Chapter 9 - Back Down
(in which the group's journey returns to a downwards trajectory)
> Moreover, man does not know his time: like fish caught in a treacherous net and birds trapped in a snare, so the sons of men are ensnared at an evil time when it suddenly falls on them.
> --The Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:12
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Tekatl squinted. "Why do you need them?"
Iraklijs sighed. "They don't weigh much and are useless anyways. Drop them in. Don't make yourself regret it, captain."
"Is the chance of the disk remnants being useful higher than them being less than useful, say, by angering those blobs somehow?" Tekatl squinted harder, her eyes now fully concealed by the static.
"I don't believe that they would be angered... in fact, recall my description. We saw no capacity for anything we could call emotions in them," Iraklijs shrugged. "But then again, look at the Thinking Rocks... or, you know, the kseldani. Dunno. I don't want to kill them... what if it's a ten-thousand-year-old being and I blow its head off? Feels wrong. That's why I asked for the shards, I have an idea."
Ekut, meanwhile, mounted the datapad onto the wall using magnets, freeing up her hands.
The satla nodded and leaned back in the lounge seat. "I'm convinced, I suppose... no loss to, to us. Speaking of, I'm surprised by the blobs' behavior. Especially the... the shapeshifter. That, to me, displays sapience. Even if it did not properly communicate, it, it reacted to Ekut's request. And it seemed to be purposefully trying to unnerve and manipulate you. Be careful, and try to establish peaceful contact next time around."
"We will try, miss. Though I have doubts anything will come from it. Anyways, we have some analysis results. Not much, I think the samples will need to be brought back to the ship for it... actually, we will be leaving them on the surface, once the pod drops, in case we all die inside. Yangchen can pick them up," Iraklijs said, "or something similar."
"Understood."
Ekut paced around. "Tekatl, do you have any thoughts regarding the possibility of using the well-room as something like a home base? It looks safe, and we could get frequent resupplies that way."
The captain thought for a moment. "Good plan, but one issue here is that the ship takes around two hours to make a full orbit around the, the planet. We are currently just, just coming into drop range and comms range. Expect communication to be intermittent. And the, the second problem: due to how treacherous the complex is according to your descriptions, it doesn't feel likely that you would find it easy to backtrack to it over a kilometer. Ultimately I am not you, feel free to dispute me on that matter, and I feel your judgment would be better here."
"Richard that, and forget the plan," Ekut said. "Do you see any other such wells between us and the crater?"
"It's roger that," Iraklijs chuckled.
Tekatl shook her head. "Not quite. There are a few things that may or may not be similar holes, but we are unable to tell from orbit if they are accessible even as easily as this one, or if they are even holes and not simply dark-colored boulders. Still, here are the coordinates," she prattled out a list of numbers.
"Noted," Ekut said.
Spots looked right into the camera, tilting their head. "Make sure the containers in the pod are narrow! And sturdy!"
"Understood."
Iraklijs coughed. "So... how's things up there? Anything happened after we left?"
"I wish I had not argued the negative side in the 'should we bring chefs besides Rusty and Vadim' debate. Rusty's pet glow-hamster... somehow was spaced. We have no idea who did this and why. Rusty grieves, and I was unable to convince him to move on," Tekatl said.
"My condolences," the cyborg said. "But did we count out one of the chohjozra crewmembers..." he realized that his comment was inappropriate and trailed off.
Zkeh, who had little to say for most of the exchange, was surprisingly unfazed. "I have to assk, why do you people keep prey animalss around you without eating them? And why do you not allow uss to partake in perfectly good meat?" he said as he curled into a circle.
Iraklijs sighed. "You know, this mindset is the reason the wkw empire fell. This disregard. At least you send aid now... but does that really make up for it?"
Zkeh hissed in annoyance.
Tekatl chortled. "Do any of you have anything else to say?"
The general consensus, as exemplified by the silence, was that of 'no'. The feed bounced back to Yangchen.
Spots immediately gave a request. "Drive to near Altair's location, please, there will be a pod dropped in. Could both help get the stuff down and take the samples as quickly as possible. Tsip will meet you there."
"Understood!" the driver nodded.
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With the talks done, the crew decided to relax once more. Iraklijs took out his medkit and applied some chohjozra-calibrated medi-gel to Zkeh's damaged toes-- he was too distracted to do so on the floe, and Zkeh's stoicism resulted in the alien not reminding him of the injury. The claws immediately started ever-so-slowly mending, and the damaged scales regrowing, and the dislocated joints realigning. Wondrous thing it was... if expensive. Too bad Yangchen himself couldn't fit into the well.
While waiting for the pod, they passed the time with... a card game! But not just some 52-card deck, with printed images of kings and jacks of old. It was a special game, Adder, tailored for accessibility between species, with square, monochrome cards of carbon fiber with embossed symbols, simple rules involving combining these symbols, and even a manual made purely in pictograms. The time went by fast enough: around thirty minutes, enough to finish two rounds of the game.
A thump outside, in lieu of any transmission, informed them of the supplies' arrival... timed surprisingly well with the rumbling of the rover's wheels and a few friendly honks. As previously, Tsip was pushed outside. They made their way up quicker than before.
Yangchen stood there, a scarf concealing the distinctive photophores on his youthful cheeks. He watched the kseldani extrude themself from the tunnel like an earthworm.
"Hello Tsip!" he said as he tried his best to high-five them. Very limp was this gesture; his coworker still did not quite get how to do it properly despite months of working closely with humans. "Stay safe down there, okay?"
"I will. Here are the samples," the kseldani handed Yangchen a red, padded duraplastic bag with vials and little baggies of various strange materials. He very carefully stowed it in his pack.
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"Nice! Do you feel... anything at how freedom is so close but you can't go with me? Like... to do so would be abandoning the mission."
"No. Nothing. I am simply doing what I have been told."
Yangchen nodded and grabbed their hand. The two approached the drop pod, which was identical to the previous one. However, everything inside was packed into narrow, reflective boxes.
"I hope to see you and the others again soon. Tama chhay!" Yangchen said. "Remember to follow the co-ords they gave!"
Tsip took Altair alongside the bundle of boxes, waved goodbye, and carefully descended back into the pit. The others were waiting there.
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The weapons... were both more and less than the team expected. For Spots, a pair of low-intensity rapid-fire blasters, black and nondescript rectangles linked by a strong cable, meant to be held with two of tentacles each; for Zkeh, a electrolaser rifle, a shiny metal tube as long as a human arm, with cylindrical capacitors bulging from across its barrel and short stock; for Ekut, a needle-laser ultraviolet pistol, a small dull green handgun more resembling a curved and sleek antique camcorder; and for Iraklijs... a revolver, of vintage design but recent make. It looked like it would fit more on the pre-space-age kind of frontier, the one with bandits and saloons and cattle, rather than the modern kind of frontier, the one with space pirates and hydro-bays and meatblocks.
Iraklijs sighed. "Did they just... not have any non-gimmicky weapons?" he said, fidgeting with the revolver's chamber.
Spots read a note attached to the case that contained their pistols. "Yes. Last ones left," they then slipped into their pack the shards of the disk, which were wrapped in three layers of bubble wrap.
Ekut inspected her gun. "Downsides, downsides. Everything here has some extreme downsides. The blasters? Inaccurate, battery-hungry, low-powered, though I suppose one could use them as makeshift nunchucks. The e-laser? We're unlikely to actually see organics here, so it's just an inefficient lascannon, and I don't suppose these things actually care about overvoltage. The revolver? Sure it packs a punch, but has limited ammo. And my... thing? It doesn't fire pulses. It fires a continuous beam that can cut through basically anything. The issue is that we're in an environment where almost everything is metallic. One wrong motion and it ricochets off the wall, giving someone impromptu laser surgery," she said, making sure that the safety is on. "Luckily it's in my hands. Trust me with it."
"Better thiss than no ranged weaponss..." Zkeh said as he took upon himself the extra food and water tanks. "But I still trusst my mattock more than thiss tiny thing."
"Tiny? If that thing is tiny then I worry what your huge weapons are," Iraklijs said.
"Fifty caliber... fifty ryngcheg... or thirty centimeterss... ussed by hunterss..."
Hunters... what would they hunt with this kind of caliber... Iraklijs suddenly remembered the 'mangrove', and how it waded through the swamp on its massive tentacles, uprooting actual trees, each 'step' sending a mini-tsunami of water. He still could not forgive himself for both nearly dropping Altair into its maw, and for failing to save that kindly old chohjozra who served as his guide, Hiozchhaa Khejrkiu, from being grabbed and devoured. Her daughter had, just a few days before, come back from a life-changing trip to the Federation, and she was so happy. The archeologist could not shake off the feeling that he was the one responsible, and could not stomach returning to chohjozra space after that.
"...if only we packed those back there... nevermind," he wiped a rapidly-freezing tear from his scarfed face. "Let's go."
They picked the route that went down south. While it was naive to think that it would be a straightaway to the vestibule, it was equally silly to think that going the opposite or perpendicular direction would produce a better result.
Altair lit the way down the gentle slope, as the corridor's ceiling narrowed ever-so-noticeably. Bit by bit, the ground under the team became more smooth and slippery. It was akin to walking on a mirror, into the sloped equivalent of a bottomless pit. Desolate was this corridor, bare of any hatches or lights, or anything else to break up the soul-crushing monotony. The only sound was their careful footsteps, and Spots' quiet slithering. Everyone went slowly, and were thankful for their spiked boots or claws. Spots, for lack of either, had to move in a zigzag pattern.
Their slithering suddenly turned into a skid and then was drowned out by a panicked yell. Spots lost their grip and careened into the depths, frantically trying to hold onto the slippery surface with their four tentacles, and failing completely. Altair blinked and wailed briefly.
The other four stopped for a moment. "Holy shit," Iraklijs stared down the corridor. The scream faded slowly, and before anyone could do anything, was followed by a wet thump.
"Spots! Are you alive?" Ekut shouted.
A tiny bubbling-gurgling sound echoed through the hall, amplified by its geometry.
"We need to go down, ssave them..." Zkeh said.
While the way forward was too slippery to walk even with their grippy boots, Ekut's grapple-gun once again came to the rescue. The four went down the corridor on their behinds, like children on a slide, accompanied by the shrill clicking of the ratchet that anchored them to the still-rough part of the floor. It gently slowed their descent to a halt near the bottom of the slope. There was a small, rectangular mini-vestibule, featureless and smooth-floored, with two identical tunnels on the sides, going further down.
...
Only Spots' tail, contained by their transparent body-sleeve, was visible, poking out of the front wall. By a stroke of unluck, they ended up lodged in a circular, open hole about the diameter of their body.
It was limp.
The extremely metallic odor of bquaa blood wafted through the hall, picked up by the masks' olfactory gates.
"This doesn't look good," Ekut said, her ears and eyes swiveling from side to side.
"No... no no no... please God no..." Iraklijs said as he tugged on the team leader's tail. It effortlessly slid out of the hatch, unfortunately without the front half of the body, which was nowhere to be seen. Thick, greenish blood with reddish swirls gouted out of the bisected half, spilling into a freezing and coagulating puddle on the cold floor.
They could see a thick blade occasionally swing past, in the darkness of the hole...
...and hear a weak, pleading moan from its depths.
Zkeh stared in its direction. His beaked face was stoic as always, but everyone knew that thoughts of immense dread were bouncing behind it.
"Fucking hell... no... this... I..." Iraklijs looked inside, Altair's uneven-from-distress light illuminated what was left of Spots, wedged in some grate just beyond the blade's path. They were breathing heavily, and babbling something incoherent. Suddenly, they turned to look his human compatriot in the eyes.
"Kill... so much... pain... please kill... end misery... gun..."
Bquaa often took over an hour to die even from extreme trauma like this, thanks to a split circulatory system. While it may have been possible to save Spots in a more civilized environment, they were, realistically, hours or days from reaching an exit, and squeezing them through the well up would have likely killed them completely... not that Yangchen could save them in the rover, or that they would even survive a trip upward.
BLAM!
There was a grayish splatter over the grate, and Spots' body immediately fell limp. Iraklijs holstered the revolver, and knelt, not caring how the blood puddle soiled his clothes. He wept. Ekut, Zkeh, and even Tsip embraced him and each other, and while only he himself could shed tears of any emotion, everyone was as distraught and shocked as him. Grief was an universal emotion.
Just shortly before, they were playing a game and thinking about how they'd all escape with lots of data. Spots, no doubt, wanted to return to their kin on the ship, to spend time with Blup and others. To, perhaps, eventually go back to the sprawling hives of their homeworld and live as one amid billions. Now all that was cut short, by some kind of precursor garbage chute. All because of an accident nobody could have foreseen. The career of an explorer was brutal, yes, but nobody ever expects anything like this to happen-- until it does. Iraklijs could see nothing but the putrid blood that surrounded him, further muddled by the tears that filled his eyes.
Ekut was the first to regain composure. Tsip was still paralyzed, but less by grief and more by confusion at the unexpected change of the situation. Wincing, she used her grapple to fish out Spots' backpack, which was thankfully detached from their body by the blade's impact. After handing the bloodied sack of ragged synthleather to Iraklijs, she likewise angled for the deceased bquaa's pistols, deftly catching the still-linked pair in her grasp.
And one of them had its battery compartment cracked, whether by the blade or Iraklijs' shot, or even her own hook. Acrid smoke poured out, and with every second the rectangular blaster visibly swelled, as if about to explode. It immediately grew hot, so hot in fact that before Ekut could quite process anything, it seared her hand through the glove, and she reflexively let it go. Its surprising weight yanked the intact one from her other hand.
"KRANN!"
Everyone's gaze was fixed on the fall of the compromised blasters, into the puddle of conductive liquid that they all were standing or sitting in.
. . .