Analog SFF, September 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Then it dawned on her that perhaps the aliens had plucked some Mozart from her mind. They might have been testing her character by offering her unlimited power, to see if she had the moral strength to refuse it. Her golden cross had protected her just as well as a magic flute would have done.

  Katerina slowly lowered her legs into the knee-deep liquid, wading carefully through it in case part of the pool was deeper. As she stepped onto the floor at the far end of the corridor she wondered if there were more trials ahead—and more importantly, where her dear Tamino was.

  * * * *

  Martin frowned at the long pool of fluid in front of him. He didn't expect and didn't receive an answer to his questions, “Are you going to part it for me? Or am I supposed to walk on it?”

  He shone his flashlight around the dimly lit area. For an instant, from the corner of his eye he thought he saw a second entrance into this corridor near the one where he'd just emerged. But when he looked at the area on the metal wall directly, it appeared as solid as everywhere else.

  Martin turned his attention back to the pool blocking his path. He grunted, “If Katerina were here, she'd figure out a way to test if this liquid is dangerous and how deep it is. I bet she'd do something so ingenuous with whatever's in her medical bag that it would've impressed MacGyver. Let's see what I can do.”

  He hefted the video camera in his hand. “This thing has ultrasonic and infrared autofocus systems. Maybe I can measure the distance to the bottom of the pool using the camera like an active sonar device. I could put it right above the surface of the fluid and let the camera autofocus on the bottom of the pool. When I switch to manual focus the distance the camera is focusing on should appear on the display screen. Might work—”

  But as he stepped to the edge of the pool his flashlight beam caught something on the other side that stopped his experiment. Martin stuck one boot cautiously into the pool, then the second. Stepping carefully through the water, he reached the other side and looked down at the wet footprints leading upwards along this length of the corridor.

  Unless the aliens wore tennis shoes, Katerina must be up ahead! His wet boots squeaked excitedly as he rushed to find her.

  * * * *

  Martin poked his head through the meter-wide square opening in the top of the pyramid. The late afternoon sunlight hurt his eyes as he re-emerged into the open air. He clutched the video camera with his left hand while his right grasped one of the metal bars lining a side of the long vertical shaft he'd just climbed. The bars were as thick as a prison cell's and as long as his forearm. They extended ten centimeters out from the wall of the shaft and were spaced like the rungs of a ladder.

  Pulling himself higher through the opening, Martin laid the video camera on the smooth gray metal that stretched horizontally like a floor across the top of the pyramid. Reaching inside a pocket on his shorts, he extracted his flashlight and laid it beside the camera. Then, still squinting in the sunlight, Martin noticed a shadow dancing gracefully along the surrounding shiny flat surface.

  “Katerina!”

  As he finished hoisting himself from the opening and stood atop the pyramid she ran back and flung herself into his arms. Time stood still as they pressed their lips and bodies together in a passionate reunion whose description would've filled pages of purple prose in a romance novel.

  Weaving gently together in a tight lingering embrace, Martin whispered in her ear, “I was afraid I'd lost you. I'd go crazy if that happened.”

  Katerina brushed her tears across his cheek. “You'll never lose me, Martin. Even if I died I'd wait for you in heaven.”

  Martin scowled. “Don't talk about dying! You're not going to die!”

  Katerina stepped back from him. “Don't be angry.”

  Her crewmate spat, “Darn right I'm angry! When we got separated I thought something terrible happened to you. All those stories about aliens abducting humans didn't seem so ridiculous anymore. I kept imagining you lying on a table unable to move while some slobbering bug-eyed monster from a pulp magazine's cover did weird medical experiments on your scantily clad body.

  “I don't know why the aliens are messing with our minds and playing games with us, and right now I don't care. All I want is to get you down from here and make sure you stay safe!”

  Martin trod cautiously to the nearby edge of the pyramid. His gaze absorbed a vast vista of rolling mounds and shallow valleys spreading out like a painted desert around them. A nauseating wave of vertigo rocked him as he peered toward the hard unyielding ground far below.

  A strong gust of wind against his back shoved him closer to the beckoning metal precipice at his feet. He twisted dizzily away and stumbled back several meters to where Katerina watched him with growing alarm. Wiping sweat from his face and forcing himself to breathe slower, he surveyed his surroundings again.

  The top of the pyramid was a square about one hundred meters on each side. Its level surface seemed solid except for the solitary opening, centered about five meters from the pyramid's nearest edge, where they'd both emerged.

  Martin frowned. “Why are those things there?”

  He pointed toward the evenly spaced metal rungs jutting up in a straight row along the platform they stood on.

  Katerina peered down through the opening, back into the depths of the vertical shaft below. She said, “Those bars look identical to the ones we used to climb up here. See how they line the side of the shaft farthest from the edge of the pyramid, then continue across the surface here out toward the other side?”

  “I can see that, but what are they for?”

  “Maybe the aliens put them there for us to grab hold to if the wind gets too strong, so we won't be blown off the pyramid.”

  Martin shivered. “We definitely don't want to go over the edge. It's a long way to the ground, and the sides of the pyramid are way too steep to slide down safely. Looks like the only way to get off this thing is to retrace our steps and hope the aliens have reopened the entrance. Or we could look for another opening up here that leads down to a different exit.”

  Katerina stepped slowly away from him, following the line of metal rungs until it ended abruptly at the center of the plateau that held them prisoners. She continued walking straight ahead toward the other side of the square, looking down intensely at its featureless sheen. “The aliens must have led us up here for a reason, Martin. Maybe they've written a message somewhere on the surface here, like they did on that artifact we explored the day we landed.”

  Martin started to trot toward her, but stumbled as his boot slipped. He moved toward her more carefully, shouting, “Don't get too close to the edge, this metal is as slick as a playground slide.”

  Katerina stopped about four meters from the rim and called back to him, “You look over there. Let me know if you find any writing.”

  “Okay. But I don't see why, if the aliens want to tell us something, they just don't come and say it in person.”

  Katerina looked up. “Didn't the aliens speak to you when we were inside the pyramid?”

  “Of course not.”

  Martin turned around and stared at her. “Are you implying they did talk to you?”

  “Yes. They said—”

  Suddenly the metal beneath their feet began to tremble. The whole pyramid shuddered with a low rumble that grew steadily louder like a speeding train bearing down on them. Martin felt the same sickening dread as when the New Madrid fault triggered its worst earthquake in over two centuries while he was at college in St. Louis.

  His body wobbled and fought to stay upright as the spot he stood on began tilting gradually downward like the lowering end of a seesaw. The edge of the pyramid farthest from him arced slowly skyward as its whole top surface slanted ever steeper, like someone raising the bed of an enormous dump truck. It was as if gigantic hands had dug their fingers beneath the base of the pyramid on the side nearest the sole opening in its top. Little by little they were lifting and tipping the whole structure—making the pyramid l
ean more and more as if they meant to topple it over and crush the tiny scampering creatures atop it.

  Martin watched spellbound as the opening in the pyramid's top rose into view far away across a slippery “floor” that grew ever steeper. His brain finally registered that if the surface slanted much more he'd go sliding and tumbling down to and over the lower edge of the pyramid.

  As his eyes darted desperately around for a way out of danger, Martin glimpsed the metal rungs embedded into the rising surface. Instantly he began sprinting straight ahead up an ever-increasing slope toward the closest rung some twenty-five meters away. It was like trying to run up the hill behind the family farmhouse after a winter ice storm. His boots fought for traction as he leaned forward, trying to keep his balance—

  Halfway to his goal Martin stopped—paralyzed by a horrifying realization. He turned around and screamed, “Katerina!”

  She was closing fast on him, her tennis shoes glancing off the slippery gray metal like an ice skater's blades. As she bounded toward him Katerina yelled, “Keep going, Martin, don't stop!”

  He hesitated—then obeyed. The surface was canting so much now he had to crouch, his fingers brushing against its cold metal for a handhold that wasn't there. He barely dodged the flashlight and video camera that skittered past him like miniature boulders before they zoomed over the edge of the pyramid. Despite straining every muscle he was slowing down, his forward acceleration checked and feet slipping.

  With a last desperate lunge before the rumbling surface became too steep to stand on, his right hand stretched forward and grasped the bottommost rung of the row of metal rungs that now extended like a ladder toward the opening high above him. As his left hand joined it the top of the pyramid gave one last shudder—and stopped rising, sloping at an angle about twenty degrees from vertical.

  Martin's body stretched belly down against the silent metal surface, his arms extended and grasping the rung in its center as if it were a trapeze bar. He struggled to twist his head to look downward, afraid of what he'd see—

  Suddenly he felt a heavy weight tugging on his right ankle, and then another hand grabbed his left foot. As he tried to ease the terrible tension in his straining shoulders Martin winced as fingernails dug into his right calf and clawed away its coarse hairs. Reflexively he reached down and shouted, “Grab my hand!”

  “I can't reach it!”

  He waited as many agonizing seconds as he could to feel Katerina's grasp, then his left hand's loosening grip forced him to bring his right arm back to the rung. He yelled, “Try pulling yourself up again!”

  The pain was even worse this time as he felt her palms squeezing then slipping off the bare sweating skin of his legs. If only he were wearing pants instead of shorts—

  “I can't do it, Martin!”

  His eyes darted up toward the line of metal rungs stretching toward the opening far above them. If he could chin himself up to grab the next couple rungs above him, Katerina could seize the one that now tenuously supported both of them. Freed of her extra weight around his ankles, he could raise his legs and use that lowest rung to support his feet. Then it'd be easy to reach back down and pull her up.

  Martin's arm muscles contracted in rippling spasms as his body jerked centimeters upward toward safety—then slid back down to its original outstretched position along the precariously inclined surface. His mind and heart tried to will more strength into cramped weakening hands that barely managed to maintain their grip, fighting to keep Katerina and him from sliding down and over the edge of the pyramid. At the other end of his tortured body Martin felt a pair of outstretched arms gripping his ankles. He heard a surprisingly calm voice just below his feet murmur, “This won't work, Martin. I'm dragging you down.”

  He shouted back, “I've got to do it! I've got to save you!”

  Martin grit his teeth and forced his body upward with his last reserves of strength. Suddenly the metal bar he clung to jerked past his chin and upper chest. His right hand whipped up and grasped the next higher rung. Another heartbeat and his left hand held it too, then he swiftly repeated the process for the rung just above it. As he raised his left knee to the lowest rung for support he started to shout to Katerina to grab hold of that rung—and then realized with sickening horror why he'd succeeded in raising himself.

  He looked down in time to see her tumbling body fly over the edge of the pyramid.

  * * * *

  Katerina's arms and legs skidded across the slick metal surface, leaving scrapes and bruises there wasn't time to feel as she felt herself propelled ever faster toward the precipice below. Suddenly she was in free fall, rocketing away from the side of the tilted pyramid toward the stony ground far beneath her.

  Time seemed to slow as she imagined herself on one of the jumps she'd made from high-flying aircraft during her cosmonaut training. She willed the sudden cramping in her stomach away, wheeled into a prone position with limbs spread outward to increase air resistance, and extended her neck away from the onrushing Martian surface. Her hand reflexively reached for the ripcord of a nonexistent parachute.

  There wasn't time for her mind to comprehend the pain and possible death only seconds away. Her brain defensibly pretended this was a textbook problem on how to survive a fall. She remembered that relaxing her muscles and exhaling just before impact might reduce injury. Try not to hit your head or back, turn so you hit on your side. Cracked ribs and a broken arm aren't as bad as a skull fracture or spinal injury.

  Maybe the medical bag still dangling from its strap around her left shoulder could cushion her fall. And because the aliens had raised Mars’ gravity to only 91% of Earth's, perhaps a fall from this height might be survivable—

  The Martian wind whistling by her ears stopped. Time slowed nearly to a standstill around her as she hung suspended in space, like a fly in amber.

  Explain why you deliberately let go of your companion.

  Katerina sensed rather than saw the hazy lights nearby trailing her descent.

  “I had to. My weight was pulling him down. If I hadn't let go, in another moment we both would've fallen.”

  Explain how you benefit by preventing his injury while hastening yours.

  “I love him. Even if I don't survive, he will.”

  You will not survive this fall on your own.

  Katerina closed her eyes. “I know.”

  You will survive if you accept our gift. It is easy to manipulate matter, energy, and gravity. We can show you how.

  “Why are you doing this? You deliberately made the top of the pyramid tilt and put us in danger—just so you could offer me power I don't want and no human being should have! This must be some kind of test—but what are you testing?”

  If you knew what we were testing, it would no longer be a test.

  “Then I'll have to guess. You want to find out if we humans want to become as powerful as God, though we don't and never will completely know the difference between good and evil. You're trying to tempt me to receive more knowledge all at once than I could possibly handle. I can't take the chance that—even with the best intentions—I might misuse that power to do wrong. I'm hoping that what you're really testing is my character—my strength to refuse your gift, even at the cost of my own life.

  “And I'm praying that you really don't wish me harm and won't let Martin or me die.”

  There was no answer. Suddenly the wind was shrieking against her face again and the ground was rocketing up toward her....

  * * * *

  Martin stared downward where Katerina had disappeared, frozen like Lot's wife looking back at a scene of unimaginable horror. He didn't feel the pain from his knees digging into the lowermost metal rung as he strained to hear the distant wet thud of a body striking the ground. From the stillness and solitude of his shadowed perch atop the pyramid, he felt that whatever future and purpose his life had were dead.

  Another instant and he was climbing frantically up the metal rungs to the faraway opening in the pyramid's
top. Perhaps she'd merely slid down the side of the pyramid and was sitting on the ground nursing only scrapes and bruises that'd heal soon. Maybe the aliens only meant to scare both of them, like a Mercury Theatre on the Air Halloween prank, and had rescued her before she was harmed. Whatever happened, she needed him and he had to find her!

  As Martin scrambled into the opening the vast alien structure rumbled again and gradually lowered itself back toward its original upright position. The shaft beyond the opening, not far from horizontal when he'd reached it, now slowly resumed its original vertical orientation as the top of the pyramid became level once more. He didn't wait for the pyramid's base to settle firmly back on the ground again before twisting and scurrying down the shaft and into the interior. As he retraced his steps downward through the pyramid's once-gloomy jagged corridors, the walls around him now shone with a soft luminescence that guided his path.

  This time there were no alien-contrived distractions of fire or water to restrain his flight. When he reached the chamber they'd first entered Martin shouted in relief when his lingering fear that it was still sealed from the outside world proved wrong. As he raced out through the reopened entrance his boots kicked up tiny dust storms in the Martian soil, his eyes scanning frantically for Katerina. The rover still sat where they'd parked it an eternity ago—but there was no sign of her.

  She had to be by one of the pyramid's other sides. He dashed to his right, imagining Katerina turning the corner before he reached it and running laughing into his arms—

  A small bundle of flesh and torn clothing lay still within its own shallow impact crater near one side of the pyramid. As he neared the silent broken mass of limbs and tissue Martin flashed back to when he was twelve years old and found another body sprawled by the side of a busy road. He'd stupidly thought Fred, the copper-colored dachshund who'd been his best friend and companion for most of his childhood, was asleep—until he'd seen the flies and blood.