With tracks came animal shit. Lots of it, and fairly fresh, from the looks of it.
Suddenly the idea of exploring the Beehive was much less attractive.
The trail of tracks and shit led him right to the main opening, which looked like a cave from some old movie, one where you can easily see that the “rocks” are papier-mâché or rubber.
Xavier stopped before entering, because he could hear noise from inside the Beehive, some kind of terrible screeching and scratching, and his mind went right to his nightmare of an animal devouring another animal.
But the noise lasted only a few seconds. He waited, listening.
Nothing.
He looked around. No one watching, of course. And no four-legged thing approaching.
Xavier entered the Beehive.
He was instantly sorry that he had. While it was immediately impressive for its size and the collection of odd-shaped cells, some of them recently opened, others clearly in the cook phase, it smelled like locker room and garbage pile and flower shop and maybe something else, all at the same time.
It wasn’t all stinky...but it was thick. It made him sniff and made his throat itch, which was very unpleasant.
The ground was all slimy, too, not just muddy, but with some kind of yellow goo that was either drying or nowhere near dry.
He decided to ask Nayar and Jaidev to have the Temple give them shoes. Size ten, anything you’ve got.
After a couple of minutes, however, and a few dozen meters deeper into the Beehive (which turned out to have branches leading in three different directions, making him wonder how big it really was), Xavier was feeling more comfortable and confident.
He hadn’t heard any further screeching, so that was good.
He hadn’t found anything worth bartering yet...but let’s see now.
He turned up the nearest branch and found that the cells here were all large, and new-looking, and busy. Don’t hang around here, he told himself.
So he doubled back to the main chamber and struck off farther down what appeared to be the old, primary passage.
He hadn’t taken ten steps when he realized he ought to stop.
He heard screeching from somewhere in front of him.
And close!
The passage was twisty-turny and the light was low—really nothing more than the eerie glow from the cell fronts—so it was difficult to see much.
But Xavier saw a terrifying and familiar shape coming around the corner.
A goddamn monkey!
It wasn’t a big monkey—not gorilla-sized, for sure. But it was waving its arms and looking unhappy.
So, as Momma would have said, Xavier ran like Satan himself was in pursuit. Back to the main chamber, then outside...he made sure to put about fifty meters between himself and the Beehive before he slowed, stopped, and, panting, dared to look back.
He stopped next to a large rock that sat on a low hill. There were trees and bushes to his left...if he had to, he could slip in there and likely lose his pursuer.
The monkey had gone silent and hadn’t emerged. Maybe it found a banana or a pawpaw to gnaw on.
Xavier was happy to leave the creature to its business. It made him feel stupider than usual, however, having come all this way with such high hopes, only to end the adventure running in terror.
The one thing he had liked about Keanu seemed about to vanish, to go wherever other great notions went, when they turned out to be crap.
Well, if he hurried back, he’d still get most of a night’s sleep.
Even before he started back, he thought of something cool. He knew about this monkey. Drake and Nayar and Weldon and Jones would want to know, too. They would want to take care of it; otherwise it would be scaring off anyone who tried to enter the Beehive.
And who would be the guide? Who would be the hero? Why, Xavier Toutant—he would lead the first monkey hunt on this new world.
He had gone no more than a dozen steps when he heard another sound.
This wasn’t an animal grunt...it was a moan.
Xavier tried to remember what kinds of animals could make sounds like humans. Panthers? Something like that.
Since he didn’t know, why worry about it?
But he wanted to check it out. Sounded pitiful...maybe some kind of cat that got mauled by some bigger, meaner animal.
The sound was coming from the trees. Xavier carefully approached, pushing an overhanging branch aside. He smelled tree of some kind.
And that weird Beehive smell.
Another moan, much closer.
Human! He was sure of it.
He pressed on and stumbled across a body lying near a tree.
It was a woman not much older than Xavier...but she was covered in some kind of brownish material, clinging to her like caramel on an apple.
She had scratches on her face where she must have clawed the material away.
She looked at Xavier and, sobbing, said something.
In two days of working and living with people from Bangalore, Xavier had learned a few Hindi words and phrases.
One of them was this: “Help me!”
PAV
Pav’s father, Taj, had a saying. “As the rabbit said while screwing the porcupine, ‘I’ve enjoyed about as much of this as I can stand.’”
Pav’s mother hated hearing such talk.... In retrospect, Pav realized, his mother, Amita, had grown more openly proper and Victorian as her illicit relationship with Vikram Nayar progressed.
Wing Commander Radhakrishnan wasn’t usually so racy, either, but he had a naughty side that emerged under the pressure of socializing at Star City, where vodka, as one of Pav’s friends there joked, “wasn’t only a breakfast beverage.”
Running ahead of Rachel Stewart and Zhao toward a mummy...trying to reach it before the cat’s-eye rolling toward them...Slate bouncing against his back (after being soaked in plasm, it was probably broken)...Pav had totally enjoyed as much of this as he could stand.
That was, if he had time to think.
The dog got there first, barking ferociously and jumping in front of the mummy like some sheepherding animal.
From the way the mummy threw up its hands, trying to protect its face, it was frightened by the dog.
Which made Pav even more terrified, because he could see the cat’s-eye rolling closer and closer, the strange blue light pulsing. It was like a slow subway rolling toward him...but there was no doubt that it was going to arrive—
Wait!
There was another tunnel to their left! He’d just passed it as he closed to within two meters of the mummy. “Rachel,” Pav shouted. “That way!”
“What about it?” Rachel shouted.
“You and Zhao—go there!”
Pav reached the mummy, performing a good American football—what Wing Commander Radhakrishnan called “carry ball”—tackle, knocking it down.
Then picking it up. Pav was fairly tall, but no taller than the mummy.
Nevertheless, he had gravity and what was surely his final surge of adrenaline on his side.
It was a fireman’s carry, something he’d never actually attempted, but, whoof, up on the shoulders, turn around, scream “Come on!” to the dog.
Start running toward a stupefied Rachel and Zhao. “Into the fucking tunnel!” he screamed.
They weren’t far away and he actually reached the tunnel just at the same time, bumping into Zhao and losing the mummy.
But only for a moment. He grabbed the mummy’s arm, and to his surprise, the mummy grabbed back. “Go, go, go!” he shouted. He could hear the cat’s-eye’s approach, as the main tunnel groaned like metal under strain.
Then he could feel it on his whole right side, as if he were being tugged that way.
Ten meters now, maybe twenty from the main tunnel—
And getting dark.
The cat’s-eye passed behind them with a crunching whoosh that made the light pulse.
Pav lost his footing, not because he stumbled, but because
he was flying.
All of them were flying and falling down, down, down a dark tunnel.
Pav had time to count to a hundred, which meant that they fell or floated for probably three whole minutes, because he was too freaked out to think for part of the time.
He was afraid they were going to hit hard, like they’d been dropped off the top of a building.
But he could see no bottom...Pav could barely make out the sides.
Then they bumped the wall, lightly, but firmly, and began to tumble slowly, which, in normal circumstances, might have been fun...but surely wasn’t, here.
During one of the gentle rotations, Pav saw a circle of light ahead of them...or below them.
And it grew. “Hang on!” Rachel said.
“To what?” he said.
Two seconds later, they all fell into a giant cavern that, to Pav’s disoriented vision, looked like their own human habitat. But wasn’t.
More specifically, he and the others had emerged from the floor of a similar habitat and were looking and falling up at a set of squiggly glowworm lights. Pav turned his head and saw that the floor, still separating as the five of them rose into the air, was completely built up! Filled with structures making it look like a Lego city. There were odd open areas, like pools or lakes. Far in the distance, a jet of bluish material shot toward the roof, then died.
Meanwhile, like rockets launched from a city park, Pav, Rachel, Zhao, Cowboy, and the mummy were now arcing high—
—and helpless to do anything but fall.
Some force was altering their trajectory, however...“Do you feel that?” Zhao shouted. He was below Pav, splayed like a skydiver.
“It’s like a wind!” Rachel yelled. She was above him, gently tumbling, as he was.
The mummy? Not in Pav’s field of vision. Nor was Cowboy.
“Air current!” Pav said. How was it supposed to go, maneuvering in microgravity? His father had shown him video from his space station mission...Tuck your legs, arms, and you’ll spin faster. Spread them, and you’ll slow.
He extended his arms and legs, which felt very strange indeed. But he was essentially weightless...like hundreds of space travelers. Like he’d been for two days in the Bangalore vesicle.
You’d think he’d be used to it! Tell that to your stomach! He couldn’t escape the horrifying feeling of falling, falling...
And that he was going to die.
Along with several massive globular clusters of plasm, the quintet seemed to be aimed at one of the open spaces...what might have been a city park in a terrestrial city, but oblong in shape, and huge.
At this height—even as it rapidly decreased—Pav couldn’t tell what the park surface was. Not green grass, certainly...it was yellowish in color.
He hoped it wasn’t brick or stone—
“Take my hand!”
Distracted by the spinning, growing landscape, Pav hadn’t seen Zhao flying up to him...with Rachel, Cowboy, and the mummy (who now looked more like a black female in a disappearing covering), all strung out behind him, Rachel holding Zhao’s left foot and clutching Cowboy’s paw, and the mummy, like flying children from Peter Pan.
Pav grasped Zhao’s hand, felt himself tugged and turned.
Now! With his other hand, he clutched the Slate to his chest and braced for the fatal smash—
He landed on his right side, and found that instead of being flattened and killed...he splashed, then bounced!
As he did, however, he slammed into Zhao, catching a shoe against the back of his head—and that hurt.
Then he skidded and settled, just in time to see Rachel and the mummy making their own inelegant landings.
He was lying on his back on what felt like sabudana pudding, thick and yielding. And, fortunately, either not too deep...or just thicker with depth. He was able to sit up.
Aside from what would surely be a lump on the back of his head, he was unhurt.
The others were arrayed around him, each one rising or sitting. “Is everybody okay?”
“Fine,” Rachel said. “God, that was freaky.”
“Where’s the dog?”
“I lost my grip the last few meters,” Rachel said, looking around. “Cowboy!” she called.
Zhao was slow to respond. “I may have turned my ankle.” He was trying to stand.
The mummy was seated facing them, giving Pav his first real look at this stranger, the human female wearing a layer of brownish material that had been torn off in various places, notably her face, which showed her dark skin.
“Namaste,” Pav said, adding, in his native language, “Do you speak Hindi?” Then he said, “What about English?”
“She speaks English,” Rachel said. She had gotten to her feet and now stood at Pav’s side.
“How do you know something like that?” Zhao said.
“She knows me,” the mummy said, turning to Pav. “Namaste to you, though.”
Pav flinched. He knew that voice, too. And, as she continued to peel off the second skin, the face.
It was Yvonne Hall, flight engineer for Zack Stewart’s Destiny-7 crew...the first human to step onto Keanu’s surface.
And who had died here more than a week ago, vaporized in a nuclear blast.
The introductions were quick and, to Pav, strangely low-key. “Yvonne, Zhao. Zhao, Yvonne.” “Nice to see you again,” and so on. Pav thought they should be shouting, that each of the humans should be jumping up and down.
Maybe they were too tired or weak. Or maybe they had just seen too many crazy things. Their supply of wonder and amazement had been used up.
Certainly Yvonne seemed used up. She stared at the plasm pooled around her feet, raising her head to speak, then slumping, like a puppet on strings.
“You’re sure it’s her,” Zhao said.
“It’s her,” Rachel said. “She used to come to our house for Fourth of July.”
“Yeah,” the woman said, her voice raw and raspy, “it’s me. But I wouldn’t blame anyone for doubting it.” She blinked, as if getting used to seeing after being in darkness. “I feel...” She was unable to complete the sentence; she began to shiver, as if her whole body were regaining functioning. Well, Pav thought, if this was really Destiny astronaut Yvonne Hall, and she had been brought back to life, that was what was going on.
Zhao knelt beside her, taking her by the hand. “What do you remember? What happened?”
Yvonne focused on him and finally forced a smile. “First, you guys tell me what the hell you’re doing here. I’d have to have been dead for fifty years before I’d believe that NASA could send you three to Keanu. And looking at these two”—meaning Pav and Rachel—“I know it hasn’t been fifty years.”
“More like a week,” Pav said.
“Okay, tell me how. But first, can we get out of this shit?”
The trip to “shore” was like a slog through coastal mud—amazingly tiring, even for a distance of less than a hundred meters.
Without discussing it, the group had simply headed en masse for the nearest “dry” place, which was an open space between two tall, featureless buildings. Rachel was the first to emerge. “Careful,” she said. “There’s some kind of step here.”
Pav saw that there was a solid border around the giant pool of plasm. He had to pull himself up, another procedure that was far more taxing than he expected. “Is gravity higher here?” he said aloud.
“I think it’s just that stuff,” Rachel said. “It grabs you.”
“This plasm...it looks like the same sabudana that got pumped through the tunnels,” Pav said.
He saw that Yvonne was struggling to extricate herself, so he stepped back in to help her. Then he helped Zhao, who was trying to hop on one good ankle. Eventually they were all together, bent over and panting, in what looked, Pav thought, like an alley in a terrestrial city—minus the graffiti, dirt, and noise.
“What did you call this?” Rachel said.
“Sabudana,” he said. “Like tapioca.”
> “Okay.” She sniffed. “Sure doesn’t smell like pudding.”
“I don’t believe it’s supposed to be edible,” Zhao said.
“Too bad,” Pav said. “I could eat a liter or two.”
Suddenly Yvonne stepped away from them, vomiting against the nearest wall.
Rachel was already with Yvonne, holding her from behind as she retched. “I’m all right,” she kept saying, clearly lying.
She was sobbing now, too. And who could blame her? Pav knew few of the details, just that the American Venture lander had carried a small suitcase nuclear weapon...and that to protect the vehicle from some menace—Pav didn’t know exactly what—Yvonne Hall had detonated it, destroying Venture and Brahma, which had landed nearby, and vaporizing herself.
Pav couldn’t imagine being in a situation where he would pull that trigger, knowing he would be killing himself dead dead dead.
Even if, as it turned out, it was not so permanently dead.
Then, to wake up...where? In some kind of alien cocoon?
Pav wanted to vomit in sheer sympathy.
“Here,” Zhao said, offering Yvonne the water bottle—which still had a couple of centimeters of water in it! He’d been holding out on them. Fucking figured.
Rachel was rubbing Yvonne’s back, looking and acting very grown-up. It was fascinating how different this teenage girl turned out to be. She wasn’t completely a brat, anyway.
“This is so...strange,” Yvonne said. “One second, I was...fighting off Downey. Then...I’m in some vat of some kind, trying to breathe—”
“We know,” Rachel told her.
“How can you know?” Zhao said. “None of us can know what this is like!”
“I talked to my mother after she came back,” Rachel said, suddenly sounding like someone twice her age. “I haven’t had the experience, okay, but I’ve been thinking about this for days now.”
“It’s not just...coming back,” Yvonne said. She was steadier on her feet now. “It feels as though I just saw that timer count down to zero about fifteen minutes ago. I was there, then I was nowhere.” She forced a smile. Then she pointed to Pav. “Then you tackled me. Why’d you do that?”
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