by Garry Ocean
Nick thought that Whisperer’s voice was carrying the notes of nostalgia for the times long passed when the old man continued, “But what could happen to it anyway, such a steady rock?”
Everyone realized immediately which rock he was talking about. The rock was sticking alone, like a huge finger, from the ground all cracked up around it.
Without adding a single word, the old man led his troop straight to the rock.
“Let’s camp underneath it first, take a little break,” Whisperer set himself down on the ground heavily. “And then we’ll do some reconnaissance of the surroundings.”
No one objected. The companions were relieved to drop their back bags on the ground and sat right on them with great pleasure. Cleo leaned her back against the rock, and, gracefully stretching, let her tired legs rest on the ground.
“I have to admit,” the girl took off her leather boots and happily moved her numb toes, “I have never walked so much in one day.”
“Yes, sorry about what happened to the sloths,” Sith took from his bag a moldy piece of bread. “Here, have some, the Greatest-Born One!”
He broke a half and gave it to the girl, saying, “It is made of three different herbs. Tasty!” The boy rolled his eyes in a funny way. “And Whisperer will tell you I’m not lying when saying that it gives you strength for the whole day.”
“Thank you,” Cleo broke off a little piece and put it in her mouth, apprehensively.
“Chew it up, don’t be afraid!” the boy encouraged her. “I’ve eaten it myself and would have finished it, but it’s not enough!”
Cleo chocked up. Sith realized he’d said something he shouldn’t have and added quickly, “It’s something Valu always says. It’s just like Valu, and he is…” Sith parted his arms as wide as possible, “He is this big. It’s never enough for him, whatever he eats.”
Gunn-Terr got up saying nothing and set toward the encroaching fog.
“Don’t go too far!” Whisperer shouted at him, too late.
The Alvar took his sword out instead of a response and, carefully stepping on the ground, started to walk around the rock along the perimeter, dangerously close to the clouding evaporations.
“I don’t really like this fog,” Sith looked at Whisperer, “It’s like it’s chasing us.”
“It’s feeling us, Sith,” the old man said, detached. His tone made Nick’s skin crawl. “When it envelopes us on all sides, the beasts will start crawling out.”
“Is the hiding place too far from here?” Cleo asked. She was anxiously watching Gunn-Terr. The latter was walking knee-high in the greenish haze. Then he took a turn to go around the rock, and disappeared out of sight.
“No, not too far.”
Nick looked at Whisperer in surprise. The old man now looked like someone who was either in very deep thought about something or listening to something intently, not paying attention to anything around him. Then he shook his head and said hastily, “Do you see over there, where the shadow from our rock falls?”
The old man nodded his head in an uncertain direction and continued, “That’s where the hiding place is.”
Everyone got up, anxious to make sure that they get to a safe place. The night sky had no clouds. The Dominia was showering the valley and the lonely rock that they were standing at with its even emerald light.
The rock’s long shadow, like a long pointing finger, was aimed at an unremarkable crevice at the very foothill of the mass of cliffs.
“So why are we still sitting here? What are we waiting for?” the girl looked at the hunters, dumbfounded. “Totally exposed in this open space?”
The old man sighed heavily, coughed and said as if unwillingly, in a hoarse voice, “All right, you just sit here and take a break, and Nick and I will go there, check everything out. Nick, give me a hand, why are you standing there frozen, help the old man to get up!”
Chapter 10
They followed along the shadow stretching on the ground and found themselves next to a concealed entry. Whisperer took a second to think, then said, “Duck, watch your head!” and went into the darkness.
Nick looked into the narrow passage suspiciously. He played with his spear, decided that it will be only a burden inside, put it next to a granite wall and only then followed the old man. He decided to keep Gorr’s sword, “Who knows what’s inside there?”
Even when he breathed in and tried to stay as flat as possible, Nick squeezed himself through the narrow rock walls with great difficulty. “It would be funny if I get stuck here! Well, no. Sith will make fun of me till the end of days,” Nick thought and followed Whisperer, ignoring the sharp rocks, on which his clothes were getting stuck and torn. At first Nick tried to keep the old man’s thin back in sight all the time, but the passage was curly as a snake. The narrow path was constantly changing its direction, turning right and left sharply, and sometimes even going straight up.
Then Nick decided that Whisperer would not disappear on him anyway and slowed down a little. So they were proceeding in complete darkness. It was too dark even for Nick’s well adjusted night vision. He saw all the surroundings as something blurred gray. Sometimes he’d notice the glow of very slippery moss on the rocks. Nick caught himself thinking that he was jealous of thin Whisperer who was a lot smaller. But then he scolded himself: In contrasts to Nick, the old man had to make his way in complete darkness, feeling everything out.
So they moved for some time. The silence was only broken by Whisperer’s heavy breathing, the sound of falling rocks and clanking of Nick’s sword that was always getting stuck on something on purpose.
Then the passage widened. Nick took great pleasure in straightening himself out. Now he could proceed almost at his full height. From time to time they’d run into sharp stalactites hanging from the cave ceiling, and only after he hit himself painfully once, Nick remembered the old man’s warning about ducking and watching his head. Suddenly the path went winding sharply up. After a sequence of countless turns they finally came out and found themselves under the open sky.
“Did you hurt your head too bad?” Whisperer asked empathetically, quietly croaking. It was obvious that the old man was quite happy to get out of there himself.
“No, not too bad,” Nick touched a bump on his head. It wasn’t bleeding. “As my grandmother liked to say, ‘it’ll heal before you wed’!”
“Khe-khe-khe,” it wasn’t clear if the old man was coughing or laughing. He straightened his numb back with a great effort and asked, “Did we have the same grandmother, by any chance?”
Nick looked around with great interest. They were standing on a broad rocky platform, resembling a large semi-circle balcony with no guardrails. From there, they had a panoramic view of the valley that their small troop covered in one march. The Dominia’s green eye was impartially hanging over the horizon. Down there, as far as they could see, the entire surface was covered in the cloudy greenish haze. Somewhere faraway, pillars of dirty-green evaporations were breaking into the sky like volcano’s bursts. Gusts of wind were bringing the stench of sulfur and ammonia.
The rock, at the foot of which their friends were anxiously waiting for their return, was lonely sticking out in the open space. From the dense fog enveloping it on all sides, the tentacles of evaporations were extending toward it. The view from above was a lot more real and therefore terrifying: It was clear that the fog was slowly but steadily encapsulating their temporary camp. Somewhere in the depths of it, behind the haze obstructing the view, the green lights were flickering, coming on and off all the time.
The fog’s resemblance to a living organism, moreover, a sentient organism, was so strong that Nick shivered, trying to shake off this impression. He shuddered. This was stupid, unscientific, but he couldn’t find another explanation to what he was seeing.
Nick searched for his friends with his eyes. There they were: Cleo and Sith, standing at the foothill. And there was Gunn-Terr, who had just come back from his reconnaissance. Even from the distance, Nic
k could feel the Alvar’s concern. The latter, still holding the sword in his hand, was looking into the green haze intently. Nick suddenly became angry.
“What the hell is this?” he cursed in Interling. “What is this hellish thing that is hunting us down?”
“Quiet!” Whisperer grabbed him by the sleeve. “We don’t need to create noise now, Nick.”
The old man put his index finger on his lips and repeated, “Quiet! Let’s go!”
To the left of their platform, there was a hardly noticeable trail leading sharply upward. Trying not to make noise on the small rocks that were falling down all the time under his feet, Whisperer started to climb up. In about fifty steps the path turned to the left and they found themselves on a large open platform again. Whisperer stopped in his tracks suddenly, and Nick, who did not expect that, nearly ran into him.
“Back up, Nick! Back away!” Whisperer ducked and started to slowly back up, dragging Nick with him.
Nick did manage to take a look at what was ahead. The picture got engraved in his mind. Nick stopped sharply and, shoving aside Whisperer who was clinging to him, took two steps forward. In the granite rock ahead, there was an entrance into a cave that looked like a raging wolf’s open mouth. The entrance was half-closed with a large boulder that had been rolled to the side. Nick took a deep breath, gathering all his strength not to look away.
The entire area before the cave entrance was piled up with human bodies. Their positions left no doubt that the people died desperately trying to escape from some unknown powerful force. Many, even already fatally wounded, continued to crawl away from the hiding place, men, women, and children. A lot of children. Too many. All the bodies were glowing with this painfully familiar disgusting green light.
“Let’s go Nick, let’s go!” Whisperer was pulling him down. “It’s done! The end. Too late, we can’t help or do anything.”
Nick freed himself from the old man’s fingers clutching him.
“Let go of me, Whisperer. I must see this,” Nick was overwhelmed with anger and rage. The fear was gone. “I need to figure this out, Whisperer. I can’t just let go.”
Nick quickly ran to the nearest body. He squatted down several steps away from the corpse and looked around carefully. Everything was settled and quiet. Nothing moved. Nothing tried to kill him, tear him to pieces, or gobble him up. “So this is what you’re like, dead silence,” Nick thought.
Still squatting, Nick carefully and slowly approached the body. He gagged almost immediately. Nick swallowed several times, trying to suppress the gagging reflex.
“Calm down, Nick!” he ordered himself. “Calm down! Imagine that you are a researcher. You need to establish the cause of death of this person. This is very important!”
He made himself kneel down and inspect the corpse carefully.
The body resembled a deflated rubber doll that lost half of its air. Nick had never seen a dead body so close before. The mandatory hypnocourse on man-made catastrophes did not count. Here, even with his limited knowledge, Nick realized that the body was not decomposing naturally. It looked like a jelly mass. The clothes were partially dissolved and merging into the homogeneous mass with the body. Everything that was human before was emitting a weak glow.
“What the hell is this?” Nick’s mind was trying to answer the only question that mattered. “What the hell is this, indeed?”
Nick took the handle of his sword, but then changed his mind. It would be grossly unethical to poke the lifeless body with the steel. And he didn’t want to touch it with his bare hands. “I wish I a field express tester was here with me!”
It took him some time to notice the movement. With his eyes widely open, Nick was watching, dumbfounded. There was a thin thread of a stream coming out of the pool covering the body and extending toward him. Nick managed to unfreeze when the stream nearly approached his knees. He quickly got up and took several steps back and to the side. The stream froze for a second and then, as if unwillingly, started to retract back into the pool.
“Nick!” he heard Whisperer’s call as if from faraway. The old man was waving at him from behind the rock to come back. “Let’s go! We need to leave!”
Nick didn’t need to be told twice. He gave the body one last look and carefully, trying not to run, rushed to the rock opening where Whisperer was hiding. He could not see numerous streams run in different directions from the pool, like disgusting thin snakes.
*****
When they quickly came down the path, they ran into Gunn-Terr. Behind him, stood scared Cleo and Sith.
“It was dangerous to stay there any longer,” the Alvar explained why they left the temporary camp so suddenly.
Sith nodded his head confirming the Alvar’s words and gave Whisperer his back bag.
“I’m sorry, Nick, I had to leave yours behind,” he wheezed, breathing heavily. “I nearly dropped this one as well. It’s so narrow there, you know, just like in…” the boy looked at the young woman standing to the side and reconsidered what he wanted to say, “like in a yellowbelly’s mouth!”
“What’s THERE?” Gunn-Terr stressed the second word, asking Whisperer.
“Bad stuff,” the old man looked away.
The Alvar nodded, as if satisfied with the answer, shoved him away from the trail and started to climb up, crouching. Whisperer wanted to tell him something, but gave up, waving his arm. Just a couple of minutes later Gunn-Terr came back.
“What are we going to do?” the Alvar’s face was just as calm and expressionless as the granite rocks surrounding them on all sides.
“The hiding place is no more,” Whisperer sounded guilty and helpless at the same time. “We can’t go down. I don’t know.”
“We’ll take the rocks,” the Alvar said firmly. “What do you call them?”
“Bony Ridge,” Whisperer mumbled, not understanding. Then he shivered, as if just waking up, “But how? This is impossible!”
“You think?” Gunn-Terr looked around. “Wait for me here!”
The Alvar fastened his sword on his back and started to climb the steep rock with unbelievable agility. Very soon he disappeared behind the dark rocky ledge on top. The others made a circle, standing defensively back-to-back, without talking. They were looking intensely into the twilight surrounding them.
Down below, they heard hooting and snarling of many different voices that was muffled by long howls breaking here and there. A couple of times, Nick heard the approaching chirping that reminded him of the lighthouse. The chirping was getting closer and closer, and Nick thought that the darkness would be filled at any time with the ruby color of unblinking eyes. His imagination quickly drew the hordes of sharp chitin claws drumming their deadly beat.
Nick inhaled deeply, the pain in his lungs crying for relief, several times. “Now, this will not do at all! I need to calm down and pull myself together!” When his head cleared, he started to think logically, “It is clear that for now the creatures are still below us. And the sounds from below are amplified by the narrow crack that we crawled through to get here.”
What was bothering him now was the dead, almost palpable, silence from above, where the destroyed hiding place was. “What is the disgusting thing that gobbled up these poor people?” Nick remembered the dead lighthouse watchman, whose chest was invaded by a real bush and hardly managed to suppress the gagging reflex again. Nick was ready to fight face to face any number of yellowbellies and other creatures like them. But something that was turning people into the biological mass, turf for flowers was causing an overwhelming fear and awe.
And then he remembered his father’s story about a mysterious life form encountered by a team of Earth explorers on the faraway planet named Hanimed. The first expedition reported excitedly to the Center that they found another world with an environment suitable for humans. People started full-scale preparation to colonize the planet but further events showed that not everything was that simple.
Most of the planet’s surface was covered w
ith lakes of various sizes, depth, and density. To exobiologists’ delight, there were numerous organic compounds in them. In the planet’s equator zone, the pseudo-lakes reminded them of a boiling bouillon, and toward the poles they were frozen into the jelly. The researchers were puzzled why life on the planet did not evolve into more complex organisms despite such favorable conditions. Soon the answer was found, under tragic circumstances that claimed three human lives.
One day, the base shift chief looked over the batch of reports from the mapping probes and noticed a small discrepancy. In the very center of the Petri Bouillon, as someone fittingly called one of the largest lakes on the planet, there formed two spots of dry surface of an unusual shape. This was strange because the data readers did not register even the slightest seismic activity in that region. The shift chief rechecked the data and, making sure that the day before there were no islands in that part of the lake, sent the information to the base commander Ivan Gromov, attaching the aerial snapshots of the region that puzzled him so much.
Gromov was busy at the time: The wave engineers were doing the last tests of the zero-platform. The base was getting ready to go online to receive the necessary equipment. When the zero-communication was being installed, practically all the services and units of the base were involved in the works. This is why the message was transferred down and down the chain of command, until it reached three bored exobiologists-interns.
They were young doctoral students who had just shortly before that arrived to Hanimed with the most useless and boring task, as they thought, coming from their research supervisor, professor Albert Semenovich Perelman, chair of the Exobiology Department of the Louis Paster Institute. While studying the probes of the bouillon delivered to Earth from Hanimed, he noticed strange reactions of the organic compounds to the outside or external agitators. At first the professor wanted to write everything off to the mistakes in storage and transportation of the samples, but his innate curiosity and academic accuracy overturned his initial assessment and he decided to re-check the results again.
