The Darwin Elevator (60 page)

A good portion of the city fell within the Elevator’s protection, assuming it offered an Aura. The thought reminded Skyler of why they had come.

“I think it’s time,” he said. “If you’re ready.”

Karl, still stoic, gave a terse nod.

Skyler slung his rifle and came to stand in front of the man. “Keep your eyes on me,” he said. “Any strange thoughts, you need to tell me. We’ll seal you right back up.”

“If it’s bad,” Karl said, “you shoot me. No debate. Kill me right here.”

Skyler reached out and grasped the clamps that held Karl’s face mask in place. “Ever smelled fresh air?”

Karl shook his head.

“There’s nothing like it,” Skyler said.

He pulled the helmet from Karl’s head and held it between them, ready to reattach it.

A minute passed, then two. Karl just stared at Skyler, his breathing fast at first. Gradually he got it under control, and relaxed. He inhaled deeply, once, his eyes closed. Skyler could see his nostrils flare, his eyes twitch. The man’s expression turned to pleasure.

“Wonderful,” he said. “The aromas …”

“Told you.”

“It’s like the first time I tasted a truly good wine.”

After ten uneventful minutes, Skyler sat down and beckoned Karl to do the same. He figured an hour of exposure would do, so they killed the time by trading life stories.

The hour passed. Karl showed no sign of infection.

“I think we should head back,” Skyler said. A comm capable of two-way communication with orbit had not been set up yet, and he desperately wanted to share their discovery with Tania and the others.

Karl nodded agreement and took the lead back to their ladder.

As they walked Skyler found himself looking up, watching the pillar-like shapes of the Builders’ outpost pass by. It brought a childhood memory back, a vague recollection of strolling along a tree-lined avenue, his head tilted up to watch the branches overhead—

Skyler tripped.

A bare tree root caught his toes and sent him stumbling. He reached out to brace his fall, without thinking, and placed his hand upon one of the Builders’ towers.

The object gave way. It moved as if weighing nothing at all, a deep creaking sound coming from the base.

Skyler watched from one knee. Karl stopped, too, his face blank.

The black tower, three meters across at the base and twenty meters high, drifted over the muddy ground as if it were in zero-G. It moved slower than Skyler’s walking pace.

He stared, watched it go. Some part of him recognized that it was not slowing down, and that the shape of its base constantly shifted to match the contour of the ground.

“It’s not stopping,” Karl said. “Skyler! It’s not stopping!”

The structure’s path would take it straight into another of the massive shapes. Skyler felt his heart drop into his stomach.
What have I started?

Seconds before impact, the second structure began to move, too. It shifted its position just enough to avoid impact, and then returned to its original position, exactly.

The tower Skyler had pushed kept going. Another structure moved out of the way, then a third.

When the tower passed the last of its kind, it continued to move, speed never varying. A constant, straight motion in the exact direction Skyler had pushed it.

Toward the river, a few hundred meters beyond.

It moved at an angle to the wide body of water. Skyler found himself running, his feet pounding in the moist ground. He tossed Karl’s helmet aside and pumped his arms.

The shape began to descend the bank of the river, its base ever shifting to match the contours of the ground, allowing the tower itself to stay perfectly upright. Skyler couldn’t even begin to imagine what technology allowed any of this to occur. All he knew was that he couldn’t let the thing sink into the wide river.

With a few meters to spare, he ran around the drifting object and planted his feet between it and the rushing water. The shape loomed before him, creaking all the while like a great tree in a stiff breeze.

Unsure what to do, Skyler put his hands out and grimaced. He dug his feet into the mud and leaned in as the object arrived, intending to push with all his might to try to stop it.

The pressure against his hands felt impossibly solid when it touched his skin, and yet in the span of a heartbeat it slowed and stopped.

The creaking sound faded.

Water licking at his feet, Skyler stood before the obelisk and scratched his head. On a whim he stuck out one finger and pushed against the black surface. He heard the creaking again, quieter, and the tower began to move away, so slow he didn’t notice it at first.

“Unbelievable.”

Karl arrived. He stopped next to Skyler and put his hands on his knees, panting. It would take him a few days to adjust to the humid air, Skyler realized. All of them.

“What does it mean?” Karl asked.

The mass continued to drift back toward the others, as if riding on an invisible pocket of air. All the while, the base of it emitted that eerie creaking noise, like an old wooden ship listing on a calm sea. Skyler could only shake his head.

They watched from the water’s edge. The object crept along, back the way it had come.

“I wonder how far it would have gone had you not stopped it?” Karl said. “Assuming they can’t sink.”

“Good question,” Skyler replied. “I don’t know why, but I think it would have gone a long, long way.”

Even as he said the words, the object reached its counterparts. Skyler watched in awed silence as the other towers drifted out of the way, then back as the moving object passed.

“We should go,” Skyler said. Tania needed to hear about this. He could already picture the look on her face.

“Mmmph,” Karl muttered. He dropped to one knee, fingers pressed against his temples.

“What’s wrong?” Skyler asked. Karl was clawing at his temples now. “What is it?”

“What do you
think
?! We wandered too far!”

Skyler threw his arm around Karl without a second thought and hoisted the man to his feet. Karl fought it, moaning in agony. Every step of the way he tried to free himself from Skyler’s arm. The disease’s initial infection affected many this way—they were the ones who died quickly.

Four hundred meters, Skyler judged. They’d only gone four hundred meters from the base of the cord, and already they’d reached the Aura’s edge. Not even close to the nine kilometers provided by Darwin’s elevator. The limited range threw their plans, and everyone’s survival chances, into doubt. There would be so little room.

“Slow down,” Karl said. “I’m all right. The pain’s gone.”

Skyler eased the man down to the ground and sat beside him. They had only moved about fifty meters toward the elevator.

“It came on so fast,” Karl muttered, still rubbing at his temples.

Skyler watched the dark obelisk as it drifted back through the others. He turned and glanced back toward the river’s edge. “Stay here,” he said to Karl.

Acting even as the idea formed, Skyler jogged back to the wandering tower, moved to the opposite side, and guided it back toward the river. He found he could manipulate its direction with minimal effort by pressing lightly on the either side as it “floated” along. For a short span, Skyler crawled along beside it. He could see no visible gap between the its base and the muddled soil beneath it, and yet somehow he knew it
was
floating. He wondered why the wind seemed to have no effect on it, yet even the gentlest touch he provided could change its direction.

He guided the tower into a position about halfway between Karl and the elevator’s base.

“What are you doing?” Karl shouted. “You’ve got a funny look in your eye, I can see from here.”

“How bad was it, really?” Skyler yelled back.

“Bad.”

“Bad enough you won’t take a quick test?”

Karl arched an eyebrow. “I guess I’m game. What’s your idea?”

Skyler stood next to the huge object and brought it to a reasonable stop. “Walk toward the river again.”

Karl glanced behind himself. The river loomed fifty meters away.

“Shout the moment you feel the pain,” Skyler said.

Dubious, Karl started back toward the water. Ten steps later he doubled over in pain.

Skyler leaned into the tower and shoved. Again he felt an initial hesitation, as if the thing were every bit the solid mass it appeared to be. Then the weight of it melted away, and the object began to move.

When it traveled the same distance Karl had walked, Skyler saw him struggle to his feet and steady himself.

“I’m okay!” Karl shouted. “Holy shit, I’m okay!”

My God, we can shape it,
Skyler thought.

Two hundred towers, each capable of creating pockets of protected area. Smaller than Darwin’s, yes, but
mobile
 …

Possibilities unfolded in his mind. Aura “roads” extending from the Elevator into the most useful areas of Belém. Pockets of safe, defensible ground. Teams venturing out into the wilds, a tower always at their center, exploring as far as they wished to go.

It was a scavenger’s dream.

He grinned, broad and unabashed. A smile born of pure joy.

A smile born of discovery.

Acknowledgments

This novel would not have been possible without the help and support of the following:

My endlessly patient wife, Nancy.

Sara Megibow, my agent and champion.

My observant editor, Mike Braff.

All my family and friends. Notably: the Brotherhood and the Cosmonicans.

Kip Williams, who encouraged me to pursue this story above all others when he heard the pitch.

Heartfelt thanks also go to:

My cousins Paul, Daniel, and Sean. They asked a million questions and forced me to get my story straight.

Mike Kalmbach, who helped me find the myriad of flaws in the first draft.

Xavier Burrow, for his insights into “life on the ground” in Darwin.

I offer sincere apologies to the wonderful people of Darwin, Australia, for turning their beautiful town into a fictional postapocalyptic slum. It’s nothing personal, I promise.

Read on for an excerpt from

The Belém Towers

Book Two of the Dire Earth Sequence

Coming from Del Rey Books

Chapter Five

Belém, Brazil

27.APR.2283

Ten steps into the rain forest, Skyler came to a steep embankment that dropped two meters down to a narrow stream. Rivulets of water traced miniature caves and waterfalls into the earthen wall. He hopped down and crouched by the water. The rhythmic sound of subhuman humming danced at the edge of his senses, as the dense foliage confused and baffled the noise. He forced himself to pause in order to ascertain the source’s direction.

Satisfied he had the right vector, Skyler moved ahead. As the sound grew ever louder, he took care to step over any twig or leaf in his path that might otherwise crack beneath his boot.

The trees here were tall, forming a cathedral-like canopy that blocked much of the gray clouds above. Raindrops fell in irregular places as they percolated through the maze of broad leaves and smooth branches. Insects small and large buzzed around his face, an annoyance he’d grown accustomed to since arriving in Belém.

A chill swept over him. With so little sunlight, the air here had a sharp bite. Skyler zipped his vest all the way to the top, and did his best to ignore the tingle from his earlobes and nose.

After fifty meters, the chorus of crooning subhumans became unmistakable. The farther Skyler crept, the more voices he estimated were part of the inhuman choir. They came from left, right, and center. After a dozen more steps, a growing fear slowed his place to a crawl. He’d stepped over countless roots and vines, ducked under as many low branches. Retreat would be slow, should he need to run. Part of him said to go back now, report the subhuman tribe, and come back with twenty armed colonists.

Yet the strange noise pulled him. He couldn’t deny that, and had to know what the miserable beings were doing out here, in the middle of nowhere, deep in the Amazon rain forest, singing softly in a babble of meaningless sounds.

Skyler slowed further when he came to realize a thick mist enveloped the forest ahead. He thought it might be smoke at first, but no odor accompanied the haze. Against every instinct save curiosity, he took another step. Then another. Before long the still mist surrounded him, and visibility fell to five meters or less.

“Stupid, stupid,” he whispered, even as he took another step.

Individual subhuman voices stood out against the thrum, now. Here the sounds came from the left and right, but not from ahead, he realized. It was as if the beings were formed in a line, and he’d just crossed it.

Only then did it occur to him that there were no trees here. None upright, anyway. Fallen trunks of shattered wood littered the ground around him, some still tucked in the embrace of strangler figs. He stepped around the huge stump of a kapok tree. The smooth, fleshy base ended in a violent mess of splinters. Another nearby had been uprooted completely. The chill he’d felt before vanished, replaced by humid warmth that grew with each step.

The mist cleared slightly, if only for an instant, and Skyler realized he’d walked into a wide ravine with curved walls. The ground beneath him sloped gradually downward.

Not ten steps later a wall of earth loomed ahead of him, and then he saw the mouth of the cave. Or, more aptly, the tunnel, for this huge circular opening was clearly not a natural formation.

Skyler knew then, with sudden certainty, where he was.

Something had crashed here. It didn’t take much imagination to guess what. The proximity to the Elevator, the ring of chanting subhumans lining the site …

He’d found one of Tania’s five mystery shell ships. Of this he had no doubt. The objects had trailed in behind the Belém Elevator’s construction vessel, and then she’d lost track of them. In truth, no one had given the objects much thought since then. Not that he was aware of, anyway.

Swallowing a growing dread, Skyler crept forward, gun constantly sweeping the fog ahead of him until he reached the mouth of the tunnel.