Offworld (23 page)

"She doesn't need you to rescue her!" Chris warned. "Now go!"

Terry clearly wanted to protest, but he relented and ran for the
exit. Chris resumed his search.

"Mae?! Mae.!"

Come on, a little help, please ... Where is she ... ?

Through hallway after hallway he ran, shouting Mae's name but
finding no sign of her. He wiped black, grimy sweat from his forehead
and coughed until his shoulder ached.

Somewhere in the distance, an explosion went off, powerful
enough to shake the building. He wondered what part of the hospital would contain explosive compounds. Maybe a chemical lab of
some kind?

`Mae.!"

The smoke was worse now, and he knew he had only seconds
before escaping wouldn't be an option, but just as he was about to
give up and join the others outside, he saw a sign for the cafeteria
and took a chance.

A powerful blaze roared inside the large room, where Mae stood
off to one side, her back against the wall, trapped by the flames.

"Mae!" Chris shouted.

She looked up and saw him; her expression was as blank as
ever, but tears were streaming down her cheeks and she seemed to
be frozen in place. She held a piece of half-eaten toast in her hand.
It looked like she had tried to scrape the moldy parts off enough to
make it edible.

"Didn't know it would-didn't mean to ... !" she cried.

Chris glanced over at the adjacent kitchen and could clearly see
the toaster. Both it and its power cord were intact. They were located
nowhere near the fire.

"Stay put!" he yelled. "I'm coming to get you!"

Thinking fast, Chris saw that a series of booths and tables ran
along a side wall of the dining room to the place where Mae stood.
He climbed up on top of the nearest table and jumped over to the
next one, repeating the maneuver until he reached the line of flames.
The fire flickered high, but he believed he could breach it without
getting burned.

He took the jump, and crashed hard onto the ground on his bad
shoulder, inside the semicircle of fire where Mae waited. Without
a word, Chris grabbed her and slung her over his good shoulder.
Thinking twice about trying to make the jump again with considerably more weight, he instead hefted the girl with his arm and tossed
her like a rag doll over the flames and onto a padded booth just
outside the fire. She landed on her stomach and rolled off onto the
floor with a thud.

Once he saw she was clear, he jumped again, and this time he
missed the closest table altogether and landed instead on the floor.

"You're on fire!" Mae screamed, pointing.

He looked down; the bottoms of his pant legs were burning. He
dropped to the ground again and rolled until the fire went out.

Scrambling to his feet, Chris grabbed Mae by the hand and headed
for the exit, hacking and coughing the whole way.

They burst through the double glass doors into the warm but
fresh, welcoming night air, and took in great lungfuls of the stuff. He
spotted the others standing off to one side of the building in the dark,
their forms illuminated by the dancing orange flames.

They were gazing up toward the top of the hospital, and he
looked to see what had their attention. The roof of the building was
slowly collapsing, giving off great showering embers, and taking the
helicopter down with it.

No time to worry about that now. First things first.

"Is everybody all right?" he shouted over the raging flames and
collapsing building.

No one replied. Chris looked at them one by one and noticed
that none of them was facing the building or the helicopter anymore.
They had shifted their attention just to the right of the fire. Terry's
and Trisha's mouths were hanging open.

It was there, spiraling slowly and silently in midair two hundred
feet away.

The dark, black void.

The light beckoned him, and Chris followed it.

It was moving fast, leading him deeper into the lava tube, this
underground tunnel that he was trapped in, with no hope of rescue.
He tried to keep up, to get close enough to see what the light really was,
but no matter how fast he went, he couldn't get near it.

From what little he could tell, it was probably round in shape,
like a ball. And there were starbursts of white light streaking from it
in all directions.

He had mere minutes to live. He knew it. Maybe just seconds. But
he didn't want to look down at the timer on his arm again. Not anymore. Looking made it real, and as much as he wanted to see death
coming, he didn't want to give it the satisfaction of knowing it had
made him anxious.

His breathing felt labored, shallow. Yet still his feet continued
to carry him forward, his legs refusing to stop following the strange
light.

What was he looking at? Some bizarre alien life form or
technology.?

Or was he just hallucinating?

That seemed more likely. But he found he didn't mind. As long
as he continued to hallucinate, that meant he was still thinking, still
drawing breath, still pumping blood through his heart.

As much as Chris knew that death was inevitable-be it in minutes or seconds-he did not welcome it. Neither did he fear it. He only
feared a death that came for him before he was finished fiul/illing his
purpose. Death after he was done with all that he had to do ... That
didn't seem so bad.

Do your work, take a bow, get off the stage.

It was better than being yanked off in the middle of yourgreatest
triumph. And what could be greater than being the first man to set
foot on Mars, and safely returning home? He would have to settle for
that first part.

Chris finally gained some ground on the ball of light, and as he
drew nearer, he could see it in more detail. He saw that the rays of
light weren't rays at all. They were lines made up of what be believed
to be symbols. Rows and rows of odd symbols emanating from the
orb in every direction, arranged in perfectly straight lines. And the
symbols were constantly moving outward, as if the orb was creating
them and pushing them away from itself. The symbols or sh. apes were
still blurry at this distance, but bed never seen anything resembling
their patterns before.

The lava tube began curving to the left and sloping downward,
and the bull of light followed it, going ever deeper under the ground.

Chris knew this would not help his situation, but it's not like rescue
was going to find him now anyway.

In for a penny ...

He was surprised to suddenly find himself drawing much closer
to the light. And as he came nearer, the light began to change shape. It had been maybe the size of a basketball when hefirst came upon it, but
now it was growing, and it was taking on more of a boxlike shape.

It stopped, hovering in midair.

Chris watched, dumbstruck, as it continued its transformation,
growing incredibly large, until it had finished and he could see clearly
what it had become.

It was something he recognized.

And it had no business being on Mars.

They all saw it. It was right there in front of them, and they were
looking dead at it.

Was it smaller than before? Chris found it hard to say.

He stole a brief moment to look at each of their faces to confirm
as he coughed again, trying in vain to clear his lungs. There could
be no doubt: all four of them were seeing the same black void that
he'd been seeing since the day of the crash.

"This isn't the first time I've seen it," Chris admitted, and everyone
looked at him. He told them everything, a full account of all the times
he'd looked into the void. "I was starting to think it was my imagination playing tricks on me."

"What is it?" Terry asked. He took a few steps away from the
group, trying to get a better look.

"Is it dangerous?" Owen asked.

"Doesn't seem to be, so far," Chris replied.

"What do you think it is?" Terry repeated.

"I have no idea," said Chris, "but it's almost like ... it's following
us everywhere we go."

As they watched in silence, the void disappeared. It didn't slowly
fade away, and it didn't leave behind any telltale dark wisps. It was
simply there, and then it wasn't. In fact, it happened so quickly that
it was a moment before anyone realized it had gone and they were
staring at nothing in the dark.

Chris looked up at the night sky. Thin high clouds still remained
in patches, but for the first time since being home, he could see some
bright stars shining beyond the fog.

"We're in hell," Terry said, so softly that the others almost didn't
hear him.

"We're not in hell," said Trisha.

Terry turned, his eyes alive with understanding, as if everything
suddenly made perfect sense. "That's it. We died. We died when the
ship crashed, and we went to hell. And now hell is punishing us by
driving us mad."

Chris looked back at the burning hospital. "Come on, this is no
time for-"

`Actually, Terry does have a point, Chris," Owen interrupted,
speaking in his most logical tone. "Not the hell part," he said of Chris
and Trisha's expressions. `But think about it. A building collapsed on
us, the cars and the rain blocked the roads, we were trapped by a
flood and a hurricane, and now this fire tries to kill us in our sleep.
It's been nonstop since we left the Cape. I know it must've occurred
to you too; it's too much to be just one accident after another. Something is trying to prevent us from reaching Houston. There's intent
at work here. And if this `void' is consistently for lack of a better
phrase-watching its at every turn ..

"Then it's all connected," Trisha said, finishing his thought.

Owen said nothing. Chris noted an odd expression on his face.

Chris bypassed the speculations and got to the bottom line. "We've
got to get to Houston. Now. The answers to all of this are waiting for
us there, I know it. No more delays."

"Not goin'," Mae spoke up for the first time.

Everyone turned. The tears still stained her cheeks, but her expression was lifeless.

"What do you mean?" Terry asked, turning dark.

"This ain't my life. Ain't how it works. Just wanna be done, wanna
be alone. Y'all don't need me no ways."

Chris eyed her carefully. She wanted to leave the group? Was
she serious?

"If Owen's right and I would point out that he usually is-then
something bigger is taking place here. You can't just go off on your
own. Not now."

"It's too dangerous!" Terry added.

"Take care of myself," Mae replied.

"I have no doubt of that," said Chris. "But where will you go? Are
we supposed to just drop you off somewhere, and wish you well?"

"Here in town. French Quarter. Born there."

Terry closed his eyes and shook his head. "You can't just bail on
us! You'll be all alone."

Always been alone," she said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

"Oh right, I forgot," said Terry, sarcasm rising. "Self-reliant Mae
was born on the streets and has lived her whole life there. So what?
You ready to die on the streets too?"

"Stop it!" She raised her voice for the first time since they'd met
her. `Ain't like you! Ain't strong! Ain't brave. Done made up my mind,
so stop! Just stop!"

Mae walked away, hugging herself as she went. No one was sure
where she was going, but no one moved to stop her.

Terry raised his fists to the sky, arms quivering with anger. "What
is happening?!" he shouted as loud as he could, louder than any of
them had ever heard him raise his voice.

"Calm down, Terry," Trisha said.

"Don't tell me to calm down! We're the only people in the whole
world, and I can scream if I feel like it!" As if to demonstrate his
point, he arched back and let out a guttural, unholy howl of rage and
despair that was directed at everyone and no one.

After the sound faded, his face was red, his cheeks were puffed
out, and he was breathing very fast.