. Fletch, you said you can work the radio?”
“Yeah, it’s not too complicated.”
“Alright, good. I want you to do everything you can to contact the outside world. There might be a British or Norwegian basecamp within a few hundred miles. Nothing as advanced as this place, but if you can contact them, that would be a start. A passing ship would do. We just need to get word out that we need rescue. And don’t talk to Dagenais. He doesn’t know what we’re working on. He doesn’t even know how many of us are left. Let’s keep him guessing as much as possible. Leave him in the dark. If we can call in a rescue ship, make sure they know to stay far away from whatever’s left of Delambre Station. We don’t need that cruiser sinking our rescuers, too. We can hike out to some remote anchorage and meet them there. Hopefully, we can be on board and sailing toward civilization by the time Dagenais realizes where we are.”
“What are you going to do?” Cornelia asked.
“Apparently, the cable car into the crater can take us to some sort of emergency supply cache. I want to get my hands on it. Maybe there will be more guns. If not, hopefully there’s fuel and canned food for us to take when we make a break for it.”
“I’ll go with you,” Cornelia said.
“No. After me, you’re best with a gun. We’d be better off if you stay up here and protect Fletch while he’s on the radio. More of those bug men might try to break in while I’m down there, and it would be good to have someone topside who can handle a weapon.”
“I know my way around a gun,” Fletch said.
“I’m sure you do, but you’re going to be holed up in the radio room for a good chunk of the time while I’m away. You won’t be able to see what’s happening elsewhere in the facility while you’re in there. Besides, I want Cornelia to do something else while she’s topside.”
“What do you need?”
“You’ve got some training in geology. Put that degree to good work. See what you can learn about the meteor. Maybe there’s something that will prove useful. If we can learn something from it about any of the monsters, that might be able to give us the upper hand.”
“I mostly studied paleontology. You’d want a team of specialists and a lot of time to learn anything about that rock. Mineralogists. Exogeologists. The works. The French brought those guys in, and they’re all dead. I can’t promise you I’ll come up with anything helpful.”
“I know. But try. We’re going to have to claw for any little advantage we can get here.”
As if to underscore Denise’s point, a loud thrumming noise came in low over the building. Denise gripped her Nitro Express a little tighter. After a moment, the noise faded off into the distance.
The giant monster had just buzzed past them. They were firmly in its territory right now. Even if Fletch did manage to contact a rescue ship, they were still going to have to contend with that big son of a bitch. Hopefully, they could find a way to avoid the creature. If they couldn’t, they’d all end up as melted stains on the ice.
“What can I help with?” Metrodora asked.
“I could do with an extra set of hands and eyes when I look for those emergency supplies. Think you can handle some field studies?”
FOURTEEN
AND CLOSE YOUR EYES WITH HOLY DREAD
The cable car shuddered and swayed as it moved. The movement made Denise yearn for the journey of the Sulaco through the ice fields or Fletch’s plane rattling through the sky. They were almost as far from the floor of the crater as she had been from the ground in Fletch’s plane.
The meteor had punched a hole a couple of hundred feet deep into the ice. Denise did her best to avoid looking down. She did once, and it was a mistake. There were still bits and pieces of the meteor down in the bottom of the hole. Those were the parts that had broken off on impact. They were embedded in a flat layer of ice at the bottom of the hole.
Most of the water locked up in the ice had probably just evaporated on impact. The meteor strike would have been like a giant bomb hitting the area. What ice had merely melted dribbled down to the bottom of the crater and refroze in a perfectly flat surface. For a few short hours, it had been a bubbling, boiling lake. Now it was just a stretch of fresh ice among layers upon layers of ancient frost.
There was a giant rectangular section cut out of the frozen lake near the middle, though. That must have been where the French researchers and engineers sawed through the ice to fish out their prize. From up above, it almost looked like a gigantic key slot. Unfortunately, it had apparently unlocked one of the gates of hell.
The cable car didn’t lead straight down, though. It wasn’t an elevator. Rather, it led across to midway down the other side of the crater. The teams that built this place had excavated out part of the wall of the crater, apparently as a place to store supplies early on in the construction process. It sheltered everything from the constant wind, and it had provided a platform to start carving a path down along the side of the crater.
Denise could see the path from here. It rimmed the side of the impact site, starting with the area that had been excavated for storage. The path swept downward almost like an oversized spiral staircase. It would have allowed small vehicles and foot traffic down to the bottom of the crater.
The excavated portion of the wall was massive in and of itself, though. Denise could see the cable car wires leading down into a slit in the ice, but she couldn’t tell exactly where they stopped. All she could see was a large space beyond.
Metrodora had her notebook out, and she was drawing in it. It appeared to be a sort of sketched out portrait of one of the bug men, with notes off to the side. She seemed fairly absorbed in the task, despite the swaying and creaking of the cable car.
That swaying and creaking made Denise want to claw her skin off, though. She felt like a rabbit being dangled over a pit of wolves. Locked in here, she was completely helpless and only too aware of how thin the cables supporting them were. Had the cold weakened them at all? Just how precarious was their position, really? She knew what to do when she had a gun and a threat in her sights. This was just a big crap sandwich, though. She needed to think about something else. Anything else.
“So…you, uh draw?” Denise asked.
“Yes,” Metrodora said, without bothering to look up.
“I noticed you take that notebook everywhere with you. Do the Squires require you to take field notes, or is it just for your own personal satisfaction?”
“It’s not for the Squires. I’ll have to file a full field report when we make it back to South Africa. The notes can help a bit with that. I’d get in trouble if they found me with this, though.”
“What kind of trouble? If it helps with your field report, I don’t see why they would care if you do some drawings. You’re pretty good at it from what I can see.”
“Remember how I said St. George’s Squires have been a little slow to adapt to the twentieth century? Even though more and more people are encountering aberrant zoological specimens, sometimes discovering new ones we’ve never even heard of, we don’t release our data. There are dozens of deaths every year across the globe due to creatures that we know about. We have some idea of how far their territory stretches and how aggressive they are and a dozen other data points. Are they predators, or are they primarily scavengers? Do they prefer to ambush their prey, or do they lay elaborate traps? Things like that. Aside from some tribal elders and a few others, most people these days have never heard of these animals. They’ve been relegated to myth, if they haven’t been forgotten entirely. With the way populations in South Africa have been forced to move around in the past hundred years, a lot of people don’t live anywhere near where their ancestors did. They have no idea what’s out there.”
“That’s one of
the things Cornelia and I try to help with.”
“And that’s a valuable service in its own right. I’d like to work on the problem from a different angle, though. The Squires are sitting on huge troves of data, carefully collected ever since Europeans started carving colonies out of Africa. What has been released only goes to carefully selected groups of researchers. None of it’s available to the general public. I’d like to change that.”
“You’re going to publish your notes?”
“A spruced-up version of them anyway. I’ve been working in their archives for years. I know the habits and territories of half the creatures in our data collection by heart. The ones I don’t know are mostly because we only encounter them so rarely that we don’t have very good data on them. Some of them we’ve only encountered once, maybe only to have them wipe out a hunting team. We have good information on lots of the other creatures, though. I want to publish a field guide to biological anomalies. It would help people steer clear of the creature’s habitats and save lives.”
“Will the Squires be able to figure out who is responsible for publishing all their secrets?”
“They’ll probably know it was someone in the South African division, but they won’t be able to pin it on me. There’s plenty of other people who have access to the same information I do. Any of them could publish their own bestiary. I’m going to use a false name on the book. Hendrik Meltebeke. I’m not interested in credit for this. I’d be kicked out of the Squires if they found out about my little project.”
“Will any publisher actually want to pick up something like that?”
“I’m hoping that one of the specialty presses that puts out hunting guides, travelogues, and bird watching books will think it’s interesting enough to pick it up as a curio item. Even if they think its fiction, a few copies here and there could save lives.”