“What kind of phantoms?”
“Used to be men, but cursed/fell. Now just phantoms/monsters. Consume/defeat Pirikura.”
Allison paused to consider the implications of the consume/defeat translation. “One of our tribe is missing. Do you think the phantoms are responsible?”
“Yes. Phantoms/monsters take Pirikura sometimes. Take your man.”
“Can you show us where the phantoms live?”
“No. Forbidden. Danger.” The mother moved closer so that only Allison could hear her whisper. “Our men no warriors/heroes.”
She had a point. Predictably, the tribe’s physical stature had suffered somewhat from the strongest men getting inebriated and throwing themselves off a ten-meter tower once a year.
“We don’t need you to take us there; I just want you to show us on this map.” Allison held her hands wide to encompass the holo of the area.
“I no know where,” she said. “But Tolo do.”
“Tolo?”
“Tolo!” the mother shouted. “Tolo!”
The circle of villagers parted from around a young man, no more than a teenager. With a little prodding, he stepped forward. The mother leaned close to his face as if to whisper, but spoke to him with a strong voice. Only then did Allison notice that he had no ears.
“Tell Al-lee-son where you escape phantoms/monsters.”
He threw up his hands and shook his head violently. “No go back. Never. Forbidden. Understand now.”
“That’s all right, Tolo.” Allison looked back to the mother. “Tell him he just needs to point at it.”
She did so. Tolo nodded and stepped up to study the display, its tiny village, and the river. His face scrunched up as he tried to work it out. Then, he jammed a finger at a point roughly three kilometers west of where Felix’s trail had faded out.
“There!”
“Thank you, Tolo.” Even though Allison knew he couldn’t understand, it needed to be said.
Piya’s mother spoke again. “You go, phantoms/monsters consume/defeat you, too.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
Allison looked straight at Harris and his squad, bristling with machine guns and muscles.
“Because I brought my own phantoms/monsters.”
CHAPTER 28
The smell of smoke roused Felix. He tried to open his eyes, but the lids were gummed shut. His hands and feet were bound and secured to a pole. The rope and wood had rubbed his wrists raw.
Calm, Felix. This is no time to go to pieces. The smoke was coming from a fire. He could feel the heat on the left side of his body, but his right side was clammy. Wherever he was, it was cooler than the forest had been, even at night. The fire snapped, crackled, and popped, each sound reverberating several times. The pops meant a wood fire, and the echoes told Felix he was in an enclosed space. And the chill air …
A cave, he thought. I’m underground. But how deep? He tried to force his eyes open, pulling against whatever glued the lids together. After several attempts, a tiny aperture finally tore open over his left eye. The fire blinded him for several moments until his eye adjusted to the light. Deep shadows contrasted the shifting light from the fire, but it was apparent to Felix that the cavern was actually a room. The cave’s surface had been roughly hewn into four walls and a floor. About two meters from the floor, the tool marks ended. Lethal stalactites held fast to the roof like the dentures of an ancient war god.
Felix swiveled his head down to investigate the bindings at his ankles. His clothes were missing. In their place was a network of dotted lines that bore an unsettling resemblance to a butcher’s diagram. A metallic glint drew Felix’s attention away from the lines drawn around his muscles. Sitting atop the fire at the center of the room was a bright copper cauldron. Steam boiled away into the air.
All right, maybe this is the time to go to pieces. Felix laughed, surprising himself with the morbid pun. Then, he laughed harder, a manic sound that had little to do with good humor. The sound of footsteps betrayed the presence of others, and Felix abruptly cut the laugh track. Three men of the same tribe that had kidnapped him walked swiftly to where he was tied. Their dark body paint had kept them hidden in the shadows of the room until now.
The largest of the three stood directly in front of Felix and shot him a glare that would wither a cactus. He put a spotted hand over his mouth and pointed to the far side of the campfire. There, Felix caught a glimpse of another man, older, but his skin was still stretched taut over swollen muscles. He wore the same pattern of body paint as the others, but he was also adorned with leggings and an elaborate headdress made of leaves.
Most ominously, three dozen desiccated human ears hung from a cord around his neck. That was when the silence hit Felix like a slap to the face. Now that he knew to look for them, he could spot over a dozen tribesmen skulking in the shadows. Yet the room was as quiet as a tomb.
The ears. The tribe was listening for something. Something too quiet for a human to hear with the paltry pair of ears granted them by nature.
Out of pure spite, Felix decided to add some background noise. “What are you all listening to? Must be awful quiet for you to need all those extra ears.”
The closest tribesman lunged forward and clamped a hand over Felix’s mouth and shot him a glare.
What the heck? Felix thought. I’m already being held by cannibals. It isn’t like things can get much worse. So he opened his mouth and bit down on the inside of his aggressor’s hand. The man reflexively tried to pull away. Felix bit down harder until he felt the skin tear and blood seep into his mouth.
Finally, the man wrenched his hand out of Felix’s teeth and cried out in pain. As his scream echoed, every other head in the room snapped to attention. The two men accompanying Felix’s aggressor moved with a flash, ripping open the man’s neck with stone knives. Blood sprayed from the gaping wound like a broken showerhead as the victim crashed to the floor, futilely grasping his ruined throat.
Felix had never seen such a level of violence and gore with his own eyes. His bravado quickly evaporated, and he began to feel light-headed. The two executioners turned to face Felix. His heart missed a beat. Then another. Then, reflecting on the fact that it had been working nonstop its whole life without so much as a sick day, it decided right then and there to take a vacation. So Felix passed out.
* * *
Did anyone else hear that? Harris thought into his implanted com.
You mean the scream, sir? Tillman responded.
Yeah. Did either of your sniper-sniffers get a fix on it?
No, too many echoes in here. All mine reads is Forward.
Same here, sir, confirmed Private First Class Lyska.
My ears told me that much, Harris thought. What would we do without modern technology?
The trio shared a mental chuckle as Harris led them deeper into the network of tunnels that made up the Cave of the Creators. Harris had left a two-man unit at the mouth of the caves to ensure no one snuck up behind them.
With every step, radar integrated into their armor recorded a three-dimensional scan of their journey, which would later provide a map back to the surface. This same radar fed a false-color rendering of the cave’s interior into the team’s helmet visors in real time, allowing them to move in the total darkness with speed and grace, as opposed to the time-tested, curse-laden method of locating obstacles in the dark by bashing into them with one’s forehead, shin, or big toe.
Well, maybe technology isn’t all bad, Harris thought, not into his com. That trick had taken him a few days to master. His unit pushed forward as swiftly as they could without making too much noise.
The scream kept playing through Harris’s head like an irritating radio jingle. It didn’t exactly sound like Felix, but he couldn’t be sure. Sound changes after bouncing off enough walls, and people under stress don’t always sound like themselves.
I’ve got something here, sir, Tillman broke in. Mr. Fletcher’s com signa
l.
Felix? Felix, come in, please. Harris let several heartbeats pass waiting for an answer. How far off is it?
Can’t say, sir. It’s weak, and we’re too deep to get any GPS fix, but it definitely came from the same direction as that scream.
Then we need to double-time it, kiddies.
Abandoning silence, the squad launched themselves down the passageway. With each passing second, Harris cared less and less about the commotion they were making. He just wanted to reach his friend in time.
Felix, please respond.
Static.
Taking up point ahead of Harris, Corporal Tillman skidded to a stop. Harris was about to ask why when an alarm light flashed in his helmet’s display. The armor’s chemical sniffers had picked something up.
Any number of toxic gases could build deep inside a cave. Harris held his breath until the sniffers finished their analysis. The results rolled down his display: methane, butane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbon particulates …
Harris recognized the ingredients and smelled the air. Smoke. And where there’s smoke …
There’s a fire ahead, people. Probably from torches or a campfire. Warm up your adaptive camo. His team obeyed, and thousands of tiny eyes told two square meters of synthetic cuttlefish skin what it should be mimicking. Which was, for the moment, black.
The squad advanced at a dead sprint. Felix’s com signal grew stronger until Harris could see biosensor data confirming he was still alive. Alive, but at the edge of consciousness.
“Felix!” Harris shouted. He hadn’t meant to actually vocalize, it just came out.
Hello?
Felix? Harris thought.
Who’s this? How did you get into my brain?
It’s Tom, Felix. We’re on our way to rescue you.
Oh, wonderful. I’m going schizophrenic. They must have hit me with that rock harder than I thought.
What? Harris was confused. I didn’t copy your last.
He thinks he’s hearing voices, sir, Tillman interrupted. He’s forgotten about the im-com. Might be a concussion.
Right. Felix, you’re not hearing voices. It’s Tom. I’m talking to you through a radio. We’re heading toward your position, but I need you to give me some intel.
What do you want to know, tiny Tom in my head? Felix said.
Tell me about your surroundings, Harris answered. Is there cover where you are? Is there light? How many hostiles are with you?
Well, there were twelve or so, but we’re down one. You should be quiet, Tom. These guys take their vows of silence very seriously.
Harris held up a fist to bring the squad to a halt. They’re quiet?
Yeah, pathologically quiet. They nearly decapitated one of their own guys for shouting.
Why?
I don’t know, but I think they’re listening for something.
Harris bared his teeth. So they probably wouldn’t be too happy about a flash-bang, would they?
Well, no. But then, neither would I, if it comes right down to it.
Can’t be helped. It’s the best way to neutralize them. Is there a leader?
Yes. He’s wearing a funny hat. You can’t miss him.
Are they armed?
Stone knives and clubs, but only a few of them are holding weapons.
Good. Anything else you can tell me?
Yeah. You need to hurry, because I’m tied to a post, and they’re planning to cook me.
Cook you? But that’s crazy; you don’t have enough meat on you to feed twelve people.
That’s not funny, Tom.
Just hang in there, little buddy.
Harris signaled the rest of his squad to resume their advance, but silently. The signal from Felix’s com was strong enough that Harris could get an accurate measure of the distance between them. Fifty meters was all that separated Harris and his squad from their first encounter with an enemy force. He’d planned for hostile aliens, not a lost tribe of Amazonian cannibals, but the day was young.
A trickle of yellow light began to push against the pitch black of the cave. The fire was around the next corner. The squad lined up against the wall in a classic room-breaching stack. Harris pulled a small sphere out of his waist pack and twisted the two hemispheres until a red dot appeared at the top.
All right. Tillman, Lyska, we’re aiming for zero casualties. Don’t shoot the natives unless absolutely necessary. Felix, close your eyes and say, “Ahh.”
Why?
Just do it.
Ahhh—
Not in your head. Out loud!
Oh, sorry. “Ahhhh!”
Harris casually tossed the orb into the room and threw his hands over his ears. The grenade worked off a proximity fuse, and when it detected that it was 1.5 meters from the ground …
Bang!
The flash-bang went off right at eye level of everyone in the room. Half a blink later, Harris, Tillman, and Lyska poured in, throwing the stunned tribesmen to the cold floor. Several of them tried to fight back against the unseen attackers, but their knives swung blindly. Resistance only gained them a rifle butt to the back of the head.
In less than ten seconds, Harris’s three-man squad had subdued the enemy and secured the room.
“Tillman, Lyska, herd the prisoners into the far corner.” Harris pulled out his combat knife and moved behind the post Felix was lashed to. Three quick swipes of the blade and the bindings fell to the floor. Harris moved around to face his friend. “C’mon, Felix, we need to leave.”
What’s that? Use the implant.
Your ears still ringing?
Are you kidding? I can barely hear you in here. Never mind out there. What were you saying?
That we need to de-ass the area with the quickness.
Not yet. Something’s weird here.
You mean weirder than being kidnapped by mute savages planning to whip up an entrée of Fletcher fricassee?
Point … but still.
Felix.
What?
You realize you’re still naked, right?
Oh.
While Felix located his clothes, Harris eyed the prisoners nervously. They still suffered from the effects of the flash-bang and the shock from his team’s sudden overrun, but that could wear off at any time. Harris wasn’t sure the natives truly understood the threat his squad represented. They’d never seen an assault rifle and couldn’t know that any one of the marines could kill every last one of them in a few heartbeats, if motivated to do so.
Every passing moment increased the odds one of the tribesmen would overcome their fear, or be overcome by it, and make a move that would trigger a massacre.
“You’ve got five minutes, Felix. Then we clear out.”
Felix paced the room with a look of consternation. A minute passed. Then he spun around on his heel and pointed a finger at the cauldron on top of the fire.
“There! What exactly is a stone-working tribe doing with a pot made of refined copper?”
“Um, cooking?”
“Well, yes, obviously, but where did they get it? They have no metal in their weapons or any of their jewelry. They must have found it around here somewhere.” Felix turned a critical eye back to the wall and the tool marks pocking the surface. “Look over here at these marks. They couldn’t have been carved by hand; they’re too evenly spaced.”
Harris shrugged. “Okay, and…?”
“And … that means this room was carved out by whoever brought these people here.”
“That makes sense. The Pirikura call this place the ‘Cave of the Creators.’”
“Creators, huh?” Felix ran his hand along the wall for several meters. He paused and swept back over a particular section several more times. “Do those visors of yours see into the infrared?”
“Sure can.” Harris mentally pulled up his display options and switched his helmet overlay from the false-color radar to IR. “Whoa.”
“Let me guess, there’s a hot spot in the shape of a door.”
“Yeah. How did you know that?”
“Their leader was listening to this part of the wall. I figured something or someone walked out of this door long ago, triggering a myth. They’ve probably been coming here to eavesdrop on their gods ever since.”
“I’ll buy that. So what do we do?” Harris asked.
“Go back to the surface and call in Captain Ridgeway’s survey team.”
“What for?”
Felix smiled. “To break in, of course.”
CHAPTER 29
Commander Gruber sat alone in Magellan’s conference room, although alone was a relative term. Telepresent at the table were holos of Captain Tiberius aboard the Bucephalus and Captain Ridgeway, still on the surface of Solonis B. Floating above the middle of the table was footage from inside the Cave of the Creators.
Allison’s image was narrating a walk-through of their discoveries. “Here’s where things get weird. Mr. Fletcher found a door hidden in the wall of this rough-cut antechamber. We searched for a release for over an hour without luck. Eventually, we gave up and went back to the shuttle for a boring laser—”
Maximus’s ghost cut her off. “Boring? I always thought lasers are pretty exciting, myself.”
“A mining laser, Maximus, for boring holes.”
“I knew that.”
Allison clenched her teeth. “Anyway, we melted through without any trouble.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Gruber chuckled. “Whoever put it there probably wasn’t expecting the Pirikura to build a megawatt-range laser anytime soon.”
“Too true,” Allison replied. “Once we moved inside the room, carefully, here’s what we found…”
The holo-recording resumed, sweeping through the darkened doorway. As soon as the cameraman crossed the threshold, the room beyond lit up in response. Organic webs of iridescent wires pulsed along the smooth walls, just like the inside of the buoy.
One by one, images appeared on the walls. The Pirikura village came to life from a dozen different viewpoints. Women and children walked up and down the dirt roads and boulevards, blissfully unaware of the voyeurs peering at them from beneath the ground. Allison paused the replay.
“Yikes,” Maximus said. “It’s an observation post. But why bother spying on these people? They’re no threat.”
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