A Season for Slaughter

Chapter 13 Descending

The deeper we went, the thicker the walls became, and the sturdier the valve-doors; probably a response to the atmospheric changes down here, as well as additional protection for the greater pressures we were experiencing.

I wished I could cut through the surrounding walls of the channel to see how they were constructed. My best guess was that the walls were as multiply redundant as the doors, and that the fleshy shaft we were in was only the innermost layer of a whole set of nested organic pipes.

The repeating valve-doors allowed a step-by-step shift to a drastically different environment. The beauty of the design was its overall simplicity. No single door had to maintain the integrity o the entire system, and the progression of atmospheric changes was so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, but the cumulative effect of moving through all those valve-doors was to step into a world vastly changed from the one we had left.

There were other things growing on the walls now, unidentifiable objects, manifestations of the Chtorran ecology that even H. P. Lovecraft would have had trouble describing. Some of them were shapeless purple masses, looking like homeless goiters. Others were tangles of pallid noodles, limp as dead spagheva and dripping with bluish goo. Here and there, thick nets of creepers hung from the ceiling of the tunnel; if they were there to stop intrusions, they weren't effective against the sliding advance of Sher Khan. The prowler moved steadily forward and down, through the next door and the next and the next.

For a while, we moved through a tunnel that was lined with cup-like projections.

"The walls have ears," reported Siegel grimly; he was immediately promised an early defenestration-as soon as we found an appropriate window. A little farther on, the fleshy cup-like flowers gave way to thick pink protuberances. "Anyone want to say that the walls have tongues?"

"They don't look like tongues to me," said Willig slyly, without additional explanation. There were guffaws on the channel, mostly from the crew in the other van.

Either way, the imagery was disturbing; the urge to joke was fading fast. "Anyone for stoop-tag?" Siegel asked lamely. Nobody responded.

"Stay on purpose," I reminded them. The prowler continued pushing through the seemingly endless series of valve-doors.

"Hold it," Siegel said sharply. "We're getting our feet wet."

"Let's do a lookaround," I ordered. "Siegel, you do it." I popped my head out of the helmet long enough to take a sip of water. "How long have we been at this?"

"Three hours," said Willig.

"No wonder my back hurts—-ouch! My kidneys are floating. I'll be right back. Will you update the stereo-map?"

"It's working now," said Willig. She was already typing.

"Geez, I've gotta pee so bad, my back teeth are singing 'Anchors Aweigh."'

"You shoulda joined the Navy."

"No thanks. I saw what happened to the Nimitz."

I headed to the back of the van, locked myself into the head, and started to lean against the wall; I realized I was suddenly dizzy, turned, and sat down instead. My whole body ached, partly with the strain of the vicarious descent into Chtorran hell, and partly with the emotional strain of being cut off from all support; not just cut off from Lizard, not just cut off from Science Section, but cut off from the entire network. I felt dizzy from the conflicting realities. And I felt so alone, it hurt.

Emptying my bladder relieved only part of the pain. I wondered if this was what it felt like to get old. That thought made me smile grimly. I had never expected to live even this long. I was already a lot older than I believed. And I didn't expect to last much longer. I knew the odds. In fact, I already had my epitaph picked out: "Something he disagreed with ate him."

When I came back, I didn't feel much better. Emptier, yes, but I ached all over. Willig must have seen me twisting my shoulders around painfully in a futile attempt to loosen them up; after I sat down again, she came over and stood behind me and started massaging my neck and back. "Just relax and let it happen," she said. "And stop thinking dirty thoughts."

"Sure… after a remark like that?" But I sat quietly while she worked the knots out of my shoulders.

"Christ, you're stiff. What have you been doing? Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders?"

"No. Just two rollagons, twelve troops, and a spelunking prowler."

"And a Brazilian mission. And General Wainright. And that toad, Dannenfelser. And what else?"

"And a broken heart. Don't be so nosy." I clicked my communicator on. "Marano?"

"Still clear. The only thing moving in this landscape is a fluffball the size of a whale. It's pretty impressive. You should have a look."

"Thanks, but I saw the one that rolled into Alameda last year. They were hosing down whole city blocks when that thing collapsed."

"Alameda? I didn't think there was anything left over there."

"Not a lot, but don't let the governor of California hear you say that. McMullin-Ramirez was born in Alameda and is determined to rebuild the place-if necessary, as the new state capital." Another thought occurred to me. "Hey, if that fluffball looks like it's going to come anywhere near either of the vans, flame it. If we start getting a lot of fluffballs, we'll lock down the prowler and get out of here. We can reestablish a satellite linkup later. But I'm not going to risk getting snowbound again. Once was enough, thank you."

"Ten-four, Cap'n." She clicked out.

"Siegel?" I called. "What say you?"

"We've got a puddle down here. Put your helmet on."

I pushed my chair forward-Willig moved in with me and kept right on massaging-and pulled the VR helmet down over my head again. After the usual moment of dizzying disorientation, I was back inside the prowler's point-of-view.

The tunnel here was ankle-deep in a thin soupy fluid. It was dripping off the walls.

"What do you think?" asked Siegel. "A leak in the pipes? Or is this intentional?"

"I dunno. Wait a minute." I pushed the helmet up again.

"The stereo-map?"

Willig let go of my shoulders and sat down again at her station.

The map popped up on the screen in front of me. It looked like a cone-shaped bedspring, small end down.

"All right, here, look at this," said Willig. "The tunnel spirals downward and in. Now, if we extrapolate similar tunnels from each of the other shamblers in the grove, we get this-" She touched a button, and at least a dozen other curving lines appeared in the display. They all curled down to meet at a point below the exact center of the grove. Willig marked the point with a question mark, then put a flashing red arrow on the screen, labeled, "You are here." The arrow was very close to the question mark.

"There's gotta be something at the bottom," she said, "and it's taking the resources of the whole shambler herd to support,it."

I made a thoughtful clucking sound while I studied the diagram. "That's a fascinating idea. Log it. If you're right, I will take you out to dinner."

She was a professional, but she wasn't too professional to flush with happy embarrassment. She went back to work, and I pulled the helmet back down over my head again. "Siegel? How's the prowler holding up?"

"It's a little sticky down here, but nothing we can't handle. Confidence is at eighty-five. We've got eleven hours' power left before we have to pull out. No problems."

"Okay. Then let's get to the bottom of this thing, once and for all. Let's go."

The prowler pushed through the next valve-door and—