Devilfish -- Part Four

"I don't understand," Mect said. "You told us we need that bomb you brought to seal off the creature's den in the corkscrew tunnel."

Kaeblin shook his head. "Yeah, I did say that. The problem is, the creature is sneakier than we thought."

"No kidding," Veya muttered. She pointed to the hatch the monster had slithered down and said, "So what you're suggesting is that we use our one dose of explosives to collapse that passage right there, because that should seal away the creature's entire habitat."

Kaeblin nodded. "Right. I don't care how smart the thing is; it can't think its way out of being crushed to death. And even if we don't crush it, and it lives a million years, it'll be stuck down there, and it won't be a threat to anybody anymore."

"It'll either be killed by the eventual deflation of the Drift," Veya added, "or it will find itself in a self-contained habitat. In that scenario, we -- and it -- would at least be safe."

Mect took a deep breath. "Seeing as we're talking about collapsing tunnels and sealing escape routes.... I think at this point we have to accept the fact that Silverton is dead. Okay, so that's obvious enough...but I'm sure you both noticed that none of us have been wanting to admit it so far."

Kaeblin took off his cap and scratched the back of his head. "The guy was jerk, and I won't miss him. It's sad that the thing got him, but frankly, he's not worth the risk of not collapsing the tunnel. The chances of him still being alive are slim to none anyway."

They were standing in a shallower part of the tunnel. Veya leaned up against the side of the tunnel and stared at the flotsam drifting around her boots. "We only saw the creature's limbs, but it appeared to be some kind of squid," she said. "If so, judging upon the behavior of other squid, it would have eaten its prey immediately...." Her voice faded out.

Mect shuddered. He thought of the curved, crushing beak of squids he had studied in the past. He felt his face go green and he turned away from the others.

Kaeblin took another deep breath. "So...are we agreed?" he asked.

Mect nodded. Kaeblin looked to Veya. The Vice Director hesitated for a moment, but then she looked into the constable's eyes and said, "Yeah."

Kaeblin nodded a few times and began digging in his pack for the explosives he'd brought. "There really isn't any other way," he quietly said. "I'll set the timer for three hours. By three hours from now we'll be back in Tidal proper having a nice hot cup of coffee."

The constable set the explosive on a small outcropping in the wall that had been created when part of the tunnel crumpled in on itself. Mect, meanwhile, turned to Veya. He saw she looked troubled. "What is it?" he asked her. "Besides the obvious, I mean."

"I feel a little guilty," she said. "That agent knew this might be a suicide mission, and for him, it was."

"That's the risk an agent agrees to take when he joins the Agency," Mect whispered. "You can't make yourself feel guilty over that."

"I know, but I'm the one who said that, yes, we were definitely going to do this, right now, just us. Maybe I should have listened to him when he said we needed more help."

Mect hesitated, but then he gently placed one of his pale hands on Veya's shoulder. "Don't," he said. "This isn't your fault. It's just a sad thing that's happened."

Veya shrugged. "Maybe. It'll be for Dahlia to decide when she comes home."

"You don't think she'd actually fire you over this, do you?" Mect asked, incredulous. "There's no way she'd do that!"

Veya shrugged again. "We'll see."

Kaeblin walked over to them. The explosive was under his arm. The timer was set at 3:00:00 and had just begun to count down.

"All right, let's get a move on," he said. He dropped the explosive right on top of the hatch the creature had slithered down. "It's over; we're done."

Veya nodded; she and her two companions climbed up onto the dry ledge and briskly began walking back down the tunnel. Before they had gone far, Veya asked, "But where could that creature have come from?"

Kaeblin shrugged. "Damn good question. Rolobin's the obvious suspect, since he's the one in charge of the introduction of sea life. But he's been delaying it for years, so why would he go and secretly create something like this?"

"Rolobin is a scientist," Veya offered. "Maybe it was an experiment."

"And he's also a control freak," Kaeblin added. "He's secretive. It's hard to imagine.... Then again, I only know him so well.... I suppose it's possible."

There was suddenly a low, distant rumbling. The entire cavern was shaking. It wasn't the same kind of sound they had heard when the creature appeared. It was further off. It was definitely below them.

"What in the world...?" Mect asked. "Could that bomb possibly have gone off early?"

"If it had, we wouldn't be standing here now," Kaeblin said. "Unless...."

"Unless what?" Mect asked nervously.

"You notice how that sounded like it came from below?"

Veya's eyes went wide. "The creature might have opened that hatch again--"

"--and the bomb could have fallen down the hatch!" Mect said, finishing the thought.

"It's possible," Kaeblin said, holding up a cautionary finger. "The sudden fall might have, I don't know, jarred the explosive or something. But that would mean the bomb must have been defective. I guess it could be, but--"

There was another rumble, just like the first.

"Okay," Veya said. "If the first one was the bomb, what was that?"

Everyone was still for a moment as they waited to see what would happen next. As they did so, the rumbling got louder and louder, and it seemed to be getting closer. The strange part was that the sound did not seem to be coming from behind them, from the direction the creature would have to come from. It now seemed to be coming at them from the direction they were headed -- from the route back to Tidal.

Kaeblin turned his flash up to its highest setting, a setting it could not be on for long without burning out. But it only took a few seconds before the source of the rumbling came into view.

The wall panels of the tunnel ahead of them were collapsing like dominoes.

Veya screamed and Mect cried out in panic. Kaeblin turned around and pushed them both back in the direction of the ticking bomb as the passage rapidly fell inward behind them. Veya lost her footing and fell off of the catwalk into the water almost four meters below. The crumbling of the tunnel had caused a miniature tidal wave, and Veya was lost from the sight of her companions in the spray of murk and brine.

"Veya!" Mect cried, but there was no time to stop and no time to search. The two men kept running, hoping that what remained of the passage would not fold in and crush them.

Veya, too, lost track of her companions as she was swept along. The water was shallow enough for her to keep her head above water, but the current was moving too fast for her to get her footing. She could still hear the clanging and crashing of the walls as they fell in on themselves, but the sound seemed to be getting more and more distant.

Almost instantly she had realized what was happening. The abandoned bunkers deep within Palm II were rarely dismantled. They were simply left to be crushed or filled in by the natural processes of the planet's interior. Veya had simply assumed that, although the creature's tunnels were unusually old, they had been deemed safe by the Tidal crew. Stupid, stupid! she thought as she realized that she had never even asked if the tunnels' structural integrity had been investigated.

Veya was still moving swiftly as she reached and passed the intersection where Kaeblin's bomb had been set. Veya wondered where it had gotten to, for she knew it must have been swept far away by the waves. And then, suddenly, she was falling. The current swept her down the intersection's western passage -- a gaping cavity which formed the start of the corkscrew. Veya knew that there had to be stairs somewhere nearby, but she could not see them as she fell and landed hard in shallow water.

She hit her head and was knocked unconscious. And the current continued to carry her away....

Tiro had a spurt of energy, so Betty took him to Zelan's primary control center. The place was always a buzz of activity, and that day was no different. Warren sat before Daughter's core system while his subordinate robots and androids, as well as a few human scientists and engineers, busied themselves with a myriad of tasks. As Betty and Tiro approached him, Warren suddenly spun around. He looked pensive and was hunched over a bit in his chair.

"Warren, is something troubling you?" Betty asked. Tiro, who was leaning on Betty's laconia-reinforced work arm, marveled at how similar Warren was to Wren in appearance. Warren had lighter brown hair, a somewhat smaller frame, and the metallic portions of his "skin" were the color of gold instead of silver. Otherwise, however, he could have been Wren's twin.

Warren turned back to his terminal but spoke to Betty. "Indeed. I have received an emergency call from Palm II. Normally this is the type of matter the planet's Director would handle. But as you know, she is away. If Director Mallos is away, the task would then fall to Mistress Demi. But she is also away. So the matter should be handled by Master Wren. But Master Wren is...."

"So, you have to take care of it," Tiro said simply.

Warren nodded and turned back to the others. "Yes. But if I am to leave, who shall take care of Zelan? There must be an android in charge of Zelan at all times; only a sophisticated android is capable of manning this station ceaselessly and without rest. How unfortunate that the entire chain of command, so to speak, should be unavailable just now!"

"What is the nature of this emergency?" Betty asked.

"A team of investigators, which includes Vice Director Veya Carmis, has vanished while investigating an abandoned bunker below Tidal station. Normally another team would simply be sent after them, but the matter is more complicated than that. The man in charge of Tidal, one Doctor Rolobin, sent me this." Warren handed a copy of the photograph to Tiro, whose green skin paled at the sight of the hideous tentacle.

"What in the world...?" Tiro whispered.

"The missing team was sent down to contain this 'creature,'" Warren went on. "Each team member was wearing a communication device that emitted a signal, thus allowing Tidal to keep track of them. However, all of the signals ceased approximately ten minutes ago."

Betty examined the photograph and asked, "What does Doctor Rolobin want you to do about it?"

"He wants Master Wren to come down and take over. But Master Wren is in no condition for that. He has not even regained consciousness yet. But if Master Wren does not appear, the people will become alarmed. He always appears when he is needed."

"You'll have to tell them that Wren is busy elsewhere, and that a substitute will have to come instead," Tiro said. "It's as simple as that."

Warren nodded. "It appears I must. And I see that Daughter agrees with you. But who shall I send?"

"Isn't that obvious?" Tiro asked. "You've got to stay here and run the universe. And I just happen to have a degree in zoology, so--"

"This is out of the question," Betty said. "You have not recovered from your condition, Tiro! And what if this illness is contagious?"

"I've been around dozens of people these past few days and no one other than Wren and myself has shown any symptoms," Tiro said.

"Demi insisted that the disease is not communicable, and that it can only be obtained from the original source," Warren added.

Tiro looked at Betty and said, "I really must go! I'll just tell the people at Tidal that I've got a debilitating illness of some kind. Like Aukba Syndrome. I bet they won't even ask about it."

Betty made the Whistle-type equivalent of a "tsk" sound. "Really, Tiro," she said. "There hasn't been a case of Aukba's in a hundred years."

"Actually, it's been hundreds of years," Tiro told her. "But so what? They'll probably all be too polite to ask me about it anyway. And Warren, really, do you have anyone else who can do this job?"

"I cannot think of anyone at the moment," Warren said. "Experts over a wide variety of fields are permanent residents here at Zelan. None, however, are zoologists, or anything of that sort. And would you concur, Doctor Urbanich, that the Tidal team has encountered a previously unknown species?"

Tiro looked at the photograph again, and he shuddered. "It is definitely organic, and yet...it almost looks like it has mechanical implants." Tiro shook his head. "The tentacle structure is similar to that of species of cephalopod mollusk, but even so, I have never seen anything like this before."

Warren nodded. "Then an expert is most definitely what the situation requires. I will have my medical team prepare a supply of the antibiotics that they have been administering to you. Betty, do you know how to administer the medications properly, and how often?"

"Yes, Warren," Betty replied.

"Then I have decided. Doctor Urbanich, in light of your experience with harsh field conditions, and your expertise in identifying and studying new species, I shall send you to Palm II to aid this effort. Betty, you will accompany Doctor Urbanich. Is that acceptable?"

Betty's grip on Tiro's arm tightened. "I insist upon it."

Veya regained consciousness as she felt herself sliding onto a damp, slime-covered surface. Her eyes opened suddenly, she sat up, and a loud gasp escaped from her throat. She pushed wet, matted hair out of her eyes and looked around.

Veya was sitting in a few centimeters of water atop a water-level walkway whose railing was missing. Around her was almost total darkness, although faint illumination did seem to be coming from all around. Veya touched the crumbling metal wall at her side, and when she brought her fingers away, there was a glowing moss sticking to them.

"Amazing," Veya said. "How could phosphorous get all the way down here?"

The Vice Director stood up, nearly loosing her footing in the process. The floor was covered in a sludge with a consistency similar to that of the moss. It was difficult to walk in, and the difficulty was made even greater by the fact that Veya had lost her boots somewhere. This was very bad, as the tunnel Veya found herself in was very cold, and she could feel her toes freezing.

Veya reached for the communication device near her breast pocket. She tapped it, hoping it would do something, anything. But nothing happened. Veya removed the device and stared at it. Even in the darkness it was clear that the device was destroyed. It had been crushed and cracked during Veya's exciting little trip into the bowels of the planet.

Remembering how she had been separated from Mect and Constable Kaeblin, Veya called out their names. She cried as loud as she could, but aside from ever-repeating echoes of her own voice, there was total silence.

Defeated, Veya sank back down to the floor. "Okay," she whispered to herself. "I am hopelessly lost far, far under the planet's surface. Nobody knows where I am because my tracking gizmo is broken. The rest of my team is likely dead. I am soaked and freezing cold. And there's also a horrible, nightmarish monster down here who likes to eat people." Veya chuckled, but her laugh quickly turned into a sob. "Great!" she cried out. "Just great!"

A moment passed. But then she thought, "But I can't just stay here and die. I've at least got to try to get back up to Tidal." Veya stood and looked around again. Her eyes were keen had gotten more accustomed to the dull light. She could make out the shape of the space around her. The walkway she was on continued for a few hundred meters in either direction, both in front of and behind her. After that, the passage bent, and it was impossible to tell what was around those corners.

"I don't even know which way I came!" Veya said, throwing her hands into the air. "God!"

After looking around for a moment longer, Veya made a guess as to which way was the one that led back to the surface. She began to walk in that direction, working hard to keep her footing. And she worked even harder to keep her spirits up -- to keep panic from overtaking her.

Beyond the first bend in the tunnel was yet another bend. The second turn sloped upwards noticeably. Veya smiled. She'd chosen wisely.

I'm in that corkscrew, she thought. This path should eventually take me back to the place where we planted the bomb.

Then her heart sank. What about the bomb? The bomb had been set not to go off for three hours -- more than enough time for everyone to get back up to Tidal. But Veya had no way of knowing how long she'd been unconscious, nor did she know where the bomb had gotten to. Veya's cautious pace increased to a run as she imagined the bomb, with only seconds left on its timer, lying just below her feet. She ran faster and faster as she followed the gently-sloping, ever-twisting hallway. She remembered Kaeblin's report that the creature probably had its nest in the corkscrew...in the passage she was trapped in.

And even if she was far enough away from the bomb to survive its blast, if she was still down in the corkscrew when it went off...she'd be trapped with the monster forever.

Veya screamed. She couldn't help herself.

And then a hand clamped down over her mouth.

Instinctively, she bit down on the hand. She felt soft tissue, and bony fingers. It was a human hand.

The person that had grabbed Veya spun her around, and Veya found herself looking into Agent Silverton's cold eyes. His uniform was torn and dirty and he'd lost his armor and gun. Otherwise he seemed fine.

"Shut your mouth!" he hissed before Veya had time to speak. "Your idiot screeching has probably alerted the monster to our location. I've spotted it several times, but it hasn't noticed me."

"How did you get away...?" Veya asked.

"I think it must be sick," Silverton answered. "It has those suckers all over its body, yet it seems to have a hard time hanging on to things. I was able to free myself without much difficulty."

Silverton grabbed Veya's hand and began to pull her further along the tunnel. "We have less than two hours before the explosion," he said. "It is lucky I ran into you. Otherwise you would surely have perished down here."

Veya felt her face go red, but as little patience as she had for the rude agent, she had even less left for arguing. Instead, she followed Silverton silently. Veya still didn't trust Silverton, but her weariness was lessened now that it seemed they would be forced to cooperate.

The tunnel continued to climb up and up, and the twists in the passages became more frequent. Veya remembered the map of the bunkers and knew that meant they were getting closer to the surface.

More than ten minutes had passed before Silverton asked, "What happened to the others?"

"I was wondering if you were going to ask," Veya said.

"And I was wondering if you were going to speak up about it," Silverton shot back. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

Veya sighed. "I was separated from them when the tunnels above began to collapse."

Silverton nodded. "I heard the rumbling earlier; I knew that had to be what it was."

"I believe we should still be able to get out," Veya said. "Not that I had much time to inspect the damage, but it looked to me like there should still be enough room to crawl through."

"Are you claustrophobic?" Silverton asked. "I've had to rescue people before, people who had to crawl through tight spaces to get to safety. Sometimes they're more afraid of the small spaces than being killed where they stand."

Veya shook her head. "Funny; I didn't realize you were 'rescuing' me. I thought we were working together."

Silverton shrugged. "Un-huh."

"Anyway, no, I'm not claustrophobic," Veya told him. "I'm not just some twit you have to take care of. Would I have come down to this place if I was so delicate?"

Silverton stopped walking and looked back at Veya. "Will you relax?" he asked. "We don't have time for your nonsense."

"My nonsense?" Veya cried. "You're the one who's been acting--"

Silverton suddenly doubled over in pain. He sank to his knees and then collapsed to the floor. His face contorted and he grimaced; his eyes flew open wildly and then clenched shut.

Veya knelt down beside him. "What's wrong?" she asked. "What's the matter with you?"

Silverton began to writhe about. Then he had what appeared to be a spasm; his back arched violently and he nearly threw himself into the air. After that he was still.

Veya had no medical training, so she was unsure of what to do. She rolled Silverton flat onto his back and checked his breathing and pulse, both of which were normal, if accelerated.

At that point, Silverton chuckled and shook his head. "I thought I'd lost you!" Veya shouted at him. "What's the matter with you?"

"I didn't want to scare you any more than you already were," Silverton said. His teeth were grinding together brutally as he spoke. "But I guess it's better if you're apprised of the danger.... Look what it did to me."

Silverton wore fingerless leather gloves on his hands. He removed the glove on his left hand and revealed a wound. Only when Veya looked at it, she saw it was not a simple burn or cut. The skin on the back of Silverton's left hand had actually been covered by or replaced with a synthetic, metal-based fiber. Veya touched it gently, and Silverton winced again when she did.

Then Silverton pulled up the front of his shirt. His chest and stomach were covered in lesions similar to what Veya had seen in the photograph of the tentacle. Wires and diodes could be seen pulsing beneath the skin. There was an open wound on Silverton's right side that appeared to be sewing itself shut with what looked like plastic hydraulics tubing.

Veya gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes met with those of Silverton. Still his face showed no emotion. But although his convulsion was over, he was still shivering. His stony looks were no longer enough to mask his fear.

"It injected me with something," he said. "Wherever its suckers touched me...this happened."

Veya grabbed Silverton's hands and helped him to stand. "We're going to work together from now on," she said. There was no more edge to her words, though she did not smile, either. They stood eye to eye and she asked, "Do you understand?"

Silverton nodded. "Fine," he said. "But there's this...disorientation.... It comes and goes." He tried to walk on, by himself, but he staggered.

Veya caught him; she threw Silverton's right arm around her neck, and then she put her left arm around the agent's waist. Together they walked around the next turn, and they continued climbing.