by Greg Bear
“One last thing,” I say.
“One last thing,” she agrees, leaning in on the bench seat, watching me closely.
Very softly, so the driver can’t hear, “I’m valuable, ain’t I?”
“You’re fucking irreplaceable, Vinnie.”
TEAL’S WAY
We make steps, one after the next, getting farther and farther away from the chamber of kobold slaughter, from the hatch, from Captain Coyle, just picking a way out, a way up. God help me, my brain is still on overdrive. I need distraction from thoughts about Coyle, about our sisters, about orbital command.
And so I think about kobolds. What are they hoping to achieve? Are they like automated termites, just digging for the hell of it—turning the entire Drifter into a rotting log of rock and metal? Maybe that’s it.
We’ve been moving this way and that, ever upward, for about an hour, when we see a light fly back across the shining metal ceiling over our heads, and DJ shouts, “It’s Michelin! And Neemie!”
This passage is not very wide but we all pack together, shining our beams in each other’s faces. Neemie and Michelin look like they’ve been through a grinder. Their skintights are badly lacerated, helms broken and faceplates torn away, and Michelin is clutching his arm to his chest. It looks broken.
Ackerly tries to help Michelin but he jerks aside, eyes showing whites all around like a terrified horse.
“Where are the others?” I ask.
Michelin points up, down, then around with his good arm, face ghostly white. He says, “Shit’s falling from so high we can’t even smell it.”
Neemie grimaces. “Don’t mess with him,” he says. “Talk to me. While I still have a clue.”
Michelin starts to sing, “If I only had a clue…” Neemie gently puts his hand over his mouth. Michelin folds down against a wall and slumps his head.
“Tell us about Coyle,” I say.
“She got final instructions from that Korean general, Kwak, before he died. That’s why they’re all here, I think.”
“Fucking command,” Michelin mutters.
“What instructions?”
“They came with beaucoup spent matter charges. In their backpacks. Somebody back home wants this place blown to gravel, that’s what I gathered, that’s what Gamecock—I mean, Lieutenant Colonel Roost—figured when Coyle and the sisters took us over, us and the Voors. Poor Muskie bastards didn’t stand a chance.”
“Coyle killed them all?”
“De Guzman tried. Too tight for that. Some got away, don’t know how many.”
“What about Teal? The ranch wife?”
Neemie shakes his head. “Michelin and I got away, and I think maybe Gamecock. But you know what’s really scary? There’s something else down here! Like bundles of thick straw, only moving and fast.”
“We’ve seen them,” Brom says. “Kobolds.”
“They filled the tunnel and flooded in on Coyle and her team just as they were zeroing the Voors—executing them, man! Coyle was a fucking fiend—”
“Had her orders, she said,” Michelin adds. “Weird fucking face on her.”
“—and de Guzman with that fucking lawnmower…” Neemie swallows but it won’t go down and he strokes his throat as if to help it. I’m amazed he can still talk. “But then we were backed into a big space and it filled with those straw bundles, straw creatures, coming in from all sides, and I swear, I swear this is true—”
“It is true,” Michelin says, looking up.
“Coyle’s team pulled us out of there, laid down more lawnmower, pulled us into another tunnel where there were these crystals, big, clear crystals. And when they started laying charges, pulling them out of their packs like Girl Scout cookies—the crystals turned black! The walls turned to, like, black glass and got spiky, and the spikes snagged Magsaysay and then Ceniza, ripped her suit—and, man…”
“Help me up,” Michelin says.
“They both turned all black, shiny,” Neemie says. “Like statues.”
DJ throws me a look as we help lift Michelin back to his feet.
“Medusa,” I say and instantly regret it. Ackerly and Brom are ready to book to the top and run straight out onto the Red. It’s just a matter of seconds before everything closes in on all of us.
“We didn’t see the finish,” Neemie continues, “but they were pinned on the spikes and their legs and skintights and everything—”
“Solid, shiny, filled with fireflies,” Michelin says. “Some fucking defense!”
“Whose defense?” Brom asks. “Who’s defending who?”
Time to get back to essentials.
“Where are they now?” I ask.
“Coyle was going deep before everything mixed,” Neemie says. “Down to a place the old Voor called the Church. They strung him up and he tried not to tell them, but Rafe…”
Michelin’s eyes go horse-wild again. He throws out one arm, bangs the walls, as if he’d break that one, too.
“Hold him, Brom,” I say.
“He’s hurt, man,” Brom says. “We have to get him to the top and out of here.” Brom’s eyes beseech.
“Don’t forget what’s waiting outside,” Ackerly says, voice cool. “Are they still holding good Skyrines?”
“I don’t know who’s good or bad,” Neemie says. “We got away in the freak. Kazak and Vee-Def were helping Gamecock. Coyle beat the colonel down bad when he questioned Kwak’s orders. And then Kwak dies—he just expires. Still spouting crap about old moons and dust and shit, and that snaps everybody. Believe it. Nobody goes home.”
“Who’s in charge?” Michelin asks. “I’ll follow orders if I just know who’s wacko and who’s not.”
“DJ,” I say, and he perks up instantly, “guide us back to Sanka. Now.”
“Right,” he says, and turns to the others. “Southern gate, fellows. On me. We’re packing up to go home.”
I don’t contradict him. It’s a good story. Maybe we are, maybe we aren’t.
DJ leads us with firmer conviction and a lot more motivation. He’s still intent on running his gloved fingertips along the grooves, as if he’s reading the walls. There’s green dust again—these tunnels are older, the grooves more worn, and somehow that’s reassuring. We follow them back along a scuffed trail of many footprints.
DJ looks back at me and whispers, “This dust, it’s fucking strong tea. I’m seeing shit. What about you?”
I don’t want to hazard an opinion. We’re stretched way too thin. I’d rather die on the Red than face rogue Skyrines or black spikes. For the moment, thinking things through is more than I’m good for—but even so, there’s a peculiar newness in my head.
Something fresh and unexpected.
And then—scaring the hell out of me—
Takahashi Fujimori.
His face rises like a dull orange ghost in our beams. Behind him are Brodsky and Beringer. Believe me, Skyrines can shriek like little girls.
Then we get real quiet. That kind of shock is not good. We could have killed each other. Jangles subside and we catch our breath.
“Where you guys been?” Tak asks.
“We’re retreating in good order to the southern gate,” Ackerly says, strolling past. “Permission to abandon this shithole, Master Sergeant.”
“Follow us. Sanka’s up ahead.” Tak asks me, “Any sign of Captain Coyle and her squad?”
“Could be way down deep,” I say. “They’re going to demo this place. Blow it the fuck up. We don’t know anything about anything, Tak.”
“Yeah. We were sent to find you. We make one last attempt to locate Captain Coyle and her team, see what the fuck they’re up to—issue a final notice that we’re all gathering at the southern gate, organize vehicles and weapons,” he shoves out his hands, “and push through the Antag line. There’s a dust storm outside, a real good one.”
“Saw it from a watchtower,” Beringer says. “Great screen. Might give us cover.”
“Outstanding,” Neemie says, fingering the ri
ps on his skintight. “Blind and out on the Red in our pajamas.”
“We’re hoping the bright boys in orbit have decided to regroup and open up a distraction,” Tak says.
“Hoping?” Brom asks.
“In here, it’s fucking bughouse,” Beringer says.
“You’re telling us?” Michelin asks.
Ten minutes later, we’ve come to the roundabout just before the southern garage, where Joe is squatting beside a Voor—de Groot’s son, Rafe. Rafe is in decent shape considering but minus his skintight, face bruised, sullen.
Joe, with a sour look but no words, takes us all back to the southern gate. There de Groot and two of the Voors are lifting Gamecock on a stretcher, up into the cabin of the Chesty.
“He’s not going to make it,” Joe says, out of our CO’s earshot. “They have some story to tell. You?”
I try to pass along what I might or might not know. As I finish Kazak comes around from the vehicle’s lock hatch.
Tak and Kazak and I slap backs, but it’s a brief moment. Kazak is in surprisingly good shape after what he’s been through.
Rafe stands beside his father after they finish loading our CO. Both regard us with weary disgust. De Groot looks to have been chewed all over by rats and his face is swollen almost beyond recognition, but he’s still upright, proud, defiant.
Joe sums it up. “Coyle and her squad are working from a different set of orders. The Voors are coming with us.”
“Who’s been lying the hardest?” I ask.
Joe ignores the question. “Any sign of the rest of our team?”
“None we’ve seen.”
“The ranch wife?” Joe asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
“She’s gone over to the Drifter,” Rafe says, but before he can explain what that means the floor shakes under us. The walls shiver and dust sifts from the ceiling.
“From below?” Kazak asks.
“From above,” Tak says. “Bombardment.”
“Antags getting ready to move in.”
“I strongly doubt it,” de Groot says. “You do not see at all, do you? What is happening, who is working behind you?”
Joe assigns Kazak to watch over the garage and prepare for our exit. Then he picks four of us and signals for us to move out. “DJ, you’ve still got some sort of map in your head, right?”
“I think so,” DJ says.
“Find that hatch again. We’re going to locate Captain Coyle and see what her disposition really is. Try and get her team to come back with us.”
Joe says, in a low voice, so that Rafe and de Groot can’t hear, “I don’t get these fucking kobolds. What are the chances the Voors invited the Ants in? And the Ants killed some of them for their trouble?”
“Not likely,” I say.
Joe absorbs this. “Then it’s true. Coyle and her orders, Major General Kwak, what the Voors have been saying…”
I’m about to ask what the hell else could possibly be true when DJ comes trotting back. “Found the hatch,” he says. “There’s a shaft, something like steps but cramped as hell, not designed for people. I don’t know how our sisters made it down.”
Rafe comes forward. “It is old and for the Church,” he says. “Not for us.”
Joe acknowledges this contribution with a nod, then points for us to move out. DJ leads the six of us to the shaft opening and lifts away the hatch. Christ it is small—just two meters wide, steps tiny and tall; we’ll be crawling down more like worms or snakes than men.
DJ says, “If you’re down here digging long enough, maybe you get all big-eyed and greasy like, you know, Gollum.”
I’m actually fingering the platinum coin in my pouch, but when he says that, I stop.
Joe has had enough of DJ’s nervous chatter. “Cram that shit back in,” he says. “We go down, find Coyle and our survivors, find Teal and what’s left of the Voors. That’s that.”
We begin one by one to drop through the hatch. I volunteer to take point.
“Dick down the hole,” DJ says.
I hear murmuring up above, establishing order as the defensive lines break and join us, until there are just two covering our rear, awaiting a signal we’ve come out in a better place.
Beams bounce and flare.
One sidelights Tak grinning through his faceplate like a lacquer mask.
HOW LOW CAN YOU GO BEFORE IT’S UP AGAIN
Just a few meters down. On top of everything else, like a final fillip of perversity, the skinny shaft is really getting to me.
We did mine training at Hawthorne Tactical in Nevada, suspecting there were going to be circumstances where we might have to worm around under the Red, and there was a particularly awe-inspiring old turquoise and silver mine shaft that we, a squad of ten, plumbed for almost a quarter of a mile, taking instruction from a fifty-something DI named Marquez about how to stay calm under an overwhelming burden of rock. “There’s a whole goddamned mountain over your head right now,” he kindly informed us. “Look at those braces, look at those beams—think there’s termites in that old wood? Are there termites in Nevada? You know there are. Wood-chewing, white ants. I think there’s termites in all this old wood… Plus, fidging overburden shifts all the time, seismically active, wow, did you just feel that?”
As we stooped and crawled, he lectured on how to conduct live fire in a confined space, he’d learned it from a guy who learned it from a guy who once went after Viet Cong in their spider holes, and he learned it from a guy who did the same in Korea, and he learned it from a guy who sent in Dobermans to clean out tunnels in Okinawa and then took in gunny sacks after—
Jesus, I hate this fucking place.
I do not want to think about other places that were worse because my skintight is already filter-clogged and I’m sweating like a bastard, dripping from the lip of my faceplate, and Joe’s boot takes me across the back of the neck when he slips, and I start thinking about my integrity; maybe he’s ripped the fabric and if I fucking get out of this I’ll just hiss out on the Red.
Why is the air still good down here? Who set up diffusers to spread clean, breathable air throughout the Drifter? The Voors? Kobolds are more likely. Better engineers. Hell, the old silver mine at Hawthorne, the deepest shafts, was reputed to be filled with sulfurous fumes from deep under the mountain—so that syphilitic cunt of a sadistic motherfucking DI told us—but nobody had ever been that deep, it was off-limits, he said, maybe we’re already over the boundary, and then he taunted, “Smell anything, Skyrines? Whiff that stink? Other than your own butt-gas?”
He was just trying to flunk us out but no way, that pay hike shined over our heads every day we trained at Hawthorne bigger than claustrophobia, stronger than deep-Earth butt-gas.
Joe and I and the eight others had already been through seven circles of Skyrine hell. Only two would not finish. But they gave that DI immense satisfaction, those two. They flunked out in the drowning pool, floundering in skintights in zero-g prep. The DI had issued suits with leaks. Pointless, we thought, so much water—that much water on Mars! Seemed ridiculous, unfair, but I survived the mine shaft and kept my calm in the drowning pool, I made it, Joe made it, the other six made it, who were they? Fuck I’m forgetting so much, is the oxygen really all that good down here?
“Off-limits,” Joe mutters above me. I’m still mad because he hasn’t apologized for the boot in my neck, but my own boots are slipping on these inhuman steps.
“Fucking off-limits,” I affirm, banging my knee, and again integrity will be an issue. I’ll have to check myself all over and hope somebody brought the right patches.
“Don’t remind me of that fucking old mine,” Joe says. We’re in memory sync. “I hated that place,” he says. “Didn’t you?”
I’m trying to hold on to the edge of a long, long step. “Loved it like my mother,” I say. “A total stone vagina squeezing out born-again Skyrines. Just like here.”
Joe snorts. I’m paying him back for his boot in my neck. Orderly descent. Al
l an Antag has to do is lay down a couple of bolts from below and we’ll cook, we’ll fry in this shaft like—
My foot hits something that gives. That clacking sound again, only like rocks or plastic striking, not metal. I know that sound. I can imagine what’s making it. I shine my helm light straight down between my legs and something shines back up at me just for a moment, like the lens of a camera, not an eye, not wet or alive—but shiny and round.
I suck in my breath.
They’re keeping track of us.
And then it’s gone. The spiraling shaft below is empty, as far as I can see—a couple of meters—but for a moment, I’ve come to an abrupt, stunned halt and Joe is right above me, knees doubled just behind my head, cursing.
“What?” he shouts.
“Tell DJ I just stepped on Gollum,” I say, still processing the visual, hoping my angel caught it and we can all replay and judge when we’re at the bottom. Then I see a black void and my boot kicks out from a step into empty air.
“Bottom, I think,” I say.
“Shove through, goddamn it,” Joe says.
I do that and then I stand up in a bigger darkness, a blessed black openness, and start shining my helm light around.
“Go ahead,” Joe says.
I move on, relieved to be out of the shaft, but there’s also that newness in my head. Feels right, feels good. Seems to help me find my way around. Problem is, I’m less and less sure I know who I am or who I’m with. I focus and try to hear those behind me. But I’ve lost them. Maybe I’ve turned left when they turned right.
I don’t mind.
Strong tea.
I’m surrounded by complete darkness but I switch off my fading helm light, touch fingers lightly to the grooves in the wall, feel the grooves rise and drop in an interesting rhythm.
I keep walking. It’s possible I’m just losing my grip, possible that the green dust is infiltrating my brain and I’m descending in a spiral to a place where no one will ever find me. There’s a certain comfort in that. I like it down here. Maybe I won’t have to deal with whatever’s happening with Captain Coyle and our sisters. I can leave that to Joe. But then, I won’t see Joe or Tak or Kazak or any of the others again, and I won’t even be able to compare notes with DJ, possibly the only other Skyrine feeling the tea as strongly as me.
