He couldn’t say he didn’t know. He did. He just hadn’t been thinking when he did it.
No, that wasn’t true. He was thinking. He was thinking about getting away from the things that wanted to kill him.
“I shouldn’t have given him a plasma rifle,” Adams said, and that stung.
Manning turned on her in an instant.
“You think?”
Decker shook his head.
“No. This is on me. She told me not to switch over to automatic. This is all on me.” He didn’t want her taking the heat for his stupid move.
Manning took a deep, slow breath, and visibly calmed himself.
“Plasma rifles, for the record, tend to heat things up,” he said. The lift kept rising, moving with all the speed of a tortoise.
39
COMMUNICATIONS
Rollins sat down at her desk and checked for new messages from the home office. There were none.
Good, she thought. Her superiors only sent responses when she posted a new query. Since she hadn’t done so, their silence was the best news.
She began reviewing the various status reports, and Willis called. She didn’t respond immediately, letting him stew a bit.
“Talk to me.”
“We need your pilot back down here, as quickly as possible,” he said, and he sounded out of breath. “I think things are going south in a hurry.”
“What do you mean?” She checked the information that had come in, and the only glitch she could see was that one of the probes was no longer functioning. That was puzzling, since they were built for planetary extremes. It would take a lot to knock one out.
“The lift has been disabled,” he continued. “There’s been some sort of explosion.”
“Where are you now?”
“I got myself to an access tunnel. I’m climbing. It’s a long haul to the next level, but I’ll get there.” He seemed confident enough. She opted to let him keep his confidence. It would be short-lived enough, as it was.
“Very good,” she said. “When you’ve reached safety let me know. Until then, good luck.”
“Wait! What about the drop ship?”
“I’ll be sending it down soon,” she replied. “Have you managed to get all of the information I asked you for, Mister Willis?”
“All of the information they gathered on the city is with me right now. I also got pictures of those things.”
“You’ve been very helpful,” she said calmly. “Thank you for that. I’ll look forward to seeing what you bring me.”
“But—”
She killed the communication and called Pritchett into her office. The pilot arrived quickly.
“I need you down there,” she said. “I expect we’ll be getting what we wanted from this operation, and very soon.”
“So they caught your aliens?” he asked.
“There have been complications, but I believe they’ll manage. In the meantime, however, they’ll need extraction, and it’s going to come sooner, rather than later.”
Pritchett nodded and left.
Rollins looked at her computer, and began to type.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: New Galveston Acquisitions
Lorne,
It appears likely we will successfully achieve our goals regarding the biomechanical data we have sought for some time.
Regarding the dig site, we may only be able to salvage data. Extracting the trimonite, and any other assets located on the site, will likely be prohibitively costly in many ways.
Please review the information encrypted in the attached file. Due to the volume of data, the compression rate has been increased by a factor of ten. Expect white noise.
Best,
Andrea
She sent the message, stood up, and left her office. She wanted to think and the walls of the room didn’t provide a view conducive to stirring her mind’s enthusiasm.
Somewhere below her, the company’s goals were coming within reach—closer than they had been in a very long time. It was within her reach to save the personnel who were involved, but that might risk the successful conclusion of the mission.
That wasn’t an acceptable risk.
40
SEARCH AND RESCUE
The Quonset hut was a buzzing hive of activity, with about two-dozen people milling about. No one could figure out what the hell had happened.
The tunnel leading down was wide open, and everyone was very carefully avoiding standing too close to it. It was one hell of a drop if a person got stupid or clumsy. A few of the more adventurous rescue workers had already tried rappeling down the side of the deep pit to see what they could find. Next they were going to try maneuvering one of the rigs closer, and lowering a platform. Assuming they could find someone to work a rig.
The team that should have been doing that was lying broken and very likely dead at the bottom of the shaft. They’d been taking machinery back down to level five when the entire thing had fallen apart.
Lightfoot and Moretti were watching over the smaller, personal rigs of the rescue team, trying to get them low enough to check the next level down. They were there for the explicit purpose of making sure that if a rope got tangled, it got untangled as quickly as possible.
No one expected the ropes to go taut, and then go completely slack, but that was exactly what happened. There were four separate lines dropping down. They weren’t connected to each other. Each was independent, and each fed out at its own pace. They had been working fast, but not so fast that it put them at risk.
According to the readout on the first line—the one belonging to Kirby—he had managed a little over five hundred feet when the line snapped tight and spat out a sudden extra thirty feet of high test silk before it came loose. Moretti saw it happen, and let out a little yelp of alarm. By the time he’d turned to Lightfoot to say something, the second line was doing the exact same thing.
Almost immediately, the last two lines repeated the process. Lightfoot hit the autofeeds to pull the lines back up. If any of the rescue team members were hurt, they’d be drawn up at a nice, steady pace and be back to the surface within a couple of minutes, max.
The lines came up quickly and smoothly.
They came up too quickly. And in all four cases, the members of the rescue unit didn’t come up at all. The lines had been torn apart.
Several people got very busy shining lights down into the shaft and calling out for someone to respond.
But there were no responses. No unexpected noises, no signs that anything had gone wrong, there were simply no responses at all. And that bothered Moretti enough to start him pacing back and forth and chewing on his nails. It bothered Lightfoot enough to make him hunt down four more probes.
It was probably futile, though. All of the probes they had tried sending down had failed to transmit through the interference caused by the Sea of Sorrows. No one knew why—there wasn’t any natural phenomenon that would explain it.
Lightfoot retrieved the probes anyway—they had to try. He linked their telemetry to the main console. This close, they were working just fine. So he dropped the probes down the shaft, and the four spherical sensors went to work, correlating information as they moved steadily downward.
Fifty feet down, the readings stopped.
Lightfoot let loose a stream of obscenities, and several others joined him. There had been a brief hope. Now there was nothing.
* * *
Moretti stepped outside of the hut to grab a smoke. He was stressed and he was angry and as much as he hated giving in to his temptations, the alternative was to rant as hard as Lightfoot.
Leaving the door open, he fought against the wind for a moment to light his smoke. Just as it was about to catch, something grabbed him and slammed him against the corrugated steel wall. His attacker was dressed in black armor of some sort, and impossible to see in the gloom. He grunted and started to scream, but a powerful gr
ip caught him by the throat and stopped him with a strangled gurgling sound.
And while he struggled and fought and dropped his cigarette, other shapes came out of the desert and started into the hut, moving without concern for whether or not they were heard or seen.
* * *
Fonseca was the first to see them. She took in a deep breath and let out a positively epic shriek. While the people around her were doing their very best to jump out of their skins, at the unexpected sound, the monsters attacked.
There were seven of the things, all a shiny black with long talons, ridged tails, glittering blank faces, and rows of sharp teeth. They moved preternaturally fast, some on two legs, others skittering on four. They moved the wrong way, and made unsettling hissing sounds as they did so.
Few of the personnel were wearing comm-sets, and even fewer were armed. Most of the people participating in the search and rescue were technically off-duty. They were there because they needed to be there.
One of the bizarre creatures grabbed for Lightfoot, and he reacted strictly on reflex. He caught the thing by the wrists as it came for him, grabbing, seeking. He spun at the hip and hurled the nightmare past him and into the deep chasm of the lift tunnel. It screeched and fought for purchase as it dropped into the darkness.
He managed to fight off the second one that came for him, blocking several blows as it kept trying to get past his defenses. Those defenses were not perfect—they didn’t take into account that the monster was armored, or that it had barbs along its prehensile tail. Or those damned teeth. Quickly he was bleeding from several wounds, even as the people around him were taken down.
Several of them fought, and they did their best, but most of the people were so terrified that they tried to flee instead of trying to defend themselves. Lightfoot was vaguely aware of a stampede for the door as the bug kept attacking, kept pushing him to the limits of his abilities.
And while he was focused on the thing in front of him, the one he’d knocked down the shaft climbed up the side of the deep tunnel and launched itself at him from behind. He’d never even considered that possibility.
One by one the workers, the rescuers, all of them fell. Their shouts and screams diminished, until they stopped altogether. And then they were taken, hauled out of the building and into the light rain that started falling from the night sky. Their unconscious and bleeding forms were dragged across the Sea of Sorrows.
And then the sea reached up and consumed them, until nothing was visible but the blackened sands, flat and unbroken.
41
GOOD NEWS
Four new data streams ran from the surface of New Galveston and straight up to the Kiangya, where the information was loaded into Andrea Rollins’s computer. The news was unexpected, but not unwelcome. Information was power. Rollins knew that better than most.
She studied the new readouts and shook her head. For just a moment a smile played at her lips and then she crushed it.
Time for a new report.
She typed quickly, composing as she went.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Unexpected results.
Lorne,
It appears that the subject is substantially more aggressive than we had expected, or even hoped. Furthermore, data from the surface indicates that the infestation is far more widespread than was originally expected. I believe we are looking at a complete involvement of all test subjects, and the very real possibility that the team we assembled could actually be infected before they have achieved their goals.
I have sent down a retrieval ship, in an effort to make their return more feasible. Once we have procured the appropriate samples, we may need to consider taking a different course of action than originally planned, if only to ensure that the property remains exclusive to the company.
I believe the terminology used back before the Expansion was “with extreme prejudice.” Unless you respond with a different recommendation, that is the course I will follow. Failure could very well lead to heavy sanctions, and penalties against Weyland-Yutani.
On a related track, the information gathered from the examination of the dig site has been extensive. While we cannot guarantee a complete analysis of the biological-technological fusions, I believe we will be substantially closer to a fruitful merging of biotech and weapons manufacture, based entirely on the samples that have been successfully scanned.
The alien vessel and the buildings found at the dig site indicate similar—if not the same—patterns: organically grown synthetic life. Biotechnological structures, nurtured in a protective environment. The implications are staggering, and I will do everything within my power to ensure that we gain physical samples of the structures, in the hope that we might find sufficient genetic materials to warrant a complete reorganization of the entire biotech division, its goals and objectives.
As before the attached files are strictly encrypted to ensure security. I will retain a full backup, should data be lost in transmission, but I feel it best to let you get started with the examination as soon as possible.
Please advise ASAP should you feel a different course of action is required.
All the best,
Andrea
She sent the message, and then settled back to wait.
And while she waited, she continued to watch the growing wealth of details with a level of clinical detachment that would have done her predecessors proud.
The Biological Technology Division was about to get a very substantial boost, based on the raw data alone. If the team succeeded in procuring live samples, the potential for advancement would be immeasurable, and would justify any sacrifice.
She hoped that Decker made it out alive, though. Whatever it was that linked him to the aliens, it seemed to have potential for further exploitation.
Somewhere far below, the independent multi-functional probes continued their task of reading information.
In front of her, the computer continued the task of defining and recording that information.
42
ESCAPE VELOCITY
The lights continued to fade. Perkins looked around in the near darkness, trying to see anything, and shivered. There was a fire in the lift, now, but it wasn’t enough to help, and the smoke was beginning to be a problem.
“We can’t stay here,” Cho said. Perkins didn’t like the alternatives any better, but she didn’t have the energy to argue.
That was okay. Piotrowicz seemed more than willing to handle the task.
“Look, you can climb your ass up into those things if you want, but I think we’re better off toughing it out here. Sooner or later, they’re going to get someone down to our level.”
“Yeah, but all they’ll find is our corpses,” Cho countered. “I’m not saying it has to be the tubes. I don’t much like the idea of going through those things myself, but if Willis found a way out, then we can do the same thing.” Cho was keeping his calm, but it was very obviously an effort.
Piotrowicz shook his head.
“It’s not defensible.”
“And this is?” Cho’s voice rose again. Perkins sighed and ground her teeth.
Estrada spoke up.
“Look, I don’t want to sit here with my thumb up my ass,” he said. “It’s getting darker, and I think those fucking things will come for us. We take the stairwell, and we block the access from below, and then we only have one way they can come for us, right?”
Anderson was back to pacing on top of the stacks of construction materials, where she had the best vantage point. Vogel and Dwadji were with her, making sure that they didn’t get any more surprises. All three of them had switched over to their night vision goggles. No one was completely sure if they would help in the situation, but no one thought they’d hurt, either.
The problem wasn’t just the darkness—it was that no one really knew if the creatures gave off enough ambient body heat to register. To that end each of the three
had settings on a different level. One was using ultraviolet—Vogel, she thought—and that was working well enough. But Dwadji tried infrared, and it was seriously problematic. There was a fire in the lift, and if he looked that direction, it was nearly enough to blind him.
The fire had come suddenly, and didn’t seem to be from the explosions. There had been a bright flash, like that of a plasma rifle, and burning debris had dropped down, setting fire to the wooden portions of the elevator and the mining equipment. It just compounded their problems, generating enough smoke to cause breathing troubles if somebody didn’t do something soon.
Perkins was hot and she was sweating and she was hungry. And tired. So damned tired.
Bad as she felt, Lutz was doing worse. He kept fading in and out of consciousness. And when he was awake, he was in pain and bordering on delirious. The wound in his chest was still doing a slow leak and Doctor Rosemont had already intubated it. Even if he improved, she didn’t think he’d be able to walk. They’d have to carry him. Actually, the scientific group would have to carry him, because every weapon needed to be available for use, and not a one of them was about to trust any of the explorers with a weapon.
If they tried to move him, especially up a narrow stairway, there was a good chance that Lutz wouldn’t survive the strain. But his odds didn’t seem any better if they stayed.
“Listen,” Cho said. “The air down here is getting thick. My fucking eyes are burning from the smoke, and I think we need to move. As far as we can tell, there are lifts above us. They just don’t reach this level. I know it’s a bitch—I get that, and I don’t want to risk Lutz either. But if we stay here, we’re fucked.
“It’s as simple as that.”
“We can’t stay here,” Rosemont echoed. “With the fire, there’s a chance the batteries over near the lift will blow up. If those things go, we’re going to go with them. If the explosion doesn’t get us, the fumes will.” She looked to Piotrowicz with an apologetic expression on her round face. “I know you’re worried about your friend—I’m worried about him, as well. But if we stay here, we’re all going to die. I believe that.” She gestured at the other members of the expedition, who looked exhausted and scared. “We’ll have to carry him.”
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