The Caverns of Mare Cetus (49 page)

   "What the hell? Where could she have gone? She has to be here somewhere." Hunter pivoted around in a circle. "Devon! Devon…"

   Ramon grabbed Hunter's collar with his trembling hands and looked him in the eyes. "Can't you see? She's vanished. She's gone. This is some kind of voodoo magic."

   Hunter pushed Ramon's hands off his jacket and continued probing the greenish-gray walls of the passage, trying to find any possible place where she could have gone, but there weren't any places for her to hide. He gulped, instantly reminded of the vision he had experienced—when Garrett had come up on him, and he hadn't seen his lights.

   "She's a ghost," said Ramon. "We've been walking with a ghost. That's why she survived the broken neck. Because she was already dead!" He grabbed Hunter by the collar again, his eyes replete with fear. "She's a ghost, señor. No one is going to believe this. We've been talking to a ghost."

   Hunter pulled Ramon's hands off his collar. "Calm down." He took out his Vimap. "Let me see if I can locate her." With the KSDM held in one hand, showing a map of the local area, the Vimap in the other, he called up the HID search program on the Vimap. At once three dots came to the screen, but there was no map to go with them. Ramon's and Hunter's identifiers were right next to each other, but Devon's was a distance ahead of them. He turned and looked down the passage in the direction they had been heading. He saw lights in the middle of the passage. "Devon?"

   She began walking toward them. "Sorry about that. I didn't realize you stopped."

   "Devon," said Hunter. "How is that possible?"

   Ramon scrambled behind Hunter, then peered out at Devon around Hunter's left side.

   "What do you mean? I just got to talking, and the next thing I knew, I was here and you guys were back there."

   Hunter held the Vimap up to his mouth and bit the end of it. "You couldn't have gotten ahead of us without us seeing you. Your lights would have been obvious. We would have been looking right at them."

   She came up to Hunter and stood in front of him. "Why? Isn't that what happened?"

   "Didn't you see our lights as you got out in front of us?"

   "Of course I did. Why wouldn't I? I just wasn't paying that much attention though. Got caught up with my mouth, I guess. Sorry if I bored you."

   Ramon was still hiding behind Hunter, holding onto Hunter's jacket. "Run something on her again, will you? Make sure she's alive."

   "Ramon, what's wrong?" She put her hand out toward him, and he drew back.

   "Wait a minute. What's with your hand? Your nails are black!" He took a step back. "You are dead! Zombies wear black polish."

   "What do you mean it's black?" She looked at her fingernails.

   Hunter glanced at them. "Ramon. You're seeing things. They're still red."

   She held her hands up to Ramon, then began slowly waggling her fingers.

   "They're maroon. But they weren't that color just a second ago." Ramon rubbed his eyes.

   "Sure they were," said Devon. "Hunter just said so."

   He stepped up and nudged Hunter in the back. "Scan her already, will you?"

   "With what?" asked Hunter. "I've already used the Mediprogs."

   "Do it again," said Ramon. "Do it."

   "Humor him. Please." Hunter ran a quick general level scan. "She's human," he said when it was complete. "Her heart's beating. Her blood loss is down to 22 percent now—which is actually insane, but the radius in her left arm is still fractured, and her neck is still broken." He showed the Vimap screen to Ramon. "See. Woman. One hundred percent woman."

   "I don't care what that thing says," said Ramon. "Use some common sense. No one could survive the broken neck she has without some kind of neurological damage. She has to be a robot."

   "I'm a Mendrax," she said in irritation. "When is that going to sink in?"

   "I don't care what you call yourself. That kind of crap just doesn't happen with people. We didn't even hear you, let alone see you."

   "I have to agree," said Hunter.

   "Come on," she said, sounding frustrated. "What's with you guys? How could I just disappear? You weren't paying attention, that's all." She held up her right hand to Ramon, showing him her nails once more. "What do you see now?"

   His eyes widened as he looked at them. "Uh? Blue? They're blue!"

   "Shit!" she exclaimed. She shook her hand as if she was trying to scare off a bee. "See. You're wrong. I am having neurological problems. Just not the kind you'd understand." She looked at her fingernails again, a puzzled expression shouting through her eyes. "We've got to get out of here. You have to get me out of here." She turned toward Hunter, her face filled with anxiety.

   "I can't make any promises," he said. "I can only map short sections of the passage at a time. I'll keep trying to get us up through the rock section, but if we run into too many dead-end channels, we'll be out of luck. Right now I have no idea where we are."

   Devon's continued pleas to get out of the caves was disturbing to Hunter, but on the other hand, much of what she said seemed like fantasy. Still, he felt there was some truth to her fantasies. She was different, that was obvious. She acted as if nothing was wrong with her, yet the Mediprog was screaming her neck was broken and she needed immediate medical help. He had also verified his skull was seriously fractured. His brain should have been swelling, and he should have been unconscious, but he wasn't. If Devon had some kind of power to take away their pain as she had said, then it was a power he couldn't imagine. He still felt a slight pressure on the outside of his head, as if her hands were still there, though he had gotten used to it, so it was hard to pick up now. What was she? Who was she? What was she doing in the caves? She hadn't really shed much light on that through her rambling, but she had pointed to three people: Renata, Garrett, and Richelle. What did they know, and how were they all connected? Renata had been acting strange, so had Garrett. And Richelle, well, she was something else. And why had Devon suddenly disappeared? She did—despite her denials. She was there beside them one second, the next she was gone. Even the most advanced robotics couldn't perform that trick—so what happened?

   As they continued to press forward, Hunter relied on his extensive expertise in spelunking to move them farther up in the Complex. They ran into several dead-end sections and had to backtrack a couple times, but Ramon's keen eye helped them at several junctions, as his ability to spot even the slightest seepage from the rocks kept leading them to passable passages. The three didn't say much during several hours of hiking, but when the men did ask Devon something, she either ignored them or immediately brushed them off with oneword answers. Occasionally she would ask Ramon or Hunter to look at her fingernails, which Hunter continued to see in red and Ramon in maroon.

   At one point, Ramon seemed to have reached his limit with her obsession with her nail color. "You've asked me about the color of your nails seven times in the last hour. The answer is always maroon. Why do you need me to tell you what color they are? Can't you just look at them yourself?"

   "Yes," she said, looking at her fingernails. "I can look at them."

   "And what do you see? Maroon, right?"

   "No."

   "Hah! Red," said Hunter. "I knew it."

   "No," she said.

   They both looked at her with confusion.

   "Are you colorblind or something?" asked Ramon.

   "No."

   "Then what color do you see? Some shade of red, right?"

   "I don't see any color. Why should I see any color?"

   "Because your nails are dusted, that's why," said Ramon, huffing.

   "Are they?" she asked. "They shouldn't be."

   Ramon looked at Hunter, drawing circles by his ear with his forefinger.

   "I'm not crazy, Ramon," said Devon. "I am far from crazy."

   Ramon and Hunter grew quiet and put their efforts back into searching for upward-leading passages. After they had made their way up a steep, grueling climb and had entered a rather wide passage with a slight upward grade, Hunter thought they should break and have something to eat. They found some large flat-topped black limestone blocks to sit on, and Ramon handed out some food from his pack.

   "Sorry I don't have a Reuben for you, Señorita Snow," he said as he gave Devon some packages of dried meats and fruits. "But I do have some chocolate." He handed her some chocolate bars. "Did you know one of the first plants transported to Novia from Earth was the cocoa tree?"

   She shook her head, then smiled. He smiled too.

   Hunter was glad to see that. He knew how much Ramon had disliked her initially, but it seemed she was winning him over now, despite his concerns over her being a ghost, a zombie, or a robot. And why wouldn't she be able to win any man over? There was something about her that was extremely alluring, and it had nothing to do with her cute figure, pretty face, and the exhilarating kiss she had given Hunter. In some ways, she was one of the most pleasant and certainly the most effervescent women he had ever met. As they had hiked, he had begun imagining what it would be like to be married to this young woman, and that thought seemed as pleasant as any he had ever had.

   Ramon suddenly got to his feet. "Care to join me? I have to relieve myself."

   Hunter stood up. "Excuse us for a moment, will you, Devon?"

   She looked up at them, a beaming smile on her face.

   Ramon and Hunter walked to a secluded spot behind some towering orange-gray limestone columns that were covered with long, shallow, vertical grooves.

   "You know, that is one cute woman," said Ramon.

   "Agreed," said Hunter.

   "I hate to admit it, but I'm attracted to her."

   "What? What's Arielle going to think about that? More—what's she going to do to you?"

   "Haven't thought that far yet. Guess I should, shouldn't I?"

   "Besides, I have this thing for her too."

   "What about Renata? Didn't you have something going with her?"

   "Yeah," said Hunter as he thought about Renata. "You're right, this kind of talk is crazy."

   Ramon zipped up his pants. "Well, our girls aren't anywhere around here right now. We can play a little at least. Strictly platonic, okay? Let's give her our best and see who can get a kiss first. She gives the kiss though—not the other way. That was disgraceful, you know." He winked.

   "May the best man win," said Hunter.

   When they returned to Devon, they began doing everything they could to make her comfortable. Ramon gently massaged her shoulders and checked her neck, telling her how sorry he was she had hurt herself. As Ramon did that, Hunter found some premier chocolates he usually saved for himself. Then he moved a large rock for her to prop up her feet. Ramon brewed some coffee for her, making it exactly the way she wanted it. Hunter tended to the gashes on her head and leg, ran several Mediprogs on her, and told her she seemed to be healing remarkably well. For the rest of their break, the men continued to act like two high school boys at a dance who were vying for the affections of the prettiest girl in school.

   "I appreciate all the attention," said Devon after awhile. She finished her coffee. "But we have to get going. I don't know how much more I'm going to be able to take—not your attention—being in these caves." She put her fingers to her lips and blew both of them a kiss.

   Both men smiled at her, then Hunter blinked twice. Her fingernails were green. "Did you know your nails are green? That's a problem, right?"

   She began shaking her hand as she stood up. "Yes. That's a problem. Let's move. Please. Now."

   They gathered their things and began quickly hiking through the wide hall, Hunter keeping his eyes glued to the KSDM. After a short distance, his eyes were drawn away from the monitor to an angular black rock that was laying by the wall. There were small clumps of emerald-green pyramidal and cubic minerals peppered over its surface. He went over and picked up the rock, which was quite heavy for its size.

   "What's that?" asked Devon.

   Hunter's eyes were brimming with excitement. "Velandrite! Look at the size of these crystals!"

   Ramon stopped and made an about-face. "That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

   As Devon waited nervously, the men began looking around. A short distance ahead of them, they found more blocks with velandrite crystals on them, and the passage floor and walls were dotted with small crystalline masses glued right into the black limy matrix, appearing as brilliant green stars in the dead of night. There was also another mineral—a yellowish wispy coating Hunter noted on a number of the velandrite blocks and nodules, as well as on the walls.

   "Pay dirt!" exclaimed Hunter. "Give me a moment to make a v-log and record the claim for Explora. This also gives me some idea as to where we are in the Complex. After he had recorded the claim and had taken several images and records, he placed a white identification and locator disk on the wall, then pulled up some of the older Kalo and georobotic survey maps on his Vimap, calling Devon and Ramon to his side. He began pointing out where he thought they might be. As he ran a program to determine a way to the surface from their likely location, he grinned. Not too far from them was a series of passages that would take them up to a long, wide horizontal passage in the upper level of the cavern. He was surprised those routes hadn't been noted previously by the robotic surveys. Unfortunately, the location they would be entering the near-surface passage was a long distance from where they had entered the Laramax, but in Hunter's mind, any place higher was better. As he studied the maps, his Vimap screen started rhythmically flashing. Then the map broke up into disjointed sections that seemed to dance and rotate haphazardly across the screen. As scores of multicolored numbers and shapes began bouncing all over the now rainbow-colored screen like he was playing some chaotic pinball game, he reset the unit.

   Suddenly the ground beneath them began to shake, and a loud, low rumble echoed through the passage.