A Season for Slaughter

Chapter 11 The Hole

It wasn't a normal worm hole. That was already obvious.

The tunnel walls were lined with a soft pink skin. It shuddered like flesh. It was thickly threaded with heavy twisting roots and thinner, parasitic creeper-vines. Everything was wet and rubbery looking. The cable-like strands twisted away into darkness. They looked like a writhe of braided anguish.

As it moved down the shaft, the prowler had to pick its way carefully. Very quickly, it began using its pincers to secure itself, clutching at the root and wall surfaces for footholds. It chirruped to itself warningly, but it kept on going.

As we descended deeper and deeper, the differences between this hole and every other worm nest we'd ever mapped became so obvious and so immediately apparent that for a long terrifying moment, I was afraid that we were about to discover a totally new species of Chtorran worm—or perhaps something even worse than that; maybe something that used the worms like the worms used the bunnydogs and the other creatures that shared their nests with them. My imagination offered up feverish pictures of a great bloated mass of slobbering malodorous flesh, pocked with gaping mouths, clashing mandibles, protruding rubbery tentacles, and drunkenly weaving eyestalks-then it gave up altogether and retired from the field in disgrace. Whatever I might imagine, what was actually waiting at the bottom of this nest was inevitably going to be worse.

Deeper now, the walls began showing other bizarre forms of Chtorran life; great bulbous cysts, and dripping sacs of brackish goo. The prowler reported that the globular purple ones that looked like rotting plums gave off smells every bit as ghastly as their appearance suggested.

The thickest of the cables branched abruptly, and the shaft branched with them. One channel led ahead, a smaller tunnel arced off at a tangent. We continued following the main channel down. A little deeper and the shaft began narrowing; at the same time, it became visibly smoother. The sinewy vines we followed disappeared into the substance of the shuddery red walls. The shaft was now a fleshy, all-enclosing tube. We had found our way inside the tree-maze.

The few twisting vessels still visible within the channel walls traced their way unevenly, eventually branching and threading off like giant blood vessels. It was as if we were inside the body of some enormous beast, brave microscopic intruders creeping tentatively through its circulatory system.

"Hold it-" I said. I sat back in my chair. The prowler obediently halted. I moved a display pointer to one of the arterial vines along the wall. "Did that just move?"

"Where?" asked Willig. "What?"

"There-" I highlighted a blubbery loop of twisted cable. Siegel's voice. "Stand by. We'll take a look at the replay-woops, there it goes again."

I was right. The root had pulsed. As we watched, a gentle swelling of viscosity seemed to move slowly along its length.

"Galoop. Galoop. Galoop," said Willig. "It's filled with molasses."

Fifteen seconds later, another glop of whatever galooped slowly through the vein slid wetly down the channel.

"It's got a heartbeat," I said. "It's got a fucking heartbeat!"

I could almost hear it. I could almost feel it thudding in my chest. For a moment, I couldn't breathe. The illusion was too complete, too compelling. I jerked the VR helmet off my head to reassure myself that I was still sitting in the distant rollagon.

"Captain?"

"No problem," I said. "I had to scratch my nose."

"Yeah-" agreed Siegel. "I get the same itch myself sometimes."

"Marano? How's the security situation?"

"No change, Captain. All is quiet. You're more likely to die of loneliness out here."

"That's truer than you know," I agreed. I pulled the helmet back down over my head. The reality of the tunnel enclosed me again. The thick red vein was still pulsing wetly in front of me. As long as I could remind myself it was still a couple of klicks away, it wasn't quite so frightening.

It wasn't the vein that was terrifying. It was what it implied. What was it here to nourish?

"Can we get a sample?" Willig asked softly.

"I'll give it a try-" I tapped gently on my keyboard, moving the prowler closer to the thick red vein. A syringe-tipped probe extended from underneath the prowler's chin; the needle pushed; into the rubbery flesh of the vein, hesitated, filled, then pulled out again. "Got it." I backed the prowler away and took a breath. "I don't know what we're looking at," I admitted. "But it's-it's certainly something."

The prowler flashed green; the sample was secure. More than secure; the prowler's internal sensors were already recording temperature, pH balance, and spectroscopic analysis. Microprobes were also in place; by the time the prowler returned to the vehicle, an extensive photographic record would have been made under a variety of lighting conditions, and most of the preliminary : analyses and LI pattern-checks would be complete. Even if we lost the prowler, we wouldn't lose the data; it was continually uploading its mission log to the vehicle's own LI unit.

I tapped the keyboard again. "Okay, let's go deeper." The prowler backed away from the vein; and we resumed our descent into the tunnels beneath the grove.

Here and there as we progressed, we began seeing other structures, larger and more intricate than those we'd passed above. Now the shaft was lined with flubbery red organs, they were veined with delicate black and blue traceries. They quivered nervously as we passed. I had no idea what they were.

Over and over again, we passed through spiderweb veils that hung across the entire shaft. We tore holes in them as we passed, but the veils had an elastic sticky quality, and the display showed them pulling themselves back together again behind us. Filters? Possibly.

"All right-hold it here," I called. I popped the helmet off and swiveled to the ancillary console. "Let's see a stereo map of where we are, let's get some bearings before we go any deeper."

"Working," said Wilüg. "Inertial guidance puts Sher Khan about fifteen meters down. The tunnel seems to spiral around counter clockwise. I've got a schematic on three."

"I see it." I studied the pattern. "Where's it lead?"

"LI refuses to predict. If it were a worm nest," Willig considered aloud, "then we'd have passed several large chambers already. These tunnels just go down and down."

"It doesn't make sense to me," I grumbled. I swung back to my own station. "All right. Let's keep going." I pulled the helmet down over my head again and once more urged the prowler forward.

Abruptly, we came to a valve-like assembly that blocked the entire tunnel. It looked like several of the flubbery organs had mutated into monstrous red lips, expanding to seal the whole fleshy channel from intruders.

"Don't anybody say it-" I started to caution.

"I'm sorry," said Willig. "I can't help myself. This is a very Freudian experience. A deep tunnel with a big red mouth in it-how are we supposed to react?"

I sighed, loudly.

"If there are teeth on the other side of those lips," remarked Siegel, "I'm turning gay."

"Looks more like an asshole to me," Marano added drily.

"Well, you've had more experience with assholes than the rest of us."

"Every single day," she retorted.

"Say, how good are you at anal intercourse, Captain?"

"This looks like a job for Dannenfelser."

"Did anyone bring any lube?"

"I asked you guys not to start," I said quietly. But it was a losing battle.

"Aww, come on, Captain-" That was Marano again. "How often do we get an opportunity like this?"

I scratched my cheek thoughtfully, while I considered and discarded a number of possible responses. "We have a job to do here. Let's save the jokes for later, okay?"

Marano sniffed, Siegel sighed, a couple of the others made grunting sounds. It was as close to assent as they were likely to give.

"All right," I said, urging the prowler forward. "Let's push through it."

"Be gentle…" whispered Willig, absolutely deadpan. Most of them managed to choke back their laughter. I felt myself reddening, I had to clench my teeth to avoid breaking up. I allowed myself an exhausted sigh. I nudged the prowler slowly up against the center of the fleshy valve. At first it resisted, then abruptly it released and the prowler slid smoothly in.

"You're safe, Siegel," I said. "No teeth."

"Sure-not with gums like that."

The door popped shut behind us with a rubbery flopping sound. I looked straight up, and the VR helmet showed me the view rearward. The valve looked the same from this side. I lowered my gaze and looked forward again; only a few meters ahead, another flubbery valve waited. I nudged the prowler toward it.

"What? No more jokes?"

"Nah," said Siegel. "You seen one asshole, you seen 'em all."

"You haven't worked for General Wainright," Willig replied.

"Cool it," I said. "That kind of chatter is insubordinate."

"Sorry," said Willig.

"Just remember, we've got live mikes. I don't mind an occasional dirty joke. That's a soldier's prerogative, but we've got our share of eavesdroppers on every mission now. Let's behave like the professionals we are."

We pushed through the next valve, and it too flopped shut behind us. A third valve lay ahead; it looked thicker than the first two, but we pushed through it without incident.

"Cap'n?" Willig hesitated. "Take a look at Sher Khan's readouts. The atmospheric pressure is up. Humidity's up. And the atmospheric mix is changing."

I checked my display. She was right. I took a sip of water and considered the information. "These valves are a series of organic airlocks." For a moment, we all just sat and thought about that possibility. What were we heading down into?

"You ever seen anything like this before?" Siegel asked.

"I've seen the flubbery doors before in worm nests, but not concentrically, not like this." A moment later, I was able to add, "Neither has the computer. So, okay-yes, we're seeing something significantly new here. Congratulations," I added. "But don't start spending your bounty money yet. We don't know how big this is or what it means."

"You think it could be important?"

"I think we're probably going to be a paragraph in the next edition of The Red Book." And then I shrugged. "Or hell, I dunno, maybe even a whole appendix."

"If we're an appendix," said Willig, "you have to take us out. How does dinner and dancing sound?"

"How does the P-ration of your choice strike you?"

"Never mind. I'd rather sit home alone in the dark."

We pushed on through the next valve and the next and the next one after that. And with each new chamber, the air pressure climbed perceptibly, the temperature and humidity rose, and so did the amount of free oxygen in the air. The prowler descended steadily.

"Haw deep does this go?" Siegel asked.

"Until we get to something approximating Chtorr-normal atmosphere, I'll bet. This is going to answer a lot of questions." And then I added mordantly, "But probably not as many as it's going to raise. Let's keep going."