I could almost hear it. I could almost feel it thudding in my chest. For a moment, I couldn"t breathe. The illusion was too complete, too compelling. I jerked the VR helmet off my head to rea.s.sure myself that I was still sitting in the distant rollagon.
"Captain?"
"No problem," I said. "I had to scratch my nose."
"Yeah-" agreed Siegel. "I get the same itch myself sometimes."
"Marano? How"s the security situation?"
"No change, Captain. All is quiet. You"re more likely to die of loneliness out here."
"That"s truer than you know," I agreed. I pulled the helmet back down over my head. The reality of the tunnel enclosed me again. The thick red vein was still pulsing wetly in front of me. As long as I could remind myself it was still a couple of klicks away, it wasn"t quite so frightening.
It wasn"t the vein that was terrifying. It was what it implied. What was it here to nourish?
"Can we get a sample?" Willig asked softly.
"I"ll give it a try-" I tapped gently on my keyboard, moving the prowler closer to the thick red vein. A syringe-tipped probe extended from underneath the prowler"s chin; the needle pushed; into the rubbery flesh of the vein, hesitated, filled, then pulled out again. "Got it." I backed the prowler away and took a breath. "I don"t know what we"re looking at," I admitted. "But it"s-it"s certainly something."
The prowler flashed green; the sample was secure. More than secure; the prowler"s internal sensors were already recording temperature, pH balance, and spectroscopic a.n.a.lysis. Microprobes were also in place; by the time the prowler returned to the vehicle, an extensive photographic record would have been made under a variety of lighting conditions, and most of the preliminary : a.n.a.lyses and LI pattern-checks would be complete. Even if we lost the prowler, we wouldn"t lose the data; it was continually uploading its mission log to the vehicle"s own LI unit.
I tapped the keyboard again. "Okay, let"s go deeper." The prowler backed away from the vein; and we resumed our descent into the tunnels beneath the grove.
Here and there as we progressed, we began seeing other structures, larger and more intricate than those we"d pa.s.sed above. Now the shaft was lined with flubbery red organs, they were veined with delicate black and blue traceries. They quivered nervously as we pa.s.sed. I had no idea what they were.
Over and over again, we pa.s.sed through spiderweb veils that hung across the entire shaft. We tore holes in them as we pa.s.sed, but the veils had an elastic sticky quality, and the display showed them pulling themselves back together again behind us. Filters? Possibly.
"All right-hold it here," I called. I popped the helmet off and swiveled to the ancillary console. "Let"s see a stereo map of where we are, let"s get some bearings before we go any deeper."
"Working," said Wilug. "Inertial guidance puts Sher Khan about fifteen meters down. The tunnel seems to spiral around counter clockwise. I"ve got a schematic on three."
"I see it." I studied the pattern. "Where"s it lead?"
"LI refuses to predict. If it were a worm nest," Willig considered aloud, "then we"d have pa.s.sed several large chambers already. These tunnels just go down and down."
"It doesn"t make sense to me," I grumbled. I swung back to my own station. "All right. Let"s keep going." I pulled the helmet down over my head again and once more urged the prowler forward.
Abruptly, we came to a valve-like a.s.sembly that blocked the entire tunnel. It looked like several of the flubbery organs had mutated into monstrous red lips, expanding to seal the whole fleshy channel from intruders.
"Don"t anybody say it-" I started to caution.
"I"m sorry," said Willig. "I can"t help myself. This is a very Freudian experience.
A deep tunnel with a big red mouth in it-how are we supposed to react?"
I sighed, loudly.
"If there are teeth on the other side of those lips," remarked Siegel, "I"m turning gay."
"Looks more like an a.s.shole to me," Marano added drily.
"Well, you"ve had more experience with a.s.sholes than the rest of us."
"Every single day," she retorted.
"Say, how good are you at a.n.a.l intercourse, Captain?"
"This looks like a job for Dannenfelser."
"Did anyone bring any lube?"
"I asked you guys not to start," I said quietly. But it was a losing battle.
"Aww, come on, Captain-" That was Marano again. "How often do we get an opportunity like this?"
I scratched my cheek thoughtfully, while I considered and discarded a number of possible responses. "We have a job to do here. Let"s save the jokes for later, okay?"
Marano sniffed, Siegel sighed, a couple of the others made grunting sounds. It was as close to a.s.sent as they were likely to give.
"All right," I said, urging the prowler forward. "Let"s push through it."
"Be gentle..." whispered Willig, absolutely deadpan. Most of them managed to choke back their laughter. I felt myself reddening, I had to clench my teeth to avoid breaking up. I allowed myself an exhausted sigh. I nudged the prowler slowly up against the center of the fleshy valve. At first it resisted, then abruptly it released and the prowler slid smoothly in.
"You"re safe, Siegel," I said. "No teeth."
"Sure-not with gums like that."
The door popped shut behind us with a rubbery flopping sound. I looked straight up, and the VR helmet showed me the view rearward. The valve looked the same from this side. I lowered my gaze and looked forward again; only a few meters ahead, another flubbery valve waited. I nudged the prowler toward it.
"What? No more jokes?"
"Nah," said Siegel. "You seen one a.s.shole, you seen "em all."
"You haven"t worked for General Wainright," Willig replied.
"Cool it," I said. "That kind of chatter is insubordinate."
"Sorry," said Willig.
"Just remember, we"ve got live mikes. I don"t mind an occasional dirty joke.
That"s a soldier"s prerogative, but we"ve got our share of eavesdroppers on every mission now. Let"s behave like the professionals we are."
We pushed through the next valve, and it too flopped shut behind us. A third valve lay ahead; it looked thicker than the first two, but we pushed through it without incident.
"Cap"n?" Willig hesitated. "Take a look at Sher Khan"s readouts. The atmospheric pressure is up. Humidity"s up. And the atmospheric mix is changing."
I checked my display. She was right. I took a sip of water and considered the information. "These valves are a series of organic airlocks." For a moment, we all just sat and thought about that possibility. What were we heading down into?
"You ever seen anything like this before?" Siegel asked.
"I"ve seen the flubbery doors before in worm nests, but not concentrically, not like this." A moment later, I was able to add, "Neither has the computer. So, okay-yes, we"re seeing something significantly new here. Congratulations," I added.
"But don"t start spending your bounty money yet. We don"t know how big this is or what it means."
"You think it could be important?"
"I think we"re probably going to be a paragraph in the next edition of The Red Book." And then I shrugged. "Or h.e.l.l, I dunno, maybe even a whole appendix."
"If we"re an appendix," said Willig, "you have to take us out. How does dinner and dancing sound?"
"How does the P-ration of your choice strike you?"
"Never mind. I"d rather sit home alone in the dark."
We pushed on through the next valve and the next and the next one after that.
And with each new chamber, the air pressure climbed perceptibly, the temperature and humidity rose, and so did the amount of free oxygen in the air. The prowler descended steadily.
"Haw deep does this go?" Siegel asked.
"Until we get to something approximating Chtorr-normal atmosphere, I"ll bet. This is going to answer a lot of questions." And then I added mordantly, "But probably not as many as it"s going to raise. Let"s keep going."
One particularly interesting tenant that occasionally travels with shamblers is the shrikevine. This is a rubbery webwork of vines, studded with very sharp thorns; it is usually found draped inside the cl.u.s.tered trunks of an individual shambler.
The strike-vine reacts to movement in much the same way as a Venus fly-trap, by wrapping itself tightly around its prey. It is activated by motion; the more the prey struggles, the tighter becomes the grip of the shrike-vine. Ultimately, the prey is impaled by hundreds, perhaps thousands of needle-sharp spikes, and bleeds to death within the confines of the shambler"s limbs; but where the Venus flytrap contents itself with small insects, the shrike-vine prefers to feed on creatures ma.s.sing from five to forty kilograms. Dogs, cats, children, goats, lambs, and calves are all in particular danger.
Other tenants of the shambler will often share the shrike-vine"s meal, but the primary beneficiary of the feast will be the shambler tree itself. Any drainage-and there is usually considerable bleeding from a shrike victimflows directly into collection chambers found plentifully among the lowest reaches of the shambler columns.
The shrike-vine will hold its meal tightly in place until it has completely drained the body of all nutrients; if the meal is a particularly large one, the shrike-vine will convert the nutrients it does not immediately need into a dark waxy secretion; these "fat deposits" help to sustain not only the shrike-vine during periods of scarcity, but also the shambler and many of its tenants as well.
Inside the shrike-vine"s dark web, you will find a veritable charnel house of half-digested meals, putrefying bodies, mummified remains, and even occasionally whole skeletons still impaled; they have not yet broken up or been discarded and dropped. The shambler needs the calcium, so it is not uncommon to find complete or partial skeletons of all sizes still caught in the pernicious twists of the shrikevine.
When the shrike-vine matures, it abandons the shambler host. Mature shrike-vines are quite large and are capable of feeding on much larger prey; an upper limit has not been determined. These individuals are usually found only in areas of heavy infestation. The shrike-vine is not a true shambler-symbiont, only an opportunist that forms a partnership of convenience, a partnership that is abandoned as soon as it is outgrown.
Whether growing independently, or traveling with a shambler, shrike-vines should be considered extremely dangerous. Extreme caution is advised. Do not approach under any circ.u.mstances.
-The Red Book, (Release 22.19A)
Chapter 12.
Support "If the shoe fits, kick someone. "
-SOLOMON SHORT.
The next half hour was a monotonous one. Sher Khan slid deeper and deeper into the organic bowels of the shambler grove. We were popping through valve doors regularly now.
"Captain?"
"Yeah?"
"What you said before, y"know, about the next stage of the invasion; that the worms are just shock troops, here to soften us up-and that the next thing, whatever it is, is going to be even worse, because that"ll be the thing that eats the worms. D"you believe that?"
"It"s a theory," I said noncommittally.
"Think we"re going to find worms at the bottom of this?"
"I don"t know what we"re going to find."
"It"s not a worm nest, though, is it?"
"No. It isn"t. At least, it isn"t like any worm nest I"ve ever seen."
"So..." Siegel hesitated. "Do you think it might be a nest of worm-eaters or overlords or whatever-?"
"I don"t think," I said curtly. "I"m not being paid to think. I report. I let other people think."
Willig snorted. She knew it was a lie, but she wasn"t going to contradict me aloud when she didn"t know who might be monitoring the channel.
But I knew my sharp reply hadn"t been fair to Siegel, so I added, "This isn"t a nest. This is something much more complex than a nest. This is a-factory." And even as the words fell out of my mouth, I realized the truth of them. This was an industrial plant pun intended.
I sat paralyzed in my chair for a moment, while the realization sank down to the pit of my stomach and then began clawing its way back up again.
"Holy s.h.i.t," I whispered to myself. Then: "Siegel, take over. Willig, get me an operator. Oh h.e.l.l, see if Dr. Zymph is on-line."
Within seconds, a new voice came on the channel. Female. I didn"t recognize it.
"Houston here."
"Are you monitoring?"
"You"ve got a prowler down a hole-" Pause. "So what? It"s a worm nest."
"No, it isn"t. I know worm nests."
Another pause. "Looks like a nest to me. Oh, I see. You"ve got unidentified life forms, and-" This time the hesitation was much longer. "Is this correct? No, it can"t be. You"d better pull your prowler out. Its sensors have gone dysfunctional."
"No, they"re not dysfunctional." I let an edge of annoyance creep into my voice.
"We"ve got some kind of organic factory down here. We"ve been descending through a series of pressure locks; the valves are a kind of bladder device, either a specialized organ of the tree root or a symbiotic partner; probably a partner, we"ve seen similar doors in worm nests. We"ve pushed through twenty or thirty of them. I promise you, the atmospheric readings are correct."
"Can you pull your prowler out and double-check it?"