III: Tunnel of Love
Rhiannon did not sleep well that night. Around dawn she finally lifted her aching body off of the straw-stuffed cot that the alien had laid out for her and went outside. The air was cool, but even though Rhiannon was freezing, she refused to go back in. Instead she stood in the doorway, watching the sky turn from black to a golden gray, wiping tears out of her blue eyes.
Nali, they were called. Four arms, hunched backs, and no tempers to speak of. The Nali and Machiel had stayed up most of the night, hunched over a table in front of the fire, speaking little but apparently learning much about each other. A map had been drawn on a piece of Nali cowskin and Machiel had told her, before she dozed off to fitful unconsciousness, that in the morning, the Nali was going to take them to where there were other Terrans that had survived the crash of another ship. If they met up with the others, they could band together and somehow survive until UMS sent another rescue vessel to the surface.
UMS doesn't have that many ships left that they can spare, though. The thought came unbidden to Rhiannon's mind and she squeezed her teary eyes shut. How many people can they abandon and get away with it? It's not like we're irreplaceable.
Well, I am. They will have to come back and get me. It is the least that they can do to repay my service to them.
Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she shuddered at the thought of not being found. She did not want to go where the alien wanted to take them. Despite its wild beauty, despite the crystal river and the sparkling sky, the words she had read in the captain's manual loomed in her mind, a terrible warning of something she hadn't seen yet but would probably have to face if they ventured too far into the wilderness.
Beware of hostilities, she said to herself. Na Pali under siege.
She drew her shoulders up and turned around as she heard the door open. Machiel came first, holding the map in one hand and some sort of baked fish on a stick in the other. He offered her a bite and she turned her head away. The Nali closed the door after him, a lantern swinging from his lower right arm. The quiet golden eyes flicked from Machiel to Rhiannon, and without a word he began walking. The two Terrans fell into step behind him; Rhiannon dragged her feet.
"What's wrong?" Machiel asked.
"I don't want to go."
The pilot smiled gently. "Aw, c'mon, Ries. We'll be fine. We'll meet up with some other people that only have one set of arms and we'll make it off-world by suppertime. You'll see."
The mountain dropped away from them and soon they were walking on a precarious land bridge that sloped down to an algae-green lake on the valley floor below.
"You'd better be right," Rhiannon said. "And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Officer Ries? I am a high-ranking officer—"
"Yeah. Like you'd let me forget." Machiel picked up the pace. "Like being an officer even matters while we're here."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing, Officer! Jeezus."
Rhiannon scowled and followed them. The incline of the mountain was slight enough to notice, and before they had been gone thirty minutes she was puffing with exertion. Machiel wasn't doing much better. His hand was constantly clutching his lower back and his curly hair hung in front of his face, hiding his pained expression. The Nali pressed on, carrying the illuminated lantern even though the sky was lightening to the color of stone.
In the middle of the day they came to a stop in front of a mining shaft that was illuminated from the inside by a single naked bulb that intermittently flickered harsh yellow light through the darkness. Two closed metal bulkheads, one facing them directly and another blocked by a large square dumpster of sorts, filled with dirt and bits of metal debris, barred their way further into the tunnel. A red lever stuck out of a panel next to the unblocked door.
"That's where we need to go?" Machiel asked his guide, pointing into the yawning, flickering entrance. The Nali raised his arm and pointed as well, reaffirming the pilot's question, his face plain and unmoving. Machiel turned his eyes to the tunnel, to the flickering light, to the cramped, dark space that even from here smelled like stifling metal and moist dirt.
"Fuck that. I'm not going." Rhiannon said flatly. She was drenched with sweat yet again and couldn't seem to catch her breath.
She's right, for once, Machiel thought. Sending us into a mine? Is this thing serious? "Are you sure that'll get us going in the right direction?" he asked, fumbling for the map in his pocket. He unfolded it with a faint rustle of leather and furrowed his eyebrows at the markings on the skin. There was a circle that the Nali had established as the town they had just left. The charcoal marks led through the mountain and halfway across the map to another circled landmark. Machiel looked from the map to the mining shaft and finally to Rhiannon, who was standing with her arms folded.
"It's what the map says to do," he offered.
"If the map told you to jump off of a cliff, would you do it?"
"That's not the point. I guess what I'm saying is that we don't have anywhere else to go."
"I can think of somewhere." Rhiannon's face lifted and a wistful look crossed her features. "We can just stick by the Chantilly and wait until UMS sends someone else to search for us."
"And how well did that work for the Vortex Rikers?"
The officer's face turned sour. "That was your fault, Worch. I don't expect other pilots in the fleet to be as stupid and careless as you."
Machiel ignored her comment. "Even if we did wait, how long would it take before Starlight Base realizes we're gone? We'd run out of food in a week or so and the Chantilly's hull is too far gone to use as a shelter."
Rhiannon's hand tightened on the strap of her pack at the mention of food. Thanks to her, there were only three strips of protein left. At least the vitamin tablets were still there. She could always say that the jerky had gone bad.
"So what's on the other side of this mine?" she asked.
Machiel looked at the Nali, who stood silent and still as a dead tree. "People, I guess."
"It doesn't sound like a very good guess."
"Well, we can't stay here."
"And if we go through this mine and we don't find any people, what then?"
"Then we keep searching until we do." Machiel suddenly made up his mind and stuffed the map back into his pocket. "Come on. We're going in."
Rhiannon looked up at the sky, a mix of gold and green flushed with purple even though it was the middle of the day. Steely gray clouds cast heavy shadows on the ground. She sighed.
"I'm only letting you make this decision because I want you to be responsible if UMS takes longer to find us."
"Yes, Rhiannon."
"Officer Ries!"
"Yes, Officer Ries! Jeezus!"
They turned to say farewell to the Nali, but the alien had somehow slipped away undetected and was now plodding slowly back down the slope towards Edge. The light of the lantern bobbed up and down with every step. Machiel shrugged and walked into the mining shaft, but Rhiannon took a few moments to get deep gulps of the mountain air into her lungs. The heavy feeling in her stomach had not gone away since the night before.
The tunnel was musty and dark, and when Machiel pulled the lever next to one of the doors, a terrible grinding metal noise filled the air as the hatch struggled to open. It finally made it halfway before the mechanics died and it ground to a halt. Machiel looked over his shoulder at Rhiannon, grinning weakly.
Moving cautiously into the adjacent room, the two Terrans were greeted by total darkness. They walked slowly, practically shuffling, as they noticed the walls become suddenly narrower. Machiel smacked the top of his head on the rocky ceiling and cursed under his breath.
Rhiannon smelled it first. She clapped a hand over her nose and mouth and looked at Machiel with a look of disgust. "What is that?" she choked out.
Machiel sniffed the air. A thick, sour smell clung to the back of his throat like syrup. "Something dead, probably," he said, trying not to breathe too deeply. He kept walking down the narrow passageway, turning halfway back when he realized that Rhiannon wasn't coming with him. "Come on, then! Do you like the smell of rotting meat or what?"
"Worch, shut up." Her voice was tense. The pilot rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips.
"Oh, Jeezus, what now?"
"I hear something."
"Yeah, it's you, complaining." But he closed his lips and tilted his head when she didn't reply to his retort.
She was right.
There was the sound of something sharp rhythmically tapping on metal. Scurrying. Multiple scurrying...things.
They weren't alone.
"What kind of creatures live in mines?" Rhiannon asked.
Machiel thought hard. "Rats? Cave spiders? I don't really know about the indigenous life on this planet."
They moved slowly towards the sound of the scratching. Rhiannon gagged quietly; the stench was growing stronger as they continued down the tunnel. The walls closed in on them until they couldn't have walked shoulder-to-shoulder had they tried. A dim glow in front of them told them at they were headed to a room with a light bulb, but that still didn't make it any easier to navigate under the low ceiling and the slick metal flooring.
"What if what we're hearing is dangerous?" Rhiannon said softly.
"If it is, it certainly won't be able to see anything in this light," the pilot said, accidentally jolting his shoulder against a wall. He paused and looked back at her. "But just in case, let's be quiet until we find out what we're hearing, all right?"
"And smelling," Rhiannon muttered.
The scurrying was louder now, accompanied by soft chirrups and wet, mashing sounds. Machiel froze when Rhiannon gripped his shoulder.
"Chewing," she said, recognizing the sound. "That's chewing."
"Everything chews," Machiel said, feeling dread gathering in his gut. He loathed the fact that he had trusted an alien enough to think that moving through the mine would be safe. The close walls, the low ceiling of jagged rock, the dim light and lack of knowledge of any escape other than turning around to go back where they came from—Rhiannon had been right again. Trust was something to be earned on Na Pali. Next time he would not be so welcoming of a stranger's help.
They crept out of the tunnel and found themselves in a circular room. A large metal hub rose out of the floor and went straight on through the ceiling. More metal boxes were pushed against it and a flickering sign glowed foreign and unreadable on a wall.
And on the floor in front of them was a two-foot long lizard with a four-foot length of raw meat in its jaws.
All three of them froze. Rhiannon peered out from around Machiel's shoulder at the little creature. It was tiny, standing on two muscular back legs, and covered in iridescent green scales that shimmered with every fast beat of its heart. Its tail stuck stiffly out from behind it and it regarded them quizzically with its ruby red eyes. Lacking forelimbs, its powerful jaws held its prize in a vicelike grip, blood dripping down its neck in fresh rivers.
All at once the stench hit them full force, and Rhiannon gagged again. "That thing's making this horrible smell?" she gasped, pulling up the collar of her uniform over her nose.
Machiel was staring at the hunk of meat in the creature's mouth. It looked suspiciously whole and fresh. They must have stumbled upon it as soon as it made the kill. But….
"There's more to it than that," he said, trying to quell his nausea. "That's something's arm."
Rhiannon refused to look at it after that. "We're leaving right now," she said. "I'm gonna puke if we stay here a minute longer." She scooted around Machiel and began walking.
The little lizard creature dropped its hunk of meat and squealed, backing up with its head down, trying to look as small as possible. Rhiannon glanced at it with surprise, and it squealed again, in what was obviously fear.
"It's frightened of us," she said. "Poor thing. Don't worry, we're not gonna take this disgusting shit from you."
She took one step towards the lizard, carefully avoiding the meat. The creature lifted its head, its nose up. A small forked tongue flickered out from its mouth and disappeared again.
"I wouldn't get so close to it, Ries," Machiel said in a warning tone.
"It's Officer Ries, dammit," Rhiannon said, spinning around and putting her hands on her hips.
The lizard leapt forwards.
Machiel marveled at how it knew. Even as its jaws closed around the pack at Rhiannon's side and ripped it out of her grasp, he admired its agility as it lifted the heavy pack off of the ground and took off around the hub at a dead run.
Rhiannon didn't think. She turned and bolted after it, Machiel close on her heels.
"This is all your fault, Worch!" she screeched back at him.
She disappeared behind the hub, and Machiel, for a fleeting, wonderful moment, wondered if he should just turn around and let Rhiannon chase her lizard while he escaped through the mine to some semblance of freedom. It would be so much easier to travel alone.
But he was responsible for the crash of the Chantilly. He had killed all of their other colleagues. And despite Rhiannon's self-important attitude about being the acting leader of their expedition, he felt responsible for her. He would at least save her.
When he rounded the corner and almost stumbled into Rhiannon's back, he wished had hadn't already made that promise to himself.
The officer had run directly into an entire pack of the small, carnivorous lizards. Four of them were perched upon a quivering mass of meat that Machiel recognized as the specimen that their lizard's quarry had come from. The smell emanated in waves off of the hulking carcass but Machiel was suddenly too afraid to feel sick. Six more lizards stood perched on the boxes, staring down at the two Terrans with hunger in their eyes.
In front of them all, the lizard that had taken Rhiannon's pack had its head stuffed into the recesses of the canvas. It surfaced with a mouthful of dried meat, swallowing it whole. It swiveled its triangular head towards them and flicked the air with its tongue again. The tail twitched, glittering green.
Rhiannon, white-faced and breathless, took one step back as all eleven predatory gazes fixed directly on her and the pilot behind her.
"Run," Machiel said.
The lizard opened its mouth and screamed.
