“Not that I am aware of, and certainly no one could have done so en route. No one was inside the security room at any point.”
“Well…” Holly said, raising her eyebrows. “You were.”
Grav’s expression changed in an instant. “Listen, Hollywood: if you have something to say to me, say it. I have to get these kids somewhere safe — with or without you — so I do not have time for your guessing games. Tell me what you think is going on here.”
In Grav’s eyes, Holly saw impatience rather than secrecy or any fear of being uncovered. She considered the unlikely but stubborn thought that wouldn’t leave her mind, and she knew that no one who knew something like that to be true would be able to keep a straight face when called out on it.
“Spit it out,” Grav said.
Partly to test his reaction and partly to get it out of her mind, Holly finally said it: “I think we might be on Earth.”
fifteen
“You think we might be on Earth?” Grav echoed, his face contorting.
Holly stayed quiet. Though Grav’s immediate reaction didn’t seem like the reaction of someone whose secret had just been called out, she wanted to give it a few more seconds to be sure.
“Wait…” he said. “Do you think we could have passed through a wormhole or some crazy sci-fi shit like that?”
That sealed it. “Nothing like that,” she said.
“No,” Grav said, shaking away the idea. “I know we cannot be on Earth; the horizon is much too close. What could possibly make you think that this place — this… thing — is Earth?”
Holly hesitated before forcing the words out: “It’s just… they’ve done this kind of thing before.”
“What kind of thing?”
“They pretended to send a group into space then forced an emergency landing.”
Grav moved in closer and lowered his voice. “What the fuck are you talking about? Who did that?”
“MXA,” Holly said, now talking in a hushed tone even though the Harringtons were still working through Grav’s bag of snacks at too great a distance to hear her words. “You know, Morrison Astronautics? It went wrong, so they covered it up. He covered it up.”
“If he covered it up, how do you know about it?”
“I was there. It was an experiment to see how the group dynamic would react to a hopeless situation and certain death. They called it a psychological fitness test. This was fifteen years ago, not long after I left the public program. Everything outside our craft was fake. Simulated.”
It was Grav’s turn to have doubts. “A story like that would get out,” he said. “Too many people would have to know.”
“No one had anything to gain from talking because no one who was involved came out of it well. People died.”
“So why did you not talk? With a truth like that, why keep quiet?”
Holly hesitated again, this time for far longer, before sharing the part of the story that still kept her up at night. “The two people that died… they didn’t kill themselves.”
A twisted smile crept across Grav’s face. “Well, well, well. I did not think you had it in you.”
“I don’t.”
“Do not worry, Princess. Your secret is safe with me.”
Holly bit her tongue. Rusev and Yury both knew the whole story, but there was no harm in letting Grav think he had something over her. How he handled this perceived power would tell her a lot about him.
“I am guessing you chose to tell me this because you think the same thing could happen again,” Grav said. “But this is different. We know we were really travelling. How many trips have the two of us made? More than I care to remember. A few hours ago we were travelling through the same space we have both travelled through all those times before, right until we hit something and this shit-hole of a planet appeared from nowhere and pulled us in. These are the things I know, Hollywood. All of them. If you know something I do not, now would be the time to share it.”
“That man behind you,” Holly said, looking over Grav’s shoulder. “His name’s not Norman Tanner. You let three people board the Karrier with two fake travel cards. But luckily for you, your incompetence paid off.”
“What are you talking about now?”
“They needed fake cards to reach the launch site because that man is Olivia Harrington’s husband. Those are her kids. The girl’s tough and the boy’s smart. I think he has some info that the station could use; info that could help to bring Morrison and the GU down.”
Grav immediately left Holly and walked directly to Robert. “Is it true?” he asked, making no effort to keep his words from the children. “They killed her because the things she was saying about the famine being deliberately engineered were true?”
“Every word,” Robert said.
Grav put his hands on his head and ran them backwards and forwards against his roughly stubbled scalp. “I thought I knew what that scumbag was capable of,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. “But this? The famine has killed more people than every war in history. And for what?”
No one had an answer.
“We need to make a move,” Holly announced. “We can talk on the way, but we have to go. How far to Rusev’s lander?”
“I trekked for over two hours to get here,” Grav said, “but I set off fast, so it would probably take us at least three to get back there as a group. Looking at where the sun is now, I would say that is too long. The best thing to do is go back to your lander for the night then head out again at first light. I know that makes tomorrow’s trek a lot further, but we really cannot take the risk of being caught in the dark.”
“I agree,” Holly said, deliberately using these explicit words in an effort to present unity. “And since we don’t know exactly how long the night is going to be, it’s important that everyone gets some sleep as soon as we get back so we’re all ready to head out as soon as the sun comes up. Everyone on board with that?”
“Makes sense,” Viola said.
“My feet hurt,” Bo groaned. It was a groan of pain rather than complaint.
Grav stepped beside him and crouched down. “Want to sit on my shoulders, kiddo?”
Bo didn’t need to be asked twice.
Robert took Bo’s small suitcase while Holly offered to carry the even smaller bag he’d been carrying in his other hand. She asked Robert to place this small bag inside her backpack, making use of the space created by the first empty water container which had now been folded flat. Robert noticed Holly’s potted plant and carefully lifted it out.
“What’s this?” he asked.
Grav turned to see what it was then turned back to Holly, looking confused. “Did you take that from the utility room?”
She nodded, soon relieved that Grav didn’t push for an explanation as to why. It wasn’t that she was at all embarrassed or worried about what he thought; she simply wouldn’t have known how to answer succinctly.
“I’ll take it,” Robert said. “Bo’s bag could crush it, and I have some space in mine.”
Holly thanked him as he securely refastened her backpack. The significant weight of the group’s remaining water supply caused the shoulder straps to dig painfully into her skin, but past experience had taught her that it would feel even worse if she took it off and put it back on.
“Be careful with that,” Viola said to Holly. “His medicine’s in there.”
“Safest place on the planet,” Holly promised. Given the number of straps securing the backpack to her body — around her waist as well as over her shoulders — this was hardly an exaggeration.
Everyone then firmly agreed with Robert’s suggestion that it made sense to walk around the mound rather than over it, seeing as there was no longer any need for the elevated vantage point provided by the summit. The distance around was hardly any further than the distance over, Robert said, with the obvious exertion-saving benefit of having no elevation to contend with.
When the group reached the side of the mound, which to
ok no more than five minutes, something entirely unexpected became visible.
“Woah,” Viola said, spotting it first. “Is that… an entrance?”
Sure enough, there was a ground-level gap in the side of the rocky mound. Its shape was irregular and natural-looking.
“It looks like a cave,” Grav thought out loud. He lifted Bo from his shoulders and place him on the ground. “Wait here; I will check it out.”
He proceeded keenly towards the opening.
“Don’t go in,” Holly called.
Grav ignored her and ducked his head to cross the threshold. “There is light coming from the top,” he yelled. “Holy shit, there is water! I am on a ledge and this whole place is full of water! It is right below me!”
Everyone ran in to see.
A surprising amount of light filled the cave, illuminating the even more surprising amount of water. Grav stood on an overhanging tongue-like protrusion.
“Get back,” Viola called to him.
“Huh? Why?”
“The ground is cracking!”
Holly responded to Viola’s words before Grav did, dashing forward and successfully pulling him back before the far end of the ledge crumbled into the water from a height of at least ten metres.
“Thanks,” Grav said.
“Get your goddamn head screwed on,” Holly barked at him, too angry at his recklessness to think about tempering her words for the children’s benefit.
“I did not know that was going to happen,” Grav said.
Before Holly could tell Grav that such uncertainty of outcome was precisely why he shouldn’t take stupid risks, a huge chunk of ground under her own feet suddenly gave way. This was a far bigger section giving way far more quickly than during the previous break-off, and the danger was immediately apparent.
Holly desperately and instinctively extended her arms and dug her hands and nails into the new edge. Though her fingers ached under the incredible tension, those on her right hand had a firm-for-now grip by the time Grav carefully lowered himself to the ground.
“Nothing sudden,” he said calmly. “Do not move. I will grab you.”
“Hurry up,” Holly pleaded. “My fingers are starting to—”
“Holly!” Viola screamed.
The last thing Holly saw was Robert grabbing hold of the girl to stop her from running forward.
Holly’s determined grip was of little use when the ten-inch thick section of the ledge she was so desperately holding onto suddenly broke away without warning and sent her hurtling towards the water below.
There were no sticking-out pieces of rock for her to grab at the last second; no heroic hand grasping her arm from above.
Her feet hit the water first, after a much longer fall than anyone expected. Nothing could have prepared Holly for the icy chill of the cavern’s pool, but within an instant of the impact that was the last thing on her mind.
She tried frantically to detach her airtight backpack’s countless clips and buckles as its weight hastened her descent, cursing the water containers inside it and cursing her fatigued fingers’ betrayal as they failed completely to detach it from her sinking body.
Several seconds after entering the water, she was still dropping like a lead weight.
Down…
down…
down.
sixteen
Though Holly reached the floor of the cave’s pool only after a terrifyingly prolonged descent, she could at least see hints of light coming down from above. This gave her hope.
There was a chance.
Her arm movement was greatly restricted by the size of the backpack. Its size combined with the weight of its contents to make a mockery of Holly’s desperate attempts to push off from the ground and swim to the surface. It may as well have been a steel chain around her neck or a concrete block attached to her feet, and she realised very quickly that jettisoning it as soon as possible provided her only chance of survival.
Holly didn’t have to consciously call upon the underwater training she had endured long ago — the benefits came automatically. Without the memories of spending two minutes at the bottom of a training pool, she would have been sabotaging her chances with panicked splashing and defeatist thinking. The training pool hadn’t been anywhere near this cold, of course, but then the stakes hadn’t been anywhere near this high.
After around twenty seconds of submersion, Holly’s fingers — weak and cramping from their desperate efforts to grip the ledge moments earlier — finally managed to unclip the stubborn buckle around her waist. This created enough slack for her to unclip one of its shoulder buckles and wriggle her left arm free.
The sudden shift in weight pulled Holly forward until her body was roughly jerked towards an unseen jagged rock which stabbed at her thigh like a skewer. It took everything she had not to open her mouth and scream.
As her heart-rate rose and her calmness evaporated, Holly’s hands followed the loose shoulder strap and soon fell upon the guilty rock. The inevitable lack of visual acuity that came with being this far underwater made it impossible to be sure whether the strap was hooked around one rock or wedged between two.
Her vision was then worsened by a huge disruption in the water as bubbles surrounded her and what looked like a diving body came into view.
Her first thought was anger: anger at Grav for abandoning the Harringtons.
This thought lasted mere seconds, fading the instant Holly felt the slenderness of the hand touching hers. A glimmer of blonde in the would-be rescuer’s long hair then confirmed their identity beyond doubt:
Viola.
Viola tried in vain to dislodge the backpack from the rock formation. After only two attempts to yank it free, she turned her attention to the shoulder buckles which were stopping Holly from leaving it behind.
The girl squeezed the clip harder and for longer than she had ever squeezed anything in her life, straining intensely until suddenly her efforts paid off. Holly prevented her from falling into the jagged rock when the release of tension in the strap pulled her forward, and with the backpack abandoned on the murky floor they both swam to the surface as quickly as they could.
Holly reached the welcoming light and life-giving air after a laboured ascent, by which time Viola was already safely treading water.
“Are you okay?” Viola asked.
Grav, Bo and Robert screamed the same sentiment from the ledge high above, too close to the edge for Holly’s liking.
She told them to get back in no uncertain terms, then continued taking gasping breaths to give her lungs the oxygen they craved. “I’m fine,” she panted.
Viola moved beside Holly and guided her towards a certain point of the rounded wall. There was no easy way out — from down here, what they’d previously thought of as a cave seemed more like a well — but there were reachable rocks on this section of wall which they could hold onto for now.
“I will get the rope,” Grav yelled from his unseen position.
Viola swept her long hair from her forehead. “Will you be okay on your own for a minute?”
“What do you mean?” Holly asked, some way towards catching her breath.
“While I dive back down to get Bo’s medicine.”
Holly saw in Viola’s eyes that her desire to recover the medicine was not one which could have been reasoned with, even had Holly wanted to. The girl was evidently a more than competent swimmer, anyway, so Holly answered only by nodding.
“Is there anything else in the backpack that we need?” Viola asked.
“We have plenty more water containers in the lander and apart from those there was just a few blankets, matches and a rope. Grav already has a rope and it’s not like we could throw ours high enough for them to catch it.”
“So… no?”
“Just his medicine,” Holly confirmed. She then watched in awe as Viola elegantly dove towards the pool’s floor.
Having heeded Holly’s firm warning to get away from the ledge, none of the others knew
that Viola had gone back under. Holly looked up at the distant ledge and imagined what Robert must have been thinking when Viola jumped off, almost certainly without his permission. It was a high enough fall for improper form to cause a serious impact injury; the longer Holly looked up, the more impressed she was by Viola’s bravery.
After fifty-two seconds, by Holly’s count, Viola emerged from the water with Bo’s medicine case. “I got it,” she said, taking several gulps of air.
Holly smiled at her from the wall. “You got it.”
While Grav’s emergency rope was more than strong enough to hold Holly’s weight, she had less confidence in the ledge it was dangling from.
After repeated reassurances from above that the remaining ledge felt far more secure than the various fragments which had already broken off, and with no other way out, Holly insisted that Viola go first. This was non-negotiable; should anything go wrong during Viola’s ascent, Holly wanted to be waiting below to help her.
Viola reached the safety of Robert’s arms without any difficulties. Holly’s mind wouldn’t shut up about the fact that she likely weighed at least one and a half Violas, which might prove too much for the fragile ledge to bear. Fortunately, it didn’t.
Grav immediately pulled Holly well away from the ledge and out towards the barren landscape she never would have believed she’d be so relieved to see. When they were outside, he hugged her tightly. “Jesus, Hollywood, do not scare me like that.”
“Don’t scare you? That only happened because you—”
Holly’s response was cut off by the arrival of Bo, who ran towards her and clung to her waist like a limpet. “I thought you had drowned,” he said, speaking in that straightforward way only a child could.
Robert, having no doubt already either embraced or scolded Viola during Holly’s climb — some combination of the two, she imagined — followed Bo over.
“I’m sorry,” Holly said before he could speak. “I didn’t ask her to jump in.”
“I know. You didn’t do anything wrong. If I hadn’t suggested walking around this thing instead of over—”
Terradox Page 7
