Fermi's War Page 12

  "How long?"

  "Could be hundreds of thousands of years. Undisturbed while humanity struggled to climb out of the trees back on Earth."

  Taking great care not to disturb the ancient tracks, they set down on the ground in front of the tunnel. With a long, low toss, Marshall threw a communications relay out along the ground, watching it come to rest on a mount a few dozen meters away, an antenna extending from the surface. Caine had her helmet lights on, and was staring down into the tunnel.

  "I can't see the bottom. Radar has it going down for about a hundred meters, then branching out."

  "Site's marked and we have beacon signal. Let's go in."

  "You don't need to tell me twice."

  With small, cautious bounds, they slowly loped into the tunnel, darkness enveloping them broken only by the lights of their suits. There was just room for the two of them, cautiously heading down. Every move they made was being recorded for posterity back on Alamo, every microsecond of footage saved for future scrutiny by those who would study the remains of whatever lived here. The tunnel reached the bottom, and a pair of corridors crossed out, running parallel to each other.

  "We could take one each?"

  "We're both going right, Deadeye. Drop your beacon, the signal won't reach through that much rock."

  Gently placing her relay on the ground, she watched the antenna rise up and track round, maintaining a signal with the surface. Marshall took the lead down the corridor, much the same as the previous one but level. No sign of anything, not even the marks on the ground that they'd seen above. No sign that anyone had ever passed this way.

  "Wow," Caine said.

  "What is it?"

  "Coming up on a big chamber. Really big."

  The corridor opened out on a huge room, a chamber hundreds of meters across, completely buried underneath the surface. The suit lights burned pointlessly into nothing; the only reason they knew where they were was the imagery on their deep radar. The place was cold, space-cold.

  "I just realized something."

  "What?"

  "No airlocks. This place was intended to be worked in spacesuits. Or the equivalent."

  "Don't just by our standards, Danny. For all you know the beings that lived here were quite comfortable in a vacuum."

  "Well, I'm not. At least let's get some light."

  Caine pulled a small object out of a pocket on her leg, and rolled it casually along the ground, giving it just enough momentum to make it stay within range of her suit lights. She tapped a button, and a bright flare of light shot out across the room, as bright as daylight, illuminating the whole vault.

  Both of them gasped at what they saw; intricate geometric shapes were carved on the walls, some hundreds of meters high, others barely visible. The room was empty, but it was clear that it had once been extensively used – there were scrapes and markings along the ground, similar to the ones they had seen at the entrance. It felt as if they had arrived at an abandoned warehouse. Marshall stared up at the walls.

  "What could it be?"

  "Someone – or a lot of someones – will spend decades trying to find out. It could be the mysteries of the universe, or it could simply be graffiti. Or both."

  "Let's try the other passageway."

  Retracing their steps with great care, they let the flare burn itself out, then returned to the darkness of the corridor, the helmet lights seeming even less effective than before. As they passed the crossroads, Caine frowned, stopped, and started to work controls on the front of her suit, before looking over at Marshall.

  "Danny, check your radar."

  He tapped a couple of buttons, but nothing happened. Turning around, he could get a clear picture of what was behind him, but ahead was nothing but confused readings.

  "Radar dampening. This part was designed so that outsiders couldn't see in."

  "Still military? It could be ceremonial, or even an accident."

  Pausing for a moment, Marshall said, "Let's proceed. With caution."

  Taking the lead, Marshall took calculated, careful steps down the corridor, which abruptly turned to the right before suddenly stopping; it was clear that there was empty space up ahead in quantity, but too dark to see a thing. Radar revealed nothing of use, just that there was an empty space of indeterminate size. Pulling a tool from his pocket, he tossed it out into the blackness, following it as far as he could with his helmet lights before it disappeared from view.

  "More than a hundred meters."

  "I'll try another flare." She tapped a couple of controls. "It's on a two-second time delay. That should give us all the time we need."

  She tossed the second flare out, watching it curve down before it lit up the space again. This room was decidedly not unoccupied; it was a large sphere, hundreds of meters across, dug deep into the surface, with a tall platform rising from the bottom, and it was quite apparent that there was something on it. Another octagon, raised high, with more markings on it. The walls were black, almost seeming to suck in the light, but the same geometric patterns as before were evident. If anything, these were even more intricate than before.

  "We can get across with our suit jets. Easy jump."

  A voice inside Marshall was telling him to leave, to run back to what has normal and familiar, but a far louder voice was pushing him on to the unknown that lay ahead, waiting. His suit quickly calculated the firing pattern of his thrusters to take him across to the plinth, plenty of margin for error.

  "Marshall calling Clarke. Do you read me?"

  "Clarke here. I read you. Is something wrong?"

  "Just a communications check. Marshall out."

  Caine said, "They can hear us if we get in trouble. Come on, let's go."

  Nodding, Marshall planted his feet carefully on the edge of the corridor, then pushed off as hard as he could, narrowly missing the ceiling as he headed out into the spherical chamber. His suit computer fired thrusters in a series of careful patterns to maintain altitude and guide him in; all he had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride. The flare burned out, leaving he and Caine moving forwards in pitch darkness, helmet lights burning away futilely, the occasional spark from a wayward thruster the only relief from the gloom. Suddenly, the platform loomed into darkness ahead, and the suit computers fired breaking thrusters, gently coming down to a smooth landing.

  The platform was the same black as the walls; it almost felt as if they were standing in an endless, empty void. Cautiously, Caine took a step forward, being careful not to exert too much force for fear of pushing herself off the platform. In the middle of the octagon was a shaft, heading straight down; she looked down, her helmet lights shining down the hole, then collapsed back on the ground, rolling around, screaming, while the vision of what she had briefly seen seared into her brain. The computer, detecting increased heartbeat, automatically administered a relaxant, trying to calm her down as she rolled around, Marshall grabbing her and stopping her rolling right off the platform, snapping a safety line onto her belt.

  "Deadeye! Deadeye! Calm down!"

  She relaxed a little, the suit warnings fading from red to amber as her life signs started returning to normal, then grabbed Marshall's wrist, saying, "For God's sake don't look."

  "What was it?"

  "Your worst nightmare.”

  He couldn't help himself. There was no way he could stop himself from at least snatching a glimpse of whatever was down there. Not now that he had come this close. Against all better judgment, he pulled himself away from Caine and stared down the hole. His eyes took a second to register the darkness, then he saw it – a hundred writhing tentacles locked in an eternal, cold embrace, hideous ichor stained around the sides of the hole, and a cluster of empty eye sockets staring sightlessly up at him.

  Something about the way they were arranged suggested movement, suggested that they were dancing around the hole, though his mind told him that it was impossible, that they were – must be – long dead, simply preserved by the vacuum. Then he saw someth
ing else. Something at the bottom of the pile, buried in the alien mass – a form that could not be anything other than a human being, naked, tentacles wrapped around him.

  He couldn't help himself; he felt his stomach heaving, and dropped down to the side of the hole, throwing up in his spacesuit, alarms and warnings sounding not only to him but to the others in the landing team as well. The last thing he heard before he fell unconscious were his own screams.

  Chapter 15

  Marshall's eyes flickered open; he was blinded by bright white light shining into them. He coughed and spluttered, then felt a hand on his head, and others on his legs, restraining him. Voices were speaking, as if from far away, far enough that he couldn't work out what they were saying. He tried to speak himself, but the result was only a series of coughs and gasps. A glass of water was placed to his lips and he eagerly drank, though there was something odd about it, a tang in the taste he didn't like.

  "Captain Marshall?" one of the voices said. "Nod if you can hear me."

  He jerked his head up and down, sending bile rising to this throat again, and felt hands behind his back, supporting him, propping him up. Gradually, the reality of where he was began to come back to him – he was lying in a crash couch in the passenger compartment of one of the shuttlecraft, and Alamo's medical officer, Doctor Duquesne, was standing over him.

  "You're damn lucky I do house-calls by fighter. Try speaking."

  In between the coughs and splutters, Marshall managed, "Caine?"

  "In about the same condition as you, though she came around a couple of minutes ago. Oddly enough her first word was your name; do you often go on dates like this?"

  "How long?" Marshall gasped.

  "About three hours. Douglas and Blake found you and brought you back to the shuttle. Without being stupid enough to look down the pit of total madness, I might add." There were groaning sounds from the other side of the room, and the looming figure of Cunningham leaned over, saying something in Duquesne's ear.

  "Looks like my other patient needs work," she said, making her way over to Caine.

  Cunningham looked over at her, then back to Marshall, "That doctor's quite a piece of work. She was waiting for me on the hangar deck with her medical bag when I landed. We were down on the deck before you were back in the shuttle."

  "Thanks," Marshall said. He sat up with a start, coughing again.

  "Easy, there. You've had a hell of a shock. Doc said you had to take it easy for a bit." He looked around nervously.

  "Is something else wrong? Give me a report."

  "You aren't in any condition to be in command right now."

  "These are my people. What's wrong?"

  Sighing, Cunningham replied, "That ass Cross has gone missing as well, managed to give Private Green the slip somehow. I've already torn the kid off a strip for appearances. Mulenga's leading the search parties now, and I've got Raven Three up. He must have gone into one of the structures."

  "If he's found something like..."

  "Don't try and think about it."

  The images flashed again in his mind, the human buried in the alien creatures, and he felt his stomach churn again; Cunningham had a bowl under him before he threw up, patting him on the back.

  Marshall looked up, "There was a human in there, Jack. A human."

  "Are you sure?" Cunningham's eyes widened.

  "Damn sure. Don't send anyone in there."

  "I wasn't planning to. I've already set up a quarantine marker."

  Interrupting him, Marshall said, "Send in a drone. To the site of that tunnel, to get some samples. Did anyone else find anything?"

  "Getting you to take more than five minutes off is going to be impossible, isn't it."

  Grasping the wing commander's arm, he replied, "We both know why that is."

  Nodding, Cunningham replied, "I suppose we do at that. Vivandi's team found a maze of corridors and chambers buried underground, must have extended for miles, but they didn't get very far before they came back from the shuttle. Douglas and Clarke struck blank – a tunnel that went for about half a mile then dead-ended. They were just about to turn back anyway when they got your signal.

  "The others?"

  "Green said that they'd only found a tunnel – but it looks like another complex like Vivandi's. She's over the moon, reckons it's going to take months to go through the entire complex properly. You found a human in that pit? Douglas didn't look."

  "Sensible, that one. Human and alien." Somehow, it was beginning to get easier to think about.

  "Alien?"

  "Yeah." He still retched a little at the thought.

  Cunningham's head jerked towards the front of the craft, "Would you be alright if I left you for a moment..."

  "Go. Get that drone on the way. But for God's sake Jack, send it on remote."

  "Right."

  The doctor took his place as Cunningham raced towards a control station to order down a sampling drone from Alamo. He looked over at Caine, who seemed to be sleeping comfortably on her couch, though her expression suggested that her dreams were anything other than sweet.

  "She'll be fine, Captain," said Duquesne, her voice unusually mellow. "You're lucky I have something better than a first aid kit on me. I've slipped you a couple of bits and pieces that will inhibit the memory a bit, make it seem more like a dream. I'll be prescribing sleeping tablets to you both for a couple of weeks, but other than that I don't think you'll have any long-term problems."

  "Thanks. What if it had taken longer to get to me?"

  She paused, "Suit medical kits are limited. They can calm someone down a bit if they are panicking, but that's about the extent of their psychological pharmacopoeia. You're thinking of Cross?"

  "Yes."

  "Good chance he'd just go insane. With him, how would you tell?"

  Marshall began to push himself up off the couch, his stomach continuing to churn, but the doctor pushed him back down with a single hand, shaking her head.

  "Where do you think you are going?"

  "To join the search. We've got to find him as quickly as we can."

  "You don't. If we had shuttles to spare I'd have you in Alamo's sickbay having some happy time. Don't even think about going outside – besides, we'd have to get your suit fumigated first. You made a hell of a mess."

  Gagging a bit at the thought, the captain moved back down to his couch, looking over Cunningham's shoulders as he manipulated the controls on the drone, guiding it gently towards the mound, over the mysterious tracks – now he had some idea what had made them – then down the corridors.

  "To the left, Lieutenant," he said. "You'll need to guide it manually down the corridors, they've got some sort of radar reflector on the walls. As soon as you get to the chamber, let the computer take over from there and kill the monitors."

  "Better do what he says, Lieutenant," the doctor said, "I'm running low on my good-time juice."

  A signal came through on all three of their communicators; while the others were distracted, Marshall managed to get his first, earning him a look of reproof from the doctor that he simply ignored.

  "Marshall here. Go ahead."

  "Captain?" Mulenga's voice replied, "I'm glad to hear you are feeling better."

  "Have you found him?"

  "Yes. Down in the bowels of that complex. He insists on speaking to you privately, and immediately. Something about a discovery of tremendous importance."

  "How does he sound?"

  "A lot better than you when they brought you in, Captain. Whatever might be wrong with him, I don't think that can be it. He refuses to speak to me, or to discuss it with you over the communicators."

  "I presume your presence means that the second shuttle is down?"

  "Shuttle Two landed about two hours ago. Lieutenant Shirase is on board, co-ordinating."

  He paused for a second. "Fine. Have Mr. Shirase report to Shuttle One on the double, as well as Dr. Vivandi. Everyone else can sit this out on the other one for a bit."<
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  "A lot of the science team would like to take a look at the ruins, sir."

  "That's fine with me. Start executing the second phase of the landing operations, then – have the espatiers start preparing their defensive positions, and get the science team to work. Co-ordinate everything with Mr. Dietz."

  "Aye, Captain."

  Cunningham turned to Marshall, waving his hands, saying, "That's it, I've turned it over to the computer. It'll take some biologic samples, instructed to do minimum damage, then ship them back up to Alamo for analysis."

  "More work for me, then," Duquesne said, shaking her head.

  "Do you want me to leave?"

  Shaking his head, Marshall replied, "No. My head is still fogged, and I don't want to have to make a snap command decision without backup should it prove necessary. If you think I'm talking rubbish, by all means speak up."

  He wryly smiled, "Certainly, Captain."

  The airlock cycled, and Cross walked in, shedding bits of his spacesuit that slowly floated down to the floor; Cunningham began to pick them up and stow them in their proper compartments, shooting the geochemist a look of disgust. Marshall's situation slowly registered on Cross as he crashed down in one of the couches.

  "What's wrong with you?"

  "Let's just say I saw something that disagreed with me. Caine too."

  "This can't wait."

  Marshall raised a hand, trying to smile, and replied, "Speak. I'm fit enough to listen to your report. We can then get to your punishment for sending twelve crewmen on a wild-goose chase for the last three hours looking for someone stupid enough to go wandering off by himself in an unexplored alien base."

  "Fine, fine, later, later." He tossed a datapad at Marshall, who plucked it out of the air. It seemed to have survey readings of the local area, but the jargon didn't make any sense to him.

  "What have you found? It had better be damned important."

  "It is! Look, Captain, look at the heat readings! And the radiation pattern! And the samples I took from the bottom of those alien ruins. It can't be anything else."