The Caverns of Mare Cetus (32 page)

   "So you think she's crazy, right?"

   "That has crossed my mind. Maybe everything that happened to her is a result of some massive anxiety attack."

   "But there's still the knee," said Edison.

   Renata nodded. "True." She pulled her left pant leg up above her knee. "Maybe she only thought something was crawling on her. Doesn't that happen during delirium tremors? Then she scratched her knee, trying to get it off." Renata ran her fingernails on her knee.

   "But she had to have used something sharp. You can't slice your knee like that with your nails—and Richelle's aren't as long as yours."

   "Okay!" echoed Arielle's voice, interrupting them. "We're done!"

   "But is she dressed?" returned Edison as he stood up.

   "She will be by the time you get here. Thankfully!"

   Renata followed Edison as he hurried toward the women. Arielle was reviewing the results when they got to them. Richelle was dressed, except for her jacket, socks, and boots.

   "Ninety-seven percent coverage," said Arielle. "We only have misses on her head and hands. You're right. Something in the dust must be interfering with the signals." Arielle whispered in Renata's ear. "That poor girl really believes she's impregnated. We had to run four scans…" She pointed down to her genitals. "…down there. I'm not a freaking gynecologist you know. Way too personal for me. Hey!" She had just noticed Renata's nails. "I have my nose stuck up her crotch, and you're dusting your nails? You bitch." She laughed.

   Renata blushed. "Say, was Devon wearing nail polish?"

   "That's a pretty weird question," said Arielle, pausing. She shook her head. "Our first camp. I remember. Nope. Wasn't wearing any. Why do you ask?"

   "Just curious." Renata glanced at her nails. "Okay, what's with the results on Richelle?"

   "Now that, my girl, is a pretty weird answer. Basically nothing. Nothing but 100 percent Richelle…and of course your typical tumor."

   "What?"

   "Tumors apparently show up as deviations on organic runs."

   "She didn't have it on Novia?"

   "No. It's not in her records. Sometimes they can grow pretty quickly, I've read."

   "Where is it?" asked Renata.

   "Where do you think?"

   "Uterine?"

   "Of course."

   "I need a hysterectomy," said Richelle, coming up to them.

   "I told you," said Arielle. "It's an intramural fibroid tumor, nothing more. The Mediprogs verified it. Five pills once we get back to Novia, and it's gone."

   "Five pills aren't going to matter m-m-much after it's eaten me alive from the inside out." Richelle looked down at her stomach.

   Renata yanked on two clumps of her own her hair—hard. "Look. We'll run a scan later if we need to. And yes, Ari, I'll do it, and you can dust your nails. But we absolutely have to go—now. And I'm telling you this, Richelle—listen clearly. If you pull another stunt again, you're going to be on the receiving end of my electra. Understand?"

   Richelle seemed to ignore Renata's threat. She put her hands on her lower abdomen, as if feeling for the tumor inside of her.

   Arielle gave the Vimap to Renata who watched the passage outlines highlight in blue as the system refigured the passage dimensions to a centimeter. Bold green statistics flashed at the top of the Vimap's screen, indicating the measurements checked out. Renata turned toward Edison. "Don't take your eye off her. Don't let her get into anything."

   "Gotcha." Edison took Richelle by the arm, and the four began hurrying down the gently curving passage.

   As they hiked, Renata noticed the walls of the rounded, narrow passage were comprised of a series of parallel, thin-bedded brownishgray limestones uniformly sandwiched between massive, thickbedded greenish-gray blocks. The near perfection of the structure made it appear they were moving through a curving tunnel of expertly handcrafted bricks and masonry blocks.

   She glanced at her Vimap. The green dot denoting Kalo One still showed brightly on the screen, the readout indicating it wasn't very far ahead of them. Since Renata was counting on Trent's calm influence to restore sanity to their situation and perhaps piece together their shattered morale, she picked up her pace, anxious to meet up with him.

   Within a short distance, the passage straightened, and Renata could see some glowing bluish-white lights ahead. She began racing toward them as much as her aching body would permit, the others closely behind. After a short distance more, she could make out the distinctive silhouette of Kalo One. When she reached it, noting it was close to the passage wall and was powered-down, she stopped, her impulsiveness turning into an unsettling caution. She began to survey the corridor.

   "There she is!" shouted Richelle as she bounded past Renata. Her jubilation was immediately supplanted by harsh wails. "Isis! Oh, Isis!"

   As Renata stepped behind Richelle, she understood why. Isis' body was propped against the wall, her left leg outstretched, her right bent at the knee. Her eyes closed, her head was slumped to her right, her face a ghostly white, a veil of dried crimson blood smeared across her left cheek and chin. Her left pant leg was soaked deeply in blood, and a shirt that had been used as a tourniquet was tied tightly around her upper thigh. A bloody, bundled cloth was wrapped with tape over the wound.

   When Edison and Arielle saw her, they gasped.

   Renata quickly searched the passage. Several small pools of dried blood were in the center of the passage, and there was a trail of blood leading toward Isis' body.

   "No, Isis," continued Richelle as she consoled Isis' corpse. "No. No. This can't be happening. You can't leave me this way. You can't…"

   "Damn it," said Renata, staring in both disgust and pity. "We weren't even close." As Richelle continued to hold onto Isis, Renata crouched and began to examine Isis, noticing she was covered with blotches and streaks of blood—in her hair, on her jacket, on her hands—just about everywhere. Renata removed the cloth that covered the wound, clenching her teeth when she saw the messy, gaping hole in her thigh where the bullet had exited. Queasiness pouring through her stomach, Renata peered into the wound.

   She straightened up and took Isis' hand but was ill prepared for how cold it was, how devoid of life. She laid Isis' hand back by her side, then bent Isis' knee, pushing her leg up toward her body. She leaned over, noticing a pool of blood on the ground beneath Isis' leg, then examined the small, clean round wound on the back of Isis' thigh.

   "Where's Trent?" asked Arielle as she stooped behind Renata.

   "Now that's really odd," muttered Renata as she stretched out Isis' leg. She stood up and put her hand behind her thigh. "How could she have shot herself in the back of the leg like that? Could she have been running, and somehow the gun was behind her? Is that possible?"

   "I have no idea," said Arielle who was now standing and anxiously glancing up and down the passageway. "Why isn't Trent here? We need to find him."

   Renata looked toward Edison. "Do you think she could have shot herself like that?"

   Edison glanced at Isis, then shrugged.

   Renata turned back toward Isis and Richelle—it was an absolutely pitiful sight to see them like this, especially in light of the friendship they apparently had, which Renata had only begun to realize. Renata felt very bad for Richelle…

   "Does it really matter?" asked Arielle. "What's the point in playing detective now? I know you want the answers to everything, but can't you just forget that crap for once and admit we blew it…" Her eyes welling with tears, her anger melted. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

   After Renata took in the heartbreak of Isis and Richelle for a moment more, she broke her gaze. "You're right. We certainly do need to find Trent, don't we?" She motioned to Richelle. "Come on, Richelle."

   Richelle waved her off. "No. Leave me alone. I need to be with her."

   Renata was in no mood to fight with Richelle again. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Ari, can you stay with her? Do you think you can handle her?"

   "I managed her when you two sissies couldn't," whispered Arielle. "You owe me twice now." She put a hand on Renata's shoulder. "She's pretty messed up. I think she just needs a little kindness. If that doesn't work, I'll torch her."

   Renata gave Arielle the electra, then tried her com, silence still dominating their communications. "Damn. They're still not working. Look, just scream if you have any problems. We're not going to go very far."

   "You'd better not. I'm not sure what I'd do if the lights went out again."

   "Somehow I don't think that's going to happen. Trust me." Renata called up a map of the surrounding passages on her Vimap. "Come on, Edison. Let's find Trent." They began walking in the same direction they had been going. The map indicated there were three passages ahead that appeared passable. She carefully studied the walls, highlighting small dead-end passages on the screen as they passed them.

   When they reached the first major passage, a large circular tube about two meters above the floor on their left, she had Edison climb up and call out to Trent.

   "Map says this one dead-ends about a hundred meters in," she said. "Let's keep going."

   They walked a short distance farther, arriving at the second passage, a narrow, upward-angled corridor containing small clusters and thin veins of a grayish-black metallic-looking mineral that ran between the thin brown limestone beds.

   "This one veers to the right forty meters in," she said, "then straightens out and goes a long way back. Let's try it."

   "What about this one?" asked Edison, pointing his thumb at a passage diagonally across from the one they were standing in front of.

   She looked at the Vimap, her eyebrows rising. "Wait a sec. That isn't on the map."

   "What?"

   She turned the Vimap screen toward him. "The next offset is supposed to be fifty meters farther."

   "Damn Kalos," he grunted.

   "Trent!" she called as she stepped into the passage Edison had pointed out, a narrow downward-grading channel with a low ceiling and a very uneven floor. Its walls were dotted with clusters of the same grayish-black mineral she had noted in the opposite sidechannel, some of them even displaying their crystalline form, looking like tiny inlaid octahedrons and tetrahedrons in the limestone wall. She also noticed another mineral, which appeared as patchy yellowish-white coatings on the wall and in the cracks, and as scattered yellow and yellowish-white streaks. "Trent!" She hunched down and started walking.

   "Hey. Where are you going?"

   "Come on," she said as she continued forward. The passage almost immediately jogged to the right, its ceiling beginning to converge toward the floor. She stopped momentarily, hearing Edison's footsteps behind her, then started forward again. After a short distance, the passage funneled into a constricted, jagged keyhole. She got down on her hands and knees and peered into the passage, her lights sparkling off pockets of the tantalizing grayish-black mineral as well as more of the yellowish streaks.

   Edison crouched over her, trying to get a glimpse into the keyhole. "What's the point? Why would Trent have gone in there?"

   "Why wouldn't he? Garrett might have gone down any of these passages looking for the Kalo."

   "I doubt a Kalo could fit in there."

   "You know better than that. Kalos can fit into passages even tighter than this. I'm going to check it out. Wait here if you want." She started crawling forward on her elbows and knees, the passage's ceiling barely a forearm's-length above her head.

   "No way," said Edison. "If a Kalo can do it, so can I."

   As she labored along the rugged floor, the claustrophobic passage curved to the right, continuing to narrow. Then it twisted to the left, and Renata turned on her side, grabbing onto some projecting rocks to pull herself forward. After she struggled against the difficult channel for a short time more while listening to Edison's grunting and complaining, the passage opened up into a modest rectangular enclosure that had another narrow passage leading out at its opposite end.

   "Hold the celebration," said Renata as she watched Edison work his way out and get to his feet.

   He groaned.

   She hurried to the other side and got down on her hands and knees again, leading Edison through the narrow passage, which went about half the length of the first one before it opened up. She stood up, stepped away from the narrow channel, and waited for Edison.

   After a moment, he crawled out on his elbows. He sighed with relief and clambered to his feet, dusting his hands off on his pants. Then he pointed down the passage. "Hey. Lights."

   "Hunter?" came Trent's voice over their coms. "Is that you?"

   Renata was shocked, a chill charging up her spine.
Now their coms
were working?
Renata called out to him over her com. "What are you doing down here?"

   "Renata!" he exclaimed, then paused. "I've been looking for Garrett. Be right there."

   Renata watched as Trent's lights moved toward them.

   When he reached them, his voice became light, apprehensive. "Something's wrong, isn't it? You look like you've been through hell. Where are the others?"

   "Hunter, Ramon, and Devon are gone," said Renata bluntly. "They're dead."

   Trent appeared dumbfounded. "No. That can't be. How? How did it happen?"

   As Renata and Edison filled Trent in on what had happened by the chasm, Trent became visibly shaken, his face breaking into a sweat. He walked over to a wall and leaned against it, putting both hands on the rocks, lowering his head. He looked like he was going to vomit.

   "I understand your pain," she said. "More than anyone." She rubbed his back. "I am so sorry."

   "About what?" he asked, his voice hollow, weak.

   "That I failed them and failed you too."

   "You didn't fail anyone. Don't blame yourself."

   "But I feel so responsible for everything. If we had gotten here sooner, maybe Isis would still be alive."