Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

3

MCMURDO PROMONTORY—MARS NORTHEAST OF THE UNFINISHED DELTA LABS

IAN KELLIHER TURNED AND LOOKED AT THE SUN,careful not to stare for too long. At a glance, it didn’t seem much different from the way the sun looked back home. If anything it looked brighter, clearer, even though Mars was farther away from it.

But the readout on the left arm of his uniform told him it was a crisp 20 degrees below zero outside. A survivable temperature, albeit temporarily, if it was forced upon you. But how long could you last with no air? A few minutes before your brain would scream for oxygen?

There was something he didn’t tell the others, about other experiments back home—feeding off work with the free divers who trained their bodies to change their heart rate and metabolism, so that they could hold their breath for eight minutes, or even more. The big secret? With the UAC’s chemical modifications and training, that was now up to twenty-six minutes. Now the team was experimenting with the basic components of the Martian atmosphere that was so heavy in carbon dioxide and so poor in oxygen. Could modifications be made so that humans could be on the surface and breathe forhours at a time?

Of course, there was still the severe temperature to deal with. Catch a good day, and it could be pleasant. On the other hand, a cold Martian day could freeze your body solid in a matter of minutes. But all that too could be changed. More gases in the atmosphere would trap more of those rays.

Yeah…just do what we did to planet Earth. Dump more gas into the atmosphere, and watch the temps climb. And the ice melt. And the coastal areas vanish. And the whole fucking planet change more in a hundred years than it did in the past ten thousand.

We could do that here. In fact, we have to.

But that, Kelliher knew, was quite another story.

“Ian?” Hayden said.

Kelliher turned away from the ridge. He hated that Hayden thought himself a peer, that he’d actually address him by his first name. Made Kelliher a little…sick.

“Yes?”

“Ready to see Delta?”

“Not yet. Take me to Site 3.”

“Really, sir?” Hayden replied. “You have a lot of other meetings and briefings this afternoon. And Betruger can meet us now, so don’t—”

“Site 3, General Hayden.” He waited a beat so that there could be no mistake about the meaning of the exchange. “Now, if you will.”

Hayden nodded, his eyes looking fishy inside his helmet.

They walked back to the rover, a nervous Swann bringing up the rear. And when all loaded, their driver started to make his serpentine way down the promontory, curling around to an area of moguls, small hills, and sharp jutting chunks of red rock that looked like the tip of a mountain that had jutted up and through the permafrozen Martian surface.

Kelliher started to get out of the vehicle when he felt someone tap his shoulder. He turned to see Campbell’s hand on it.

“Mr. Kelliher, if you don’t mind. I’d like to go first. Just to take a look…for security reasons, sir.”

Kelliher nodded, thinking,That’s why I pay him the big bucks.

“Be my guest, Jack.”

He watched Campbell hop out of the rover and walk down a makeshift path to what looked like a massive cave entrance. Explosive charges had widened that opening, and now scaffolding with lights surrounded it. Two rovers were pulled to the side.

Kelliher watched Campbell walk down to the opening. Two men stood at the entrance, and Campbell stopped to confer with them. Then the security chief turned and waved at Kelliher and the others.

“General, how many people do you have working down here?” Kelliher asked.

“It varies. We need everybody we can to keep moving on schedule back at Mars City. But the work here—at Site 3—is never quiet.”

How about answering the damn question?Kelliher thought. “How many people, Hayden?”

“Um—right now, five. Three working excavation, and two scientists. Lot of people would like to get down here—we’ve got people even coming down on their own time.”

Kelliher walked down the rocky path to the cave entrance until he came abreast of Campbell. “Okay, Jack?”

“Yes, sir. No more explosions for the day. And the others are in there.” A beat, then Campbell asked, knowing the answer. “Want to go in, sir?”

“Yeah. I’d like to see for myself.”

Campbell turned to one of the sentries, who nodded and, without a command, led the way into the cave.

The massive lights outside lit every corner of the inner walls. And for a few moments, Kelliher didn’t see anything more than the smooth surface of Martian rock. Just more red rock…

Until, as they got to the edge of the light provided by the array at the cave mouth, he stopped and saw them. Despite thinking there was not much that could really shake him, seeing all this in person certainly did.

Markings. Strange curling symbols. Cut or painted or carved into the rock. First a few, then, with each step, he could see that the walls became filled with them. Symbols. A language? Words?

“Goddamn,” Kelliher said slowly.

“Unbelievable,” Swann said. Until now, the lawyer had seemed mostly interested in getting his butt back to the lights and air and security of the Administration Wing.

Kelliher heard steps. Two figures loomed out of the darkness ahead, massive lights on top of their EVA suits.

Kelliher turned away from the glare, raising a hand to shield his eyes, and suddenly both lights went off. He turned back to what he now saw were a man and a woman. Two scientists. Geologists perhaps? Language scholars? Or anyone from a half-dozen specialties that would love to be here, to see this?

No matter. It was time to get over the shock and awe of what he was seeing and take control of the situation. “Good morning,” Kelliher said in a loud voice. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m your boss.”

After formalities had been exchanged, the woman, Dr. Axelle Graulich, touched one of the carved swirls. Her voice carried a bit of an accent. Kelliher made a note to find out her background—he liked to know…everything.

“The dates, well…they vary, and carbon dating here is not the exact science we have at home,” she was saying. “But we figure…they’re three hundred…maybe four hundred thousand years.”

“And that well preserved?” Kelliher asked.

The other scientist, Dr. Tom Stein, spoke up. “The opening had been sealed. So this area was always well protected from the dust storms, the sun…the extreme temperatures.”

“Any idea what they mean?”

Graulich pulled her hand away from one swirl. She turned and looked at the other array of symbols, the smooth curves giving way to angular lines.Could they really be letters—or something else? Kelliher thought.Maybe—perhaps—a map?

Graulich shook her head. “We—I mean you, sir—have whole teams back home in Palo Alto working on everything we find. We have also brought the few artifacts we’ve recovered to Delta. Dr. Betruger, in fact, has been—”

Kelliher turned away, seeing something odd. Swann, who had been invisible for this whole tour, had taken a step forward, touching the swirls of symbols. “‘To Serve Man,’” Swann remarked.

“What?” Kelliher said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Swann turned away from the sheer stone wall. “Something from two centuries ago, sir. A primitive vid. In the 1950s, there was a vid about a book, an alien language. These scientists decode only the title—at first.”

Before Kelliher could ask him what the hell he was talking about, Graulich walked over to the lawyer. “And what happened?” she asked.

Even under his faceplate, Swann looked embarrassed.So he should be, Kelliher thought.Talking about two-hundred-year-old vids, for Christ’s sake.

“They thought it was a good thing, this book from the aliens…to serve, to help mankind. People scrambled to visit the alien world, supposedly a garden of Eden.”

Graulich raised a hand. “Let me guess. Then they decoded the rest of the book?”

“Exactly.”

“And what, Swann,” asked Kelliher, quickly losing his patience. “What was the stupid goddamn book?”

Swann turned to his boss. “A cookbook, sir. Turned out it was a cookbook.”

Nobody said anything for a second. Then Kelliher began to laugh in spite of his exasperation. It was actually pretty funny.A cookbook! Of all things.

And when his laughter subsided, he took a breath. “Okay, this has been…most entertaining. Not terribly informative, but definitely entertaining. When either of you do find out something about all this, I want to be the first to know, of course.”

“Yes, sir,” Graulich said.

He turned to Hayden. “Okay then—let’s go visit the star attraction, hmm? Dr. Betruger awaits.”

The airlock shut behind them. As soon as he had his helmet off, Kelliher went over to Hayden, addressing him perhaps a little too confrontationally, but then again, timewas money. “You really think Mars City is going to be completed in time, that you will be able to link Delta Lab with the full complex? In just twelve months?”

Hayden took a deep breath. “Yes. Your office has sent up additional teams, and we have the material we need. The teams are working night and day, no matter what the temperature.” Hayden took a breath. “It will get done.”

“Good.”

Kelliher then noticed Campbell looking at the airlock and the nearby schema showing the layout of the lab.

“Problem, Jack?”

“Sir, this doesn’t match what we saw outside.”

“What?”

“Look. This layout shows onlyone way into Delta, through the security junction. But then—what’s this?”

Hayden went over to check it out for himself. “Oh that? Betruger ordered that. Apparently approved by your design teams on Earth. It’s simply an additional point of ingress and egress. A backup, if you will.”

“Or an escape route?” Campbell remarked.

“Possibly.”

“Did anyone raise the question of security? This lab, doing the most sensitive work, the most important experiments…and Betruger orders up a back door?” Campbell shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“I suggest you ask Dr. Betruger.”

Campbell looked right at Kelliher, “Yeah—I intend to.”