The Exodus Towers: The Dire Earth Cycle: Two

by Jason M. Hough

  “Let me explain before you say anything,” he said. “The towers surround a dome. A … blister on the earth. Strangest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s huge, Tania, and you’ll never believe this, but time works differently inside it.”

  “You went in?”

  “We did,” he said. He saw no reason to tell her that the rest of the crew had waited outside and ignored the comm for more than a month. “Ten minutes in there and when we came back out six weeks had passed.”

  “Six,” she paused. “Skyler, no offense, but time manipulation is the stuff of fiction. What you’re talking about is impossible.”

  “Well, it happened. I think,” he said, working it out as he spoke, “I think it’s like the aura. Except instead of putting SUBS into stasis it puts everything into stasis, or nearly so. The air in there, it’s humid and has a strange odor. I think there’s a chemical component.”

  “That’s … Coming from anyone else I’d assume this was a joke. Skyler, you’re lucky the air was even breathable. It was suicidal to go in without precautions.”

  “Chastise me another time. There’s more, Tania. Inside there’s a, sort of an earthen pinnacle. It’s tall and sheer. We had no climbing gear, so we’re going back inside tomorrow properly equipped.”

  “Why? Let’s get an observation team up there, study it—”

  “Because something must be up there, Tania, and if for some reason it’s important there’s not a second to lose. Compared to the hell that awaits us within that circle in Belém, this is a much safer crash site to explore. Our only battle here is against the clock.”

  “I don’t like this, Skyler.”

  “I figured you wouldn’t, but we’re going. I figure we have an hour to scale it, see what’s there, and come back out.”

  “Why an hour?” she asked. Then, “Oh, I see. Of course.”

  “We want to be back outside before the Builders return. If they do, I mean.”

  “There’s news on that front,” Tania said. Her voice shifted, the tone of sadness and relief replaced by urgency, business. “We’ve spotted the next ship.”

  “Already? Did we screw up the date?”

  “No,” she said. “The date is accurate. March seventh, or thereabouts.”

  “Then how …”

  “The ship is massive, Skyler.”

  Cappagh, Ireland

  7.SEP.2284

  AT THE EDGE of the murky purple dome, the strategy seemed comical.

  Skyler’s breath fogged in the crisp morning air, and dark clouds overhead threatened another bout of rain. The two women stood on either side of him. They each held one of his hands, the idea being that if they were physically connected together, it might somehow trick the dome into allowing all three to pass through. Not a bad idea, in Skyler’s opinion, but it didn’t change the fact that they looked ridiculous.

  Luckily only Pablo was there to see them attempt the entry.

  “See you in a few months, Pablo,” Skyler said over his shoulder.

  “Good luck,” the tall man said. “I’ll be at the farm, napping in a hammock.”

  “Count of three?” Skyler said to the women. “If only one or two of us get in, turn around and come right back out.”

  Ana nodded. Vanessa said, “Agreed.”

  They each wore climbing harnesses and carried gear from the kits Vanessa had so wisely packed before they’d left Belém: climbing rope, crampons, a grappling hook, and even a frog-style ascender. “I grabbed them from that survival store,” she’d said. “I thought we might need to scale a building sometime. I never imagined anything like this.”

  Though worried about the extra weight, Skyler and Ana also carried small hand axes made for hacking into ice, in case the earthen pillar proved to be more solid than it looked. Only Vanessa, who would spot their climb from the dome floor, carried a gun, on the off chance a subhuman came sniffing after them.

  Skyler counted down, and on “three” they stepped forward in unison.

  With the benefit of hindsight, he understood now at a basic level what the passage through the dome’s wall was doing to his mind. At some point during the transition, part of his mind worked at one time scale, and the rest at a much more accelerated pace. During that brief instant when the bubble enveloped and then closed around his body, every cell, every atom inside him would experience the shift at slightly different moments. That’s how he imagined it, anyway. The most impressive aspect to him was the simple fact that the shift didn’t tear his body to pieces.

  He wondered during the moment of passage what would happen if they spent a year inside the dome. Ten years, even. Would they emerge to a future tens or hundreds of years later? A thousand? He wondered if the Builders could control the time scale within. Crank a dial, have tea inside, and emerge a million years later. The possibilities flittered through his brain like butterflies as he crossed over.

  He felt a tug on his left arm and looked that way in a panic, expecting to see only air where Ana had been a second earlier.

  She was inside, still next to him, but doubled over and heaving.

  Vanessa still held his right hand. He could hear her drawing short, deep breaths. “We made it,” she said between gasps.

  “Ana,” Skyler said, “are you okay?”

  The young woman managed to nod and hold a hand up, begging for a few seconds to recover. After a moment she stood and offered him a wan smile.

  “Really messes with you, doesn’t it?” Skyler asked.

  “Even weirder,” Vanessa replied from over his shoulder, “is the thought that a few hours have already passed outside.”

  “That is a good point,” Ana said. She shuddered and closed her eyes for a moment. When they opened, they were clear and bright. “No time to waste. Vámonos!”

  Skyler gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and turned to face the pinnacle in the center of the domed area. Around them came a flash of sound, like ten thousand fingers tapping against glass.

  “What was that?” Vanessa asked.

  “I think that was a rainstorm,” Skyler said. “Soon you’ll notice the dome pulses, dark to light and back. I didn’t understand before, but it’s days passing outside.” Even as he said the words the entire space grew slightly dimmer. They all stood still for a minute, gathering their wits and watching the dome shift in brightness, down and up, down and up. “We’ve already been in here half a week. C’mon.”

  He led the way toward the dome’s center. The ground curved ever upward, and he had to navigate his way around some of the deeper ravines formed where portions of the uplifted earth had collapsed. All the while the dome pulsed. Dark, then light. Dark, then light. Random phantom noises startled him every few steps. At one point a sound like machine-gun fire made him dive to the ground on instinct, made Vanessa yelp. Ana began to laugh. “Thunderstorm, I’ll bet,” she said.

  Soon the ground became steep enough that Skyler had to lean forward and use his hands for support. The landscape consisted of hard-packed brown dirt and chunks of gray rock, dotted in places with clumps of emerald-green grass. He saw an earthworm wiggle within a centimeter-deep crevice. Above, a pair of magpies wheeled about and called to each other.

  When the ground became too steep, Skyler called a halt and let his companions catch their breath. The air inside the dome carried the same ozone smell it had on his last trip. It felt slightly cooler, though, but still warm and humid compared to the cool, crisp morning they’d left outside.

  “I’ll go first,” Skyler said, reiterating the plan they’d agreed to the night before. It had been seven or eight years since he’d scaled a rock, as part of his regular air force combat-readiness training. Rock climbing had been an elective option, and he’d enjoyed the challenge as much as the exercise. The training made him the most experienced of the three. Ana had some skill earned in a summer athletics program, while Vanessa had only tried climbing a few times in the controlled confines of a gym. “It’s a lot more fun in the sensory chamber,” she’d said wi
th a shrug.

  The spire’s mass seemed to be formed from the earth itself, as if some force had simply pinched the land here and tugged it straight upward. The material consisted of hard-packed dirt interwoven with decaying roots and other biomass. Strewn throughout were rocks, from scant pebbles to boulders as large as an automobile. Moss grew on everything, and he dreaded the idea of trying to get a solid handhold on the slick growth.

  He walked around the circular base and mentally plotted a path to the top. Then, in the interest of time, with one hand he grabbed a root that jutted from the pillar, braced his foot on a thigh-high rock, and began the ascent.

  Every five meters he stopped and secured his rope with a crampon. Cost being no concern, Vanessa had chosen the kits with the highest price tags. The devices weighed nearly nothing, so little in fact he found it hard to trust their strength. Skyler tested each link with a strong tug and found them utterly fixed to the surface of the spire.

  At thirty meters he reached a large rocky outcropping and paused. Every muscle in his arms burned and his thighs felt like rubber. Below, Ana had begun to climb, following his path exactly. Vanessa waited on the ground below her, spotting her course and shouting advice on where to grab or push off. She stood between two of the pondlike holes in the ground, both deep red in color.

  When Ana reached the rock where Skyler waited, she collapsed and splayed herself out against the wall, drawing deep breaths. He gave her a sip of water and kissed her lightly.

  “Hey,” she said, her eyes closed, “keep going.”

  For a second he thought she meant to kiss her again, more deeply. The situation, and her exhausted expression, said otherwise. He picked himself up and began to climb again.

  Each handhold became a singular effort. The tips of his fingers, though gloved, felt raw and close to bleeding.

  “November!” Vanessa shouted from the base.

  Fifteen minutes had passed. Two months outside.

  Skyler redoubled his effort. Soon the pillar became completely vertical, the rocks smaller and more spread out. His body shook from exertion, as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

  A few minutes later he found himself faced with the final six-meter span. The portion that went beyond steep and into inverted territory. Standing with one foot on a small jut of rock, one arm looped through an exposed root, Skyler prepared his grappling hook.

  He let out six meters of rope and began to swing it back and forth. Ana’s pace below almost brought her into a collision with the swaying hook, until he called out to her to halt. Skyler forced his strength into the arc of the grappler, over and over, until finally it almost came in contact with the lip of the pedestal at the top. On the next arc, Skyler put everything he had into the motion and raised his arm as high as he could at the last second. The hook disappeared over the top and he heard the faint sound of metal on stone.

  Skyler took a deep breath and began to tug on the line. It pulled smoothly toward him, and he’d resigned himself to watching it fall back over the edge, but then the rope caught and pulled straight.

  “Did it catch?” Ana called up.

  “I think so,” he said to her. “Only one way to know.”

  Skyler pulled as hard as he could and allowed himself to grin when the rope remained firmly in place. His arm still looped around the root, he cautiously slipped his foot off the rock he’d been perched on. He hung there, his hands in a white-knuckled grip on the grappling rope, his arm strained against the looped vine sticking out from the wall. “It’s good!” he called.

  The root gave. It pulled out of the earthen wall and suddenly Skyler was dangling, three meters out from the pillar, spinning wildly.

  A wave of dizziness and vertigo kept his hands around the rope in a death grip. His eyes were shut equally tight as he waited to see if the grapple would hold. When he opened his eyes, he found himself dangling three meters out from the wall, and six or seven below the pedestal edge at the top. He could see that the blue rope had carved into the dirt and stone making up the lip of the precipice. A few bits of dirt and gravel bounced off his face, punctuating the visual.

  He looked back to the wall until he found Ana, staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. Then he glanced down and saw Vanessa standing almost directly below him, her hands clapped over her mouth. Hanging out in space like he was, to him the woman suddenly seemed impossibly far below.

  “I’m okay,” he called out, loud enough for both of them to hear. “It’s holding.”

  “December!” Vanessa shouted back.

  Skyler looked up once more, steeled himself, and began to attach his ascender to the rope. The complicated process was frustrating while hanging free and took more than two precious minutes.

  “Here goes,” he said to Ana, and then he stood in the foot loops and let the ascender handle glide up the rope. When it bit, he sat again and rocked himself in the next standing motion. With each cycle he gained a half meter, and with the third standing motion his muscle memory kicked in and the process became second nature.

  At the lip Skyler rocked himself into a stand one last time, and on the apex he let one hand off the ascender and reached over the ledge to find something to grip. His fingers brushed an exposed rock and he clawed it, then pulled, grunting with the effort.

  When he crested the edge, he found himself staring into the bright green eyes of a coiled, snarling subhuman perched on top of a Builder object roughly hourglass in shape. The being clutched the edge of the object with hands that were coated in black to the wrist, as if dipped in oil.

  At the sight of Skyler the creature let go of the alien device.

  The dome, and everything in it, began to rumble violently.

  Far below Skyler, a woman screamed.

  Platz Station

  1.DEC.2284

  ALEX WARTHEN CIRCLED the table. One hand cupped his chin, his index finger pressed against his lips. He’d said nothing for almost five minutes. He’d just circled, studying the 3-D model of Hab-8.

  “Thoughts?” Russell asked. His shallow well of patience had run dry a minute ago, and he’d kept quiet this long only out of his renewed camaraderie with the man.

  Since their chat aboard Gateway months ago, Alex had been invigorated, and had pulled in the mousey shrew Sofia Windon to help administrate the stations. The pair were doing a decent job. Better yet, whatever Alex had been saying to Grillo had finally worked. Jacobite cannon fodder were due to arrive within the hour.

  “It’s a decent plan,” Alex said. “I’m worried the loss of life will be substantial, though.”

  Who gives a bloody shit, Russell thought. They’ll be Grillo’s men. He’d neglected to share that detail with Alex, or anyone else. As far as they knew, Grillo’s men were going to fill in on station security duties while Russell headed off to battle. Russell couldn’t wait to give them their true orders, make them feel like they were doing the world a favor. “The Fist of God,” he’d decided to dub them, sure they wouldn’t get the innuendo, or if they did they’d be too embarrassed to say anything. “We’ll have surprise on our side,” Russell said. “I doubt, after all this time, that Tania and company are maintaining a ready squad to repel such an attack.”

  “You know this for sure?” Alex asked.

  “No,” Russell admitted. The informants he’d sent across had been frustratingly, unnervingly quiet. Gone native, maybe, or discovered. A mix of both. “But it makes sense.”

  “I always plan for the things that don’t make sense,” Alex said. “Unless, of course, a bloodbath is what you want.”

  “My men don’t mind getting their hands dirty.” Grillo’s men, I mean, but you don’t need to know that. Of course Russell would be there, too, and a few handpicked squad leaders from his own pool of mercenaries. They could hang back, though. Give orders. Let the blood flow and clean up the mess afterward, should it even go down like that.

  Alex Warthen shrugged. “Seems okay to me, then. I’m sure we can get the rest of the council to buy off on the
plan, too.”

  The comment made Russell want to push his fingers into his ears and press until they punctured his brain. He hoped he kept his disgust hidden as Alex continued to study the projected model on the table. “I look forward to the vote,” Russell said, confident he’d imparted minimal sarcasm. Alex expected some, and Russell couldn’t disappoint him. That would have been a dead giveaway. “Perhaps we can call it via comm this afternoon? My people will be ready to go by dinner.”

  “That soon?” Alex asked.

  “Yes. If the geeks still on Anchor are right, the Builders will be back in March. Time is running out. I want that shit over there in our hands before the aliens try to rape us again.”

  Alex, amazingly, nodded. “Okay.” He glanced at his slate. “I’ve got to get down to the port and board my climber. Heading up to Midway Station for a meeting with all the upper-station captains. I’ll set the vote for three P.M. if the climber has a comm.”

  “Perfect,” Russell said.

  “Nice plan, Blackfield. Good luck.”

  “Walk you out?”

  “I’m fine,” Alex said, and departed.

  When the door clicked closed behind the security chief, Russell realized his “bloodbath” plan might have won approval simply because he’d be putting himself in harm’s way. Alex probably liked the odds that the council’s problem child wouldn’t return. “On the contrary, asshole,” Russell said to the empty room, “I’ll have two Elevators, then, and Tania Sharma chained to my bedpost.”

  Russell tapped the comm on his desk and selected the group contact he’d created, the one marked “the Dog Pound,” which would transmit his voice to the cabin of every grunt he commanded on Platz Station.

  “Listen up, wags,” he said when the connection showed green. “I want each and every one of you in the central dock in twenty minutes. Full gear. Our comrades from the surface, the ones who took over your shitty jobs after you ascended, are coming up to take part in a joint combat operation.”