by George Wier
A short while later, he saw the sleek black vehicle sitting motionless in a small clearing at the edge of a jumble of large boulders. He approached, waving in case anyone inside was looking, but saw no indications of movement inside. Something made him wary, and his hunter’s instinct made him circle, instead of walking directly to it. When he reached a point where he could see the opposite side, Denys stopped, and a cold tendril of concern wormed through his vitals.
The door on the Ares was open, and it was empty.
[ 74 ]
Conklin inched forward, so close to the unsuspecting alien he could see striations and faint whorl patterns on its brown, insect-like carapace. The creature was tall, perhaps eight feet, and resembled a praying mantis, with huge, glittering eyes. It had no nose or mouth or ears that he could discern. It was a brown, triangular face with huge eyes. The torso and arms were covered in the carapace, and the hands composed of four long fingers and bilateral thumbs. Amazing, he thought. A thumb on each side of the hand.
The horizontal torso attached to a vertical, multi-legged lower body comprised of eight legs, the front two of which seemed mere shrunken appendages, as they were too short to reach the surface. The six other legs were long, multi-jointed and mantis-like in appearance. They did the work. Conklin was fascinated, imagining the pleasure of exploring every tendon, every attachment of the hard shell to the body, the legs to the torso, and the marvel that must lie behind the eyes themselves.
The Doctor edged closer, stopping a dozen feet from the alien as it skittered to an area where two tall boulders overlapped. It stopped at the point where the boulders touched, moving one hand over the surface as if exploring the texture of the rock.
Conklin looked down as he repositioned his feet. When he looked up, the alien was gone. All that showed where it had been was a white, glistening sheen on one of the boulders.
He hurried to the spot and could discern nothing from the tracks. Using one gloved finger, he touched the white sheen and realized it was made of ice crystals. Ice! His mind reeled. Ice meant water, and water meant oxygen! He turned his attention to the rock, as focused as only an insane killer can be.
[ 75 ]
Ekka and the others watched the alien and Quinlan for ten minutes, then Ekka maneuvered the Ares on a circling route that would keep them below the rocks but take them close to the butcher Quinlan. And the moon creature.
She stopped again ten minutes later and put her helmet to the others together and said, “Two Hats, Teach, go among the rocks until you can spy them. We need to know whether to approach in the Ares or go on foot.” The pirate and the Lakota nodded and exited the armored wagon.
It took them only a minute to peek above the rocks. They expected to see Quinlan and the alien right in front of them, but there was no one, only a shiny white smear on one of the rocks.
The two men hurried to the Ares and relayed their sightings. Ekka pushed the Ares as fast as she dared and drove straight to the last place they saw the pirate. She ordered everyone out and had Two Hats and Billy check the footprints while she examined the fine white crystals.
Koothrappally touched his helmet to hers and said, “Ice. Most definitely ice. There is atmosphere somewhere near this location, Ekka.”
Two Hats and Billy motioned everyone together so all helmets touched. Billy said, “There’s a door here somewhere.”
Two Hats said, “Quinlan walk through rock. Him follow big bug through rock. Spirit man, spirit bug.”
Billy said, “There’s a hidden door, you crazy injun. They aren’t spirits.”
Two Hats tapped on the rock with his gloved fist. “Rock not door, crazy wasi-chu. This place, hanhepi-wi, is spirit place.”
“Stop talking Sioux. You might as well be talking Hottentot to me.” Billy said.
Koothrappally said, “In the Lakota language, wasi-chu means, roughly, “white man”, and hanhepi-wi is their word for Luna, the moon.”
“You speak Sioux?”
“Two Hats and I talked on the flight here. I picked it up.”
“You…picked it up?”
“It is simple, once you have the basic phonetics and apply the math.”
Billy rolled his eyes, “I think my head is going to explode.”
Ekka touched Billy’s arm, “Focus on what is at hand. Find us a way inside.”
Teach discovered how to open it when he slid his gloves high up on the rock. A slight depression had a tiny lever in it as small as a sewing needle. Teach caught the tip of his glove under one end and lifted.
A section of rock slid silently open and a puff of wind blew out and immediately turned to ice crystals, sticking to the wall outside the opening.
They gathered at the opening and looked at each other once, then stepped inside. The door closed behind them. They were in a rock-lined chamber, with another tall door at the far end. Ekka walked to it and grasped a long lever, pulling it down. The door slid open and they gazed at a lighted world, not some dark cavern.
It was a place of ice, with soft light seeming to emanate from the frozen floors and walls and ceilings. A wide path led down as far as they could see before it curved around a glistening white hill and disappeared.
Billy looked at the path and saw the prints they were after, the prints of the man who butchered Abigail Ross. There were other prints as well, many, many prints of the aliens.
Ekka said, “We go with care. Be on your guard.” They fanned out across the path and descended into a world of shining white.
[ 76 ]
The giant robot and Denys stood beside the abandoned Ares while the African hunter studied the ground, then walked to the rocks. He found the small lever in the rock, pulled it and the first door opened with a puff of ice crystals. Denys knew instantly the giant robot would not fit. He gave the giant several hand signs and the mechanical man walked away in the direction of the Arcadia. Denys entered the room and the first door closed behind him. He pulled the lever on the second door and stepped without hesitation into the white world of ice. The tracks were in front of him, and he started down the path at a quick pace, hoping his friends were not too far ahead.
Denys saw them as he rounded the curve. It took less than a minute to join them. As he approached Billy, his foot slipped and their helmets clanged against each other. Koothrappally was five feet away and turned at the sound, his eyes bright with sudden knowledge. He reached up to remove his helmet as Teach rushed to stop him, “Are you mad?”
Koothrappally put his helmet under his arm and breathed deeply. “It is fine. Very refreshing.”
The others looked at him, and removed their helmets. Ekka said, “I should have realized, with the ice there must be enough air.”
Billy said, “I’m happy about this. I was feeling mighty closed in.”
Denys said, “Any indication of the butcher Quinlan?”
Billy pointed at the path, “Tracks are right here. I figure we must be close.”
[ 77 ]
Conklin was amazed at the size of this underground world. It was immense, and opened up in all directions, with hummocks and hills of ice, frozen waterfalls hundreds of feet high coming from the sides of ice ridges that seemed to be a thousand feet in height. The path he followed was smooth, but had frozen columns and wagon-sized mounds interspersed on it. Other paths, some narrow and some only slightly smaller than the main one, branched out in all directions and seemed to flow and interlace into the landscape as far as he could see. Ice caves were frequent, with some only as high as his waist, while the larger ones were three times his height and went far into the ice.
One of the more amazing things he studied were the ice saucers that spun and slid away at the slightest touch. He could not imagine how they formed, but he guessed it had something to do with whatever produced the soft, even light that emanated from the ice itself. That, and the faint sense he had of a humming sound just beyond the range of his hearing. He wasn’t sure if it was the blood rushing in his ears that he heard or not, but he di
d not think so. It was an engine or a power source somewhere in these depths. He was positive it was the heart of this place.
Conklin was careful to keep as much concealment as possible in front of him while he walked. When the alien emerged from a cave some twenty feet in front of him, Conklin had only to bend his knees to drop behind an ice mound and be invisible to the creature. He watched as the alien reached its arms to its head and used the fingers to manipulate something on each side.
Then it removed the head to reveal it as a helmet.
In quick, practiced movements the alien took off the rest of the carapace-like suit, and hopped down from the six-legged body to stand beside it. Conklin was open-mouthed in glee. They wear moon suits on the surface! They are air breathers! Their bodies were similar in a way to humans with two arms and two legs. The head was different in that it was hairless, but had two owlish, amber eyes, a small blade of a nose and a thin mouth. The skin was a caramel color. And it wore clothing; a loose fitting white shirt and similar pants, with white shoes that appeared to be soft and supple. Other than its skin color and eyes, the alien blended perfectly with the icy surroundings. Conklin saw it was slightly smaller than he was, and more slender, but not by much.
He watched the alien toss the helmet and other parts on the torso, reach a six-fingered hand to the front of it and twist what appeared to be a wheel. The legs jerked and straightened, and the alien led the legged portion into the cave as if it were a pony.
The doctor hurried to the edge of the wide, shallow-roofed cave and peeked inside. The alien walked the suit to a place where thousands, maybe tens of thousands of other suits were stored, and placed this one beside the others. Conklin saw they extended far into the cave, perhaps two hundred yards or more, with only a narrow, weaving path through the center of them. His opportunity was now. The creature’s back was to him. Hot, almost sexual feelings surged throughout his body as Conklin felt himself becoming.
Jack the Ripper moved fast and his hands closed like a vise on the alien’s neck.
[ 78 ]
The snow all around the Ripper was stained different shades of red, and arranged in neat rows on it were portions of the alien’s viscera, muscle, and skin. The dismembered skeletal remains, separated at the joints, were stacked like firewood nearby. The severed head was intact except for the hollows where the eyes had been. Jack was pleased. He turned the head in his hands before placing it upright in the snow and talking to it. “I will examine every portion of you, from the hypothalamus to the cerebral cortex and all that is in between. I will know you intimately, my alien friend.”
The Ripper had cleared a room-sized area among the alien spacesuits and left a narrow trail to it from the central path. He felt secure, and the room could be enlarged whenever he needed.
A noise came from the cave entrance and The Ripper peeked over the suits, seeing another alien removing its spacesuit. He said, “Oh yes,” as he made his way toward the unsuspecting alien. “Oh yes indeed.”
[ 79 ]
The crew hid behind several hummocks of ice as they watched the alien at the cave mouth. Billy said, “It looks like one of those praying mantis insects, doesn’t it?”
Teach said, “It did until it shed its skin, or suit, or whatever that is.” The pirate covered his mouth with a hand as he let out a small cough. “By chance, does anyone have a bit of the anti-fogmatic about them? I could use a stiff swallow to settle me innards.”
Denys passed a silver flask to the pirate while everyone continued to watch the alien. Teach took a swallow, swished it in his mouth and let it slide down his throat. He returned the flask to Denys with a grin and said, “Settled me down, it did. Thankee, Jay-Patten.”
The alien disappeared into the cave and Ekka pointed to an offshoot of the path to their right. “We will go that way. I feel we are close to many of the creatures and we must be careful.”
“But Quinlan’s tracks go ahead, right by that alien’s cave,” Billy said. “We aren’t forgetting him, are we?”
“No. We go for a better vantage point so we may see into the cave. From there we can circle to be beyond the cave and continue on Quinlan’s trail without the alien seeing us.”
“Okay,” Billy said. Ekka led off and they settled into the new position in a matter of minutes.
“Heap many bug skins,” Two Hats said.
“There are sixty-four thousand two hundred forty-four alien moon suits in there, plus or minus point oh-oh one percent error factor. I can’t be entirely accurate from this distance, so that is a rough estimate,” Koothrappally said.
“That’s exactly the number I got,” Billy said, and winked at Ekka. Teach chuckled.
Denys said, “Where did the alien go?” It was nowhere in sight.
“There may be another exit,” Ekka said. “Let us go around and find Quinlan’s trail.” She led them on a path that passed other caves, and in every opening, there were many tracks of the aliens. They stopped several times to watch aliens, not wearing the spacesuits, walking on the paths and entering or emerging from caves.
Koothrappally said, “We are nearing their main area, I believe.”
Billy said, “From all the tracks around, I believe it.”
As they passed the next cave, Billy felt a slight indication of warmer air. There were no alien tracks inside the entrance. He tugged on Two Hats’ sleeve and said, “Let’s check this one out.” They went inside, cautious as wild animals, but there were no tracks or aliens.
Two Hats said, “Me hear water.” Billy listened and heard it too. They walked another sixty feet around a bend in the cave and saw it. A hand-wide rivulet of water ran out of the ice and across a waist-high abutment then descended into a stream that disappeared into the cave’s far wall.
The two earthmen checked the water by smelling it. There was no smell, so they bent their heads lower and drank. They looked at each other. Billy said, “It’s as good as rainwater.”
“And cold, like water from white-top mountain.”
They returned to the group and told them there was a water source, which everyone agreed was a good thing. They continued downward until the path made an abrupt left around a huge ice stalagmite and they almost walked into a large group of aliens.
The earthlings jerked back and hid among a cluster of ice spires, so close to the group they could hear them speaking. Things became worse as the aliens moved closer to their hiding place, then stopped and continued their conversations.
An hour later, the aliens had not moved. The crew eased into more comfortable positions to wait it out. Koothrappally whispered “They are missing some of their number, and are worried.”
Teach said, “You understand them?”
“A little. The more I can listen, the faster I will learn their language.”
Denys said, “My good man, I hope we are not in this hide long enough for you to become fluent.” The hours passed and the aliens crowded together, not leaving.
Ekka did not know how long they had been in hiding, but she jerked awake and saw everyone except Koothrappally still asleep. She looked out and saw the aliens still there, still conversing.
Koothrappally said, “Seven of them are missing. They are angry, fearful.”
“It must be Quinlan.”
“I agree. They talk of organizing search groups, and of attacking the Arcadia. They feel sure their peril came from it.”
“They’ve been watching us, then.”
“Yes, and are very interested in the ship’s propulsion system.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Nor do I. They are two groups, what we would call civilian and the other are some sort of authority, like the military, or warrior group. They are the ones with rubies on the shoulders of their clothing. They also carry staffs that may be some sort of weapon. That group is forceful in the conversations.”
“True on Earth as well.” Ekka said. The others stirred and came awake.
Teach said, “Feels like morn
ing, somehow. Though there’s no rising sun to prove it.”
Koothrappally said, “I calculate we have been in hiding approximately twenty hours.”
Ekka said, “Merkam will be frantic. He knows our suits do not contain that much oxygen.”
Koothrappally said, “And he does not know of the air in this underground world.”
Teach said, “We be in quite the dilemma.”
“And they have seen us,” Koothrappally said.
The aliens had them surrounded in an instant. Several of the ones with the staff weapons pushed forward. Koothrappally said, “They mean to dispatch us.”
Denys said, “Well, talk them out of it.”
Koothrappally stood and said, “I will try.” His first spoken words in the alien language caused the moon men to step back in wonder. “I think I have their attention,” he said.
.
[ 80 ]
Merkam paced back and forth on the Arcadia’s command deck. Tesla and Ross watched him with concern. Merkam said, “They are all dead. There is no doubt in my mind. Denys sent the Cyclops back to us yesterday. Look, it stands outside, still and silent as an Egyptian sphinx. If only it could tell us what happened.”
Nikola said, “Do not underestimate their resourcefulness, Jude. It may seem improbable, but I have faith in them.”
Ross nodded, “As do I.”
Merkam turned on them with a deranged look in his eyes. “Do you not see what is coming? They are coming for the Arcadia.”
Tesla and Ross looked at each other and Nikola said, “Who is coming?”
Merkam backed away from them, “You are with them, aren’t you?”
