Earthcore

Chapter Thirty-two

Kayla found herself somewhere between admiration and rage. Squatting on her heels, she stared at the last of the pyramid-like devices Angus had scattered all over the mountain. She appreciated the genius that had gone into building the object, but at the same time wanted to slice open the builder's stomach and spread his entrails on the cool morning ground.

She stood, took two steps back, and fired her Steyr GB-80 at the machine. It shattered into a dozen useless pieces of smoldering, twisted metal and ripped wires.

Now the little prick was completely cut off. He'd cost her five precious hours, time spent tracking down all six of the hidden machines.

You fucking little prick.

She had to get to him. Who knew what other clever little methods he had, what other tactics he might use to call for help? She had to nail his ass before he could do that. He was getting the pliers, all right, and this time she wouldn't stop with just a knuckle or two.

Hopefully the unit she'd taken back to her warren could provide some information. He was down there, she just knew it.

Connell woke with a start, eyes wide open and hunting for any sign of rocktopi. His shoulder throbbed with pain and his back screamed with complaint. He heard a strange crackling sound, but didn't know if it was real or just a creation of his fogged head. He looked around wildly, but saw only the others in the party, sleeping the sleep of the dead.

"Connell, relax, it's okay,” Veronica said groggily, putting a hand on his good shoulder. She had been sleeping beside him.

"Where are we?"

"We're in a cave that Angus and Randy sealed off with rocks. We're safe. For now, at least."

Connell looked at her. Concern showed through her weariness. Had she been watching over him? Visions of Mack's massacred body flashed through his head. “How long have I been out?"

"About five hours. We stitched up your shoulder as best we could. We didn't have any surgical thread; we had to use fibers from one of the ropes. You're going to have a nasty scar. Angus used up all the patches to fix up your and O'Doyle's suits. You've lost a lot of blood. You need to rest."

"I can't rest, Veronica.” Connell grunted as he slowly stood, ignoring the pain in his knee, back and shoulder. “How is O'Doyle?"

"He's sleeping. We stitched him up too and patched his KoolSuit. He'll probably be okay as long as we don't move him for awhile."

"How long is awhile?"

"I'd say we can't move him for at least a day."

A day. They couldn't wait a day. They couldn't even afford to wait an hour. “Wake everyone up,” he said, slowly flexing his wounded shoulder, testing its abilities. “We've got to figure out the next step."

The tiny cave held few shadows, thanks to the small but powerful lights provided by Angus. The scrambler's crackling buzz filled the air. Everyone gathered in a circle at the cave's center, gazing up at Connell. They all looked exhausted, zombies staring at him with combinations of fear, anger, and hopelessness.

Connell glared at Angus. As of that moment, their lives rested on the scientist's homemade scrambler. “We need to get caught up on how you found us and why we're safe here, as you claim."

Angus appeared calm and optimistic. Dirt, dust, and even a little dried blood smeared his bright yellow KoolSuit, but his face looked clean, and his wild red hair stuck out in tufts. Randy just stared at the ground.

"Well, we faked the lab accident for starters,” Angus said, standing up to talk as if he were addressing a board meeting. “I hope that didn't cause anyone grief.” Angus ignored O'Doyle's murderous glare. The big man was propped up against a boulder, his leg isolated in a makeshift splint fashioned from a cannibalized backpack.

"Randy and I found another entrance,” Angus said. “It wasn't visible with the initial computer models, but some further refinement made it clear. I believe it's the same entrance that Sonny talked about in his report, the one where the geology students disappeared."

Connell felt his temper rising. “Why didn't you tell me you found another way in?"

"Because I knew you wouldn't let me in the caves until they'd been explored, despite my notable experience in the field,” Angus said. “I discovered this cave system and I deserved to be the first person in here. We came in that entrance and moved toward the Picture Cavern, as you call it, because we knew that would be the first major discovery point for Mack and his crew."

"That's why you planted the sign,” Connell said. “You couldn't just be the first one in, you had to let everyone else know that they weren't the first."

"Well, we had to be able to prove it,” Angus said. “The signs were clear proof that we were there before anyone else. We planted one in that cavern and seven others elsewhere throughout the complex. We had a two-day head start on you all. Randy and I are highly skilled spelunkers, so we've covered a great deal of territory. More than anyone else could have managed, I'd say. As to why we're safe here, Randy and I captured and dissected one of the artificial life robots."

"The artificial what?” Lybrand asked.

"The silverbugs,” Connell said, never taking his narrowed eyes off Angus.

The word seemed to amuse Angus. “Silverbugs? How quaint. Very well, we captured a silverbug and dissected it.” Angus related the story of the dissection and the events leading from there to the rescue on the cliff. The news that the silverbugs were made from platinum stunned Connell, but he was far more shocked to learn of the silverbugs providing the phalanx shields.

"You're telling us,” O'Doyle said in a weak voice, “that the rocktopi didn't think of the shields, but the robots did?"

"It certainly looked that way,” Angus said. “The rocktopi may have instructed the silverbugs to go make the shields, but I doubt it. I'd be surprised if beings that use knives and rocks against firearms can work with such advanced machines. It appeared to me that the silverbugs told — or perhaps showed is a better word — the rocktopi where to go."

"It doesn't matter,” Connell said. “What we need to do is get everyone out of here. Angus, can you tell us how we can do that?"

Angus sighed and pulled the small monitor out of his bag. He quickly explained how the thumper navigation system worked and its accuracy. Randy continued to look at the ground, as if he knew what was coming.

Connell felt his anger rise even further. His hands involuntarily tightened into fists. “And you're telling me, Angus, that you've had a perfect map of these caves and you didn't inform me?"

Angus quickly looked around, seeing five pairs of tired eyes fix on him with murderous hatred.

"I didn't think anyone would need it,” he said, his voice an anxious squeak. “I mean, the map I gave Mack was already a technological feat of genius, really amazing stuff. Randy and I planned on being back today — I'd have the map for Mack before he penetrated far into the caves. I was going to show you the system then. I—"

Connell's fist smashed into Angus's nose, cutting off the explanation. Angus took one small step backwards, then fell hard on his ass. Mack had been a good man. The thumper map might have kept them out of harm's way, might have led them somewhere besides the dead-end cliff. Connell fought to control his rage: they needed Angus if they were all to get out alive.

Angus looked at Connell through tearing eyes. His fingers touched his nose and came away covered in blood. “Are you crazy? Why would you hit me?"

Connell stepped forward, kicking Angus hard in the stomach. Angus let out a whoof as air vacated his lungs, then rolled on his back and on his side, fighting for breath.

Connell felt strong arms wrap around his chest, pulling him away. The arms roughly turned him around — Connell found himself facing Sanji.

"Calm down now,” Sanji said, a look of concern on his face. “We need Angus, so stop this. This is not helping anything."

Connell blinked a few times, quickly regaining his composure. He nodded curtly. Sanji let him go. Connell breathed deeply and slowly, then walked over to Angus, who still struggled for breath. Connell knelt and grabbed Angus by his red hair, forcing him to look up.

"You're going to get us out of here, understand?” Connell said, staring into Angus's eyes, which were wide and white with fear. “You're going to tell us everything and you're not going to hide anything ever again. Do you understand?"

Angus nodded quickly.

Connell let him go and walked to a far corner of the cave. He didn't care about Angus's genius anymore, or what Angus could do for EarthCore. He didn't care about EarthCore, come to think of it. And, he realized, he didn't care about the platinum, or the money it would bring.

All he cared about was getting these people out alive.

You little fucking prick.

He'd found another way in. Kayla stared at the industrial computer's little screen, looking at a detailed map. The map showed a second way into the tunnels, a path labeled “The Linus Highway.” She downloaded the map into a handheld unit.

It wasn't too late. She could still pull it off. She could beat them all, Connell, André, and especially Angus Kool. Angus wanted her to fail? He wanted someone to come save him from the subterranean monsters?

No-no-no. No way, no how, little Angus.

Nobody was coming to help them. The little bastard wanted her to fail. He wanted her to remain the dishonorably discharged embarrassment to the NSA.

The monsters were down there, but she only needed one. Hell, she only needed a piece of one. As long as she was careful, she could get her sample and make it safely back to the surface.

And maybe, if she was lucky, she might find Angus. She wanted to find him, find his little ass and scrape it off her shoe. Just like she'd done with Cho. Angus wouldn't get away with this. He thought he was so fucking smart, a regular little genius, but she was no dummy, no sir, not by a fucking long shot.

No-no-no. No way no how.

Kayla dug into her canvas bag and removed the KoolSuit she'd stolen from the miner's hut. In retrospect, it was a damn good thing she'd grabbed it when she had — the attack struck less than half an hour after she'd slid back into her warren. She buckled on her web gear over the yellow suit, double-checked her handheld map, double-checked the COMSEC settings, grabbed the Marco/Polo unit and started up the mountain.

Connell watched Angus's finger trace patterns on the tiny monitor, illustrating the way out of the tunnel complex. Everyone huddled around them, trying to get a glimpse at a possible escape, trying to get a glimpse of hope.

Angus finished his explanation. Connell mulled over the possibilities the plan presented. “So, you're saying the fastest way out of here is by reaching the Dense Mass?"

"You got it,” Angus said, his voice nasally due to a first-aid kit cotton ball stuffed into each nostril. “This is the tunnel Randy and I came down. We call it the Linus Highway. If you look, it's pretty much a straight shot to the Dense Mass. About halfway down the Linus Highway, we branched off on a side tunnel and made our way to the Picture Cavern."

"So you haven't been to the Dense Mass?” Sanji asked.

"No, we left that for Connell and Mack,” Angus said, sounding quite magnanimous. “If the mine shaft is as bad as Mack told you, then the Linus Highway is the only way out of the mountain.” Angus tapped the keys on the monitor, bringing up a closer view of the tunnels. A flashing orange dot pulsed amidst yellow lines that indicated the network of tunnels. Red dots flickered at the map's edge, close to the orange dot.

"Our position on this map was updated at 5:19 a.m. The orange dot is us,” Angus said. “The red dots are silverbugs."

Lybrand went rigid with alarm. “They're right on top of us!"

"It just looks that way on the map,” Randy said, speaking up for the first time since they'd entered the hideaway. “We planted motion sensors all over this area before we dropped down to rescue you. We were scrambling them when we sealed off this cave, so they don't know we're here."

"How do you know that?” Lybrand said.

"Because they're just wandering,” Angus said, obviously annoyed. “When they know someone is present, they exhibit very structured behavior."

"We noticed,” Veronica said.

Angus continued. “Now we could go around to that shaft pretty much the same way Randy and I came to rescue you. It took us just under thirty minutes to get from the far edge of the kidney-shaped cavern to where we are now. However, Randy and I can move fast and quiet. Considering the wounded we have, that route would take about fifty-five minutes, possibly an hour. From there we would backtrack the path Randy and I followed and end up at the Linus Highway, then head for the surface. We know where we're going, but it's a long trip and there's many difficult areas that will slow us down. Also, I think we'd be exposed to rocktopi that whole time. With this crew, we'd sound like a bull in a china shop.

"The only thing that really makes sense is for Randy and I to go out alone and bring back help."

"No,” Connell said in a cold voice. “Not even an option. We go together."

Angus glared at Connell, then turned his attention back to the computer.

His fingers tapped the keys, and one yellow band glowed brighter than the rest. It pointed down into the large block of green they'd come to recognize as the Dense Mass, then pointed upwards, off the screen.

"If we take this route, we'll be to the Dense Mass in about twenty-five minutes,” Angus said, “From there we go straight up the Linus Highway and out of this hell hole."

"It looks steep,” O'Doyle said.

"It is, but it has about a six-foot ceiling,” Angus said. “We can walk standing up most of the way. There's only about a twenty-yard crawl at the end that takes us to the outside of the mountain. The whole thing is about a thirty-five degree incline for over three miles."

The words three miles made Connell suddenly conscious of the throbbing pain in his knee. He looked from the map to Angus. “How long will that take us?"

"It depends on how fast you all can move,” Angus said.

"And we don't even know what's at the Dense Mass,” O'Doyle said. “As far as we know it could be Rocktopi Central Station."

Angus's eyes narrowed to petulant little slits. “Well you all can just sit here and die if you like. The scrambler batteries aren't going to last forever and when they're gone the silverbugs will lead the rocktopi right to you. But hey, I'm not in charge here, so why don't you all figure it out."

Connell casually reached down and grabbed Angus's trapezius muscle, where the shoulder meets the neck, and squeezed hard. He felt Angus tense up instantly. “Why don't you calm down, Angus?” Connell said. “We're weighing our options. So relax.” He let go.

Angus glared at him defiantly. “You can weigh your options all you want, but this is the best way out, the fastest, and probably our best bet to avoid attack."

Connell didn't have a better idea. Even though Angus was a little bastard, he was still the expert in this situation, and no one else had any idea of what to do. “All right everyone,” Connell said, trying to ignore the pain in his knee as he stood. “Let's get packed up. We're getting out of here."

Kayla finished worming her way through the narrow opening, stood, brushed off her KoolSuit, and donned her starlight goggles. It seemed likely that Angus and the others were already dead. The creatures’ attack on the camp had been vicious and definitive. If they'd done that on the surface, she wondered how deadly they were in the deep, hot caves. It was one thing to move around on the desert floor, able to see danger coming hundreds of yards away. It was quite another to move into the caves… where the things lived.

And yet if they were that dangerous, why wasn't Angus killed much earlier? He was obviously alive long enough to send the SOS, which in turn meant there was no reason for her to assume that he wasn't still alive.

Fucking little prick.

And if he'd lived, then she had to assume Connell and the others had also escaped the creatures’ deadly attentions.

The handheld computer map's three dimensions made it difficult to navigate, but the faggots’ trail was ridiculously easy to follow. Angus and Randy knew nothing of covering their tracks.

According to the map, the tunnel she currently stood in went about three miles and wound up at the Dense Mass. As she walked, several tunnels branched off in every direction, each one a nameless passage of stone, rock, and blackness. She decided to follow the footprints as long as she could and see what the Marco/Polo unit turned up. So far it read nothing. Angus and the others — if there were any others — were apparently out of range.

Figures he'd make it hard on me, the little fucking prick. Gonna scrape him off my shoe.

Kayla read the map cautiously, marking off each tunnel as she passed, careful to keep her location exact and precise. She followed the tracks and headed straight for the Dense Mass.

As the party prepared to move out, Connell took one last look at the tiny monitor. He didn't want to miss a thing. If there was anything that could add to their chances of survival, he wanted to imbed it in his brain. With his finger, he traced a series of bubble-shaped curves running along the outside edge of the enormous Dense Mass cavern.

"Angus,” Connell said, pointing to the curves. “What are all those?"

"I'm not sure,” Angus said. “I think they are some kind of alcove, a side-cave, maybe. They don't appear to go anywhere, though — no exit tunnels."

Connell saw something familiar — familiar and still unexplained. “Blow it up a bit more,” Connell said. Angus complied, muttering words under his breath that Connell couldn't make out.

"There,” Connell said. He jabbed his finger at a bright yellow line that started at the Dense Mass and pointed straight down, deep into the Earth's bowels.

"That line appears to go down, what, four miles and even farther?"

"Well, four miles is the ultimate maximum range of the map. So there's no telling how far down it goes."

"What do you think it's for?"

"I really don't know,” Angus said. “It appears to be perfectly straight, so it's obviously artificial."

"But you said all the tunnels we're in now are artificial and they're not straight or even smooth,” Connell countered. “Why would this one be different?"

"Maybe it's a freaking tunnel to China,” Angus said, his face twisted into a sneer. “I'll tell you what — when I grow some tentacles and my ass starts flashing orange and red, I'll let you know what I think it is.” He stormed off, leaving Connell to fume and stare at the monitor, stare at the yellow line heading straight down toward the Earth's center.

Chapter Thirty-three

Sonny lay perfectly still, as rigid as a piece of bone-dry cottonwood half-buried in the sand. He watched the bitch move higher up the peak until she disappeared among the rocks.

Kayla. He'd heard her name during her little bargaining session with someone named “André."

At least he had a name. And a piece of her history — she used to be in the NSA, and wanted back into the ranks in a bad way.

Now he had what he needed, and it was time to go. He didn't like the way she had carried her weapon up and at the ready, as if she'd expected a target to pop up at any second. She had walked up the slope and disappeared over a ridge. She seemed to be heading straight for Angus's entrance. That worked for Sonny, maybe she'd go in and never come back out again.

He waited, patiently. No point in rushing things, not after all this waiting. He'd give her another twenty minutes, and wouldn't move a muscle until those twenty minutes passed with no sign of Miss Kayla.

"How do you feel?” Lybrand asked, wiping a bead of sweat off O'Doyle's brow. The climb to the surface was going to be pure hell for him. But he was going to make it. She'd destroy anything that got in his way.

"How do you think I feel?” O'Doyle said, obviously angry and in pain, yet his voice held tenderness when he spoke to her. He gestured to the huge pack strapped to Lybrand's back. O'Doyle could barely walk, and without a word Lybrand had taken the job of carrying all his gear. “I'm embarrassed and humiliated, that's how I feel."

"Don't worry about the extra stuff, I can carry it,” Lybrand said with a small smile. “I meant how does your leg feel?"

"It's bad,” O'Doyle said quietly, looking away from her. She tried to imagine his pain; the platinum knife had sliced into his quadriceps, penetrating so deep the point hit bone. To call the surgery on his leg crude was an understatement. Sanji had made do with needles designed to work with the KoolSuit's’ industrial materials, not human skin. For thread they'd used fibers from one of the ropes. O'Doyle's scars would be horrible.

"Wish I had some morphine, fuck, even some Tylenol,” O'Doyle said in a rare complaint. “It hurts bad. If the shit starts up again with the rocktopi, I don't think the stitches are going to hold."

O'Doyle's face flushed red and he looked toward the ground. “I should be leading the way out,” he said. “Not gimping along, slowing everyone down."

She squeezed his hand, trying to reassure him that everything would be all right, that they would make it. She looked at their clasped fingers; stubby with muscle, skin covered with scars, knuckles big and thick. There was little difference between their hands, save for that his were much larger. She'd often looked at her ugly hands and wondered if anyone would ever want to hold them. O'Doyle wanted to. He didn't care what they looked like.

"We're getting out of here,” she said. “I promise you that. We'll make it out together."

She lay her forehead on his solid shoulder, and he gently stroked her hair.

Connell folded up the monitor and handed it to Randy, who stashed it in his backpack. The party lined up as they'd planned — Angus and Randy far out in front with the jammer, then Lybrand and O'Doyle followed by Sanji and Veronica. Connell brought up the rear, close enough so the professors could help him if he started to grow weak from his wounds.

Connell wanted Lybrand in the rear, protecting their back, but one glimpse of her shouldering O'Doyle's weight told him not to bother asking. Randy and Angus worked well together; best to have them far ahead where the noise from the rest of the party was barely audible. Connell planned on protecting everyone's back as best he could — armed with only a knife.

No more guns. Two knives for the whole party; Lybrand carried the other. Their best weapon? A hotwired radio that jammed the silverbugs. If the rocktopi attacked, the battle wouldn't last long. They still had enough batteries to power the headlamps for at least another twenty-four hours — hopefully they'd be on the surface before that.

Sanji cleared the rocks from the low entrance to the cave, exposing the tunnel on the other side. Angus and Randy led the way out.

Chapter Thirty-four

Nerves screaming at him to get away, Sonny slipped into the bitch's warren, looking for something to mess up her plans. Sure, he had a name, he had some history, but he just couldn't pass up the chance to mess with her. He wouldn't be able to leave until he did something to screw up her plans.

She'd packed a surprising amount of equipment into the small cubbyhole. The military-looking radio thing played a steady stream of quiet static. A backpack full of C-rations, protein bars, and bottled water. A canvas bag full of electronic equipment. A purse.

Sonny scanned the horizon before going through the small leather purse. Still no sign of her. Lipstick. Keys. A stick of Wrigley's gum. Some lint. As he dug, his fingers felt something in the liner. A tug opened up a hidden pocket. Inside were ID badges: Carrie Thomas, private investigator; Melissa Wilson, detective, Salt Lake City Police Department; Harriet McGuire, FBI; Amy Smith, reporter, MiningWorld magazine.

"Came prepared, didn't you, Ms. Meyers?"

Sonny set the purse down and kept snooping. He found a box of fire-blackened metal bits, pieces of electronics she'd scavenged from the lab's wreckage.

He saw the list, the same one she'd carried down into the camp. Some of the names had thick lines through them — others remained clear and legible. Survivors, Sonny thought, staring with amazement. Could they still be alive?

Keys. The word hit him like a slap. Keys. Sonny grabbed her purse and pulled out the key ring. It glinted in the morning sunlight. He used his binoculars to scan the horizon once more. Seeing nothing, he laughed as he stepped out of the warren and walked to her black Land Rover.

"Let's see you run your operation without transportation, bitch,” Sonny said. He opened the driver's door and hopped in. Cho's body had been in here, in the back, wrapped in plastic like so much trash.

Taking one last look around, Sonny started the engine. “Get them out of there, Connell,” Sonny said. “Get them out of there and I'll be waiting."

Sonny gunned the engine and shot down the slope, away from Funeral Mountain.

Veronica's fingers traced the detailed carvings. Such delicate work, such masterful beauty from such a savage race.

"Veronica, we can't look at the carvings anymore,” Connell said, his voice filled with urgency. He pulled gently at her arm. “Come on, we have to go. If Angus gets too far ahead of us we lose the scrambler's effect."

"Just one more moment, Connell,” she said absently. “I'm beginning to piece together their religion.” Despite her disgust, her revulsion at the rocktopi and her shattering disappointment of a career spent missing the obvious, she couldn't completely disassociate from her scientific curiosity. She knew they had to move, and move fast, but the carvings held answers that she'd sought for seven years at Cerro Chaltel. She would only keep them a few seconds.

This far down in the tunnels the carvings covered almost everything, as if they'd been waiting millennia just for her, giving her the key to solve the puzzles discovered at Cerro Chaltel. At first only a few carvings graced the walls, but as they moved closer to the Dense Mass the detailed art grew increasingly concentrated.

Sanji leaned forward, peering at the carvings. “What do you see, Roni?"

"First of all, have you noticed how well preserved these carvings are? The closer we move to the Dense Mass, the less vandalism and graffiti we see. Most of these carvings haven't been drawn over. It almost seems as if the closer we get to the Dense Mass, the more sacred the carvings. It's as if the Dense Mass is their religion's main altar, their Mecca or Jerusalem."

Connell also peered closer. Despite his anxiety over their precarious situation, she could read the curiosity on his face. “Why do you say religion?"

"Look at these carvings,” Veronica said, dropping to one knee, letting her headlamp play against the wall. Her slight head motions danced shadows across the exquisite carvings, making the stone seem almost alive. “Look at this Q-Tip shaped object here."

They'd seen the shape several times, and its frequency increased as they drew closer to the Dense Mass. It was round and smooth at both ends with a bar in-between. It reminded her of a plastic hand-held dumbbell, the five-pound kind used during running or aerobics.

"Everywhere we see this shape, it's at the start of a sequence. When we see the dumbbell, the next panel in the sequence shows hundreds of tiny rocktopi. I'm not sure if the size reflects scale, or they represent children. Perhaps even a larval stage smaller than the young ones we first saw. This might be a story of their origin."

"So this is their myth surrounding the creation of their universe?” Sanji asked.

"That's what I think, yes,” Veronica replied, showing little emotion in the discovery. None of it thrilled her the way it once had. She felt like a machine, perfunctionatorily analyzing data like some assembly-line worker screwing a nut on a bolt a thousand times a day.

"What do you mean by ‘the creation of their universe?'” Connell asked.

"Every human society has a primitive myth surrounding the creation of mankind,” she said. “Christians, for example, have Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. It's logical that as intelligent creatures, they've invented religions to explain away the mysteries of life, such as the creation of the world."

Connell moved a few feet down the tunnel, staring at another panel. “So if this dumbbell thing is their Garden of Eden, what do you suppose this means?"

Veronica looked at the panel in question. In it, a ring of rocktopi surrounded a large picture of the dumbbell. They looked prone, perhaps dead, deflated like the ones they'd gunned down earlier on the cliff. The message looked rather obvious.

"I think their Garden of Eden may be off limits,” Veronica said. “To them it may be evil; cursed, perhaps."

"Why would their birthplace be cursed?” Sanji asked.

"Perhaps the Dense Mass cavern is holy ground they're not supposed to tread on,” Veronica said. “I don't know yet."

Connell scanned the carvings. Higher up, almost to the ceiling, he saw something that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the rocktopi religion. “Veronica,” Connell said. “Is that a man, wearing what I think he's wearing?"

Veronica looked up, her light joining Connell's on the wall. “That's a man wearing an old-fashioned mining lamp,” she said. “The oil kind, like wearing a candle on your head."

Connell scanned the area — the mining-helmet man was the start of a sequence. The pictures that followed showed yet another massacre, a massacre of men and horses.

"Oh my god,” Veronica said quietly. “The mass grave on the plateau."

"Jessup,” Connell said. “They carved a story about the Jessup mine."

"But that can't be part of a religion,” Veronica said. “That doesn't make sense, unless this isn't a religion, but a historical document. I think they—” Her words trailed off as a faint clicking noise filtered to her ears. She looked to her left, back the way they had come — and her breath froze as still as the stone walls. A silverbug clung to the ceiling, watching them like a spider eyeing wayward prey.

She suddenly realized that they were well outside the jammer's range. Once free of the static signals, the silverbugs quickly returned to their original behavior.

"Let's move,” Connell said.

Veronica needed no more coaxing. Without another word, she and Sanji trotted nervously down the tunnel. Connell brought up the rear, constantly throwing glances behind him.

Angus and Randy moved forward with a hint of caution, always keeping an eye out for wandering rocktopi. They frequently ran across silverbugs that moved like wasps dying a slow insecticide death. The scrambler jammed the silverbug signals, sending them stumbling into walls and over each other.

The two men stopped simultaneously, not needing to talk. They both peered down the tunnel, concentrating on a tiny spot of faraway light. The spot didn't look like much, but to them it was a beacon, the entrance to the massive cavern surrounding the Dense Mass. They'd be there in less than five minutes.

Angus grew anxious at the others’ tardiness. He stooped to plant a tiny motion sensor as Randy pulled the Marco/Polo device from his pack.

"How are they coming?” Angus asked, keeping a wary eye on a silverbug that stumbled awkwardly toward him. Randy punched a few buttons to adjust the screen.

"They're still lagging behind,” Randy said, a frown of deep worry scoring his face. “Connell, Veronica, and Sanji are about ten minutes back."

Angus grabbed the staggering silverbug by the leg and casually tossed it down the hall like so much rubbish. “Those fucking gimps are slowing us down."

"Darnit, Angus,” Randy said. “They're injured, and pretty bad at that."

Angus looked back up the tunnel, hoping to catch a glimpse of the others. “Cry me a river, Randy. If they don't speed up, we may have to bust out on our own."

"You've got to be kidding!"

"No, I'm not. We can't wait for them and they know the way out. I say we get them to the Dense Mass, show them the Linus Highway and then boogie. They're slowing us down."

Randy squared his shoulders and seemed to puff up with sudden determination. It was an expression that Angus had never seen in his friend, and he immediately disliked it.

"You're not going anywhere,” Randy said. “And if you do, it will be without the map equipment. We're getting them all out of here safely."

Anger and disappointment swelled in Angus's heart. Not Randy. Everyone else, sure, but not him. Didn't he understand that the others didn't matter? Didn't he understand they were just regular, everyday people, that six billion others just like them wandered the Earth? He and Randy were different, they were geniuses.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Randy? We're not going to throw our lives away for the likes of them. You're coming with me. I'm not going to let you die down here with the gimps."

"You don't have any say in the matter,” Randy said. “They are people, and we're going to get them out."

"Fine, then what about we get out and get help? We can move so much faster than the others."

Randy slowly shook his head. “No way, Angus. I think Connell is right about you. He doesn't trust you to go ahead for help, and now neither do I. I think you only care about yourself, and would forget about anyone else as soon as you hit any danger… including me."

Angus pushed back his fury. Randy was a traitor, pure and simple. And as such, he deserved not a shred of loyalty. Randy stormed off, moving ahead down the tunnel.

Angus followed. They moved to within fifty yards of the entrance to the Dense Mass cavern. Randy looked down a side tunnel that branched off to his right, then stopped so abruptly that Angus nearly stumbled into his back.

"What is it?” Angus asked. “What's the matter?"

Randy said nothing, only pointed down the right-hand tunnel, his face grave with concern and more than a little bit of fear. Angus looked, and felt that same dread melt into him like a hot needle into wax.

Chapter Thirty-five

Kayla faced a mild dilemma. The little prick's tracks veered off on a left-hand branch that leveled out from her current position. The Linus Highway, on the other hand, continued unerringly downward toward the Dense Mass.

She wanted to kill him, after all, so she should follow his tracks. The tracks, however, might be old. In the tunnels there was no wind, no weather, nothing to erode the footprints and indicate their age. They were probably days old, made shortly after the helicopter landed a few miles from camp and the Little Fucking Prick and his Butt-Buddy hiked back to the mountain under the cover of night.

She stared at the map, beginning to appreciate the expanse of the complex. Thousands of branches. And where would she find the monsters? Angus and Randy might be anywhere. What if they weren't even in the caves at all anymore? She could follow their tracks for days and never lay eyes on them.

The Linus Highway, on the other hand, led straight to the Dense Mass — which was the goal of EarthCore, the goal of Angus and the goal of Connell Kirkland. Out of the thousands of choices that faced her, catching them at the Dense Mass held the best odds for success.

And Angus came in the Linus Highway. Which means he'll more than likely come out the same way. But she couldn't be sure of that — he'd kept one entrance hidden, who knew if there were more? She couldn't afford to wait for him and take the chance he had another way out. She had to get him, and get him as soon as fucking possible.

Her new plan was to head to the Dense Mass, see if the Marco/Polo picked anything up, and hopefully find a creature there. She had to find a creature, if nothing else, or she'd never return to her destiny, never return to the NSA.

Kayla moved down the Linus Highway, leaving the Little Prick's prints behind.

Randy stared, mouth agape, nearly in shock. There were so many silverbugs the walls seemed to shimmer with living platinum. Angus and Randy moved forward at an agonizingly slow pace. They watched every step to make sure they didn't tread on one of the scrambled silverbugs, a task made difficult by the vast number of spidery machines. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, coated the deep alcove, a cluster so thick the wall writhed with their spindly legs, and the air resonated with unending clicks and whirs. Headlamps played off this wiggling platinum wall as Angus and Randy's eyes tried to focus on the mass of metallic bodies.

"What are they doing?” Randy asked in a whisper, his anger toward Angus forgotten in light of the phenomenon.

"I have no idea,” Angus said. “It's hard to tell with the scramblers on."

Randy watched the silverbugs swarm like maggots on a week-old dog carcass — there had to be a purpose to such a gathering. The scramblers, of course, negated this purpose, and the silverbugs just ambled meaninglessly on the wall. Some of them grew so confused they simply fell off and clattered heavily on the floor. They rolled on their round backs until their legs reversed themselves, allowing the silverbug to move on just as aimlessly as before.

"Do you think it's dangerous to go in there?” Randy felt the adrenaline pump as his fight-or-flight response subconsciously screamed, yet he — like Angus — never slowed his steady forward pace.

"Probably,” Angus said absently, nodding his head and moving forward. “There's got to be a reason for this swarming."

They both stopped ten feet from the alcove's end, a wall covered so deeply with silverbugs it was impossible to see the stone beneath. It reminded Randy of baby wolf spiders clinging thickly to their mother's back.

"If this is the end of the cave, what the heck are they doing?” Randy asked.

Angus turned to Randy, a solemn look on his face.

"There's only one way to find out,” he said. He held up the scrambler. “We're never going to know unless we turn it off."

Randy looked at the scrambler, feeling his pulse race even higher. He looked at Angus. They shared a moment of unspoken understanding. They both realized the silverbugs mass could swarm over them instantly. If the machines possessed any ability to hurt people, sheer numbers would probably mean a quick and painful death. Despite the threat, they both had to know what these machines were doing.

Randy nodded quickly. Angus switched off the scrambler.

The silverbugs stopped milling aimlessly for a second, every one of them suddenly holding very still, not moving a leg, not making a single noise. The drastic shift from constant noise into total silence scared Randy far worse than the horrible, swarming platinum walls. It was as if the silverbugs were thinking, recalibrating, trying to remember their purpose in the world. Then, almost as soon as they'd stopped, the deafening drone of a thousand silverbugs returned full force as the machines burst into motion. The wall writhed with activity, machines moving so fast Randy couldn't focus on a single one for more than a second. A new sound joined the familiar clicking — the rapid-fire popping, chipping sound of breaking rock.

Angus and Randy stood stock still, feeling silverbugs crawl over their feet and surround their legs. The machines ignored the humans, seemingly too bent on their task to realize interlopers stood tall in their midst.

During the flurry of activity a bare patch opened, small, but enough that they could see the rock beyond the sheet of living platinum. A silverbug wandered onto the patch, long spindly legs carrying him safely across his brethren. It lowered its wedge-shaped head to the stone. The wedge suddenly shot into the wall, breaking off a small, jagged chunk of rock the size of a marble. Tiny, whirling wires whipped from the wedge, lashing over the top of the small rock, pinning it in place. The silverbug turned away from the alcove's end and walked along the wall, carrying its small burden. It moved toward the main tunnel, turned the corner, and disappeared from sight.

Randy stood thoughtless, stunned into silence. Angus didn't move an inch, but his face showed an expression of incredulity. They stared at the scene before them, the final piece of a puzzle clicking home with the weight of a billion-ton cave-in.

"They dug the whole thing,” Angus said. “Thousands of years. There's over a thousand square miles of tunnels and caverns. Billions of tons of rock."

"One rock at a time,” Randy said, his stunned mind trying to run massive calculations of weight and mass and size. “One little rock at a time."

Angus turned the scrambler back on. The droning static screech filled the cavern — instantly the silverbug's cohesive activity eroded into a massive, meaningless wander. A mass of them fell away from the wall, domino-like, exposing the rock beneath.

A ten-inch by ten-inch panel, filled with faces. Fresh carvings of faces. Lybrand. Mack. Connell. O'Doyle. Veronica Reeves. Sanji Haak. Angus. Randy. That was the first panel. The second panel showed Angus and Randy moving through a tunnel, every last detail of their helmets and KoolSuits etched perfectly into the stone. There were more panels… blank panels. But they'd both seen carvings elsewhere in the cave, and they knew what was supposed to come next.

"Let's get the fuck out of here,” Angus said. Randy nodded violently in agreement.

The two left the alcove much faster than they'd come in.

Luckily the rocktopi made a lot of noise, otherwise Connell figured he would already be chopped into tiny pieces. Silverbugs still wandered about aimlessly, clogging the floor, making it difficult to move fast over the already-unsure footing. He'd never seen this many in one place before; they practically covered the ground and fell off the walls and ceiling like flaking paint from a dead house.

Connell chanced a glance over his shoulder.

The apple-rot/dog crap stink billowed through the tunnel like putrid breath from a dying man riddled with Black Death. The rocktopi screeched and filled the air with the rustling hiss of their rough skin on rocks and sand. They flashed angry, violent colors that lit the walls in psychotic discotheque strobes — an image of a blinking Christmas tree shoved into a shit-strewn sewer pipe flared through Connell's mind.

That the silverbugs milled without purpose encouraged him, for it meant Angus and the others were close. He didn't know if he could make it. His knee pumped pain like a geyser and his back screamed with every jolting step. For the third time in the last minute the thought of self-sacrifice blared through his mind. He could turn and fight, hopefully buying Sanji and Veronica time to get away. Veronica's hand grabbed his arm and pulled him forward, as if she heard his thoughts through a blaring stereo.

"Come on, Connell! Don't let these fuckers get us!"

Sanji panted with exhaustion, but called out encouragement in ragged gasps. “We are almost to the Dense Mass cavern. I do not think they will follow us in there. It is our only hope!"

The trio sprinted down the tunnel, looking like skipping children for all the fancy footwork needed to side-step the meandering silverbugs. Connell chanced another glance over his shoulder. The flashing rocktopi were gaining. Only twenty yards and closing fast, their curved platinum knives glistening like the foot-long teeth of some horrid, multi-colored dragon. The rocktopi seemed to have little trouble navigating the mindless mass of silverbugs.

A thrown rock blasted a silverbug off the wall beside Connell, hard enough to smash the platinum body with a shower of sparks. Had the rock found its mark, his brains would have felt the hot cave air. Connell focused his attention and redoubled his efforts. Adrenaline surged, the pain in his leg and back faded away under the rush. A strange thought burned unbidden through his mind.

This is what it feels like to be prey.

"I see it!” Veronica screamed, her voice a combination of total exhaustion and impending victory. “I see the cavern! We're almost there!"

The noise behind him grew louder. It sounded as if the rocktopi were only inches from his back. Fear gripped his body with vise-tightness, fueling his legs, pushing him forward. Rocks smashed into the walls on either side and bounced near his legs, missing his feet by inches. A ham-sized rock clipped his shoulder, nearly throwing him off balance, but he kept going.

Veronica stepped on a round silverbug body and her ankle bent outwards like a snapping branch. She screamed, stumbled, and started to fall. Connell reached down with lightning speed and threw an arm around her waist, pulling her roughly to her feet. She grimaced from the pain but would not quit. She covered the final twenty yards hopping on one foot to keep her balance as Connell carried her along.

Suddenly the darkness of the cave surrendered to the brilliant daytime-like light of the Dense Mass cavern. The image of something impossibly huge appeared before Connell, but he could focus only on taking one more step, one more step, one more step.

Veronica finally lost her balance on a loose rock and fell hard to the ground. Connell tried to catch her again, but only managed to fall himself, hitting the dirt with a whoof and a thud. He bounced once, rolled once, then lay on the ground sucking air, his eyes closed tight with terror, unable to rise one more time, too tired to even curl up into a fetal position.

He waited for the cutting to begin.

Chapter Thirty-six

The blows never came.

Connell opened his eyes, struggled to rise to one elbow and looked back; the rocktopi clustered at the tunnel entrance, a swarming mass of angrily stretching tentacles and sparkling crescent knives. The creatures glowed a steady, soft blue. They didn't follow, nor did they hurl anything his way.

Connell's lungs burned as if the rocktopi blades were already buried in his chest. A sudden spasm gripped his stomach; he rolled to his hands and knees just in time to hurl a puddle of useless bile onto the sand and dirt. He vomited one more time, then his breath came in heaving lungfuls as he tried to rise to his feet. Strong hands gripped under his arms and lifted him effortlessly.

"You okay, boss?” Lybrand asked as she supported Connell's weight.

"Yeah,” he said, wiping vomit from his chin. “I'll be okay in a second. Is everyone here?"

"Everyone made it,” Lybrand said. She looked back to the entrance where the rocktopi thronged as if held back by invisible bars. “Looks like you got here just ahead of the Christmas rush. Why don't they come in and finish us off?"

"Veronica thinks… this place is… religious,” Connell said between deep breaths. “Holy ground or something."

"Doesn't surprise me,” Lybrand said. “If this is holy ground, they sure know how to build one motherfucker of a church."

Connell looked at her with confusion, and she merely nodded toward the middle of the massive cavern. Connell followed her gaze.

It was the Dense Mass.

He'd expected the cavern's immense, mind-boggling size. Over five miles long and three miles wide. He'd known those dimensions, been prepared for them. He'd expected the faint sound of rushing water as well. Nothing, however, could prepare him for the vastness that spread before his eyes.

Or what it contained.

Giant. Monstrous. His brain scrambled for words to describe what he saw. It was so big the end of it faded off in the distance, invisible behind a light mist kicked up by the unseen water. A string of multiple artificial suns, just like the one in the kidney-shaped cavern, ran the length of the five-mile expanse. They illuminated the gargantuan object with a bluish tinge.

The rounded end soared some two thousand feet into the air, hundreds of stories tall, dwarfing any skyscraper ever built. A cylinder — smaller than the rounded end — stretched off down the cavern's distance. It spread on and on, so huge that it faded into the cavern's mists before he could make out the other end. But he knew at the other end sat a massive, rounded end identical to the one reaching up in front of him. He knew what was there because he'd seen the shape before.

The shape in the wall carvings. The thick Q-Tip. The dumbbell. The mystery of the caves, the rocktopi, the silverbugs… everything… suddenly cleared away as if a giant fan blew a shrouding fog free from their minds. The rocktopi's “Garden of Eden” wasn't a myth, wasn't a fable, wasn't primitive religion.

It was true.

And it was accurate.

As unbelievable as it was, the evidence towered in front of him, real and undeniable and massive beyond comprehension. The rocktopi were aliens after all. And their Garden of Eden?

It was the ship that had brought them to Earth thousands of years ago.

Chapter Thirty-seven

They stuck together, moving as quickly as they could. The Linus Highway lay on the ship's far side. To reach it, they had to hike around the ship, a trip of some four miles to the far end, then another mile and a half back up the other side. The ship sat in the cavern as if a custom-built trench had been dug for its mass. The middle shaft rested on the flat surface, while a large, curving section of the rounded “tip” lay unseen underground. The seemingly perfect fit reminded Connell of the Styrofoam packing surrounding a new stereo or VCR.

As they walked, the water's rumble grew louder. Soon they came upon the same thick river they'd crossed an eternity ago. Either they had crossed over it, or it had crossed under them. Here the river flowed across some kind of granite bedrock, not the limestone that dominated the mountain. Erosion took an obvious toll on the granite, but the water had carved only a shallow trail through the rock as opposed to the massive chasms the river left in limestone.

The river raged into a hull crack that spanned nearly 300 yards. Ancient changes in the river's course had carved trenches in the granite, bends and breaks and turns made and forgotten over the course of millennia. Each course change took a chunk out of the dead ship. The river acted like a slow and steady buzz saw. Each time the river changed course, the grit-filled water slowly ground away more platinum. Clanks and plinks constantly filled the air: the sound of gravel smashing into the edges of the hull, powered by the river's tireless current.

A large section of the thick shaft, undercut by the river, had fallen in upon itself who knows how many millennia ago. The ship's hull arced high up on either side of the 300-yard-wide break. At the top, perhaps 750 feet in the air, the two sides almost met.

Like a cross-section on some architect's drawing, the river's erosion exposed the ravaged hull's interior. Thousands of sphere-shaped rooms packed the interior, making it resemble a slice of extraordinarily holey Swiss cheese. The canyon looked dark and misty, like the Amazon overgrown with an arcing canopy of huge silver trees.

"Angus, why didn't your map show all these rooms inside the Dense Mass?” Connell asked.

Angus shrugged. “The platinum compound is much denser than rock. The GPR couldn't penetrate it, especially near the bottom range."

Connell moved to stand next to Angus. “How much platinum do you think is in this thing?"

"I couldn't begin to calculate it,” Angus said as he peered up into the towering ship-canyon. “But it looks like the entire hull is platinum, and logically it's of the same composition as the dust we analyzed. It looks like the hull is very compartmentalized, probably to prevent depressurization in case of an accident — or perhaps in case of battle damage — which means it's not just the exterior hull that's thick platinum, but most or all of the interior walls as well. I'd take a rough guess that there's over two million tons of pure platinum here. That's hundreds of time more than all the platinum that's been mined in man's history. At current prices, that's fifty-four trillion dollars."

"Let's worry about mining history when we're topside,” Lybrand said. “I want to get on the move."

Randy stepped forward, thumbs hooked in his backpack straps. “We can't leave yet,” he said. “We have to look around. We have to look inside, see what we can learn."

Angus looked at Randy as if he were dumber than a dry dog turd. “Are you nuts? We need to get out of here. We can look all we want when we come back with some serious firepower."

"I don't think we'll be able to come back,” Randy said. “There's a new species down here. A very important species, I'd imagine. Wouldn't you say, Sanji?"

Sanji nodded. “Highly important, yes. And that is an understatement."

Randy continued. “An important species and this is their natural environment. These beings, these sentient beings, are hostile. If any humans come down here, they may have to harm the rocktopi."

"No fucking shit, Sherlock,” O'Doyle said. He looked very pale, but his eyes still shone with determination. “We'll harm them all right. See what happens when I come down here with a trained platoon and the proper equipment."

"That's not what I mean,” Randy said. “People won't let us harm them. Sanji, what's the scientific community going to say when we tell them what's going on down here?"

Sanji was silent for a moment, as was everyone else. The reality of the situation suddenly began to sink in. Sanji spoke, his voice calm and patient. “They will not let anybody come down here — not for a long time. Especially because the rocktopi are hostile. People will study this place for years before anyone comes down here, and then it will be some anthropologist who will try to communicate with them. This is proof that we are not alone in the universe, the most important discovery in the history of man."

"Horseshit,” Angus said. “We own the place, we'll do with it as we please."

"It will not matter,” Sanji said. “There is nothing in the history of science that compares to this. All the top scientists in a dozen different fields will implore the president himself to stop development of this area, and he will do just that."

"The scientists won't be the only ones stopping us,” Randy said. “So will the military. The army will have people here on the double, and they'll gather as much knowledge as they can while the government stalls the scientific community. And that's if we have a chance to get the news out. If we don't, this place will wind up being little more than a myth, like Roswell."

Angus seemed unwilling to accept the logic. “The government can't say boo if we tell the truth. If we let a few of the right people know about the place and what's really down here, the government can't get away with a cover-up. This is just too big. This is the information age, don't forget, and communication is a wee bit more advanced than the days of Roswell. We can protect ourselves and still keep it quiet from the bleeding-heart scientists. I've got a fucking profit-sharing clause in my contract, and I'm not about to give up a piece of fifty-four trillion!"

"We'd have to go public,” O'Doyle said quietly. “We'd have to have all our faces on national news and tell the whole thing."

"Why in the hell would we do that?” Angus asked. “Then we won't be able to mine. People won't stand for it."

"Because if we don't go public we're dead,” O'Doyle said. “Randy's correct. The military would do anything to have total control over this place. Anything, including killing all of us."

"That's an exaggeration,” Angus said. “Do you expect me to believe that the government goes around killing American citizens to keep secrets, you paranoid bastard?"

O'Doyle's voice sounded dark, ominous. “I know that's exactly what they do. I've done it myself."

The river's roar was the only sound as everyone stared at O'Doyle. Connell knew what the man had done for a living, but it was different to hear it from the horse's mouth.

"So it may be now or never,” Randy said, breaking the short silence. “We have to take a look inside, learn all we can right now, because we may never get another chance."

"We may not get a chance to do anything if the rocktopi come in here!” Lybrand said. “Don't you people get it? We're fighting for survival, not a paycheck, not the cover of Scientific American! We need to get out now and evaluate this after we're safely up top. They may not come in here right now, but this is their holy ground. Sooner or later they're coming in to get us!"

Connell thought on her words. She was right. No matter what the religious taboo, they couldn't bank their safety on the rocktopi's unpredictable behavior. And what did they know about that religion, anyway? As far as they knew, the rocktopi had a mandatory five-hour waiting period before carving up defilers. He was about to tell everyone to move out when a distant shout interrupted him. It was Veronica, yelling from some fifty yards away, by the cavern's towering wall.

"Come over here!” she called. “You have to see this. I've figured the bastards out!"

Connell wanted to kick himself for letting her slip away from the group. He hadn't even noticed her walk off — he'd been too preoccupied staring at the impossible ship. What the hell was she thinking? How could she wander away from the group at a desperate time like this?

"She's slipping,” O'Doyle said quietly, as if he'd read Connell's mind. “You'd better bring her back and keep close tabs on her, Mr. Kirkland. I've got a bad feeling she's slipping quick."

Connell cupped his hands to his mouth. “Get back here, Veronica! Get back here now!"

"It's their whole story,” Veronica yelled back, her voice faint as it filtered toward them over the river's roar. “Come on.” She disappeared into what appeared to be an alcove.

"I'll get her,” Connell said. “I'll drag her back if I have to, we need to move."

"I… I need a break,” O'Doyle said. “My leg is bleeding a little."

Connell looked at O'Doyle's thigh. Spots of blood showed in the KoolSuit material. He'd forgotten just how bad O'Doyle had been cut. The big man sat heavily — he was too tired to stand.

"Twenty minutes,” Lybrand said. Her voice sounded low and cold. “Twenty minute break. Then we're going."

"I'm going in that ship,” Randy said.

Connell turned on him. “The fuck you are! You're staying right here, dammit. I'm going to get Veronica, we'll wait twenty minutes for O'Doyle to rest, then we're going."

"I'm going,” Randy said. He looked Connell right in the eye. “And Angus is coming with me."

"I am?” Angus asked.

"You are,” Randy said. “Connell, if you think you can stop me, you're welcome to try."

Connell wasn't much better off than O'Doyle, which meant he wasn't in shape to fight another man, even a scrawny guy like Randy. He'd never seen Randy so… confident, determined.

Lybrand checked her watch. “We're leaving at 9:47. Anyone not back here is on their own."

Connell turned and hobbled toward Veronica. Sanji went with him.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Kayla was motionless, unblinking. She stood in a thin side tunnel, half hidden by a series of thick brown stalagmites. It walked past her with smooth strides. Was it dangerous? She had no idea. She didn't even know if it could see her. Her hand clutched her Steyr GB-80, the hammer cocked and waiting.

She waited until it was only a few feet away, then flicked the gun toward the thing and pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into the round body, denting the metal and knocking it against the far wall.

It took a staggering, unsure step. Kayla fired twice more, both bullets knocking huge dents into the body. It stopped walking, instead it sat on the sand, legs twitching spasmodically. Kayla took careful aim and fired once more — this time the bullet punched a neat hole in the body.

The thing stopped moving.

Evidence, Kayla thought. She carefully lifted the thing by one thin leg. She'd never seen anything like it, and knew instantly that the government would drool over such an advanced machine.

But was that enough? It was still just a machine. It wasn't intelligent. It wasn't enough. Kayla stashed the dented robot behind the brown stalagmites. She'd retrieve it on her way out.

She checked the map — only about forty-five minutes to the Dense Mass. Seeing the coast was clear, she continued down the Linus Highway.

"Not much left besides the walls and dust,” Randy said as he worked his way through narrow corridors not designed for human passage. A musty, archaic odor filled the air, the smell of abandoned industrial machines combined with buildings left mildewy and ravaged by floodwaters. River mist drifted lightly inside the ship, collected on the walls and dripped to the floor to collect in little stagnant pools. The dark alien vessel felt dungeon-like and dangerous, as if it might spring to life and swallow them up at any moment.

"This is retarded,” Angus said. “Let's head back."

"You don't want to head back and you know it. You're staying with me."

Despite the desperate situation, Randy Wright had never felt so good. He'd stood up to Angus, and because of that they'd rescued the others from the cliff's edge. For the first time in his life, he hadn't backed down; he'd stood up and fought for what was right. And then he'd stood up to Mr. Big Shit Connell Kirkland. He'd stood up to Cutthroat. Randy wasn't going to be a pushover anymore, he wasn't just going to be a follower.

The corridors were small and round. He was glad he'd left the pack with O'Doyle and Lybrand, near the riverbank just outside the ship — it was nice to walk around unencumbered for a change. An endless expanse of sphere-shaped rooms spilled out before them. Piles of damp dust, the nameless remnants of what might have been furniture, clothes — possibly even the rocktopi themselves — filled every room.

"Look at this,” Angus said. Randy rushed over to see the find. Embedded in the wall was an ancient but technical looking device made of platinum and what appeared to be ceramic material. It looked like an isolated modern art sculpture mounted on a mold-covered metal wall. Empty spaces in the device glared with shadows each time their headlamps passed by.

"Man, this has been here a long time,” Angus said. “These blue and yellow ceramics apparently don't decay at all. Any plastics or other non-platinum metals are long gone."

"What do you think it was?"

"How the flying fuck would I know?” Angus said with a sneer. He acted like he didn't want to be in the ship, but Randy knew him well. Angus was secretly thankful Randy had pushed for the brief ship exploration. Angus would never say as much, but that was okay.

"Let's pry it off,” Angus said. “Maybe we can tell something by the wiring, if there's any left."

At a loss for a better idea, Randy found a loose piece of the heavy platinum/iridium metal and worked it into the edge of the device, where it met the curved wall. Angus did the same. After a few seconds of prying, the device popped free and fell to the floor with a clatter. It landed face-down, the remaining blue and yellow ceramic pieces shattering into a thousand brittle bits and scattering across the floor like scurrying cockroaches.

Angus stared at the blank wall behind where the device had been. The wall was smooth, seamless, just like the rest of the room.

Randy's nose wrinkled in confusion. “No wires?"

"Don't you get it?” Angus said. “This whole ship is one solid piece of platinum, one of the best conductors known. Platinum conducts electrical signals with almost no degeneration."

Randy's eyes widened — suddenly, the ship's construction and materials seemed to make sense. “It's just like the silverbug muscles, no wires needed. The rocktopi sent the signals through the entire ship."

"Yes!” Angus said. “Just like a computer network."

"So the entire ship is the wiring,” Randy said. “Their computers send signals that travel through the entire hull, but only the target device reads it."

"It's genius!” Angus said. “Even if the ship takes damage, even if it gets a big hole punched through it, all devices not destroyed will still function. As long as the device remains connected to the hull it can send and receive commands."

"And it's not just the outside hull,” Randy said, his eyes gazing across the room's curved walls and ceiling. “Everything inside is platinum too. This ship is so vastly compartmentalized it would practically never depressurize."

"That's a good point. It makes me think this is a warship. Imagine how much damage this beast could take and continue functioning. Every device they have would work until it took a direct hit."

"But how did they weld this all so seamlessly?” Randy asked. “If it's taking damage, hull stress is going to eventually sever the seams and break a lot of contact points for the signal."

"Look at the room we're in, Randy,” Angus said patiently. “What does it look like?"

Randy looked around again, not understanding. “It looks like a ball."

Angus leaned forward, as if to give a hint. “Not a ball…"

"A bubble,” Randy whispered, suddenly understanding and feeling like a stone-age imbecile compared to the technology that surrounded them. “A bubble. A bubble made when they cast the hull. This entire ship is a solid piece of platinum with bubbles for rooms and hallways."

The two scientists wandered around the ship in wonderment. Randy kept a close eye on his watch. They had another fourteen minutes before they had to head back.

They splashed through the damp, sewer-like halls, talking loudly and excitedly to each other. They made too much noise to hear the tiny click click click of metal feet that followed them at a discreet distance.

Connell and Sanji entered the alcove to find Veronica staring at the walls. The alcove was almost twenty feet in diameter and some fifteen feet high. Like the Picture Cavern, detailed carvings completely covered the walls.

"Dammit, Veronica,” Connell said. “You pull a stunt like that again and you're on your own."

"They were running away,” Veronica said, seemingly ignoring Connell's words and attitude.

"Running away from what?” Sanji asked.

"This.” Veronica pointed to a carving just to the right of the alcove's narrow entrance. It was a long, narrow, evil-looking shape, bristling with many sharp protuberances and jagged spines. Something of the shape made Connell think of paper wasps, with their thin bodies and dangerous demeanor.

Sanji peered closer. “Is it a spaceship?"

"I think so,” Veronica said. “I believe this was their enemy in some ancient war. Follow the line of boxes; it seems rather clear what happened."

Connell's eyes traced the line of square carvings from right to left. The one just to the left of the wasp ship showed three dumbbell shapes; lines shot out from the hulls and arced into two wasp ships, both of which were breaking up into pieces. The next square showed a planet surrounded by wasp ships. In the middle of the planet was a detailed rocktopi. The next square chilled Connell — the planet broke into pieces from a wasp ship attack.

"Their planet was destroyed?"

"I believe so,” Veronica said. “It looks like the Garden of Eden out there was part of a navy, but had no home to return to."

"Won the battle but lost the war, eh?"

"So it seems. Too bad the wasp ships didn't get all of the ugly glowing bastards."

The concept cast a sullen mood over all three of them. Destroying the entire planet, leaving a species without a home; it bordered on unthinkable. The rocktopi soldiers were left in their warship; left with nowhere to turn.

"Why did they come here?” Connell asked. “And why didn't they just take over the whole planet?"

"I think that's explained here,” Veronica said. Her hand traced more exquisite picture-carvings on the wall until it rested on a square containing hundreds of the wasp ships. Connell could see three dumbbell shapes in the carving's center. It painted a picture of hopelessness, or overwhelming odds.

"They were being hunted,” Connell said quietly.

Veronica nodded. “Looks like they were highly outnumbered and were unable to call for help."

"There had to be others in their force, why could they not call for reinforcements?” Sanji asked.

"Maybe they didn't have any reinforcements,” Connell said. “And if they called for help the enemy might pick off the signals and track them down. They had to hide. But how did they know to come here, to Earth? I mean it's obvious they can breathe in our atmosphere and survive in our gravity, but how did they find Earth?"

Sanji dropped to one knee, examining the bottom row of the ten-inch by ten-inch carvings. Some showed a flaming star surrounded by planets. Some showed just a planet, other planets and moons. Connell and Veronica followed the bottom row with their eyes; it reached all the way around the alcove and continued halfway around in the next row up. The last carving showed a star surrounded by nine planets. Connected to that carving was a planet with rather familiar-looking continents and a single orbiting moon.

Connell stared at the planet. “They didn't know about Earth. They searched for a new home and found it.” The breadth of the rocktopi's search for a home stunned him, left him filled with awe at the magnitude of such a quest.

"My goodness,” Sanji said as he counted the squares. “They searched hundreds of star systems and at least thirty planets. How long were they out there?"

"I can't tell,” Veronica said. “I think I'm close to understanding their written characters, but since their ‘days’ and ‘years’ are probably based on their home planet's rotation they'll be different from ours."

"Well they had to translate to Earth time at some point, didn't they? Some system that measures day and nights?” Connell asked.

"Why would they? They're always underground. The weather never changes, day and night remain constant. They could have any timekeeping system they wanted."

Connell wondered in awe how long might it have taken them to find Earth. “They could have been out there for thousands of years. The entire culture would have to be self-contained. Entire generations might have been born, lived, and died before the ship reached a suitable planet."

"Maybe that was their culture,” Sanji said. “A class of their society that lives and dies on-ship. Perhaps entire generations that never see their home during a voyage."

Connell nodded, seeing how neatly the elements seemed to fit the bizarre situation. “Maybe that's why they ran. If they already had a self-contained society, then all they really had to do is find a place to land, right?"

"And that's what they did in this series of carvings,” Sanji said, his hands trailing across another line of boxes. “I think this will look strangely familiar to you, Roni."

Veronica and Connell looked at the frame. The Wah Wah Mountains’ outline graced the carving's bottom edge. A large, rectangular chunk of the mountain range floated in the air, leaving a gaping hole. Underneath the floating mountain, half inside the hole, apparently descending, was the dumbbell ship.

"That's what the big rectangle was,” Veronica said in a cold, flat voice. “They didn't dig a trench, they lifted the entire fucking mountain and set the ship inside."

Connell didn't like the sound of her voice. She seemed unfazed by the elaborate display of history before her, somehow distant, as if she wanted to solve the puzzle merely because it was there, by rote mechanics rather than heartfelt curiosity. He wondered if O'Doyle was right, if she was “slipping,” as he called it.

"We're guessing they came here more than ten thousand years ago,” Veronica said. “Human civilization was still in the infant stage. There was no technology. And there were very, very few people in this area. They could have easily taken over all of North America without even trying, and the rest of the world as well. They could have wiped out humanity and taken over the Earth for themselves."

"Perhaps they cannot live on the surface,” Sanji said. “They seem to thrive in temperatures too great for human comfort — perhaps where we are comfortable it is too cold for them. I imagine an Earthly winter might kill them. Winter would entail a 170-degree drop in temperature for them, arguably comparable to us trying to survive in an environment where daily temperatures reach a hundred degrees below zero on the Fahrenheit scale."

"Besides,” Connell said, “the enemy was still out there. The rocktopi didn't care about conquering, Veronica. They cared about surviving. They wanted to hide from this enemy. That's why they buried themselves so deep and left no trace on the surface. That's why they bury all remains of anything they attack — they don't want any evidence, not even a shred, that they're here. Even if their enemy came to Earth, they might not find the rocktopi."

"So the rocktopi started over,” Sanji said. “What happened then?"

"There are two more alcoves right next to this one,” Veronica said. “Maybe the story is there."

They moved into the next alcove.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Lybrand watched as O'Doyle twisted in a fitful sleep. Sweat poured from his head. Many of the blisters on his face had broken open; pus oozed out of them, thick and glistening under the artificial light. She constantly dipped her hand into the shallow pool of water at the river's edge and gently rubbed it across his face. She didn't know if it did any good. The water was a touch cooler than the oven-like air, and it seemed to slow his sweating, so she continued.

O'Doyle was dying. She had to get him out of here, get him to a hospital if he was to live. They'd run out of painkillers long ago, and antibiotics as well. She didn't dare touch his KoolSuit to check the wounds for fear she'd rip Angus's shoddy repair job. If that happened, O'Doyle's temperature would soar and he'd die. The heat and pain were taking their toll on her big man. Her impossibly tough, impossibly brave man.

"Hold on, Patrick,” she whispered. “Hold on just a little longer and we'll be out of here."

Watching O'Doyle, she failed to see two spidery metallic shapes silently emerge from the ship, moving toward her along the riverbank sand.

Randy followed Angus into yet another room of dust, pieces of glass, ceramics, and little else. “This thing's been here forever and a day. There's really nothing left but the platinum hull."

"That's the other reason they made their platinum-iridium compound,” Angus said, “it doesn't corrode. This hull will be here forever, until the damn tectonic plate this mountain rests on slides back into the mantle. This hull is a masterpiece of engineering."

Randy thought about the hull's complexity, the intricacy of the metals involved, and the alloy's strength. Nature had never come up with anything so strong, so resistant, so perfect for space travel. Guilt suddenly swept over him, overwhelming his mind with one blaring thought — how could they have missed it?

"Angus, we should have seen this in the lab."

Angus gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Oh don't worry about it. We were getting ready for the spelunk. We would have found this easily if we'd looked for it."

"That's the point, Angus,” Randy said. “We were getting ready for the dig, we weren't doing our jobs."

"So what?"

"So we could have seen the platinum was artificial. It's blatantly obvious. Connell would have handled things completely different."

"Big deal. It's all water under the bridge now."

Randy felt anger explode in him like an atom bomb. He'd followed Angus every step of the way — Mack's death and any other deaths that might occur were as much due to his negligence as Angus's. He grabbed Angus by the shoulders and slammed him into the curved wall. Angus's eyes grew wide with surprise and, perhaps, fear.

"Don't you get it?” Randy said. “We're all in danger of losing our lives! Mack is dead! And it's all happening because we were too busy trying to get famous and not paying attention to our jobs. We should have seen this immediately!"

"Oh, so you want me to feel guilty for all this?” Angus said, pushing Randy away. “Fuck that, you bleeding heart. Fuck that, and fuck you. Everyone knew the risks. This isn't our fault."

Randy had never wanted to punch someone so bad in all his life. Angus simply didn't care about anyone or anything other than himself. “Yes, it is our fault. We're responsible because we didn't do our jobs."

"Hey, you be responsible if you want to. I've got a clear conscience. If they all weren't so stupid, they could've figured things out for themselves."

Randy started to rebut, but the words froze in his mouth when a flash of silver from the hallway caught his eye.

"Angus,” Randy said quietly. “Did you turn the scrambler off?"

"Of course not,” Angus said. “It's on, you can hear it, can't you?"

Randy realized the crackling hiss filled the room. He'd been listening to it for so long his brain had tuned it out. “Did you change the frequency?"

"Don't be a dumbass, Randy. What is it? What's wrong?"

"I think we're in a lot of trouble,” Randy said. “Turn to your left very slowly."

Angus turned. There, on the curved wall, perched an impossibly shiny silverbug. Their headlamps blazed off its polished shell and off its perfect, unmarred legs. It wasn't until that moment that Randy realized how pitted, scratched and dented all the other silverbugs were, as if they'd suffered a thousand years of tiny scrapes, nicks, and bumps.

This one was brand-new.

It wasn't milling about aimlessly. It sat on the wall, its wedge-shaped head looking right at them.

"The scrambler doesn't affect it,” Angus said, his voice a hissing whisper. “How could they change their frequency?"

"They didn't change it. They made a new one with a new frequency, to get around our scrambling.” Terror crept up Randy's legs and into his groin. They were deep in the alien vessel, and suddenly the equation had changed: they were no longer invisible to the silverbug's murderous stares.

"Who made a new one?” Angus asked. “The rocktopi are primitives! How the hell did they know to change the frequency? Who the hell is making these things?"

The silverbug shifted on the wall. A ringing, metallic scraping sound filled the hall as a nasty-looking, six-inch-long jagged blade slid out of the wedge-shaped head.

The sound of the blade faded slowly, until only the scrambler's useless crackle filled the room. Angus and Randy stood motionless and terrified, unsure of what to do, unsure of what to think.

"Now they've got soldiers to go along with the workers,” Randy said. “Nobody is making them, Angus. They're a collective. They're building themselves."

The silverbug made no motion. It waited and watched. As still as the wall itself.

As still as death.

Chapter Forty

Looks like they keep track of Earth time after all,” Veronica muttered, staring at the carvings inside the second alcove. “Whoopeedoo, aren't they clever?"

Connell wanted to get her out of there. Maybe back on the surface she'd snap out of this strange funk.

She vacantly stared at a series of three large carvings, so big they dominated ten square feet of the curved wall. The first showed the Sun and the familiar nine rings of the planets that orbited around it. The second showed an outline of the Wah Wah Mountains and a pattern of stars behind it. One chiseled star looked much larger than the rest, and seemed to nestle between two peaks. The last showed a map of the tunnels, highly detailed down to two tiny rocktopi climbing up a long, straight ascending shaft.

Connell recognized the shaft immediately. “The Linus Highway,” he said.

"Bingo,” Veronica said absently. “Give the man a prize."

"Is that the North Star?” Sanji asked, peering intently.

"Bingo-bingo,” Veronica said. “Two prizes for the price of one ticket. It appears to be the summer solstice. Our little uglies dug astronomy. Looks like they make the trip to the surface once a year."

"What for?” Sanji asked.

"Maybe keep a lookout for their enemy, maybe scout the stars for a rescue ship, maybe see if we'd put up a Burger King yet,” Veronica said. “Why does a dog lick its balls? Because it can."

Her lips started moving with no sound — Connell realized she was counting, staring at a series of dots chiseled under the large carvings. To the right of the dots were rows of the strange rocktopi writing.

A quick count showed the neat dots were 144 columns wide and 79 rows deep. Connell started counting up the last incomplete row.

"Ninety-five,” Sanji said, seeming to read Connell's mind and beat him to the punch. “For a total of 11,327 dots. One for each year they've made that trip to the surface?"

"Bingo-bingo-bingo,” Veronica said.

"Oh my goodness,” Sanji said quietly. “Look at how some of these characters to the right of the dots repeat. These are their numbers, Roni! See the pattern? I think they count in base-twelve instead of the base-ten system that we use."

As Veronica and Sanji set to work cracking the rocktopi numeric symbols, a distinctive mark on the detailed tunnel map caught Connell's eye. He recognized the dumbbell-shaped ship — from its bottom stretched a long vertical line. Hanging over the top of the tunnel, deep inside the ship, appeared to be a large spherical object. Unlike Angus's map, this rendition had no bottom-range limit. Connell eyeballed the carving, comparing the size of the ship with the shaft. He estimated the shaft's depth at over twenty miles. At the shaft's bottom, a series of caverns radiated outward in a circle. The caverns looked to be filled with thin pillars. While small in scale, the carving gave the impression that the pillars supported the massive weight of the mountain, the caves, the ship, even the very ground he stood on.

Below the picture of the shaft, all the way down to the floor, was a series of carvings. The first showed the sphere and what looked like a rectangular console. The second frame showed the sphere dropping into the shaft's depths. The third appeared to illustrate an explosion, an explosion that destroyed the thin supporting pillars, shattering them like brittle crystal candlestick holders. The fourth frame showed the ship and the tunnel complex tumbling in on itself, collapsing under its own weight. The last frame in the series illustrated some kind of flood. Liquid filled the tunnel and rocktopi appeared to be bursting into flames.

"Sanji,” Connell said breathlessly. “Come take a look at this."

Sanji stared for a moment, then his eyes widened with surprise. “Oh my goodness,” he said, his voice filled with sudden dread. “They will do anything to avoid their enemy."

"What do you mean?” Veronica asked, her eyes squinting in concentration. “They're going to flood the tunnel with water?"

"Not water,” Connell said. “Magma. They would drop that sphere down that tunnel. It would detonate somewhere near the mantle. Everything we've been in, everything we're standing on, the ship… everything… would cave in and then fill with magma."

"That's impossible,” Veronica said. “Look at how deep that must be. We're already over three miles down; there's no way they could dig that deep."

"Judging by what we've seen so far, the Old Rocktopi knew what they were doing,” Connell said. “I can't imagine they'd paint such a picture unless it were true."

"A doomsday device,” Sanji said. “But why?"

"Because they only understand death,” Veronica said, her eyes glassy and unfocused. “Their culture is military. They'd die before admitting a final defeat. See that first frame? That looks like a control console or something — they left instructions for their descendants, instructions on how to blow up the whole mountain and the rocktopi race along with it."

"There is no way such a device would work after all this time,” Sanji said, standing and stretching. “I do not think anything has worked down here for thousands of years."

Connell checked his watch; they still had three minutes before they had to head back. He looked up — Veronica was already heading for the next alcove. Connell followed her, intent on cutting the little jaunt a few minutes short and getting her the hell out of there.

O'Doyle awoke instantly courtesy of a sharp slap to the face. Before he'd even sat up he reached for his knife, only to find it gone. He blinked twice, seeing that Lybrand had slapped him. Her stare focused outward, away from him, away from the towering ship. She was rock-still in a half crouch, black hair hanging limply in her face, eyes hawklike and focused. Her knife pointed toward the threat.

He scrambled to his feet as fast as his tortured body would allow, wincing from the agony that rippled through his leg like a blender on puree. Even though she held the knife, he instinctively stood a few feet in front of her.

Two silverbugs flashed impossibly bright with mirrorlike reflections of the artificial suns burning high above. They crouched in the sand at the water's edge. O'Doyle instantly recognized the newness of the machines, just as his trained mind already sought for a way to deal with the six-inch-long saw-toothed blades that protruded menacingly from the wedge-shaped heads.

"Our little friends are adapting,” O'Doyle said quietly. “Put the knife away. It won't do any good against them and you'll need both hands if they attack."

Lybrand slowly and wordlessly put the K-Bar into her belt sheath. “What do we do?"

"Reach down slowly and grab the biggest rock you can,” O'Doyle said. He stooped, grimacing, and sank his fingers into the sand to wrap around a rock the size of his head. Lybrand bent slowly and came up with a smaller stone. “On the count of three. You take the one on the left, I'll get the other. One… two… three!"

He launched the heavy rock. It seemed to hang in the air; with a blur of movement the silverbug scurried clear before the rock smashed into the sand. O'Doyle's eyes widened with surprise at the silverbug's blinding speed — it was probably twice as fast any he'd yet seen.

Lybrand's silverbug also sprinted away from O'Doyle's throw, then stopped on a dime and stood statue-still. She whipped her arm in a back-swing circle, releasing her rock in practiced softball-pitcher style. The silverbug moved, but not fast enough — the rock smashed into its legs, tearing one of them clean off and bending another. The wounded silverbug jerked and writhed. The severed leg squirmed spasmodically in the sand with a sudden life of its own.

The uninjured silverbug blurred forward impossibly fast and launched itself toward Lybrand's head. She brought her hands up in a defensive posture, catching the long-legged machine in mid-air. The blade flashed. Two fingers on her left hand fell to the ground as if they'd never really been attached at all.

She screamed in pain and fear. Two of the silverbug's multi-jointed legs wrapped firmly around her arms. The other two flashed forward and grabbed her head — pulling her eye straight toward the knife's bloody tip. She turned her head at the last second: the blade skimmed across her forehead, cutting her from the left eyebrow across the center of her left ear. The top of her ear fell uselessly into the sand as blood gushed down her face and chest. In a half-second the blade pulled back for another attempt at her eye.

Suddenly O'Doyle's strong hands grabbed the ball-shaped body. He ripped it upwards with all his strength. It clung to Lybrand, sharp claws ripping through her KoolSuit sleeves and into the tender skin below as O'Doyle yanked the machine away. Arcing spurts of blood trailed from the silverbug's split-foot claws.

O'Doyle roared with primitive rage as he used both hands and all his strength to slam the machine onto a rock. It smashed into the stone with a satisfying metallic crunch. The legs squirmed as they reversed themselves, sharp claws suddenly digging into his forearms. He bellowed as he lifted it up and slammed it down again and again and again like Thor smashing his hammer downward with all his fury. O'Doyle heard something break inside the dented shell. The legs quivered once, then fell limp.

He looked toward the other silverbug, his eyes wide with psychotic fury, his body pulsing with adrenaline, hate and rage. The wounded machine tried in vain to scurry away on two good legs. It looked like half a crab crawling across a dark-sand beach. Fury fueled his body. He hopped toward the wounded silverbug, covering the ground with three strong thrusts of his good leg.

Grabbing the silverbug by one thin, struggling limb, he swung it in a blurring arc and brought it smashing down on a large boulder. The shell split, spilling sparks on the riverbank. The thick smell of burned chocolate wafted through the air. O'Doyle bellowed at the crushed silverbug, a primal scream of victory and rage. He blinked a few times and looked at the squirming leg still clutched in his hand. It flexed spasmodically. He dropped the leg and hopped back to Lybrand.

Her good right hand covered the mauled left, unable to stop the blood that spurted forth form the stumps, blood that spilled onto the damp sand in bright red droplets. The sleeves of her tattered KoolSuit dangled from her forearms like wet noodles coated in spaghetti sauce. Sheets of blood rolled down the side of her face, matting her black hair to her skin. She'd rolled on her side while writhing in pain — sand stuck to her blood-drenched skin.

"Hold on, I'm here."

Lybrand's eyes alternately pinched tightly shut and stared with wide-eyed disbelief at the fingers laying lifeless on the sand.

O'Doyle grabbed the knife from her belt and slashed at one of the backpacks, cutting off two long strips of nylon fabric. He pulled her good hand free and pinned it to the ground under his knee. She cried in pain as he forcefully grabbed her ravaged limb. He twisted so he could pinch her forearm between his right arm and body, leaving only the hand exposed. “Hold still, soldier. This is going to hurt."

"Do it!” Lybrand said through teeth clenched. O'Doyle wrapped a strip of fabric around the stump of her trigger finger, tied a knot and then pulled it tight with a strong, sharp snap. Lybrand threw her head back let loose a short scream of pain, instinctively trying to pull away from O'Doyle.

"Shut up!” O'Doyle said. “Stay quiet! There may be more silverbugs out there, so don't make a noise no matter how much it hurts."

Lybrand bit her lip and looked at him through her right eye, her left shut against the flow of blood cascading down her face. He expertly wrapped the second strip and snapped it tight. Lybrand gave a long grunt of pain, but kept her mouth shut.

O'Doyle ravaged the pack, trying to find something suitable as a head bandage. He slashed a bedroll, pulled out the cotton padding and pressed it to her head, instructing her to hold it in place.

Lybrand reached up and awkwardly pressed the cotton to her temple. O'Doyle cut another long swath of pack material and tied it tightly around her head. He then turned his attention to her arms. A chill filled his soul. The sleeves of the KoolSuit were shredded. The clear, viscous fluid coolant dripped along with her blood into the sand. Deep lacerations covered her arms.

He shredded two more strips of pack material; if he didn't stop the fluid loss, her body would suffer temperatures teetering on the boiling point in a matter of seconds. He could worry about blood poisoning later; the heat, combined with her wounds, would kill her much faster. As quickly and carefully as he could, he laid the KoolSuit shreds back in place, then tightly wrapped the long strips around her arms and tied them off. Within twenty seconds, both forearms were bandaged from elbow to hand.

"I'm… glad you're a… soldier,” Lybrand grimaced through clenched teeth.

"Why's that?” O'Doyle asked softly, wiping the blood-matted hair from her face.

"Because you'd make a really shitty doctor."

O'Doyle looked into the ship-canyon, but saw no sign of Angus or Randy. He looked back the way Connell had gone, but saw no sign of him either. He needed Angus to patch up the KoolSuit. O'Doyle knew his battlefield repair would slow the coolant fluid loss, but wouldn't stop it. Without Angus, Lybrand would be dead inside an hour. He checked his watch, then set his eyes to scan the cavern, looking for more silvery movement. Twenty minutes was up. Everyone should be back already. But he saw no one.

No one at all.

Angus stared at the statue-like silverbug still clinging to the wall. It hadn't moved five agonizing minutes. If he hadn't known it wasn't there when he entered the room, Angus would have thought the machine an immobile wall fixture, a piece of sculpture, perhaps.

The machines were adapting to the situation. He'd seen the rocktopi's intelligence, leaving only one logical answer; the silverbugs were more than a collective program, they were a collective intelligence. A thinking, plotting, adapting intelligence hell-bent on killing everyone in sight.

"We've got to do something, Angus,” Randy said. “We can't just stand here. If the silverbugs can ignore the scrambling they might be leading rocktopi against the others. We've got to jump it."

"Are you nuts? Look at that knife!"

"We can't stay here, dammit!” There was only one exit to the room; the silverbug sat just outside it like a prison guard.

"Think of something, Angus,” Randy said. “Get us out of here."

Angus took a deep breath. “Okay, okay. You're in front of the door, so you move toward it. If it moves away, great, we boogie on out of here. If it goes for you, I'll grab it."

Randy nodded slowly. Angus heard his friend swallow, and heard his breathing speed up. Angus's own breath came in short gasps. He felt his body surge with adrenaline, anxiety and fear.

"You ready?” Randy asked tentatively.

"Do it,” Angus said.

Randy took one small step forward.

With the strong spring of new legs, the silverbug launched itself off the wall and into the room. Randy yelled in surprise. He brought his hands up quickly and caught two of the silverbug's outstretched arms.

"Angus, get him!” Randy screamed, his face filled with terror at the wriggling, heavy thing trying to slash at his face.

Angus remained motionless, only his head turning so his eyes could follow the action. His feet felt cemented to the floor, his body felt cold and immobile, as if he were part of the round walls. He couldn't move. He just couldn't.

The silverbug's two free arms slashed at Randy like the back legs of a fighting alley cat. Sharp claws sliced through Randy's KoolSuit, through his skin, splattering blood on the dusty floor. In the light of Angus's headlamp the blood looked black.

Randy screamed with pain and threw the silverbug at the wall. Quick as a cat it reversed its legs, all four claws landing firmly on the curved platinum surface. It sprang off the wall like a bouncing rubber ball, coming straight back at Randy.

"Angus!” was all Randy had time to say before the silverbug slammed into him again.

Angus watched the heavy robot crash into Randy's flailing, bloody arms, staggering the small man back. The silverbug landed on the floor and instantly bounced toward Randy's head, this time knocking him to the ground. Like a metallic wolf spider the silverbug quickly crawled up Randy's body. He brought an arm up to push the machine away.

"Jesus Christ get it off!"

Randy squirmed under the silverbug's spindly weight, the attack fixed in Angus's headlamp glare like a big-tent spectacle.

A hand, severed at the wrist and suddenly free of its connection to the arm, flew across the room, flinging streaks of black blood as it spun through the air. It landed with a small bounce at Angus's feet. Angus's breaths came in short, rapid-fire gulps of air. He looked down at the hand, Randy's fight for life suddenly left in darkness. The fingers on the hand flexed lightly, curling inward like the legs of a dying beetle.

Angus's feet suddenly came free of their moorings. He sprinted down the hall, toward the others, leaving Randy's last gurgling, horrified death-screams echoing through the curved halls behind him.

Chapter Forty-one

The Marco/Polo unit beeped only once. She quickly pulled it from her belt, but before she could even look at the screen the signal was gone. Kayla played with the settings… nothing. She put the unit back into her belt.

It didn't matter.

One beep was enough. She was right; they were down there. Down there in the Dense Mass. The map told her she was very close, possibly only a few minutes away. A small, crooked smile crossed her lips.

The third alcove didn't do them much good. It appeared to be a history of leadership — thousands of brightly colored individual rocktopi carvings covered the walls. Each was crafted with the megarealistic care that defined the race's art, and each looked as if it could jump off the wall at any moment.

"Hey, look at this,” Veronica said from across the alcove. “These carvings remind me of those dying rocktopi squirming around after the battle. Who says there's no beauty in their art?"

Connell walked over and stared at the detailed carvings. The artist, probably dead before human civilization ever began, had sculpted details of an alien culture with such skill that even another species could clearly identify rocktopi in the throes of agony. While less than an inch high, each of the rocktopi seemed to vibrate and shudder, captured in a limestone freeze-frame of death. There were hundreds of them. He took a step back, letting his cone of light widen. Some light from the Dense Mass cavern filtered in through the alcove entrance, but only the headlamps let them see proper detail. Dying rocktopi covered the wall.

"What do you think this means, Roni?” Sanji asked.

"Got me, but I wish we could talk the bastards into a repeat performance,” Veronica said.

"This explains quite a lot, I think,” Sanji said, bouncing his finger along the symbols on the wall, like a second grader doing rudimentary arithmetic. “I think this was a plague or disease of some sort. About fifty-eight hundred years ago, if we have their number system correct."

Veronica studied a small, two-frame section of the carving. The first frame showed a living rocktopi with a number on the right-hand side, the second showed an obviously dead rocktopi, also with a number on the right-hand side. “It looks like they lost… twenty-four thousand… three-hundred… and five."

Sanji gasped. “That many died?"

"Looks like about six thousand lived,” Veronica said.

"So they had thirty thousand rocktopi down here?” Connell asked. “There's no way there could be that many."

"Look again at that ship outside, Connell,” Sanji said. “It would hold thirty thousand with ease. And this tunnel system could accommodate ten times that number. What is significant here is that they lost eighty percent of their population. That could explain why they're so primitive. Who knows how much of the leadership and knowledge died in the plague."

"So what?” Connell asked. “Surely if they can move mountains they have computers that store all their knowledge."

"Yes, but you are thinking short term,” Sanji said. “When the plague hit, we estimate they had already been down here for over six thousand years. How long can any computer last, even one from an incredibly advanced civilization? Surely things break down eventually."

"Nothing lasts that long,” Veronica said. “What do you think would happen to America if all of the computers stopped working, you had no means to replace them, and then you lost eighty percent of the population, eighty percent of the knowledge? And it looks like its taboo to enter the ship — where the vast majority of their technology was probably kept. They instantly went from a sophisticated, technological culture to a subsistence existence."

She crouched near the bottom of the curved wall. “Their computers may have shut down, but their little robots were working overtime. Take a look at this."

The carvings showed hundreds of dead rocktopi in one square. The next showed a silverbug, its legs seeming to pull together a pair of smaller rocktopi, and the frame after that illustrated the young rocktopi entwined together in an indefinable mass of tentacles. The last frame showed dozens of tiny rocktopi babies frolicking around the deflated corpses of the former lovers.

"What do you think it means?” Connell asked.

"I think,” Sanji said with reverence, “that the silverbugs matched up rocktopi resistant to the disease."

"You mean they bred them?” Connell asked. “Like cattle? They're fucking machines! How could they breed intelligent creatures?"

"Formerly intelligent,” Veronica said. “They might as well be cattle now."

"Such a disaster would devastate their gene pool,” Sanji said. “They apparently breed in pairs, like us, so we can assume genetic crossover determines their traits. With only six thousand individuals, recessive traits would show very quickly. This explains why they're so barbaric — they have regressed to a primitive state due to thousands of years of inbreeding."

Connell checked his watch. They were six minutes late — he'd gotten lost in discovery and forgot to track the time.

"We're going, and right now,” Connell said. He grabbed both the professors by the arm and pulled them away from the wall. Sanji resisted slightly while Veronica came limply along with all the emotion of a stuffed doll.

Sanji protested. “We need to see more of this!"

Connell pulled them out of the alcove. “We need to get back to the others and get out of here alive. We have to go."

They quickly left of the alcove, Sanji's strong legs supporting Veronica's bum ankle.

Angus walked out of the ship canyon and into the bright light of the artificial suns. He saw O'Doyle crouched over a prone Lybrand. She had clumsy, bloodstained bandages wrapped around her head and forearms.

Dammit, Angus thought. I don't have time for this shit.

Upon seeing Angus coming, O'Doyle hopped up on his good foot. “Thank God you're back. Lybrand's hurt and her KoolSuit is damaged. There are new silverbugs, with knives attached—"

"I know,” Angus interrupted. “I saw. One of them got Randy."

"He's dead? You're sure?"

"I'm sure,” Angus said. “Believe me, Randy's dead."

"I'm sorry,” O'Doyle said. “They almost got Lybrand. Come here, I need you to patch up her suit."

"We already cut up all the gloves. There's nothing left to patch it up with."

O'Doyle's eyes narrowed. “You'll find something.” His voice was thick with threat. “You'll come up with something fast or she'll be wearing your KoolSuit, understand?"

Angus swallowed hard and nodded. O'Doyle was badly hurt, limping around on his one leg. Angus didn't delude himself — O'Doyle could kill in a heartbeat. He had to get out of there. He couldn't outfight this Cro-Magnon, but he could outthink him. Angus scanned the area, finding little but dirt and rocks, the ship, and the river.

"Okay,” Angus said, trying to reassure O'Doyle with a smile. “Just relax, big guy. I'll come up with something. I'm a genius, remember?"

"Just do it quickly. She's running out of coolant."

Angus moved to his pack, which had been shredded by O'Doyle's knife. He set the scrambler down and started rummaging through the pack's contents. “I'm sure I've got something in here,” he said loudly, making a production of digging through the meager supplies. The truth was he had nothing. KoolSuits couldn't be jury-rigged, they had to be repaired with the proper ducting material. Without a good patch, the tiny ducts would continue to bleed coolant until none remained. Without the coolant, Lybrand would soon suffer the consequences of the intense geothermal heat that permeated the caves.

"Here's something,” Angus said. “Tell her to hold tight.” He had something all right. He had the computer map, and he had a vacuum-packed flotation device. The device weighed less than four ounces, but when he pulled the seal air would rush into the spongy material and fill millions of tiny chambers. Within a few seconds after pulling the seal, the floater could support the weight of a two-hundred-pound man. He glanced up at O'Doyle, who stood only a few feet away, hand on the hilt of the knife stuck in his belt.

"Oh no!” Angus said, looking away from the ship and past O'Doyle. “More silverbugs!"

O'Doyle turned to face the new threat, but nothing was there. He turned back, knife out in a flash, eyes wide with fury, but it was already too late.

Angus used the brief distraction to sprint for the river, tucking the map computer under his arm and pulling the floatation device's seal as he ran. O'Doyle started to limp after him, but Angus reached the bank in only a few seconds and launched himself into the roiling water. The current grabbed him and rocketed him downstream, into the deep shadows of the towering ship-cavern.

Chapter Forty-two

Where the fuck have you been!” O'Doyle said, veins popping out of his head, neck muscles thick with tension. “You were supposed to be here seven minutes ago!"

Connell felt the waves of anger pouring off O'Doyle like late-afternoon heat rising from the desert floor. The man's huge, tightly balled fists looked like medieval maces ready to crush a skull or two.

"We got tied up,” Connell said softly. “What's the matter?"

"Lybrand's hurt, and that motherfucker Angus took off!"

Veronica and Sanji glanced over at Lybrand, who lay passed out in the sand, a bloody mess covered in bandages. They immediately ran to her and started checking her wounds.

"He just left,” O'Doyle said through gritted teeth. “Down the river."

"Where's Randy?"

"Angus told me he's dead."

Connell's heart sank at the words. Another EarthCore member gone. “Did you see him?” Connell asked. “Where is his body?"

"It's in the ship somewhere. I haven't seen anything, and I don't really give a fuck. We need to worry about Lybrand."

Connell spoke slowly. “Veronica and Sanji will help her. We're getting out of here right now."

"Why weren't you back on time?” O'Doyle asked, sounding as if a sad little boy was using the voice of a huge man. “You could have stopped Angus. You could have made him help her."

"I know,” Connell said. “I swear to you — we're going to get her out of here."

Emotions swarmed over Connell. Murderous anger for Angus's chickenshit actions along with overwhelming guilt. Another of his people dead, one more lay dying. He couldn't go in the ship after Randy. Even if he wasn't dead, Connell couldn't leave the party, and they couldn't wait any longer.

"Connell,” Sanji said. “I think we have another problem."

Silverbugs skittered about like a swarm of platinum crabs. They seemed to come out of nowhere. Within seconds they'd formed lines so thick one could walk on them and never touch the ground. The lines ran at an angle away from the ship, stretching far off toward the cavern's side wall perhaps a quarter-mile away and then disappearing into a narrow fissure.

Trying to remain calm, Connell walked to Randy's discarded web belt and searched through the multitude of pockets. He pulled out a small pair of binoculars and through them looked out at the fissure.

Rocktopi thronged inside the narrow crack, a hyperkinetic blob of alien terror. They looked more agitated than ever, a bubbling mass of flashing colors and flinging tentacles, more like a wall of animated flesh rather than sentient beings. The silverbugs bounced madly, faster than he'd ever seen before, as if they were desperate for the rocktopi to break the religious taboo and pour into the cavern, destroying everything in their path.

"The silverbugs are trying to draw the rocktopi in here,” Connell said. He suddenly noticed the absence of the scrambler's scratchy static. He walked over to the packs, eyes hunting. “They look pretty pissed. Veronica, do you think they'll attack?"

"They're caught between religious tenets,” Veronica said. “They appear to be forbidden to enter this cavern, but following silverbug commands is ingrained in their culture. I think they're coming in, it's just a question of when."

Connell's heart leapt with hope as he finally set eyes on the scrambler amidst one of the pack's scattered contents. Angus must have set it down before his cowardly dash to the river. Connell picked it up and switched it on. He'd never thought static could sound so beautiful. The thick lines of silverbugs immediately broke down into a confused exodus, like cockroaches scrambling to escape a sudden light.

Sanji ran over to Connell and O'Doyle. “Lybrand is badly hurt,” he said. “We must get her out of here now. Her temperature is rising."

Connell's mind raced, stress filling him from head to toe. So many wounded, and they still had to hike around the ship just to get to the Linus Highway. Lybrand would never make the trip. They had to get her out and fast. Time was up in more ways than one. But how? How could they get out fast enough? Connell's eyes drifted toward the rocketing river.

There was really only one way.