Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse (27 page)

“Negative. There are no departures. There is an arrival,” her computer said.

The ship’s massive landing struts and ramp began to deploy as it hovered ten feet off the ground. It was strange to see such a massive, ominous vehicle fly so quietly and hover so neatly.

“Who’s landing?”

Reich watched the ship as it finally touched down. Immediately, a lone figure clad in reddish-brown clothing emerged. She noticed immediately that he had dark skin—not Terran hair. Perspiration burst out on her forehead and her hands felt cold and clammy. Her heart began to race at the thought, the mere hope that the man who had departed years ago might, for some reason, have returned. Even from a distance, he seemed broader and taller than she remembered. His determined walk and quick pace defied his age—sixty when she last saw him depart, and injured with a bullet wound.

“Computer? Who is disembarking from the ship?”

The man came to the end of the ramp and looked toward the sky before he dropped to the ground and kissed it. Lux and Bella walked over at a quick pace to meet him. Reich could see Lux’s broad smile from a distance—the same kind of broad smile she would see when her Terran friend was satiated on chestnuts, cinnamon, and walnuts.

“Immunes Anthony Perez. He has returned to assist you and your team with creating an ark.”

The computer’s response was calm and matter-of-fact, which was diametrically opposite to the depth and range of Reich’s emotions just then. Without much thought, she broke out into a dead run—in her high heels and gripping her tablet. She felt tears streaking down her cheeks. The phantomlike black ship was already receding back into the sky. Lux reached him first and began jumping all over him; Bella watched from a few feet away. Lux nearly bowled him over, but Perez hugged and released her warmly. Reich was impressed with his firm, solid stance and strong arms; he did not move an inch even as he picked her up in turn and swung her around like a little girl.

“Bobbie Jo! As I live and breathe! It’s great to see you!” he said.

Reich did not respond, except to squeeze him harder and cry. She held on to him as if he might disappear before her eyes. She was not going to take that chance. Her worldly concerns shrank from saving a planet on the edge of extinction from cataclysmic events to just hugging Perez as hard as she could. She held on as if life itself depended on it.

Whoever doesn’t flare up at someone who’s angry wins a battle hard to win. —
The Buddha

“So, are you ready to get dirty?” Hydra asked. Her toothy smile and sparkly eyes made her wide, heavy brow look small and almost cute—even though she was just wearing her dark brown, filthy technician overalls. It had been too long since she had spent time with her periodic drinking buddy, not that there was much in the way of alcohol that tasted remotely good on Terra.

The first time Perez had actually gone drinking with her was when she asked Hydra to lead her father’s team to look for the supposed hidden world of underground caverns filled with darkness, demons, and death. Hydra was thrilled to be asked to lead the expedition and drill team deep into Terra’s crust—deeper than anyone had ever gone. The whole expedition had been kindly dubbed a “fool’s errand” by Legionis Clematis and Dux Cloelius, and it had taken nearly all of Perez’s political clout to have a ten-member team dedicated to such a project.

But what if the old man was right?
she had wondered.

While Perez had spent a great deal of her time converting the holograph emitters to power supplies, she was rarely brought down to the excavation site. Today was different. Hydra was very excited and had said she needed her to join them.

“What’s the rush, Hydra?”

“We’re waiting on you to be there when we break through the final wall—to the other side of your mystery cavern,” Hydra said. She had her hands on her hips and her large foot was tapping—more indicators of her impatience.

“Why didn’t you just break through without me? You could have looked around and told me about it,” Perez said. By now she was putting on her weapons, including two laser sidearms to round out her sheathed knives. She had never forgotten her battle with the rats on the mezzanine.

Rattuses. I hate them. Never again,
she still thought every time she left her quarters.

She turned around to ask Hydra another question, and was struck by her shocked expression. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

“You would have us break through the wall without you? You are the expedition leader! This is your project,” Hydra explained.

“It’s probably just a big, empty cavern. What’s the big deal?” she said.

It was easy to see Hydra’s disbelief at that statement. Her friend shook her massive head and rubbed her temple as if Perez’s idiocy was painful to her.

“All right, Immunes, here is the deal.
You
are the expedition leader. Whatever is on the other side, be it an empty cavern or the land of chestnuts and honey, it will be
your
decision to do with it what you want. That is our custom. You must be there when we go to the other side. You are our first explorer in centuries. Your name, your father’s name, our names will become part of the Great Library,” Hydra explained.

As she spoke, Perez pulled together all her edged weapons tightly so they were wrapped and accessible. She was attaching her laser sidearms to her holster when she looked up to see whether Hydra’s dramatic monologue was over. Perez found it ironic that two women could barely fit in her small quarters. She glanced over to her father’s empty cot and felt sad. He was busy helping Earth get ready for the future or at the very least, trying to save a piece of their birthplace. Based on his brief communiques, he was much happier doing something there than searching for myths here. She smiled and looked back at Hydra, who was waving her toward the door as she began explaining her final reasons for waiting.

“Can you imagine what it might be like for us to have wide open spaces again? To camp and hunt rather than live in the closed-in, vibrating coffins we call home? To spread out and find new game, new sources of food, power, water, and land? To rebuild our hunting way of life? To venture boldly where none of us has gone before?” Hydra said in breathless excitement.

Perez slowed her progress down as she tried desperately to figure out why Hydra’s speech sounded so familiar.
Something old but that I know well,
she thought. Her attempts to recall where she had heard it before were interrupted by her impatient friend.

“Perez? Let’s go! Our names await placement in the Great Library,” Hydra said.

“Hmm,” Perez said. She squeezed by Hydra and exited her quarters. She heard her door close soundly and Hydra’s footsteps behind her. Without waiting, Perez began walking with her hands behind her back. Hydra continued her ramblings about fame, glory, and power for more than an hour before she even noticed that Perez had fallen silent. For a technologically advanced people, she wondered why they had no vehicles.
The wheel should have made it easy to figure out. And isn’t my hair growing back very slowly?
she thought on an unrelated note. Perez’s mind was truly elsewhere.

The common hallways, lit only with low-wattage bulbs, radiated their usual quiet, sound-absorbed silence. There were very few doors and dust became more prevalent as they moved farther from the honeycomb living habitats and to the outreaches of the underground dwelling. The constant vibration of Terra’s heavy air and energy processors was all around her. She wondered what it would be like if her emitter conversion worked.
The vibration might come to an end.
She finally came to a recently carved-out corridor that went down rather than up.

“You would have walked right by if I hadn’t told you to stop. And why do you carry so many weapons? There have been near zero rattuses here in some time. I’m getting tired of mushrooms,” Hydra said.

“I hate those things. I’ll never be unarmed if I ever come across another rattus again,” Perez responded. Her hand instinctively went to her chain as she spoke. She felt herself getting angry and wanting to fight back. That battle had changed her. And the exercises that she learned from Hydra and Dee Dee were not wasted on her. She had continued her training as if her life depended on it. It made her feel stronger and less helpless. It also helped her forget how much she missed her father.
He’ll be happier on Earth
, she thought.
He always liked that woman.

“Well, I’ll make sure to capture your image. It is fitting that you enter the cavern with a short sword,” Hydra said. At first Perez nodded, but then rewound what Hydra had said.

“More likely a pressurized suit…” Perez said. There was a longer-than-expected silence. Perez felt her pace slowing.

“Well…that might not really be necessary,” Hydra finally uttered in a low tone.

Perez stopped in midstep to turn and look at her. Hydra came up short and tried to keep from banging into her. Her smirk was difficult to hide on such a large mouth.

“So, the great ‘expedition leader’ is not the first person to see what’s on the other side, is she Hydra? So what’s all this about me being first when you already know I won’t need a pressurized suit in the cavern? And that explains why you came to me yourself and woke me up without alerting Dux or the shift director. Out with it, Hydra. What did you see?” Perez’s arms were folded across her chest as she blocked the narrow path down the descending tunnel.

Hydra looked down and then started explaining quietly. “Vera pushed through a small opening by mistake. We felt a warm wind and saw flora of some sort. The smell of mushrooms, alien scents, and water filled the antechamber. There were scents of salt, sulfur, and something else I’ve never encountered before. Oh, and Immunes, we could hear distant thunder—as if we were outside. And there was dim lighting and smells of other life. It was
air
, Perez. The chamber is not dead!” Hydra said. Her excited look and elevated hands punctuated each point made as she spoke.

Perez’s mind immediately went into high gear as she speculated whether it could be possible for a deep cavern on a tidally locked planet with half the atmosphere of Earth’s to have light and breathable air. She turned and spoke aloud as she walked quickly to their destination.

“You would need a massive, liquid body of water to generate the oxygen levels for air. Possibly vegetation. Ferns, certain fruits, and other plants can exist in the dark, similar to mushrooms…Maybe there are vents to the surface along the longitudinal equator for light, but then there would have to be enough water to compensate for its evaporation into the atmosphere. Maybe the frozen oceans have liquid runoff underground? That makes sense. The oceans are liquid several meters below the ice and if the cavern is at the same depth, than it could be possible. The thunder? Fissures and vents to the surface near the dark side maybe?” Perez’s mind was moving as quickly as her mouth.

“‘Where do the rats come from?’ You’re probably right, Dad. If this chamber has air, it might be where the rats come from.”
A snippet of a past conversation with her father came to her mind.

Perez realized that they now knew where their food source might be coming from, or hiding, as it turned out. The bad news was that this cavern was enormous, and there were a lot more of them based on neighboring seismic readings. She picked up her pace for a moment, but then came to a sudden stop. Hydra nearly banged into her again but said nothing. Perez put her hand on the narrowing tunnel wall, then touched the ground.

“I know, Immunes. The vibrations of our machines become less as we move below them. It is an odd experience,” Hydra commented.

Perez nodded and marched down the tunnel with scientific theories running amok in her head. Both women walked in near silence for ten more minutes, until they reached a slightly larger, carved-out antechamber. In addition to the odd scent of mint, the smell of fish and mushrooms filled the air. Water vapor made the chamber feel hot and moist at the same time. The smell reeked of a biosphere—a living habitat.

“The rats have to come from somewhere”
she heard her father say again. Perez looked at the hole in the dark rock formation. It was the size and shape meant for peering eyes at waist level. She looked around—the workers had picks and digging equipment, but little else. There were a series of small metal wagons that carried away debris, flares, packaged food, and bottled water.
Not a weapon in sight
, she thought.

“Who is Vera?” Perez asked quietly. She continued to look at the hole until a weak, embarrassed voice sounded out from behind her. She turned to see a young worker looking ashamedly at the floor.

“We can expel her from our group if you wish, Immunes,” Hydra said.

“No. All our names will be written in the Great Library. I want Vera and you to have the honors of breaking through to the other side,” Perez said.

She stepped back and watched the zeal in both women’s eyes blaze. Her suggestion was met with a roar of approval. Still, her mind raced through reasons an underground biosphere might have formed. At the same time, she recalled her father’s conviction that there was something underground and that “Hades,” the architect of Terra, might have been misunderstood, and that Earth’s Hades, a place of hot, underground hell populated with devils, might actually be real.
And if he was right? What if there were devils?

“Keep the hole to the size needed to crawl through, no larger,” Perez added. She looked back at the metal wagons to see if they could be used to block the hole if necessary. As she allowed the Terrans to break through, she saw a younger woman nearby looking more anxious than enthusiastic.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Liliana, Immunes,” she said. She looked down.

“You do not look excited about this discovery…” Perez said.

“I am sorry, Immunes. I…I get nervous about these things,” she said. Perez could feel the eyes on her from disapproving peers. Perez was surprised at the young woman’s intuition and reasonable deduction that danger could be near.