Cemetery Planet: The Complete Series (14 page)

8.

He was determined to evade being detected. With images of being chased by the cyborgs still fresh in his memory, he knew he had to be smarter this time. He killed his helmet lights, laid low, and went slow, thankful for the gradual decline. A ramp spiraling downward. On one side a solid rock wall. On the other, a precipitous drop into the unknown.

The blackness defied description, and every step brought him nearer to the steady beat from the distance below. Deep and ominous, also melodic in a way. Like a trumpet, but not a trumpet. At least not one made by human hands.

He kept going, even though his flight instincts were threatening a takeover. Just one look, he thought. He had to know. Had to see the engineering wonder he was picturing in his mind. Yes it was ghoulish. Yes it was depraved. It was also a work of art in its design, and it intrigued Harvey to no end.

The passageway became so dark he barely recognized his own glove in front of his visor. The strangest part, aside from the fact that this structure shouldn’t have existed in the first place, was the temperature. Surprisingly hot. His suit had atmospheric controls, but even with them working at full strength he was sweating as if directly under both Fomalhaut and Piscis Austrini at midday. Just for reference, he called up the ambient readings, and found high levels of oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, plus an incredibly high humidity level. Almost as if the place had an atmosphere.

Then a sudden insight compelled him to stop in his tracks. The subterranean rumbling. It was still there, but became noticeably duller, as if he’d come to a place where the walls were insulated. He held his breath and closed his eyes, training every ounce of focus on the helmet speakers, listening for any sound inside the pitch-dark passage.

He couldn’t be positive, and he didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but he swore something was there. A slight, almost imperceptible
click-click-click
.

His skin chilled over despite the stifling heat. His head throbbed. His conscience screamed at him to save himself. But the intrigue became too much to bear. The clicking sounds were all around him, yet, in the complete lack of illumination, he only saw nothingness. Something was there, though, and without weighing the consequences of such a rash decision, he commanded the helmet lights to come on, and witnessed the single most heart-stopping vision in his life.

Blanketing the wall—two, three thick—were small, finger-length worms, attached to each other and the stone surface by sheaths of a sinuous, mucus-like substance infused with silky strands. All semitransparent. All disgustingly slimy. Broders was right. It was some sort of larvae, thrashing and contorting to the visual stimuli from the light.

Harvey panned his headlamps in every direction, and everywhere he looked it was nothing but the same—writhing maggots, encased in sticky shells of translucent webbing. Coating the wall up to the high ceiling, across to the other side of what was quite a large area chiseled from the mountain’s core. Every square centimeter of stone concealed, creating a living wallpaper. A squirming, contorting canvas of ghastly little beasts, tucked away in shells of slime.

All of a sudden his thirst for knowledge was flushed into oblivion. One step toward the way he came and he felt a strange popping sensation below his boot. Then he realized he hadn’t looked down yet. When he did, queasiness took over. The full comprehension of his surroundings hit him. The floor was carpeted with the maggots, with several of them smashed underfoot and several more, obviously agitated, making their way onto his boot and up the leg of his suit. The helmet lights hit one of them perfectly in its face. Harvey spotted sharp black mandibles, opening and closing again and again—
click-click-click
.

His panic reflex took over and he kicked, desperate to rid himself of the gruesome creatures.

Click-click-click
the sharp mandibles made a spine-tingling sound.
Click-click-click.

The writhing worms under his feet sent a wave of revulsion to his core. And then the final straw. A sound he’d heard before. A sound he never wanted to hear again.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

He’d recognize it in his sleep, or even in death. And he knew it meant his death if he didn’t get moving. It was the cyborgs.

He sprinted without a thought. No more poking around where he wasn’t supposed to be. How could he have been so stupid? The noxious worms reacted to his swift movements with swift movements of their own, swishing and thrashing more fervently. Some of them wriggled so hard they broke loose from their squishy cocoons, eating through with their serrated mandibles. Harvey swore he saw their black, velvety eyes glaring as they inched toward him from every direction.

Behind him he heard the cyborgs, and that invigorated him with a shot of natural energy. He had no problem traversing the dark corridors of the underground prison, past the warning signs and plaques and engravings of threatening images, finally reaching the area where the pictographs grew much more inviting.

There was only one way to go—up. Up a long, twisting ramp, where the going became steeper the higher he climbed, until he thought possibly he’d perish before even making it. One thing gave him solace. He heard no more of the cyborgs. Maybe he’d given them the slip. Maybe they were guarding the pupae. Whatever the reason, he seemed alone, and for that he was more than grateful.

The road to the top was self-explanatory, albeit strenuous. The Guardians, it seemed, made contacting them in the event of an emergency as simple as possible for a sentient being of almost any level of intelligence. He found that out especially when he reached the top.

The path leveled off, finally, just when he thought he couldn’t go any further. The sight before him renewed his energy, and he forgot all about being sore and tired. A grand temple, elaborately designed with monstrous columns of marble-like rock. Imbued symmetrically about the circumference were more engravings, all of which with an urgent tone. Serious symbols and severe expressions on alien faces.

It was an open area, situated on a large balcony, with a presiding view of the plains below. The visitor station shimmered in the distance. He wanted to be there right now. With Lea. Eating more of her strange and ancient dishes—at least the ones the food printers would replicate. He wanted this whole thing to be over, and dreamed that it had never happened in the first place. But it did happen. And he was there, unbelievably, on the summit of Mount Mausolus, in a place he didn’t even know existed only hours ago. It became a little daunting when he really thought about how quite possibly the fate of the galaxy might rest in his hands. The pressure would have crushed him like a bug. The one thing that kept him moving was Lea’s voice, hearing her instructions over and over in his head, telling him exactly what to do.

Because of Lea’s incessant drilling, Harvey knew where the beacon would be located before he reached the platform. When he got a good look, it became quite clear no instructions were needed. The beacon had a central position, the focal point of the entire temple, sitting high on a pedestal, with symbols and alien lettering conveying clear intent.

He climbed the ramp to the pedestal and as soon as his boots touched the stones at the top, a panel lit up with the most brilliant blue. He expected some kind of button or lever he had to press. Instead, the blue light swirled into a haze, surrounding Harvey, bathing him in a cool glow.

His mind filled with information. The story of the Unspeakable Ones, and their treachery that nearly brought the galaxy to its knees. Everything the spirits had told him was confirmed. How the Guardians, despite their extremely passive nature, entered the war and defeated the Unspeakable Ones. He also was shown, instantly, the entire narrative of how the Unspeakable Ones were transformed into larvae, and how they were imprisoned deep under the mountain for what was supposed to be eternity.

Then he was told about the beacon, left behind in case the Unspeakable Ones had escaped. The blue glow communicated all of this to him in a fraction of a second, using no words or languages, but by installing complete ideas into Harvey’s head, giving him instant knowledge of how to operate the beacon.

Once he learned how the beacon worked, a surprisingly simple process, he wasted no time. All it took, it seemed, was a thought. So he thought. He pushed the dilemma to the forefront of his mind, and, using the same process as the blue glow, asked, quite urgently, for the Guardians to come.

Instantly, the blue glow transformed to a fiery red. He heard a strident alarm, bursting forth in intervals, and the redness flashed in rhythm with the siren. The beacon had been activated. He did it. Now, all they had to do was wait.

Just as he finished that thought, a jarring event put an abrupt end to those hopes. A violent collision reduced the beacon transmitter to rubble. The stone table where the blue and red light originated was smashed beyond recognition, severing the mental link between Harvey and the beacon, and throwing him into an instant daze.

He stumbled back three steps, his thoughts jumbled with the images and ideas presented to him by the beacon. Distinguishing between reality and his thoughts was nearly impossible, and he shook his head over and over to make sense of what had just happened. Then, when his own consciousness came back to him, he was plopped into a terrifying reality. A cyborg stood over the broken beacon with a certain air of satisfaction. Not once did it take its cold, dead eyes off of Harvey.

9.

Harvey stared at the monstrous robot, then at the crushed transmitter. His one and only thought was if the beacon had done its job. Did the call for help get out? Consideration for his own life dissolved into a determination to complete the mission. But the beacon looked beyond repair. What could he do? He knew how to fix human electronics, not alien.

The robot stepped menacingly toward Harvey, its arms extended, its immense claws clacking together in a wretched way. It sent a chill down his spine, and with it his survival instincts kicked in. He sprinted to the one and only exit. But the idea of escape down the way he came was obliterated by the clanking machines. More robot killers were coming. His exit was blocked.

Nowhere else to run, he made a snap decision and hastened to the balcony, to the edge, where he peered over at his own death. Ledges and levels and rocky crevices abounded, making the way down a bone-shattering tumble. Everywhere he looked, he saw the same thing. A brutal climb. He’d never make it, especially considering the dexterity he’d seen from the cyborgs. Still, he had to try.

Suddenly his decision was revoked with a violent blow to his helmet. His visor display scrambled to digital artifacts and he found himself on the ground the second his senses came back. He could only react, not think, when, above him, he saw the mechanical monster, both of its long arms raised high, its razor sharp, stronger than exotanium talons pointed straight down. Harvey spun on the ground, his bulky suit only allowing him a half turn, but enough to send him rolling over the edge. His stomach jumped into his mouth at the sudden weightless sensation, and all he could envision was a horrible ride down the mountain, his bones pulverized, his internal organs ruptured, his body becoming a rag doll.

Then something clamped onto his leg. It felt like it was going to pinch off his foot, so he jerked and kicked, desperate to free himself from the cyborg’s grip. He glanced up. The robot had him, dangling over the edge, and could reel him in easily. Harvey didn’t have to think about it. He knew he was dead, and much rather wanted to die by his own hand than by the vile claws of those terrible, automated beasts. So he flailed and kicked and fought, determined not to let the cyborg have him.

Somehow his desperate effort paid off. Leaning and reaching for Harvey in a precarious way, the cyborg compromised its center of gravity. Harvey recognized that the second it teetered over. Once again, his head swam with images of his demise, both man and machine toppling down the deadly slope. In less than a second, his morbid thoughts came true.

A blow to his side. To his head and back. Then another to his side. Over and over, the two tumbled, with Harvey cradled inside the robot’s long arms as if in a cage, almost shielding him from harm. He knew it didn’t want to protect him, yet, against all odds, it did. His helmet also protected against what would have been some nasty bumps, one possibly fatal. And his suit—the suit he hated almost more than the cyborg that was trying to kill him—prevented several abrasions to almost every conceivable part of his body.

Not that he didn’t feel it. He felt it. It seemed they were plummeting forever, and would have been much longer if not for one miraculous occurrence. Suddenly, and more than fortuitously, he stopped falling. The abrupt halt to his momentum had him gasping for air, and he saw the cyborg grasp at him frantically. One more stroke of luck—the cyborg’s grip slipped. It seemed to forget about Harvey and grabbed at a rock, but it crumbled to sand. With nothing left to support its weight, the cyborg kept falling as Harvey, dangling in midair, tried to understand what had just happened.

It wasn’t long before he figured it out. The suit had a tool belt. And this belt, one of the sources of Harvey’s complaints, was quite cumbersome in that it stuck out in the back and made it quite uncomfortable to sit. It was this very irritation that had saved him. Somehow the belt got caught on a projecting rock, sparing him from the deadly drop.

He watched the cyborg roll and cartwheel rapidly. For any living creature the trauma would have been fatal. But this was no living creature. Still, the fall took its toll on the machine, breaking off parts, crushing a section of its head, bending its limbs in ways they weren’t meant to bend. Then, in one, final, terminal roll, it came apart into pieces. And when it stopped near the bottom, Harvey saw smoke rising from its midsection, a sure sign the cyborg was out of commission for good.

Harvey didn’t remember much after that. Dazed from the blows to the head, exhausted from hours of constant exertion, he considered himself lucky to extricate himself from his precarious position and crawl to level ground, where he collapsed in a breathless heap.

The sensation of motion awoke him. He didn’t know how, but he’d made it to the rover. Who was driving it? He had no energy to lift his head. His body felt like one big bruise, and the thought of moving sent waves of agony through his mushy muscles. He could only lay there, his blurred vision catching but a glimpse of the brilliant starry sky above.

More movement forced his eyes open. He was somewhere else now. No longer in the rover. The night sky no longer shimmered above. Instead, a cool, damp environment encapsulated him in silent repose. Inhaling deeply, he realized his suit had been taken off, and he smelled a familiar mustiness, heard noises he swore he’d heard before, saw places he knew he’d been.

However, it was all so hazy. His head swam with images of his terrible trip to Mount Mausolus. He felt himself being taken somewhere, and all he could think was the cyborgs must have caught up with him. Now they were taking him underground, most likely to his death.

But he kept noticing familiar sights. Plaques with engraved epithets. Fake flowers and rumpled flags. All the trappings of a mausoleum. Which one, he had no clue. There came a point where he no longer cared. Lea began to dominate his thoughts. He felt a tear well in his eye at his failure. He’d never see her again. He wouldn’t return to her gravesite like he’d promised. He was lost. And he couldn’t shake the feeling she was lost too. In his delirium, he called out her name, hopeful she’d hear him and, one more time, come to him.

But she never came. He dozed and awoke several times, no clue exactly how long he’d been out, and still with no real idea where he was being taken. Darkness was his only companion now. That and a solemn and palpable sense of doom. At any moment the hammer will strike and his life will be over. By some unknown reason, that didn’t happen. Instead of torture and pain and, finally, death, he was treated to kindness, gentle whispers, water, even food, though old and almost unpalatable. Still, it kept him alive. And, over time, the kindness and nursing brought him to a state of semi-consciousness, enough for him to assess his surroundings for the first time.

When he saw where he was, he had to check his own forehead for heat, just to make sure he wasn’t one of the dead. The underground catacombs. He would always recognize this place with its pale white walls and ensconced stacks of bones. And, swirling about in the gloom, were the spectral shapes he’d become accustomed to—the ghosts of Cemetery Planet.