The Caverns of Mare Cetus (27 page)

   "Of course he was. He understood. That made him afraid. He was afraid of what I can do."

   "Just what can you do?" asked Renata.

   "Whatever you desire, Sister."

   "Then do something, anything. Something to show me you're different."

   "A test? Hmmmm. Okay," said Devon. "It's done."

   "What's done? What did you do? I didn't see anything."

   "You need to stop trying to see and start trying to feel." Devon put her hand on Renata's forehead. "My God. You are so flawlessly intelligent. That gives me the jitters."

   Goose bumps suddenly raced over every inch of Renata's skin. What was Devon doing to her? Strangely, it felt good, in fact—great.

   Devon placed her hand over Renata's heart. "But you lack so much here. You need to let your heart grow again. Hunter is dying for you, and I understand why. And though I don't normally pity men, I pity him. He's madly in love with you, but your intelligence keeps pushing him away. As for who I am—use what you live by—the Vimap. I am the Meadow of the Hidden Valley. As my true Sister, you'll understand. But Richelle needs you now. She needs your reasoning. She's been attacked. And I just don't like what I feel."

   Renata's euphoria abruptly ended. "You know she was attacked? How? What attacked her?"

   "It was something." Devon lowered her gaze. "Something slipped out of these caves and brutally assaulted her. We need to get out of here. I don't like it here. I have no reason for being here—except you."

   "Renata!" called Richelle. "Over here. You need to see this."

   "Coming." As Renata walked over to her, she glanced back at Devon. How could there possibly be anything alive down here, and how could Devon know?

   "I've run three tests now, and n-n-nothing's different," said Richelle as her cobalt blue eyes perused the Vimap screen. "Except my anemia seems to have gotten slightly worse. We know that's j-jjust a bug, right?"

   Renata and Hunter sat beside Richelle and went over the analyses with her as she ran side-by-side comparisons with her earlier results.

   "Wait," said Renata. "Back up. That neural scan. NS-3. What's that large spike? It wasn't on your first scan."

   Probably n-n-nothing." Richelle backed up to the NS-3 scan, which showed a series of brainwave patterns in different colors, one of the red curves displaying a large spike in comparison to the others. "I saw those spikes earlier, on Arielle, you, and Hunter. All in the same spot. All with the same magnitude. D-d-diags indicated it couldn't be real."

   "How is that?" asked Renata.

   "N-n-normally, if it was a real spike of that size, it would be an indication of m-m-m-mental impairment. Most likely severe brain damage. It would be a sure sign a hole's been opened in your neural network. They call that a B-neuron flush. Bad stuff. But that can't be the case. If it was, my thought processes would be severely hampered. There'd be other physical effects, like nervous ticks, distorted vision, muscle weakness. Let me run diags on this test and show you w-w-why it's bad." She punched in a code and after a moment showed them the results. "See." She pointed to two graphs on the screen. "It falls right in line with error NE-214. I think that's called the Turo Error. A perfect overlay."

   "You're sure of that?" asked Renata.

   "Positive. If it was a true spike, we'd see some aberrations in some of the other n-n-neural tests. There aren't any." She held the Vimap up to Renata's forehead. "Pardon me if I g-g-give you a quick NS-3 scan." After a few seconds, she showed them the display. "See. No spike." She punched in a call-up code. "This t-t-test matches your initial company results. I think this machine is zonking out on every other test or something. I think an IAS Electron Frag error is causing it."

   Renata's eyes became fixed on a deep fissure she had just noticed in the center of the cavern floor. "The Turo Error. Where have I heard that before?" She took the Vimap from Richelle and began running searches on it.

   "What I am sure of—is something attacked me," said Richelle as she peered at the marks on her stomach. She pulled down her shirt and closed her jacket.

   "What did it feel like?" asked Renata without looking up.

   "I'm not sure anymore. At f-f-first I could have sworn it was a hand because it kept trying to get up under my shirt. Now that just isn't right, is that?" She looked at Hunter.

   He gave her a rapid shake of his head.

   "See. I knew you'd never do that. Certainly D-d-devon would never do that. When I heard you two call out, that's when it seemed to change, l-l-l-like into a snake or something."

   "You didn't feel a body of some kind?" asked Renata.

   "Yes…no. I m-m-mean, I'm not sure now. I was scared, really scared. It was trying to grab me around the waist, and I kept fighting it off. Every time I t-t-touched it, it stung my hands. Then it slipped up my pantleg and wrapped itself around my knee and thigh like the arm of an octopus. Then it started stabbing me in the other knee while it tried to p-p-push me against the w-w-wall. I got this feeling it wanted to take me into the caves."

   Renata looked up. "Take you into the caves?"

"How do you know that?" asked Hunter, his eyebrows rising.

   "I just knew that's what it wanted," answered Richelle. "I mean, that's what I felt. I g-g-g-got this feeling it wanted to take me into the caves, and then rip off my arms and legs…and my head too." She sniffled.

   "And all the time you were fighting it off, right?" asked Renata.

   "Like I said. Every t-t-time I touched it, I'd get some kind of sting…or a shock. And other times I couldn't grab it—like it was vanishing or something. But it kept coming back to me, trying to pp-push me into the wall." Richelle broke out in a sweat, and tears began flowing from her eyes.

   "I've scanned the entire perimeter around where Richelle was standing," said Edison who had been listening to the conversation for a while, Devon beside him. "I found a number of crevasses but not a passage from where something could have entered the area. There is one deep crevasse close to where Richelle was standing though. It's not very wide, but it seems to go down a bit. Could something have come up through that crack?"

   "That seems logical," said Devon, Hunter and Richelle agreeing with her.

   "But that makes sense only if there was some life on this planet," said Renata. "Remember folks, it's a dead world."

   Hunter took the KSM out of his pocket and powered it up. After a minute, he had a three-dimensional map of the area on the screen. "You're right, Edison. There's not another offsetting passage within half a kilometer in either direction. Except for a few short dead-end crevasses in this area and that one deep crevasse, the floor and walls are completely solid. Let's check out that crevasse again, just to make sure."

   Hunter and Edison walked over to the crevasse. As Edison aimed his electra into the crevasse, Hunter began to examine it with his Vimap and KSM.

   "And if the damn Vimaps weren't dead," said Renata in disgust, "we could play back what happened. You know, I can't find anything on the Turo Error, but I did find something on the Tural Spike. It's an indication of a neurasilica flux flaw. I don't see any connection between that and the spurious Mediprog results, though. That error has nothing to do with Electron Frags nor is it related to the spike we're seeing, NE-214."

   "Turo Error, Tural Spike," said Richelle. "What's it matter? Maybe that's not even the n-n-name." She took her Vimap out of her pocket and placed it near Renata's forehead. She chuckled lightly. "Just one more scan. Let's see what we g-g-get this time, okay?"

   Renata grinned with distaste.

   After a few seconds, Richelle turned the screen toward Renata. "See. There's the spike again. Just like before. But it's just a glitch, right?" She placed the Vimap against her own forehead and began running another scan.

   Renata turned, noticing Ramon and Arielle coming back from their talk.

   As Ramon asked Richelle how she was doing, Arielle sat down beside Renata.

   "Well, how'd it go?" asked Renata softly, her hands trembling from anticipation and worry.

   Arielle brushed her hair back off her face. "Ramon's on probation. A very sticky one. You'd be shocked to hear what I've just learned about a man I've known for five years. I was right, Rene. I was right all along."

   Renata brought her legs up from a cross-legged position and began nervously rubbing her knees with her hands.

   "But he won't be giving you any more flak. I can promise you that."

   Renata sighed.

   "No, not this time," said Arielle. She sniffled, put her finger to her nose, then sneezed. "Excuse me. And to tell you how off base he's been…" Her voice dropped. "He thought there was something going on between you and Devon." She waggled her hand.

   Renata's eyebrows rose in astonishment.

   "Not only that, he's intimidated by your intelligence, and he figured the only way he could match you was to antagonize you. But it's all out now. You wouldn't believe the nice things he said about you. Right, Raymond?" Arielle sneezed. "Crud." She sneezed again.

   Ramon looked down at Arielle and Renata. "God bless you, dulzura." His voice became choked. "Renata. You're the most stinking intelligent woman I've ever met. I'm sorry for what I've done to you—and I mean everything."

   Renata gazed up at him with both suspicion and contempt.

   Arielle sneezed. Ramon handed her a handkerchief. She sneezed again. "Good grief! Is this ever going to stop?" She blew her nose, then let out with three more sneezes in succession.

   Renata looked at Arielle. What was with the sneezing?

   "I don't ask for forgiveness," said Ramon, lowering his head. "I just want you to know, sister, I've been an ass."

   "You bet you have," said Arielle as she wiped the tears from her face, then sneezed again. "When is this going to stop?" She sneezed two more times, then leaned forward, trying to stop the onslaught in her nasal passages. "What else, Raymond?"

   "No more crap, I mean it." Sincerity spread across his face like a floodgate had been opened. "I'll keep that for others…"

   Arielle looked up. "Ramon!"

   "From now on, I'll treat you the way a sister should be treated."

   Arielle blew her nose. "What's with the sister stuff? Are you trying to be funny?" She sneezed four times in rapid succession.

   He held out his hand to Renata. "You can be certain it won't ever happen again, my sister. Yo prometo."

   "Don't think this makes us friends or anything," said Renata, shaking his hand. "And you can drop the cutesy sister crap."

   "What are you talking about?" He eyed her with bewilderment.

   Arielle suddenly started sneezing again, one after another after another.

   "Good grief," said Hunter, coming up to her. "Arielle. You're going to sneeze out your brains." Edison was beside Hunter; he pulled out another handkerchief for Arielle.

   "Crap," said Arielle, her nose running, her eyes watering. She took the handkerchief from Edison, but before she could get it to her face, she sneezed three more times. Then she took a deep breath, and as she exhaled, a rattling sound could be heard coming from her mouth. Arielle's eyes opened wide. She began looking around like she had no idea where that sound had come from. She took another breath, and when she exhaled, the rattling sound returned.

   "Arielle?" asked Renata as everyone looked at Arielle. "What's wrong?"

   "I don't know." Arielle took another breath, this time exhaling with a high-pitched whistling. Anxiety flew to her face. "Uuuuuh…what's…uuuuuh…going on…uuuuuh…guys…" As Arielle's fear-filled eyes glanced at the faces surrounding her, she started gasping for air and coughing. "Uuuuuuuh. Guys. Uuuuuuh."

   "My God," said Richelle, "it sounds like she's having an asthma attack."

   Ramon, Hunter, and Renata began trying to calm her down.

   "Edison!" exclaimed Ramon. "Find something to help her breathe."

   "Uuuuuh. Uuuuuuh…" Arielle's wheezing was quickly getting worse; her lips were turning blue. She put her hands to her chest as if in pain.

   "I don't know what to use for asthma," said Edison as he began to pull things from his backpack and toss them aside. "I don't have anything to inhale. Hardly anyone gets it anymore. If they do—we cure it."

   Every one of Arielle's inhales and exhales were now saturated with a high-pitched whistling.

   Renata glanced at Edison. "Edison! Find something already!" She began caressing Arielle's face, which was becoming a bluish-purple color. "Calm, honey. Take it easy. We're all here."

   Arielle grabbed Renata's hand. "Uuuuuuh. Rene. Uuuuuuh. I'm scared."

   "I'm here, baby," said Ramon, looking as if he was on the verge of panic. "We're all here. Edison!"

   "She needs oxygen," said Richelle suddenly. "The Oxygen Positive Pressure pills! They help with lung functions too." She grabbed Edison's backpack from him, picked it up, and began furiously shaking it, spilling its contents all over the ground. "Where are the OPPs?"

   "In one of the bags," said Edison. "But I'm not sure which one."

   "What the…" said Devon. "How many bags of crap do you carry in your pack? And why do they all look the same?" Edison, Devon, and Richelle got on their hands and knees, and began frantically rummaging through the bags.

   Arielle's face distinctively blue now, she was struggling for every breath.

"Try to focus on something," said Hunter, holding Arielle's hand.

   "Find something already!" cried Ramon. "She's going to suffocate."

   Renata put a hand on Ramon's arm and squeezed. "We won't let that happen. I promise."

   He placed a hand on her hand in return; there were tears in his eyes. "Señorita Stone, tienes mi corazón en tus manos."

   "Hey!" exclaimed Hunter. "Get my pack. I know I have some OPPs in it."

   Devon grabbed Hunter's pack and spilled its contents on the ground, next to all of Edison's stuff. "In what? Which one?"