Mankind's Worst Fear

by David L Erickson

  “Eerie. This damned place is eerie...and creepy too. Like it’s been dead too long.” She shivered and hugged herself.

  “Cold?”

  “Not really. Well...yes.” She grasped his sleeve and pulled him down beside her. “These thermal suits are great, but this place...could give anyone a chill.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “So, Cap. What’re we looking for?” Her voice lost its edge, but the worried frown remained.

  “I don't know. Something out of the ordinary. I’m hoping we’ll know it when we see it.”

  “You don't sound so sure.” Heather inched closer, pressed against him, rested her gloved hand on his thigh.

  “Are you trying to seduce me?” he chided, not at all believing that was the case.

  Heather slapped his thigh hard enough for him to feel it through the layers of polycotton and thermal membranes. “Come on, George. We don't have that kind of relationship.” Her anger flared, then melted. “I...well...just needed you to be close...as a friend.”

  “Excuse me for being so obtuse,” he deadpanned, and changed the subject. “At least the premonitions have stopped. Isn’t that weird?”

  “Yeah. Too weird. We might be better off if we just go back to the sub and head up the coast. Put some distance between us and this place.”

  His head snapped in her direction. Conflicting thoughts fought for dominance. Passionate determination locked out doubt. “This is just too...too predictable. This building being here...so different from the others...us ending up only miles away...the disturbance in the water, that UFO. Don't you see? Somebody, something, put us here...like we’re meant to be...” He shrugged, not knowing what else to say.

  “Then what...”

  A shout brought them surging to their feet.

  “Over here, guys. I found something.” No more than a shadow amid the encroaching darkness, Wendell waved excitedly.

  “Do a litemate, Heather.”

  “Got it.”

  From her right hand, a wide, white beam swept the cavernous room, throwing black corners into stark relief. When the beam swept past Wendell, she held the beam down, illuminated his feet. The floor glowed where he stood — red pulses, slow and dim. George made it halfway to Wendell before Heather moved, hurried after him, caught up to them as George bent to examine the source of the light. It emanated from a clear lens at least a foot thick.

  George knelt and ran a hand over the aged and pitted bronze ring encircling the lens. Instantly a brilliant ruby-red beam shot upward. He cried out and fell back, threw his hands out to cushion his fall. Sharp pain shot through his left wrist with the impact.

  “Whoa!” Wendell leaped away. The beam bathed the entire chamber with a pink luminescence. “Mother of God, what do you make of that!”

  “Looks like a holoimager.” Baider materialized from the gloom and offered George a hand.

  “Thanks.” George grasped his arm, rocked forward and up, then clapped Baider on the back. A sharp stab burst from his wrist and radiated up his forearm. He rubbed the injury, the pain instantly forgotten. He had made a connection! Like the device knew him. Oddly compelling, the pulsing beam radiated warmth, even affection, yet the sudden appearance of technology brought with it an implied threat.

  “What does it do?” Heather whispered.

  Baider leaned closer, but kept his distance. “Saw something similar a few months back. My guess, a new generation holovid. Incredibly realistic 3-D. Damned expensive right now, but it’ll be everywhere in a decade.”

  Curiosity won out and George inched nearer. “Our presence activated it, but no program has been selected.” He smiled up at Heather, then Wendell. “NASCAP has a prototype.”

  Heather slipped her arm in the crook of Baider’s. “How do we do that…run a program?”

  “Probably oral command.” George kneeled, bent closer, studied the ring. No sign of controls or a receiver. Nonplussed, he grunted, leaned back and crossed his arms. “Holoimager. Play program index.”

  Mechanical, without inflection, the machine answered. There is only one program.

  “Play it then.”

  Are you George Benjamin Guntz-Schumer...Son of Wilhelm John Schumer and Gwyndolin Guntz?

  The voice sounded similar to...no...it had to be a coincidence...like his father. Startled, George looked from one to the other. Heather's brows had shot up, but Baider appeared stoic as usual. She cocked her head in question. Wendell jutted out his jaw and stared at the floor, uncertain.

  “Yes.”

  Pass your bare hand through the beam.

  George slipped off a glove and did so. The beam played across his fingers in a rainbow pattern, glittering where it contacted his skin, though there was no accompanying sensation. The beam shrank to a dim glow. George rose and stepped back.

  Genetic scan complete. You have been accepted, George Benjamin Schumer. The beam blossomed, became multi-hued. An elderly male figure emerged. In stunned silence, they watched as the image sharpened and moved. The figure’s arm came up, as if he were looking at the band on his wrist. Behind him appeared to be a technical lab: workbenches stacked with tools and various assemblies, larger equipment on the floor. The image was so exact, George swore he could smell synthlube and polyfiber.

  George. The figure faced him. The world has gone through a catastrophic change. You have been propelled three hundred years into the future. There is much you must know. I will show you a Readit. Look at it for several seconds and the image will be planted in your mind.

  The Readit appeared. Upon it was a detailed map leading them northeast, higher into the mountains. The topography matched the new coastline and the mountains where they knew them to be.

  Leave this place. It draws the curious and those who would deny you your destiny. There is nothing more for you here. The beam blinked out. The red glow in the floor faded until it was no longer visible.

  “Whoa...”

  “Hold up, Wendell.” George held up his hand. “I don't know where this will take us, but the last part was clearly a warning.”

  Baider sucked in a breath and released it slowly, looked grim. “I agree. We better go. Getting dark.”

  “Look, big guy.” Heather punched Baider playfully on the arm. “This is pretty exciting stuff, but we can't get far. What say we make camp and get a fresh start in the morning?”

  Baider pulled back, fainted a roundhouse at her, then ducked aside when she swung again, intentionally missing him. She balled her fist, relaxed and let her hand fall open to her side.

  “That okay with you, Cap?” Baider glanced at George, though he kept a bemused eye on Heather.

  “We ought to distance ourselves from here, but against my better judgment, yes.” George rubbed his faintly bewhiskered chin, noting he hadn’t facialed that morning. “That last ruin we passed ought to do. Saddle up, but keep sharp. Wendell’s little stunt probably alerted anyone within ten miles.” He tried again to link with Slinker, but to no avail. “Baider, give Slinker a call. Let them know we’ll be heading into the mountains at dawn.”

  “Aye, Cap.” Thudding footfalls echoing off the walls, Baider strode to their gear and retrieved the comset from a pouch atop his bag. George and Wendell joined him as he shrugged on his pack and onlined with the sub. Heather, glancing back as if she expected more from the holoimager, followed.

  *****

  Startled from her musings by the insistent buzz of the external com, Lauren, lounging at the periscope con, leaped to the deck and dashed to the com station, beating out Don, despite his spry dash from the bunk room. She settled into the chair and pressed receive. “Go ahead, Baider.” Her pulse pounded in her throat. Hands trembled with anticipation.

  “We found a holoimager. We’re heading into the mountains to the northeast at dawn.”

  “What's that?” Lauren snapped her finger at Don, pointed to his con. Don nodded, slipped into his chair and onlined the sensor array.

  Lauren tapped a key on her touch
pad. Baider’s voice surged from every con.

  “Like A holovid, only better. We have directions. Might be a base.”

  “What kind of directions? Who’d you get them from? Do you know anything more about our situation?” Her mind raced with endless possibilities.

  “We’re following a lead. We’ll know more in a couple days.”

  “When will we hear from you again?” Worry crept into her voice.

  “Tomorrow morning, then around noon each day, but don't hold your breath.”

  “Are you kidding? We’ll be on porcupine quills here.”

  Don nudged up the volume and, getting Lauren’s attention, twirled his fingers over his head and opened and closed his hands rapidly.

  Lauren smiled at his antics, but understood. “Baider, listen. Boost the gain on your bioenhancers so we can track you better.”

  There was a short pause.

  “Mine’s turned up. Got a blip?”

  Lauren glanced over at Don’s vid. “Strong and clear. Thank you.”

  “Don't mention it. Out.”

  “That was brief.” Don sat back, his brow creased.

  It was the ‘no new news’ thing, she was sure. It bothered her too. “They’re conserving the solarpacs. Can't be recharged because of the cloud cover.”

  “Don’t go dumb on me, Captain Ma’am. You know the pacs use ultra-violet light. Cloud cover only marginally affects them.” Don crossed his arms over his expansive belly, then shoved his hands in his jumpsuit pockets. “Maybe they forgot. We’ll have to remind them at the next connect.”

  “Don’t call me that. Besides, I just forgot.” Lauren frowned. “What they’ve given us doesn’t help any. Looks like we’ll have to figure this one out ourselves. So...what’ve you come up with so far?”

  Don intertwined his hands behind his head and stretched back, looking more perplexed than she’d ever seen him, let go and exhaled noisily. Like a nervous twitch, he worried the arms of his chair, worked them with some vigor. He caught himself, locked his fingers and tried to look calm. Normally as grounded as they come, it gave Lauren pause that Don was so rattled.

  “Uh, yeah. Everything...every reading is off. The sea is quiet. Uh, by that I mean, there is some sea life, but nowhere near what we should be hearing. Nothing big either. Low oxygen content and weak currents. No heat sources worth mentioning onshore, very little air movement, though I’m detecting occasional westerly gusts up to two miles per hour. Hardly worth mentioning.”

  “More?” She arched her brow and squinted at him. It was evident he was holding back. After working for months with them, Lauren knew the entire team better than she knew her own family, whom she’d hardly seen in twenty years. Don was the most transparent.

  “I’m detecting eddies from that rough spot we passed through. Nothing I can really get a handle on, but there are anomalous readings, like the magnetic flux of the Earth is being twisted...uh, more like bent at that spot.”

  “Whooeee!” Farrell, back to them across the cabin clapped his hands and gave a double thumbs up.

  With an air of calm assurance, Lauren eased her chair around until she faced him. “This isn’t a county fair and you haven’t won the fat pig contest. So instead of the theatrics, why don't you just give us what you’ve got.”

  “A connection!” Glowing with the flush of success, he leaned around and stared pie-eyed at them. ”Damned solid one at that. It ain’t ComSavNat, but that’s no matter...I can get astral and telemetry readin’s off any satellite.”

  “Meaning?” Don pushed himself up. With an inviting wave to Lauren, he went to Farrell’s side, leaned close to the vid, then stood bolt upright. “Crap!”

  “Meaning?” Lauren was beside him in two quick steps, heart racing. Don never swore.

  “You sure aren't going to believe this.” Farrell choked, cleared his throat. His hands glided and tapped the smooth con surface, synthesizing data until there was nothing more to do than accept what it offered. “Nope. Not in a million years.”

  Annoyed, Lauren threw her hands in the air. “So what already?”

  “Accordin’ to the astral telemetry readin’s...unless the heavens jumped...we’re nowhere near the year 2057. It’s sixteen twenty-four hours, on July 12th, 2386.” His hands trembled, face grew ashen. He miss-keyed, corrected. “Checked and rechecked.”

  Lauren had never seen him so agitated. A minute passed while they stared at Farrell’s vid. At first, the lines of numbers held little meaning for her. She called up long disused training, scratched a line of reasoning that ill applied, squeezed her eyes shut to help her focus. At last, the data began to make sense.

  “It isn’t a glitch.” She didn’t phrase it as a question.

  Before Farrell could reply, jagged lines scrambled the display, danced across the screen at a mad pace. A high-pitched squeal pierced the air for several seconds.

  “We’ve been tagged by somethin’ about two hundred and thirty thousand miles out.” Farrell looked up, as if wondering if the others saw it too. The vid cleared and an astral-telemetry chart appeared. New data lines scrolled right to left across the bottom. “Whatever it is, it’s comin’ to Earth.”

  Lauren staggered back and came up hard against the chart table. She clutched the lipped edge until her knuckles whitened. Heart hammering, her knees jellied. A breath caught in her throat and her mind screamed in terror, though she had little understanding of what the object could be or what it portend. Only that it was extraterrestrial and was on an intercept track.

  The shore party must be warned! No! It would put them in danger! Other thoughts, practical, yet less pressing, vied for her attention, but she swallowed her terror, harnessed it, drew strength from it, cleared her mind of the extraneous. “Get us to deep water! Now!” Her words drowned out routine shipboard sounds, catalyzed the men into action.

  Don dropped into the chair beside Farrell, pulled his restraint harness up and over and locked the catch.

  “Helm. Manual.” He paused for the second it took the con to initialize, then shoved the cyclic control forward and left. Slinker sluggishly gathered momentum, then surged as the powerful thrust of the magnetron tubes drove it downward to port, toward the open sea. The deck canted.

  Pushing off from the chart table, Lauren lunged at the periscope con, managed to grapple her way into the chair and snap closed the web harness clasp at her waist. She tried to retrieve the con pivoted away from her, but pressed into the chair, her fingertips only grazed the device.

  Lauren breathed, “Speed?”

  “Approaching two-twenty-seven knots.”

  "What?" The roar of water rushing over the outer surface was muted, though its subtle harmonics made conversation difficult.

  “Two hundred and twenty-seven knots.”

  “What’s our maximum?”

  “About that.”

  With determination, she clenched her jaws, tensed, and lunged, gained a tenuous grip on the control. "Depth." The sharp pain from the straps looped between her thighs diminished.

  “Four hundred and thirty feet.”

  “Where’s the bottom?” She shifted the harness straps off her breasts, easing her discomfort, and concentrated on positioning the control pad before her.

  “Varies, but near six hundred feet. We're in a channel, but in a couple hundred clicks we'll pass over what used to be the coastline and start gainin’ depth rapidly. Once we get past the continental shelf...eight...maybe eleven thousand...in places.”

  “Take us deep, all the way down..." It was a snap decision, fraught with risk, but she saw no other way. "... without smashing us up.” No, she didn’t mean to say that. It just slipped out. God, this is George's thing. I'm not ready for this. What if the UFO's weapons can reach us at that depth? Was it the object’s intention to attack? Would the seabed deflect the shock, buffering Slinker, or multiply the force?

  “Aye, aye, Captain Ma’am.”

  “What the blazes is going on?” Looking bewildered, Owen stumbled into
the control room. The sharp snap to his voice cut through the din.

  “We’re goin’ for deep water!” Farrell hollered. “Somethin’ out there in space is comin’ right at us at thirty-eight thousand miles a minute!”

  Lauren looked back at him. The pressure of her weight against the unadjusted harness had soared as Slinker's angle of descent climbed, but eased as Don pulled back on the control rod to maintain a safe distance between Slinker and the channel floor.

  “We don't know what it is, Owen," Lauren told him, "but we’ve enough data to know we may be in great danger. Grab a chair.”

  Slinker's dive angle sharpened again, pressing Lauren into the harness. The straps cut painfully into her thighs and breast.

  Behind her, Owen let go of the hatch-frame and leaned far back, placed one foot after the other, tested each step past the chart table, then lunged to the side and clamored into his chair across from Don, so caught up in the moment he was trembling. Tense minutes passed. Telemetry readings showed the object hurtling toward Earth at an incredible velocity. Slinker cleared the offshore shelf and dove ever deeper, seeking the obscurity of deep water.

  “Passing ten thousand three hundred feet, twenty-seven degrees down bubble.” Don kept the cyclic hard forward, pressing the ship to dive at an angle beyond its design limitations. “Approaching the bottom. Leveling out.” He eased back on the cyclic. Slinker trembled from the enormous pressures resisting the maneuver.

  Tension crawled up Lauren’s spine, didn't fade as g-forces pulled her back and pressed her into the chair. Slinker swooped out of the dive, creaking and groaning from the strain, the drum of seawater forced through the magnetron tubes amplified until the hull thrummed with its power.

  “Anything on the bottom that can mess us up?” Lauren asked.

  “Nadda. Smooth…and sticky,” Farrell stammered.

  “All stop,” Lauren ordered. “Shut everything down. Go to auxiliary power. Let Slinker find the bottom.” Illumination blinked out, leaving only the pale glow from the vids. The powerfully, rhythmic pulse of the magnetic drive ceased. Owen reached over and shut down the com. But for Don's heavy breathing, near silence intruded. Sweat ran in rivulets down his face and chest, staining his uniform.