The Luminous Dead

by Caitlin Starling

  If she was lucky, going blind would balance out the power the drill was drawing. She didn’t know the math, but it was plausible enough to cling to.

  She clipped in, and sought out the next handhold, then the next. With each step, her muscles quavered, her shoulders and head bowing under the force of the waterfall, her thighs and chest tired from day after day of climbing and emotional extremes. The passage itself would have been walkable in places if the water hadn’t been there, but with it, she struggled to pull herself forward even along the flat sections. Then she would reach another largely vertical stretch and have to haul herself up instead of forward. The joints in her hands screamed in pain and threatened to lock up on her, and the skin of her fingertips protested from the pressure. Her rebreather whirred loudly, struggling to keep up with her oxygen needs at full exertion.

  There were some stable pockets of air in the choke, and spots where the walls came close enough together that she could lean her back against them as she fought her way up, steadying herself to put another bolt in. But with every narrowing of the passage and every dry spot, the force of the water became unpredictable, harder to manage. Each shelf she could stand on was also a platform that could break her arm if she fell the wrong way against it. Twice, she lost her grip, her toe slipping or her fingers giving way, and she dangled in the full energy of the current, her heart in her throat as she scrabbled for another hold. And once, as she neared what she thought was the top by a change in the sound of the water, the stone gave way under where she had her left knee jammed into it, and she fell, twisting in the current until she was jerked to a hard stop by her rope. Below her was a rough ledge, only a few centimeters away. If she’d driven her bolt just a hair lower, and if she’d snapped her leg—

  Can’t think about falling.

  Another few minutes of blinding effort and her head broke the surface of the surge. She switched her reconstruction back on. There was another climb a short distance from her, and above that, the hole widened out into a larger, less vertical chamber. Water flowed deep and fast over the floor, and where she stood it was waist-deep, but just beside her was a dry pocket. She dragged herself into it. Groaning in relief, she staggered and nearly collapsed in place, but she propped herself against the wall and pulled up the map Em had given her.

  If she had been connected to Em’s computer topside, she would have been able to see her location as a small blip. As it was, she tried to match each feature she’d climbed over against the model of the cave, and decided that, given where she likely was, she’d reached the branch-off point Em had marked for her. She didn’t need to climb all the way to the top. This alcove, if it was the one she thought it was, would open onto another, drier path. She turned off the map and looked around.

  There.

  There was a narrow slit in the rock, low to the floor and small enough that she’d have to wiggle through on her belly or her back. If the map was right.

  But if she was wrong, it could take her—anywhere. Back to the start, like the paths she’d wandered the day before? She shuddered. I can do this. I can do this.

  Then she made the mistake of looking at her battery indicator. The remaining charge dropped sharply, impossibly, down past forty percent. The climb had used up over half her battery all on its own.

  Her gaze went to the communications settings reflexively, her lips tingling as she imagined blowing out the command that would connect her to Em, just for a moment. To confirm, to console.

  But once again she stopped herself. She’d check in when she reached Camp Five. No sooner. She couldn’t risk the battery usage, and she wasn’t ready to face Em now that she knew about the recording. There would be no consolation, no gentleness. She might not even answer.

  The thought almost broke her.

  She shook off that feeling. Just a little farther. The battery would hold. Em’s math had predicted this. Now that she was out of the water, the drain on her power would slow again.

  After detaching herself from her rope, Gyre knelt down before the gap, then rolled onto her back, letting her spine arch over the bulk of her shell. She pushed herself along the ground just far enough to get her head in, and she looked around, letting her sonar map out the space. The slot continued. It would be a tight fit, and an awkward one, but it looked doable. She pulled out, then flipped onto her stomach and began to crawl.

  The roar of the waterfall was still making her bones vibrate, but it began to fall away as she wiggled the first meter into the slot. She’d made it up the first awkward, slithering climb—just a few paces of gain, but she had to take it as if she were a lizard, pressed flat to a warm stone—when the sound grew again. Except now it sounded different, no doubt distorted by the stone around her. It sounded like a low rumble, a throbbing—

  Oh fuck.

  Her whole body spasmed with fear, the narrow slot suddenly too claustrophobic, too tight. Images of Halian’s body, crushed to a pulpy slime, crashed over her mind, and she was blind from them, hyperventilating and trying to back out on instinct. If a Tunneler was close, if it found her, she’d be dead. Em would never know what had happened, and—

  The rumble stopped.

  Gyre sagged down. If it was a rumble, if it wasn’t a deep-bone throb, if it stopped, that meant it wasn’t close. Right? She was surrounded by stone, more than she’d been anywhere else in the cave. If it moved through stone, if the sound was carried through stone, of course she would hear it better here.

  She was fine. She’d be fine.

  Still, she quickened her pace as she slithered through the gaps and clawed her way up awkward rises, crawling ever closer to Camp Four. When the passage finally opened up again, she staggered out with the feeling of a prisoner released. Calling up her map, she saw she was only half an hour’s easy walk from Camp Four, and she had to pause and wait for her relieved sobs to pass.

  From here there was only the Long Drop left, and then she’d replace her batteries and restock everything and just . . . climb out. She’d be done. She’d be on familiar ground, and the hallucinations and sleepless nights would ease or go away entirely. And if they were wrong about the spores, if Gyre had truly seen something at Camp Five, if Isolde was somehow still alive—maybe she had followed her through the sump. Maybe she had died in the great sump behind her.

  And if she hadn’t, if that feeling she’d had in the lake chamber had been real, there was no way Isolde could make it through the waterfall without gear.

  Fuck her, either way.

  She staggered toward Camp Four, then stopped short when she saw her battery.

  It hovered at thirty percent.

  The power drain had slowed, but not enough. Her battery was failing fast. Too fast? Or was this still what Em had calculated—and why she had been so firm about not swimming to Camp Three? She had to keep going, but the fresh panic was too much after the climb, too much after everything that had happened.

  She stood there, caught on the thought that maybe she wasn’t going to make it, and the panic grew, only to fade again as she waited through it. She turned the recording feature back on. She licked her dry lips, cleared her throat.

  “Em,” she said, “I made it to Camp Four.” As she spoke, her voice rasping against her throat, she could feel every burnt-out nerve ending in her body, every knotted muscle. “I’m almost there, anyway. I’m going to strike for Camp Five immediately. I heard a Tunneler a while ago, but I think it’s gone now. But my battery is low. I might have fucked up, in the climb, and I just . . . I just wanted to tell you, in case I don’t get to talk to you again—” In case I don’t get to talk to anybody ever again—

  That what? I’m sorry for taking steps to protect myself and keep you from doing this to somebody else? I’ve been fantasizing about you, I hate what you’ve done to me, but I can’t stop needing you, I’m so angry, I’m so sorry, I wish we’d met some other way, I wish you weren’t crazy, I wish I wasn’t an idiot?

  “Just give my money to my dad, tell him where my mot
her is, and send her a nasty letter about how I died trying to get to her, okay? And then throw me a huge party up on the surface and move on. I know you think it isn’t that simple, but . . . fuck, Em. Just move on. At least give us that much respect.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  She spent almost half an hour in Camp Four, sitting down to rest her aching body and check her suit. Her battery stabilized at twenty-six percent, its drain slowing back to its normal rate of a little under one percent an hour. She should have turned off the reconstruction and headlamp, but she selfishly kept the lights on, unwilling to face the darkness again before there was no other choice. The sump was too dangerous to risk, but the trip down to Camp Five shouldn’t take more than five hours.

  She gave herself another meal, her leg jittering as she waited for the flow to stop, skin prickling as she felt phantom eyes on her. Her gaze darted around the chamber incessantly. Her head spun, the adrenaline beginning to wear off. It left her heavy and stupid, muddied even beyond what the lack of sleep and the stress were doing to her.

  Understanding that didn’t make it easier to bear, though. When the canister was spent and stowed, Gyre stood up, then swore as her rubbery legs gave out from under her.

  She should rest, trust the battery. But if she rested here, she’d sleep. She’d lose track of time, blow past the safety window.

  And sleeping was five percent she didn’t have.

  Momentum. She needed to keep her momentum going. You’re hitting your limit, the tired, exhausted part of her whispered in retort. You’re only human.

  Fuck that.

  With a concerted effort, she stood again, this time making it all the way up and staying there, trembling, until her legs remembered how to function. Then she took one careful step after another, wary of her ankle rolling, or her body otherwise making an executive decision to shut down without her input.

  She was halfway across the room when she heard it again: a low rumble, distinct and undeniable. She froze in place, looking around. The walls seemed stable, the reconstruction solid. It couldn’t be too close, then. And nothing had changed since her climb down. Well, nothing physical, nothing external to her.

  It must just be in the area. The new tunnel on the Long Drop had already indicated as much. But the rumble didn’t stop, didn’t become fainter or louder.

  What was it doing?

  She stared at the cavern ceiling, willing her sensors to see past the stone and show her where the Tunneler was, but the rock remained impenetrable. Giving herself a firm shake, she looked around the camp. Right. The best thing to do, if it was on the move, was to get on the move as well.

  She eased herself down the ledge where Jennie Mercer had crawled away to die, and had gone a few steps away from it when she frowned and turned on her heel. It was as if she could feel Jennie’s body, a gravity well pulling her back.

  Her throat felt tight and dry. The guilt broke through the heavy layers of personal, immediate fear, of shame at her own weakness. Jennie Mercer didn’t know Gyre had promised to stop Em for her.

  Yet Gyre couldn’t help but tremble.

  From here, Gyre could see Jennie’s boots, identical to her own. She stepped closer and crouched down, her hand hovering over the other woman’s ankle. You have to protect yourself, she thought. Jennie was only down here for herself. You don’t owe her anything.

  But Gyre couldn’t stop looking at the carbon plating, the tread of the boot. They were identical. They were . . .

  Her breath caught.

  Face burning with shame, she reached out and took hold of Jennie’s ankle. Carbon fiber screeched over stone as she dragged out Jennie’s broken suit, the legs still rigid even now that its inhabitant was dead.

  The model of suit was identical to Gyre’s. And that meant that Jennie’s suit had used the same batteries.

  Maybe she didn’t have to go to Camp Five at all.

  She rolled the body over and checked the battery that was actively loaded. Dead; it must have powered the suit after Jennie died, Em unable to bring herself to turn it off. But there was a backup. It might also be drained, if Jennie had been making for Camp Four’s cache to resupply, but . . .

  Gyre pushed the eject button.

  It didn’t move.

  Great. The fall that had left Jennie a corpse in a dented exoskeleton must have jarred some of the mechanisms inside the suit. She hesitated only a moment, then brought her fist down on the suit casing near the backup storage area. The suit was rigid enough on the outside that she didn’t hear bone crack, but her mind conjured the sound in horrific detail. This would be her, if she didn’t get down to Camp Five in time. Locked in, unable to move, her suit a sarcophagus. She struck the carbon panel again, and again, then tried the eject button, fingers fumbling over the release.

  Nothing. It was totally jammed.

  Gyre crouched there unmoving for a moment, then steeled herself and rolled Jennie onto her back again. She touched her hand to the front of Jennie’s helmet. Luckily, she couldn’t see inside with the reconstruction overlay running; the transparent plastic was just a flat color to her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t deserve this.” This was a far cry from bringing Jennie justice and respect, but even a half-drained, months-old battery might get Gyre through the sump to Camp Three, might let her bypass the Long Drop and those tumorous mushrooms, the memory of Isolde.

  She found the button to open the suit, set in under Jennie’s jaw, and pressed it. The click of the plates unlocking was audible, but without a functioning battery in the main port, Gyre had to wriggle her fingertips between the plates to pry them off. She started at Jennie’s sides and belly, cracking open the suit like a nutshell. From one armpit to the other, down along her ribs and across her belly, she freed the plates from each other. Then she grabbed Jennie’s shoulders and hauled her upright, peeling her off the part of the suit that contained the backup. Her body was somewhat preserved, feedback film desiccated and husk-like around her, but it and the flesh gave way when Gyre touched her, pulling apart across her back as she leaned the woman against her chest.

  Gyre sat there, breathing hard and staring at the tubes and electrodes running from the suit to Jennie’s torn flesh. This was her, beneath the suit. Wired in, plugged in, part of the technology. In some ways, she was just the brain inside of it, the fine-motor control. Her stomach roiled. She wanted out of her own suit, but she could picture her own skin sloughing off, the tubing tugging, rupturing, her body a bag filled with fluid and blood and bile, punctured and leaking out onto the cavern floor. Vomit rose in her throat, and she let go of Jennie, falling back onto her ass and staring at the corpse, which sat upright on its own, braced by the remains of the suit, hunched forward.

  Air. She needed air. But as she opened the front plate of her helmet, she could smell meat, and the faint smell of rot. She twisted, turning herself over as her stomach heaved. Her cannula ached in protest as her gut contracted, and she coughed, hacking, bending close down to the rock.

  Nothing came up. The nausea receded, and she sucked in great gulps of air. It was clean enough. It would have to do.

  The battery. She needed the battery. She didn’t have time for this.

  Her stomach lurched as she turned back to Jennie’s body and crawled around to the back of her. She wished she’d cared more about the construction of her own suit, had paid attention to it before she put it on. The internal structure and its connections to Jennie’s spine were dizzyingly complex. Most didn’t pierce the skin itself, but she didn’t want to dislodge the leads and rip Jennie’s skin open along with them when the film cracked and pulled away. She slid her hands into the thicket as gently as she could, searching. She reached the other side of the battery storage area, and breathed a sigh of relief as her thumb grazed a release catch.

  The back of the battery storage area wasn’t jammed, and the door came up easily. She worked quickly, pulling out the battery, weaving it out through the tangle of wires. Once it was in
her hands, she sat back on her heels and looked at the path of Jennie’s spine. She’d dislodged a few leads despite the care she’d taken, and Jennie’s skin looked like it was covered in weeping sores.

  It was grotesque.

  She didn’t deserve to be preserved in the suit, contained and inhuman. But Gyre didn’t have time for a funeral, didn’t have a way to carry her out. All she could do was lay Jennie back down, gently, into the shell of her suit, and open up her helmet.

  Inside, her face was sunken and strange, her eyes just pits. Gyre made herself look. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “I really did try to stop her.”

  Jennie didn’t respond.

  Slowly, she turned away and reached behind herself to swap the new battery into her backup slot so that her suit could measure its remaining charge. Maybe she hadn’t owed Jennie anything before, but if this battery worked . . .

  She fumbled it, her fingers clumsy. It took five tries, twisting and turning the thing, until she could slide it partway in.

  And then it stopped.

  The same damage that had made it unable to eject made it unable to be fully seated.

  She swore, watching the readouts. Its power levels fluctuated wildly. It had enough charge left to help, but to use it, she’d have to hold it in place, and even then it might not work efficiently, or reliably.

  It would be useless for climbing, much less attempting the sump to Camp Three.

  She looked back down at Jennie, grimacing. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, then closed her faceplate. She pulled the battery out of the backup slot, and stashed it in her side compartment, then turned and struck out from Camp Four.

  All that, and possibly for nothing.

  She needed to get down the Long Drop, and fast.

  She could still hear the Tunneler.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was only a half hour’s walk and scramble to the Long Drop, but by the time she reached it, her battery was hovering just over critical state. She stood at the edge of the drop and considered her options.