But when he turned to the doctor he saw she was sat hunched over and cradling her arm. Jane was with her and had already taken to unwrapping her bandages in preparation for a change of dressing.
There were a few more bandages in her kit, but their supply was near exhausted now. That meant that when she got the bandages free, she handed the blood-dampened material to Alistair.
“Rinse these out well in the salt water; in this heat they’ll be dry and when needed we can reuse them. The salt residue won’t do the wounds any harm either.”
The young scientist took them, sullenly, and glanced at the water down from the rocks. He looked about to object, but a glare from Jane made him change his mind.
Jane peeled away the last bandage and it came away stickily, taking with it much of the remnants of her ruined flesh. Mike sat close to Jane and also examined the female doctor’s arm. It was swollen and wet-looking as if it had been skinned. In effect that’s exactly what the acid had done to her.
“Grit your teeth,” Jane said as she applied more of the antiseptic powder.
Penny gave her a half-smile as the powder alighted on her damaged arm and was immediately soaked through with red and yellow fluid.
“Does it hurt?” Mike asked.
Penny turned to him. “No, and that’s the problem. The nerve endings have probably all been damaged as well.”
Jane pulled Penny’s sleeve up past her elbow. There were red streaks moving up her arm. Penny nodded when she saw. “I knew it, but hoped…”
“It’ll be fine,” Jane said as she began to wrap the new bandage around it.
Penny gave her a dreamy smile. “Those red veins were moving up my arm; I know you know what they are, Jane, and what they mean.”
Jane kept her head down for a moment but then began to nod. “Possible blood poisoning.”
“Yes, septicemia. And not just possibly, but definitely,” Penny said softly. She rested her head back against the rock. “If, when, the red lines get past my shoulder, the infected blood cells will begin to lodge in my organs. I’ll go into toxic shock, coma, and then die.” She sighed. “Whatever that stuff was that damn thing spat at me it must have had some sort of digestive toxin in it, similar to the Komodo dragon whose saliva contains deadly bacteria.”
“Jesus, what can we do?” Mike asked. “Don’t you have antibiotics?”
“I do, but for this I’d need penicillin or something a little stronger than the field antibiotics I brought along,” Penny replied wearily.
She had turned to face them and Jane noticed that she was perspiring heavily, and losing even more water through fever.
Penny’s smile dropped. “But there is something you can do…”
“Remove the infection.” Harris’ voice from behind them made Mike jump.
“What? How?” Mike asked. “Penny just told us we don’t have the drugs down here.”
Harris kept his eyes on Penny as if waiting on her. After another moment, the female scientist’s face screwed, and she nodded. When she opened her eyes they glistened, and she gave him a smile that was fragile at the corners.
“Field amputation,” Penny said bleakly.
“What the…?” Jane shot to her feet. “No.” She swung to Harris, scowling. “We need to leave, now.”
Harris shrugged. “Two options. One, the hard option, we remove her arm at the elbow. Perhaps stop the infection and buy her some time. No guarantee she won’t pick up further infections, but it gives her a fighting chance.” He kept his eyes on Penny’s. “Option two, the easy option, for us anyway: we leave her as is. Then she’ll be delirious in twelve hours, unconscious in twenty-four, and dead soon after.”
“Nope.” Mike shook his head. “Nope.” He also got to his feet. “Got to be another way.”
“Let’s hear it, Mike. And remember, the clock is ticking, and the infection will be at her shoulder in another few hours. Once it gets into her organs, she’s had it.”
“We bind it, cut off the blood flow,” Mike pleaded. “That’ll work.”
“Binding is short term and only designed to buy you time. Any more than an hour, and the limb will die. The infection is slowed but not stopped. What else you got?”
“Well, we’re not damn well cutting off her arm in the middle of a primordial jungle at the center of the world,” Mike yelled back.
“So, easy option, huh? Let her die?” Harris’ voice was deadpan.
Mike’s eyes bulged. “We just can’t…”
“Mike, it’s my decision,” Penny said and looked up at Harris. “Take it off.”
*****
Alistair crouched on the rocks down at the water level. He held the soiled bandages in one hand and looked out over the red-tinged water to his left side. The huge jungle loomed behind him, the mountain ridge and the bizarre limpet-like creatures extended until it curved down with the horizon and before him was the seeming endless sea.
Its placid lake-like surface calmed him and took his mind away from the horrors of their travels, and of Penny’s injuries. It wasn’t his fault, he told himself again. How was he to know?
Alistair blinked it away and let his eyes travel over the water’s misted surface. He knew he’d get to see the ocean, and he smiled abstractedly as he stared. In those warm, sultry depths all manner of weird and wonderful creatures swam. He sniffed, smelling the brine, and looking down he saw small shellfish stuck to weed-covered rocks. Though red from the sky’s reflection, the water was clear, and a small part of him wanted to pull on a dive mask and slip into those red depths to see for himself what was below.
That was the thinking of both the curious scientist and excited kid in him, but as the rational adult he remembered what Mike Monroe had written, and coupled with what he’d seen for himself, he knew in deeper water he’d be a small morsel of food for the monsters hiding there.
He leaned forward and let the bandage unfold and soak for a moment. The blood made the water a little cloudy but didn’t change its color. Small things like miniature brine shrimp came out from the weeds to zoom through the cloud, perhaps looking for fragments of food, and he lifted the bandages and squeezed them out. He replaced them in a different section of the rock pool and did the same again several times until the traces of Penny began to dissolve.
When the bandages were as clean as he could manage, he wrung them out and looked once again at the tiny animals speeding back and forth through the blood cloud. He scooped his free hand through the feeding frenzy, catching several of them in his cupped hand and lifted them to his face for a better look.
They were pale, almost transparent, multi-legged, and zoomed about like little motorized machines. “Maybe, Artemia, of the family Artemiidae,” Alistair whispered. “And you little guys are unchanged since the Triassic.”
Alistair looked up at the red, boiling ceiling. What if, he wondered, a gravity well appeared at the bottom of one of our oceans? There were undoubtedly deep caves in the ocean depths, but what if the animals, these center Earth dwellers and our surface creatures, could somehow mix?
“What would arrive here?” Alistair asked himself. “And what of this inner world would be released to ours?”
Alistair let the tiny crustaceans drop back into the pool and stood, hung the bandage over his arm, and climbed the rocky hillside to rejoin his group.
*****
“You’re gonna do what?” Alistair’s mouth dropped open.
Penny reached out a hand and Alistair took it and sunk to his knees beside her.
“It’s okay, I’ll be fine.” She smiled. “Just keep holding my hand.”
He nodded, his eyes swimming. “I’m so sorry. I wish…”
“Not your fault. Don’t think like that.” She turned away to Harris. “Let’s do this while I still have my courage and wits. In my bag there’s a medical kit with scalpel, wire saw to use on the bone, and a strong local anesthetic.”
Harris nodded. “Anyone else feel they would be able to perform the surgery?” He looked
along their faces and stopped at Jane. She was the only one who had any sort of science degree above being a bug expert.
She shook her head and wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Okay then.” Harris went to Penny’s kit and searched for the equipment. As he searched, he spoke in deadpan tones. “I want a fire, I want knives sterilized, and I want bandages and antibiotics ready.”
“On it,” Mike said.
Harris turned back to Penny. “This ain’t gonna be pretty.”
She nodded, her face already draining of color. “I don’t think I’ll watch.” Her lower lip trembled.
“Jane, I’ll need you to assist,” Harris said.
Jane sucked in a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. “What do you need me to do?”
Mike brought back the tools, and Harris told him which ones he’d need to put in the fire, laid out the scalpels and wire saw and splashed them with a small bottle of alcohol.
“Wrap a belt around Penny’s wrist and then when I say, I’ll need you to hold her arm up and out tight, and don’t let it go.” Harris filled a hypodermic needle and without another word jabbed it into Penny’s arm and depressed the plunger.
After a few seconds, Penny nodded. “I’m ready.” She sniffed wetly, turned away and shut her eyes, and pressed her lips together so hard they went white.
Harris tied off some rubber tubing as a tourniquet at her upper arm, real tight, and then looked from Jane, to Mike, and then back to the arm. He held up the scalpel and without another word, moved in.
Mike had seen injuries before. He’d seen compound fractures where bones poked up through the skin, he’d seen crushing injuries, and bodies that had fallen hundreds of feet to rock; all of them were bloody and all of them ugly.
But there was almost artistry in the way Harris moved; he was swift, using the laser-sharpened scalpel to ring the flesh just above her elbow. He dropped the blade and picked up the wire saw, wrapped it around the exposed, pink bone and turned to Jane and then Penny.
“Brace yourself, both of you.”
Mike and Jane held on tight and kept the arm out straight. Mike grit his teeth unable to turn away, but Jane shut her eyes tight.
Harris exerted force and jerked the toothed steel saw back and forward quickly. Penny sobbed through her bared teeth and even though the flesh was deadened from the anesthetic, the vibrations right up her bone must have felt revolting.
Harris grunted, and then Jane and Mike fell back, holding Penny’s freed arm still held by the strap.
“Knife one,” Harris yelled.
Mike handed him the blade from the fire, and Harris sealed the stump of the arm. He let the knife drop.
He quickly checked his work then held out his bloodsoaked hand. “Knife two.”
Mike handed him the last, and Harris finished searing the flesh. Mike held his breath, not wanting to smell the cooking meat.
Harris then quickly splashed the stump once again with alcohol and bandaged it. Harris finished by releasing the rubber tubing and quickly rolled her sleeve down and tied it off.
Harris knelt in front of Penny who sobbed quietly.
“Thank you for being so brave.” He leaned forward and whispered, “When the painkillers wear off, that’s gonna hurt like a bitch; be ready.” Harris kissed her sweaty brow and then stood. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a red smear.
Mike noticed that he was also speckled with blood. The ex-soldier moved his dead eyes to Mike. “Sometimes this job is shit.” He turned to Alistair who looked like he was about to throw up. “Clean up those instruments and knives; we may need them again.”
“What about…” Jane indicated Penny’s arm.
“Toss it far away.” Harris then walked off to stand with Ally. She put a hand on his shoulder and talked quietly to him. Maybe using words of encouragement, Mike wondered.
Jane came into his arms and he hugged her. “There is no good in this place,” she said into his chest.
Mike stared down at Penny’s severed arm that now looked tiny and pale under the red light. He couldn’t disagree with her.
*****
Eight hours later they finally entered the jungle. Jane walked with Penny, but for the most part the woman walked unaided. Though she kept her head down, Jane could see she was pale, and given her blood loss, combined with the little water they had, she must have been seriously dehydrated.
Harris had dropped back to check on her about thirty minutes ago and had promised them they’d stop for a rest soon. But for now, he powered ahead.
Through a veil of hanging vines they came to a tumble of boulders set into the side of a hill with several of them creating a natural opening at the front. Harris stopped them and sent Ally in. In minutes she had ejected the existing resident, which looked something like a ten-foot millipede, but without any pincers. A few curses and nudges and it vacated with little trouble.
Inside the cave, it was dry, defendable and roomy. Further in it proved an even bigger find; there was a pool of water that filled from the ceiling and drained into the back of the cave and then fell away somewhere below ground. It meant the water wasn’t stagnant.
They all had purifier kits, but Mike still also had his water testing kit which he took from its sleeve and dipped it into the pool while they all waited with dry mouths, muscle cramps, and headaches.
The tiny device checked for heavy metals, nitrates and nitrites, and biological containments from bacteria and fungal spores. The only thing it couldn’t detect was a virus; but in water they were rarely an issue.
After a moment he nodded and hiked his shoulders. “Normal pond water. Not the best, but at least we can drink it without getting sick.”
That was enough confirmation. Everyone filled canteens, drunk their fill and also took cupped hand-fulls and rubbed it on grimy faces.
Jane filled Penny’s canteen, changed her bandages and checked the stump while the female doctor drank. Jane noticed that water ran from her lips as though they were partially numb.
“How’s it look?” Penny asked.
“Not bad.” Jane bobbed her head. “Well, as good as it can look. But there’s no sign of further infection. How’s it feel?”
Penny scoffed. “It feels like my arm is still there but only numb. When I look down I’m still shocked to find it missing.” She smiled weakly. “At least I’ll have some cool stories to tell, right?”
“You sure will.” She rubbed the woman’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go check on Mike.”
Alistair was sitting by himself and gazing into the small pond, and Mike was sitting with Harris and Ally. Jane came and squatted between them.
“Penny’s doing okay. For now,” Jane said.
“Good,” Harris said. “I was just giving an update on our position. We’re only a few miles from the Russian team. For some reason they seem to have slowed down. Normally, I’d send out a scout, but we’re a little resource-poor right now.”
He meshed his hands. “Here’s the deal; our priority is to stop the Russians from attacking our bases. But I’m under no illusion about the difficulty of our task with them probably having the force advantage. But on the upside, we have the tactical advantage of surprise.”
“We get close, we can take ‘em,” Ally said.
“That we can.” Harris nodded. “Our fallback objective is to destroy whatever technology it is they are using. Without that it means they’ll just be another group of assholes wandering around six thousand miles below the Earth’s surface.”
“So what now?” Mike asked.
“Now? Now we get some rest, and then we should be able to catch up to them well before they’re underneath Camp Bondsteel.”
“One question?” Jane asked. “What do you expect us to do when we find them?”
Harris smiled understandingly. “I can’t compel a civilian to actually fight. But if Ally and I are repelled or killed, then I can guarantee they won’t be taking any hostages.” He shrugged. “Might be in you
r interest to pitch in on this one.”
Jane looked briefly at Mike and then exhaled.
Harris looked about in their small cave. “Everyone get some rest; just a few hours. I’ll take first watch.” His smile faded. “Going to be a big day tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 23
Senate Building, the Moscow Kremlin Complex, Russia
President Volkov slowly lowered the phone and sat staring straight ahead. As General Yevgeni Voinovich watched, the President’s face began to turn the color of a ripe plum.
The general remained standing at strict attention; he was the chief architect of the DEM, the Deep Earth Mission, and he suspected it was in trouble.
Volkov’s eyes slid to the general. “They know.”
Voinovich frowned. “They…?”
“They know.” Volkov pounded his fist down so hard everything on the twelve-hundred pound desk jumped an inch.
“How? How is that possible?” Voinovich asked.
“Maybe they have a spy, maybe they are there, maybe they use ESP. Doesn’t matter.” Volkov waved the question away and his eyes took on a far away look. “I have just been told by the American president that if we do not cease and desist…” His glare intensified, “… and also destroy one of our military bases within the next twelve hours, the Americans will obliterate three of them, as payback.”
The general sucked in a breath suddenly realizing that as the sponsor of the mission, his neck was suddenly at risk.
The president rose from his chair. “And if there are any further attacks from Deep Earth, it will be regarded as a declaration of war. And they will respond devastatingly.” He bared his teeth for a moment. “We are not ready for a war with the Americans.”
We haven’t been ready for a war with the Americans for forty years, Voinovich thought. That’s why we attempted to weaken them from below.
Voinovich stood even straighter. “What are your orders, sir?”
“Cancel the mission immediately.” Volkov rested his knuckles on the table. “And bring me a list of our military bases outside of Russia.”
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