The Caverns of Mare Cetus (31 page)

   "What's wrong?" asked Edison, stepping behind her.

   "I'm puzzled. The map indicates we've hiked about two thousand meters, but I don't see how we could have traveled that far in such a short time." Instinctively she went to look at her watch, then stopped.

"Who cares?"

   "I care," she snapped. "If the readings don't correlate with what we're doing down here, then I care a whole hell of a lot."

   Immediately, unexpectedly, Richelle reached out, snatching the Vimap from Renata's hand.

   "What are you doing?" cried Renata. "Give me that!"

   "This thing is worthless," said Richelle as she shook the Vimap at Renata. "It's a lie. A worthless, utter lie. Can't you see that?"

   Renata's face became flushed with rage. "Give me that!" She reached forward.

   Richelle pulled the Vimap away, stepping back toward the wall. She continued to shake it at Renata. "It's a lie. And it's g-g-going to cause us to die."

   At that moment, Renata noticed Richelle had an electra in her other hand.

   "Come on," said Arielle. "Give her the damn thing back already." She stepped forward, and Richelle raised the pistol, stopping her. Arielle drew back, putting up her outstretched hands in front of her. "Hey, there's no need to get nasty."

   "Get back," said Richelle as the pistol wavered in her hand.

   Edison took a step toward her. "Richelle. Come on. Put it down."

   "And d-d-do you know why our Vimaps are worthless?" Richelle looked right at Renata's face.

   Renata put her hands out beside her and shook her head.

   "You wouldn't, would you?
It's
making them worthless."

   "It?" asked Renata.

   "The thing that attacked me."

   "I'm still not sure if anything attacked you," said Renata in exasperation. "When I lit up the cavern with my electra, there wasn't anything by you. How could something have moved away from you that fast without us seeing it?" Her electra? Where was her electra?

   Richelle shifted the electra toward Renata. "Are you crazy? You saw what it did to me."

   Renata moved her left hand up to her left jacket pocket. The gun wasn't there. She ran her other hand over her right pocket. It wasn't there either. The last time she remembered having it was just before Arielle punched Ramon. She must have set it down, and Richelle must have picked it up. Damn it. Not only was Renata staring down the barrel of a gun—it was her own gun. She wanted to kick herself in the ass.

   "Uh, by the way," said Edison as he took another cautious step forward. "How are you feeling now?"

   "Lousy. It feels like it's crawling through my skin." As Richelle held the gun on Renata, she pulled up her shirt with her other hand, her fingers still clutched to the Vimap. Most of the redness on her stomach had disappeared, but there were slender reddish-orange lines running along the centers of where the blotches had been. "See what it's done to me."

   Edison crouched low and peered at her stomach. He edged a little closer. "Hey. That's good. The blotches seem like they're going away."

   "Of course they are. It's inside me now. It's infected me. It's impregnated me."

   "What?" exclaimed Renata.

   "I don't doubt you, honey," said Edison, continuing his stare. "Remember, we're your friends. We just want to help."

   "Just let me have the Vimap," said Renata, putting out her hand. "If you've been infected by something, we ought to be able to find out at least that much."

   "Didn't you listen to a word I said? The Vimap won't t-t-tell you anything." Richelle hit the bottom of the Vimap against the wall behind her. "They're infected too."

   "You're crazy." Renata stepped toward her, halting when Richelle aimed the electra at her face.

   "You-you-you're wrong, Edison. She's not my friend. She's not going to help me." Richelle slammed the Vimap into the wall, then whacked its screen against a jagged rock, shards of glass splashing in all directions. She hit it again, and the Vimap began sparking brightly, furiously. She whipped her arm toward Renata, flinging the Vimap at her.

   Renata ducked, the Vimap skimming over her left shoulder. As she straightened up, Richelle pulled the trigger on the electra; it was pointed directly at her head.
Click. Poof!

   Renata's heart skipped in her chest; she let out with a gasp.

   Edison pounced on Richelle and grabbed her arm, knocking it against the wall, the electra falling to the ground. She struggled against him briefly, but he grabbed her other arm, pinning both of her arms behind her.

   "My God!" cried Renata "You could have incinerated me!"

   "Jesus!" exclaimed Arielle. She began gasping and holding her sides. She pulled the container of OPPs out of her pocket and hurriedly crammed two of the tablets into her nose. Almost at once she began to breathe easier.

   Renata's heart continuing to race, she placed her hand over her breastbone and took some deep breaths, trying to calm herself. "You just tried to kill me."

   "No, I didn't," said Richelle. "I needed to show you. It didn't fire because nothing works down here."

   Renata picked up the gun and opened the stock and was surprised with what she found. "This isn't my gun. It's set for ELDeFIB. This is the gun Hunter used to save Arielle." Her voice rose. "It couldn't work."

   Richelle gasped. "Oh, oh…I-I-I…"

   "Rene, your gun should be in your pack," said Arielle, her voice quavering. "Ramon put it in there for you…"

   "It's bad enough I lost my Vimap in the pit," grumbled Renata as she reconfigured the chips in the electra's stock, "but to lose another like this is ridiculous."

   "I have Ramon's," said Arielle as she took it out of her pocket. "It fell on the ground before he…" She broke into a sob.

   "Edison," said Renata. "Where's your Vimap?"

   "Richelle grabbed it for me…" His words dissolved into nothingness.

   "No," groaned Renata, a stark realization dropping on her like a ton of putrefying cantaloupes. "Richelle."

   Richelle smiled at her weakly, wryly. "I-I-I threw it away."

   "Maybe this one's salvageable," said Arielle, sniffling. She picked up the Vimap and sighed. "Not likely. She cracked its modular processor."

   Renata stepped up to Richelle and grabbed her jacket by the collar. "Thanks to you, we're down to one Vimap. Do you realize what kind of predicament that puts us in?"

   "I'm infected," said Richelle. "Do you realize what kind of predicament that puts me in?"

   "What do we do? What do we do?" asked Edison anxiously, still holding onto Richelle's hands.

   "Look," said Renata, letting go of Richelle. "If Edison lets you go, will you let me run a scan on you?"

   "For what?" asked Richelle as she tried to wriggle out of Edison's grip.

   "For anything at all that could be infecting you."

   Richelle stopped working against Edison. "Sure. L-l-let's do that. Good idea." She smiled briefly.

   Edison looked apprehensive about letting her go, but Renata nodded her approval. He let go of Richelle's arms.

   Arielle handed Ramon's Vimap to Renata who quickly ran through some diagnostics, the electra in her other hand. "See." She turned the display to Richelle. "All diagnostic tests passed."

   "Then scan me," said Richelle. She spread her legs and held out her arms to her sides. "D-d-do it."

   "I'm going to scan you for organic contamination." Renata began slowly moving the Vimap over Richelle's body, starting with her left foot. After several moments, she had Richelle turn around and scanned her backside. A few minutes more and she had the results.

   "Nothing," said Renata. "There isn't a parasite, germ, or virus inside your body that shouldn't be there. You're as clean as you were after decontamination—before we boarded the ships. There is nothing on you or in you that shouldn't be there."

   Richelle wheeled around. "Let me see."

   Renata pulled the Vimap away as Richelle put her hands out toward it. "No way." She stepped back, then showed Richelle the display.

   Richelle leaned forward to look at the screen. "It's wrong. It has tt-to be. Look at all the scan omissions. It's only a 73 percent coverage."

   Renata examined the results. "It's probably all that dust on you. Something in it must be blocking the penetration scans. The only way we could get better results is if you took off all your clothes, like we have to for some procedures at the decon labs on Novia."

   "Well, let's d-d-do it then." Richelle quickly took off her jacket and hardhat, dropping them on the ground by her feet.

   "We're not going to do that here," said Renata.

   "Yes, we are." Richelle pulled her shirt up over her head and threw it on the ground. "It's not your body that's infected." She unfastened her bra and held it against her chest.

   Edison put his hand over his eyes.

   Renata looked to Arielle whose jaw had fallen to the floor.

   Richelle bent over and dropped her bra to the ground.

   "Stop it," said Renata. "We don't have time for this nonsense."

   Richelle began taking off her left boot. "I'm not going anywhere until you run another scan."

   "Edison," said Renata. "Pick her up and carry her then."

   "No way," he said, his hand still over his eyes. He briefly opened his fingers, then closed them. "Look at her. She's almost naked."

   "Then help me get her clothes back on," said Renata.

   "Are you kidding?"

   Renata took a deep breath, trying to quell her anger. As she watched Richelle pull off her other boot and take off her socks, the situation became too painful for her to cope with, reminding her of her confrontation with Ramon. "Edison. Ari. I'm not going to be able to do the scan. Can either of you do it?"

   Edison's back was turned toward Richelle. "If I don't carry naked women, then I certainly don't scan them."

   Arielle's voice rose. "What do you mean you can't do the scan? You're the one who offered to do it. You're the expert here."

   "I'm sorry. I just don't think I have the patience for this right now."

   "Patience?" exclaimed Arielle. "Liar. You just don't want to scan her because she's naked. Well, you caused that, Miss Have-TheAnswer-For-Everything. You know, Rene, sometimes being stupid is smart."

   "I'm sorry," said Renata. "I can't do it."

   "Look. It's not like you have to stick your nose up her crotch or something. Just scan her."

   "I can't do it," repeated Renata.

   "Fine. Then just let her do it herself."

   "And have her gut our last Vimap?"

   "Oh, yeah. Didn't think of that. Okay. I'll pull your ass out of the fire this time, but you owe me big for this."

   After Renata showed Arielle how to run the tests, she held out the electra for her. "Hold this on her if you need to."

   "You're joking, right? What's she going to do dressed like that, I mean, undressed?"

   Renata glanced at Richelle. She had only her panties on now; her long blond hair, despite the dust clinging to it, was draped gracefully over her shoulders, covering her breasts.

   Renata asked Edison to bring the broken Vimap and to follow her. They walked far enough down the passage to give Arielle and Richelle some privacy, then sat down across from each other on two greenishgray limestone boulders.

   Edison began examining the Vimap, nimbly accessing the tiniest of components despite the size of his fingers. "How the heck did the screen break? It's made of fused mica-glass."

   "You're right," said Renata, looking perplexed. "Its tensile strength should have made it unbreakable, at least with what she did to it." She watched Edison as he worked with the Vimap's components for a moment.

   "Do you think she's actually infected with something?" he asked abruptly.

   "I'm not sure what happened to her. Everything seems to point to something attacking her, but why didn't we see it?"

   Edison seemed to be in thought for a moment. He shrugged. "It's invisible?"

   "When I start believing in ghosts, I'll believe that."

   "Move it slower!" they heard Richelle cry.

   "Come on!" exclaimed Arielle. "I want to get this done already. If you think I'm enjoying this…" Their voices faded.

   As Renata and Edison stared at each other awhile, saying nothing, Edison began pressing his hardhat over his knee.

   "What did you think of Devon?" asked Renata, breaking the silence.

   Edison picked up his hardhat from the top, gripping it by only the tips of his spread out fingers and thumb. "Sweet kid. Gonna' miss her."

   "Did you talk to her much?"

   "A bit now and then. Helped her out a few times with some of the Vimap databases—personnel files and such. We mostly talked about light stuff, though. Like her jewelry, her nail polish, and the way she liked her hair."

"Polish. What polish? I don't remember her having any on."

   "Sure she did. How could you miss it? It was lavender—my favorite color, though I'm a bit weird."

   Renata pulled out her nail polish duster from one of her fastened pockets—102 colors in a tube. She began touching the tube's pointed tip to the center of each of her fingernails, the polish evenly and perfectly coating each nail in turn. Cherry red.

   "But with the way you girls dust different colors all the time, maybe she put some on just for me."

   Renata didn't answer but continued to admire her nails.

   "Do you think there could be something inside of Richelle?" asked Edison after a moment.

   She looked up. "I don't see how. She didn't say anything about being infected until now. Frankly, some of the scratches on her looked like they could have been made with her fingernails. The knee though—that is puzzling."

   Edison began tapping his fingers on his hardhat as they stared at each other again. "What if it's some life form we can't pick up on the Vimaps?"

   "Then it would be magic as far as I'm concerned. We can't find the answers if we can't analyze the data."