I stared across the width of the giant hole and watched the air shimmer with heat.
“So what now?” I said.
“We go in after it.”
“Into that?”
“Right now I’m not seeing any other way into the volcano—”
The hole was one hundred meters down a sharp incline of broken and smooth basalt. The black rock was scored with sulfurous white in several places, evidence of a previous violent episode. Vents emitted deadly gasses in six separate locations, but the entrance itself, thankfully, appeared to be clear.
“So do we just walk on down and peek over the edge?” I said.
“Either that or I throw you in and you can tell me what you see.”
“Ah. Can I take what’s behind door number three?”
“That would be going back down the hill to the mound.”
I hated it when there was little or no choice. In this case, no choice. We didn’t have enough power or oxygen to go back, so we had to go forward. In fact, if we didn’t find a way down, in less than an hour Olivares would be dead and I’d be joining him shortly thereafter.
I took a few steps forward, then stopped and looked back. “Want me to hold your hand?”
On our way down the slope, we saw no more evidence of the Cray or its passage. When we got within ten metres of the hole, Olivares stopped.
“Okay, Corporal. Here’s where you earn your money. Why don’t you get on your belly and scoot down and let me see through your feed.”
I knew better than to argue. Lowest grunt did the most dangerous things. Lowest grunt held the least value. I remember in Infantry School we’d had an immense Portuguese sergeant named Silva. He was a bombastic instructor who never missed a chance to tell us a story, most of which we believed were true. He told us one tale about the Cold War and what grunts were supposed to have done if America and the Soviet Union ever decided to actually fire missiles at each other.
“The lowest ranking grunt, and I mean the bottom-of-the-barrel, wet-behind-the-ears, gotta-wipe-his-nose, can’t-put-his-underwear-on-without-his-mama grunt, is the first to go. When the balloon goes up and radiation is all around and we got no communications, it’s these grunts gonna get us to safety. The human body can take fifty rads. So we send the lowest grunt out and tell him to go in a direction until he reaches twenty-five rads. Then he marks it on the map and comes back. That’s another twenty-five rads. He’s a goner, so we get the next grunt. And the next and the next, until we know which way we can go without killing ourselves. Wanna know why there are so many grunts in an infantry company? So the rest of us can come out alive.”
The funny thing about it was that every time Sergeant Silva told that story he was laughing so hard he could barely contain himself. “Ever see a guy who has so much radiation inside of him his blood is boiling?” he’d asked a stunned group of wannabe grunts. “Me neither,” he’d roar. “Because I’m a sergeant.” Then he’d get serious. “But if the balloon goes up and you find yourself at the bottom, you better be a professional and do your duty for the rest of us. Sure, you’re going to die a horrible and unpleasant death, but you’ll be doing it as a grunt and you’ll be proud.”
As I slid across the volcanic rock to stare into the mouth of hell, I channeled Sergeant Silva. I was the lowest grunt. It was my duty to put myself in danger to save the others, even if that was Olivares.
As I got closer to the edge, I was worried it might give way. I pulled out my blade and jabbed at it, but the rock seemed sturdy. I was almost at a forty-five degree angle. Any steeper and it would be more like a slide. When I was close enough to grip the edge, I used it to pull myself the rest of the way, inch by inch until I could see right over the edge.
“Gotcha,” I said.
One of the Cray was lying in a heap at the bottom of the shaft about twenty meters away. Check that. As I switched spectrums, then returned to the visible spectrum and turned on my headlamp, I saw that the alien had merely fallen on a large ledge. The shaft descended past the light’s ability to reach. Was this the alien I’d shot first, or was it the one who’d held the device?
“Seeing this?” I whispered.
“Got it.” Olivares began flipping through my spectrums.
“Can’t see a thing without the light,” I said.
“That’s the point. Other than moderate heat from the walls, I’m not getting any heat signatures. It might actually mean it’s safe down there.”
I stared into the darkness beyond the reach of the light. Of course we were going down there. We had to. As I waited here on the edge, it just seemed so improbable. Then again, so did getting invaded by aliens.
I licked my lips. “What next?”
“We need to get down there. I’m at less than five percent oxygen. We can’t climb without these suits, so we need to start moving.”
I observed the walls; they were far from sheer. There were ledges everywhere, ranging from inches to feet wide. It was definitely doable, but it was going to be slow going. We each had a hundred feet of rope in our packs, but the tensile strength of the line wasn’t made to hold the suits. They were to be used once we got rid of the EXOs.
“I’m going in.” I swung my legs around until they were dangling over the edge. I’d seen several outcroppings I could use for hand- and footholds. I reached blindly with my foot for the first, found it, and tentatively put my weight on it. I still held onto the lip as I eased most of my weight onto my foot, ready to pull up if it gave way.
It held. Now was when I put myself in the hands of the universe.
I smiled weakly, then reached out for a handhold. I gripped it and released the lip, lowering myself into the mouth of the volcano.
My hand closed on a ledge and I let the rest of my weight go down. I glanced down and found the other hand grip, grabbed it, then let my free leg dangle down to the next perch.
“How’s it going?” Olivares asked.
“Like climbing down the outside of the Empire State Building. I’m just happy I can’t see the bottom.”
“I heard the Cray tore it down.”
“Aren’t you the motivational speaker?”
“I try,” he said.
I switched to his view of me from the top down. It was dizzying at first, but then I reconciled the image and used it to find my next three holds. But then I ran out. It still looked to be about five meters to the ledge where the Cray rested, which was down and to my left. The alien took up most of the ledge and I had to plan it so I wouldn’t land on the body.
I counted to three then pushed off with my right foot. But as I did, the rock gave way beneath it and I felt myself beginning to slip. I pushed off hard with my left foot, working against the awkward angle to make sure my trajectory was towards the ledge. For a brief moment, I was in space, then I was falling. For all of my planning and attempts to land softly, I landed on my side, falling on the dead alien. I felt it give beneath me.
“You okay?”
“Sure.” I picked my way to my feet, wary of the edge. What had seemed so wide from above now seemed tiny, my own perch precarious. There was no more space on the ledge, certainly none for Olivares. I stared down at the Cray. It was a little flatter, but otherwise, knowing only what we’d learned about alien physiology from the model we’d had, this one appeared to be pretty dead.
“What now?”
“Search it.”
“What am I looking for?” I squatted and appraised the body. It appeared a little different from what we’d seen before, wearing armored, form-fitting shorts that probably covered reproductive organs and served to hold a belt. That had an empty slot as well as two containers, which I hadn’t seen behind the Cray’s back. Gauging from the empty slot, this was the alien that’d had the device. So what happened to the other one? I peered into the darkness and relayed what I’d found.
“Open them, but be careful.”
I jiggled with nerves. How careful did I need to be? It wasn’t like I was on the inside edge of a volcano with a dead alien. Whatever would jump out at me from the small containers was probably the least of my worries.
The first one contained what appeared to be seeds. Were they rations of some sort? The next contained a spongy type of cloth. Unfolded, it was about a foot square. I had no idea what it was, but it had to be important if they’d brought it along on the mission. I had my doubts that it was merely a face cloth.
“Some sort of seeds, maybe rations, and a mystery cloth. What next?”
“Secure the items. And remove your rope.”
“What’s the rope for?” I asked.
“We’re going to hang the alien over the edge so there’s enough room for me to descend.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Why not just toss it over?”
“We might need the body in one piece. I can’t be sure. For now let’s hang onto it as long as possible.”
“Think the other one is down below?” I asked.
“I’d bet on it.”
“But why?”
He paused for a moment. I saw his feed go to the darkness, then back to me. “Haven’t you wondered why the Cray want to hide their bodies?”
“I thought maybe they were trying to get home through the back door.”
“Either way, they didn’t want us to have their bodies. I think they have something we could use. Something they don’t want us to have.”
“Like what?”
“It could be anything. Right now we don’t have the luxury of playing Mr. Science. We’ll have to wait until we get to the bottom.”
I stood and tried to turn around, but my foot was wedged between the body and the wall. I tried to pull it free as gently as I could, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried a little harder and my foot moved an inch or two, so I jerked it out and turned. The Cray’s body rolled over again, its legs and two of its arms dangling over the abyss. I saw it too late to stop and could only watch as it continued to roll, then plunged into the darkness.
“Oh, hell,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“We don’t need the rope anymore.”
I saw his feed looking at me as I looked at him. All I could do was shrug inside my suit.
I miss Twinkies and Pepsi and Ranch-flavored Doritos. I have a box of the latter and am considering treating it like fine wine, because when I run out, there’s going to be nothing left. When we win back this planet, I seriously doubt one of the first orders of business will be to rebuild the corn chip factory. I’ll be lucky if I have them again in my lifetime, once I eat these. Funny thing is that you really never know how important something is to you until it’s gone.
Conspiracy Theory Talk Radio,
Night Stalker Monologue #1113
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
O
N THE BRIGHT
side, without the Cray to worry about, we could move faster, which was imperative with Olivares’s oxygen mix so low. We had to travel at least a thousand feet to make it to the demarcation from extreme high altitude to very high altitude. Without our EXOs we’d be subject to marked hypoxemia, hypnocapnia and alkalosis. This was why there were no permanent human habitations above six thousand meters. It would also mean our deaths unless we hurried. Even after one thousand feet we were still in significant danger.
The CBT techs had provided us with a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor, which would reduce the risk of edema. And make us feel as though we’d been hit by a truck. All of our muscles and organs would begin firing adrenaline as they sought to defray the effects of lack of oxygen and pressure. Narcosis would set in and get progressively worse until we could barely function. Nothing like mountain climbing on drugs.
“Take your shot?” I asked.
“Already done,” Olivares responded. “But I still feel like hell from when you evac’ed my suit.”
“Sorry, man. I thought you were going to choke.” I sought for a foothold beneath the ledge and found one, then another, then another. “What was it they made you remember?”
Olivares grunted several times as he moved down the face of the vent, finally landing on the ledge I’d just vacated. “Bullshit I thought I’d forgotten.”
He needn’t say more. We all had secrets. Having done bad things in our life didn’t make us bad. But not trying to hide them or deal with them most certainly did. I’d known more than a handful of fellow soldiers who relished their memories of death and murder. Most of them were broken. A few were truly evil.
We kept our conversation to a minimum as we descended; exertion was already doing a number on our oxygen levels. Every dozen feet or so, I’d glance down to see if my suit light revealed anything, but the shaft was relatively straight. Eventually I noticed that the distance between myself and Olivares was increasing. I checked my HUD and saw that he was at one percent; almost out of air.
Damn.
I glanced down and still couldn’t see the bottom.
“Hey, man. Give me your rope. We’ll rig a harness and let you dangle from my suit. It can hold you.”
I waited for a response, but received none.
“Olivares? Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you just fine,” he said. He was shucking his pack to get at the rope.
“Drop one end of the rope to me and let me tie it off before you unseal your suit, okay?”
“I don’t think we’re going to do that,” he said with a strange calmness.
I halted. “What do you mean, we’re not going to do that? You have to let me help you with this.”
He laughed hollowly. “There you go again, Mason. Always trying to be the hero.”
He wasn’t making any sense. I wondered if the narcosis was already affecting him. “I thought you said I was a killer,” I said.
“Killer. Hero. In the end aren’t they the same?” He unslung his pack. “Hold out your arm and catch this. Just don’t be a dumbass and let go of the wall.”
I held out an arm and looked up at him. I saw his grim, determined smile through his faceplate. “Catch.” He tossed the pack down to me as his level hit zero.
The pack bounced off the wall and into my chest. I scrambled for it and managed to hook it with my fingers at the last moment. “Dude, what are you doing?”
“Going to be a leader,” he said, coughing. “Don’t want to kill you, too.”
I suddenly realized what he was going to do. “Don’t you do that!” I yelled.