The Prize: Book One (31 page)

“We don't seem to have much of a choice.”  Penn murmured eyeing the other side of the lake, but as far as he could see, the exit was on the other side.

“So we have to do the long jump, and land as close as we can to that pouch, right?”

“You've got it, Princess, but I go first…”

Before he'd even finished the sentence, Ellis flew by him and took a tremendous leap, landing almost beside the food container.  Even so, the lake tried to reach out and grab her as she landed.  She quickly moved out of reach.

“Your turn!”  She called, grinning from ear to ear.  ”You didn't think I'd let you take all the risks did you?”

“Of all the…  How's the surface feel?”  He asked, keeping the rest of what he thought to himself.

“Solid as a rock, not even sticky.”

“Yeah, for now.  Stand back.”

Penn backed up to the entranceway and took off running.  Even before he'd reached the edge, the lake reached up to tried to grab him.  He cleared the reaching fingers of blackness and landed just beyond where Ellis had.

“Guess this lake doesn't like people crossing it.”  Penn spit on the rippling surface.

“You think?”  Ellis answered, giving him one of those looks.

“You know, you can be such a brat sometimes.”  Ellis blew him a kiss.

They tested their footing on one of the rocks they'd already thrown but didn't sink and the surface didn’t feel sticky when he touched it.  When they reached the last one, they took turns throwing rocks.  Penn decided not to remove the ones they already thrown just in case they needed to back track.  They carefully negotiated their way across, zig-zagging back and forth where needed.  The last two rocks showed them the way, and somewhat to their surprise, they were on the other side.

“I take it the lesson is to avoid evil at all cost.”

“Might be.  Otherwise you could get sucked down into it, and never escape.”  Ellis seemed to disagree.

“I was just thinking that sometimes, you don't have a choice between evils as the whole surface seems to indicate.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like when I joined the Empire military.  Escaping one evil, to find another, in all the things I've had to do in my career since then.”

“Sometime we all have to do things we aren't proud of.”  Penn's voice trailed off.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Was it evil of me to agree to send twenty seven young girls to their deaths?”

“Penn!  You didn't?”  Seeing him nod.

“They were just children.  God help me, they volunteered.  They wanted to go,” Penn choked, “and blow themselves up.”

“The suicide bombers?  That was you?”  She wanted to take him in her arms, to hug him and tell him it was all right, but she couldn't.

His anger at himself was a shield that she couldn't penetrate.  Penn turned away and exited the chamber.  Ellis bit her lower lips, stopping herself from saying something she'd regret, and followed him.  As they entered the tunnel on the other side, three troopers came out onto the beach Penn and Ellis had stood on and looked across the inky black lake.  Squad Leader Dana looked at the departing human's with cold, back eye, with a soul to match and spat on the ground.  His hatred for humans was all-encompassing, but for these two, he couldn't think of a worse enough death for either of them than sinking into that black tarry mass.

“Well, what do you know?  The humans have shown us the way,” Breen said.

“Let's give them a head start before we cross.”  Dana responded.

“I wonder what that shit is supposed to do?”  Covers asked, bending down at the edge of the lake.  The moment he touched the surface, the blackness grabbed his hand.  Covers screamed as he tried to pull away, realizing the lake was gradually pulling him in.  They rushed forward but no amount of pulling could get him free.

“Breen, get his pack off him.  Now!”  Breen was careful not to get to close to the black stuff as he unhooked and pulled Covers pack off.

“Now what?  I don't think that'll help him.”

“No it won't, but it will help us.”  Dana answered.

By then, Covers was up to his elbow in the blackness.  Dana quickly knelt behind him, and grabbed the screaming man's ankle he gave a quick heave, flipping Covers on his back in the lake.  He screamed louder as he slowly started to sink, begging them for help.

“What the fuck?!”  The Breen demanded.

“We're not going to get him out of there, so why waste the food and water?”  Dana shot back.  ”Follow me.”  There was no way they could make the jump the human's had, so he didn't try.

Dana leapt from the beach onto the stuck man, and finally next to the discarded food pouch.  There was something coldly clinical in the way he stood and observed his sinking comrade.

“Well, what are you waiting for a written invitation?  Let's move.”

After a long look at Covers, Breen followed.  He stopped for a moment after reaching the other side and watched with a horrified fascination as the man slowly sank until just his contorted face showed above the surface.

“Help me!  Help me!”  Covers screamed.  Breen turned away to follow Dana across the lake, the man's dying screams echoing in his deaf ears.  Breen looked at Dana’s back wondering for a moment if he should stick a knife in it before Dana did something similar to him.

CHAPTER - THIRTY ONE:                            Aladdin's Cave.

Walking down a long, smooth tunnel, Penn tried to puzzle out where the light was coming from.  He knew it strengthened ahead as they walked, and dimmed behind, yet even that wasn't always consistent.  Penn brought his attention back to where they were as the tunnel started to slope downward.  Gradually it steepened, and the surface became smoother until it was difficult to walk at all.  Worse, the floor started getting wet but he had no idea where the water, or wetness was coming from, it just seemed to ooze up out of the rock.  It wasn't long before Ellis slipped, and all Penn heard was a squeal and a curse, and before he could even look round, Ellis crashed into him.  The impact sent them both sliding down the tunnel.

“Oh shit!  Here we go again!”

Ellis managed to slow her descent until Penn was about a hundred yards ahead of her, hoping it would give him a chance to get out of her way at the bottom.  They rocketed down the slope, whizzing around bends, and no matter what he tried, Penn couldn't slow himself.  A few hundred feet further on the floor gradually leveled out before becoming flat again, and he dug his heels in too gradually bring himself to a stop, turning quickly to try and catch Ellis.  To his surprise, she didn't come hurtling out of the tunnel at him.  Penn dashed back up the tunnel as far as he could,  thinking she might had got stuck, yelling her name at the top of him lungs.  He heard a faint, far off scream, but couldn't tell where she was.  Fear-sweat pop out on his forehead, and pulling both knives, he started back up the tunnel.  Thankfully, the tunnel narrowed enough so he could jam his feet against each wall, and reach up to dig the tips of the knives into the floor.  Foot by aching foot he pulled himself back up the slope, cursing and redoubling his efforts each time he slipped back.  He never once thought of giving up.  He had to find Ellis, no matter how long it took, or how many times he had to climb back up the tunnel.  After slipping all the way back to the bottom for the fourth time, he used his rope to tied his pack, securing the other end to his belt so it wouldn't get in the way, or weigh him down while he climbed, hoping the lack of weight would help.

Sitting on the floor, he jammed both feet against the opposite wall and started the long, slow climb upward on his back this time.  He still slipped back, but not often, and inch by inch, he moved upward.  By using the opposite wall to hold himself in position with his feet, he dug the knife-points into the wall behind him and pushed his back up a few inches followed by careful two-step on the opposite wall.  He'd used the 'chimney' method before, but that was on a vertical shaft, not a sloped tunnel.  Despite the strain on his back and legs, this method did give him the chance to rest every so often to catch his breath.  He pushed his fear for Ellis to the back of his mind, not daring to think what might happen to her.  Fear is always the mind killer.  He didn't know how long it took before the tunnel floor started to flatten out again, but when it did he lay there for a long time unable to move, gritting his teeth against the pain in his legs and back.  At last, he managed to work the kinks out, and got unsteadily to his feet.  Ellis was nowhere to be seen.  He knew he'd passed the place they started their slide, and he'd seen no turnoffs or side passages, so where was she?  His one option was to go back down the shaft.  Penn dreaded the idea of having to do it all over again in reverse, but he couldn't stop now.  What if Ellis was in danger?  He started back down, moving even slower this time.

Time meant nothing to him, and he survived on sheer gut, willing himself to ignore the pain, examining the walls as best he could for illusions.  Maybe there was a hidden passage behind a false front, but if so, why Ellis had gone down it and not him?  There had to be a turn off somewhere.  He found what he was looking for it about half way down, and cursed softly.  How he'd missed it on his way up he didn't know, but here was, as plain as day.  If Ellis had been sliding at a slightly different angle to him, she just might have slid into this tunnel instead of the other.  After pulling his pack up and shrugging it on, he carefully worked his way into the opening, and remembering Ellis's scream, controlled his descent as best he could, not that it helped much.  At the end of the tunnel was an almost vertical drop of a hundred feet.  He started to use the chimney method, and managed to get just past the halfway mark before losing his footing. 

“Oh, shit!”  He muttered, but it was just a short drop, but he landed hard on the rocky floor. 

He lay there, stunned, unable to move for several minutes as the pain from the cramps in his arms and legs warring with the pain in his back and shoulder.  Realizing that neither could win, he forced himself to his feet, shaking his head to clear the stars, and stop the room from spinning.  At last, it settled down and focused on finding Ellis.  The place he'd landed was an empty oval shaped room, with the now familiar pearlescent, shadowless lighting.  The domed ceiling started at floor level and arched overhead to the other side, forming an inverted bowl.  The shaft lay at the apex of the bowl and now impossible to reach without at least a ten-foot ladder.  Like elsewhere, this room had one non-returning inlet, and one outlet through an open archway.  Rotating his shoulders to work out the kinks he shrugged his pack back on and limped toward the arch.

By this time he'd stopped being surprised at what he found as he traveled through this place, but he was taken aback by what he saw in the next room.  The room was enormous, more like a well-lighted cavern.  The ceiling nothing more than a misty blur somewhere high above, supported here and there by gigantic rock pillars.  Yet what astounded him more was the treasure.  Literally mountains of it.  Piles of gold and jewelry lay on either side of him.  He caught his breath in wonder.  It reminded him of a pirate story, or Aladdin's cave.  But no pirate or Aladdin had ever dreamed of a treasure like this.  The floor between the piles of treasure was smooth white marble, or something similar, and he followed the meandering path between the horde.  In some places, he saw neatly stacked piles of gold bricks, platinum, sliver, and bins of jewels.  Some he recognized as diamonds, rubies and emeralds, but many more he couldn't even identify.  His thoughts turned to Ellis.  She had to be somewhere in this golden horde.  The piles of gold crowns, glittered necklaces, and coins like so much debris to him that he had to sift through to find the one treasure he wanted more than all the riches in the room.

Ellis, she was his treasure.  Penn stopped for a moment, wondering which way to go.  With so many avenues, there was no guessing which one Ellis had taken.  A thought struck him, and lifting his head, he sniffed the air.  She was in here.  He could smell her.  Subtle yet distinct from any other smell, Ellis's pheromones seemed to be stronger coming from the left.  Penn smiled to himself, knowing he could pick her out in a crowded auditorium, imprinted as she was on his senses.  Sure of himself, he started humming a tune as he walked.  If the first room wasn't able to tempt him, the next section might.  This room was filled with boxes and crates, each packed with weapons of every imaginable kind, from simple blades to futuristic trailer-mounted missile batteries and energy cannons.  There were uniforms, boots, rations, and enough equipment to outfit an army ten times over.  For a moment, he thought about what he could do with all this if he equipped an Earth army with it.  He could fight the Empire on an equal footing.  It was a tempting dream, and had he been anyone else he might have succumbed to its siren call.  Later, he came across row after row of assault shuttles and heavy lifters.  If he looked, he bet he'd find enough star ships somewhere in here to lift everything off the planet.  He lost track of time as he wandered about until his stomach growled at him.  He hadn't eaten in a long time.  On a whim he backtracked to the stacks of military equipment, and it didn't take him long to find stack after stack of MRE's.  Breaking open one of the crates he pulled out a pack and looked at it.  He wasn't surprised to discover the label on the package was in English, and smiled.  Like everything else in this cavern, all Earth oriented.  What would the Thrakee or the Silurian see and find if they walked through here?