The Luminous Dead

by Caitlin Starling

  “The lamp didn’t seem to be coordinated with any attacks, so you should be good like that from here forward, if it’s easier,” Em murmured in her ear. “I’ll let you know if I see anything change. Does that sound okay?”

  “Thanks,” she managed.

  Em took a deep breath, and Gyre waited for her to speak. It sounded like she was working up to something, so Gyre anticipated nothing good. An update on her vitals? An apology, because Gyre was dying even then?

  But instead, Em started singing. Gyre couldn’t understand the words, but she could understand the tone. It was a nursery song, a lullaby. Her voice was lilting and sweet, even if her rhythm was a bit off, and Gyre sank into it as it curled around her and into the space outside her cracked screen. She turned up the volume to blot out the distant rumble of the Tunneler, still audible, still following. Her right hand fiddled with a crack in the plating along the hip of her suit, and her left arm remained gone, absolutely gone, but still there in a phantom presence. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she was still whole.

  She was so tired.

  She didn’t care if she ever saw her mother, or even if she ever got off-world. All she cared about now was seeing another person, a real person. Seeing Em. Feeling her warmth beneath her hand. Sleeping in her bed.

  Out of habit, she tried to roll over, then hissed as her stomach protested, pain bleeding around the edges of her anesthetic. It was a hundred times worse than the morning after her first surgery, when she had lain there, unable to afford pain meds, convinced she’d made the right decision.

  “Gyre.”

  “Sorry, I’m fine,” she said, gasping. The throb was getting louder. Gyre turned up the volume again. “Keep singing. It was nice.”

  “No,” Em said almost in a whisper. “It’s the vibrations.”

  She frowned, then sat up, wavering unsteadily. “The Tunneler?”

  “It’s getting closer. Move. Move, Gyre.”

  Her heart seized. She couldn’t do this again, couldn’t go through the roar, the falling. They were so close, if Em could be trusted, and even if she couldn’t, Gyre didn’t want to die in another attack. She didn’t want to die like this.

  “Damn it,” Gyre swore, staggering up into an awkward crouch. She looked at the gap she’d uncovered. It was too tight, far too tight. If the Tunneler came anywhere near her while she was in it, she’d be Halian all over again. She staggered to the edge of the drop-off instead, the crash of the waterfall across the gap growing louder. Maybe if she put a line in, hung down in the open space, she could—

  The throb suddenly became a roar, and Gyre stumbled back, staring, as across the gap a great wormlike thing swam out of the rock, stone moving impossibly like water around it. In the open air, it was too big to support itself, and she watched as it writhed up along the wall and into the ceiling, half submerging itself. Its gigantic conical head, if it was a head, swung around to face her. It had no mouth, no eyes, but thousands of slit-like pits covered its skin, pulsing open and closed as if breathing, smelling. In the light of her headlamp, its brilliantly colored scales flashed, iridescent and vibrant.

  “Holy shit,” Gyre whispered, and it shifted toward her, moving sinuously along the ceiling.

  “It was the singing, the singing—” Em was saying, and then the voice line went dead, its indicator turning solid amber.

  Gyre cried out, “Come back, come back!”

  Em had left her.

  But the worm hadn’t, and it was surging forward, and Gyre’s scream died in her throat. She shuffled back from the lip of the pit, then strained to hold still against her trembling.

  The slits pulsed. The head moved, swaying. But the Tunneler stopped its approach.

  Slowly, it shifted its head, casting, searching.

  Why couldn’t it see her anymore?

  Words flashed up on her cracked screen.

  DON’T SPEAK

  Gyre choked down the faint, nascent sound that threatened to leak from her throat.

  The words on her screen disappeared, and were replaced with:

  IT HEARD THE SINGING. IT DOESN’T LIKE HUMAN VOICES.

  The theory sounded laughable, impossible. How could it hear somebody’s voice through hundreds of meters of solid stone? But as she read, the Tunneler continued to move. Away, back into the rock. The vault of the ceiling rippled, and where it couldn’t compress impossibly on itself, it fractured, sending a cascade of rubble down into the gap, into the pummeling path of the waterfall across the way. In its wake, the Tunneler left strange hollows and outcroppings along the margins of the cavern, and a lessening throb.

  Relief made her weak, and her knees threatened to buckle. And then, from the pit of agony in her stomach rose anger. She stared down the beast that had pursued her throughout the cave.

  You killed Halian. You almost killed me.

  No. She couldn’t let it just leave.

  As if possessed, she took a step toward it, staring up at the behemoth, her lamp playing across its scales. It didn’t react to her movement, or the sound of her boots on the rock. She had no weapons, no hope of killing it, but it didn’t stop her from sinking to her knees and straightening her back, shuffling to the edge of the gap. She stared up at it.

  If she was going to die anyway, she might as well go out screaming.

  GYRE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

  She opened her faceplate. It resisted, and she fought it, until a large piece cracked off entirely, and the rest retreated into her helmet. The cool air of the cave was ice against her burning skin, seizing the breath in her lungs.

  “You took my arm,” she said. The sound didn’t carry, and the Tunneler didn’t turn. It was nearly gone now, submerged in the rock except for a few meters of variegated flesh. “Look at me! Look at me, you piece of shit!”

  This time her voice boomed across the space, and the Tunneler reacted. It spasmed, its skin rippling, its pits pulsating wildly where they were exposed to the air. It twisted back on itself, the rock cracking and splitting, raining down into the gap in a thunderous collapse. She fell backward, away from the rubble and pluming rock, and stared as the Tunneler emerged from the ceiling only a few meters in front of her, giant head dropping into the open air, pivoting, facing her.

  Groping behind her, she found a loose stone. She threw it with all her strength, and it struck the Tunneler near the front of its conical head. It didn’t respond, didn’t flinch. Even its slits barely moved, only continuing their rhythmic pulsing.

  Em was probably screaming for her, typing frantically. Her faceplate jerked down, trying to slide back into place, but she pressed the heel of her hand against it, holding it back. She was panting for breath, and she didn’t have the strength to stand up, to face the beast, but she couldn’t take her eyes off it. She couldn’t quell her rage.

  This cave wasn’t going to consume her. She was going to fight until the very end.

  “You did this,” she said as the falling rocks thinned out, then stopped. Isolde’s face as she described Halian’s death filled her mind, followed by the sheared-off fragments of bones in her hands, the smoothed-over stone, the sump, the whole team dead or as good as. “You killed them all.”

  Its slits flared, and the colors on its skin became more vibrant, almost glowing in the light of her lamp. It pushed forward, until its head was over the shelf she was on, until she could have reached out and touched it. More rock fell behind it, around it, around her. It was going to bring the whole room down.

  Well, good. It could die with her, then.

  “Come and kill me, too!”

  Her shout echoed through the chamber, and the Tunneler spasmed again, surging forward. But without stone to swim through, it was clumsy, and it was heavy, and as Gyre watched, its flesh began to distort, to distend. It couldn’t support its own weight, and it fell, its body crashing through the thin stone left in the ceiling. She rolled onto her side, covering her head with her arm as rock screeched over rock, as boulders gave way, as th
e ground split. She crawled, falling forward, toward the hole in the wall.

  Behind her, she heard a sound, loud, modulating, rising and falling quickly, erratically. It was like the screech of an animal, or a child in pain. It was a howl, a plea, and she could almost make out words in it. She twisted, staring behind her.

  It was the Tunneler.

  It writhed in the gap, its head on the stone close to her, its tail at the other side of the chamber, twisting desperately, trying to wind itself into the hole the waterfall spilled from. The pressure was too great, though, and it couldn’t stabilize itself. Its body sagged into the pit, and it thrashed, twisted, tried to angle itself into the stone beneath her feet.

  And then, still screaming, loud enough to hurt, loud enough to become her whole existence, it fell. It slipped from the ground near her, and into the chasm, and then it was gone, the howl echoing up until, finally, there was only a distant, crashing thud, a heavy shake in the stone beneath her.

  Everything was still.

  Her faceplate jerked and extended, closing over three-quarters of her face but no more.

  NOD IF YOU CAN READ THIS

  Gyre nodded, shaking.

  WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING

  She had no way to respond, so she just laughed weakly and fell back against the boulder.

  YOU JUST FOUGHT A TUNNELER AND LIVED

  I COULD HAVE LOST YOU

  But she hadn’t.

  Not yet.

  But even though Gyre had defeated the monster without plunging into the depths with it, that didn’t stop her slow, inexorable death. The cool air felt so good on her forehead. Her thoughts were spinning, disjointed, and all she could do was stare out at the chasm, at the wreckage of the ceiling.

  She’d killed a Tunneler. She’d lived. But she wasn’t going to make it to Camp Four now. It was all for nothing.

  STILL SHOULDN’T TALK. OTHER TUN

  Gyre looked at the words, confused.

  I DIDN’T DESIGN THE SUIT SO YOU COULD TYPE, Em kept writing, and then the words ran off the broken half of her faceplate. It reappeared: WITH ONE-WAY TRANSMISSIONS. YOU NEED TO KEEP—another gap—CAN YOU MOVE?

  She wasn’t sure, but she tried. She pushed herself up from the rock behind her, and her body obeyed, more or less.

  GOOD

  A pause. She could picture Em, angry, scared, determined. Trying to be professional. Trying not to waste time crying or begging. Trying to be better than Gyre had been after the collapse.

  THIS GAP LEADS TOWARD CAMP FOUR. I DON’T

  The text ran off the broken edge, reappeared:

  I NEED YOU TO GO THROUGH IT. I NEED YOU TO GET TO CAMP

  I’LL GET YOU OUT

  The last sentence remained on her screen after all the other text had faded. Gyre exhaled slowly through her nose, then pushed forward, shouldering her way through the passage. Surrounded by it, she couldn’t hear anything but her own breathing and the faint whirring of her air-exchange fans. No thrum, no roar, no song deep in her chest. Everything was silent, like crawling through a tunnel in a pseudocave, like her childhood home when her parents had gone.

  A few meters in, the tunnel widened, the ceiling rising, and soon she could stand and stagger forward. It led her out into a small chamber, and she looked around, her headlamp passing over unbroken stone, unbroken stone, unbroken—

  THERE. TO YOUR LEFT, SIX METERS. THERE’S—

  YOU’RE CLOSE.

  Gyre didn’t see anything, but she went to it all the same. But there was only a blank wall of unfeeling rock. She pressed her hand to it, clawed her fingers against it.

  DOWN. LOOK DOWN.

  And there it was, a crack, barely big enough to squirm through where she stood, but widening out to her left. And below it was a cavern. Her lamp didn’t illuminate much beyond the crevice, but she could tell it was big. She could feel it yawning below her.

  CAMP FOUR, Em wrote. I’M COMING. GET DOWN THERE. WAIT FOR ME

  Gyre nodded, shivering.

  WAIT FOR ME

  WAIT

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  She made herself go slowly.

  Without her left arm, she couldn’t climb up, but she could set a bolt and rappel down if she was careful. Without her reconstruction, with only her headlamp, she had less information to work with, less handholding for her fevered brain. But she was able to place one last, strong anchor, and tie into it. She could see, as she dropped over the edge, that there was a good foothold. A good first handhold.

  It was enough to keep her moving.

  She tried to re-create what Camp Four looked like in her mind. A cavern, with a shaft near the center of the ceiling. Branching tunnels, one of which led to the waterfall she’d climbed up. The shelf covering Jennie’s rot. The sloping path down to the cliff. This entrance, the slot she’d pushed herself through, must be up in the vault, as impossible to spot as Eli’s niche had been.

  Halfway down she took a break to orient herself, hanging loose on her rope. She should have placed a bolt, tied in, made sure she couldn’t fall if the line snapped farther up, but she was tired. Too tired to think, too tired to move. Too tired to consider that Jennie had died doing exactly the same thing. The damp chill of the air was filling her helmet now, displacing all her fevered heat, wrapping around her face and throat. It had settled into her skin, and she realized she was shivering. Her broken suit wouldn’t be able to maintain her body temperature forever. Her stomach was in agony, every movement and every swallow of saliva causing another spike of pain.

  But all she had to do was get down and make it a few more hours. Em would be there. Trembling, exhausted, she locked her rappel rack closed. Her head dropped toward the rock.

  Em would come for her.

  She closed her eyes, drifting half in and out of consciousness. It was so tempting, to let go. But she could see Em’s face, hear her voice, her expectant breath. She made herself open her eyes again, squinting at her light reflecting off the rock in front of her. Slowly, she twisted, looking out across the room, her lamp beam not making it to the far wall. She looked down, trying to ignore the foolish hope that Em would already be there, ready to stage her retrieval. Her battery was starting to run low; maybe she’d lost enough time. Gyre could picture it clearly: Em, kitted out in one of her own suits, ready, patient, safe, surrounded by her employees. Maybe former cavers of hers, the few who had gotten out alive, willing to go back in to retrieve the last of their own.

  Her light passed over something smooth and round. Gyre frowned, then twisted back, trying to find it again. It hadn’t looked like a rock. It had looked like . . .

  Em.

  Em was standing there, in a suit just like Gyre’s, her head tilted up at where Gyre clung to the rock. Gyre bit down a broken sob, then tried to move her left arm toward the line again, to begin her descent. She felt it flex, before remembering it wasn’t there at all. Her light wavered on Em’s helmet, then dipped low enough to see her raise her hand, to reach out for Gyre.

  I’m coming.

  She turned back to the wall, focused on her line. She opened the brake on her rack, and started walking, unsteadily, down the rest of the wall. Em had told the truth. She’d come for her. Tears burned in her eyes, and suddenly she could feel every ache and pain in perfect clarity, perfect detail. Those last meters seemed impossible, her body heavy as she crept downward, her legs unable to take the large, looping jumps she wanted to. She wanted to go faster, was willing to risk the pain, but her body refused.

  Her feet touched solid ground at last. Gasping with relief, Gyre fumbled with her equipment, the rattling of her clips loud in the quiet of the cavern. She glanced over her shoulder, into the dark, but couldn’t see Em. Em didn’t have a light on, was probably using her reconstruction. Any moment now, Em would be here, with her. Em would take her in her arms, lay her down, protect her.

  She was on the ground.

  When had she fallen? She didn’t remember, couldn’t tell if she’d tripped, or
if her legs had buckled, or if there was somebody with her now, easing her down to rest. But she squinted and turned her head, twisting, writhing. Her light arced through the darkness, illuminating only stone.

  Em was gone.

  Em had never been there.

  Gyre groaned and tried to sit up. One-armed, her stomach taut and swollen with infection, she could only roll onto her side. Her lamp burned against the stone, blinding her. Her battery indicator hovered at twelve percent.

  She was going to die.

  She’d told Em she wouldn’t, couldn’t, but her bravado felt false now, laughably wrong. She should have known she couldn’t do this, couldn’t get out alive where so many others had failed.

  Down in the sump, when she’d been caught up in the current that first time, it had happened too fast for her to see the shape of what was coming for her. Even in the cave-in, even as she’d begged Em to amputate her arm, even as she’d felt death so close at hand, there had been a shred of hope. There had been a path forward. But now there was nothing. There was only blackness and pain.

  She was going to die.

  Her lungs spasmed in terror, terror so much more powerful than what she’d felt as her suit locked up around her at Camp Six. There was nothing left to struggle toward. There was no way forward. There was no chance to speak to Em one last time, to hear another person’s voice, to feel their presence. A week ago, a lifetime ago, she would have shrugged it off. Accepted that one day, she would die alone. But that loneliness had never felt more acute. Death came for her, wearing a form she couldn’t fight.

  It was coming.

  She looked at the kill switch, looked at the remaining amounts of every drug Em had loaded into her suit. Her breath juddered from her chest, filling her helmet with moisture. It condensed in the chill, fogging her screen, blurring the words.

  All it would take was a single motion. All it would take was selecting morphine, dialing up the dosage until it used every last drop. That sac was still full, untouched, unused. Em had listened to her, had kept her promise.