The Pandora Directive: A Tex Murphy Novel (32 page)

I picked up my speeder from the valet, half-expecting a couple of NSA agents to be waiting in the back seat. I guess it was my lucky day.

As I flew back to my office, I was a jumble of excitement, weariness, and anxiety. Malloy must have known the burden he was dumping on his friends’ backs. If only he’d never made the discovery. The spacecraft, if there actually was one, had been here for hundreds, maybe thousands of years without being found. Maybe it could’ve lain there in peace for another million years. Maybe we could have thrown ourselves into extinction without ever finding it. As it was, the proverbial cat was out of the bag, and it was one gigantic cat. Witt was right. If there was antihydrogen stored on the spacecraft, there was no question that it needed to be destroyed. It was the last thing we needed in circulation.

When I got back to my office, I couldn’t remember ever being so tired. Tomorrow I would be flying to Peru to help locate and scrap an alien spacecraft. Definitely something to write home about. Unfortunately, the thought of it was sapping any meagre amounts of energy left in my weary, forty year old body. I stumbled into my bedroom and pulled up abruptly.

Regan was stretched languidly across my bed, a thin veneer of silk draped over her creamy skin. God, of all the times to tempt me. I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough to deal with this now. I leaned against the door frame and lit a cigarette. “I suppose you’ve already sat in my chair and eaten my porridge.”

Regan looked up at me feverishly, her eyes bright. “It took you long enough. I was afraid I’d have to start without you. Hope you don’t mind — I thought I’d get comfortable while I waited. I’m feeling extremely comfortable.”

“You look it.”

She moved restlessly and immodestly. “How long does it take you to smoke a cigarette?”

“Why? You in a hurry?”

“That’s one way to describe it.”

I walked toward the bed and crushed my Lucky Strike into an ashtray on the nightstand. Regan ran her hand across the bedspread, her eyes following my every move. She was putting off more heat than a space shuttle on re-entry. I took a step back and stared down at the most desirable woman in the world. “Tell me, Regan, do you always get what you want?”

“Only if I really want it.”

Her shallow breathing was contagious. With no small effort, I turned and crossed the room, removing my hat and overcoat. I looked back at Regan, steadying myself on the dresser. “I’ve never really understood women that well. Could you explain to me exactly what’s happening here?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never done this before.”

“Just once… by myself. It confused me and made me feel dirty.”

Regan smiled seductively. “Come over here, little boy.”

I walked back across the room and sat down on the corner of the bed. Regan sat up and loosened my tie. “If we’re going to be in this together, I need to know that you’re in all the way.”

“I have to warn you, I failed all my commitment classes in college.”

Regan’s fingers moved slowly across my ear and into my hair. “I can teach an old dog new tricks.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

Her face was close to mine, her eyes focused on my mouth. “Promise me, Tex. Promise that you’ll stay with me and see this to the end.”

“I’m not taking you with me, Regan.”

“You can have me, and everything else you ever wanted. Just for taking me with you.” I only wanted one thing in the world at that moment. I was standing at the edge of the abyss, bits of gravel tumbling into the chasm and falling over. Suddenly, a face came into my mind. Chelsee’s face. I got up from the bed and backed away. Regan looked up at me, her face twisted in confusion. “Don’t do this to me, Tex. I’ve already lost my father. I don’t want to lose you.” She was changing tactics. I couldn’t believe the negligee approach had ever failed before, but she seemed to have other tricks up her sleeve.

“I want you, Regan. And I don’t want you to think I don’t care for you or what happens to you. I do. The problem is, I think you’re trying to force me to choose between you and what I think needs to be done.”

Regan turned a shade darker. “So you’re on the side of those old men? What the hell is wrong with you? I can give you everything. I can love you like you’ve never been loved. I don’t know much about the antimatter, or whatever it is my father was talking about, but I know that it’s worth a fortune. A fortune that can be ours.”

“I don’t want to argue about this. The way you look is making it difficult enough.”

Regan swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Grabbing her clothes from a chair, she stormed past me. I turn to watch her leave. At the door, she whirled around. “You blew it, Tex. You could have had it all.” With that parting shot, she threw open the door and disappeared into the night.

The pilot Witt had hooked me up with was named Smitty. He didn’t ask questions. In fact, he only spoke when absolutely necessary, which was fine with me. I hadn’t slept well, and I was weary beyond description.

Smitty threw my backpack into the back of his Avatar and curtly told me there was room to sleep in the back if I wanted to. I gladly took him up on the offer. Witt had apparently given him all the information he needed to get me where I needed to go. We took off, and I almost immediately fell asleep. Surprisingly, I slept deeply and thoroughly, the kind of dead sleep when you’re too tired to dream. At one point, I woke up disorientated, only to slide back into the tar pit of the subconscious.

When I finally awoke, I had no idea how long I’d been out. I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Smitty was like a statue at the helm. I climbed up to the passenger seat and pulled out my pack of smokes. “You mind?”

Thankfully, Smitty shook his head. I leaned back in my seat and stared out the window, taking a deep drag. We were up high, higher than I’d ever been in a speeder. Of course, the avatar was no ordinary speeder. We were out over the ocean. “Where are we?”

Smitty glanced down at the console. “Fifty miles off the west coast of Colombia.”

“How much longer?”

Smitty shrugged. “Ninety minutes, maybe.”

There didn’t seem to be much hope of conversation, so I turned my full attention to the window for the remainder of the flight. After about an hour, we moved in over the coast and headed inland. The terrain below was green and hilly. A few minutes later, we reached the beginnings of a mountain range, covered in tropical vegetation. Smitty began the approach, eventually getting down to an altitude of no more than five hundred feet. He began checking his instrumentation more frequently. We dropped even lower, and Smitty looked out the window, apparently searching for a likely place to set down.

Five minutes later, we touched down on a large, exposed piece of rock in the centre of some very tall trees.

“This is it. I can’t get any closer to the coordinates.”

“Which way should I go?”

Smitty pointed, then reached back and grabbed my backpack. He thrust it toward me. “I’ll meet you back at this spot in three days, at exactly 10 a.m.”

“Is that Pacific Daylight Time?”

He didn’t smile. I wasn’t sure he could. I opened the door and stepped out of the Avatar. Smitty shut the door and lifted off immediately. I didn’t bother to wave.

After the speeder disappeared over the trees, I looked around. I’d only been in the jungle once before, during the Martian Memorandum case. Being here confirmed my lifelong status of urban junkie. I was already missing coffee.

I threw the backpack over my shoulder and trudged off in the direction Smitty had pointed me. I climbed steadily for ten minutes. Above me, a canopy of intertwined branches filtered out most of the sunlight. The jungle floor was matted with vines and plants, but was fairly easy to cross.

Suddenly, up ahead, I saw a wall of stone covered with a thick layer of vines. The wall was comprised of square, cut stones, man-made. My pulse began to race.

I hurried to the wall and followed it. After thirty feet or so, I turned a corner and saw the facade of what might have been an ancient Mayan temple, set into the side of a hill. The undergrowth had almost swallowed the surface of the stone, nearly obscuring the structure. Climbing a set of inlaid stone steps, I reached an opening in the facade. Vines hung across it like a beaded curtain in a 1960s dance club. The vines were surprisingly thick and strong, but I managed to pull them aside. I fished a flashlight out of my backpack and stepped into the darkness.

I’d taken only a few steps when a flock of startled birds, or maybe bats, fluttered past my head. I dropped my knees automatically, shielding my head. Quickly, my sense of fear turned to disgust. The floor was coated with a thick layer of dusty bat guano. I stood up and didn’t bother to brush off my trousers. passage I was standing in was quite narrow, about six feet across. The ceiling was only about six feet high, causing me to stoop. The walls were surprisingly smooth; if they’d been cut out of stone, they’d been well-polished. The ceiling, as well, was smooth and glassy-looking. The passage led upward at a fairly steep pitch. I climbed from least five minutes before I reached a junction.

I had no idea where I was going, or even what I should be looking for, but all paths seemed to lead upward. I encountered numerous tunnels, always at right-angles to those they intersected. There was no way these passages had formed naturally. In fact, they resembled old air-raid shelters more than cave corridors.

After several twists and turns, I spotted a light emanating from a point ahead of me. Following it led me into a massive, cavernous area. High up in the cavern, regularly placed slits in the rock allowed beams of light to enter. Whoever had designed the layout had been ingenious. The cavern appeared to be empty, except for several figures carved into the walls. These tunnels were obviously ancient.

Around the perimeter of the cavern were seven openings, leading into hallways similar to those I’d been walking through. I took a stroll around, looking for any indication that would tell me which doorway to take.

Then I saw the footprints. They led from one of the doorways into the centre of the cavern. After some milling about, the person had made a decision and entered the opening opposite where he’d come in. The prints were from fairly small, well-shod feet and had definitely been left recently. The natives in this area were small-statured and had had access to modern conveniences, such as hiking boots, for decades. Maybe these prints were left by some local adventurer. Or maybe not.

I decided to follow the prints and walked to the third doorway, keeping the beam trained on the trail in front of me. I followed through numerous twists and turns, sometimes retracing my steps, other times crossing our two sets of prints. I began to doubt that whoever I was tracking knew where he was going. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

Eventually, the tracks led into a small chamber, approximately twelve feet square. The shoe prints led to the far side of the chamber, then seemed to vanish. I leaned over and followed them to where they ended. Suddenly, I was off balance. The floor seemed to be dropping out from under me. Before I could tell what was happening, I was sliding down a long ramp, heading straight for a rectangle of light. I dropped my flashlight and was now grasping and scraping for something to get hold of. The ramp was smooth, and I continued to gain speed until I entered the opening at the base of the ramp. Abruptly, there was nothing under me. My stomach turned over as I free-fell for what seemed like an eternity. Eternity ended unceremoniously as my locked legs hit a hard surface and buckled.

Lying on my back in a blanket of bat guano, I stared up at the distant ceiling and wondered if I’d ever walk again. I was fairly certain that the adrenalin in my system was temporarily blocking a tremendous amount of agonising pain, and that it would be merely a matter of minutes before it wore off. Even if I wasn’t broken, I seriously doubted that I would ever smell good again.

After several moments, I looked around and took in my new surroundings. I was in another cavern, but this one was perfectly cylindrical and very tall, like the interior of a giant, stone beer can. Near the top of the cavern, probably fifty feet up, I saw a large window, or maybe a small door, with golden light streaming through it. The opening I’d come through was right in front of me, about twenty feet up the cavern wall. A large stone statue sat in the centre of the floor.

I began to think that I’d survived my fall intact. There’d certainly be a tremendous amount of bruising involved, but I’d gone that route before. I rolled onto my side and saw a figure sitting off to the side. It was Regan. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, with her hands clasped around her legs. She was staring at me placidly, her expression somewhere between annoyance and amusement.

I got up from the floor and checked for broken bones. Everything seemed to be in place. I dusted off my trousers and gave Regan a nonchalant look. “Fancy meeting someone like you in a place like this.”

“I could say the same thing.”

“Been waiting long?”

“No, I just got here. Came in the same way you did. You all right?”

“I think so. A little confused.” I walked over to where Regan was sitting against the wall and sat down beside her. “So, what are you doing here, if you don’t mind me asking?”

She looked at me with more than a little resentment. “Oh, I should be waiting back in my hotel room like a good little girl, right? Well, I’m sorry. It’s not in my nature to sit around and let someone else make my decisions for me. As soon as I realised you were bailing on me, I got a charter down here.”

I pulled out a Lucky Strike. The pack must have cushioned my fall — the cigarette looked like an albino candy cane. “So how is it you got here first?”

Regan shrugged. “Maybe I had a faster pilot. Or maybe I left before you did.”

I took a drag off the lucky and handed it to Regan. She took it without any intention of giving it back. I pulled out a second cigarette and lit it. “What are you doing here?”

Regan stared straight ahead as she smoked. After a minute, she turned toward me. “I could see that you were gonna go along with those two old doddering idiots. What do they know? Here we are, sitting on the greatest discovery in the history of the world, and they say let’s get rid of it. Great idea! Who cares how valuable it is, how much the technology would be worth? NSA would pay billions just for the antihydrogen!” She took a final drag and flicked the cigarette across the chamber. Her frustration was almost tangible.