Below (17 page)

“You think it’s some kind of animal?”

“Some kind of predator, yes. Probably something territorial that was stirred up by the activity here. From everything I’ve gathered, it looks like the miners might have dug it up. The disappearances began after they’d sunk the first mine shaft.”

“So what’s your assessment?” Raphael asked.

Victoria glanced at him and then looked away. “It’s fast. It’s either small, and travels in numbers, or it’s big and has some sort of natural camouflage that makes it hard to see. Red maybe. Everything on this godforsaken place seems to be red. Visibility is poor and very limited. It blends extremely well with its surroundings, moves fast, and attacks swiftly—fast enough nobody seems to have been able even to cry out and alarm anyone near enough to hear.”

Brown was frowning thoughtfully. “What about something like a jelly fish? Kinda clear?”

Victoria’s brows rose. “Maybe—certainly something that would be very difficult to see.”

Brown looked as if he might say more, but he was interrupted by one of the miners. “What are we going to do?”

Victoria looked at them for a long moment. “We’re going to hunt it down and kill it.”

The comment caused an uproar of debate. Victoria studied them for a moment and finally sat down to wait them out, listening to the arguments as she drank her coffee. When they finally subsided, she addressed them again. “This isn’t up for debate ... or a vote. We can wait for it to come and get us as it did the others, or we can go out and find it first.”

“But ... we don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

Victoria shrugged. “So we kill everything that moves.”

Everyone gaped at her in stunned silence. It was Tuttle who finally spoke, however. “It’s against the law to ... to maliciously destroy indigenous life on any world.”

Victoria gave her a look. “Would you prefer to be the alien life form the indigenous life form wipes out? This is survival, people. We don’t have a choice. We’re stranded. We have the right to protect ourselves, with malicious force if we deem it necessary. Everyone goes out on this hunt ... everyone. Nobody’s going to sit back in the habitat and straddle the fence, just so they can claim innocence while everybody else risks their lives to protect them. We’ll take motion sensors and every weapon available. Once we’ve cleared the area, we’ll set up a grid of motion detectors all the way around the habitat in case another predator decides to claim the territory.

“Air breathers, suit up. You won’t be any good to us in the Cat.” She turned to look at the cooks, who’d been listening from a position inside the kitchen. “This includes the four of you. Short shifts—I know none of you are familiar with underwater gear, but no one is excluded, for any reason.”

As everyone began filing out of the room, Brown approached her. Victoria looked at him questioningly. “What is it, Brown?”

“I don’t know, but I thought I ought to mention it.”

Victoria nodded, trying to contain her impatience. “And?”

He shook his head. “When we started processing the ore, we found something. I didn’t think much about it at the time ... thought it was like sea weed or something. Now I’m not so sure.”

Victoria got up abruptly. “What did you do with it?”

“Scraped the shit off and kept working.”

“Show me.” She looked around the room and finally spied the person she was looking for. “Tuttle, you’re coming with us.”

* * * *

Despite the vast number of lights that crisscrossed the ceiling, the bins containing the raw and processed ore, and the equipment, combined to block out a great deal of light, leaving heavy shadows. It was chilly and damp in the room, far cooler than on any of the living levels, primarily because the company hadn’t seen fit to consider the comfort zone of the workers. As long as it was adequate to keep them from freezing to death, it was sufficient.

The refuse bins were full of the slimy material. It had the appearance of mucus. Revolted, Victoria merely stared at it for some moments, finally she reached to touch it. Brown grabbed her hand, stopping her. “Don’t!”

Victoria looked at him in surprise. “Why not?”

“Makes you go numb where ever it touches bare skin. But it burns like a son-of-a-bitch, too. That’s why I asked about the jellyfish. I got stung by one when I was a kid. I’ve never forgotten it. This stuff even looks a lot like one.”

Victoria felt a jolt of both excitement and fear as she studied the glutinous mass again. Finally, she looked around for something to use to collect a sample of it from the trash bin. Finding nothing ready to hand, she stepped out of her shoe and used it to scoop up a specimen. “Take this to the lab, Tuttle. See if you can figure out what the hell it is, and, more importantly, what’s in it that causes the numbness and what might counteract its paralyzing characteristics. I’ve got a feeling this is how the creature managed to snatch so many people when there were others close enough they would have heard them cry out.

“It would also explain how it is that these things seem to have managed to get in despite of all the efforts to stop them. They’re invertebrates. They could probably slip through the crevices under the door.”

Brown frowned. “But ... how would they have gotten the bodies out?”

“The access pool. Let’s just suppose they have some means of reaching the top of the habitat—maybe they were able to climb, maybe they have the ability to fly, or soar, or even leap to great heights. They attack the habitat from above, driving the crew down to the lowest level, and there the majority of the pack are waiting.”

Tuttle shivered. “Wouldn’t that mean they’d have to be a higher life form? Intelligent?”

Victoria shrugged. “Only in the sense that some creatures on Earth do much the same thing--surround their prey and use their greater numbers to overpower it, like a pack of wolves or a pride of lions.

“This would also explain why no one’s ever seen it. As poor as the visibility is down there, being virtually transparent would make them almost impossible to spot.

“When Raphael and I escaped the collapse of the mine, some force struck us. Raphael assumed it was a shock wave, at first. If it wasn’t ... if it was one of these things, then they’re huge ... probably at least the size of a grown man, maybe even bigger.”

“Are we still going out to hunt it?” Brown asked.

Victoria thought about it. “Tell Raphael there’s been a delay. I want everybody to make a sweep of the immediate area, though, and set up the motion grid. Tuttle, take that specimen and let us know what you can find out as soon as possible. I’m going to have a talk with Roach.”

Chapter Fourteen

Victoria stared at Roach through the bars for a full five minutes before she finally unlocked the door and entered. If she’d hadn’t known it was Roach, she wasn’t certain she would have recognized him. He was curled up in a tight knot on the bunk, rocking, staring into space with haunted eyes.

“You wanted to talk?” Victoria prompted, subduing a welling of pity with an effort.

Roach looked at her for several moments as if he’d never seen her before.

Victoria might not be a psychologist, but she recognized pure terror when she saw it. Roach had almost certainly seen their monster.

“Roach! I don’t have time for any of your games. Do you want to talk or not?”

Roach blinked. “I s-saw s-something.”

“What?”

“D-don’t know.”

Victoria sighed. Pity was very rapidly giving way to irritation. “That’s not much help, Roach. Where? What did it look like? How big? What was it doing?”

He stared at her for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. “Kichens.”

The single word was like a punch in the solar plexus. “You’re sure?” She knew the moment she said it that it was a stupid question. They were the only humans on the planet. If it looked like Kichens, it must have been. She just couldn’t seem to accept it.

She frowned. “They must have found her body....”

She saw that Roach was shaking his head.

“You think it wasn’t an accident? That one of them got her while she was up top?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know! But ... there was something about the expression on her face, you know?” He shuddered and began rocking again.

Victoria knelt before him. “I’ve got to know everything you know, Roach.”

He seemed to make an effort to pull himself together. “I figured, long as I was out, I’d have a look around. So I waited till nobody was paying any attention and headed out.”

“Which direction?”

“The other side of the habitat from the mine ... straight out, I think. That was what I meant to do, anyway, so I couldn’t get lost. I thought I saw something once I got on the other side, though. I was trying to get a better look at it. I wasn’t paying too much attention to where I was going.

“The habitat ... I mean it’s huge ... lights all over it. It never occurred to me I wouldn’t be able to see it for miles. I wandered around ten minutes, maybe fifteen tops. Never got any closer to whatever it was, but then I got to looking around and I couldn’t see the habitat. Scared the shit out of me. I panicked. I was going in first one direction then another. Next thing I know I hit something, or something hit me. I flip over, ass over appetite and then I’m falling ... it must have been a hard down draft, pulling me down. That must’ve been when I broke my ankle, ‘cause I couldn’t get up for a minute or two.

“You fell into a hole? Like a cave?”

Roach frowned, scratched his head. “Could’ve been, I guess. If it was, it was huge. Looked a lot more like a valley, only deep. The sides sloped. Finally, I got up, but my ankle was hurting like a son-of-a-bitch. I couldn’t swim. Couldn’t walk either. I didn’t want to go any further down. I wanted to find my way back to the habitat, but I couldn’t fight the current, so I decided to just go with it and see if it’d sweep me up the other side.

“Then I got to noticing these little shallow ... like pits. And I thought, weird, ‘cause they looked like little craters. I wasn’t really interested, though. I was hurting like hell, scared shitless. But then I saw ... movement. That’s about the only way to describe it. I couldn’t see any thing, not really, not at first. But the movement caught my attention and I got to looking real hard at the spot.

“The current carried me away before I could get a good look at it, but I was focusing on the pits then. That’s when I caught a look at Kichens ... what was left of her.”

Victoria frowned, remembering the ‘nightmare’ Raphael had had. “You think maybe it just got lodged there?”

He shook his head, looked for several moments as if he was going to throw up. “Whatever it was, it was eating her.”

A shiver went through Victoria. She stood up abruptly. “You’ll have to show us where it is.”

He gaped at her as if she’d lost her mind. “No way am I going back out there!”

Victoria grabbed the front of his tunic, jerking him toward her until they were almost nose to nose. “They’ll come in here, moron!” she said through gritted teeth. “What do you think happened to the others?”

She thought for several moments that he was going to cry. His chin wobbled. “But ... we could barricade ourselves in. Wait for the next ship.”

Victoria released him, stepping back. “That’s been tried already. It didn’t work for them. And, as for waiting ... it could be six months ... maybe never. What do you think’s most likely, Roach? The company finds out they’ve sent nearly a hundred people down on an uncharted world that they’ve only half-assed checked out, most of them are killed and they rush to save the last survivors? Or they cook up a shipping disaster, blame it on the captain and sweep it under the rug as missing, presumed dead?”

Roach whimpered. “They wouldn’t just leave us here! Look at all the money they’ve sunk into this project!”

“Think of all the money it’s going to cost them if we get out of here and there’s an investigation. The penalties and settlements are likely to cost them more than they’ve already shelled out. I’m thinking they’ll decide it’s better just to cut their losses.”

Roach sniffed. “I told you I was lost. I don’t know if I can find it again.”

“You found your way back,” Victoria said tightly.

Roach gaped at her a long moment and finally got off the cot.

* * * *

Victoria summoned Raphael as soon as they were in the water. When he arrived, she told him Roach was going to lead them to the creatures. He’s been there. He should be able to find it again.

Raphael looked at Roach questioningly. After a moment, Roach nodded a little jerkily.

He says he’s pretty sure he can find it again. Raphael told her. His tone was skeptical.

He’s been there. That increases our chances. He also said they were everywhere. No idea what sort of count we’re talking about, but I think we need to leave a detail here to act as back up if we discover we have to retreat. I’d also like your input as to which level you think would be most defensible if we have to retreat into the habitat. I don’t won’t a repeat of what happened to the last crew.

Raphael frowned, considering it. The habitat is pretty wide open up through the warehousing levels. The lift has the elevator shaft pretty well blocked already. I’d say the officer’s deck would be best, if we had to manage a prolonged siege, the crew level if we can’t make it that far.

Victoria nodded. Good. Pick your detail and see what you can do to make it as secure as possible. Use whatever you can find to block the elevator shaft on both levels and make sure there’s plenty ready to hand to block the door once we’re in. From what I’ve heard, I’m thinking they’re invertebrates. I’ve heard an octopus can squeeze itself through the neck of a bottle ... so if water will flow through it, block it ... the ventilation system too. And put motion detectors anywhere you think there’s even a possibility of these things getting in.