by John Darnton
He dropped the blind and spun the wheelchair around. That way madness lies. Had he spoken the words aloud? He almost thought he had. He imagined he heard an echo dimly from one darkened corner.
He returned to his desk and tried to concentrate. Nasty business, this. He opened the top file listlessly. The contents were still slim: some maps, background checks on Matt and Susan, weather reports, Van’s few messages, the orders to Kane. Why had Van’s computer radio gone on automatic tracking for five days and stayed in the same place? He had run through the possibilities countless times; the most likely, he decided, was that the group had been forced to camp, and for whatever reason Van had been unable to slip away to send a message. Perhaps he had been sick. Perhaps the computer was broken and he had abandoned it.
Eagleton felt a shiver. It wasn’t that he had any sympathy for Van; God knows, the two had been at each other too long for that. It was that, without him, the team had no idea what they were up against. How could they? Who could even imagine such a thing? And without any inkling of the extraordinary nature of the creatures they were after, they were bound to fail. The mission would be not his salvation but his ruin.
Eagleton leaned over and opened, for the umpteenth time, the folder marked OPERATION ACHILLES.
11
Susan and Rudy peered out of the cave. The sun glanced off the surface of the snow, and in the blinding whiteness it was difficult to see, but in the near distance dark forms were crossing the snow like shadows.
“Christ!” exclaimed Susan. There was reverence in her voice. Rudy babbled something in Russian. Matt was quiet. Van held his breath.
Outside the dark forms moved slowly, gray hulks converging in the total whiteness. They were slowly approaching the cave from all directions—four of them, six, ten, more than a dozen.
This is what we’ve come for, thought Susan. At last we’ve found them. They do exist. Kellicut was right. The scientist in her was exultant. Just imagine, she thought, the first chance for intraspecies contact in—what?—thirty thousand years? Then a darker thought entered: But will it ever be known?
The tableau before her was coldly beautiful and detached, like a Breughel canvas, stark figures against a curtain of white. But the way the creatures spread out and moved toward the cave was also menacing. A stab of fear spread through her limbs, a feeling so overpowering it seemed to come from some deep wellspring of instinctual loathing.
Matt and Van peered over her shoulders. The mouth of the cave was so tight, with its lining of snow, that there was barely room for them to look out. Van let his breath out and gave a short, involuntary gasp. Matt just kept shaking his head. “Goddamn. I don’t believe it,” he said. “I just don’t believe it.” No one answered; they were too riveted by the spectacle before them. He was swept away on a flood of excitement. This is worth my life, he thought. To be here and to witness this. No matter what happens, this is worth it.
The creatures drew near stealthily. They seemed to come from all directions, as if they had coordinated their approach. Are they stalking us? Matt wondered. The shimmering sun made it difficult to get a good look at them. There was something unearthly about the whole scene: the snowdrifts, the blinding sun, the dark rock inside the mouth of the cave.
Even as dark silhouettes the figures were recognizably different: more compact, rounded in the shoulders, with fatter, shorter limbs. As they moved closer a cloud crossed over the sun, the glare disappeared, and their features suddenly became fully visible. There was no doubting their otherness. They carried clubs fashioned out of what appeared to be thick branches, wide at the top and tapered down at the handles. They were dressed in animal skins, crudely fashioned into leggings and ponchos. Their arms were uncovered and hairy. On their feet they wore peculiar thongs of leather and sticks that allowed them to walk with a slow dragging movement on the thick crust of snow. They did not sink in despite their obvious bulk. Snow clung to their leggings and to the portion of their upper torsos that faced the wind.
The scientist’s voice whispered in Susan’s mind: Look at how well they have adapted to their inhospitable environment. She picked one out and examined him minutely. His physique was not huge but his body gave off an impression of density. The midsection and chest were large, and the muscles on the forearm twice the size of a normal human’s. Long black hair hung down in a stringy mane, curling around a massive neck. But what immediately stood out was the visage, which was outsized, with eyes too far apart, a flattened nose, and features altogether too wide, like an imprint on an inflated balloon. The jaw was thick and the chin shallow and sliced back, as if it had been snipped off. And most of all, bulging out of the forehead was that formidable brow, a bony protuberance like an elongated tumor. It pushed the face down beneath it and made the eyes under the thick eyebrows seem sunken in their huge sockets. The brow was grotesque. In a strange way it was impossible not to stare at it. The creatures were fully erect, but they carried their heads in a peculiar, protruding way, as if dangling on invisible wires. They looked like men peering off into the distance.
To human eyes, the effect was unspeakably ugly. As the four of them stared out of the cave, they were struck by how truly different these creatures were, how freakish and at the same time how natural-looking. The similarities only made the differences appear more exaggerated. They bore no resemblance to any of the sketches and reproductions, those pathetic attempts to extrapolate a likely appearance from fragments of a skull in a laboratory. They were unlike anything any of them had imagined.
Matt was stunned to feel repugnance. He scanned the horizon. Everything else appeared so normal: the snow, the sky. Suddenly everything that had happened from the beginning—the skull in Eagleton’s office, the long ascent up the mountain, the blizzard—all struck him as outlandish. How did he come to be here? What were the steps?
“I don’t believe it. I never really believed it until now,” whispered Susan.
“I know,” replied Matt. “I didn’t either. I’m not sure I believe it now.”
“I feel I’m present at the beginning of time.”
Van cut in. His voice had a flat, deadened tone. “They don’t look friendly, and they know we’re here. They’re coming after us.”
“They’re coming toward us,” said Susan. “We don’t know if they’re coming after us.”
One of the creatures stood out from the others. He was larger and walked steadily ahead as they fanned out behind him. His right hand clutched a large club. Across his sloping crown he wore a distinctive band of black-and-white fur.
“Look, there’s the leader,” said Matt. “See how they all seem to look to him? They’re taking their cues from him.”
Van reached down for his gun. He fumbled a bit with the holster flap. It was caked in frozen snow. He tugged it open, then grasped the revolver’s handle and raised it to the light, staring at it.
“Shit. Look.” He held the barrel out for them to see. It was frozen over, blocked with ice.
Matt felt his heart sink. “Christ,” he said.
“Who knows what that would do,” said Susan. “Look how many there are. One gun probably wouldn’t stop them.”
“Unless it scared them off,” said Van.
“What do we do now?” asked Rudy.
No one answered.
The creatures were moving closer and more slowly now. They had arranged themselves in a semicircle, as if to block any escape.
Matt spoke first. “The only thing in our favor is that we’re as strange to them as they are to us. They haven’t even seen us, really. They don’t know anything about us—what we are or what we can do.”
“It would be making a big mistake to let them know we’re scared,” said Susan. “We have to act peaceful but unafraid.”
“That’s some acting,” said Rudy.
“She’s right,” added Matt. “We’ve got to convince them that we’re here with honorable intentions. We came looking for them. We’re emissaries, emissaries fro
m the great beyond. There’re a lot more like us back where we come from. If they treat us well they can benefit. If they hurt us they’re going to pay.”
Van looked back into the cave He seemed to be searching for something. “We need an offering. Or something to trade. What do we have that we can give them?”
“Jacket?” suggested Rudy. “Canteen?”
“No,” said Matt. “Not right away. We need to establish some trust first. Anything that looks strange might throw them. It could backfire. We should try food.”
Susan went to the fire and returned with strips of beef jerky. “There’s this,” she said.
Van spoke again. “One of us has to take it outside.”
They looked at him. “Why?”
“They know right where we are. So we’re not giving away anything. Besides, we have to show that we want to meet them, that we came all this way to meet them. That it’s our goal.”
The others were silent. They knew he was right.
“Another thing,” continued Van. “We can’t afford to wait until they come in here.”
Matt looked at Susan. She nodded agreement, so he asked the question on all of their minds. “Who goes?”
“No volunteers this time,” said Van. “Only one fair way to do it. Draw straws.”
They nodded.
“But not Rudy,” said Susan. “He shouldn’t. He didn’t sign up for this. It should just be among the three of us.”
“No,” protested Rudy. “When I agreed to come, I agreed to the risk. I’m part of the group.” He added gamely, “One for all and all for one.”
Van shrugged, reached deep into an inside pocket, pulled out a pack of matches, picked four out, and bit the head off one. He covered them with his left hand and spread them out between his thumb and index finger.
They chose solemnly, each holding his match hidden. Matt took a deep breath. Susan’s face was tight. They looked at each other. Rudy smiled weakly. He held up the short match.
“Well,” he said. “Not my lucky day.” He looked stricken. He stood and hugged each of them He asked Van for a cigarette and puffed it hard. “Always meant to give it up,” he said, his voice sounding thin. He handed the matches to Matt, then walked over to the fire and took the strips of jerky in his left hand, clenching them with his thumb.
“It’s best to leave your hood down,” Van said. “Make sure you show them you’ve got nothing hidden.”
Rudy nodded, then started abruptly talking in Russian. A stream of words came out. After a moment Matt realized he was reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Rudy walked over to the opening and lowered his head to duck through it. Halfway to the outside, he turned around and looked back at each one in turn.
“God protect you,” said Susan.
Rudy seemed to want to say something but he only opened and closed his mouth.
The second he stepped outside, the creatures froze in their tracks and stared at him as hard as the four of them had been staring only minutes before. Then several raised their clubs over their heads and two or three stepped back a pace. The leader stood stock-still, thirty feet away. His eyes, recessed under the immense protrusion, seemed to be green, and they were piercing.
Matt thought he could hear sounds, a kind of low throaty muttering, but they were too indistinct for him to be certain. “Damn,” he said. They had not taken the snow into account. It was up to Rudy’s thigh. He fell through the crust, struggling and twisting to cut through the high drifts, which robbed his appearance of any dignity. It made him seem pathetic, like a wounded animal thrashing about rather than a representative from some higher order.
About ten feet from the cave’s mouth, Rudy turned to look back and shrugged, helplessly. His face seemed drained of blood. His look had a plaintive cast that tugged at Susan’s heart. Maybe it’s to his advantage, she thought, because he doesn’t appear threatening. But she didn’t really believe it. From the way the creatures were looking at him, she knew that what was required was a show of strength and power, not weakness.
When Rudy stopped to rest, the leader took two large steps forward, plowing the snow easily with his primitive snowshoes. Then he stopped and waited, shifting his weight and turning slightly to one side like an archer. He held the club extending to the ground back behind him. Was he trying to hide it?
Now there was only four feet between them. Rudy pushed ahead gamely to close the gap. Tall as he was, he was sunk so deep in the snow that his head only came up to the creature’s waist. He looked like a boy peering up at an adult. Ever so slowly, he raised his left hand. The strips of beef jerky waved slightly in the wind. A strange offering; from the cave it looked like a child handing up a fistful of ribbons. He held his right hand up, too, palm upward in an improvised gesture of peace.
The creature’s head moved slowly as he took in Rudy’s hands. It moved strangely on the long neck, like a lizard’s. He looked at Rudy’s face and at his body immersed in the snow. For a moment he appeared unsure, quizzical. Intelligence blazed from his eyes. His teeth were bared, crooked and yellow.
Then, in a movement so quick there was no anticipating it, he suddenly spun at the waist, swung his club into sudden view with a powerful thrust from the hip, and brought it smashing against the side of Rudy’s head. It made an incredibly loud cracking sound. Rudy plunged to one side, crumpled up. His head looked like a pumpkin split open. Instantly a red stain sprouted from his long blond locks and spread in a trail across the white snow.
Van shrieked. Susan grabbed Matt’s arm. Matt felt the breath sucked out of him.
All three of them knew with certainty that Rudy was dead.
They watched in horror as the creatures gathered slowly around the body, obscuring the view. One dipped a hand in the blood. Another held up a strip of the jerky high over his head and examined it carefully.
The three stepped back inside the cave.
“I don’t ... I can’t ... believe it,” gasped Susan.
“No way he could have survived that,” said Van, visibly shaking.
They looked around panic-stricken in the semidarkness.
“C’mon, we’ve got to try something,” shouted Matt. “Grab your packs. Van, try to thaw out the gun. Hold it over the fire.”
Van ran over to the fire and held the barrel just above the flame. He was singeing his fingers, but he kept it there until finally a few drops of water began trickling out. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” he urged.
“Hurry up!” yelled Matt.
Behind them a shadow flickered across the wall. A creature had slipped inside. Its lips seemed to be curled in a weird half-snarl, half-smile.
“No good,” shouted Van. “Too slow. It’s still clogged.”
“We’ve had it,” said Matt.
Another shadow moved inside, then another. Soon there was a line of them stretching across the mouth of the cave, blocking the exit, close and terrifying.
A vague, sickening smell filled the air.
Kane sat back in his harness in the belly of the C-130 and felt the engines vibrating along his spine. He looked down the line at the men strapped to the pull-down seats along the metal ribs inside the plane. Their training was almost half finished and they weren’t nearly ready. As these parachuting exercises had already shown, they weren’t functioning as a team. And that was the most important thing for a search-and-apprehend expedition as unbelievably weird as this one.
Lieutenant Sodder leaned over to shout above the engines. It was almost as if he could read his thoughts. “Sir, could I ask you something?”
Kane didn’t like the sound of the man’s voice. Too much like whining.
“Shoot,” he replied.
“Some of the men have been wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“About the mission.”
“Like what?”
“Well, sir, it’s hard to say exactly. But it seems strange ...
“Yes?”
“The men are wondering
, sir, exactly what the nature of the mission is. Are we going to try to capture something?”
Not a bad deduction. Not a hard one to make, either, given all the gear being transported to their base in Turkey—the nets, cages, tranquilizing guns, all stashed away in special unmarked crates. Of course it was impossible to keep anything secret in the military.
For just a second Kane toyed with the idea of taking Lieutenant Sodder into his confidence. He would enjoy watching the man’s face, the lines of incomprehension, disbelief, and finally fear tracing their patterns as the true import of the enterprise registered.
“Lieutenant, what makes you say that?”
“Well, sir, we’re taking on some unusual equipment, and we’re wondering what it’s for.”
Kane temporized. “I’d say it looks like a hunting expedition, wouldn’t you, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. But that’s not all.”
Kane was getting exasperated. “What else, Lieutenant?”
“Those weird goggles, sir. Those night-vision glasses or whatever they are. When you put them on you can barely see anything.”
“Lieutenant, I would think you’ve been in the army long enough to know that you will know what you need to know when you need to know it.”
