Labyrinth of Night (43 page)

‘Besides Miho and me, of course,’ Nash said.

‘If it helps to ease your mind,’
L’Enfant continued,
‘my guess
i
s that your demise will be quick and relatively painless. The enemy will kill you as soon as they’ve detected your presence, then seize this strange thing you’ve brought with them and take it deeper into their catacombs. So you’ll be long-dead by the time the device detonates.’

‘Imagine my relief,’ Nash replied drily.

Swigart looked up from the nuke again.
‘Timer setting, Commander?’
she asked.

L’Enfant considered the question.
‘Two hours…no, make it three. Just to be on the safe side.’
He hesitated again.
‘Mr Boggs, can you have us out of here in two hours and at a safe distance within three?’

Boggs didn’t say anything for a few moments.
‘Yeah,’
he reluctantly muttered
, ‘I can get you
…
’

L’Enfant cleared his throat meaningfully.
‘Pardon me, captain Boggs?’
he asked.

‘Yes
sir,
Commander L’Enfant,’
Boggs amended. His stiff tone of voice suggested that he was on the verge of grinding his teeth.
‘The
Akron
can be ready to leave in two hours.’
He paused, then added,
‘Call it seventeen-thirty hours, sir.’

Nash glanced up at the illuminated heads-up display inside his helmet. It was now 1515, local time: mid-afternoon in the central Mars meridian. Perhaps Boggs was only conveniently rounding it off a bit, but it was possible that the pilot was trying to buy them a little more time. As if it mattered; as soon as they entered Room C4-20, he and Sasaki would be at the mercy of the pseudo-Cooties. Mercy was one trait that was in demonstrably short supply among the alien mechanisms.

Even so, those extra fifteen minutes might make all the difference…

L’Enfant appeared to be mulling it over, and Nash didn’t want him to notice the slight discrepancy. ‘You still haven’t answered the question, captain. What about Kawakami and Verduin and Isralilova and the others…?’

‘And us?’
Miho added.
‘What will be your alibi for our absence when you get back to Arsia?’

For a moment, L’Enfant seemed to be distracted; through his helmet faceplate, Nash could see his eyes unblinkingly locked onto some point midway between the floor of the tunnel and the ceiling. Swigart’s right hand remained poised above the keypad as she gazed up at him expectantly, awaiting a final order. Nash was wondering if he should risk a last-ditch attack on the commander when L’Enfant appeared to shake himself out of his reverie.

‘Yes, that’s fine,’
he said absent-mindedly, as if a consensus agreement had been reached while he was woolgathering and he was making the final call.
‘Arm the detonator for eighteen-thirty hours, Lieutenant.’
As Swigart bent over the nuke once more, carefully tapping the parameters into the digital timer, he went on
, ‘I hardly need an alibi, Dr. Sasaki. During the dust storm there was an accident…say, a piece of rock was hurled through the window of the wardroom. Because everyone was in there having an early dinner, they were all killed in the blowout. Only Lieutenant Swigart, Mr Boggs and myself were spared, since we happened to be aloft in the airship, surveying the Chryse Planitia…’

‘Aw, c’mon…!’
Boggs blurted out, before he remembered the precariousness of his own position and shut up.

‘He’s right,’ Nash said. ‘It’s total bullshit. No one will believe you for a second.’

‘True, it’s not a likely story…but then, it hardly matters how implausible the fabrication may be.’
There was gloating in L’Enfant’s voice now.
‘Much like the
Takada Maru,
isn’t it? Since it is the cover-story for this operation, the Pentagon will support my allegations, and the contrary evidence will have been buried by natural forces. Everything else is circumstantial. Nothing will happen to us, at least in the long run.’

He chuckled.
‘Besides, this sort of tragedy has happened before on Mars, has it not? If anything, the anti-space movement will make it into one more reason for us to get off this planet. A disastrous waste of lives and so forth. That’s fine with…’

‘The timer has been set, sir,’
Swigart interrupted, glancing up from the nuke. Looking down at the bomb, Nash noticed that the top LCD read 1830; below it, a second chronograph displayed a row of zeros.
‘Awaiting your command.’

‘You may arm the device, Lieutenant.’
L’Enfant gave the order without hesitation, yet for a moment Swigart’s hand lingered over the keypad. She stared at the two people she was condemning to death; for the briefest of instants, Nash thought he glimpsed an expression of remorse through her helmet faceplate. Then her face hardened again, and as she entered the final code sequence into the nuke’s detonator, the bottom LCD blinked and a new string of digits appeared: 03:14:59:00.

The countdown had begun.

Swigart closed the access panel and resealed it with a portable electric screwdriver; they could hear a faint whine as the screws were driven back into place.
‘If you’re thinking of prying open the shell and deactivating the bomb,
L’Enfant added
, ‘I should warn you in advance that it has…’

‘An auto-destruct override that will detonate the bomb if the proper codes are not entered,’ Nash finished. ‘Yes, I know. I’ve been briefed on this sort of mine.’ He felt sweat drooling down the inside of his skinsuit as he watched Swigart finish her work and stand up. ‘And that’s it? You’ve got nothing more to say to us?’

‘
Brave to the very end. I respect that.’
L’Enfant mulled over the question for a few seconds.
‘You should consider what you’re doing not a sacrifice, but a service,’
he said solemnly.
‘Not just for your respective countries, but for the entire human species. For this, I salute you.’

‘Yes,’ Nash replied. ‘And fuck you, too…Captain.’

L’Enfant made no verbal response, but his right forefinger twitched near the trigger of his assault rifle. Swigart silently stepped away from the nuke, unshouldering her own rifle and aiming it at Boggs.
‘Mr Boggs, you’ll come this way, please,’
she said.

Boggs started to step forward, then halted and turned back to Nash and Sasaki. Their suit lamps cast a harsh glare over his helmet faceplate, so they couldn’t see his face, but his voice over the comlink was choked.
‘Hey, man, I’m sorry it worked out this way,’
he said to Nash.
‘I didn’t think…’

‘Don’t sweat it,’ Nash replied. ‘You didn’t know. Just straighten up and fly right, okay?’

‘Yeah. Can do.’
Boggs was at a loss for words as he turned toward Sasaki.
‘Babe…’
He let out his breath as a mournful sigh.
‘Maybe it’s too late now, but I just want to say that I’m sorry for all the dirty jokes.’

He hesitated, then added,
‘And that I love you…always did.’

Miho didn’t respond at once. She reached out and briefly took Boggs’ gloved hands in her own.
‘We’ll meet again, Waylon,’
she said very quietly.
‘Then I’ll listen to your apology.’

She stopped, then said something in Japanese which might have meant
I love you, too.

Sasaki released his hands; Boggs gazed at her one last time, then reluctantly turned and stepped carefully around the nuclear mine. Swigart immediately grabbed his arm and pulled him out of firing range, pushing him behind L’Enfant. Even if Boggs had considered overcoming the commander in that brief moment when L’Enfant’s back was turned toward him, the notion was quickly quashed when the lieutenant swung around to cover him with her rifle.

‘All right. So much for the long good-byes.’
L’Enfant tipped the muzzle of his Steyr toward the nuke.
‘Pick up the device, Seaman Nash. You too, Dr. Sasaki.’

Nash bent down and took one end of the handle of the bomb in his right hand. Sasaki grasped the other end with her left hand. As they hefted the mine, Nash was vaguely surprised at its lightness; it weighed not much more than a heavy suitcase. The bomb was cumbersome, but he could have hauled it by himself. L’Enfant had ordered Sasaki to assist him only because it was a convenient way of getting rid of two of the last three persons who could cause him problems.

‘Now turn around and carry it into the chamber,’
L’Enfant said.

It was the very last thing he wanted to do, but Nash wasn’t about to demean himself by making empty gestures of rebellion or contempt. Boggs was being held at gunpoint, and Nash had little doubt that L’Enfant wouldn’t hesitate to kill another hostage, although he also intuitively knew that the pilot’s life was forfeit once the
Akron
returned to Arsia Station.

Yet, as they lugged the mine through the doorway and into the darkened crypt, he was surprised that L’Enfant had no final words for him. As they entered C4-20, he heard a metallic clang from behind him, then a faint grinding noise. He looked over his shoulder and saw the pneumatic jack had been kicked away, and the massive portal was sliding shut. They were alone in the Labyrinth.

As soon as the door had closed completely, Sasaki swiftly gestured with her free hand for Nash to put the mine down. He glanced toward a narrow opening in the far wall of the room; in minutes, if not seconds, the pseudo-Cooties would be swarming into the chamber. Miho kept jabbing her finger urgently toward the floor.

‘What are you…?’ he started to say.

She shook her head; her hand now made a shushing gesture, urging him to be quiet. Nash fell silent. Following her lead, he bent over to gently lower the nuke to the floor. As soon as their hands were off the device, Miho grabbed his right wrist, pulled his wristpad toward her and, unexpectedly, switched off his com-link.

She did the same with her own unit, then grasped his shoulders and pulled him close until her helmet faceplate touched his own. ‘Stay off the radio!’ she shouted, her voice a muffled murmur inside his helmet. ‘They home in on electromagnetic frequencies!’

Nash was confused, but he nodded his head. ‘Stand against the wall over there!’ she shouted again. ‘Lie flat against it and stay absolutely still…and turn off everything in your suit! Your lamp, the heaters, the oxygen recirculator…’

‘The life-support system?’ He gaped at her. ‘How are we going to breathe?’

‘The reserve tank will cut in!’ she snapped. ‘You can draw air from it for a few minutes and your suit will retain your body heat! Don’t argue with me! Go!’

Miho released him, then hurried to the wall farthest away from both the nuke and the entrance to the catacombs. Nash glanced again at the opening in the wall; he was astonished to see that several of the stones were moving inward, as if being pried loose from within.

The pseudo-Cooties were already on their way.

Nash rushed to the wall and put his back flat against the hard surface. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he fumbled with his chest unit, tapping his fingers against the recessed buttons. Red emergency lights flickered on his heads-up display as he hastily switched off the skinsuit’s primary life-support system; he heard a thin hiss of air as the oxygen reserve tank automatically kicked in, taking up the slack from the deactivated oxygen extraction system. He would have to breathe shallowly; the reserves were intended only to be used in case the OLLSS experienced a power failure, and it was expected that the wearer would already be dashing to the nearest airlock.

The suit began to go cold as he turned off the internal heating system. Last to go was the helmet lamp; Miho had already turned off her own lamp, and the chamber was plunged into darkness, broken only by the dim red illumination of his battery-powered heads-up display.

Nash flattened the palms of his hands against the wall, forcing himself to remain still. It was more difficult to remain calm; he could hear a thin scraping noise from the general direction of the opening, presumably more blocks being hauled away. He didn’t want to think about what was invading the chamber, so he concentrated on getting his respiration under control.

Breathe shallow, he told himself. Breathe shallow…little bit in, little bit out…little bit in, little bit out…

The scraping noise increased; either imagined or real, he thought he felt a slight vibration on the floor beneath his boots, as if something was moving into the room. He peered into the frigid blackness, trying to see something, but everything was rendered invisible. For all he knew, one of the minotaurs could be standing directly in front of him, a massive claw rearing up to make a fatal strike…

Stop it,
he thought.
Don’t assume anything. Just work on your breathing. Little bit in, little bit…

Something scurried across the toe of his right boot.

He stiffened, involuntarily sucking in his breath, but he caught himself before he could move. More vibrations from the floor, but this time all around him. Now he could hear vague, tinny metallic movements, as if the chamber had come alive with nocturnal insects.

Take it easy, he commanded himself. Don’t freak. Just remain still. Breathe in…breathe out…breathe in…

Something else moved across his feet, but this time it didn’t leave. Nash didn’t have to see it to know what it was. His bladder was suddenly full and he desperately needed to urinate, but he knew that if he whizzed now, the pissoir would flood because he had turned off the fluid waste-removal system.
Don’t wet your pants, August. Just hold it until…

Another pseudo-Cootie crawled across his feet. He felt a tug at the calf of his left leg, then another at his right. More pseudo-Cooties danced across his feet, but he hardly noticed because tiny little legs were clinging to the fabric of his suit’s outergarment, grasping each fold and wrinkle as they scuttled up his knees, up his thighs, scaling towards his groin and hips.

They were climbing up his body.

He struggled against the sharp impulse to scream, to throw the creatures off his suit and dash…

Where? He was locked in this chamber. L’Enfant had caused the door to close. There was no way out.