Neon Sands

by Adam J. Smith

  A numberpad appeared and Linwood input a number – 6-3-1-3-5 – and then a voice said “Authorisation acquired.” A movement of machinery and Linwood was descending again.

  Ziyad had strained so much he almost collapsed forwards onto the floor when the top of the lift disappeared. He straightened up in the now-lit aisle and walked to the bank of barred doors. He grabbed them with both hands and looked down. It was usually pitch black – they had thrown objects down it in the past and waited for the clattering ricochet, but when it came it had been faint. Now a trail of lights followed the top of the lift as it descended.

  Gotta tell the others.

  Ziyad pressed the call button and waited for the other lift to come down. He needed to get back to his room first to take a pee, and then find the others. His arms shook and he dry-swallowed. He knew something he shouldn’t, he thought.

  It was accepted fact that under the storeroom were the inner workings, the machinery that kept Sanctum running, but it was strange that only Linwood had ever been down there. “It was dangerous,” he said, “for anyone, and the balance in the machines is so tightly wound that to even go down there runs the risk of something going wrong. Better to let it do what it does. The day it stops converting energy for us will be the day we all have to pack up and leave.”

  He licked his lips. Should he tell the others? he wondered. Deven for sure would try and use the code.

  The bars vibrated slightly and he realised he’d been holding them too tight. Releasing them did nothing to dampen the strain he felt in his arms, his hands now shaking by his side. He needed open air.

  The second lift came into view, but he wasn’t looking up, staring instead at the release catch and ready to pull the bars as soon as he could. Suddenly, Kirillion was standing in front of him and they startled each other.

  “Zi! Boy you got me!”

  Ziyad took a step back. “Uh, yeah, me too,” he said, heart thundering.

  “You alright, Zi?” The light from the cage downcast Kirillion’s brow, the whites of his eyes glowing through the shade. He scratched at his beard.

  Ziyad looked up at Kirillion then, taking deep breaths and shaking his head. “Yep,” he laughed. “I was uh,” and then he couldn’t hold his gaze any longer and just waved his hands, looking down. “Didn’t expect you.”

  “What you doing down here?”

  Another dry swallow. “Uh,” what was he doing down here? Then he pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I uh, had to uh, get new glasses. You?”

  Kirillion frowned. Ziyad suddenly wished he hadn’t asked the question.

  “Everything okay?” Kirillion asked, taking a step forward. This action revealed his face in full light; his eyes and smiling crow’s feet lines, the glittering black-and-white beard that sometimes caught breadcrumbs, his broad-toothed smile now as he took another step and then dropped down to one knee. “No secrets, eh?” He pushed out a fist.

  Some part of Ziyad, the twelve-but-nearly-thirteen part, inwardly cringed. It wasn’t from embarrassment – he liked Kirillion and just recently, like when he and Jayan and Deven had been placing bets on the pig racing, their fist bumps were accompanied by laughter and the camaraderie of men being men. The fist bump offered here was to the twelve-may-as-well-be-five part of him, and he hated it.

  More than that, as he put his fist against Kirillion’s, he hated the part of him that was taking comfort from it.

  “So, how’s the new glasses? See good?”

  “See good,” he nodded, looking down.

  “Uh huh,” Kirillion scratched his beard again. “You’ve not seen Linwood have you?”

  “Um, uhh.”

  “It’s okay. I’m looking for him.”

  Do I tell him?

  Ziyad looked up, and Kirillion offered another fist, a smile on his face. He rolled his eyes and sighed and joined fists, saying “Yeah, but he went down.”

  “Down?” Kirillion looked back. “You mean, down down?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow. I hope everything’s okay!” Kirillion said, standing back up. He turned and looked down the shaft. “A long way down too.”

  “Yeah. Just goes on and on.”

  Kirillion humpfed. “Sure does.” He turned back to Ziyad, face half in shadow again.

  Ziyad realised that sweat had begun to form on his face, and his eyes stung a little. He could also feel a slight headache coming. Kirillion’s face was actually slightly blurry – maybe he did need to go back and check out some other glasses after all.

  “Anything odd?” asked Kirillion.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, did he see you?”

  “No. I was hiding just here,” he pointed. “I thought Cal was coming back down and I was gonna jump him.”

  “Uh huh,” Kirillion ran his fingers down his beard towards his neck. “And you saw nothing odd.”

  “Not really.”

  “Not really?”

  “Nothing really.”

  “Nothing really? Which is it? No, not really or nothing really?” Kirillion bent down on one knee again, putting a hand on Ziyad’s shoulder.

  “He...” Ziyad saw a flicker of something across Kirillion’s face – hard to tell what really. Could’ve been his new glasses. Could’ve been the slightest rise of an eyebrow, squint of an eye. The hand on his shoulder squeezed, only slightly, but he got the feeling that hand wasn’t going anywhere until he said something. That hand wanted the truth. And it was Kirillion after all – maybe it was best he told him and not Jayan or Deven, who would only get him and themselves into trouble anyway. And... he could feel the tugging mystery within him, of what exactly did lie down there. If anyone could be trusted to find out, and then let the rest of them know, it was Kirillion.

  “He got one of those, umm, like in the watchtower, a holographic projection. And he put in a number, and then a voice said “Authority activated,” or something like that. And then the lift started going down.”

  Kirillion nodded and released his grip. Standing, he scratched at his beard again. Doing some serious thinking, thought Ziyad. “I’m glad you told me.”

  “Are you going to try it?”

  “I don’t know about that. Do you think I should? Linwood said it’s dangerous.”

  “Well, uh. You know, it’s just like the biggest mystery round here. I think I could get the number right.”

  “Is it really that important?”

  Ziyad thought for a moment. Again he felt split – the part of him that was nearly a teenager inwardly shrugged, but the other part of him wanted to shout excitedly “Yes!”

  Before he could decide, Kirillion said “I can see that it is,” and took a step forward. Ziyad felt two great palms press against the side of his head and twist. He heard his own neck bones snap.

  Calix II

  Bored, Calix sat in the chair beside the central console with the internal feeds of Sanctum scrolling by on the monitors, when Kirillion’s voice boomed through the loudspeakers asking for Jacinta.

  “Jacinta! Medical emergency! Efa! Both of you to level five immediately!”

  He bolted upright, checking the monitors. “What’s going on?” he said aloud. There was one monitor that cycled between different views of the laddered shaft, and it was this one that suddenly caught his attention from the corner of his eye. A body lunged out into the shaft from what looked like level three – Rec – and hit the opposite wall head first before spiralling down to the bottom where it landed in a confusion of twisted limbs.

  Now

  ghosts

  Calix woke, light-headed and limbless, and left himself. Is that all he was? A vessel for drool and dripping wounds, oozing gashes, purple bruises and skin kissed by red-hot flames? A slip and a broken bone? A broken rib and a livid tear, the body’s scalpel slicing from inside. Puncturing. Nature’s dagger. Reach in and take it. You got yourself a weapon when you most need one, just snap it off. Fingers twitching from tendons reaching across an abyss of flesh and blood.
One slip and gone. All gone. Floating. All gone. Is this it? Was he going now, leaving, saying goodbye? Was he dust now, disintegrating, a decay of dirt? The others watched. They lay and watched. She held his hand. His hand – he could not move it. Was it his hand anymore? Was it still a hand without a navigator to guide it? Should he be feeling fear? His disembodiment retreated. The more he pushed forward to get back in, to control that hand, the further away he felt, until he was pressing against the bulkhead, something like fingers down the spine only he had no spine and had no skin or flesh or lungs. The creeping sensation heightened like oxygenated air in water as the fear rose that he should be breathing, but into what? And with what? What was oxygen now, anyway? Something to ride on? And then the crawling sensation dispersed as he realised he was outside of the crawler, looking from above and down and spinning up and looking down and spinning up in a dizzying arc that span down and looked up span up and looked down until the crawler was a speck against the mountainside. Until all was still. Trails of red and orange light swam around him, and for an instant he knew he was spinning so fast that everything actually looked still, just like he knew the harder he tried to get back into his body, the larger the repelling force. Everything was backward. And with that flash of knowledge he knew nothing again, and he tried to move forward in time, forward across the sand, leaving the crawler behind and passing like a skimming stone on the underside of the ion clouds, except not going forward, but going backwards. Backwards through time. Storms licked the sand into a temper below, a sea that was never restful or tranquil, or happy with itself. An angry planet. He plunged down to console it but went too far, diving into its depths and spreading his arms against the tides that swam against him. He felt the rage, the sadness, the loneliness, the bitterness. It wanted to spit its sand into the air, but was torn between that and lying in slumber; wanted to reach out and offer fertility, but felt that no Man deserved its fruit. It had given enough. It shoved Calix away. And now the clouds were blackening. Left and right they darkened to purples and blues that arced lightning in their boughs, creating a corridor of sand that rushed past him down below. Stilling rushed. Still rushed. Still...

  ... rushing towards that giant pimple that would not be squashed no matter what plan the planet hatched. Sanctum pulsated, its architecture ballooning and deflating, a saturation of light in the darkness as he neared. Its doors were open, he saw, and a trail of wanderers were floating in, arms aloft as though embracing the oxygenation and warmth. Silhouettes of crosses. Where was their baggage? He swooped down and through them, into the cradle of life. The wanderers, they were all still floating. He looked up and couldn’t believe what he saw. The underside of the dome was wet and sticky and red with blood that pulsed across its surface, and from the apex distended an umbilical where the shaft had once been. The wanderers, they were floating right into the base of the umbilical and he could see their fleshy light being sucked up the cord, its outside ribbed with thick veins connected to the ground. The paving had gone. The sand here was redder than ever. It too expanded as though breathing. And then Calix was in the queue, floating too; and looking left and right he could see the ghostly form of his arms extended. The cord neared. Its entrance a dark portal. He touched the rubbery wall as he entered, and then vertigo overpowered his senses as he ascended in light, seeing all the intricacies of capillaries and veins woven through the wall of the umbilical cord. And then he was in the watchtower, solid feet on solid ground with solid things all around. The station console flared before him, the one with all the monitors, he remembered. And what was that? Someone was saying his name. Someone was calling him through the monitors. There. It was Ziyad. No, Ziyad’s glasses, the lenses smashed. Only it wasn’t Ziyad’s voice. It was Kirillion’s. He was calling for Jacinta. Ziyad needed medical attention, but... Calix reached out to the monitor, pressed a finger against the cool glass, only it wasn’t cool and it wasn’t glass. Ziyad’s skin was warm. Ziyad was fine. And then a hand reached through the monitor and pulled Calix in, kept pulling, thrusting, racing along the hardwood floor of Rec towards open doors, towards the shaft, pelting now, shifting into overdrive, the opening almost here, and then here, and instead of falling Calix smashes against the far wall before cascading...

  ***

  Annora watched as Calix drifted off. She held his hand lightly, not wanting to distract his rest. He lay in his private space beneath the forward arch of the crawler, bruised but alive. The idiot had insisted on trying to fix some secondary links to the backup track, and while outside with his legs pinioned into a footrest the crawler had banked and he’d lost his footing, spinning backwards and catching his chest against the edge on the way down.

  It was five minutes before they realised they had a man overboard. They found him unconscious inside a ring of sand. After bringing him inside, he regained consciousness but was in obvious pain. Walker checked him over and discovered two broken ribs and a cut to his side that run to two inches below his armpit. He also complained of a severe headache, but Walker could find no cuts, so there was no bleeding – at least on the outside. A small lump protruded from the back of his skull where he’d smacked it against the crawler – it was lucky they weren’t on level ground or else that fall would’ve been a lot worse. Walker bandaged the cut and wrapped another bandage tight across the chest, up over the shoulder, and told Calix to rest.

  Annora had brought him some water, and when it was obvious his pain wasn’t dying down, had asked Ardelia for some ghost. There was always some kept for emergencies in the medicinal hold. It eased pain, and eased death if so needed. It came with its side effects, and she knew Calix would say no, so she simply stirred some into his water and ordered him to drink.

  Five minutes later and he was gone, snoring and drooling slightly.

  She let go of his hand and lifted his jacket – his shirt was balled up under his head – and checked the dressing. It was red, but it looked like the worst of the bleeding was done.

  She looked at his face and clenched her teeth. “Stupid idiot.”

  It was hard for her to blame him entirely though. They’d played cards for the honour of repair duty – and she’d lost. It could’ve been her who’d fell.

  She stood and headed for the dayroom with the gentle sway of the crawler underfoot as it made tracks across the swells. Walker sat in his chair, with Ardelia, Barrick and Caia in theirs’. “Do you know how stupid that was?” he said.

  “Ease off, Walker, it’s not like we’ve never done the same,” said Barrick. He gave Annora a wink.

  “No more outside repairs, not while we’re still moving. That clear?”

  Annora sat down, crossing her legs.

  “If Cal had been paying attention this wouldn’t have happened,” said Caia.

  “Annora?” pressed Walker.

  “Clear as day,” she said. “Until we’re behind schedule again and you need to make up time.”

  “Better behind than lose someone.”

  “Say that again when rations are depleted and we’re a week behind schedule.”

  “One less mouth. One more month on the sands,” interrupted Caia.

  “You’re not helping, Cai,” said Walker.

  “Look,” said Annora, “we all know what Calix did was stupid, but we all know what’s at stake. We’ll be extra cautious for a few days, Cal will heal up, and before you know it we’ll be back to normal, doing whatever we can to keep on track.”

  “I agree with Annora,” said Barrick. “Chalk it up to stupidity – an accident.”

  Walker stood. “Nothing gets done before I okay it, understand? We’re running well anyway so why take the damn risk?” The sound of his boots rang hollow as he left, echoing down the chamber behind him.

  “Walker’s angry,” said Barrick, stretching his neck and looking at Annora, “but mostly because it slowed down our progress.”

  “I know,” she relaxed back and uncrossed her legs. “He’s mad because we used some of his special reserve.” She said th
is last bit extra loud, knowing it would bounce down the corridor.

  “One thing’s for sure, Cal’s having a hell of a time right now,” said Caia. “First time’s always the best.”

  “Well you don’t know what to expect,” said Ardelia, and she laughed. “Hell, imagine ghosting and not even knowing why!”

  “What a trip.”

  ***

  The crawler dug through the swells, inching forward on dual tracks that tore at the sand in front and flung it back, gaining traction only when there was an amount of compacted sand or solid ground. It was slow, arduous progress. The giant steel machine had been built for the task of exploration. Its matte surface absorbed as much light as it could, and emitted little else. Smaller crawler units existed but were useless for long stretches, providing little shelter and offering little space for resources and supplies.

  The crawler was long, a behemoth at 25-metres in length and 20-metres high. The tracks at the sides churned slowly while the crew stood in its belly, against a balustrade, watching the sand pass below in the hollow. When tired, the crew could ascend under the arches. Access was from beneath the crawler, and there were hatches on its roof, but since it was constantly tilting, roof surfing was not advised.

  ***

  The low grumble of the crawler was gone. A delusory slow spinning replaced it. For a moment the ceiling of the arch was the thick red flesh of Calix’s dream womb, the walls around pressing him like a soft sponge. He reached for his belly and felt an odd, empty sadness where no umbilical had been for over twenty years. And then pain. He felt as though his skull was being split in half, and when he tried he couldn’t focus on anything. He twisted his body and shards of steel tore into his rib cage, causing him to cry out. The cut up his side burned.