If you lived in an underground paradise free of the biological ravages of time, resplendent with all the technological wizardry man could dream up, how willing would you be to return to the world you grew up in? A world fraught with war and pestilence, greed and starvation, where aging brings only infirmary and death, where love is transient and personal loss as common as the cold?
Crash landing amid a nuclear bombardment, where each grueling, painful step either brought you closer to sanctuary or merely a cruel, agonizing death, would you, could you push on?
Can you imagine fighting nine foot aliens hand-to-hand in the empty reaches of space or seeking safety 10,000 feet beneath the sea in an untested experimental submarine?
If you uncovered a cavern filled with alien artifacts, would you have the courage to face the unknown? Would you feel secure you possessed the knowledge to survive the encounter?
How would you react if a madman put a gun to your friend's head and pulled the trigger? Could you, would you summon outrage sufficient to murder the killer in cold blood?
The only way you can learn the truth is living the adventure called Mankind's Worst Fear.
A tingling itch crawled up George 'Cap' Schumer's spine. He leaned back from the burnished gray communications con. Troubled, his worried scrutiny swept forward along the tapered soft-edge of the console, then up, taking in the satin smooth, seamless and antiseptically white bulkhead panels concealing a nest of fiber optics cables, control biopaks and a myriad thatch of components integral to the control room's function as Slinker's nerve center.
Something was amiss, yet nothing revealed itself as his gold-flecked hazel eyes took in the sub's forward cabin and belatedly came to rest on the man beside him. Mindless of his captain's unease, Don Scambini, Seascape's Chief Environmental Analyst, stared greedily at the environmentals vid, absorbing some arcane bit of data that would, invariably, prove to be useful at some unforeseen moment when success or failure hinged on his dredging it from the seemingly unrelated storehouse of scientific trivia crammed into his vast intellect.
George's gaze swept past Don, across the open hatch leading aft through the bunk room, over the helmcon, a near duplicate of the starboard work stations where he now sat rigidly upright, to Farrell Morris, his back bent from years of hunching over keyboards to eyeball vid displays. A technological master of the open sea, the youngest among George's crew of specialists seemed as rapt as Don.
A ripple through the sub-surface currents displayed on his vid grabbed George's attention. Puzzled, he squared up and hunched closer. The pattern repeated, then spread like ripples on a still pond, blurring the upper left quadrant. He leaned around to see if Slinker's navigator saw it too.
A warning bleat drew him back to the vid. 'UFO detected', flashed in red.
"Aerial display," he directed at the screen's pick-up. The monitor brightened, revealing a digital recreation of an enormous object plummeting through the exosphere.
"Display available UFO data." At last. A distraction, but not an NHDA virtual. He had taken Slinker off-net after eluding the Northern Hemisphere Defense Alliance forces the first day out. He considered the hundreds of automated experiments and systems tests currently onlined. No, Slinker's twin bioputers would notify him if that were the case. The UFO had to be real. The giant space station, Orbital One, crashing into the atmosphere was the only thing he knew that could create that huge a sensor imprint. Or an asteroid. That explained the itch.
The vid brightened to pale blue. Altimeter and telemetry readings appeared in a crimson box to the bottom right. From the top left, a black square traced a yellow arc that transected a white blip beneath a dark blue line at the bottom. Training notwithstanding, George gaped. Whatever the damn thing was, it was on a collision course — with Slinker! Before he could verify telemetry, the display dissolved. Variegated patterns swirled and writhed across the screen, rendering useless the data now displayed as a backdrop.
Something else. Though nothing he could tag, it set every nerve synapse jangling. Even the cabin's atmosphere seemed wrong, smelled, tasted of ozone. George glanced sharply at Don, but Don, eyeing the odd displacement on his own monitor, merely shrugged, apparently as much at a loss for an explanation as he.
With a sickening lurch, Slinker lolled to port and stalled. Diffused lighting faded to red. A shudder coursed bow to stern. Slinker nosed upward as if the magnetron tubes and steering motors were biting thin air. Sensors threaded throughout the sub's composite skeleton set off axial stress alarms, flooding the control room with somber, yet irritatingly effective bleats.
George closed his eyes and onlined with Slinker. He communed with her, read her sinews, measured her pulse. She revealed to him what the vids could not. His throat constricted as if a giant hand throttled him. He swallowed hard, but it did no good. He was right to be afraid. Something was horribly wrong. He rushed through the possibilities. Nothing jelled. Slinker lurched, wallowed eleven degrees starboard, then sloughed bow up, driving the stern deeper.
"Autocon off! Reflate stern ballast to one-fifty!" George bolted from the chair and lunged for the helm con, portside and left of Farrell. Thrown off balance by the sudden list, he crashed against the chart table, knocking the wind from him. Gasping for breath, he grabbed onto handholds molded along the table lip and hung on as the deck canted more. His chest and thigh ached from the violence of the contact.
"Done, Cap." Farrell glanced up. Terror struggled for dominance beneath a mask of professional detachment that George knew well. In the split second they made eye contact. Had his navigator read the fear in his eyes too?
Interfacing manually, Farrell's fingers glided and tapped with an alacrity that belied the system's linguistic capabilities.
"Then backflow the tubes!" Clinging tenuously to the backlit table, George sized up his chances of reaching the helm con. None, unless he risked being smashed about. Slinker yawed and surged toward the surface.
The turbulence eased suddenly, then faded altogether. Slinker's stern surged up and past the bow, slamming George face down. Pain coursed up his thigh where he'd managed to wedge his leg under the table.
With digital ease, the bioputers leveled Slinker. George unwrapped his leg and slowly pushed himself off the table, pettily chagrinned he had reacted so fearfully, then admonished himself. After hundreds of hours in Seascape's simulator, he thought he'd run about every scenario he could imagine, but the simulator lacked one element: Slinker had two hundred feet of ocean above her.
Something immeasurable had changed. A quantum shift mirrored in the air, a flux in the magnetic timbre of the motors, the motion of the sea ... He let go the chart table and jerked his head side to side twice to loosen the tension binding his neck. Sweat glistened on his sun tanned face. With some effort, he slowed his pulse and calmed his mind, though resonant murmurs remained, like the ache in his belly. And the itch.
"What the hell do you think that was?" Dull and hollow. Not like him at all, George thought.
A reassuring nod from George, and Farrell returned to studying the stats accumulating on his vid. He tapped and jabbed, corrected a misskey, grunted, and continued. Despite George's urging, Farrell, and the rest of Slinker's crew, had refused the implantation of an experimental bioneural link.
George shoved his hands in the hip pockets of his light blue jumpsuit, felt awkward and crossed his arms instead. Perhaps it was understandable that he be so disconcerted. He was a scientist after all, not an adventurer. And nearly two decades had passed since he last crewed coastal trawlers on Lake Superior where winter driven storms could be unpredictable and deadly. He reached over Farrell's shoulder and poked a red square on the touchpad. The insistent audio warning ceased. He eased into the helm chair and sniffed. Synthlube, tangerines and new polyfiber. No ozone.
"Puter. All stop." George disregarded the detailed caution alerts scrolling the bottom of the vid. Instead, he scanned the block-formed red letters fanning across the screen: the status codes of thousands of micro-systems. As the bioputer cleared the programs, the status fan shrank. Warning bands blinked out. Battle illumination brightened to white.
George noted a subtle change in the ship's enviros. Slinker had risen to periscope depth, even though he hadn't requested it. Farrell had guessed his captain's next move and that was okay by him. They were scientists, after all, not military.
George winked. There were times when he appreciated Farrell's youthful ways. Reminded him that nothing is worse than we can make it. He rolled his shoulders, tensed his lanky, six-foot-one frame progressively from head to toe, then breathed a long, low sigh. His thoughts lost their alarmist edge. It appeared the anomaly had caused no structural damage, though that welcome revelation failed to quiet the uncertainty gnawing at his belly like a bad cup of coffee.
Farrell snapped his fingers. "Hey, Cap. I got somethin'." A self-congratulatory grin twisted his lips. He glanced up, then back at the vid. Lightly tanned and spare of frame, his earnest dark brown eyes alluded to a deep and inquisitive mind.
"Nice joke. Now, give me the straight skinny." Hiring Farrell had come with misgivings. Despite graduating from Annapolis, the young man's social awkwardness sometimes embarrassed George. But despite the young Federation Navy Lieutenant's immaturity, Seascape had needed a top flight navigator with submarine experience, and Farrell was the best.
The last time his hands shook like that, he was twenty-two and a first mate aboard a two hundred ton trawler running from a gale on Lake Superior. He'd been in his cabin doing a line of coke when the monster storm slammed into the trawler without warning. He blanched, remembered his wired, cowardly actions that night. He hunched over the touchpad and tapped up a duplicate display while aggressively purging his memory of that night. To quell that old white-powder thirst, he thought of his dad. The only one who had stood by him at the inquest. What would dad think of this? He hadn't seen the old professor in weeks: not since him and mom moved into that cave dad swore was the safest home in America.
At four of the six polycarbon gray workstations, three to either side of the control room, vids brightened. Elevation lines revealed the distinct, undulating characteristics of foothills receding from the coast. Thirty-one miles inland, peaks dotted the landscape in a procession roughly approximating the coastline. The display faded not far beyond the mountains and ended at the screen edge.
Scattered and faint, red dots appeared. There were small blobs — clustered bios within the radiant field of campfires or small generators — and dozens of mobile dots, most batched by twos and threes.
"Possibly, or worse. I've analyzed a water sample, Cap" He brushed a nervous hand over his close-cropped pate. His stubby fingers lingered on a purplish four-inch scar below his left ear.
George caught the now habitual movement. Reminded him of Don's recent hill climbing misadventure with a gravcycle.
"Give me what you've got," he rasped harshly, instantly regretting his tone. As much to reassure Farrell as himself, he rested a hand on the young man's shoulder and focused on Don's vid across the cabin. He compared the graphs shown with what he remembered of the spectral analysis color charts.
The sensory data displayed on Don's vid didn't make sense. George questioned whether Slinker's bioputers had been damage, but that wasn't likely and he wasn't ready to believe that. Mysteries always have supportable explanations, dad said. Always.
According to Don's daily report, the samples taken that morning were statistically identical to the baseline water and air samples taken an hour out from Seascape's base near Astoria, Washington, three days prior. Only minute traces of uranium or sulfur had been detected then.
George leaned his chair around to see what Don was looking at.
George recognized several geometric patterns amid the ragged, wavering lines depicting natural elevations. With professional, though uneasy detachment, he studied the display. Intrigued, though no less alarmed, he sensed movement and straightened.
Dressed as the others in a light-blue jumpsuit zipped to the waist, the triangle of her ivory crewneck shirt thus revealed had the Seascape stingray logo imprinted above her left breast. Jade-eyed with auburn hair trimmed to a functional pageboy, her pale skin and spattering of freckles made her look years younger than she would ever admit to.
"Don't know, Lauren." George shrugged with his hands. She had four years on his thirty-eight, which made her at least a decade older than the rest of the crew. Of late he'd been tempted to press their relationship beyond their professional association, but desire had fallen victim to his obsession with, and devotion to the Seascape Project and its offspring, Slinker.
Lauren frowned, mimicking Don, whose expression remained stolid. Arms crossed, she moved closer to Farrell and leaned down. Farrell's face flushed slightly and he fidgeted, as he always did when she breached his personal space. Worry etched her forehead like ruts in a dirt road.
"We've come to that conclusion already." Farrell didn't look up.
Stealing a moment for himself, George took a long breath and cleared his mind. Lake Superior was a long, long time ago. Now he chaired committees and directed hundreds of technicians, specialist and scientists. What was the procedure? Ah, yes. Tactical. He whirled his chair about. "Don, scan for aircraft. We won't be off-net for long if we surface, but if the skies are clear of search craft, we'll go for it. And guys, don't get too worked up over this...not yet anyway." He meant to keep that last unvoiced, but there it was.
"How about we get a visual from the tube?" Without waiting for his approval, Lauren covered the few steps to the satin black periscope platform, gripped the polycarbon gray riser control post-mounted to the controller's chair, jumped lightly and pivoted into the cushioned polycloth seat.
"Wait." George leaned about until he faced the con and pulled back on a maroon, pistol-grip shaft mounted on the con, then chided himself. His bioneural implant was new, and he'd yet to get used to the simplicity of its use. "Let's not leave a wake." He onlined with Slinker. Forward motion tapered off. Multiple nine-inch magnetron tubes punctuating the hull at prescribed intervals, kept the bow from wallowing.
Don returned to his console and plopped down with an audible whump. His fingers danced across the touchpad. He scanned the data streams, shoulders hunched, his barrel belly pressed against the con's soft edge. He grunted and let out a slow, soft whistle.
Seated before a matte-black panel that consumed the forward bulkhead, Lauren selected search parameters. A three dimensional visual coalesced of calm seas, a sky concealed by low, brooding clouds and a grainy mist. No sight of land.
"So much for that. Even if there were a thousand aircraft overhead, it would be a fluke to be visualed," she said.
George grasped the helm cyclic and eased it forward and left, then pulled back on two deck-mounted stirrup pedals. Regaining forward motion, Slinker canted to port.
"You think we ought to wake them, Cap?" Don asked.
"Not yet. So far we don't know enough to warrant disturbing them." George centered the cyclic and pressed it forward when the longitudinal depth readings neared zero and the directional heading steadied on ninety degrees. Manual manipulation gave him the feeling of control that the bio-link could not. Once he got used to the implant, he assumed he would cease to use the manual or oral command controls.
With a gentle surge, Slinker surfaced. George digitally set the acceleration at forty knots, sat back and looked around. Time to reflect on what left him so unsettled. The offset illumination dimmed slightly, though the low hum of the generators remained steady. Lauren, at the periscope con, Don and Farrell hunched over their workstations. A normal scene, yet...different. Could Slinker's design be a factor, the unusual turbulence prompted by the powerful magnetic emanations of the magnetron tubes?
Though all one hundred and eight feet of the sea-blue, stingray-shaped vessel was crafted from layers of honeycombed polyfibers, Slinker was propelled by two, nine-foot diameter ceramic shafts ringed with coils pulsed sequentially to draw seawater through: the magnetron tubes.
Refractors protected the crew and dampened Slinker's magnetic signature. Had that object falling from the heavens — he'd discarded his theory that it was Orbital One — somehow been drawn to them, despite this? If so, where did it go, and how was it related, if at all? Their current situation certainly didn't fit any of the thousands of scenarios his crew had faced in the simulator. They could contact the nearest of Seascape's submerged habitats and report their findings, breaking com silence, or... Or what? With resolute determination, George shelved his uncertainty. Dad would say: consider what is known and use that to extrapolate what is not before resorting to unfounded speculation.
"We should have the coast on visual in ten minutes," Farrell reported, though they all had that data before them.
The tension in George's belly faded, along with the itch. A general unease remained, but the immediate crisis seemed to have passed.
"After that I could use a cold one. Anyone interested?" How long since he last tasted hard liquor? Fifteen years? Up to then, he'd lurched through a string of drunken binges laced with cocaine and a variety of amphetamines before coming within a hair's breath of snuffing out his miserable life. The lost decade, he grimaced. Now he stuck to dark ales, strictly rationed, but the hunger still lurked at the edges of his conscious mind, plumbing his vulnerabilities.
"Yeah. I'll take mine with a shot of vodka," Lauren quipped.
"Don't I know, Herr kop-i-tawn. Just thought it might take the edge off the moment. Lord knows I could use a pleasant distraction about now." Lauren rolled her eyes and adopted a disarming pout, which often worked in getting George to see things her way, then turned her back on him.
"Since your gettin' up, Cap, how about bringin' one back for me?" Farrell glanced up, his jaws no longer clenched, features softened by a slight smile.
"Yeah, sure," he mumbled distractedly.
"Puter. Online autocon." George rose and strolled aft through the bunkroom hatch, past three men and a woman astir, and on to the main cabin that served as communal room and galley. Its matte, cream-white bulkheads were formed from the same composites as the rest of the sub. Along the curved upper surfaces, trapezoidal portals served as skylights when Slinker ran high on the surface, but now only a faint glimmer of sunlight filtered through the thin layer of aquamarine water gurgling and streaming past.
Set into the aft bulkhead were navy-blue cabinets above and below a narrow, lipped, black counter. From one of these, George removed four fourteen-ounce silver packets. He scooped them up and turned to leave, but stopped when Wendell Toupes entered from the bunkroom.
Born in the back-brush of Kenya, of average height, slim, and exceedingly good-looking, his mother's Asian heritage was revealed in his light cinnamon features. An original member of the design team, Wendell's genius with communications and electronics had guaranteed him a post on Slinker's maiden voyage.
"I wasn't sleeping very well." Softly spoken, each cleanly enunciated word seemed handcrafted. "I heard you guys talking, Cap." Sleepy eyes peeked from beneath half-closed lids.
"And?" It had taken George years to cultivate a willingness to listen, and Wendell's dreams often proved insightful. He set the packets on the counter behind him and gave Wendell his full attention.
"Have you always been able to do that?" It was a skill George's older brother had developed, but despite George's best efforts, color dreams, as with most people, were beyond him.
His eyes popped open, startling George.
Wendell approached until he was standing before Seascape's director, the puffy blush of sleep still on his cheeks. "May I make a suggestion, Cap?" His voice was soft, effeminate.
Their crewmates were dressing when he and Wendell passed through the bunkroom. Despite illumination spilling through the hatches, most of the cabin remained in shadow. George stepped through the forward hatch and set the packets on the chart table. With practiced ease, he flicked the top of each. The packets frosted over and swelled. He tapped each twice and the packets transformed into wide-bottomed opaque mugs with perfectly formed frothy heads.
Alerted by the hiss of carbonation, Don spun about and retrieved one, gulped a third of the mug's contents, then thumped it down beside his touchpad. Wendell picked up one for Lauren and hurried over to her, his movements liquid.
Wendell's eyes shone. George followed the exchange. Wendell and Lauren had become fast friends over the past few months, as he had with everyone, except Strake, who remained distant.
A low bow and Wendell took his seat at the com station beside Don. Out of habit, he slipped a micro headset over his left ear and powered up the con. An audible hum joined the panoply of ship-borne sounds as a half dozen transceivers onlined.
George scooped up the remaining two mugs, sat down at the helm and handed Farrell one. He took a deep draught from his, set it aside and faced his crew.
"So, any thoughts, suggestions?" Though confident he appeared calm and in control, he worried they might glimpse his uncertainty. He leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head.
"Not yet. This situation may very well bring Slinker's maiden voyage to an end, but for now we're still under com silence." With exaggerated care, George retrieved his mug, held it in both hands and took a long draught. He eased out a burp with his lips compressed and set his mug aside, slow and deliberate, giving him pause to consider options before saying anything more.
"He's right, you know." Hesitating at the hatch, Heather Chambers, a marine biologist and the ship's medic, spoke with enough force to gain their attention. Drop-dead gorgeous, with shoulder length blond curls and languid sapphire eyes, she filled out her coveralls in a manner that would turn any man's head. Nearly as tall as George, she was not above standing eye-to-eye with him to support her position with a strength and conviction he found hard to resist.
They waited quietly for Wendell to announce his findings, though George assumed they would be tagged by search craft before communications were established. A minute passed, then another. George remembered his beer, slugged it down and checked the ship's progress. Don fidgeted when Heather took her place between he and Wendell. His lips twitched nervously. The deepening color of his cheeks reminded George that Don had a crush on her, though Don held to the belief that that wasn't common knowledge.
With an aristocratic air he spent years trying to shake, Owen Wellington III entered and quietly took his place at engineering beside George. Raised in a family of fifth generation financial wizards, he walked away from a Harvard scholarship at twenty-one and became one of the top 'gear-heads' in the submarine business in less than five years.
From the galley came the thump of cabinet doors and rustle of polybags. Strake Margolis, a merchant seaman at fourteen and an ex-Navy submariner, had yet to join them.
Wendell leaned his chair around until he faced George. "Nothing, Cap, nada. It's like every com in the world is offline." Brow beaded with sweat, he radiated apprehension.
George nodded. "I expected as much." Though he kept his voice even, untroubled, he couldn't tell them everything would turn out alright, because he didn't believe it himself.
"So, what now, Cap?" Lauren asked.
"Oxygen levels at ninety-five percent, Cap, based on an elevation of fifteen feet above sea-level. Kind of thin. Carbon dioxide is eighteen percent over norm and I'm seeing a profusion of contaminants."
"Nothing that will sicken or kill us...at least not for a while...maybe weeks," Heather offered, scanning Don's vid. "Long term, we're in for a rough ride. Radiation, lead, sulfides, a whole slew of cancer triggers, but few airborne microbes...there should be loads this time of year, but the temp is down to 30 degrees Fahrenheit."
"Damned unseasonable." Don wrapped his arms about his shoulders and shivered.
"I'll go, Cap." Wendell grinned sheepishly and set his comset aside.
"Then I'll go." Heather, having never set foot aboard a ship before Slinker, stood and zipped up her jumpsuit, appearing eager to put dry land under her feet.
Strake wolfed down the remnants of his sandwich and cleaned his hands with a Wipeall. "Half Slinker's crew." He nodded to George, then drained his mug with a protracted slurp.
"Can't you try to be anymore disgusting than that?" Lauren glared.
"Ditto on that," Heather huffed, hands on hips and head cocked. "Bad manners may go over on a gravporter, but please don't share your body sounds with us."
Under ordinary circumstances, George knew he would hesitate at such a request too, but the readings, the displays, and his own intuition said these circumstances were by no means ordinary. He kept his outward calm, but the worries of management raced through his thoughts. Documentation would be critical.
"I mean a hand-written log. In case something goes wrong with the ship's electronics. What we're seeing..." George spread his arms, palms up. "...begin with this moment," George consulted his watch. "July 12th, 2057, at o-nine-thirty-eight.
George watched them jump to it, as agreeable a bunch as he could hope for, given half had multiple doctorates, the others culled from the elite in their fields of endeavor. They had become what he intended them to be: so reliant upon each other, they would do almost anything to avoid letting the others down. George was damned lucky to have them.
Seated beside O'Brien in the base cafeteria on the third level of dome nine, Major Andy Clapton acknowledged the stranger with a nod and continued eating.
"Always such interesting analogies, Colonel. That's what makes you such fun to be with." Tammer's smile was genuine, though the growling in his belly had become insistent.
With an open-hand sweep, O'Brien invited Tammer to join them, then took his seat.
"Thank you no, Colonel. I see that you're about finished and I don't wish to keep you from your duties." Tammer rubbed his great belly and grinned. Despite his gregarious and often misleading manner, the journalist rarely got involved in field-remotes unless there was more to the story than was generally known.
O'Brien lowered his voice and leaned toward Tammer, engendering a complimentary reaction. "Since you've got connections your competitors only dream of, tell me, what gives with the secrecy? The last vidcom from NASA was terse. Mastifson and his group are to go the site within an hour of their arrival. No tour of the facility, lunch with the base commander...none of the standard protocols. I'm baffled why I wasn't informed you were aboard." He was comfortable discussing such things with Tammer. The journalist had proven his fidelity to O'Brien's satisfaction during previous encounters.
Assuming a conspiratorial air, Tammer leaned even closer, brushing O'Brien with sweetened breath. "Not much of anything I'm interested in gets past me, Colonel. I was a last minute addition, and I believe you and your staff were purposely kept out of the loop. The current administration sees media spies everywhere."
"Even more reason to have given me a detailed dossier on everyone arriving."
"I'm sure it wasn't meant to impugn you. I'm told the order came from the President himself...at the behest of his brother-in-law, the CEO of WorldVid. I'm certain it has everything to do with first vid rights. It appears they suspect someone up here, possibly one of your officers. It wouldn't be hard to sell out to a non-authorized event manager...given recent technological advances. Pirate vid, you know. That kind of stuff. WorldVid thinks the other networks are figuring ways to get an unedited download." Tammer shook his head and smiled broadly. "Nothing military or political...terrorists or anything like that."
"I'll make do. My alcoholic consumption is for public viewing only. With the rare exception of visits with those of high-estate and old friends." Tammer rolled his eyes and grinned.
"Of course. However, I do have a fifth of scotch I save for special visitors. Rank does have some privileges. I'll look you up later." Colonel O'Brien extended his hand.
With a slight bow and wink, Tammer shook it once, then hurried off. O'Brien sank back into his chair.
"You must know him well. I've never heard you talk so openly with anyone besides me." Across the round, polished green surface, Clapton eyed his superior with some amusement. As solidly built as O'Brien, he was a head shorter and far better looking. He sported the same regulation military brush cut and wore an identical, perfectly pressed khaki jumpsuit, but for the oak clusters on his collar. Despite the difference in rank and age — at thirty-nine O'Brien was four years older — he considered Clapton a close friend and ally.
"Well enough, I guess. Not that I associate with vid-barkers, but Tammer's okay. At least he makes a real effort to get the facts straight." O'Brien sopped up the last of his egg yolk with a triangle of toast and bit into it, relishing the rare taste of real eggs. While the new arrivals were passing through decon, a gross of brown eggs and five pounds of bacon had been rushed over, compliments of the shuttle's commander.
"Tammer?" O'Brien took a sip from his cup and dabbed his mouth with his napkin. "Despite his liberal, dovish leanings, he tends to be fairer than most...avoids the sensation stories. Made himself a fortune and a celebrity by being in the right places at the right time." He smiled, remembering a drunken card game with Tammer and a pair of officers the night Tammer's first major heart-rending production aired.
"He looks me up when he needs a military man's perspective." O'Brien's thoughts drifted from Tammer to the sixteen highly acclaimed sociologists, anthropologists, archeologists and an exobiologist, who had arrived with him. They must have made the arduous journey for reasons of posterity alone. With recent advances in digital technology, even those of modest means could sit comfortably in their own living room and experience Mars in near three-dimensional quality. He also understood military politics well enough to know that if they found anything of alien construction, he would be promoted to Brigadier General within days.
"Earth to O'Brien." Clapton stopped eating and eyed him with a bemused smile.
"Oh, sorry, lost in thought." An image of Earth surrounded by the vast darkness of space flashed through his mind.
He realized the jab was intended as a joke, but O'Brien was too close to the situation to see the humor in it. He shot Clapton a look of total disgust — a rare display of emotion on his part.
"No. Of course not. It would be a tough row to be who I am and still become a two-star Colonel." Hands clasped before him, O'Brien hadn't wanted the conversation to delve so deeply into his personal desires. His strengths were in hands-on management, not political infighting, but a promotion would boost his retirement benefits and allow him to get out of the game early.
Clapton retrieved his tray from the next table, gathered his dishes and, with a final nod, took them to the disposal chute. In a fairly swift process, bacteria would consume attached food particles and sonic cleaners would remove what residue remained before the items were sent to be reconstituted. As with the dishware, more than half of the base's components were formulated from silicates and other minerals mined on Mars, and remolecularized by a Teledyne Rehancer: the latest development in the juvenile field of replication technology.
O'Brien finished his meal, and sated, looked around. Except for a pair of lime-green jumpsuited specialists in quiet conversation beneath the air circulator and a white-aproned kitchen aide accepting an order from Tammer, he was alone. His thoughts were on the excavation as he emptied his tray into the disposal chute. He caught his reflection in the polished silver silicate backplate, giving him pause.
He had aged during his brief tenure. His short-cropped dark hair had gone salt and pepper where it receded at the temples. Though not overtly concerned about it, he admitted to himself that his square face and better-than-average looks still easily matched the bioputer-generated images found on recruitment posters. A thin blush washed his face and he turned away, but then a glint off something outside drew him to the observation portal. With two thirds of the dome beneath the surface, he looked out over the Martian landscape at near ground level.
In one of its calmer periods, Mars' red sky was clear, the sunlight barely diffused by dust suspended in the upper atmosphere. He observed a two-man buggy — an incongruous, dirty gray mesh of tubes and wire — scuttling across the rock strewn red basin. It disappeared beneath the shadow of the near vertical eastern interior wall of the kilometer wide, peanut-shaped crater. A daily patrol on its way to one of several far-flung drone bases servicing a small army of mechanized explorers. Though rare, contact was sometimes made with maintenance patrols from two private sector bases located within a hundred kilometers. One was founded by the Texas Exploratory Group, the other by the Asian Empire. Their motivations were primarily economic: the first to discover anything of political, religious or economic value would most likely attract trillions in investment dollars.
Still lost in thought, O'Brien approached a large, oblong black hatch that swung soundlessly open before he reached it. He stepped inside and waited as it sealed and another opened, accessing the complex's main corridor.
Several meters on, he passed through an open hatch on his right and entered another airlock. The hatch closed behind him and moments later, the other opened into the suit room. Thirteen men and two women in black civilian jumpsuits and four in khaki were helping each other don the white polymer envirosuits worn outside. They were sharing jokes, some quite animated, and commenting on the bulkiness of the suits. None appeared worried about the risks inherent in working in a near vacuum.
"Doctor Mastifson." O'Brien extended his hand and the man shook it vigorously.
"Doctor Mastifson!" Apparently unable to speak in normal tones, his deep baritone boomed throughout the room, making him seem too large for the confines of a simple space station. The snug fit of the generic envirosuit did nothing to deny the comparison.
"No need to stand on formality, Colonel. My friends call me Rob. Since you'll be seeing to our safety out there," he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, "I consider you my friend!" His graciously winsome smile contrasted starkly with his physical size.
"Well said, Colonel! Quite logical. I shall attempt to carry this off with a great show of dignity, even though we both know it will be edited for commercial breaks. I can be me when we're blocked out." Again the gracious smile, unbesmirched by even a taint of insincerity.
"Doctor will do fine, Colonel." His cheeks flushed and his bellicose manner faded momentarily. "When formality dictates, otherwise Rob." He winked.
O'Brien stepped around Mastifson and reached for a suit held out by Airman Lestiss, the only woman on the base security force. She was a full head taller than the young, pretty brunette with an inviting smile standing beside her. For too long a moment, O'Brien hesitated midway into shrugging on his suit. The excitement welling within him was inappropriate. His biomods should have made him impervious to female allures. It was a social device he felt compelled to employ as long as he was stationed on Mars. His personal relationships with women had a habit of falling apart when his love interest realized his military responsibilities came first. Still, he was pleased that his reaction was not lost on her.
O'Brien quelled the excitement stirring within him. This was not the time or place, though he would have to find time to be with her before she returned home. Her smile warmed as he continued to stare. It was all he could do to keep from splitting his face with a silly grin. Instead, he smiled with his eyes, keeping a firm check on outward reactions. Airmen Lestiss' knowing grin revealed he was not entirely successful.
"Thank you, Airmen. And welcome, Doctor Myer." He turned his back to them and slipped his feet into the boots, then leaned back into the suit.
"My pleasure to be here, Colonel." Though her tone was cool, her smile hinted at her pleasure.
Mastifson stooped before O'Brien and pressed the suit's seams together, rising as he closed it from the ankles up. With the Airmen's help, O'Brien wriggled his fingers into his gloves. Thick and warm, they formed to the shape of his hands. He felt the suit adapt to his requirements amid small movements generated by the suit's electro-mechanics.
Envirosuit MF365 systems diagnostics: No malfunctions detected. The mechanical, slightly nasal voice emanated from the suit's right shoulder.
Airman Lestiss and three security officers left as O'Brien did a head count. His two people were amid the scientists, indistinguishable from the others, but for large, webbed pocket belts at their waist. They contained small tools, repair kits, and hand lasers. They helped each other seat their helmets, white polymer globes with clear face shields, and power-up their enviropaks. Each success was accompanied by a resounding metallic click as the helmets locked in place, a slight swelling of the suits and a tinny acknowledgment.
First Lieutenant Dirk Parker, in charge of mission security, locked his helmet and checked his pressure settings before doing the same for the rest of the party. He winked at Doctor Myer, who winked back and blushed. It was Parker who had welcomed and escorted the group from the Mars Explorer to the base. The exchange had not gone unnoticed by O'Brien, but when Parker got to him, he was all business.
His inspections completed, Parker gave O'Brien the thumbs up. In turn, O'Brien counted heads: thirteen, plus himself, all looking to him for direction. The remaining specialists who came in on the shuttle were staying at the base to handle the technical vidfeeds.
"I would warn you that the enviropaks hold only six hours of air," O'Brien cautioned, "so keep calm and breathe normally, or you'll shorten that time frame considerably." At a nod from him, Technical Sergeant James Doomes secured the chamber from a panel mounted flush with the wall at eye level. At each prompt, Doomes tapped in a different sequence, choosing from eight colored squares by twos on the left side of the panel. Red 'vacuum complete' warnings flashed along the walls.
Warning. There is no longer breathable atmosphere, sounded over the comsets.
The outer hatch swung to the left, revealing a bright red landscape. Five hundred meters distant, a solid wall of rock reached skyward, its face cast in shadow. The group proceeded down a grated black ramp until they reached the ground and spread out. Puffs of red and black dust clouded their boots with each footfall. Soon the dust fog was up to their thighs and trailing behind them as they made their way to the transport. No breeze thinned the haze.
Their transport, an open-air buggy with a gray tubular frame, titanium mesh tires and green web benches down both sides, could seat eighteen, with additional space for equipment in the middle.
Despite some confusion, they were finally seated, with O'Brien and Doctor Myer in forward-facing buckets. A final check in the mirrors to make sure everyone was in place and he eased forward on the joystick rising from the floor between them. The buggy jerked, than steadily accelerated in the direction of the cliff. When the digital readout on the tip of the joystick showed thirty, O'Brien activated the autodrive.
Here, the crater floor was peppered with well-marked soft spots, but the station's crew had learned the hard way that new ones could develop anywhere. Accidents were infrequent and none had resulted in fatalities, though several victims had briefly lost their wits waiting to be dug out.
It took several minutes to cross to the dig site, but before long the buggy was angling downward on a ramp created by the removal of hundreds of kilotons of rock and sand. Near the bottom, the well-worn track leveled out. O'Brien slowed the buggy and steered towards a jagged opening in the cliff wall. Brilliant halolamps on eight-meter towers and oblong gray equipment canisters, larger than their transport, crowded the nine hundred meter square excavation. Four technicians were unloading and setting up equipment from a small cargo buggy. A satellite transmission tower rose a hundred meters above its silver-gray octagon base, reaching beyond the cliff top. Six more specialists were down in the caverns, placing com uplinks from the surface to the mystery site eighty meters down and one point five kilometers in. Since they were not part of the exploration team, all would return to the base once their tasks were completed.
O'Brien brought the transport to a halt outside the ring of equipment, then slapped his harness release and stepped off. In order, the others released and stepped down, forming two crude lines. He noted their upturned helmets and grinned in spite of himself. Though he had been to the cliff dozens of times and was no longer overpowered by it, even he found it difficult to refrain from gazing in awe upon the sheer rock face.
By now they were looking at him, though glances upward showed they had yet to overcome the mesmerizing affect of the wall. O'Brien waited until he heard from everyone before starting off with Myer momentarily beside him.
Two men, carrying oblong, shoulder-mounted vidcorders, moved to intercept them at the cave entrance. From here until they returned to the surface, anyone on Earth who wanted to could tune into the Mars channel and be with them, virtually. The time delay was a mere six minutes, though channeling through the base system for editing would add ten more. Further editing by the networks for the requisite commercial breaks Mastifson spoke of, would take another twenty.
Greco hurried on ahead. The vidcorders were omni directional ― set to focus on the group regardless of the operator's position. The result was a closer, sharper image without the movement jitters common to hand-helds. Their presence annoyed O'Brien, though he was careful not to show it.
They passed into the gloom at the entrance, but a few meters within, brilliant overhead lamps glowed, casting the cavern in conflicting shadows. They were on a path cut smooth by laser rock-eaters to allow movement of equipment dollies down through the vast caverns.
Following the path along the left face of the first cavern, they guardedly made their way down and through a widened crevice. The second chamber was immense, larger than anything like it on Earth. The brown sand floor was nearly flat. However, the path through the third chamber sloped to the right. Several scientists slipped, forcing the others to brace themselves or be pulled down. With a great airing of relief, they entered the fourth chamber, which was gently domed in the center. They made better progress, but took a circuitous route that extended the march and tired them. The lighter gravity proved to be deceptive, as the counterweight of the enviropaks and suits removed any gain.
Midway across the cavern, O'Brien halted the procession beside stacks of yellow supply canisters and a red grid rack half filled with green oxygen tanks. Pole mounted halolamps flooded the area with brilliant white light.
O'Brien faced his charges. "Take a ten minute break, doctors. Note the rack of oxy catalyst packs. Check your enviro levels frequently. If the gauge drops below thirty percent, I suggest you make your way back here. It's the only reserve depot in the caverns."
Out of habit, O'Brien checked his enviro settings for the umpteenth time since leaving the base and sat down on an outcropping along the wall. His officers, experienced space walkers, went down the line of scientists, checking and adjusting their enviros. Several face shields had fogged over, as the air exchangers were unable to keep pace with excessive perspiration. Though the comsets masked normal breathing, four of the men were having a tough go of it. As their heart rate and respiration slowed, giving the air-exchangers time to catch up, the situation corrected itself.
"Would you please describe what you found and how you found it, Colonel?" Doctor Myer's pleasingly feminine voice flowed over him like a sudden breeze. She was standing in the middle of the path with her hands on her thighs, bent at the waist.
"How thick is the wall?" Günter Krasmier, an anthropologist, was on his feet at the back of the group.
They struggled to their feet, two helped by others. When he received the ready signal from Greco, O'Brien led them out across an expanse barely illuminated by the pole lamps. Another quarter kilometer and he made out the dim glimmer of the halolamps bathing the suspect wall. Meter by meter they closed on the growing brilliance masked by the curvature of the smooth rock floor. Sixty meters from the site, the ground leveled out. Unlike the sticky black powder and red sand on the Martian surface, this sand was light brown, coarse and granular.
Greco reached the site and following procedure, stepped to one side where he could have an unobstructed view of the room-size indentation in the cavern wall. The distinguished men and women filed inside. Six halolamps, mounted on tall yellow poles, pushed back the shadows. A polished titanium laser drill, mounted on a flat, gray wire wheel platform crowded with equipment, dominated the center of the recess. Two buff brown worker bots with appendages folded in, squatted to either side, like seated bulldogs.
O'Brien waited while the troupe clustered loosely about the drill. Myer stepped forward to examine the wall, but the exertion of their passage had again streaked her shield.
"We'll wait until your shields clear before breaching the wall." It was unlikely any of them would become unhinged, but O'Brien was worried one or two might collapse from overexertion. The handful of specialists had been subjected to any number of tests before leaving Orbital One ― a seventh generation launching platform in high Earth orbit ― but nothing could effectively prepare them for the fatigue and confinement of a three-hour space walk on Mars. O'Brien had been against this excursion since informed of it twelve weeks before, but politics had decided the matter.
"You seem to be as knowledgeable about this as Doctor Frailer's team, Colonel," a masculine voice noted.
They all turned, except one, a small distance from the rest.
"Go ahead, Colonel. I'm sure my shield will clear before you break through." The man's voice was an octave higher than one would expect, and wavered at the last.
"We have time. Lieutenant Parker. Would you assist...uh...?"
O'Brien raised two fingers and pointed to the drill. An officer stepped up and activated a palm-sized control pad. One person stepped slowly back from the group, as if he were trying to keep from attracting attention while doing so. The subtle movement didn't go unnoticed. O'Brien started to turn towards him, but noted that Parker had seen it too, and let it go.
The drill hummed to life and a wide, thin yellow beam cut into the wall three meters up, creating faint shadows behind those closest. Dust puffed out from the ever-deepening cut. The focus of the beam shifted downward at a snail's pace, eventually shaping a rectangular cut one point five meters wide. The grotto warmed when the drill switched to wide beam and the rock within the cut began melting. Debris formed into droplets that collected in cookie-sized globs at the base of the opening, then tumbled down the growing pile and scattered outward.
Twenty minutes passed before the laser disengaged, leaving an opening two point two-five meters tall. As his eyes adapted to the sudden dimness, O'Brien saw something skid across the ground. Before he could react, a brilliant cobalt beam sliced through the group, enveloping the baseball-sized object.
"Get back!" O'Brien shoved Doctor Myer behind him, drew his weapon and fired at the object. A white burst and a powerful thunderclap knocked them down. O'Brien landed with a grunt and rolled to his feet. A figure in the shadows raised a weapon. O'Brien and Parker fired. The figure crumpled.
"What the hell was that!" Mastifson struggled to his feet, his face ruddy with fear and anger. The other scientists stirred and began to rise.
"An antipersonnel mine. If we hadn't vaporized most of it, we'd all be dead." With studied calm, O'Brien turned and offered Doctor Myer a hand. She took it and rose to her feet, trembling. Their shields touched and he saw her taut features soften. He smiled ruefully and looked beyond her, counting heads. No one appeared to be hurt as they helped each other up.
Mastifson relaxed perceptibly, though his eyes remained wide, his lips compressed and twisted in a sneer. His colleagues gathered around him, every bit as frightened. O'Brien's officers remained in the background, two with weapons drawn. The other two shouldered the vidcorders they had set aside.
"The man you shot isn't wearing the same suit we are." Mastifson blurted, shaking an accusatory finger at O'Brien.
"Then tell, me...us...just who in the hell is he?" Mastifson tensed anew, his indignation growing. His colleagues were reacting as he: becoming agitated from the adrenaline diffusing throughout their bodies with nothing to act upon but fear.
Mastifson harrumphed and stepped forward, yet hesitated before the breach. His team gathered around him, peering into another chamber roughly ten meters in diameter. It was dark, and indistinct objects ringed it, with one large barrel-like shadow at the center. Walter Holleander, an anthropologist formerly of Doctor Frailer's team, stepped over the ridge left by the drill. Instantly the chamber filled with a diffused glow that brightened when he brought his other foot through the opening.
The domed ceiling was made of translucent panels inset in a circular pattern around a meter-wide vertical shaft. The floor was glassy smooth and a darker shade than the rock-brown of the cavern walls. Silent walnut-tone consoles with black upper surfaces were aligned against the back wall. In the center of the room, directly beneath the shaft, was a waist high dull-gray cylinder. Its black upper surface was ringed by geodesic shapes of varying shades of blue.
"What, dear god, have we got here?" It was the first time O'Brien heard archeologist Matty Brewster speak. She cautiously approached the barrel as the others entered the room.
O'Brien's officers remained arrayed outside the opening. He stepped over the threshold. Within moments he felt somehow comforted and put his gun away. A part of him wanted to rebel, to run from the room and destroy it completely. Yet, he could not react. His spirit buoyed, a sense of well-being permeated his mind like a sedative. His thoughts became scattered.
"Colonel. I...I...feel...wrong." Reaching out to him, Doctor Myer's eyes reflected both confusion and alarm, though she looked otherwise serene. He grasped her arm and pulled her to him, perceiving her disquiet, but not trusting his own reservations, which he regarded as foreign and inexcusable.
O'Brien turned and faced the opening. A translucent image of him leaning over an enormous con swelled, his thoughts suddenly blackened by a seething rage. Fear gripped his chest like a steel band. Death rushed at him in the form of a muddy, clouded ball. He knew it was Earth, a dying world. No, he scrunched his eyes and balled his fists. No! His chest swelled, and the band shattered.
"Why?" It was enormously important that he knew what time it was. "What time is it?"
What an idiot, O'Brien smirked. He let go of Doctor Myer and raised his arm to his shield and read the display. The red numerals melted and reformed. He was drunk, no drugged, no, but why couldn't he read the...o- nine-fifteen hours. Beyond his arm, Myer looked bewildered. He jerked his head and she pushed up against him, her shield close to his. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Clapton holding out a hand to him. He half turned, but a silent voice arrested his movement. Jubilation washed over him, then ebbed. From deep within, a restrained warning bubbled up. Something was wrong. He was confused, lulled, yet oddly fearful. It was imperative they leave the chamber. All of them, but he had to get out now, while he still could.
"Come with me, Doctor Myer. We must leave this room." O'Brien pulled her along, despite her gentle resistance. A long staggering step, then another. Euphoria surged. God, he wanted to stay! Another step, his leg shook, then another.
Doctor Myer's defiance grew. He gripped her tighter. Another step and he was at the portal. She jerked an arm free, but he latched on to her enviropak and used his weight to force her past him and out of the chamber. He had no idea why he would do that. Only that Clapton was a good friend and he wanted to please him.
Greco pocketed his weapon and rushed to Doctor Myer's side. Together, Greco and Clapton grabbed O'Brien and jerked him through the opening. He fell heavily, bruising a shoulder and knocking Doctor Myer to the ground. Before he could rise, Greco hefted him to his feet with surprising strength. O'Brien's sense of well-being faded, but his mind remained clouded. His body responded sluggishly to his demands.
Beside him, Doctor Myer turned back to the chamber and reached out. "Get out of there! All of you!" she cried.
"Hellfire. What the..." O'Brien glanced at her, then to the chamber, but saw nothing wrong.
"This is magnificent! Can you believe what we're seeing?" Doctor Brewster twisted away from the barrel, brushing her fingers across the top. A radiant, pulsing orange glob enveloped the barrel. From its rounded peak, a narrow beam shot up through the shaft in the ceiling, suffusing the chamber with an orange glow. Startled, the scientists began backing away, then drew closer, as moths to light.
"Glory, glory be!" Mastifson shrilled. "We have found the eternal well of happin..." The scientists shriveled up and disappeared in a puff of smoke. The beam blinked out and the orange glow dissipated.
"Mary, Mother of Jesus." Doctor Myer crossed herself. Terror dilated her eyes. She knelt, then lurched back to her feet. Her head swung wildly from O'Brien to the chamber. A nearly imperceptible squeak issued from her open mouth. Tears welled and rushed down her cheeks.
"Then they'll know soon enough. Regardless, we must get to the surface." Though his mind was afire with the 'what-ifs' and partially conceived notions of 'what next', O'Brien kept his emotions firmly in check.
The artifacts were a trap. That was certain. If the shaft penetrated the surface, the orange pulse was most likely a beacon. Depending on the intensity and duration, O'Brien concluded the beam would be visible for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of miles. If his deduction were correct, who or whatever created the device would have a means of detecting the beacon from a vast distance. They were in grave danger. He faced his junior officer.
"Greco, you take the lead."
"Yes, sir." Greco shifted the vidcorder on his shoulder and pocketed his laser. O'Brien turned to Clapton.
"Yes, sir," Doomes answered. "Colonel, you think the assassin is connected with what just happened?"
Though he was on to other considerations, O'Brien hesitated, and met the Sergeant's gaze. This situation demanded rational detachment, and Doomes was as cool a professional as any among O'Brien's staff of volunteers. Cool professionalism was required here.
"No, Sergeant. No I don't."
With a sharp nod, Doomes pocketed his weapon and set to locking down the drill. The simple task would take only a few moments. Long enough for the others to get lined up and moving.
"This way, Doctor Myer." He pointed after Greco.
"Thank you, Colonel." Subdued and frightened, she brushed past him. She was quivering. Shock was setting in.
No one spoke as they hurried to the surface as fast as the suits and low gravity would allow. O'Brien stayed close to Doctor Myer. She was the only remaining civilian, and he was worried the shock might lead to something worse. She was pale and shivering. Twice he raised her suit temperature. Even if they had a kit with them there was no way to administer a relaxant. Unless she could calm herself, her stressed reactions could become life threatening.
Up ahead the entrance stood out in sharp contrast, the affect amplified by the huge halolamps beyond. In single file, they were nearly out when an odd feeling gave O'Brien pause. Sergeant Doomes bumped into him.
"Yes, sir. Changing to emergency frequency." His signal ended. Seconds later the entrance went dark. The cavern lighting blinked out.
"Wha...whaaat's happening, Co...Colonel?" Doctor Myer cried.
He sensed her ahead of him, then nearly fell over her. She was on her knees and quaking uncontrollably. As tired as he was, O'Brien lifted her up and nudged her forward. After a few steps, her breathing became less erratic and her quivering eased. The higher they climbed, the less she needed his support. As they passed under the entrance, she slipped in the loose sand and fell, bringing their climb to a halt. O'Brien's officers drew back until they stood together, none seemed inclined to leave the sanctuary of the rocky cliff. Out over the sands far to their left the refracted light from the launch pad halolamps blinked out. The base remained illuminated.
The ground trembled. Shaken loose from the cliff face, dirt filtered down, but soon gave way to rocks and dust clouds, then an increasing barrage of small boulders. Parker and his assistant, lucky enough to be inside the entrance, stumbled into O'Brien's party.
"What the blazes is that, Colonel?" Parker asked.
In semi-darkness, they abandoned the cable and scrambled after Parker up the increasingly steep embankment of sand and rock until they reached a ragged ledge some distance above the cavern floor. Across the ravine, so invitingly visible beyond the shifting dust clouds, every possible lamp was burning at the base.
The rumbling grew more ominous and the ground quake continued to build. Large boulders broke free, pulverizing the equipment arrayed outside. Billowing dust clouds washed over them. Sunlight dimmed. O'Brien's hair stood on end, as if a tremendous static charge permeated the area. Through the thickening clouds, a massive, dark ship knifed into view. Though its bottom cast in shadow, the vessel's side was bathed in brilliant sunshine. Shaped like a domino, the matte-black hull concealed all but the largest projections, of which there were few. At once the ship blocked what little light remained, throwing the valley into total darkness. A blinding flash emanated from the base of the ship. A conical orange beam encapsulated the base, remained for several seconds, then blinked out.
Doctor Myer screamed and buried herself in O'Brien's arms. Abruptly the shaking ended and feeble refracted light from the sun returned. Through the thinning clouds of black dust, O'Brien searched for the base. A wisp of smoke remained where the nine structures had stood. The alien ship was gone. In the still atmosphere, thicker dust particles settled and in a few minutes, with the help of several litemates, they could see well into the cavern.
Throat constricted and heart racing, O'Brien's biomods could hardly restrain his alarm. His thoughts and emotions tumbled in on him. He struggled to accept the enormity of what the attack portend and for a fleeting moment horror gripped him, but could not maintain its hold. He recalled the fifty-seven men and women at the base. Their file pics glared at him from a fluid montage. Chastising himself for busying his mind with matters out of his control, he took two deep breaths and exhaled slowly while focusing on his gloved fingers rising and falling as he clenched and released. With a start, he set aside his anguish, his fear. The emotional avalanche would have to be dealt with, but for now dwelling on it wasn't in their best interest. How he reacted in the next few hours could mean their lives.
Major Clapton screwed his eyes shut and ground a fist into the palm of his hand before answering. "No...Colonel...it was still off." The vidcorder lay beside him, covered, as were they, with fine black dust and red sand. Clapton leaned down and wiped the vidcorder with his forearm, clearing a thin band about the lens array.
"What do you make of it?" O'Brien, steadied his voice and prayed this wasn't happening, prayed he was having a lucid dream.
"That was the biggest damn ship I ever saw." Sergeant Doomes' rumble was thick with awe, tempered by dismay.
"Who's this?" Startled, O'Brien straightened.
"Apparently so, Colonel. I masked our presence with a molecular dispersion field. I suggest you make your way here."
"I agree. Have you established contact with the other bases?"
"We can assume the worst."
Sergeant Doomes eased over the edge and offered her a hand. She took it and slipped off the ledge, but O'Brien could see she was only going through the motions. Her eyes were wild, stricken, her teeth clenched so tightly he thought she might break a tooth.
The others followed in chaotic order. O'Brien came last. They slipped and jumped down the sandy slope, then gathered beneath the entrance overhang. With a calculating eye, O'Brien scanned the depression. Legs protruded from beneath a boulder. The rockslide had smashed most of the equipment.
Doctor Myer sighed, dropped to her knees, then eased her legs out before her, and hugged herself.
"Yes, Sir." Clapton motioned for Lieutenant Greco to help him and together they plodded off to search among the damaged equipment.
Still concerned about Doctor Myer, the only civilian among them, O'Brien sat beside her and patted her arm. She managed a thin smile. Terror still lurked in her eyes, but some color had returned to her cheeks and she had relaxed her jaws. He tried to say something, anything, but he could think of nothing that would take the edge off the moment.
Feeling utterly powerless against the alien's overwhelming show of superior technology, he stood, then paced. Could he warn Earth? What of the other outposts? Had they received his warning in time and gone offline? Would calling them up bring the aliens back? There were too many questions and too little data to draw any reasonable assumptions. For now it was best they reach the Mars Explorer. Perhaps by the time they were safely aboard, Garson would have a few answers.