The Stars Down Under (12 page)

The yellow light flashed again. The next Mother Sphere appeared around them. Myell felt nauseated and closed his eyes against an attack of dizziness.

“With all due frankness, sir, that one sucked mightily,” Lavasseur said, putting his hands on his knees.

“It's probably the distance between stations,” Collins said, looking queasy himself. “Greater the distance traveled, worse we might feel.”

Breme said, “Look there. Equipment.”

Four flashlights played over a tarpaulin and some small crates. “Haul out,” Nam ordered, and they left the ouroboros to continue without them. Myell was happy to sit on the ground and rub the back of his aching head. Collins spread more of that miracle gel on his wrist. Already his skin there was blue, but it did help.

Lavasseur inspected the crates. “Serial numbers match Commander Gold's manifest.”

Gayle nodded briskly. “Excellent.”

Outside was a mountain slope of thin green grass, with clear blue skies and a nearby cliff that dropped a thousand meters into a rocky valley. Myell had never suffered from vertigo, but as he gazed out at the sweeping vista of green mountains and plunging ravines, he could heartily appreciate a fear of heights. The Mother Sphere looked like a giant marble, ready to roll down into oblivion with one push of a giant's hand.

“Jesus,” Breme said, gazing at the valleys far below.

“Good place for hang gliding,” Saadi said.

Gayle and Breme took a trip up the slope. Myell sat on the grass, happy for the sunshine after the gloominess of the Sphere. Saadi monitored his GNATs while Lavasseur conducted an inventory of what Gold's mission had left behind. Litter, mostly. A dead flashlight. Some freeze-dried ration cartons, empty. No notes. No messages for anyone who might come after them.

“No signs of a campfire, either, Commander,” Collins said. “They didn't stay long.”

Gayle and Breme came back down the hill. They'd found nothing of the missing team. Nam ordered them to move on. At the next station Lavasseur went down on his knees and vomited. Nam called a time-out for Collins to do a medical check on everyone.

“Thought this Blue-Q was supposed to make everything better,” Lavasseur said sourly, as they sat outside in tall grass. A savannalike plain stretched out all around them. The air was hot and still under a cornflower-blue sky. The sun was almost directly overhead.

“It's not a cure-all.” Collins went around to all of them, pressing sensors against their skin, collecting blood samples for later analysis, and dispensing more blue gel as needed. “But we'd be far worse off without it, trust me.”

This Mother Sphere was flanked by two Childs. Gayle, who seemed to be tolerating ouroboros travel better than any of them, went off to investigate. With Nam's permission, Lavasseur stretched out with his pack as a pillow and dozed. Collins busied himself with his medical duties while Breme scouted the perimeter. Myell sat a short distance away.

Saadi, crouched nearby, was stowing his GNATs back into their cases. He said, “I hear you declined chief's initiation.”

“That's right,” Myell said.

“You think you can turn it down?”

Myell swatted at a fly. “Yes, Chief Saadi, regulations say I can.”

“Shit on regulations. You're not a chief just because you put on the insignia.”

Another fly tried to land on Myell's arm. “But you are a chief after you let someone force-feed you rotten eggs? After they make you crawl through shit and garbage?”

“Fucking lies, all of that,” Saadi said hotly.

Gayle returned from the Child Spheres, a frown on her face. “I couldn't trigger a token in either one. We've never called them out in anything but Mother Spheres. But you, Chief Myell, reported that you and Commander Scott went through a Child when you traveled out of Warramala. I need you to try now.”

Myell said, “No.”

Gayle's gaze hardened. “What?”

He didn't move from his spot in the grass. “I refuse.”

Lavasseur lifted his head. Saadi muttered, “Figures,” and Gayle turned to Nam.

“You said he was onboard with this,” Gayle said.

“Chief,” Nam warned.

“I'll support anything that locates Commander Gold's team and gets us home,” Myell said. “Exploring other Spheres isn't part of that. Not without proof the missing team switched loops. We start wandering off on other branches, we'll never get home.”

“We're not wandering off!” Gayle said. “All I'm going to do is vid a token, if it comes. The glyphs will help us build a better map, might cross-reference back to Fortune or the Seven Sisters—it's absolutely imperative we accomplish as much as we can at these stations! Am I the only one who understands that?”

Nam studied Myell. “Dr. Gayle's request isn't unreasonable.”

“I won't do it, sir,” Myell said.

Gayle glared at him. “Yes, you will.”

A scream from Breme ripped through the air.

Nam and the Marines jerked to their feet, mazers in hand. The grass to the west rippled and bowed as Breme appeared, running for her life, followed by four or five extremely large animals. Dark and fast, snarling viciously, predators used to catching and devouring their kill. Lions of some kind. Nam, Lavasseur, and Collins all fired their weapons. Two of the animals fell instantly, and the others scattered with yelps.

“Chase them down, sir?” Lavasseur asked.

“Let them be,” Nam ordered.

Breme was shaken but unharmed. The animals had been killed instantly and lay sprawled in the grass where they had fallen. Four-legged, enormously large, with large fangs and thick pelts.

Saadi took vids, asking, “What the hell are they? Look at those fucking teeth!”

“Marsupial lions,” Gayle said, crouched by the larger beast. “Extinct in Australia over fifty thousand years ago.”

“You're sure?” Nam asked. “None of the Seven Sisters harbor any extinct species.”

“We're far from the Seven Sisters,” Gayle replied.

Collins took samples of skin, fur, and blood. Saadi suggested cutting off paws for souvenirs, an idea that Nam nixed. They left the lions to rot in the sun and headed back to the cool dimness of the Mother Sphere. Looking back over his shoulder, Myell saw a lone vulture home in on the corpses. More would come, with beaks to pluck out eyes and claws to rip flesh. Just like in the painting in the farmers' market on Water Street, where the girl had called him Jungali.

The Mother Sphere was dark and comforting, but even as he stepped into the ouroboros, Myell could hear the vulture outside squawking in victory.

CHAPTER
NINE

At the eighth station out of Bainbridge, Breme began vomiting violently.

“We have to stop, sir,” Collins said.

Collins and Lavasseur carried her out of the ouroboros. Myell tried to help Saadi with the sled, but the other chief said, “Leave it, it's mine.”

“Let him help,” Nam ordered.

Snow was spilling through the open archway. Their breath frosted in the air as they waited for Saadi's GNATs to collect data. “Winter wonderland out there,” Saadi reported. “Looks like an alpine forest. Dusk or thereabouts, and below freezing. No sign of other Spheres.”

“Below freezing, snow, forest, dark,” Nam said. “We're better off in here.”

Gayle said, “If Chief Myell stays in here, he'll keep triggering the system. I don't want to risk overtaxing it.”

Myell waited for them to order him outside, to freeze in the snow by himself. Instead, Nam had them break out thermal sweaters, winter parkas, gloves, and other equipment from the sled. A well-prepared expedition, Myell thought. When they stomped outside, snow was piled high on the north side of their Mother Sphere. Bare ground lay exposed on the south.

“Get the tents up,” Nam said. “Saadi, you're in charge of the fire.”

Collins was still busy treating Breme, so Myell pitched in helping Lavasseur erect the tents. The winter landscape was quiet and silvery-white from the light of a moon. Every one of the Seven Sisters had a satellite moon, just like back on Earth: a fundamental of Wondjina design, people said. Moons were necessary to maintain tides. Oceans, those blasted things, didn't rise and fall much on their own. The moon currently hanging low in the trees had different markings than the ones Myell knew back on Baiame and Fortune, but was comforting nonetheless.

“Don't listen to Chief Saadi,” Lavasseur said quietly, while they worked on the last tent. “About that chief's thing, that is. I had a friend, back on Earth. He went through it. Said it was all bullshit.”

“Most of it is,” Myell said.

Lavasseur pulled the tent zipper open. “They ever pick me for promotion, I'm going to tell them exactly where to shove their initiation.”

Myell's boot brushed against something small lying on the ground. He stared at it for a moment. Sourness rose in his throat and coated his tongue.

“Commander Nam?” he called out. “You should see this.”

Nam came over. Soon they were all staring down at what Collins and his gib had identified as a human finger bone. More bones were scattered on the ground or under the edges of snow. The largest was a rib. The creepiest, to Myell, was part of a lower jaw with three teeth still embedded in it.

“Animals must have dragged off the rest,” Lavasseur said.

“No clothing,” Gayle remarked. “No bits of uniform, rubber from boot soles, or metal insignia.”

“Can you identify the victims?” Nam asked Collins.

Collins replied, “I'm working on DNA profiles, sir.”

Gayle shoved her hands deep into her pockets. The skeletal remains could belong to her husband. Nam looked equally tense. Myell shuffled in the cold air and tried not think about the gruesome discovery he'd made back on the
Aral Sea,
a blue-white corpse crusted with ice.

“Lavasseur's right about animals,” Nam said. “Everyone keep an eye on the perimeter and your scanners. I don't want to be surprised by anything like those lions.”

Another long minute passed before Collins said, “There's two different sets of remains here, Commander. Dr. Jiang and Dr. Meredith.”

Nam asked, “Can you tell when they died?”

“No, sir,” Collins said.

Gayle picked up the jawbone and examined it with cold scrutiny. “If they deceased on arrival, Robert wouldn't have left the bodies out to decompose. Susan and Eric were friends. The team must have buried them, and animals dug up the corpses.”

“Commander Gold would have covered them with rocks, given the frozen ground,” Nam said.

“We don't know that it was frozen when they passed this way,” Gayle retorted.

Collins took the jaw from Gayle, treating it with a reverence she hadn't shown. “Ensign Holt is the finest field medic I know. No one on the team should have died because of the token, not unless he lost all his medical equipment and their supply of Blue-Q. These bones have chew marks on them. They could have been attacked while alive. Like those lions that chased Breme.”

Nam tasked Lavasseur and Myell with searching the snowy forest around the Spheres for more remains. The going was slow. Their scanners picked up rocks and branches and dead leaves that gave false readings as clothing. They kept vigilant for wolves and bears and any other large animals that might come their way. The work and cold tired Myell more than he cared to admit. He cast occasional glances back at the camp, where Breme was moved into one of the tents to recuperate and Gayle was working on her gib by a blazing warm fire.

“Lavasseur, report,” said Nam's voice over their radios.

“Nothing, sir,” Lavasseur reported. Despite the winter gear, his teeth were chattering.

“Come on back, the two of you, and get some hot coffee.”

Myell was happy to oblige. In addition to coffee, Collins had broken out their meal rations. Though it hadn't been long since lunch, they were still trying to eat small meals on the schedule of whatever world they were visiting. A package of self-heating chili went a long way toward making Myell feel warm again.

“Is the temperature going to keep dropping during the night?” Nam asked Saadi.

Saadi was already deploying more GNATs. They rose into the trees like sparks from the fire. “There's a high-pressure front coming in from the north, but it's pushing air that's not too much colder. We should be comfortable in the tents with the heat packs.”

“You don't sound too confident,” Nam said.

“It's not that, sir,” Saadi said. “I'm having trouble with astronomical calculations.”

Myell tilted his head back. He could see plenty of stars, but no recognizable constellations.

Nam poured himself more coffee. “Is it your equipment?”

“No, sir. The bugs are fine. But they're not getting a fix. I'll keep working on it.”

After dinner, Nam sent Lavasseur and Myell back to the snowy woods. They didn't find any bones or clothing, but on the fringe of their search area Lavasseur found something much, much larger.

“Down there,” he said, pointing down a steep slope.

A Father Sphere lay in a ravine about two dozen meters below, a great gray hulk in the moonlight. Part of its surface was smashed in. A Mother and Child lay nearby, apparently intact but coated with snow.

“Dr. Gayle'll love it,” Lavasseur said.

Lavasseur radioed in a report. Within moments Nam and Gayle were traipsing through the woods toward their position. Gayle wanted to climb down the slope immediately.

“Damaged Spheres are rare,” she said. “If we could find out what happened to it, whether it was natural or from other causes … and we can see if the other two are working.”

Myell steeled himself for another argument but Nam forestalled it by saying, “No one's going down there in the dark. We'll assess the climb in the morning. Everyone back to camp.”