The Gods We Seek

by Eric Johannsen

  “That did it,” Dylan said. “Where are you?”

  From orbit, Chad said, “I’ve got them one hundred meters upstream from your location.”

  “Thanks for the eye in the sky,” Dylan said.

  When the group was together, Garrat gestured upstream then to the right, up the mountain’s rising slope. Soon, they reached the water’s source again, the smaller cave the creek sprouted from, and had to abandon the relatively easy going. Tall, skinny trees and mega-sized ferns dominated the terrain, with patches of razor-sharp grass dotting the rocky ground. A ten-centimeter creature with a pointy, armored shell burrowed out of the ground steps ahead of them and scurried toward a patch of small bushes with pastel-blue flowers, disappearing under the shrubbery. Bat-like wings wider than Dylan’s biplane soared thirty meters overhead, occasionally visible through the tangled treetops.

  Strike!

  Screams.

  Garrat’s aura abject terror.

  A thick, dark-green vine wrapped around his leg, horrific thorns digging into his flesh. It yanked him away.

  Dylan leapt on Garrat, falling prone and grappling his chest.

  Garrat’s arms flailed wildly, seeking, desperate. They found a young tree. He grasped it, frantic, terrified.

  The vine tugged violently, digging into his muscles, weakening his hold.

  In a fluid motion, Dylan scrambled forward, unsheathed the diamondoid-edged knife from his thigh, and slashed the flesh-craving plant. Cut. Cut. Cut. Clean through. The base of the vine withdrew into the jungle, the part wrapped around Garrat still twitching. “You’re all right,” Dylan said. “I’ve got you.” He pealed the vine away, from the severed end to the barbed tip.

  Garrat screamed furiously.

  Ji-min rushed up. “He’s in great pain.” She rested a hand on his shoulder and spoke soothing words in his language.

  “That’s a nasty wound,” Dr. Skye said. “If it would have gotten one of us, we would have found out in a hurry how our immune system handles this environment.” She made eye contact with him. “Sydney garrat. Sydney friend.” She unstrapped a first-aid kit and tended his wounds. “I’m surprised he’s letting me,” Dr. Skye said.

  “He’s preoccupied,” Dylan said.

  “What do you mean?” She looked at her patient and saw he was intensely focused on something. On the knife Dylan was wiping clean. “I suppose to him a knife is sufficiently advanced to seem like magic. Arthur C. Clarke. More or less.”

  “I’m familiar,” Dylan said. “Will he be all right?”

  “I think so,” Dr. Skye said. “The wounds are clotting. I irrigated them with saline and covered them with flexiderm. I won't risk an antibiotic without further study of his cellular metabolism and the indigenous microbial life, but if he shows signs of infection, we can revisit that.”

  “Thanks, doc,” Dylan said.

  “You keep calling me doc.” Dr. Skye laughed. “I’m hardly an M.D.”

  “No”, Dylan said, “but you’re the best we’ve got.” He finished cleaning his knife and put it away.

  “Can you walk?” Ji-min asked in the alien tongue.

  Garrat stood and tested his damaged leg. He let out several muted grunts then hobbled toward their destination. The climb became steeper and the jungle thicker as their goal neared. Exhausted, they reached the cave.

  “Is this it?” Dylan asked. “Baku b’tha? Taboo cave?”

  Garrat made a wheezing sound the humans interpreted as a laugh. “B’tha b’tha. Baku toba’a.”

  “The forbidden part is deep in the mountain,” Ji-min said.

  “Deep in the mountain, huh?” Dylan stared into the mouth of the cave.

  It seemed to glare back at him.

  Unidentified

  Dr. Skye held an instrument to the cave’s mouth. “Traces of argon and methane. I don’t think it’s harmful to our friend here. It will be warmer inside.”

  “Warmer,” Sara said. “Wonderful. Can we do anything to improve the suit’s A/C?”

  “I’m working on a new design adapted to exploring in an atmosphere,” Chad said from orbit.

  “The voice from above brings hope,” Dylan said.

  “Yeah. He’s in space dreaming up tech in a dry, cool environment while we grunt it out down here,” Sara said with a teasing laugh.

  Garrat found a stick and wrapped a tip with long, sticky, brownish flower petals. He scoured the ground, inspecting and rejecting stones.

  “What’s your buddy up to, Ji-min?” Dylan asked.

  “I’m not sure. His aura shows he’s focused and creative.” She leaned toward him and exchanged a few words. “He’s making a torch.”

  “He’s in for a surprise,” Dylan said. “Sydney, will he be able to see with our white lights?”

  “I think so,” Dr. Skye said. “There’s ample red in the spectrum and a fair amount of infrared.”

  “Well then, let’s go.” Dylan switched on two LED floodlights mounted in his shoulder pads and one on his helmet, brightly illuminating the cave mouth.

  Garrat’s eyes widened. He paced next to Dylan then waddled up to him. The alien touched an LED then yanked his hand back when his finger lit up brighter than anything he’d likely ever seen. He waved his hand in front of the floodlight then walked into the cave, tracing his fingers over the starkly lit walls.

  “Show us the way?” Ji-min asked in his language.

  The cave was large enough to drive a truck through. Sizable bones and rough shell fragments were scattered along the sides.

  “Something lives here,” Dylan said, “or did not long ago.” He chambered a round in his assault rifle and followed on Garrat’s heels.

  The distant sound of rushing water echoed through the tunnel and the damp air grew warmer.

  “Did you hear that?” Sara asked.

  “Hear what?” Dylan stopped and listened.

  “A scraping sound, like a heavy stone being dragged.” Sara quickened her pace, catching up to Dylan. She tapped her sidearm, ensuring it was still holstered on her hip.

  “There was a sound,” Dr. Skye said. “I didn’t hear it, but when I replayed my helmet video, it was there. Faint, but distinct. This mountain is made of huge boulders. It could have been one of them settling.”

  “Yeah,” Sara said. “Maybe.”

  The ground under their feet softened as the dirt floor turned to mud. They passed a bus-sized formation of white, billowy, translucent minerals on one side and columns of stalagmites on the other. Their boots splashed. A centimeter of water now covered the floor. Soda straws, thin hollow stalactites half a meter long, hung like ragged spikes from the ceiling. Further in, the straws grew together in a curious pattern, like wavy veils of beige rock. The path sloped upward, and water trickled over the gravelly floor making the footing tricky in the environmental suits. After a few hundred meters, the inclination steepened until the crew had to scramble on hands and feet, though Garrat found the path unchallenging. The climb culminated in a limestone block, beyond which was a cavern too large for their lights to illuminate, its floor covered with a pool of still water. Their guide climbed onto a narrow ledge above the water and waited for the humans to catch up.

  “How deep you figure that is?” Dylan asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Sara said. She slipped over the ledge into waist-deep water. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get a whole lot deeper,” she said.

  “What say, we tie on?” Dylan asked.

  “That’s a solid suggestion,” Dr. Skye said. She pulled fifty meters of duracord, thin, slightly elastic, incredibly strong line designed for climbing. She ran it through a specialized clip that would automatically tighten if the cord pulled through it too fast then passed the line to the others. “Looks like I’m on point, at least as far as the human contingent is concerned.”

  Dylan took the line next, clipped himself in, then slipped into the underground lake, holding his assault rifle above water. “Sara, you’re next. Ji-min, bring up the rea
r.”

  Garrat slipped into the water ahead of them and guided the party along the wall. The sound of rushing water was louder now, somewhere up ahead in the darkness. The footing turned to loose, slick, fist-sized rocks and the water was shallower, up to their knees.

  “Look at that,” Sara said. “It looks like stars overhead. Crystals in the ceiling?”

  The four humans turned their headlamps upward.

  “Beautiful,” Dylan said.

  “One of the stars is falling,” Ji-min said. “Or rather, fluttering.”

  A second, then a fifth, then dozens of the silver slivers of reflected light cascaded from the ceiling.

  “What the-” Dylan said.

  The sparkles descended on them like a snow flurry, swarming toward the five individuals.

  As they landed on Garrat, he picked each off and ate it, a crunch gently echoing as chitinous shells cracked open. He couldn’t reach several that landed on his back, so he rubbed hard against the slippery wall until the pests were destroyed.

  “Uh, not good,” Sara said. “They’re nibbling through the suits.”

  #

  “Don’t panic,” Dylan said. “Let’s work as a team.”

  “I can’t pull them off my suit,” Ji-min said, her voice strained.

  Dylan tried to pry one from his own arm. “Sydney, do you have something in your kit to get them off?”

  “I think so,” Dr. Skye said. She foraged until she found needle-nose pliers. “Yep.”

  “You help Ji-min, then switch. Sara, to me.”

  Dylan and Sara waded toward one another and he unsheathed his knife.

  “Careful you don’t puncture my suit instead of them,” Sara said.

  “I’m an Eagle Scout, remember?” He shaved the bug-like critters from her body into his carbon-reinforced palm, then sliced the centimeter-long bodies in two. “All right, you do me now. They do teach knife safety at the NSA?”

  Sara took the knife. “Gun safety, yes. Knife safety wasn’t on the program. You want me to shoot them off?”

  “Just be careful,” Dylan said.

  She carved the insectoids from him and destroyed the bodies as he had.

  When he was infestation free, Dylan re-checked Sara for any hidden bugs then turned to the other pair of humans. Ji-min was finishing Dr. Skye’s shoulders. “Everyone examine everyone else. Arms up, spin around. Make sure we didn’t miss one. Don’t be shy about where you check. The last thing we need is a hole in someone’s suit.”

  After the inspection was complete, they continued across the underground lake, eyes wary for any signs of life. The ceiling came into view, a beautiful, stalactite-covered ceiling, and shortly thereafter the opposite wall. Ahead was the unmistakable roar of a considerable waterfall. The underground lake flowed now in their direction of travel, ever faster the further they explored.

  “I have a feeling this will get tricky,” Dr. Skye said.

  “Garrat’s aura is shifting,” Ji-min said. “He’s nervous.”

  The water was now thigh deep and the walls a few meters apart, causing the current to pick up, strong enough to force their legs forward with every step.

  “Careful,” Dylan said. “Keep three meters apart. If someone loses their balance, let’s not all go down.” They pulled the safety line through the climbing clips to adjust their separation.

  The path ended in a massive vertical shaft. In it, a wispy column of steam drifted up in a slow-moving column of air. Their flashlights faintly illuminated the far side, but the bottom remained shrouded in mist made bright by the powerful beams. The water from the subterranean lake plunged down, deep into the abyss. The top of the shaft also lay beyond the range of their lights, but far up was a green ring of light and a halo of dusky violet.

  “I’d say we found our signal,” Sara said. “Now how the hell do we get up there?”

  #

  “First things first,” Dylan said. He plucked a palm-sized drone from his belt and sent it up the shaft. The diminutive craft emitted a laser, bright green in the mist, and spun on its axis, precisely mapping the cave’s structure, projecting a three-dimensional model onto each astronaut’s visor. At the top of the shaft, a wide crack barely a meter tall led further into the mountain. An organic, web-like substance filled the opening, blocking the drone from further exploration. “It’s around a hundred forty meters up,” Dylan said. “Our longest lines are fifty meters.”

  “Can we tie several together?” Ji-min asked.

  “Yes,” Dylan said, “but we don’t have the equipment to secure such a long rope.” He focused his eyes on a protrusion in the cave model and tapped a finger to highlight that point for the others. “There’s a ledge.” He tapped again. “And another. They’re large enough to hold a man.”

  “Or a woman,” Sara said. “I don’t know about you, Dylan, but my dad and I used to climb every summer.”

  “The shelves are large enough for two,” Dylan said. “We’ll go as a team. Ji-min, I don’t have your gift, but I’d say Garrat’s mighty uncomfortable being this deep into the taboo cave. You head back out with him and Dr. Skye. Let the others know what we found. If you stay near the cave entrance, you should still be able to receive us and relay any messages.”

  Ji-min studied him. “All right. You two be careful.”

  Dylan attached a climbing nut, a wedge-shaped piece of aluminum foam, to the drone. A fifty-meter-long carbon nanotube attached through a hole in one end of the nut, held in place by a ball slightly larger than the hole. The other end of the tube attached to a duracord rope. He maneuvered the drone to a narrow crack in the vertical wall and followed the fissure up past the first ledge. The drone’s AI selected the best location to insert the nut into the crack, snagged the ball, and returned trailing the nanotube, pulling up the duracord in the process. The cord, tipped with a spring-loaded catch, pulled a centimeter through the hole then expanded so it couldn’t pull back out. Dylan gave it a solid tug. “OK, Sara. Ladies first.” He threaded the rope through an electric winch in the chest of her space suit. “Up you go.”

  Sara powered the winch and slipped up the rope. “Sometimes technology takes the fun out of things,” she said. “This isn’t climbing, it’s riding an elevator.”

  “I’ll take you for a real climb back home at Enchanted Rock once the future of humanity doesn’t depend on our mountaineering skills,” Dylan said.

  Sara reached the first stop. “The ledge is solid. Come on up.”

  “On my way.” Dylan latched the rope through his suit-mounted winch, magnetically latched the assault rifle to his back, and joined her.

  In the distance, rock scraped against rock. Something plopped into the water far below.

  Sara and Dylan exchanged glances.

  “You think the rock face is unstable?” Sara asked.

  Dylan reached his fingers into the crack where the climbing nut was wedged and yanked. “This part’s a solid chunk of rock. The mountain is composed of similar rocks with sandstone in between. I suppose a smaller rock could have fallen out somewhere.”

  “I suppose,” Sara said. “Let’s keep going.”

  They repeated the process to reach the next ledge.

  “I’ll send the drone up again before we go any further,” Dylan said.

  The drone’s feed showed them the same tangle of webs blocking the low passageway. There was no movement, only the rapid pulsing of ultraviolet light from somewhere beyond.

  “Ji-min, how do you copy?” Dylan said over coms.

  Her reply was faint but intelligible. “We’re almost out. No problems to report.”

  “Roger,” Dylan said. “We’re two-thirds the way up. I’ll check in again from the top.”

  “Upward and onward,” Sara said.

  “I’ll lead this time,” Dylan said.

  “What happened to ladies first?” Sara asked. “I’m capable of handling myself.”

  “I know you are,” Dylan said. “But I’m still going first.” He clipped in a
nd hoisted himself the remaining distance to the top of the shaft. “Well, I’ll be.”

  “You’ll be what?” Sara asked.

  “The stuff up here blocking the path looks like a webby root, but unless my instincts for xenobiology are way out of whack, it’s been dead for a long time.” He yanked at a few strands and they crumbled in his grasp.

  “Are you clear of the line?” Sara asked.

  “Yep.”

  “I’m on my way.” She scooted up the cord and pulled herself into the low, wide passage. “I hope it doesn’t get narrower up ahead. We’ll have to crawl as it is.”

  “It reminds me of my academy days,” Dylan said. “Ji-min, how do you read?” he asked over coms.

  “…outside…clo…clear of…,” her reply came, punctuated by digital static.

  “Well, shoot. We’re out of range,” Dylan said. “Let’s check out what’s up ahead, then I’ll climb down far enough to re-establish coms and report back.” He moved his right arm and left knee forward, pushed to inch away from the shaft, then extended his left arm and right knee. The shoulder lights were useless, pointing straight at the ground, and his helmet light wasn’t much better. “I can’t hardly see where I’m going. It’s tough to look forward without bumping the top of my helmet.”

  Sara moved as he did, but faster.

  “Hey!” Dylan said, chuckling. “Where do you think you’re going?” He picked up his pace.

  “Last one there’s a rotten egg,” Sara said. She mumbled something about chauvinistic astronauts from Texas.

  “Hold up, now,” Dylan said.

  They raced through the narrow crack, pushing through rotting roots until the ceiling suddenly became taller. Sara stood, examining the curious geology.

  Dylan appeared in a cloud of dust, forcing himself not to breathe too deeply. “I’ve never seen a cave do that,” he said.

  “It’s those loose rocks piled together,” Sara said. “Mountains don’t form that way back on Earth.”

  The ultraviolet was brighter here, almost saturating their UV detectors, casting a white fog over the heads-up displays inside their helmets.