by P. R. Adams
Whatever had opened the wall could close it at any time, that much was obvious. And they wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. That much was also obvious.
Rimes considered retreating, but when Andrea reached his side, he stood and nervously glanced back at the others.
“We’re going to go in a little way. The crates are about four meters in. We’ll move to them and stop, see if we can still see prints.” Rimes waited for Andrea’s agreement; she nodded uncertainly. “We’ll stay in contact the entire time.”
Munoz stepped forward, his hand flexing, his breathing hard. “I think we should stay together, Sir. Separating’s just gonna weaken us.”
Sung looked at Watanabe. They gently lifted Fontana between them and slowly helped her move forward until they were at Munoz’s side. Fontana smiled weakly; it was all the reassurance she could muster.
Theroux’s feet spread further apart and became anchors. He glared at Rimes with beady, condemning eyes. “This is foolish. It’s insane. You’ve all gone mad. That entry appeared from nowhere. It could just as easily disappear. You could be trapped inside.” He turned to Sung and Watanabe. “Think about it. Does this seem the least bit rational?”
Sung’s eyes were almost blank, and Watanabe’s focus was distant.
Theroux looked at Munoz, desperate. “Damn it.” Theroux was shouting. He grabbed Munoz’s armor, surprisingly pulling the giant toward him. “You have to fight this. For just one minute, you have to be rational! Going in there is a one way trip. The Tesla crew, the Commandos, now your friends. We have to get out of here! We’re not ready to go in there.”
“We don’t leave our people behind.” Munoz pried Theroux’s hand free with some effort.
Rimes swallowed. “Theroux, we were outnumbered before we lost Kershaw and Meyers. We need them. And without that fuel, we aren’t getting off this planet.”
Munoz flicked his suit’s light on and walked up to the entry, taking up a position to Rimes’s left. Sung and Watanabe took up a position at the rear, Fontana held between them.
When Theroux didn’t join them, Rimes led everyone through the entry, weapon ready, his light tracking across the floor and the open space before him.
Andrea followed immediately after, then Munoz.
As Sung and Watanabe helped Fontana through the entry, she said in a voice barely audible above the wind, “Not even you can survive alone.”
Theroux waited, tracking the thin beacons of their lamplight in the absolute darkness. He glanced back along the path they’d taken to the structure, up the walls to the crater edge.
Rimes waited and watched, refusing to push Theroux. It had to be his own decision to enter.
Theroux spat a curse, and passed through the entry, not even turning when the light behind him disappeared.
Rimes swallowed hard. His earpiece gave off nothing but a static hiss now. His BAS flickered and rebooted, and the light from everyone’s lamps seemed to weaken.
They were now sealed inside the structure.
39
30 October, 2167. Fourth planet of the COROT-7 system.
* * *
IT WAS hot inside the structure, and the humidity was stifling. The transition from open desert to enclosed sauna was abrupt and the impact was immediate. Rimes struggled with his breathing for a few seconds before calming down. He could see the others working through the same transition, fighting through the same momentary panic.
After a moment, Rimes realized the sulfuric smell was gone, replaced by a powerfully sweet, almost pungent smell, strong enough to leave a sugary taste on the tongue.
Combined, everyone’s lights drove back the darkness, but even so, it was imposing, intimidating. In the thick air, the lamplight took on a bluish hue, giving the interior a surreal sense of boundlessness, despite their knowledge of the actual dimensions. Even the short walk to the crates seemed inexplicably long.
Sung cleared his throat. “Is anyone else feeling a sense of distortion?”
“Yeah.” Rimes turned back to inspect his steps leading up to the first crate. Eight. He could’ve sworn he had only been a few steps away before the wall closed. “Stay close to each other. With the radios out, we can’t afford to get separated.”
Rimes squatted to inspect what he assumed was one of the Tesla creates. So close, he felt even more confident that’s what they were.
He scraped a hand across the surface, easily removing a layer of the fungus. Part of the crate came away with the fungus, leaving behind a millimeters-deep scar on the surface.
Rimes shook his head. The crates should have been tough, a high-end composite. “Sung! Give this a look.”
Sung shuffled across the slick floor, stopping just out of reach of the crate. “What is—” He let out a soft gasped. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
Andrea stepped past Sung. “It’s eating through that case. Can fungus do that?” In the enclosed structure, her voice should have been clear, but the darkness seemed to swallow it.
Rimes examined the bottoms of his boots, wondering just how much tougher the material was than that of the crate.
“It’s remarkable, Captain. Fungus, that is.”
“What about all this water and humidity? In the middle of a desert?” Rimes twisted so that his helmet lamp lit the air around him. The bluish haze was a mist now.
Sung pinched his chin. “It could be a function of the fungus.” He stared at the blue mist.
Rimes ran his light along the exposed crate surface. Whatever markings had been there before were gone, eaten by the fungus. The seal and fasteners were faring only slightly better. He toyed with the idea of opening the crate, then decided it would be best to leave it closed. Opening it would only expose its contents to the fungus.
Andrea reached over Rimes’s shoulder, testing the crate surface with a finger. It was spongy, depressing a few millimeters. “When did you say they arrived here?”
Rimes flicked the fungus from his gloves as thoroughly as he could. “July.” Three months. How long will it take to decompose our suits? Our bodies? “We can’t stay in here too long.” He called back to the others. “Don’t open the crates for now. We’re looking for the container we saw in the video, the one we think has the reactor fuel. Once we find that, we can start looking for Meyers and Kershaw.”
Theroux’s head shook angrily. “And a way out of here.”
Wordlessly, Rimes played his light across the floor, alert for any other incongruities. Beyond the bootprints, nothing stood out.
Sung let out another gasp. “Spores. Oh. Shit.” Sung sealed his helmet and hastily backed away from the crate, arms flailing.
Watanabe took a step toward him, dragging Fontana along.
Rimes spun, first looking at Sung, then taking in the entirety of the structure. “Sung, what is it?”
“Spores, Captain. I think the discoloration in the mist might be the fungus’s spores.”
“Okay. Is that a problem?”
“You know how we talked about everyone behaving strangely?”
“Yes.” Rimes relaxed slightly.
“There are fungi on Earth and on a few other worlds that infect a host and take control of it.”
“This place seems to be pretty close to airtight, don’t you think? Could spores escape it?”
Sung seemed to consider that. “Maybe one of the walls opens to release them periodically?”
Rimes thought for a moment. He wasn’t a scientist. Sung and Watanabe and Meyers were the experts. “Then we’re already infected, right?”
“I—”
“Could spores cause all the other problems—the comms going bad, the electronics issues? And if they did, why do things seem to work better inside a shielded ship?”
Sung looked at Watanabe, maybe for guidance, maybe for understanding. She shook her head.
“Sung?” Rimes stepped forward slowly, hands open and raised. “Help me out. I need you on this. You’re our medical expert. What would the symptoms be?
”
“Well…for a lot of them, nervous system failure.”
Rimes looked at Watanabe hopefully. “Like what? Have any of us started exhibiting these nervous system failure symptoms?”
Sung opened his faceplate. “N-no. I guess not.”
“Good.” Rimes gave Sung a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “We still need to get the hell out of here sooner rather than later. I doubt something that can eat through a cargo crate is doing our insides any good if we’re breathing it in.”
Sung laughed nervously.
Rimes turned to the others. “Okay, folks, you know what we’re looking for.”
They carefully searched through the pile of crates, separating out those that were too large or small from potential candidates. That left them with only three possibilities. With each case, Rimes scraped the green-black fungus from its surface before handing it to Sung and Watanabe to pry open. Absent functional hinges, it took a good deal of effort not to drop the lids.
They lucked out on the final container, which held three meter-long transparent cylinders, each with an outer layer filled with a pale green gas.
Watanabe held each cylinder up to Sung’s light beam, rolling them around, watching for any movement in the gas. “It looks intact, Captain. We can put them in Corporal Sung’s medical bag.”
Sung nodded in agreement. He cut the cylinder’s foam shell liner free from the container, then held the liner while Watanabe replaced each cylinder within.
Watanabe carefully wedged the protected cylinders into Sung’s medical bag. As she tightened the bag’s straps to reduce the odds of any jarring motion, Rimes stepped away to extend the area of his search. He stopped when his light caught another shape in the fungus.
He squatted, cautiously prying the object free. He scraped away enough of the fungus to reveal a CAWS-5 carbine like his own. It was still largely intact, although there was significant damage to some of the more precise exposed components. He ejected the magazine and scanned the floor. An area at the edge of his beam, not three meters away, caught his eye. It was darker than the surrounding floor.
Rimes held the magazine up by its base. “Munoz. Try and recover the ammunition. Don’t get any of that crap on your gun or magazines. Ditch the ammo if you have to.”
Munoz stepped back to the crates and began the patient work of ejecting each round into the giant palm of his hand, inspecting the rounds for any sign of the fungus, then dropping what he kept into his ammo pouch.
Rimes edged forward across the slick floor until he reached the edge of the dark area he’d spotted. It was a square, nearly two-and-a-half meters on each side. His light revealed a sloped ramp down with fresh prints that turned into furrows in the fungus.
A disturbing odor—like decomposition—rose from the opening.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Meyers? Kershaw?” His voice echoed weakly in the darkness below. He waited a few seconds, then shouted again, louder, unconcerned at what else might hear him.
Theroux knelt at Rimes’s side, barrel pointed into the hole. Theroux trained his light on the bootprints. “Fresh.” He shone his light along the furrows. “Looks like they slipped. You can see the rock where they hit.”
“I’m not convinced that’s rock.” Rimes shouted again, “Meyers! Kershaw!”
Theroux stomped on the floor. It gave off a reassuring, wet boom. “Why’s that?”
“This fungus has eaten through metal and synthetic materials alike. That CAWS-5 is made of some pretty sturdy stuff, sturdier than most rock you’re going to find, but it’s damaged. Look around you. Have you seen any indication the walls or floors have been damaged?”
Theroux didn’t reply. His eyes were locked on the spot where someone had slid. He scraped along the edge of the hole with his fingers, stopping at a barely noticeable deformity in the fungus. He traced the deformity until his fingers hooked around something, which he pulled at, revealing a rope, black from the fungus. He tested the rope; it remained intact, and the piton it was knotted around held. “If you’re thinking of going down there, you’re not coming up without this.”
Rimes took the rope, testing it once for himself. When Theroux backed up to give some room, Rimes turned, placed his butt over the hole, and lowered himself until his bent knees and feet were almost perpendicular to his hips.
Andrea stepped from the darkness. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Meyers and Kershaw went down this way.” Rimes could see in her face that she felt he was acting irrationally again. He couldn’t be sure he wasn’t. “They aren’t responding, so they may need help.”
“Or they’re dead. We have the fuel. There’s no sign of your men—”
“There is sign.” Rimes cautiously lowered himself. “They’re down here, wherever this leads.”
Andrea squatted and reached for the rope. “You can’t go down there alone.”
Rimes laughed nervously. “The last time you said something like that, you ended up getting us all trapped in here.”
Theroux held up a hand. “That rope may be able to hold one. I’m not so sure about two.”
Andrea glared at him. She held the rope tight but didn’t step into the hole. Once Rimes had descended a bit, she called after him, “Shout when you’ve reached the bottom.”
Rimes glanced down, then looked back up. Andrea was a silhouette, a sliver of shadow in the darkness. “Have the others search the walls for any sign of how that entry opened. Warn them to watch for more holes, though.” Rimes edged deeper. He could barely make out Theroux’s light at that point. Rimes wasn’t sure if it was spores in the air or the structure itself that seemed to mute the light, but it was something. The lamps were more powerful than what he was seeing now.
The descent was tricky. Along with the slick surface, the space quickly became somewhat tight, and the heat and humidity continued to sap away energy at an alarming rate.
Finally, Rimes reached the bottom of the ramp; there was less than a meter of rope to spare. He had to hunch slightly, his helmet otherwise scraping the ceiling. He searched around until he found the impact point Kershaw and Meyers had left in the fungus, a couple meters scraped clear marked their landing and where their momentum had carried them. Bootprints led away.
They were still in control of their bodies. No. They could still walk. Like me. I don’t even know if I’m truly in control of my body at the moment.
After quickly shifting his weapon into his hand, Rimes stepped back from the rope and listened. He ran his light along the floor again.
“Meyers! Kershaw!”
The floor was level and extended beyond the range of his lamp. He turned slowly and spotted another hole left of the base of the ramp. He edged forward and looked into the hole. His lamp revealed another ramp leading down, but there was no sign of recent use.
Rimes ran his fingers through the fungus, searching for a piton and rope; there was only the smooth surface.
He edged back from the hole, now following the bootprints. There were shadows within the darkness, extending from the floor nearly to the ceiling. He imagined they might be openings but told himself it was probably nothing more than his mind playing tricks. That brought a laugh to his lips. My mind playing tricks. That’s rich.
When he was close enough to the nearest shadow, just ahead and to his right, he came to a stop. The shadow was a rounded rectangle running from floor to a few centimeters below the ceiling. Like the holes in the floors, it was two meters wide. The immediate impression was of a doorway.
Exactly as he’d feared.
He leaned forward, and his light shone into the opening. At the end of the light’s range, he made out a ramp leading up.
A faint sound echoed down the corridor. Not from above. From deeper in. Real? Imagination?
A shiver creeped up his back. It was the combination of the sound and the unknown of having his back to the descending ramp. He put his back to the wall opposite the doorway and slowly backed to the base of t
he ramp he’d taken down, all the while looking back and forth from the passage to the unused ramp. When he reached the ramp up to the main room, he stopped.
He looked up the ramp, swallowed, and cleared his voice. “Okay, I think I have a pretty good idea where they went. I’ve found fresh bootprints down this corridor. There’s another ramp down here, just to your left as you come down. It doesn’t look like anyone’s been down it recently.”
Andrea called back. “The others are checking the walls. Should we wait?”
Rimes thought for a moment. “Yeah. We’re better off staying together from here on out.”
“What’s it like down there?”
Rimes considered what he’d seen so far. Unlike the upper floor, the subterranean area was definitely not the sort of thing a human would construct. It was hard figuring what might be able to operate inside such a layout without complication. The layout was both vertical and horizontal by design and the use of space didn’t seem consistent or particularly efficient. The passage behind him almost certainly extended beyond the edges of the walls aboveground. If the ramp to the area below was as deep as the first ramp, then the same might be true of the passage it opened onto. There was a vague familiarity to what he’d seen so far.
Ant farm. “Have you ever seen an ant farm?”
“Ant farm?” Andrea sounded confused.
He smiled, embarrassed. Her education was probably extremely focused. Infiltration, assassination, stealing data—that’s what matters to a metacorporation.
“Ant farms are like…artificial habitats, for ants. Two sheets of transparent material a few centimeters apart, filled with sand. You let the ants build their colony and you see the whole thing.” He considered the darkness. It definitely felt like an ant farm.
But who built it, and what were they watching?
40
30 October, 2167. Fourth planet of the COROT-7 system.