Sam could certainly appreciate Betty’s relief that Marty had calmed down. The little fellow’s alarm when the hatch closed between them had almost brought both of them to tears. He knew Betty would concentrate on the task at hand and work faster, and with greater competency, without having to worry about Marty.
She slung a small, lightweight backpack of tools and instruments over her shoulders and slapped Sam’s boots for emphases. “Come on, lazy-bones! I need you to spot me while I’m down in the hole.”
“I still don’t like this,” he grumbled. “Just send down a bot...let them do all the work!”
“Not going to have this conversation again, lover-boy. If we’re going to get Kiro’s bones out of there, one of us has to go down! And I weigh a lot less than you do!”
He followed her in resignation, knowing further arguments would only delay the work needing to be done. If Kiro’s body was indeed buried in that hole, they were going to have to figure out some way to bring it to the surface.
Betty quickly attached the gantry cable to her body harness, checking the straps and buckles for snugness and proper adjustment. Sam manned the controls, playing out slack as Betty advanced to the edge, preparing to back downward. But first, she turned in the direction of the ship, partially visible between two of the lower dunes. Smiling broadly, she waved to Marty, knowing he was watching her every move. With a final glance, she began her descent.
In the Doodle’s control room, Marty lifted his head, ears snapping erect when his mistress waved. But his elation quickly changed as he watched Betty backing over the edge and into the immense pit. He had decided early on that he did not like the mysterious hole, and now that his mistress was disappearing into it, he leapt to his feet, hissing in alarm. Turning to Charlie’s nearest inboard camera, he stood on his rear legs, chattering excitedly.
“What’s the matter, little one?” asked the computer in a feminine voice. “Betty’s just taking some instrumentation into the hole...she’s in no danger whatsoever. Let me show you.” Charlie accessed and activated the camera atop the gantry, the view screen switching to an image of the woman reaching the upper-most ring, one of the spider-bots descending with her. “See? There’s nothing to worry about!”
In the hole, Betty motioned for Sam to give her additional slack so she could move about on the terrace. She stamped her feet several times, testing the strength of the flat ring. She was already puzzled by the stability of the slope she had just descended. She had expected the sand of the hole’s sides to crumble and shift beneath her feet, but to her surprise, the sand moved only slightly, and instead of sliding, she was presented with crusty crumbling, as if the sides of the pit were coated with some manner of binding solution giving structural support; hardly a condition that would give rise to any sort of landslide. The bot was forced to plant its flexible, tentacle-like legs with some determination, for breaking the crust proved necessary, or it would otherwise have tumbled to the bottom.
“What is with this crust?” Betty asked rhetorically. Sam knew she didn’t really expect an answer. “The sides obviously do not exceed the angle of repose...but we’re talking sand here! What happens to the stuff the wind blows in? Where does that go? Where can it go?”
At the pit’s edge, Sam remained silent, closely watching Betty as she reached the second ring, approximately three-quarters the way to the bottom. But his composure was shaken when Betty suddenly detached her safety line.
“Betty! What the hell are you doing? We agreed you’d stay harnessed!”
The woman, hands on hips, looked upward. “No worries, Sam! The hole’s stable!” She stomped her feet several times in way of demonstration. “Kaman lied to us...no way can this stuff cave-in!” She turned and walked around the pit’s circumference, waving a scanner she had withdrawn from her backpack. “Strange...there’s one heck of an electromagnetic field down here! I’ll have to discharge the static electricity before I grab that cable again.” She stopped abruptly when she glanced to the bottom. Where moments before had only been the slightly rounded, almost flat bottom, now appeared several dozen green, grass-like appendages, waving about as if moved to and fro by some unfelt breeze.
“Oh, crap!” she cried, quickly turning and running back towards her cable. “This is no hole! It’s a pit-fall!”
Suddenly, as if mocking the woman’s carelessness, the entire area began to quiver as harmonics began climbing in time to the building ground-vibrations. Sam staggered about, struggling desperately to maintain his balance. His efforts forced him backwards, away from the hole’s edge, and he lost sight of Betty. But even though the low rumbling had increased to deafening growls from beneath his feet, he could still hear his wife’s panicked cries for help.
Just when the quaking and howling seemed to have reached its peak and couldn’t possibly get any worse, it instead redoubled in intensity, throwing Sam violently to the ground, as a gargantuan geyser of sand shot skyward from the hole’s center, throwing the world into a dark, choking miasma of dust and thunder.
Chapter Four
Marty stood in the copilot’s chair watching Betty with an intensity borne of his excitable nature. Even though he had calmed somewhat when Charlie changed cameras, allowing him to follow his mistress when she climbed into the hole, he remained agitated despite the computer’s reassurances. When Betty detached herself from the safety line, Marty had begun shifting his weight between his legs, almost dancing in place as his apprehension grew. And when the ground-tremors began, the creature stood upright on his rear legs, watching intently as the gantry, and the camera, swayed wildly.
The over-head camera showed Marty what Sam could not follow when he was thrown back from the pit’s edge: at the height of the localized quake, the hole’s bottom opened, revealing a featureless, black shaft almost three-meters in diameter. When the explosion of sand suddenly rocketed upward from the orifice, obscuring the view in swirling clouds of dust, Marty shrieked in alarm and leapt from the chair, sprinting out of the control room.
Without hesitation or deviation, the small, furry blur streaked to the nearest airlock. Once inside, he again stood upright, staring intently at Charlie’s observation camera, chattering excitedly.
“But the outside atmosphere is oxygen-deficient, little one,” said Charlie, trying to reason with the creature. “You won’t be able to breath properly!”
Marty redoubled his verbalization, squeaking and chattering as if he were talking to the computer. But, then of course, he was.
“I see, are you certain?” responded Charlie. “If you are quite sure then...all right, I understand. But if I can be of assistance, be sure to give me notice!”
At this, the inner door swung shut. There was the slight hiss of equalization, and then the outer hatch opened, the glare of the desert sun filling the lock with brilliance. The moment the door was out of his way, Marty shot outward with such force, he had covered ten-meters before his tiny claws touched the sand.
***
As soon as the quaking subsided enough for him to regain his feet, Sam sprinted to the hole, desperately looking for Betty, shading his eyes with his hands against the glare off the still swirling dust. In scant moments, the air had cleared enough to reveal the pit in its entirety. Below, the descent cable stretched downward, disappearing beneath the sifting sand halfway to the bottom. But, of the woman and spider-bot, there wasn’t a hint or trace.
“Charlie! What happened to Betty?”
The reply came from the nearest spider-bot as it scurried over to join him. “Well, she’s evidently been swept down that hole by the blast of sand!”
“What the hell does that mean? She’s buried down there?” Sam took a step towards the pit, then turned to the gantry, then again back to the pit. He stopped in confusion, his hands to the sides of his head, trying to squeeze some sense there. He knew he should be panicking in concern, but for some unexplainable reason, he knew Betty was safe...at least for the time being.
“The clue came in Bett
y’s shout of alarm,” replied the computer. “She said it was a pit-fall. That makes sense, in a way.”
“Explain!”
“If we assemble the bits of what we know, this construct appears to be a trap to entice animals—whether or not any remain is academic—to stumble into the pit. Those wiggling appendages we witnessed act as a lure...imitating tasty vegetation of some sort, perhaps. Once the animal reaches the bottom, the entrance opens and the blast of sand acts as a lubricant, washing the creature, or creatures, to whatever waits below.”
“Are you saying something just ate her?” Sam’s voice lacked conviction; he did not believe for a second that his wife had been harmed in such a manner. Something within his consciousness fostered the belief she had simply been transported below ground. But why, and for what purpose was, for the nonce, unknown.
“I do not believe that to be the case,” Charlie explained. “I have an intermittent faint signal from the drone swept down with her. But it is tenuous, at best. As Betty noted, there is an electrometric field of considerable strength interfering with the signal.” If Sam had been paying closer attention to the drone, he would have notice it suddenly turn, looking off into the distance towards the ship.
“Oh dear...my apologies, Sam! In the excitement of the moment, I fear I have neglected to mention something quite important—“
Before Charlie could continue, Sam suddenly became aware of Marty’s approach. Even before the furry streak was visible, a subconscious pressure impinged on his thoughts, and he knew Marty drew near as sure as if he had been sent a transmission by radio.
Sam turned in time to witness Marty crest the nearest rise, moving with such speed, his legs were mere blurs and he hardly seemed to touch the sand at all. He covered the remaining distance in moments, streaking to the pit’s edge, and without hesitation, launched high into the air. The leap was of such incredible strength, Marty reached the center of the hole before his trajectory arced downward, and shot rapidly towards the pit’s floor.
Sam watched in rapt fascination, not certain as to the small creature’s intention. He wanted to assist in some way, but everything unfolded without time to organize his thoughts, or develop a plan of action. He had almost decided to jump into the pit and help Marty with whatever he planned, when a sudden pressure build about the hole, and before Sam could react, a tremendous force knocked him backwards, lifting him and the spider-bot into the air. And when he slammed into the sand, he lay still, knocked unconscious by the unseen assault.
***
Betty regained consciousness, her ears ringing loudly. She gingerly touched the side of her head where it ached, feeling the protruding lump there. When she sat up, a bot moved to her side, prepared to help her stand if she decided to do so.
“Are you all right, Betty?” asked Charlie, lightly touching her shoulder with one leg. “You had me worried for a second, there.”
“I’m okay...I think...” She looked about in confusion, not knowing where they were. Everything around them was draped in dusty shadow, a soft light keeping the darkness from totality. “What...what happened...where’s Sam?”
“We appear to have been swept underground, into some sort of tunnel system. I took the liberty of looking about while you were unconscious. As for Sam, I imagine he’s still up there, wondering as to where we’ve disappeared!”
The woman moved about slowly, hissing and wincing as her head hurt anew with each effort. “Ouch...I must have hit my head...”
“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” replied Charlie, helping the woman rise to her knees. “When we were swept down, I landed on your head. Fortunately, it was only a glancing blow.”
“Yeah...lucky me...” Betty gritted her teeth and stood, allowing the bot to further help her. She looked about, straining to penetrate the surrounding gloom. There wasn’t really much to see; some sort of small, central chamber, with tunnels running off in several directions. The ceiling afforded enough space for her to stand without having to stoop, but just barely so. Betty looked straight up, hoping to see the shaft from which they fell, but there was not the slightest trace of an opening or passage anywhere above them.
“So...what do we do now?” continued Betty. “Going back the way we came doesn’t seem to be an option. Can we get a message to Sam?”
“I’ve been trying, but that field we detected is stronger now. I had a connection for a moment...every once in a while the field clears and I manage a partial transmission, but a coherent message isn’t possible.”
“Can you blast a pulse on a tight beam?”
“I could certainly do that, but it would need to be of such amplitude, the power-drain would place me temporarily out of commission. Should I try?”
“No, I might need your defenses...” Betty paused, alternately looking down each of the half-dozen passages, trying to decide which would afford the likeliest possibility of an exit. It was a tough call, for each tunnel slanted downward, quite opposite of where she wanted to go. While she studied on the problem, she rubbed away some of the grit adhering around her mouth when she realized her oxygen mask no longer covered her face. She felt around her waist, but found only a short, severed piece of the hose from her rebreather.
“Your mask got tore off during the fall, I’m afraid,” said Charlie. “Fortunately, there seems to be more oxygen down here.”
“Well, common sense dictates we stay here...or nearby. But if Sam starts digging with some heavy equipment, I don’t want to be right under it...we might get buried.”
“I concur...so what shall we do?”
“Let’s explore some,” Betty replied. “If Sam does decide to dig here, we’re likely to get a clearer signal. Besides, we won’t go far, agreed?”
“Whatever you say, boss-lady.”
***
Marty surfed the sifting sand as it drained downward through a labyrinth of ever-changing channels, altering direction often and without rational pattern. He knew he had taken a wrong turn, as his mental-lock on his mistress grew weaker. In the several minutes separating him from Betty, the shafts seemed to have realigned themselves, draining away the sand and debris swallowed while the entrance port was open.
After a time, he found his way to a larger chamber where there was much more room, but still not enough for Betty to have come this way. Several side-shafts led off in various directions. However, he could not establish a stronger signal, even though he went from tunnel to tunnel, carefully sniffing each in turn. All the passages seemingly offered a promising direction to search, but none stood out as a better candidate than any other.
Marty closed his eyes and reached outward with all his will: he could feel the man above, and he could feel the woman below, but despite his skills, he couldn’t establish enough of a connection to guide him unerringly. In the darkness, Marty made a hissing noise Betty or Sam would have found strange and unnerving—Marty radiated anger and frustration. The urgency to find his mistress screamed at his senses, for there were others down here, and these others would prove hostile and dangerous to any and all visitors.
***
Sam woke with a start. His entire body ached as if he had been struck some mighty blow, but he instinctively knew this was not the case. Nothing physical had touched him...of that he was certain. He tried opening his eyes, and the harsh glare of the late afternoon sun made him cover his face with a hand. After a moment’s confusion, he realized he was on the ground, lying on his back. With some effort, he struggled to his feet.
“Charlie...how long was I out?”
But there came no answer. Rubbing the sand from around his eyes, he looked about, trying to spot a spider-drone. He had no trouble there—they lay scattered about the site, near the pit, by the tent and around the gantry—all motionless, all unresponsive, all fried. Sam tried to reboot several, but to no avail. He keyed his helmet radio, trying to raise the ship, but this too proved futile. There was no signal, not even the crackle of static. The circuit was dead, and he had no way of telling i
f the fault lay on his end or on the Doodle.
He removed his oxygen-mask, rubbing the tickle beneath his nose. When he checked the moisture he found there, he discovered his hand smeared in blood. A quick check found he was bleeding from the ears, too.
After a few more minutes of checking about the site, Sam turned and stumbled towards the ship. Hopefully, he could find some answers there.
Chapter Five
Betty sat on a rock looking outward, marveling at what lay before her. She had no idea if each of the passageways would have led to such as this, but the one she followed certainly did. The tunnel had grown taller and widened at a steady pace, always leading downward, ever deeper below the planet’s surface. At one point, the descent became so steep, she threw caution aside and slid down for quite a ways on a concave section of stone she found by the side of the trail. The phosphorescent glow from the walls and ceiling, while slight at first, increased considerably during her slide. It was only when she reached bottom that she discovered her curved stone was actually some sort of shell, evidently once belonging to some turtle-like creature. But now the light, while not nearly as bright as on the surface, afforded more than enough to illuminate the impossible landscape.
Although a true feel for the dimensions wasn’t possible without something familiar to use as a reference for scale, it was certain the expanse was of considerable proportions. Not too far below her position, strange, spindly, plant-like growth rose everywhere from the cavern’s floor, as though fiercely competing over the meager light from above. Further along, the subterranean jungle grew taller with the advent of trunks vaguely resembling trees, but instead of a system of branches with leafy tops, each displayed long, graceful fronds more like gargantuan ferns. There was even an ever-so-slight movement of the air to gently wave the uppermost growth. The vegetation grew ever more lush with distance, and near the limits of the chamber, she caught sight of dappled light shimmering and reflecting from the far wall, clearly indicating water flowed there.
Kaman's World Page 4
