Helix (19 page)

Kaluchek
looked across at him and said, “So... what do you make of the rest of the
team?”

He
smiled. “Who in particular?”

“Carrelli
first.”

He
shrugged. “I can’t work her out. She gives nothing away. Even back in Berne she
was inscrutable. I just put it down to her having lost five friends in the
bombing. What do you think?”

Kaluchek
considered. “She’s a tough one, Joe. Did you see her back there? We were shitting
ourselves, and she was as cool as ice. Did you get to know her at all during
training?”

“We
exchanged small-talk, but she never gave anything away. I don’t even know if
she had a partner, kids. You talk to her?”

“I
tried, but got nowhere. I got the impression she was watching us, trying to
work us out, our group dynamic.”

“An
amateur psychologist,” he began.

“I
don’t think there’s anything amateur about her, Joe. I think as well as being a
medic, she’s a shrink. Think about it—it’d make sense to have a trained
psychologist along. And have you noticed how placatory she is, how she’s
defused a few tense situations since we hit this lump of ice?”

He
smiled. “You don’t miss a trick, do you?”

“What
do you think I did as a kid, isolated in bug-fuck nowhere, Iceville, but watch
people and try to work out how they ticked?”

He
was tempted to ask Kaluchek what she made of him, and why she’d chosen to
partner him ahead of any of the others, but thought better of it.

Instead
he said, “And Olembe? Why don’t you like him.”

She
smiled. “That obvious, is it?” She paused, thinking about it. “Look, I know
things about Olembe’s past that I don’t like...”

He
looked at her. “Such as?”

She
shook her head. “Later, Joe. Okay?”

He
nodded and fell silent. He remembered with a stab of guilt to check the
surrounding land for marauding extraterrestrials. The ice was a blinding empty
sheet on all sides.

A
few minutes later Kaluchek said, “Hey, you know, if you need to talk at any
time, about what happened back there, your daughter and all...”

He
nodded quickly. “Sure, I’ll remember that. But I’m fine, really.” Even as he
said the words, he realised what a ridiculous statement it was.

He
was saved further embarrassment by the sharp tone of the truck’s communicator.
Olembe’s voice filled the cab. “Hey, Joe, Sissy, you seen what’s up ahead?”

Hendry
took up the receiver, at the same time scanning the wastes ahead of the first
truck. “What is it?”

“Two
o’clock, about three kilometres away. Check it out on your mag-screen and get
back to me.”

Kaluchek
was already thumbing the controls.

The
central section of the viewscreen opaqued for a second, then cleared. Revealed
within its rectangle was the magnified image of what Olembe had spotted.

“What
the hell?” Hendry began.

“Looks
like a city to me,” Kaluchek said under her breath. “A city made of ice.”

Hendry
made out a series of silver pyramids and minarets scintillating in the weak
sunlight. Kaluchek was right. It looked like a city, not constructed from metal
and glass but from the only available material, a low skyline of blocks hewn
from the ice and erected to form a sanctuary from the sub-zero temperatures
that lashed the land.

Hendry
reached for the receiver. “Olembe, we’ve got it. What do you think?”

The
African grunted a laugh. “What do I think? I think we should leave well alone.
You not seen them?”

Hendry’s
heart lurched. “Seen what?”

“Our
friends, the homicidal aliens. They’re teeming around to the right of the
central minaret.”

Kaluchek
adjusted the controls and zoomed in on the ice-tower. In its shadow was a crowd
of angular, skittering extraterrestrials. There were perhaps a hundred of them
and they appeared to be armed like the first one they had encountered.

Armed,
he thought—or were those flashing blades merely a part of their biological
armature? He wondered what they were doing, massing there before the
minaret—observing some rally, a religious ritual? Or perhaps gathering for
attack?

Ahead,
Olembe’s truck veered left, taking a detour away from the alien city. Kaluchek
followed.

“You
think they’ve seen us?” Hendry asked.

“If
they have, they’re showing no indication of giving chase,” Kaluchek said.

Hendry
gripped his laser, wondering how effective his weapon might be against a horde
of sword-wielding berserkers. He peered through the sidescreen as the minutes
ticked by and they moved ever further from the city.

“Five
kay, Joe. I think we’re okay this time.”

He
nodded, breathing a little easier. The material of his gloves was soaked with
sweat.

Kaluchek
relaxed visibly. “You know, chances are that we’ll encounter other races on our
way up-spiral. Let’s hope that they’re not all as unfriendly as those
bastards.”

He
didn’t reply, but considered the journey ahead, and the possibility that they
might indeed encounter other alien life forms.

This
moved him to consider Chrissie, and how she would have faced this opportunity
with elation. As a teenager she had been obsessed with the idea of
extraterrestrial life, filling her computer with images of aliens she had
created herself.

He
was still dreaming of his daughter when the communicator sounded again.

“We’re
about three kilometres from the building Gina found,” Olembe said, “and look.
Ahead, ten o’clock.” He cut the connection. Olembe’s truck was making a slow
left turn, its tracks spraying snow.

Kaluchek
followed suit and Hendry peered through the viewscreen.

There
was no sign of the building, but something appeared to be suspended in the air
approximately three kilometres away. Hendry peered, then remembered the
magnification and adjusted the screen. The image expanded, and Hendry sat back
and whistled.

A
long grey filament or column rose vertically into the air, arcing in a graceful
parabola and disappearing from sight high above.

He
got through to Olembe. “Any ideas?”

“Beats
me,” Olembe replied. “It’s some feat of engineering, whatever it is.”

Hendry
returned the screen to normal view and the filament dwindled. Kaluchek
accelerated, drawing alongside Olembe and Carrelli. Ahead, the building from
which the column rose was coming into view, at first a dark irregularity on the
horizon, but growing rapidly as they approached.

It
was vast. Hendry had not known what to expect, going by the blurred aerial
shots Carrelli had produced—but it was not this awesome edifice.

It
was a ziggurat, a series of ever-smaller blocks set atop each other and rising
hundreds of metres into the air. At its summit, a complicated
construction—which looked at this distance to be a baroque metal
framework—anchored the end of the filament to the uppermost block.

Hendry
tried to crane his neck in order to chart the filament’s destination, but it
dwindled to a vanishing point long before it reached the tier above—if it ever
did so.

The
first truck pulled ahead and raced down a kind of approach boulevard demarcated
by a series of regularly placed blocks to right and left. Kaluchek followed,
and a minute later they drew into the shadow of the ziggurat, the trucks made
insignificant by comparison to the base block of the construction, like beetles
at the foot of a pyramid. They drew alongside Olembe’s truck and cut the
engine.

They
had halted before what appeared to be the ziggurat’s entrance. A long, recessed
slab of what Hendry thought might be brass, set into the metal from which the
ziggurat was constructed. Even at this distance he could make out rococo
scrollwork etched into the door panels. The whole effect, he thought, was
eerily alien.

He
glanced across at Olembe, who signalled ahead and started the engine. Kaluchek
followed at a crawl and approached the looming entrance.

The
trucks halted again, side by side. Hendry pulled on his faceplate, upped the
temperature control of his atmosphere suit and swung himself down from the cab.
Olembe and Carrelli were already standing before the imposing doorway, looking
up. Hendry followed their gaze. Overhead, the filament whipped vertiginously
into the sky. He became aware of the cold wind, whining around the ziggurat.

Kaluchek
joined them. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why we didn’t see the
filament in the aerial pix. I mean, it would have been big enough to be
visible.”

Olembe
looked at her. “Perhaps we didn’t see it because it wasn’t there.”

“What
the hell do you mean by that?”

“Think
about it, Sis.”

“I
am thinking,” she snapped, “but it still doesn’t make sense.”

Hendry
said, “You mean, it connected since the shot was taken?”

Olembe
nodded and pointed at Hendry. “That’s what I mean, Joe.”

Carrelli
was inspecting the carved fascia of the vast doorway. “Here. There’s a viewplate.”

They
hurried over to her, standing on tiptoe and pressing their faces into the
misted transparency of a horizontal viewplate. Hendry made out a great hallway,
diminishing in perspective, its walls sloping to form a wide aisle at the end
of which stood a tall oval plate the same bronze shade as the doorway.

Carrelli
was already searching for some means of entry. Olembe joined her, scanning the
pillars that stood on either side of the doorway.

Beside
him, Kaluchek whispered, “What the hell is it, Joe?”

He
shook his head. He had a wild idea, but he didn’t want to raise her hopes.

He
was returning to the truck for his softscreen, intending to record images of
the ziggurat to its memory, when he stopped and stared out over the plain of
ice they had crossed just minutes before.

“Friday!”
he yelled.

The
African came running. “Great,” he said, following Hendry’s gaze. He turned to
Carrelli and Kaluchek. “If you can find a way inside, girls, and pretty damned
quick, I’d appreciate it.”

Hendry
found himself raising his laser at the phalanx of extraterrestrials approaching
across the ice. They were perhaps half a kilometre away, fleeting silver forms
coruscating in the sunlight as they advanced like a plague of silver-grey,
upright locusts. There could be no doubt, he thought, that they were heading
for the ziggurat.

“I
estimate we have three, maybe four minutes,” Olembe said.

Hendry
glanced back at the doorway. The women were frantically searching the portal
for a means of entry.

“You
think we’ll be safe in the trucks?”

Olembe
glanced at him. “You saw what the fucker did to Lisa. What do you think?”

The
aliens were closer now. Hendry could make out individual blades, glinting as
they came.

“Carrelli!
What gives?” Olembe yelled. He hoisted his rifle and levelled it at the
approaching horde.

Hendry
glanced over his shoulder. Carrelli and Kaluchek were standing beside the
doorway, slapping a series of engraved panels. As he watched, Kaluchek made a
stirrup with her hands and Carrelli stepped into it, reaching up the side of
the pillar to slap a high panel.

A
sound from the ice plains made him turn. The aliens were much closer, and
perhaps more disturbing than the sight of them was the sound that accompanied
their advance: the thin high keening of chitinous blades and pincers, as if
stropping each other in anticipation of the imminent slaughter.

“Joe!”
Kaluchek called, and when Hendry spun round he saw, with a kick of joy, that
the doorway was sliding slowly open.

Olembe
was already in the truck. “Get up here!” he yelled.

Hendry
dived into the cab and Olembe revved the engine, speeding towards the gap
created by the slowly sliding panel. Hendry thought they were sure to scrape
the sides as they sped through. They made it with centimetres to spare.

The
women were already inside, inspecting the pillars for the device that might
close the doors behind them. Hendry screwed around in his seat. The aliens had
reached the far end of the approach avenue and were swarming up it, silver
pincers semaphoring a fair imitation of hostility.

The
first alien was ten metres from the doorway when the thick bronze slab began,
with grinding slowness, to roll shut.

Seconds
later, with the creature a metre away, the gap narrowed to nothing.

Kaluchek
rushed to the door panel and peered through the viewscreen. “Take a look at
this, Joe.”

He
joined her. The remaining truck was surrounded by a hundred skittering aliens,
hacking into its coachwork with claws and pincers. Perhaps a minute after the
attack began, the truck was a skeletal framework and the area around it strewn
with a mess of wiring and sectioned panels.