They had landed in a wide, flat plateau tucked between several imposing mountains high up on the western edge of the central valley floor. To the west, only a short distance away, a craggy mountain range rose up and ran north until it was obscured by the low-hanging storm clouds. Scott arched his face up to survey the sky.
“Hard to believe this is Earth.” The sound of Dr. Stephanie Rayman’s voice echoed in his helmet.
“If it weren’t for the clouds and the rain, I would swear we were on Mars,” he heard Cyrus reply.
“Those clouds are the only thing keeping us from being spotted from space.” Scott swiveled his head to the south. “See that?” He pointed to a break in the cloud bank, where a pale blue patch of sky had broken through the storm. “The storm is passing, heading north. We need to get moving—by dawn tomorrow, this place will be back to being a furnace.”
“Hopefully we’ll be long gone by then,” said Spinner.
No one replied.
Their destination was the now derelict scientific research facility formerly owned and operated by Dyrell Labs, one of the lesser families on Earth. Their fall from grace was exacerbated some years earlier by Scott’s destruction of their ship in the Europa incident. Now all their assets, holdings, and operations had been subsumed into the much larger VanHeilding Corporation. Not that this mattered a whole lot to Scott and the team; their mission was simply to gain access to the facility and reconnect the QI, Athena, into the pan-solar quantum communications network. But to do that, they first needed to find a way in.
The facility had been built deep within an isolated mountain for a reason: security. So by design, it was not easy to gain access. But what compounded this problem further were the nuclear strikes that had occurred not far from this location. These had set off a chain reaction of seismic events that had effectively buried all known entrances to the facility in hundreds, if not thousands, of tons of rock. It was for this reason that the team had two experienced mining engineers with them: Spinner and Jonesy. It would be their job to establish the best access routes and then to blast their way through, if necessary.
As a consequence, the team had a considerable amount of specialist equipment, including high explosives that needed to be transported to the site. Fortunately, they had two semi-autonomous robotic mules to do this work for them. These were quadrupeds, and as such, well-suited to traversing difficult terrain. They stood around a meter high and were capable of carrying a considerable amount of weight. One of these mules was sufficient to carry all the mining gear, leaving the other to carry the EPR device that was to be connected to Athena, along with a satellite uplink that would be required for the QI to reconnect with Earth’s own comms network.
Spinner had one mule electronically tagged to his EVA suit, while Cyrus had command of the other. Being semi-autonomous, they would follow a leader, but in doing so, would also find their own preferred route across the rugged terrain.
As they all prepared to set off, Scott realized that there were a lot of unknowns. Would they be able to gain access to this subterranean layer, and if so, would Athena still be functioning? And even if all these things came to pass the way he had hoped, would the QI be as compliant and trustworthy as Solomon had claimed?
Yet all these questions were put to the back of Scott’s mind as he and the rest of the party got themselves ready to make their way across the valley floor to the edge of the mountain range. From there, they hoped to pick up the track of the old road that should lead all the way up to the gates of the old Dyrell research facility.
“Razzo, comm check,” Scott called for the shuttle pilot to confirm.
“Check, Commander. All good,” answered Razzo.
“You let us know the moment you have that bird back in the air. I don’t want us out here any longer that we have to be, you hear?”
“Will do, but don’t expect that any time soon.”
“Just do your best, that’s all.”
“You can be sure of that. I don’t like being exposed out here any more than you do.”
Scott signed off and turned back to check on the readiness of the team.
Cyrus stood beside him, staring off into the distance at something only he could see with his augmented vision.
“What is it, Cyrus? You spot something?”
“No, nothing. If there is anything up there, then it’s very far away. It’s just… I can’t believe this is Earth. I mean, look at this place. Not a single blade of grass, not even a stump. Nothing lives here—it’s like a dead planet.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t much better before the war. It’s hard for anything to survive here, radiation or not,” said Steph as she moved up beside them.
Scott had wondered why she’d wanted to come on this mission. She didn’t have to; there was no obligation on her to sign up. In fact, he had tried to dissuade her. Even though the mission planners had made it seem like a routine job, no more complicated than surveying a rock out in the Belt, Scott knew in his bones that a good plan rarely survives the first brush with reality. And here they were, already way off track. But she had never been to Earth. Dr. Stephanie Rayman was born on Mars and had spent most of her early life there before embarking on a medical career out in the Belt. So this was her chance, even if it wasn’t quite ideal, and who was Scott to prevent her from joining the team? In reality, he was glad she was here beside him.
As for Cyrus, Scott reckoned he had absolutely no concept of danger. Maybe it was as a result of living a life with augmented vision. Maybe he had convinced himself he had superpowers, that he was invincible. And so far, their luck had held up. They had been in a fair few scrapes together, a lot of close shaves and tight corners. Yet there was no one else that Scott would rather have by his side. Maybe he should tell him that someday—before it was too late.
But not this day. Today, they needed to get the job done, and maybe then he could find Miranda, even if it was just her resting place. For Scott, this was personal, as it had been right from the get-go.
“Okay, everybody, let’s saddle up and get this show on the road.” He waved a hand, and they headed off westward toward the edge of the plateau to a gap in the mountain range.
Progress was slow. Scott had reckoned they might make five kilometers an hour, but half an hour into the journey he realized that this was wishful thinking. The short walk across the flat, barren plateau had given him a false sense of their speed. Once they started the climb up along the mountain ridge, they slowed right down. The path was relatively easy, but the one-gee of Earth’s gravity was already taking its toll on Spinner and Jonesy. The two specialist miners had not anticipated a prolonged exposure, and certainly not a climb up the side of a mountain. So, after the first hour, they had barely covered three kilometers. At least the rain had stopped.
They decided to halt for a few moments under a rocky overhang. Scott sat down, resting his back against a smooth boulder. He reached into the front pouch of his EVA suit and took out a thin holo-slate, which he booted up and placed on the ground in front of him. A 3D rendering of the local typography blossomed out from its surface.
“Any idea where we are?” said Spinner as he lowered himself to the ground beside Scott.
“Here.” Scott pointed to a spot on the map. “Not very far. We’ve only covered three kilometers in the last hour or so.”
The miner shifted on the ground, trying to find a comfortable position. “This gravity is a bitch. I don’t know how anyone can live in it.”
Scott glanced over at him briefly before returning his gaze to the map. “We need to follow this path for another five kilometers. It’s a low-gradient climb, but after that we should intersect with the old road through the mountain to the front gate of the facility. Then we need to decide which way to go after that, depending on how much destruction has occurred up there.”
“Sounds peachy. Can we stop for a beer along the way?” Jonesy was lying flat on the ground, breathing heavy.
> Scott ignored him. Instead, he noticed that Steph had not taken a rest, choosing to stand and gaze around at the broken and fractured landscape. No doubt this being her first time on Earth, it had a beauty that only she could see. She turned around, as if sensing Scott looking at her. “You know, this place is not as dead as everyone has made out.”
Scott took a moment to take in the tortured vista. All he could see was dust and sand and rock—pretty much the same as every other planet he had been on. But then, he wasn’t looking the way someone new to Earth might look. “What do you mean, ‘not as dead?’”
“If you look closely, you’ll see lichens and rugged little plants growing in the cracks and gaps. And there are insects, too, small and strange. I’ve seen quite a few.”
“Bugs?” Jonesy sat up and examined the ground around him. “I hate bugs.”
“What about the background radiation? I thought nothing could live here?” said Cyrus.
Steph checked a readout on the sleeve of her EVA suit. “Radioactivity is much lower than we had anticipated.” She looked up. “I’m not saying it’s healthy, just…” Her sentence trailed off as she seemed to catch sight of something in the distance. “Did you see that?”
This got everyone’s attention. Scott sat up. “What?”
“Over there, high up on that ridge. Some stones falling down like something disturbed them.”
No one spoke. They all strained to try to see what Steph had seen.
“I don’t see shit,” said Jonesy. “You must be hallucinating.”
Scott stood up and again scanned the ridge for any signs of disturbance. Spinner did likewise.
“Should we be concerned?” said the miner. “I haven’t got a clue about wildlife, but I’ve heard it can be dangerous.”
“Don’t worry—even if there are some animals out there, we’re more of a threat to them than they are to us.” Scott broke off his gaze and turned back to the team. “Okay, let’s get going. We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.”
As they slowly wound their way higher up along the mountain ridge, Scott began to realize that Steph was correct in her assertion that the area was not as dead as everyone thought. Vegetation was becoming more prevalent here; scrubby plants and cacti, and even fresh green shoots, had erupted to take advantage of the rain and moisture that the storm had brought. This seemed to delight Steph to no end, as she would wander off periodically to inspect some new and wondrous flora.
For his part, Scott tried to keep his eyes firmly on the road ahead, but every now and then a strange, uneasy feeling would get the better of him and he found himself scanning the upper ridges of the valley. Once or twice he thought he saw something—a falling rock, or a shadow—but he couldn’t be sure. Maybe he was just being paranoid. At one point, he stopped dead in his tracks and scanned a ridge high up on the opposite side of the valley, where he thought he saw some movement.
“What is it?” said Cyrus as he moved up beside Scott.
“I don’t know. Probably nothing.”
“I hate when you say that, because in my experience it never turns out to be nothing.”
“Well, you could be right, Cyrus. But if it is something, I don’t think we need to worry about it.”
“Oh yeah? How so?”
“Because there’s never been anything bigger than a coyote in this part of the world, as far as I know.”
“You see, there’s the thing: ‘As far as I know.’ That’s the bit that worries me.”
Scott slapped him on the back. “Well, don’t. We have enough firepower with us to take out anything nature can throw at us.”
Cyrus didn’t reply. Instead, he turned his head and scanned the ridge. “It would be nice if we didn’t have to wear these EVA suits. That way we could hear if anything was creeping up behind us.”
“Yeah, I’m sick of hearing the sound of my own breathing,” said Jonesy as he moved up beside them. Scott could see that he was breathing heavy and finding the climb, coupled with the gravity, tough going. And it looked like Spinner wasn’t faring any better; the miner labored over every footstep.
Scott turned around to face the path ahead. “Come on, let’s get going. We’re almost at the old road, and it’ll level out then. No more climbing—should be easier.”
After a few hundred meters, Scott began to feel the path leveling out. Soon it widened, opening out onto the edge of a long, narrow plateau. Running along the center of this plateau was an old, two-lane blacktop that ran all the way up to the front entrance of the research facility. They rested for a while at the edge of the road beside a clump of tall Joshua trees that afforded them some feeble cover. Scott scanned the road ahead. What had once been pristine, tarred road was now fractured and broken, mostly reclaimed by dirt and sand. Small dunes rose along its surface, and here and there creosote bushes had already pushed up through the cracks.
Overhead, dark and brooding storm clouds somehow felt closer and more oppressive, obscuring the view of their destination as a mountain itself was completely enveloped in cloud and mist. Scott turned his head southward and could see bright patches of blue already breaking through. The storm was clearly moving north, which meant they didn’t have much time.
He clicked on his comms and called Razzo. “Commander Scott McNabb here. Any update on the shuttle?”
He had to wait a few seconds for a reply, and when it came, it was shrouded in static. “Still working on it, Commander. The good news is it looks like I’ll be able to fix it. The bad news is that it’ll take me a few more hours.”
“Can you give me an ETA?”
“Hard to say, Commander.”
“Well, guess then.”
There was a momentary pause before Razzo replied. “Best guess is three to four hours.”
“Okay, so be it.”
Scott sat down beside the others, took out his holo-slate, and placed it on the ground in front of the group. He pointed out the 3D map that ballooned out from the surface. “This road should take us all away to the main entrance of the research facility. It’s about three kilometers. The first kilometer is straight and flat. After that, the mountains start rising on either side and it becomes more of a gorge. You can see here where it starts to twist and turn.”
“So, we’re going to push on, not wait for the shuttle?” said Cyrus.
“No point. By the time it’s operational again, we’ll hopefully be inside the facility.”
“Yeah. We’ve come this far, so we may as well keep going,” said Spinner.
Cyrus looked back at the 3D map. “What are all these paths here?” He pointed to areas on the map where the road forked.
“There are a lot of old mines in this area. That’s why they built the facility there—it was originally a deep borax mine.”
Scott changed the view on the holo-slate so it now displayed satellite imagery of the entrance to the facility, although it was hard to make out any signs of a human-made structure underneath all the rubble.
“As you can see, there’s no way in through the original entrance. There’s been a lot of destruction and landslides, so it’s completely blocked.” He looked over at Spinner. “Any thoughts on this?”
Spinner leaned in and manipulated the view on the holo-slate so that it rotated and zoomed in closer on the area. “We need to take this route here, up along the edge of the facility. There should be a series of ventilation shafts. That’s our best option to get in.”
Scott nodded, then checked the time. “Okay, let’s push on.”
“Eh…we may have a problem.” Steph nodded her head toward Jonesy, who was lying flat on his back as if unconscious. “He’s been dialing up the oxygen level to compensate for the strain of the climb. I reckon he’s only got a few hours left at this rate.”
“Hey, I’m dying here.” Jonesy waved an arm in the air. “I never signed up for this mountain climbing shit.”
“We should be there soon. Once we’re inside, we won’t need these suits.”
�
�Assuming there’s breathable air in there,” said Steph.
“Spinner, you okay with us going on?” said Scott.
“Absolutely. Don’t worry about us—we’ll get the job done. Always have.”
“Steph, what about just ditching these suits now, or even popping open our visors?” said Cyrus.
The doctor shook her head. “Radiation levels are lower than we thought, but I still wouldn’t advise it.”
“Okay, let’s just push on.” Scott pointed at the low-hanging clouds. “The storm is clearing. We’ll lose cover in a few hours, and we need to be inside the facility before that happens.”
It took a while for them to get going again, as Spinner decided to redistribute the weight between the two robotic mules so that Jonesy could use the lighter one for some support. The robots were tough and robust, and could carry a lot of gear, but not enough to allow Jonesy to simply ride on top like the miners of old would have done back in the day. But at least they were now on flat ground, so they started to make better progress.
Scott also began to feel a little less paranoid, and had stopped scanning the upper ridges for signs of movement. Nevertheless, after a while he began to notice Cyrus looking up into the cloud bank more that he reckoned was normal. He moved up beside him and switched his comm to person-to-person. “See something?”
“I’m getting trace readings on several spectra. My guess is there’s a drone up there.”
Scott glanced up—not that he was going to see anything. Only Cyrus’s augmented vision could penetrate the thick gloom above. “Are you sure it’s a drone?”
“I’m not a hundred percent, but it’s got a similar signature and it’s been crisscrossing back and forth over this area several times.”
“You think it’s spotted us?”
The Belt: The Complete Trilogy Page 36
