The Caverns of Mare Cetus (26 page)

   "Yeah, yeah," said Edison. "She's right. Someone stand guard. I can fix them."

   "And the spare ones and Vimaps as well?" asked Hunter. "No, Rene. You know better. That can't be the answer."

   "But the electras are working!" she retorted.

   "So what's the difference between the electras and all of our other light sources?" asked Ramon.

   "Most of our light sources are powered by infused CoTi batteries," said Renata. "But that doesn't explain why Edison couldn't get his matches, torches, or the stove to light, and I think the Vimap uses a combination of Positron-Jump and Neurasilica-Flux for power."

   "And the electras?" asked Ramon.

   Renata paused for a moment, trying to remember. "I think they operate on almost the same principle as lightning. When I fire the electra, it shoots out a pulse of ultrapressurized, highly-charged gas that swathes the area in electrons. An instant later, the gun lets loose with a pulse of positive ions. About 2.15 grams of beryllium sources it, I believe. The discharge tears through the negatively ionized area, though of course at considerably less power than does lightning. And also there's no return bolt, and a three-meter radius around the gun is supposed to become neutrally charged after the shot. It's effective range is highly dependent on how far the initial gas burst can get, which usually isn't over a hundred meters or so…"

   "Enough, Renata," said Ramon. "Enough already. If I had wanted a dissertation on electras I'd have asked Garrett. All I want to know is whether we can source our other lights using the power charges of the gun?"

   "Look. I might have a lot of knowledge up here." She pointed at her head but realized in the absolute blackness Ramon wouldn't know if she was pointing to her genitals. "But I'm not a miracle worker. I don't have any idea how we'd source the lights from the electras."

   "But think, Renata, think," said Ramon. "I know you can do it."

   "Lay off her," said Hunter. "We're all going to have to put our heads together to get out of this mess. Unless we…" Suddenly the cave was filled with light, as if a breaker had been thrown.

   "What the hell?" exclaimed Edison, blinking in utter astonishment. He looked at his symotes, which were now working perfectly.

   Exclamations of surprise and relief echoed through the passage.

   "I guess now this means you don't have to think," said Ramon. He stood up and tapped on Renata's hardhat with his fingers.

   She looked up. "Chíngate, cabrón!"

   "Yo se' que me adoras, Renata. Es desafortunado que tú no tienes…ummph."

   Arielle had placed her hand over his mouth, muffling him. "Shut the hell up already!" she shouted. "I don't know what the hell your problem is, but you'd better lay off her. Do you got that?"

   "Si, si, Señora Talarian," taunted Ramon, motioning with his hands as he stepped back from Arielle. "No querría entremeterse en tú y su amante de la puta."

   "You bastard!" Arielle's eyes bulged, her face contorting into a mask of seething rage. "I'm on to you. Are you calling me a whore?"

   Ramon chuckled.

   Arielle looked in his eyes briefly, dangerously, then pulled back her arm and let go with a tremendous punch, catching him squarely in the jaw.

   He reeled back and shook his head, but she sprang forward and knocked him to the ground, landing on top of him. "You bastard!" she cried as she flailed her arms, beating him on the chest with the sides of her fists. "You ungrateful bastard…"

   Hunter and Renata grabbed Arielle by her upper arms and picked her up off Ramon who, despite her attack, hadn't raised a hand to defend himself.

   "You son-of-a-bitch," sobbed Arielle, trying to wrest herself free from Hunter and Renata. "I know exactly what you're trying to do."

   "Yeah—trying to prove yourself an idiot," said Edison. "As always."

   "Keep out of this you overgrown gorilla," said Ramon.

   "Better watch what you say," said Edison, raising his fist. "I pack a bit more power in my swing than she does."

   "So do I," said Devon as she held out her hand and looked at her fingernails.

   Renata and Hunter released their hold on Arielle.

   "Stop it already," said Richelle who was holding a blanket around her legs, her pants now completely off. "My legs are on f-f-fire, and you clowns are horsing around. Help me. It stings like hell."

   "Help is on the way," said Edison. He moved next to Richelle.

   Arielle began crying. Renata took her by the arm and led her away from the others as Devon stood in front of Ramon, peering down at him as if she was his jailer. "I'm sorry," said Renata when she felt they were far enough away from Ramon.

   Arielle pulled a handkerchief out of her pants pocket and began wiping her tears. "He's the one that should be sorry. How could I have been so blind? I see everything that's going on now."

   Renata gulped. "Y-y-you do?" Her throat tightening, she felt like she had swallowed a wad of paper.

   "Yes. I've always been worried about the way he jokes around, that there's truth to what he says. Then when he said that stuff about the strip show, it made me wonder what was going on."

   Renata gulped again.

   "But I realize now he was only trying to humiliate you because you took command. God, how could I have let my jealousy get to me like that? I feel so stupid. With the way he treats you, there's no way anything ever could have happened, right?"

   Renata looked at Hunter who appeared to be giving Ramon a stern lecture. Devon was beside Hunter, her hands on her hips. Ramon was still sitting on the ground, rubbing his jaw with his hand. "Boy, you sure did slug him," she said, changing the subject and praying for Arielle to follow.

   "He deserved it," said Arielle, rubbing her reddened knuckles. "God, what a creep." She sniffled, then blew her nose into the handkerchief. "You know, he's ruined our relationship. And I let it happen. I am so sorry."

   "Don't say that."

   "I'm hurting, Rene. Really hurting." She hugged Renata. "Does this bother you, Ramon? Does this make you jealous?"

   "I didn't mean that," he said. "I was just shooting my mouth off."

   "Well, you shot it off once too often." She let go of Renata.

   Ramon got to his feet and waved his hands at Devon. "You, get out of my face." He stepped toward Arielle. "Look, we need to talk."

   "Why should we?" asked Arielle as she and Renata began walking toward Richelle.

   "Because you have to listen to me," said Ramon.

   "Arielle," said Hunter. "Why don't you give him a chance?"

   "Why should I?"

   "Because I'm asking you to. Come on. Go talk. Trust me."

   Ramon began walking to a secluded spot near one of the walls.

   Hunter shooed Arielle away with his hands. "Do it. Please."

   Frowning, she turned to follow Ramon.

   Hunter stepped up to Renata. She was both scornful and confused. "What are you trying to do?" she asked.

   "Give him a chance. For once I truly believe he realizes the consequences of his actions."

   "Yeah, sure," she said cynically. Renata stooped to pick up her Vimap, which was laying beside Richelle.

   Hunter took a scrutinizing look at Richelle's right leg, which she had stretched out straight for Edison. He was wiping a clear ointment on the strange marks. "How's it going?" asked Hunter.

   "F-f-fine, so far," stammered Richelle.

   "This ointment seems to be relieving her symptoms," said Edison. "But I still can't figure out how those marks got there or how she got cut—unless she was attacked by something."

   "But what is—something?" asked Renata as she worked with the Vimap.

   "You know, I've never been so scared in my life," said Hunter as he and Edison helped Richelle put her pants back on. "How could all of our equipment go out like that?"

   "Don't know," said Renata. "Just don't know. Richelle, the Mediprogs can analyze these marks, can't they? Like if a chemical or something organic touched you."

   Richelle nodded.

   Renata handed the Vimap to Richelle. After Richelle had coded into the subsystem, she laid back and placed the Vimap on her stomach. When the Vimap chimed, she picked it up—the screen was flashing. She sat up, grumbled a couple times, then pressed a few buttons on the interface—the flashing abruptly stopped. She read through the results. "No trace of any organics other than mine." She shook her head glumly. "No chemicals, nothing. But the marks on my stomach are running about t-t-t-two degrees centigrade above the temperature of the surrounding skin and the ones on my l-l-leg about three degrees above. So are the cuts on my knee." She turned the Vimap toward Hunter and Renata, showing them a multi-colored thermal scan of her body. Then she put her hand on her leg. "It's warm. I know that isn't right."

   Renata placed a hand on Richelle's shoulder. "Let's run another complete analysis, okay? Something might show up."

   As Richelle began the analysis, Renata rattled off ideas as to what might have happened. Her first guess was Richelle had been affected by some airborne chemical in the caves carried by a density cloud or aerogel that would have made her feel like something was touching her. Infiltration of such a chemical into their equipment could have been responsible for knocking out their lights and Vimaps, and might also have caused Edison's matches to sputter. Despite that possibility, Renata realized if they had encountered aerogels, which were known to occur naturally in some of the other caverns on Mare, why didn't anyone else display any marks or feel anything touching them except Richelle? And why didn't they pick up any trace of the aerogels on the Vimap readings? Also, the electra's bolt would have certainly "illuminated" some evidence of a density cloud. It didn't.

   Renata's second guess was that particle dimensioning was occurring in the caves, something their equipment couldn't detect. Though the existence of particle dimensioning had never been fully proven, she could associate Kalo Two's erratic behavior and their communication's problems to the bizarre range of physical anomalies that were supposedly caused by dimensioning. But again, particle dimensioning wouldn't have "attacked" Richelle nor would it have likely knocked out all of their power sources at once.

   Her third guess added to Trent's idea there was some electromagnetic property in the rocks, perhaps pulsating, that was affecting their equipment. Still, electromagnetic radiation shouldn't have caused Richelle to feel like something was attacking her and most certainly wouldn't have left cuts on her body. Besides, their Vimaps should have been able to detect emag even if they couldn't pinpoint its source. She had checked for residual emag and had scanned for all known com dampening minerals, but there weren't any.

   After Edison and Hunter discussed Renata's proposals with her, the three came to the conclusion that despite providing plausible answers to some of their questions, even the unlikely combination of all three possibilities couldn't adequately explain why others in the group hadn't been affected like Richelle nor could it explain what happened to their equipment.

   And if something had actually attacked Richelle, as Edison believed, and Hunter was beginning to believe as well, how did it slip past the rest of the group, since Richelle was in the center of the line? And why didn't they see it when the electra lit up the passage? Edison picked up his electra and began walking down the passage, searching for a place where "the something" could have entered.

   Renata might have bought into that theory, certainly Richelle's body bore the evidence she had been attacked, but Renata was pondering another idea, one she was afraid to bring up because she couldn't believe it herself. What if Devon was telling the truth? What if she was a Mendrax? Was it possible Devon had something to do with Richelle's attack? Renata stood up and walked to Devon, taking her by the arm and pulling her away from the others, toward one of the walls.

   Devon pushed back her hair. "You need to see something, don't you?

   "Your teeth," said Renata. "Let me see your teeth."

   "So lh-logical." Devon smiled widely, then opened her mouth.

   Renata peered in her mouth. "They appear flawless. But I'm not an expert, and I'll have to take Edison's word they're something extraordinary."

   "He should know, shouldn't he?" Devon brought her hands close to her face and began slowly rubbing her palms together in a circular motion.

   "If you truly are a Mendrax, then from what Garrett has said, you can do things, do things to people. You have some kind of power."

   "Anyone can do things to other people. There's nothing remarkable in that." She continued to rub her hands together, her eyes focused on her palms.

   "Don't play games with me. Did you do something to Richelle when we lost the lights?"

   "I didn't hurt her. I wouldn't. I can't do anything to women."

   "What do you mean you can't?"

   Devon abruptly pulled her hands apart. She looked at Renata. "God, you're intelligence makes you headstrong. Why is it you won't allow yourself to believe?"

   Renata placed her hands on her hips. "What is it I'm supposed to believe? Stop feeding me riddles. Tell me what a Mendrax is already."

   "Garrett understood. Why can't you?"

   "I might understand if you'd tell me something I could make sense of."

   "Damn it, Rene. You can be so frustrating at times. Didn't you see it in Garrett?"

   "See? See what?"

   "You said it. To Hunter."

   Renata wanted to grab Devon and shake her until her brains fell out. "How do you know what I said to Hunter? You weren't anywhere near us when we were talking about Garrett."

   "Say it," said Devon. "What did you see in Garrett?"

   Renata suddenly calmed. She took her hands off her hips. "Fear."

   "And when else have you seen fear in Garrett?"

   Renata thought. "Only when he talked about the Mendrax. He'd act weird. Sometimes he'd tremble. You! You're telling me he was afraid of you?"