Schedule. The concept still boggled her mind, even though the math worked. For reasons she figured she’d never understand, each Builder event arrived after a specific fraction of time from the last. First the Darwin Elevator arrives, then almost twelve years pass and the SUBS virus begins its relentless march across the planet from somewhere in Africa. A bit less than five years later Tania spots the next ship, the one that brought the Belém Elevator and the strange aura towers. Forty-two percent of the time elapsed between prior events. If that pattern holds, in just about two years something new will happen.
She shuddered. On most days two years seemed like a luxurious amount of time to her. Sometimes, though, it seemed like a blink of the eye. She had to resist the urge not to rush things. They’d only get one chance to start over, of that she felt sure.
“How’s it going up there?” Karl asked, breaking her train of thought.
She sighed. “So far, so good. Only a few obvious spies this time.”
“A welcome change, I guess.”
“Tim is processing them now. Anyone able-bodied we will send down to you as soon as we can.”
Karl nodded. “I do have some good news. We’ve got a climber loaded with a partial shipment of water and air. The crane just hoisted it onto the cord, and it should begin the climb in about ten minutes.”
“That is great to hear,” Tania said. Other than a few test shipments, no significant delivery of air or water had occurred since they arrived above Belém. She’d already moved all noncritical personnel down to the surface and closed off empty portions of the station. Recyclers were few and far between on Platz-built stations, as the design specifications relied heavily on the promise of resupply via the space elevator. “Cheaper that way,” Neil used to say.
Karl glanced at the watch on his wrist. “Twelve hours, give or take, and you’ll have it.”
Under any other circumstances, Tania would have called for celebration. Her mind returned to the dead colonists instead. “About the lost team. We’re not going to … leave them out there, are we?”
“I’ll take a group out there tomorrow,” Karl said. “Recover the bodies and give them a proper burial.”
“And the tower?”
A flash of disapproval crossed his face. “Relax. Skyler’s handling it,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The loss is heartbreaking. I shouldn’t be bothering you about the tower. It’s just—”
Karl held up a hand. His attention had shifted away from the camera. She heard a faint noise through the speaker. It sounded like an argument.
“Just a second, Tania, there’s shouting outside.”
“What’s going on?”
Karl stepped away from the camera, out of view. “A sub at the perimeter, maybe? Hold on.”
Her view now consisted of the wall behind Karl’s seat. The corner of a map of Belém filled the left side of the screen. She heard a rustling sound and then saw light as Karl opened the door, off camera.
“Who are you people?” Karl barked, his voice faint but unmistakable.
A second later a form flashed across the image: Karl, falling. His shoulder smacked against the table and knocked the camera on its side.
Tania stood, tilting her head to match the angle. “What’s happening? Karl?!”
A gloved hand came into view, straight to the camera.
The image went black.
Belém, Brazil
27.APR.2283
TEN STEPS INTO the rainforest, Skyler came to a steep embankment that dropped two meters down to a narrow stream. Rivulets of water traced miniature caves and waterfalls into the earthen wall. He hopped down and crouched by the water. The rhythmic sound of subhuman humming danced at the edge of his senses, as the dense foliage confused and baffled the noise. He forced himself to pause in order to ascertain the source’s direction and let his eyes readjust to the twilight darkness of the world below the treetops.
Satisfied he had the right vector, Skyler moved ahead. As the sound grew ever louder, he took care to step over any fresh-fallen twig or leaf in his path that might otherwise crack beneath his boot.
The trees here were tall, forming a ceiling above that blocked almost all hint of the sky. Raindrops fell in irregular places as they percolated through the maze of broad leaves and smooth branches. Insects small and large buzzed around his face, an annoyance he’d grown accustomed to since arriving in Belém.
A chill swept over him. With so little sunlight, the air here had a surprising bite. Skyler zipped his vest all the way to the top and did his best to ignore the tingle from his earlobes and nose.
After fifty meters, the chorus of crooning subhumans became unmistakable. The farther Skyler crept, the more voices he estimated were part of the inhuman choir. They came from left, right, and center. After a dozen more steps, a growing fear slowed his pace to a crawl. He’d stepped over countless roots and vines, ducked under as many low branches. Retreat would be slow, should he need to run. Part of him said to go back now, report the subhuman tribe, and come back with twenty armed colonists.
Yet the strange noise pulled him. He couldn’t deny that, and he had to know what the miserable beings were doing out here, in the middle of nowhere, deep in the Amazon rainforest, singing softly in a babble of meaningless sounds.
Skyler slowed further when he came to realize a thick mist enveloped the forest ahead. He thought it might be smoke at first, but no odor accompanied the haze. Against every instinct save curiosity, he took another step. Then another. Before long the still mist surrounded him, and visibility fell to five meters or less.
“Stupid, stupid,” he whispered, even as he took another step.
Individual subhuman voices stood out against the thrum now. The sounds came from the left and right, but not from ahead, he realized. It was as if the beings were formed in a line, and he’d just crossed it. He glanced left and tried to peer through the heavy mist. Just at the edge of his vision he thought he saw a human form, swaying on its feet as if in a trance. To the right he saw the same, or thought he did. The cloud made it hard to trust his eyes.
Only then did it occur to him that there were no trees here. None upright, anyway. Fallen trunks of shattered wood littered the ground around him, some still tucked in the embrace of strangler figs. He stepped around the huge stump of a kapok tree. The smooth, fleshy base ended in a violent mess of splinters. Another nearby had been uprooted completely. The chill he’d felt before vanished, replaced by humid warmth that grew with each step.
The mist cleared slightly, if only for an instant, and Skyler realized he’d walked into a wide ravine with curved walls. The ground beneath him sloped gradually downward.
Not ten steps later a wall of earth loomed ahead of him, and then he saw the mouth of the cave. Or, more aptly, the tunnel, for this huge circular opening was clearly not a natural formation.
Skyler knew then, with sudden certainty, where he was.
Something had crashed here. It didn’t take much imagination to guess what. The proximity to the Elevator, the ring of chanting subhumans lining the site …
He’d found one of Tania’s five mystery shell ships. Of this he had no doubt. The objects had trailed in behind the Belém Elevator’s construction vessel, and then she’d lost track of them. In truth, no one had given the objects much thought since then. Not that he was aware of, anyway.
Swallowing a growing dread, Skyler crept forward, gun constantly sweeping the fog ahead of him until he reached the mouth of the tunnel.
Faced with that black opening, tall as a two-story home, and no backup, Skyler finally stopped. He stood there, caught between the sane choice of returning to get help and the intoxicating urge to see what lay within.
A vision hit him. The colonists, huddled around the comm, a dozen people speaking at once and as many more coming through the speaker, as they debated the proper course of action to explore the crash site. If it even was a crash site. A slew of other theories were offered. Fair or
not, the mental image resonated.
“Yeah,” Skyler said to himself, “enough of debate and consensus.”
He set to work on his gun again, taking care to keep noise to a minimum. The grenade launcher came off, the flashlight taking its place once again. Backpack re-slung over his shoulders, he took a few tentative steps into the darkness. He glanced back with each step, waiting until he could see little of the ground outside before turning on the flashlight. The last thing he needed right now was for a slew of subhumans to spot him and come charging in.
Root systems from the trees above the tunnel dangled from the ceiling, charred and gnarled. The air had an overpowering smoke scent to it. Exposed rocks dotted the curved wall of the circular passage, some cleaved in half, signs of slag from the heat of whatever had forged this cavity. Water trailed down the center of the floor, eroding a jagged path into the darkness.
When the trickle of runoff began to widen into a pool, Skyler knew the back of the tunnel loomed. The diameter of the cavity began to shrink as well, and the heat became stifling. Without taking his eyes off the dark passage, he reached and unzipped his vest. Moisture and sweat trickled down his neck and sides.
Two steps later he caught the first hints of a shape in the gloom. The light from his gun struggled to illuminate the form at first, as if it were somehow absorbing the beam. Each step brought more clarity, and Skyler was up to his knees in water when he finally had a clear view.
A shell ship, just as he thought. Perhaps ten meters long, miniature compared to those above Belém and Darwin. It rested on the bottom of the tunnel, a portion of it submerged in the pool of runoff. How the Builders’ vessel had forged this cave so much wider than its own girth, Skyler had no idea.
The tapered end wasn’t quite circular, he realized, but ovoid. The very tip of it folded inward on itself in a sharp beveled edge, not unlike the corners of the aura towers. He stepped to one side, staying behind the hulking black form, to study the length of it. Much of the fuselage lay submerged in the rainwater, obscured by steam where the cold pool met balmy air.
His beam caught a gap in the center of the vessel, as if part of the shell had torn off. The gap spanned three meters left to right and went clear over the top of the vessel.
Knee-high in cold water, Skyler froze up. He dared not draw a breath.
Something lurked within.
Belém, Brazil
27.APR.2283
DESPITE THE INTENSE heat, Skyler shook all over. It took a conscious effort to suck in a breath. His heart raced unchecked.
Contact. My God, like this. Contact.
After a time the shiver abated. His breathing returned to something akin to normal, his hammering heart slowed.
Skyler swallowed. “Hello?” he said. It came out in a croak, and he coughed. “Hello?” he repeated. No response from within the vessel. No movement, either. Yet he thought he heard something. Breathing.
Yes, breathing.
Fighting every instinct he had, Skyler waded forward toward the hole in the ship. He kept to the edge of the tunnel as best he could. The deeper he went into the water, the more the humid mist clinging to its surface obscured his view. Yet he found he couldn’t move any closer to the fuselage of the ship.
The water came halfway up his abdomen before he finally got a clear view inside the hole. A hexagonal pillar rested in the center, perhaps a half-meter high, topped with a myriad of irregular protrusions, the tallest no longer than Skyler’s hand.
The surface of the object resembled the aura towers: matte black with geometric indents layered across. As he took in the sight, the barest hint of red light pulsed within those patterns, tracing impossibly thin lines in a wave across the surface.
Movement caught Skyler’s eye.
At the base of the pillar, something stirred. He took a step back on reflex, and in that small movement lost what little clarity he’d gained by approaching the ship. Mouth dry, eyes itching from the strain, Skyler leaned in toward the ship even as he backed away.
Hands gripped the base of the pillar. Human hands, if only in shape. The skin had been replaced, or covered, in that same black material.
Frozen with pure fear, able only to move his eyes, Skyler glanced along the being’s arms. Near the shoulder the black material became fractured, like broken glass tattooed onto pale skin.
On the neck he saw the subhuman rash.
The creature was on its knees, legs bent all the way, perfectly still. It was naked, most of the body still exposed, pale where grime and bruises didn’t mar the skin. A woman, he realized.
Her face, though, had become partially enveloped by the Builder material. Even as Skyler watched, one of the sub’s ears vanished underneath the material. In the span of ten seconds the other patches of skin still visible on its head were obscured.
The sound of breathing stopped, then.
Skyler stepped back, unable to quell his instincts any longer. His foot slipped on debris hidden below the water’s surface, and he stumbled before righting himself.
The splash he made broke the intense silence.
He heard an alien noise. Like breathing, but coming in sharp bursts. Glancing back to the cavity in the ship, he saw the woman again.
Her head turned, until she faced him. That same red glow rippled across the surface of her alien skin, coalescing where her eyes and mouth should be, before fading.
Skyler turned and fled.
He waded through the water in a panic, until his knees were free of the liquid and he could run. He stumbled twice, landing hard on his elbow once. If it hurt, he had no idea. Every neuron in his brain screamed Run, RUN.
Boots heavy, fluid sloshing with each awkward step, Skyler flew from the tunnel and back into the gray mist outside.
Subhuman wails rose all around him. He had enough sense to ready his weapon, and he surged forward, not wishing to slow down and allow himself to be surrounded.
A human shape formed in the mist ahead. Skyler fired without thinking, and the creature dropped. He did not break stride, even as he heard snarling from left and right.
He dodged shattered stumps and fallen trees, using the angle at which they lay to tell him which way was out. When he reached the stream he leapt across, took a sharp right turn, and followed the water. Skyler had no idea whether he had the direction right. He just ran. Figure it out later.
After a time he chanced a quick glance over his shoulder, then slowed to a stop when he realized he’d outrun them.
“The hell I did,” he muttered. Never in the last five years had he outrun a sub over any significant distance. They stopped short, for some reason. Baffled, he took a knee and waited for five long minutes. When his breathing and heart rate returned to normal, and no subhumans came loping out from the undergrowth, he stood and forced himself to relax.
Suit yourselves, he thought, and started walking. He let his feet guide him where they may, his mind wholly consumed with the image of that … thing … inside the shell ship. Patterns of red light pulsing through the microscopic lines of its skin, converging where its eyes should have been. He replayed the scene over and over, hoping it would become less terrifying. The fact that it didn’t only served to scare him more.
After a few hours of wandering he found himself back at the tiny village where the abandoned aura tower still waited, lodged into the side of a shack. The sun sat low in the western sky, kissing both horizon below and rainclouds above.
Halfway through securing a small home to make camp in, Skyler swore. He’d never reported his findings.
“Karl, come in,” he said after fumbling with the radio. “Hello? I need a team sent out here at dawn; it’s urgent. Full kit. We have a problem. Please acknowledge.”
Silence.
Skyler smacked the radio with his palm, tried again, and found the same result. Either his device had failed, or Karl’s had. He tried a quick search of the dead colonists’ bodies, but if any had carried their radio out here, it had been lost in the confusi
on of their demise.
He had no other option but to camp here and return at dawn, and went about securing a small outlying building to serve as shelter. Satisfied he wouldn’t be surprised in the night, he ate a quick meal and cocooned himself in a blanket on the gritty tile floor.
Drifting off, beneath the insects, frogs, and other wildlife, Skyler thought he could hear the chanting again. It lulled him to a dreamless sleep.
He woke in a foul mood.
The sun blazed, already well above the horizon. Clouds huddled in angry clumps, scattered evenly across the sky, allowing long periods of sunlight to fall. Not even noon and the day promised uncomfortable heat. At least in Darwin the ocean breeze provided some respite.
After washing his face and swishing the staleness from his mouth, he heated a military-style packaged meal over a small flame. “Pork in rice,” the Aussie army package boasted like a dare. With some hot sauce it might have had enough flavor to excite a taste bud or two, but Skyler ate the mush just the same. Calories were calories, and it sure beat munching on another goddamn mango.
Sweating through breakfast, slapping his neck when insects landed there, Skyler mentally plotted his course. His duty to return the aura tower prevented him from reclaiming his motorcycle, so he saw no need to return via the reservoir and Water Road. Besides, he thought it best to keep the bike secret as long as he could. Instead he decided to take a shorter path to Belém’s edge, then return to camp via the straight and wide city streets, which were somewhat easier to navigate with a giant alien device.
Skyler took some time cleaning up the camp. He found the breakaway colonists’ backpacks and piled them neatly together under an awning. With no way to carry them all, Skyler figured they were safe enough after he draped a parka over them. Next he searched the bodies, finding only a few useful items: a pocketknife, a flashlight, and two compasses. Bloody amateurs. He made a mental note to prescribe a standard kit for any “away team” traveling beyond the established perimeter. The adventure travel store he’d found three weeks back would provide all the gear necessary and could be emptied out with one well-staffed mission.
The Exodus Towers: The Dire Earth Cycle: Two Page 4
