Borderlands: The Fallen

by John Shirley

  You’ve gotten this far. I’m going to put this page in the wall, and then close up the wall after me—if I have time—so they won’t see someone’s gotten out. I’ll try to pile up the rags so they think I’m sleeping. They don’t watch very well during the day. I estimate that it’s late morning. When I was taken out to work on their machines, I memorized the route to the nearest escape. You go out this hole, head right, take a left turn, then a right and go all the way to the old elevator shaft. The elevator may or may not work.

  The problem is, the escape takes you close to the volcano, and there are other dangers there. But I’m going out that way if I can, because it’s the shortest way. I have one of their gas masks, I’ve swiped it, and I can use it to conceal my identity. I’m sorry I ever came to this accursed planet. I yearn to be back in the good old chemical works on Toxic Tomb 7. Sure, the atmosphere of that planet is deadly poisonous, and except for our dome there’s no life on that world—but there were no murderous cannibals there, and no skags, no rakks, and no crab worms. I hate crab worms. If I escape this world, I’ll try to go back to work on Toxic Tomb, perhaps stop off on the homeworld to get some new fingers regrown.

  Until then, I am sincerely yours (whoever you may be),

  Two Finger Frank

  She smiled, feeling a flush of hope, and then folded the paper up, tucked it in her blouse, and murmured, “Bless you, Two Finger Frank.”

  She scraped away at the lower corner of the wall for another hour. It was dark here, it would be hard for him to see what she was doing, with the bench in the way, but she was hoping to get all the way through before her tunnel rat sentry woke.

  But then he moaned in his sleep, and looked sleepily about, smacking his lips and yawning. She hid her simple tool and went to lie on her bench.

  “What are you doing there?” Flemmel asked sharply, squinting through the bars at her in the dim light. “You were doing something in the corner.”

  “I had to pee, if that’s okay with you.”

  “What? There’s a bucket right here!”

  “I don’t wish to do my business in front of all the world. I found a shallow hole in the corner to pee in. And to do a bit more than that. Would you like to examine it?”

  “No, no, not I, what a revolting thought. You suppose we have no niceties here? You think we defecate just anywhere like … like rats? In our own quarters we have vacuum toilets and privacy.” He yawned. “All right. It is daylight, so you’d best lie down. You must acclimate yourself to our hours if you are to bear children for us. Personally I think you may grace the feast table instead—we have little enough to sustain the feast. But it’s the Great Engineer’s decision to make …” He yawned again, muttering to himself. “Great Engineer … Broncus … the scum … Imagines he can …”

  She stretched out, every muscle tense, waiting. Listening and praying for Flemmel to go to sleep …

  We have little enough to sustain the feast.

  She had to get out of here and soon. Or die trying.

  A few minutes passed—and then came the scrape of booted feet. She looked over and saw Flemmel was standing at the cell doors, glowering at her through the bars, his eyes large and moist. “I could not get back to sleep. Not with the injustice of Broncus’s pretentions—and the feelings you bring out in me. Why should Broncus think he could mate with you? Why not I? Because he is slightly higher in tunnel status? Bah! If they’re likely to feast on you anyway—why should I not know the touch of a woman first?”

  She sat up, trying to block his view of the corner where she’d done her digging. “Daylight’s nearly done, Flemmel! It’s nearly time for someone to check on us. They’d catch you at it if you … had your way with me. You’d be doing it without the Grand Engineer’s permission! I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”

  “They won’t be along for a while.” He turned a key in the lock—his gaze fixed on her. “If you are discreet about it, I’ll see that if they do plan to cook you, your death comes quickly and with little pain …”

  Now is my chance. When he thinks he’s about to take me, grab the gun. Crack him over the head …

  She nodded resignedly. “I guess … I would like to have one more … one more experience of carnal, ah, delight, Flemmel, before I’m … I’m to be provided for the feast. Tell me—can you really protect me from a painful death? How do they normally do it?”

  “Ah! It’s a serious matter. It depends …” He opened the cell door and stepped in, closed it behind him, glancing over his shoulder. The gun was loose in his left hand. He was quite confident of himself. “There is a traditional tunneler belief that boiling a prisoner alive makes it possible to drain all their juices of creativity and personal power into the broth.” He put the key in a jerkin pocket. His large eyes glittered as he stared at her. “But some prefer a simple roasting, on a spit. With the Psycho Midgets—they’re small, perfect for turning over an open flame. We simply cut their throats first. You might be small enough—I will try to arrange the spit for you. That way, not a long, painful death. Now then …” Flemmel licked his lips and started toward her.

  She raised a hand to keep him back—but as coquettishly as she could. It was hard to pretend to be cute and sexy in filthy clothes, in a jail cell, with your hair matted and in disarray. “Wait—let’s … let’s lie down and be comfortable. I’m sure you’ll have a better time.”

  “Then—before we lie down—take off your clothes. I’ve never seen a woman without her clothes. Not a live one.”

  “Won’t you—help me get undressed? There’s a zipper in the back of my top. I’ll turn my back and you can find it and unzip me …”

  Her plan was risky but it might work. He would fumble about, looking for the nonexistent zipper. Then she would spin quickly to her right, grab the gun from his left hand, raise it up, and hit him sharply several times in the forehead with the gun butt. She couldn’t risk the sound of a gunshot. She would have to use all her strength when she crushed his skull, to shut him up fast. One yell from Flemmel would bring the other sentries.

  She turned her back. He approached her. She tensed …

  “Flemmel! What are you doing there?” Broncus shouted, from the corridor.

  She turned—and saw Broncus, on the other side of the bars, pushing a bound prisoner ahead of him. The prisoner was small, his head a little bloodied, and bowed. A moment later he lifted his face to look around …

  Marla gasped. “Cal!”

  “Mom!”

  The morning sun brought out green glints in the flinty rock of the ancient lava field. Zac and Berl gazed over it from its outer edge; Bizzy loomed up behind them, clicking to himself.

  “This here field of lava,” Berl said, “it must’ve flowed right out of that volcano, why, millions of years ago. Hard and sharp as a stone axe it is. But there’s a way through, even here, young fella. And just on the other side is the ship’s debris field, right outside what I call the auditorium …”

  “All this sharp rock, it’ll take us days to get over it,” Zac said as he chewed a dried testicle.

  “No, I’m telling you—I’ve got a way. I’m going on ahead but I’m gonna tell Bizzy to follow close and spit a sizzler on you if you make a move on me.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. I had every intention of coming back later and giving you your share of anything I found out here.”

  “Ha! Like I’d trust you! All right now …” Berl turned to Bizzy, touched his alien-tech collar, and gave a series of long whistles. Bizzy assented by bobbing on his gigantic stiltlike legs.

  Berl led the way around a spiny, man-high stone and across a rugged field of volcanic rubble. The lava field seemed a mix of the gnarled, pitted black rock, the lighter, porous, dull red volcanic rock, and green-black volcanic glass. Only a few sparse patches of plants grew. Mostly the prospect ahead was barren, deathly dry, the lava bed crunching loudly under their boot steps. The volcano—just a particularly large cinder cone shaped like a giant blue-g
ray broken-open eggshell—rose up on the other side of the lava field, with a few twisted humps of ancient lava flow wrapping its lower slopes.

  The shadow of Bizzy fell over them as they went. But Zac was actually glad to have Bizzy along, to protect against rakks and other creatures. He felt dangerously exposed here.

  They had to pick their way, stepping carefully over the large chunks of sharp-edged volcano glass. The sun rose, and so did the temperature. There was almost no shade, and the sunlight blazed back at them from countless rock surfaces.

  “Here we go,” said Berl, after about half an hour. “See this? Kind of a natural ramp, like. Right up here and it gets to be easier going …” He pointed to where an ancient lava flow had hardened into a kind of twisty pathway up the flank of the cinder cone.

  The going got easier on the pathway, but it was still a long, hot trudge up onto the base of the cinder cone. After working their way up about a quarter kilometer, Zac was relieved when the path stopped rising, flattening out, and the air suddenly got cooler. They’d ascended into an altitude where winds blew in from the sea, which was just visible on the horizon. Even Bizzy, still teetering along after them, seemed to move more springily, as if enjoying the coolness.

  At last they followed the old lava flow around a natural buttress of stone—and they stopped, gazing at the scene spread before them.

  Down to their left was a deep gorge. But it was what was directly ahead that captivated them. The hollowed-out cinder cone made a kind of enormous natural amphitheater—Berl’s “auditorium”—not quite a kilometer in diameter around its boulder-strewn floor of black hardened lava. Parts of it were in inky shadow; other parts were brightly illuminated by the sun coming through the break in the stone shell. Something gleamed inside, near the back wall; something slick and translucent and shifting in color, like mother of pearl one moment, purple iridescent another—something big. It was hard to tell how big it was from here.

  In the dark rubble of the broken cinder cone’s side, smaller, oddly shaped objects shone brightly, twinkling enticingly. No two of them were formed alike.

  The overall shape of the broken volcanic cone made Zac think of shrines he’d seen, back on the homeworld. But the idol in the shrine was something truly celestial. It was like looking at a gigantic temple to the alien.

  “You can see what happened,” Berl said. “Long time ago, fer one reason or ’nother, the ship came down at a slant, smashed into that old cinder cone there, busted that big gap through the side. Some of the ship broke off, parts of it came out in that rubble. That’s what I call the debris field. The main body of the ship is inside, on the floor of the cinder cone. It sits on top of all that column of old, hardened lava. Never have gotten very close to it. Those folks in orbit can’t see the ship from up there, it’s too far under the shell. This angle here, where we’re at, that’s how you see it …”

  Zac nodded, feeling past words.

  After a few minutes they continued silently onward, working their way along the lava flow pathway, till at last they drew near the debris field. To their left the deep gorge of coarse volcanic rock fell away steeply. Bizzy came along behind, looming over them, his shadow a cage.

  “Watch this now,” Berl said. He paused and took out the artifact Zac had stolen, the spiral that was never only a spiral. Immediately it leapt in his hand and pointed quiveringly at the site of the crashed alien ship. “It’s damn excited to be home.”

  He put the artifact away and they moved onward, along the edge of the gorge, getting close to the top of the cliff that was the beginning of the debris field. The pathway wound along the mountain’s flank to their right.

  They were approaching the clifftop and the debris field … when Zac felt something grip his ankle. He looked down—and stared in frozen horror at something serpentlike, about twenty centimeters long; it was headless, made of the same peculiar translucent, iridescent material as the pointing artifact. The serpentlike living artifact was winding around his ankle like a small constrictor, moving upward, twining its way up his leg.

  He let out a wordless shout and shook his leg, trying to get the thing off.

  “Dammit, boy, hold still!” Berl commanded him. Berl tugged a knife from his own boot and used it to pry the thing off Zac’s leg.

  Before it could wind around his hand, Berl grabbed it by the lower end and flipped it into the gorge to their left.

  “What the hell was that?” Zac asked, gasping, trying to calm himself.

  “ShipGrowth, is what it was. One of the ways it protects itself.” Berl chuckled grimly. “You know what it means?” He nodded toward the crashed alien ship. “It means that thing in there knows we’re here.”

  Marla sat beside Cal in the cell, struggling with her emotions, trying to focus on a plan for escape. She felt an enormous relief that Cal was alive, relief alternating with horror at his ending up a prisoner of tunnel rats too.

  Broncus had taken over the sentry duties from Flemmel, who had been sent away in disgrace. At the moment Broncus marched back and forth outside their cell with an affectation of great importance, clutching a submachine gun and wearing his gas mask.

  “If you’d got here a moment later,” Marla whispered to her son, who was seated beside her on the stone bench in the cell, “you’d have seen me smashing that tunnel rat’s skull.”

  “Whoa, Mom,” Cal said, staring at her. “Being here has changed you.”

  “In some ways,” she admitted, softly. “But not really. You know—parents can’t be terribly honest with their kids about the real world. Not at first, when the child’s too young. Otherwise—you’d be scared all the time.” She sighed. “But I assume that by now, this planet has shown you everything we wanted to keep from you.”

  He thought about that. “Yeah. Probably most of it.”

  “So—you haven’t seen your dad?”

  He shook his head sadly. “How’d you end up here, Mom?”

  She told him about the collapsing surface of the plain, the pit that had swallowed the truck. She didn’t tell him everything about Vance. “How’d they get you, Cal? Just fall in like I did?”

  “Not exactly. I was pushed. The guy who got Dad to come down here to Pandora—Rans Veritas—he’s working with some mercs from Atlas. Anyway, me and Roland fell in with ’em …”

  “Wait, who’s Roland?”

  “He’s the … the free agent, sort of, that I met out in the world. I was trying to steal some supplies from him. He caught me. I thought he was going to kill me for sure but—he’s treated me all right. Saved my life. He’s been helping me—and I’ve been helping him.”

  She smiled. “Good. Almost enough to make me believe in God.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Never mind. So this Rans …”

  “Rans Veritas. He … didn’t like me. He thought I was going to turn him in or hatch some kind of … what do they call it … revenge scheme against him. And when Roland was out of the camp, Rans cracked me over the head and dragged me off.” He grimaced. “Head still hurts …”

  “Oh! How do you feel?”

  Cal shrugged. “Kind of nauseous. A little dizzy. Not too bad. Felt worse when I got to the bottom of the hole he shoved me in. It was like a chute or something, these tunnel rats use to transfer stuff down to their colony. I sat up at the bottom—and tunnel rats were staring at me. I heard they’re cannibals and I thought they were going to eat me, like, first thing. But then they brought me here … now I don’t know. But I’m sure glad to see you.”

  She put an arm around him and hugged him to her. “But I bet you’ve got mixed feelings about seeing me here.”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “Yeah. I know just how you feel. Let me see about that bump on your head …”

  She brought over the bucket of water, and used an almost unsoiled swatch of her clothing top to cleanse the knot on his head. He winced, but made no sound. “He could’ve killed you. Broke the skin, bruised your head. But we did get the vaccinatio
n against all the local organisms when we hit orbit, here, so probably you won’t get an infection.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Chances are you’ve got a mild concussion. But we have to kind of pretend it’s not there, for now, if we want to survive.” She glanced at Broncus, then pulled Cal closer and whispered directly into his ear. “Listen closely, Cal. I’m going to talk to that inbred scumbag over there. I’ll keep him distracted. While I do that, you look at that hole in the corner. It’s almost broken through. A little pushing and scraping, it’ll open into the corridor around the corner. I couldn’t fit through it. But you could squeeze through. If you do it, make it quick.”

  He nodded, wide-eyed.

  Marla kissed her son on the cheek, winked at him, and stood up. She was a dozen times more determined to escape now. It would take ten tunnel rats, maybe twenty, to hold her down. Her son was here.

  She strolled over to the door of the cell, took hold of the bars, pressing her breasts casually against them. “Bron-chus … ?”

  He stopped marching and came wearily to look at her. He pushed his gas mask back so it became a hat on top of his head, and stared at her with his large black eyes. “Yes—what is it? Why are you not resting, woman? You need to sleep now, adjust to our cycle! You might not be eaten, you know, now that the boy is here. He will provide enough feast, along with a Midget we caught.” He paused to yawn and rub his eyes. It was day, well into tunnel rat sleep time. “Not being eaten brings with it great responsibility.”

  “I’m sure it does! Listen, Broncus—if I’m not eaten … I’m not counting on anything … I mean, I know it’s the Great Engineer’s decision …”

  He started to glance past her, toward her son, and she moved to hold his gaze with hers. “… but if I’m not eaten … and they decided I was worthy of bearing … tunnel children.” Don’t retch, she told herself. That’ll give it away. Do. Not. Retch. “Well—is there any chance I might end up … if I happened to be very lucky … with a certain … Broncus? With you?”