Sun

by J. C. Andrijeski

  Revik and I still led the group.

  Varlan and Feigran walked directly behind us, so close I could feel their breaths on the back of my neck. Balidor and Cass walked directly behind them. Illeg and Dalai walked behind them, Dalai holding the one working rifle we had, while Illeg carried the handgun.

  Holo and Stanley brought up the rear.

  I’d holstered my organic gun. I gripped a collapsable club in my free hand instead, something I’d brought along as an afterthought while we were still gearing up on the ship. I was conscious of the flip-knife in my back pocket, as well, and a loop of wire rope I had on my belt, which would also work as a weapon.

  Revik held a long knife in his free hand, a knife Atwar had given him as a present, that previously lived in a scabbard at his belt.

  I knew he had other, smaller knives on him, including one in his boot.

  Really, though, if it came to a gun fight, we had the telekinesis. That was the only long-distance weapon we had left.

  I was still listening to the faraway sounds of water falling, trying to gauge our distance from the sound of it pounding against rocks and splashing into some deeper body of water, when I stepped into ankle-deep liquid with a splash.

  I gripped Revik’s hand tighter when he pulled me back from the edge.

  It struck me suddenly, as I stood on the shore or edge of that long flooded area, that there was a lot of echo in here.

  “Fuck,” Revik muttered from beside me.

  Through his light, I could see that the space had opened up.

  We weren’t in a tunnel any longer, but some kind of underground cavern.

  The rock ceiling stretched high overhead. I was no longer standing in the middle of a narrow tunnel; I stood at the shore of what felt and looked like an underground lake. Revik’s light pinged against the edges of that cavern and water like sonar, painting a picture in my mind so vivid I sucked in a breath, gazing around that light-filled space in awe.

  My eyes told a different story, of course.

  I couldn’t see a damned thing in the dark, but I could feel the sheer volume of water through Revik, and I could hear the water crashing down into more water in the distance, the sound echoing over the rock walls.

  Through Revik’s light, I saw a massive waterfall on the other end of that lake, much bigger than any we’d seen until now. Revik’s light traced the source of the waterfall as coming from a few levels above us.

  The lake was deep. Small, lapping waves touched the rock shore, a bare kiss.

  I felt an underground river heading off it on the other side of the cavern as well, going to a deeper level below us, which made sense given the volume of water pouring down from the upper levels.

  I didn’t feel any footpaths or dry tunnels in or out of the cavern, apart from the one we’d just come through.

  Revik’s focus shifted to Balidor.

  “How far are we?” he said. “From the hotspot?”

  Balidor sighed, clicking softly. “I don’t know, brother. We lost the maps.”

  “You were counting though, yes? From the last time we’d looked.”

  I felt Balidor concede his question with a wave.

  “We should be close, based on what I saw on the handhelds before we lost power.”

  “How close?” I said, turning in the dark.

  “Close,” Balidor said. “Between approximately two hundred and fifty and three hundred yards, if I’ve been counting correctly in the time since. And if I got the direction changes right, based on turns and curves in the tunnel.”

  I knew he would have counted correctly. He would have gotten the directions right, too.

  That meant the door was somewhere in this cavern.

  It was likely on the other side of the cavern, given the distances he’d quoted. The waterfall felt like it might be close to two hundred yards away.

  “More,” Revik said from next to me. “Around two-twenty, I’d guess.”

  All of us just stood there, staring around with our aleimic light without being able to see a damned thing with our eyes.

  “Could it be inside the lake?” Holo said, his voice doubtful.

  All of us thought about the implications of that. I frowned, smelling the water all around me, thinking about the reality of diving into that lake in the dark, trying to find something we weren’t even sure was there, much less where it was, or what it looked like.

  We didn’t even know if the lake had anything alive in it.

  “Water, water, falling over rocks,” Feigran muttered. “Dark water. Dark water, no light. Curtain of rain. Splish-splash. Splish-splash––”

  “The waterfall,” Cass muttered. “He means the waterfall.”

  The silence deepened.

  We were all looking at the waterfall through our light. I used the higher structures in my own aleimi, and Revik’s lower structures to look along with them.

  I could feel something there. It was faint, but it definitely had a presence.

  Balidor was the first to end the silence.

  “That’s not a rat,” he muttered, clicking under his breath.

  “Is it a person?” Dalai said.

  “It has to be a complex life form, at the very least,” Varlan offered. “I agree it could not be a rat, as brother Balidor said. A human, at the very least. More likely a seer.”

  “Could it be one of the beings we saw in Kali’s visions?” I said, turning, even though I couldn’t see any of them. “One of the telekinetics Kali warned us about? I can’t swear by my interpretation of that vision, but it looked like the Dreng placed telekinetics at the entrances to these so-called ‘doorways,’ or hotspots. It felt like those telekinetics were linked in some way––to all the doorways. Maybe they have some kind of symbiotic relationship to the organic machines? Like the one Revik found in Beijing?”

  There was a silence as my words sank in.

  “There’s no protection here,” Stanley said.

  I felt him looking around, his light taking in the contours of the cave, the water of the lake.

  “Whatever is there, they didn’t post a guard,” he said. “I don’t even feel an OBE. I don’t feel a construct here. I don’t feel anything electronic. Does anyone?”

  There was another silence.

  Then Revik grunted.

  “Would they need security?” he said, spelling out the thing that had just occurred to all of us. “If they had a telekinetic to guard it for them, what more would they need?”

  I looked around, still seeing nothing through the dark.

  “But they can’t keep a telekinetic down here, can they?” I said, pursing my lips. “What would they do? Take a boat out and feed it every day? That doesn’t make any sense. It would die. And how would they control it, and still have it do their bidding? If they have it collared, it can’t hurt us, right?”

  Everyone fell silent as they thought about my words.

  Revik sighed then, clicking under his breath.

  “We have to go out there,” he said. “We have to see what this is. To at least try to answer some of these questions. It’s unguarded here. The other portals may not be so quiet. They may be more like the one in Beijing.”

  After a pause where I felt him look around, he exhaled.

  “Does anyone disagree?”

  “No, brother,” Balidor said.

  I felt everyone around us agreeing with him, too.

  “So how do we get out there?” Revik said. “Ideas?”

  “Do we all swim it, you mean?” I muttered. “Or do we leave some of us on shore?”

  “Boat,” Feigran muttered. “Take the boat. The boat is nice. Boat is better.”

  I turned towards his voice, frowning.

  I’d already scanned the length of the shore, looking for some way to cross the water. I hadn’t felt a boat anywhere. Granted, I’d been using Revik’s lower-level sight, but he was Elaerian. That meant he could actually see physical objects with his Barrier sight.

  He wouldn’t hav
e missed a boat.

  “It’s in the wall,” Feigran explained, as if hearing me. “In the wall.”

  “Show me,” I told him.

  Releasing Revik’s fingers, I held out my hand in Feigran’s direction. He must have seen me do it, or felt it with his light, because a different, smaller hand grasped my fingers tentatively. Those fingers were damper than Revik’s and softer.

  Walking around behind me, Revik grabbed my other wrist, above where I held the retractable baton.

  “I’m going, too,” he muttered.

  “We should all go, Esteemed Sister, Illustrious Sword,” Balidor said, his voice warning.

  Realizing he was right, I didn’t answer.

  Feigran led us over the stone floor, still holding my hand. He took us backwards in a nearly straight line, and it struck me that he was taking us back into the tunnel from which we’d come… when he abruptly came to a stop.

  “There,” he said, his voice a near-whisper.

  “There, where?” I said.

  “In the wall.”

  I felt him pointing in the dark, but unlike with Revik, I couldn’t feel where he was pointing.

  “Careful,” Feigran added, soft. “Careful, careful. Big hurt. BANG!”

  I jumped when he raised his voice, running my shoulder into Revik.

  Feigran drifted back into his softer muttering.

  “…Careful,” he repeated. “Careful, careful. Ouch. Big ouch.”

  I frowned, looking up at Revik.

  “What does he mean?” I said.

  I practically saw Revik frown back at me, despite the pitch dark.

  Then he focused around at the rest of our group.

  “Get behind me,” he said. “Back into the tunnel. Behind the wall.”

  Through Revik, I could feel the location of the rock wall; it was the same wall that formed the outer edge of the tunnel. Realizing what he intended, I moved to my left, following the motion of his arm in the dark. Feigran tugged on my hand, pulling me in a wider arc.

  The others followed us, retreating back into the tunnel’s opening.

  I tried to pull Revik back too, but he let go of my wrist, approaching the edge of the stone wall, presumably where Feigran had been pointing.

  “Careful!” I said. “Make sure you’re not in the way of whatever it is.”

  Revik clicked softly. “No fear, wife. I have no desire for ‘ouchies,’ either.”

  I snorted, in spite of myself.

  After another moment, I said, “Can you see it?”

  “Yeah. I think I’ve got it. I can’t quite see what it does, or what’s in there, but there’s some kind of panel there.” His voice sharpened as he aimed it at Feigran. “Am I back far enough, brother? Am I out of the way?”

  “Yes, yes. Good. It’s good. All safe and sound.”

  “Yeah, because that’s a voice you can trust,” Balidor muttered.

  Next to him, Cass snorted in amusement.

  “Okay, I’m going to throw the lever,” Revik said.

  We all tensed. I gripped Feigran’s hand tighter, not noticing I’d done it until the other Elaerian squirmed, whining that I was hurting him.

  I released his fingers right as there was a loud, vibrating THUD.

  There was a few seconds of silence.

  Then I heard a loud splash.

  “Jesus,” Revik muttered.

  “What happened?” Holo said.

  “There was some kind of panel in the wall,” Revik said. “It opened when I hit the lever, and tossed something into the lake.”

  “Big enough to be a boat?” Balidor queried.

  “Don’t know,” Revik said. He looked back from where he’d been scanning the lake. “Is it safe to walk back there, brother?” he said to Feigran.

  “Yes, yes. Safe, safe. Squishy and safe and dry and floaty.”

  Clicking under my own breath, I shook my head.

  “Sounds like a raft,” I said.

  I felt Revik agree. Then, out of nowhere, he reached back, grabbing my hand. I hadn’t realized he’d walked closer, so I flinched, jumping before I recognized his fingers and clasped them in return. He tugged me closer once I had, then wound an arm around my waist.

  We all walked cautiously back to the edge of the water.

  Releasing my waist, Revik grabbed my hand again, walking along the water’s edge. I felt him scanning the surface, looking for whatever caused the splash before––when he tripped over something and cursed. Gripping his arm to help him keep from falling, I bit my tongue.

  “What?” I said. “What is it?”

  “A rope.” A frown touched his voice. “No. Well… yes. But it’s some kind of organic.”

  Taking my hand, he brought it down to the material, which was higher up than I’d realized, maybe three and a half feet above the stone shore. The rope was spongey, skin-like to the touch, and about as thick as two of my fingers.

  It was taut, like it was attached to something on both sides.

  “Do we use this to pull it back?” I said, doubtful. “The boat, or raft, or whatever it is?”

  “No. I don’t think so,” Balidor said, walking up to us from my right. “I think it brings us there. To the waterfall.”

  Looking through Revik’s Barrier vision once more, I saw the faint outline of the rope start at the wall behind us, and stretch all the way across the dark water. I saw an octagonal object bobbing on the water a few yards from shore.

  Just then, there was a loud splash.

  Again, I jumped, unable to help it in the dark.

  Through Revik’s vision, I saw the light body of one of our people wading out into the water.

  “Cass.” Balidor sounded annoyed. “You have no idea what’s in that fucking water!”

  “Someone had to go get it,” she called back. “I’m sure it’s fine. Cold as fuck, but it smells okay. Anyway, we’d see any sea creatures, right? What do we have here… ten seers? Or are you thinking vampires? No life force? Room temperature?”

  In my mind’s eye, I saw Balidor scowl.

  “Don’t get any of it in your mouth,” he said.

  In the same way I’d seen him scowl, I saw Cass roll her eyes.

  I saw the smile on her face, too.

  Minutes later, she was coming back, dragging the octagonal thing behind her.

  “It’s a raft,” she pronounced, as she splashed her way back through the last foot or so of water. Panting a bit from the cold, she climbed back up onto the stone shore, then turned around, feeling over the thing she’d brought back.

  “I don’t know if it’s big enough for all of us,” she said, doubtful.

  “We’re not splitting up,” I said, warning. “Some of us will swim if we have to.”

  “Everyone fits,” Feigran said, sing-song. “Cozy, cozy, everyone fits.”

  There was another silence.

  Then Revik grunted a laugh.

  “You heard the crazy fuck,” he said. “Let’s get on.” Pausing, he turned his head, presumably towards the rest of the group. “Leave anything you don’t absolutely need.” He aimed his voice at Illeg and Dalai. “That doesn’t include the two guns we have that actually work.”

  I heard people shedding backpacks, taking off organic guns and rifles they wore, either in holsters or on straps around their shoulders and backs. After a bare hesitation, I shed my own gun and holster, then the thick coat I wore, then my headset. The handheld, and a munitions belt followed, along with some organic goggles I’d brought for use in the caves.

  Given the fried electronics, I figured there wasn’t much point in any of it.

  I kept the flip knife, the armored vest and the rope. After a bare hesitation, I tossed the baton onto the pile of things on the shore, too, along with a bunch of flares, a few organic grenades and a smoke bomb from pockets in my vest.

  Next to me, I felt Revik remove two holsters and guns, his handheld and headset, two of his knives, and the small pack he wore with grenades and extra magazines. He kept
the long knife, although he sheathed it and strapped the sheath to his thigh so it would follow the length of his leg. He kept the knife in his boot, too.

  Within seconds, the piles had grown, and we were all more or less ready.

  As if at a silent signal, we all began climbing onto the raft. Cass got on first. Balidor, Feigran and Varlan followed. Illeg, Dalai, Stanley and Holo followed them.

  Revik and I got on last.

  It was tight.

  I more or less sat on Revik. I could feel that others were pretty cozy, too.

  Still, despite the number of us, the raft didn’t sink any lower into the water, and it didn’t feel like we were in danger of capsizing it.

  Revik caught hold of the rope, and all of the seers on that side of the raft used it to pull us along the surface of the water. From what I could tell, that meant Revik himself, Varlan, Holo, Dalai and Stanley. The rest of us just sat there, listening to the sound of the waterfall getting louder as we slowly moved towards it.

  I continued to scan the cave, which felt even bigger now that we were moving out into the part where the ceiling rose high above the water.

  The water also felt a hell of a lot deeper.

  I found myself scanning ahead, trying to discern more about the presence behind the waterfall. I could feel it more strongly already, but most of what I felt puzzled me more than illuminated anything.

  There was definitely something strange about the consciousness I felt there.

  I couldn’t even tell for certain if it was one consciousness or multiple consciousnesses. I wasn’t sure if it could feel us approaching, either, much less if it saw us as a threat, or was preparing to defend itself in some way.

  I wondered if my difficulty in discerning anything of value about it had something to do with the pregnancy blindness.

  No, Revik sent, from where he pulled on the rope to my left. No. I can’t feel anything either. There’s something wrong with it.

  I felt his frown in the dark.

  What? I sent. What aren’t you saying?

  It’s nothing, he said after a pause. I could tell from his voice and light he was still scanning. It just reminds me of something. Something I haven’t felt in a long time. I wasn’t sure at first, but the closer we get, the more I feel it. I can’t tell what the exact connection is, though––

  What? I sent. What does it remind you of?