by Max Carver
That victory felt hollow and bloodstained after Reamer's death, though. Reamer hadn't been a great boss, or even a great guy, but he'd hardly deserved such a horrific death, getting dragged off and chewed up in some industrial accident. Someone had to pay for that. Someone had to be brought to justice.
Just before they reached the ramp, the one that coiled a hundred meters up through dirt and rock to freedom, the trucks stopped. Eric frowned at the brake lights of the cement truck and the dump truck ahead of him.
“What's the hold-up?” shouted Bartley. “Is a duck crossing the road up there? I have booze waiting for me downtown, you know.”
Hagen opened the door and stepped out, shaking his head.
“This is no time to stop and take a leak, Hagen,” Bartley said.
“The ramp's collapsed.” Hagen pointed up and around the curve. “It's all caved in. There's no way up.”
“I must not be hearing you right,” Bartley said. “It sounds like you're telling me we're all trapped down here. And that can't be right, because it's gotta be past clock-out by now—”
“How long will it take to fix this?” Alanna asked, after opening the door to the dump truck.
“It's...” Hagen shook his head. “It's bad.”
Eric rolled forward to the front of the line and stopped next to Hagen.
Just around the curve, where there should have been a wide, safe ramp coiling up toward the surface, the tunnel was instead filled with dirt. Hagen picked up a broken chunk of concrete.
“Anything powerful enough to collapse this ramp tunnel should have buried us all,” Hagen said.
“Seems like explosives to me,” Eric told him.
“Are we saying someone collapsed this ramp intentionally?” Alanna asked. She'd emerged from the dump truck cab to join them, her bejeweled lawyer following but looking reluctant about it. “Caffey's people really are trying to kill us? That sounds extreme, but nothing else fits...”
“Maybe it's not Caffey behind the explosions,” Hagen said. “Maybe there's somebody else. Somebody who knows there's valuables in there and intends to take them.”
“A rogue element?” Prentice asked.
“Claim jumpers,” Hagen said. “They want the treasure for themselves, and they can't let word get out about where it was found. They had to take us out to keep it secret.”
“And they wired the treasure room and our ramp with explosives?” Alanna asked.
“This mining colony's full of explosives and people who know to use them,” Hagen said. “But this is all just a guess.”
“Wouldn't the security bot have noticed anyone doing that?” Prentice asked.
All of them turned to look at Malvolio, who was balancing his red juggling ball on the tip of his nose while wiggling a small plastic magic wand at it.
“I'm sure our crack team's on top of everything,” Eric said.
“That can't be all we have for security,” Alanna said.
“Funding is tight,” Prentice said. “But we also subscribe to Maverick Emergency Systems in case of emergency or catastrophic security, accident, evacuation, or medical issues. A standard SAVEME policy. Malvolio would contact them automatically if a major problem emerged.”
“Like this one?” Alanna asked. “Is this not major enough? I'm ready to be evacuated.”
“With that fiber ripped out, we're not contacting anyone soon,” Hagen said. “I already tried the ULF radio in my truck, but that thing hardly works under the best of conditions. We're on our own down here.”
The seven of them looked at each other as those words sunk in.
“Best thing we can do,” Hagen continued after a moment, “is see if the loader can dig out the ramp for us. Maybe the collapse is just local. That ramp coils around and around until it reaches the surface, though, and if it's collapsed all the way up...” He shook his head.
“Then it will be impossible to dig our way out of here,” Iris said quietly. The geologist's lip trembled as she looked back along the main tunnel. “Perhaps there is another way out. The crystal tunnels. That old complex must have some sort of way out, some path to the surface.”
“And you can say this with confidence?” Alanna asked. “Because of your studies with the gatekeepers?”
“I did have some courses in xenoarchaeology, though they focused mostly on the ancients, and we still know almost nothing about them,” Iris said. “I cannot guarantee anything. I have no map of these tunnels. But I know the strata of earth above this quartz reef is relatively soft. Given the destruction we've seen so far, I'd say there's a good chance the ramp tunnel is collapsed all the way up. I personally believe we should make our way out through the crystal tunnels.”
“You're kidding!” Prentice shouted. “Go back in there? We almost died in there. They're probably just waiting to finish the job.”
“If they mean to kill us, then they have us cornered and trapped right here,” Iris said. “We need to find a way out or die tonight.”
“Way to turn on the sunbeams, Sally Science,” Bartley said. He leaned against his exoskeleton, eating a Guinness brand snack cake from the cooler under the seat.
“Those aren't alcoholic, are they?” Naomi asked, frowning at the chocolate-iced harp-shaped treat.
“They're medicinal,” Bartley grumbled back.
“If we go through the old crystal tunnels, you should let me widen the access to it first,” Eric said. “Those tunnels are wide enough for our trucks and exoskeletons.”
“Good idea,” Hagen said. “This could take days on foot. Maybe even weeks, trying to find the exit.”
“Are you people all crazy?” Prentice asked, gaping around at them. “Alanna, tell them. They almost blew us to pieces! They killed our manager!” His voice was getting high and hysterical, though not without reasonable cause, Eric thought. The danger and uncertainty were real. “We can't go back in there until we get this thing with Caffey Industries sorted out...until we get in touch with someone...until the authorities and professionals arrive...”
“Personally, I've never been a fan of waiting around for someone else to show up and solve my problems for me,” Hagen said.
“Alanna's the boss!” Prentice reminded them all, unnecessarily. “She decides, not any of you. And she's smart, she doesn't take dangerous risks—”
“That's hardly true,” Alanna said. “I went spacediving just last week.”
“Aside from occasionally leaping from orbit to the ground in a ridiculously thin atmo-suit, she doesn't take dangerous—”
“Quiet, Prentice. I believe in managing risk, not avoiding it. If there's one thing I've learned from watching my father, it's how to hedge your bets.” She looked at Hagen. “You're now acting manager of this mine.”
Hagen nodded, looking more uncertain than Eric had ever seen him. “Which way do you want us to go, ma'am? Dig out the ramp or widen access to the weird old hallways?”
Alanna remained quiet for a moment, then said, “Both.”
“At the same time?” Hagen frowned.
“Make it possible!” Alanna snapped.
“I never said it was impossible,” Hagen said. “Okay...let's get to work. Naomi, Eric, and Bartley, work on widening our access to Bug Candyland in there. Loader, let's start digging out this ramp tunnel.”
“Loading!” The bulky robot approached, raising its blocky excavator-bucket hands. The dump truck followed behind the loader bot like a loyal dog, ready to receive the collapsed dirt and broken concrete from the cave-in as the loader scooped it out.
Eric continued widening the crack in the wall with the roadheader. Bartley stepped in with the big hammer to break up big pieces when the going got tough.
Eric did his best to keep his mind on the hard work directly in front of him, tried to keep it from straying back to the sight of Reamer emerging from the wall, slashed and broken, his skull cracked open like the rind of a melon. He tried to think of life back home, but all he could picture was the slaughterhouse, where they
butchered everything from pigs to the giant devilhorn beasts. Then they'd hang the raw red skinless bodies on the smokehouse hooks. The smokehouse had a robotic crane arm for lifting the massive devilhorn; even a small one weighed thousands of kilograms.
Malvolio attempted entertaining Alanna and Prentice with a soaring, high-pitched opera performance of some kind. Prentice kept pacing and grumbling until Hagen handed him a shovel and told him to help dig out the collapsed ramp alongside the loader bot. They filled the dump truck again and again, emptying it in the other side tunnel, the one Eric had been digging out the day before. There was nowhere else to dump it.
“This is useless,” Hagen finally announced, gesturing at the thick dirt where the ramp used to be. “It just keeps filling in, getting more compact, just nonstop pressure from above. And we're running out of room to unload the dirt.”
“Loaded,” the loader bot said, seeming to agree. It gestured at the extra side tunnel, now almost completely filled with soil and slag.
“We're doing great over here,” Naomi countered, pointing to the crack they had widened into a tunnel into the crystal corridors. “Ready to roll.”
“Perhaps someone should go ahead,” Prentice suggested. “See if it's safe enough for us.”
“That's not a bad idea,” Hagen said. “Eric, Bartley, take Malvolio and scout ahead. While you do that, I'll try to raise a signal on my radio again.” Hagen started toward the concrete mixer.
“Oh, it's hopeless, sir!” Malvolio cried. The drama-bot removed his top hat, held it over his heart, and looked at the floor, dejected. “I've been trying myself, thirty times per minute. There's no answer, and no apparent connection to the antenna on the surface. The ground is simply too thick. I'm afraid they got us, sir. They got us.” He shook his head mournfully and looked on the verge of tears.
“I'd like to scout ahead with them,” Iris spoke up, quiet as a nervous mouse. She looked at Hagen, then Alanna. “I'll make sure the tunnels in there can handle the vibrations from your trucks.”
“Fine by me,” Hagen said. “And make sure the path ahead is clear of any obstacles.”
“That'll be my job.” Bartley patted the long steel battering ram of the industrial hammer on his exoskeleton. “Road'll be cleaner than a cat's ass when we're done.”
“Watch your language, Bartley.” Hagen eyes shifted toward Alanna, as if to remind him the boss lady was right there.
“Sorry, ma'am,” Bartley said. “I meant to say the road'll be cleaner than a virgin's—”
“We get it,” Hagen said. “Naomi, Loader, help me pack everything we can fit into the trucks. We want to take all of this with us. It's a lot of valuable equipment to lose if the rest of the place comes crashing down.”
“It certainly is! Those exoskeletons and trucks are worth more than the people driving them,” Prentice said, which drew a sour look from Naomi. The blasting tech turned to Iris and handed her a key.
“Take my scout,” Naomi told her, nodding at the single-person all-terrain scouter. “You'll want to keep up with those exoskeletons, and even Malvolio's unicycle is motor-driven, faster than it looks. And you'll want to be able to escape fast, if things get...you know.”
“Thank you.” Iris beamed at Naomi like an orphan who'd just been allowed a second helping of soup. Eric wondered how young Iris was—she was one of those small-frame people who would probably always look like a kid from a distance. She had to be in her late twenties, a few years older than him, if she'd trained with the gatekeepers for years and had multiple university-level degrees. Or did she? Eric had no idea at what age the Antikytheran Society accepted potential gatekeepers for training and education. Like most people, he really knew nothing about the shadowy, secretive world of gatekeepers, only that without them, starships couldn't use the wormholes, couldn't leap from one star system to another.
They set off into the crystal meadow again, Malvolio in the lead in case of danger, followed by Bartley, Iris on the scouter, and Eric in the rear, rolling along on his exoskeleton's treads. He still had the spiky roadheader tool mounted on one arm of his rig in case he needed to widen the path ahead. The other arm had the big clamp for general grabbing and pushing.
“Check the columns first,” Iris said as they shone their lights around the colored-quartz forest. “The columns and the walls.”
Fresh dust coated everything in the cavernous room, dampening the shiny reflections of the quartz sculptures, but the room appeared structurally intact.
“So far, so good,” Iris murmured. Eric was glad to have the geologist inspecting the warren of corridors with them.
They avoided the ocean-style corridor where the explosion had occurred, as well as the hallway dominated by citrine quartz, and instead followed the one located at the farthest end of the meadow chamber. Vermarine continued along the wall of that hallway, the green quartz arranged to look like high weeds and grass. The hallway twisted out of sight after just a few paces.
“Go ahead, drama boy,” Bartley said to Malvolio, clapping the android on the shoulder. “Make sure there's no drop-offs or hootchie-traps ahead.”
“I proceed gladly into danger,” Malvolio said. “But should I fail to return, let it be known that I shirked not from death itself, that nay, rather than cowardice in my breast, I displayed that noble courage that can only be rooted in the truest virtue—”
“Hurry!” Bartley clapped his shoulder again, in a less friendly way.
“Yes, my liege!” Malvolio unicycled ahead into the curved hallway, which looked barely large enough to squeeze the trucks through.
Eric watched the android go. He hadn't really paid attention before, but now he noticed that Malvolio's feet didn't move much on the unicycle pedals. The pedals were more of a rest for the android's feet; the unicycle turned under its own power, fast enough that Malvolio could probably outrun any of the small exploratory mining trucks they had with them.
The android wheeled down the curved hallway and out of sight.
The room fell silent. Eric, Bartley, and Iris looked at each other, quietly waiting and listening.
Then Malvolio's voice echoed back to them: “Oooooooooooooooh!” he screamed. “This is lovely. Come imbibe this vision for yourselves, my friends.”
“Is that an official all-clear?” Bartley shouted.
“More like all-lovely. All-beautiful. All-spectacular...”
The three humans drove on ahead to see what the robot was gushing about.
The corridor beyond was high and deep, though not quite as wide as the meadow room they'd left. Blue quartz covered most of the floor, suggesting a winding stream. Sculptures of trees, which reminded Eric of water willows back home, overhung the imitation river from the cave-wall banks on either side.
“It's a...river room?” Eric said.
“Look out! Climbers!” Bartley shouted.
Eric pivoted his exoskeleton in the direction where Bartley was pointing, a little deeper into the cave corridor, and drew the bulky orange shocker gun, ready to shoot.
Chapter Nine
The large, toad-like creatures squatted under the shadows of the stone trees and among the high stalagmites of marsh grass. They were larger than any of the climbers Eric had seen so far, big enough to chomp off half a human arm in one snap of their needle-like teeth. These toad-creatures also had fully developed eyes. And they didn't move, because they were harmless stone statues.
“You jack-off!” Eric snapped at Bartley, who was already laughing at him.
“They do look like a closely related species to the cave climbers.” Iris approached one of the big toad-creatures, decorated with vermarine quartz for green skin, plus traces of red and yellow quartz for coloring.
While she inspected it, Eric discovered more little creature statues made of quartz and cheap shiny stones. Insects crawled among the drooping limbs and long leaves of the stone willow trees. More insects walked with long, widely splaying legs on the surface of the river, smaller versions of the giant water
-walker bug he'd seen in the ocean room. Tiny sculptures of golden fish swam below the river's blue quartz surface, embedded in the rock beneath it.
Higher up, among the top branches of the stone willows, perched birds with sharp talons, long pointed beaks, and evil red-crystal eyes. These demon birds gazed down at the colorful prey crawling and swimming below, as if eager to swoop in and devour.
“Have you noticed the ecosystems depicted down in these tunnels don't match the surface of this planet?” Iris asked, glancing quickly at Eric and then away again, as if too shy to make eye contact. She reached out and touched a sapphire-hued beetle on a willow branch. “Down here it's lush forests and flowery meadows...up there, it's mostly rocky and gassy.”
“Like the planet ate too many beans,” Bartley said, scratching his chin reflectively. Iris answered this with a disgusted curl of her lip in his direction, but the expression vanished a moment later, as if she was quick to hide her feelings.
“Maybe the surface was different in the past,” Eric suggested. “Then the volcanoes erupted all over the place, and lava destroyed everything.”
“Not just the lava, but the toxic gases,” Iris said, cutting another brief annoyed look at Bartley. “It's hard for life to breathe up there. It's why the plants and trees on the surface are stumpy, and life clusters close to the low waterways, trying to stay below the gas layer. And of course the clouds and ash coming up all around the planet obscure the sunlight, too. But maybe, in the past, this planet was very different, much greener.”
“Well, that's all fascinating,” Bartley said with a belch. “But we gotta get this show on the road.” He lowered one arm of his exoskeleton and sent the huge battering ram of his hammer shooting forward. It shattered the nearest toad statue, then crushed the shattered pieces against the wall.
“What are you doing?” Iris shouted. “These are artifacts of an extinct culture. They're invaluable. Completely irreplaceable. Each one could offer precious and unique insight—”
“Right now, they're precious and unique obstacles to us getting the hell out of here,” Bartley replied, while smashing another toad and the long willow leaves that kept much of it concealed. “This river's the only way out. So either we clear the road or we die down here together.”