Hunted Earth - The Ring Of Charon Part 25

"Who... who are you?" Coyote asked, her voice sounding raspy and weak even to herself.

The woman frowned in obvious concern. "I'm Sondra Berghoff, one of the people investigating this landing. We've been talking now for a half hour, you and I. Don't you remember?"

Coyote blinked and tried to hold her thoughts together. Which were the dreams, which were real?

How long had she sat inside that hab tank, how long had she gone without sleep, without food and drink, too paralyzed by fear to move at all? Well, perhaps there was something wrong with her.

"Yes," she lied, hoping the memories would return soon. Wait a second. Sondra. Sondra Berghoff and a friendly smile, a hand that held her own, offering comfort. Yes, that was real, was a true memory. Her mind had been struggling to deny reality for so long, it was no longer capable of accepting anything as true.

"My colleagues have found a tunnel near your hab shed," Sondra said. "They need to know where it leads, whether it is safe to go down it."

The tunnel. What was down it? Was it safe?

Safety? No! Danger! An eye and a creature that must have been old before humanity crept down from the trees, a monster whose million-year sleep was now ended, and she had been there when it first opened its eye. Coyote froze again, fell back into whatever lost place in her mind she had just returned from.

Sondra stared helplessly at her, then stood andstepped out into the central room of the temporary building. The medical tech, a stony-faced man whose expression seemed to be half calm and half anger, stood there waiting for her. "It can't be done," Sondra said. "She can't tell us about... about whatever it is. Not without help. And we need that information now."

The tech shook his implacable head. "She's half in shock already," he said. "At least I think she is. It could be she has some organic illness. I don't know.

I can't tell. Even if it is purely mental, I'm just a tech, not a psychiatrist. I don't have the equipment to diagnose-"

With a sudden burst of anger, Sondra half-shouted at him. "You have told me five hundred times you're not a shrink! f.u.c.k that!" All the terror of losing Earth, of asteroids landing on worlds, all her fear and guilt spewed out in the medic's face. "f.u.c.k diagnosis! She knows something bad and won't tell me. People are going to die if you don't give her a G.o.dd.a.m.n shot." Sondra nearly screamed the words.

The outburst shocked her as much as it did the tech. Was she truly that frightened, holding that much in?

Never mind, she had gotten his attention. Time to press the advantage. "That woman is diving deeper into her own navel with every second that pa.s.ses. I'm no f.u.c.king doctor either-but that doesn't sound too healthy to me. Now we've got three people on top of the snarging rock out there, two of whom have broken all records getting across the Inner System to get here. They have a tunnel to go down, and the more they know about what's down it, the less chance there is of that d.a.m.n rock killing them somehow. And getting killed doesn't sound too healthy, either, does it?

"The only possible source of knowledge about that tunnel is in the next room trying to check out of reality. So are you going to give her atranquilizing shot, or do we let my friends die before they can find out how to save this dust-blown, rat-a.s.s crummy little planet full of arrogant sons of b.i.t.c.hes like you?"

The tech stared at her for a long minute, then pulled out his hypo kit and walked into Coyote's room without a word.

"There should be a portable airlock near the far end of the tunnel," Sondra said, her heart still pounding loud.

"Not far from the other side of the lock, the tunnel breaches into a large cavity in the rock. And inside- well, that's where she says the monster is, surrounded by all sorts of machines and robots. She goes on about an eye, but no one at this end could make much sense of it. I know it all sounds nuts, but the seismoresonators Mercer Sanchez has been using confirm there is a big hole in the rock in about the right place. So not all of it is hallucination."

Jansen listened with the others. "This is on the level?" she demanded. "This is what's down there?"

"That's what Westlake says is down there. Even if it isn't accurate, it ought to at least give you a-"

There was a sudden rumble beneath their feet that sent them all sprawling. "Jesus Christ, what the h.e.l.l was that?" Jansen demanded. "Mercer, you on the feed? What do the seismos say?"

"A tremor, inside the asteroid. Big one, much larger than the hundred-twenty-eight second pulses. The epicenter's right smack inside that d.a.m.n hollow. That's got to be the focus point of whatever is going on here. And by theway-company's coming. The second Lander is projected to touch down about ten klicks due east of this one in about fifteen minutes. Lat.i.tude zero degrees, just like this one. They like being on the equator."

"Right now we've got other problems," Marcia said. "We're not going to know a d.a.m.n thing more until we go down that tunnel and see what there is to see."

"But the tremor!" McGillicutty protested. "If there's another of those while we're down there-"

"Then we'll be glad we're wearing armored suits,"

Jansen said grimly. "MacDougal's right. There's nothing up here to find. Let's go. Mercer, we'll be spooling a fiber cable behind us, back to a radio transponder here on the surface. We should be able to stay in touch."

"You do that, Jan," Mercer's voice whispered in the earphones. "You do that."

Jansen walked over the crumpled surface of the asteroid, up to the entrance pit of the tunnel. She set down the transponder, unspooled a cable from it, and hooked her comm unit up to the cable. With practiced skill, she drove a spike into the rock next to the tunnel, and clipped a climbing spooler to it.

Clipping the other end of the spooler to her belt, she turned and faced the pit. Determined not to hesitate, she hopped down into the pit and immediately started down the steep tunnel itself.

Marcia followed behind her, with McGillicutty a distant third.

They learned two things first off: one, that the way was very steep, and two, that Coyote Westlake was a good tunnel borer. The tunnel was cut straight and true, smooth walled and perfect. But the going was not easy. The tunnel had been cut for use in zero gee, and the asteroid's landing had placed the tunnel at an awkward angle. Jansen soon found the best way to move was a bit sillylooking-sitting on her rear, scooting forward and downward, peering forward into the darkness by the light of her headlamp. Behind her, Sondra and McGillicutty followed in the same posture. Jansen was glad of the undignified descent-in an odd way, it served to take all their minds off the dangers, real and imagined, that awaited below.

After about five minutes' awkward travel, they arrived at Coyote's inflatable airlock, still securely in place, though a certain amount of tunnel debris had slid downward and piled up against the inner door.

Jansen drove another rockspike into the tunnel wall and clipped the end of her climbing rope to it.

You couldn't feed a rope through an airlock. Nor a fiber cable. She unplugged the cable from her suit's comm set and into another transponder. The plastic lock ought to be transparent to radio. With any luck, Mercer would be able to hear them. Jansen shoveled most of the fallen debris out of the way, matched pressure with the first chamber of the lock, and swung the door open.

The lock was only large enough to cycle one person at a time. Jansen, Marcia and then McGillicutty moved through it, into a small chamber filled with a filmy green gas. At the far end of the chamber, the smooth tunnel stopped abruptly, stuttering out into a rough rock wall. A miner's zero-gee jackhammer lay abandoned, half-covered by rock chips.

And at the exact center of the end wall, there was a hole large enough to stick a pressure-suited helmet through.

"Everyone, cut your helmet lamps for a minute,"

Marcia said. The lights died, and Marcia looked toward the jagged edges of the hole.

There was a faint green luminescence coming from it. Marcia switched on her suit's external mikes and listened.

There was sound from the hole as well. A faintscrabbling that might be metal legs scurrying over stone-and a wet, tearing sound that might be the sound of flesh being torn from a body.

Marcia was moving forward to take a look through that hole at what lay beyond when the second tremor hit and the pressure dropped.

Now was the time. The Worldeater was satisfied with the results of its systems checks. Its energy reserves were satisfactory, its biological components were in good health, and its mechanical portions were in excellent repair. The follow-on Worldeaters were homing in on its signals.

It was time to move out of the chamber it had slept in for so long and begin its proper work. It moved its main body forward across the chamber, toward the thinnest section of the chamber's wall.

Even there, the rock between chamber and the asteroid's outer surface was many meters thick.

But that was no barrier at all to a being like the World-eater. Feeling its still-awakening power, reveling in it, it heaved itself at the yielding stone.

The second Lander was setting down a few kilometers away, but Mercer paid it no mind. Let the other chase teams, the skim jets and dragonflies amuse themselves by going after it.

The first Lander, this Lander, was the key. Of that she had no doubt. She stood on the desert floora bare quarter kilometer away and stared at it as it towered over her, blotting out the sky, gleaming in the first light of the new-rising Sun.

Jansen was in this one, her voice brought to Mercer's ear by a tenuous link of radio waves and cables and radio-repeating transponders.

Suddenly, the ground bucked and swayed, knocking her off her feet. A ma.s.sive cloud of debris shook itself off the Lander, and a huge wave of shattered stone slumped down from one end of the asteroid. A jet of greenish smoke spewed out from the Lander's interior.

The asteroid shuddered again. More stone slumped over, revealing a hollow s.p.a.ce inside. And something was moving in there.

Suddenly, Mercer knew what her subconscious had been trying to recall. She knew what this nightmare reminded her of.

The War of the Worlds. The G.o.dd.a.m.n War of the Worlds. The ancient stories, always immensely popular on Mars, because loving them annoyed arrogant ground-hogs, if for no other reason. The H.

G. Wells book, the Orson Welles audio play and the George Pal two-dee movie-all quaint, old-fashioned, creaky and much-loved parts of Martian popular heritage.

The old images swept over her. The mysterious invaders landing in their cylinders-just outside London, in Graver's Mill, New Jersey, in rural California-lurking, ominous shapes that finally opened, unleashing the Martian invaders inside upon an unsuspecting Earth.

A third tremor hit as the thing inside slammed aside the last of the rock wall that blocked its way.

It seemed to hesitate for a moment before moving out from its stone coc.o.o.n.

Mercer got cautiously to her feet and watched as the first of the invaders emerged.At first she could see nothing but a vague blue-gray shape. She could not tell if there were one or many things moving forth, could not tell whether she was watching machines or life.

Jansen. Was she okay? "Jansen, you three still there?" she asked, speaking into her helmet mike.

The signal was scratchy, and the voice was faint, distorted, but at least it was there. Mercer breathed a sigh of relief even before she heard the words.

"We're- kay.-utty got rattled aro- p -ood, but he's in one -iece. What -h.e.l.l was -at?"

"You're cutting in and out, Janse. Bet you snapped your antenna. It looks like whatever is inside there just decided to come on out."

"-and by." Suddenly the carrier wave cleared and Jansen came back on, her signal far stronger.

"Okay, patching through MacDougal's radio. The tremor rattled us pretty good, and there was a h.e.l.l of a pressure drop at the same time. Something is busting out of here?"

"Affirmative. It's got to be a hundred meters long at least, whatever it is."

"d.a.m.n, and we had to miss it. Go get 'em, Merce.

We're gonna hunker down here before anything can happen."

"Jansen, I-"

"For G.o.d's sake, Merce, you can't do anything for us, and that thing is what we're all here to see! Get moving. Jansen out."

Mercer stayed frozen for another split second, and then started a dogtrot toward the open end of the asteroid, determined to see all she could.

It wasn't easy to get there. The tremors had kicked up a tremendous amount of dust, and the dawn winds were remarkably fierce, kicking up a blinding fog of dust. All around her, men and women were racing in all directions, some on foot, some in crawlers or other machines. Everyoneseemed to have a different purpose: some running away from the chaos in panic, some hurrying toward it to get a better look, others rushing to care for some vital piece of machinery. Mercer plugged along, ignoring it all, moving nearly blind by dead reckoning.

The wind cleared the dust away at last, and Mercer found herself in the clear, having run beyond the asteroid's end, putting her right alongside- Something.

Huge, blue-gray, shapeless-yes. But no eyes on stalks swooping out to get a look at her. Maybe that much of Westlake's report was hallucinatory. If so, Mercer wasn't going to complain. It seemed to move by extruding the forward portion of its body ahead and then oozing the rest of itself forward.

It was impossible to pick out any further details.

Its surface-hull? skin? whatever-seemed to glitter in the early morning sun. Was it alive, or a machine?

Mercer tried to pull her helmet binoculars into place. But the b.l.o.o.d.y swing-down mechanism had jammed again. The balky mechanism always picked the wrong time to screw up. Mercer knew the suit, knew she had only to bleed pressure, open the visor and free the swing-down arm from inside the helmet. She could get the suit back up to pressure in seconds, once it was sealed up again. She checked the outside temp and swore. Marginally marginal. In point of fact, ten degrees below normal safety margins.

But Mercer needed to see. She lifted her left arm and opened the panel on the tiny environmental control panel there. She hit the pumpback control, and her backpack made a gurgling noise as it started sucking air out of the suit, down to Mars normal. Her eyes began to sting, and her sinuses started throbbing the moment the pumpbackstarted. Mercer knew from experience she could handle the low pressure long enough to fix the binocs, but she wasn't going to enjoy it. She swung her helmet open just as an eddy of the greenish fog slipped out of the asteroid and was blown toward her.

She almost dropped from the stench.

Even in that low pressure, that cold air, even holding her breath, the stink was overpowering.

Eyes watering, she shoved a gauntleted hand into her helmet and jiggled the clumsy mechanism. The binocs fell into place, and she slammed the visor shut. She undid the safety from the air purge b.u.t.ton and shoved it in, air waste be d.a.m.ned. With a violent howl, her backpack airpumps roared back to life as the spill valves opened. The purge cycle ran long enough to dump all the existing air out of her suit, and then the spill valves shut, leaving Mercer gasping for breath, her eyes popping and sinuses thundering as the suit regained pressure. She slumped back, allowed herself to fall backwards into the sands of Mars. She landed half sitting up, staring up at the clean pink sky. A crash change in pressure was always nasty, but it beat having to breathe that... that corruption.

Never had she smelled anything that had even come close. It was the stench of rotting meat, festering corpses, rotting vegetables, gangrenous wounds, contaminated compost, soiled diapers, unwashed bodies and rotting eggs.

It was that stench of death that convinced Mercer Sanchez the invader was alive. No machine, not even the most obscenely polluting refinery of the twentieth century, could ever have produced such a ghastly reeking odor.

Alive. Alive and somehow entombed in that asteroid for how long? Centuries? Millennia?

Millions of years? No matter how slowed the metabolic processes were, some respiration, digestion-and excretion-had to go on. It couldhave been lying in a pseudo-dead state for longer than the average lifespan of an Earth species.

And she was watching the creature emerging from its tomb-womb. In a real sense, then, this was a birth. Mercer smiled briefly, thinly, to herself. In a way, she had just gotten a whiff of a million-year-old diaper.

She forced all that from her mind and pulled the exterior lever that swung her unjammed binoculars down into place. What had seemed glittering highlights on the surface of the creature were resolved into discrete objects-machines crawling around on its skin, working at unknowable tasks.

Several seemed to have made their way down to the surface, moving off on their own, back toward the asteroid. Others seemed to be moving in and out of the creature, going in and out of holes in its upper surface.

The body of the creature constantly changed its shape, and seemed to grow the parts it needed as it required them. A boulder the size of a large house blocked its way. It extruded a limb, call it an arm or a leg, ma.s.sive enough to shove the rock to one side.

And something else. Something that looked absurdly like a child's balloon being pulled along on a string. A large spherical object, metallic blue in color, hung in the air behind the creature, held to it by a ma.s.sive cable. That had to be the gravity generator.

Mercer sat there on the sands of Mars, staring at the apparition meandering over the surface. All right, she thought. A shapeless blue-gray monster the size of the largest s.p.a.cecraft is ambling over the surface of Mars while a herd of attendant robots busy themselves. Now what?

? ? ?Nothing subtle about it now-light, the clear light of day, was streaming in through the hole at the end of the tunnel. The Charonian invader had smashed open a gap far larger than several barn doors when it crashed through the asteroid's crust and out onto the planet's surface. More than enough light came through it to illuminate Coyote Westlake's tunnel.

Marcia shut off her helmet lamp, and McGillicutty did the same. Jansen was scouting the way back up the tunnel, but Marcia had the feeling she wasn't going to get far.

"The tunnel back is cut off," Jansen said flatly as she came back through the airlock. "Collapsed in the second tremor. I couldn't even open the lock door on the other side. At least the rockslide didn't smash the transponder. We can stay in touch."

"Great news," McGillicutty said in a panicky voice. "The outside world can listen in while we die of suffocation."

Marcia MacDougal looked at the chubby scientist worriedly. It was going to take all of them to get out of this- but McGillicutty didn't seem up to be pulling his weight. "Settle down, Hiram. Take a few deep breaths. We're not dead yet, and we do have a way out."

Hiram swung around in his pressure suit to face her head-on. "Out? You mean down into that... that chamber!"

"Why not?" Jansen asked. "The previous occupant has vacated the premises. It seems to me we have a way forward, and none back. Unless you have an alternate suggestion?"

McGillicutty leaned back against the cramped walls of the tunnel and shook his head. "No."