“What the hell just happened?” Tann exclaimed.
“I have no idea,” Naylon replied.
The next second told them something was oddly different. Now that they had passed beyond the odd opaque barrier they could both see that the crack in the cavern to the outside was much larger than they had observed previously. In fact, the hole had somehow doubled in width. Naylon was sure he would have heard something if a tremor had caused it to open up. The only sound was wind coming from the direction of the opening. And something else was noticeable, too. The cavern had become at least ten degrees warmer.
Had they somehow inhaled some dust along the way that had hallucinogenic properties? Had they simply become disoriented due to the inky darkness of the cavern? Whatever had happened to them, something was terribly odd, Naylon decided.
Tann observed the crack in the cavern wall, too. “I don’t remember that being so wide.”
“It wasn’t.” Naylon started heading toward it. Tann followed close behind.
Whereas before, the opening was just a crack, it was now wide enough for them to easily pass through. They stood outside the cavern after picking through the large boulders and other debris in their way. They both shielded their eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the light as they looked out over a wide green valley. The mountains in the distance had snow only on their peaks. That didn’t make any sense since they had clearly crashed in the far north. Naylon distinctly remembered the higher nearby peaks with snow and ice well below the peaks. It wasn’t possible that this vantage was giving him a view of a region that looked like it would be much closer to the equator.
Twenty meters below them was a swiftly flowing river. The riverbed they had landed on must be part of this river, but it was dry as a bone just a half hour ago. Plus, Naylon was vaguely aware that at this latitude there were no flowing rivers.
Naylon looked out over the sharp decline to get a better view. Immediately he lost his footing on the loose talus. Before he knew it, he was sliding down the rocky slope toward the racing water. “Shit!” he yelped as he slid. His pack was securely around his shoulders and was helping to break his slide down the slope. But it didn’t help him at all when, seconds later, he reached a point of no return and splashed heavily into the water. The swift current immediately carried him away.
“Naylon! Naylon!” Tann cried out in terror.
Chapter 17
Tann dropped his lantern, threw off his backpack and ran to his right. He ran at an oblique angle almost to the river’s edge far below. Breathing like mad from adrenaline and from his burst of exertion, he stopped. He could no longer see Naylon. The water had already carried him out of sight.
He started running downriver, dodging boulders, scree and spongy earth underfoot. He had traveled several dozen meters before he realized he needed to get Darreth to help him. He stopped and tried to catch his breath, but upon looking around, he realized he was totally alone. Frightened at that realization, tears welled up in his eyes. He wiped his face with his sleeves and headed back.
It wasn’t easy getting back up. There was hardly a place to gain a foothold that didn’t threaten to make him slide back down. Several times he ended up meters below his intended path. Over and over, this repeated until finally, after great exertion, he was rewarded by finding his dropped pack. He quickly picked up his lantern and scrambled through the crack in the face of the mountain.
Mustering as much courage as he could, he faced the darkness and switched on the light. He scanned the far end of the cavern to discern where the corridor was. He had mentally noted where the bodies of the dead aliens were. But each time he pointed his light in those areas he saw nothing except rocks and boulders. Had he completely forgotten where any of them were? But that didn’t matter right now. He had to get help and get it fast.
He continued to play the beam along the wall. There. The dark entrance to the corridor was just to his left and ahead about ten meters away. This time he raced as fast as he could in the gloomy darkness. Where were the glow globes? He didn’t see a single one, yet they had dropped at least a dozen and a half along the way! Their power supplies were supposed to last a least a week, yet not a single one was lit. Plus, there were what appeared to be wires attached to the center of the ceiling. In some places they had fallen to the floor of the passageway and he had to avoid tangling his feet in them. Where had they come from? He was sure he hadn’t seen them when they came this way earlier.
Once the corridor opened up to the cavern where they were camped, Tann was already shouting.
“Darreth! Darreth! Help. Naylon’s in trou…ble!”
But no one answered. In fact, there was no light emanating from the cavern except from the entrance. That didn’t make any sense. He had personally positioned one of the three light tripods against the wall to the left just yesterday.
Tann stopped to catch his breath. He played his light all over the area where he had bedded down just last night. There were what appeared to be footprints, but they were barely discernable. Immediately he started to panic. This wasn’t possible. They had to be here. This was the exact same cavern they’d holed up in to avoid the pirates. He was sure of it. There was only a single way back. There was no way he had taken a wrong turn.
Tann dashed to the cavern entrance. The dry riverbed they had walked across to get here was filled with water. It was running swiftly but not as swiftly as the one Naylon had just fallen into. Was this the same river, just on the other side of the mountain? Or did something much more mysterious happen? Whatever it was, the shuttle was gone, too. For all he knew it had been swept away by the water. Darreth was missing. Merek was missing. All of the gear they had stowed in the cavern was gone. Worse though, was that it looked like he’d never been in this cavern before. It looked like no one at all had been in the cavern for centuries. In fact, his were the only footprints he could clearly identify.
This is not possible, his mind screamed.
No time to figure it out. He had to get back to save Naylon. That is, if he could, he thought to himself, completely confused. He quickly played his light into the other corridor, the one they hadn’t explored. He mustered up enough courage to go down it a way. Within twenty meters it was impossible to go any further. The ceiling was way too low. There was no way he had accidentally gone the wrong way.
Quickly he backtracked, returned to the entrance cavern, and immediately went back down the correct passageway. His mind was racing. Was there someone else here? Perhaps a live alien? Was something or someone playing tricks with his mind? He fought for composure by trying to control his breathing. This wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to have landed at the Nona Ice Station. Now everything had turned upside down. Everything!
He sprinted down the dark corridor, carefully avoiding the wires, and headed back to where he knew the dead alien bodies were supposed to be. He knew he shouldn’t do it since the situation was starting to freak him out completely. But try as he might, as he played his light everywhere, he found not a shred of evidence that the aliens had ever been here. Yet, in the very center of the cavern was the exact same perfect cylindrical hole in the rectangular dark stone. He avoided it this time, opting to go completely around it.
Moments later he emerged back into sunlight after going through the crack in the cavern wall. He felt exhausted. All the running and the stress of realizing he was totally alone was taking its toll. He went to his knees, breathing deeply of the warm air as he tried to gather his wits.
His backpack. He dragged himself up from his knees and took it. He stuffed the lantern into one of the compartments before he donned it and started toward the riverbank once again.
Darreth looked at his chronometer. Naylon and Tann had been gone for far too long. The first thing he did was try his internal comm. Nothing. He wasn’t surprised it might not work given the expanse of rocks that surrounded them.
“Merek, I can’t contact Naylon. I’m going to see if anything’s wrong.”
>
“I’d go with you but…”
“Don’t agit. I won’t be long.”
Darreth took one of the more powerful lanterns and headed down the tunnel. He, too, noted that within a few meters the tunnel seemed to have been honed. A passageway this square couldn’t possibly be natural. He saw the trail of glow globes and followed them. Minutes later, after having walked briskly the entire way, he entered the cavern Naylon and Tann had entered hours before.
“Naylon! Tann!” Darreth yelled out. He saw at the far end of the cavern, across a considerable dark distance, that a glow seemed to be coming from the wall. No, it was sunlight. He could tell that now. That meant a small opening was along the wall further on. Perhaps they had gone out that way?
He made his way toward the center of the cavern, following the footsteps he saw in the dirt. They were distinct enough. Some of them led to the left and to the right but he was more interested in the structure he saw in the very center of the cavern. As he continued toward it he saw that the footprints had converged back in the same direction he was headed. He continued on.
He passed his light beam along the interior of the cylindrical tunnel, now that he got closer to it. He felt the smooth surface. The huge slab of stone couldn’t have been brought into the cavern since it was clearly larger than the size of the tunnel he’d just come down. That was odd. It seemed as though the rectangular slab was cut right inside this cavern. But the rock looked like polished granite. Where could it have come from? There was no granite nearby.
Darreth played his flashlight inside the short, cylindrical hole once again. The shiny interior walls appeared to deflect his light beam in an odd distorted way. Nonetheless, he went through it and was across to the other side in seconds. Darreth tried his comm again.
“Naylon?”
Nothing.
“Naylon!”
Still nothing.
He yelled out loud again. “Naylon! Tann!” Not a whisper in return.
This was more than strange.
He proceeded toward the crack at the far end of the cavern. The opening appeared to have been weathered from a much smaller crack that had long ago developed along the wall. The hole wasn’t exactly facing the outside. In fact, the hole was barely twenty centimeters wide at its widest and barely half a man’s height tall. It faced an exterior flank of stones that was so close no one could have squeezed through and made their way into the open air. They certainly couldn’t have gone that way. He turned back around.
Darreth was startled when he saw the first dead alien and took in a loud gulp of air in surprise. His second reaction was of total bewilderment. This was impossible. There was no such thing as aliens. But as he knelt to examine the dead body he realized that his assumption, and everyone else’s for that matter, about that was false.
And it might explain why the tunnel to this cavern looked more like a mineshaft than anything natural.
He quickly searched around to see if there were more bodies. There. Another one! As creepy as it was in the dark, he nonetheless knelt to examine what looked like a uniform, which covered the long-dead alien’s body. It looked similar to his flight suit. He lifted the material with an index finger in an effort to discern what it was made of. What was that object? His light reflected off something obviously metallic after he had moved the alien’s clothing. It was disc-shaped and had an orange-gold iridescence to it. He moved aside the clumped fibers and picked the object up out of the dirt where it was half hidden. It looked brand new and neatly fit in his palm.
He pointed his light directly at it in an attempt to figure out if it was some sort of weapon or if it was a communications device. He found no buttons, displays, openings, catches or levers. On the other hand, it appeared to have some sort of writing etched into it. Or was it just designs? It was impossible to tell because of the poor lighting. Perhaps it was a keepsake or a reminder of the alien’s family. It looked valuable no matter what it was. But he had more pressing concerns right now—concerns which far outweighed these absolutely amazing discoveries. Where were Naylon and Tann? He lay his pack down next to the alien’s body, placing the shiny object on top of it. Aiming his light in all directions, and now unencumbered by his pack, he looked all around the chamber. It was spooky. Dead alien bodies. Not a trace of Naylon or Tann. He yelled out several more times. No responses. In his exploration of the cavern, he found no large cracks in the floor or hidden pits, but did find the third body. So, they hadn’t been swallowed up by the darkness. There was simply no trace of them.
He went back to the cylindrical tunnel and knelt down to inspect the jumbled footprints at one end. Not being a tracker of any merit, he knew obtaining valuable information from them would be useless. He played his light along the interior surface of the smooth opening and searched with his hands for any hidden trap doors along its interior. Slowly, he made his way down its entire length, crossed what appeared to be the optical illusion in the dead center, then continued looking for anything that might indicate an opening. The interior of the tunnel was devoid of so much as a blemish.
Now he was beginning to panic, or more accurately, he felt like he was going to hyperventilate. He had done his best to find his brother and his boyfriend. But he’d turned up absolutely nothing except what clearly were alien bodies. Bodies that his boyfriend and brother had to have seen because of the footprints near them. The situation was more than creeping him out now. He figured he might have better luck if he got Merek to help him out. First though, he’d get some more lighting out of the shuttle.
Half an hour later, and with Merek in tow, they had set up several lights in the chamber. With every corner as illuminated as possible with their scant lighting, they both searched every shadow and behind every boulder. Neither Naylon nor Tann showed up anywhere. There was no way they could have crawled through that little crack even if they had tried. Darreth felt nothing but anguish now.
Hours after they had returned to the entrance chamber Darreth received a hail on an emergency frequency. A team of rescuers from Nona Ice Station Command Response had been searching for them for two days. His message had been received just before the pirates had blown the nav sat from space.
Part II
Chapter 18
The first thing Naylon realized when he splashed into the river was that he wasn’t going to sink. His sealed backpack was buoyant enough to help keep his head above water. Realizing that didn’t stop him from becoming besieged with panic. His tumble down the slope had happened so fast he hadn’t had time to grab on to anything. Besides, there wasn’t much to grab on to anyway. Most of the flat stones he had been gliding on top of on his way down into the water ended up in the river with him. Luckily, only some small ones had actually pelted him. Now he realized he was headed downstream at a blinding pace. He saw Tann only out of the corner of his eye before he was quickly swept out of visual range.
Up ahead, a rooster tail of water was rising above the surface. He was vaguely aware that it meant a large boulder was up ahead. Seconds before he would have hit it the water gently glided him around to the right. He found himself momentarily in an eddy, slowly swirling around, before he was again pushed along downstream. Just after that his head went underwater for several seconds. He swallowed a mouthful of water, which he sputtered out when he surfaced. His right wrist smacked against a slick rock. That hurt.
He felt lucky about at least one thing. The water was cold but he was fully clothed. That would help at least a little against the inevitable hypothermia he knew would set in. He hoped the slope would level off soon so the water would slow down. It had to.
Unless, that is, he ended up going over a waterfall first.
But nothing like that appeared to be coming up. The water’s slope wasn’t that great and the river was narrow here. He was moving in such a random pattern he couldn’t get any sort of purchase onto anything.
There. Just up ahead, he was traveling toward what appeared to be a branch wedged between two boulders. If
he could just maneuver himself to catch it, he thought, reaching. The water quickly diverted and he went well to the side. Shit!
Further down and to the left. There. A huge mass of spindly branches, partially submerged in the water. It looked dangerous since he might end up being impaled on one of the sharp-looking ends. Naylon reached his hand out and managed to catch his sleeve on the end of one. It stopped his forward movement long enough for him to grab onto it. Just as he did so, it snapped. It wasn’t waterlogged enough to be pliable. The water continued to push him along, backwards this time, with the end of the branch still in his hand. But maybe that was a good thing. He had about a meter’s length of it still in his possession. Perhaps he could use the extension to help him as the water carried him further and further downstream.
A bend in the river rapidly neared. Naylon was starting to feel quite chilled at this point and was having trouble holding on to the stick. The water was deeper at the bend and, because it was narrower here, he was pushed into the dead center of the channel. The channel suddenly opened out to a broad flat area where he was able to finally touch bottom. But the water was still moving quickly enough for him to be unable to make any headway toward either shore. Slowly but surely, touching bottom wasn’t just once in a few meters, but rather all the time. Using the stick as a third leg, he was able to finally maneuver himself to a sandbar to his right. Just in time, too, since the chill of the water was beginning to sap the remainder of his strength. Finally, the water was only waist high. With the help of the stick he was able to make his way to the sand. Immediately, his legs gave way and he ended up on his knees.
The Rylerran Gateway Page 15
