Star Road (40 page)

In the sputtering red light of the flare, he looked down the long flight of stairs. They took a long, sweeping curve around to the right and disappeared down into darkness.

Who knew how far down they went... or if they were even really there?

Are all of the steps an illusion or just some of them?

Ivan dropped onto his hands and knees and waved his hand in the empty space where the step had been. He leaned out, feeling around the edges.

“This step’s definitely not there.” He leaned out even farther, looking left and right, but it was impossible to see into the deep shadows. “There’s no indication it was some kind of projection, so my guess is, the step was real—just not supported.”

“We never heard it hit the floor down below,” Ruth said.

Ivan nodded. “True. But we were so surprised, we weren’t really listening for it, either.”

He leaned as far forward as he could go and slapped the second step in front of him.

His hand hit hard stone. This one was solid.

“Okay,” he said, easing back onto the platform.

“It won’t be if it drops away as soon as you stand on it,” Ruth said, sounding worried.

Ivan sat back on his heels and ran his fingers through his hair.

“I’m thinking the first step was a holographic projection. Never really there. No one would create a trap where a real stone would fall and have to be reset every time someone tripped it.”

“Maybe,” Jordan said, “but how do we know which steps are real ... or if any of them will support us?”

Ivan stared down the long, winding stairway, thinking.

“That flare about done?” he asked Jordan.

He held out his hand.

Jordan studied the flare for a moment and then gave it to him.

Ivan gripped it loosely, feeling the heat of the burning metal tube. Then he leaned over the gap and gently tossed it onto the second step.

It hit the wide stone block with a loud, metallic ringing sound.

The stone step didn’t disappear. Then the flare rolled and dropped onto the next level.

Same thing.

The stair remained where it was.

The fourth step didn’t fall or disappear, either.

But when the flare rolled onto the fifth step, that one winked out of existence with a faint electronic hum.

And the flare dropped, spinning end over end until it disappeared into the dark abyss.

“Long way down,” Jordan said once the light was gone.

Ivan nodded. “Hate to fall.”

He took a breath. “Okay, then” he said. “The first step and the fifth step weren’t real. If this is some kind of puzzle, it’d be too easy for every other step to be the fake one, right? So”—he shook his head—”the only way to find out is to go down them ... step by step.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Rodriguez said. He was daubing at his split lip, licking the blood off his fingertips. “You’ll get us all killed.”

Ivan stood up and brushed his hands on his jacket.

“You know, Doc, I was kinda thinking of asking
you
to lead the way.”

Rodriguez backed away.

Ivan smiled and, turning to the others, said, “So who has the fiber cable?”

Jordan stepped forward, unzipped his backpack, and took out a length of thickly coiled cable.

Ivan held the man’s gaze as they each held the cable tightly.

“You want to play hero?” Ivan asked.

Jordan smiled and let go of the cable.

“All right, then. We loop this around ourselves and start down one at a time, single file, giving plenty of slack. I’ll take the lead.”

While he was talking, he unspooled the end of the fiber cable and, with Ruth’s help, tied it around his chest, keeping the loop snug under his armpits.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she whispered, her voice soft, her breath warm against the side of his face. “Maybe Rodriguez is right. Maybe we should all go back.”

Ivan took a breath.

A thought.

Obvious. So clear.

She cares for me. And maybe I care for her.

There it was. But he had sensed all along that there was also something going on between her and Jordan.

Should he back off?

Finally, while playing out the fiber from the coil, he called out, “All right. Who’s next?”

Before anyone could speak, Ruth said, “Me.”

She took the fiber line and tied it securely around her chest the way Ivan had.

Ivan checked to make sure it was secure. Then he played out more fiber, so Annie and then Sinjira could tie it around themselves.

When it was Rodriguez’s turn, he took a step back and held up his hands.

“No fucking
way
I’m doing that.”

Jordan glanced at Ivan, who nodded. Then Jordan raised his pistol and pointed it at him.

“You have a simple choice to make here, Doc.”

Rodriguez’s face was pale even in the glow of another flare.

Ivan thought the doctor was going to stand his ground and not tie on, but finally, he took the fiber and looped it twice around his chest. Jordan checked it, giving it an extra hard tug.

“If one of us goes, we all go, huh?”

“One for all, and all for one,” Ivan said with a smile.

Lastly, Jordan tied on, making sure there was plenty of slack between him and Rodriguez.

When they were done, they were each spaced a couple of meters apart.

Ivan went down the line, checking everybody. Satisfied, he sucked in a quick breath and jumped over the first gap to land on the second step.

The solid one.

It held.

“All right,” he said, only slightly relieved. “Let’s see how many steps there are to this hell.”

~ * ~

These idiots are all gonna fall and drag me down with them.

Rodriguez trembled as he climbed up the three stone stairs and prepared to step over the gap and onto the second—and first solid—step.

He made sure to keep plenty of slack between him and Sinjira in front and Jordan behind.

If someone fell, he wanted as much time as possible to drop to the ground and find something—
anything
—to hold on so he wouldn’t be dragged down into the abyss.

“H-how do we know any of these steps are safe?” he called out, his voice echoing weirdly in the wide stairway.

He could still taste the blood in his mouth and spat.

Up ahead, Ivan carried a flare, holding it high.

Behind him, another flare—carried by Jordan—sputtered as it spewed smoke. The red glow from both flares was as thick as paint, casting wavering double shadows across the rough-cut stone walls and descending steps.

“How many flares do you have left?” he wondered.

No answer.

“If we run out before we reach bottom, what then?”

Jordan said, “Relax, Doc. We’re still alive so far,
ain’t
we?”

Rodriguez inhaled the dry cavern air and adjusted the rope around his chest.

Then he took his first step down.

Four people in front of him. They stretched out in a long line, carefully making their way down. Up ahead, Ivan paused and checked each step before putting his full weight on it.

It pays to be paranoid,
he thought but didn’t say.

Some steps disappeared with a crackling hiss while others remained solid.

So far. What if they, too, gave out once they were all on them?

They inched along, taking their time, until both Jordan’s and Ivan’s flares eventually burned out.

Before his was entirely gone, Jordan tossed it over the edge. Rodriguez looked back and watched it disappear, sucked down until it disappeared into the darkness below.

And then gone.

When Jordan lit another one, Rodriguez was momentarily blinded by the sudden burst of light in the darkness. Blinking his eyes, he turned away.

That’s when he saw on the wall—-

Symbols.

“Hang on,” he shouted, loud enough for everyone to draw to a stop. The line went slack.

“What now?” Jordan asked.

“Look here. On the wall.”

Rodriguez scanned the cave wall. The symbols were carved into the rock wall about six meters above each step.

They were difficult to see with the light flickering.

“This could be important,” he said.

The numbers or letters or whatever had obviously been carved into the rock on purpose. Old, like ancient petroglyphs, worn by erosion.

But that was strange, too. There was no “weather” down here to cause erosion—unless this stairway had been filled with floodwater in the past.

A long time ago. Long after these symbols had been carved.

He wondered who had been down here first, exploring this cave, making those marks.

And how long ago?

But what are these symbols for? What do they indicate?

They couldn’t be random. There had to be a reason, and as Rodriguez studied them, he noticed that certain ones repeated farther down.

Letters? Numbers?

“There’s a pattern here,” he whispered, as much to himself as to the others.

With the flare sputtering in his hand, Jordan moved down to the step next to him.

“We don’t have all day here, Doc,” he said.

“I know, I know.” Rodriguez gave him a quick nod, irritated that he had broken his concentration. “Just give me a few seconds. There’s definitely something here ... something ...”

His voice trailed off as he stared at the carving while rubbing the sharp edge of his jaw.

“These flares won’t last forever,” Ivan called up from below.

“Just wait a minute!” Rodriguez shouted back, surprised that his fear had been replaced now with a determination to understand.

He guessed he might even seem deranged as he looked back and forth, up and down the stairs, all the while counting on his fingers and muttering to himself until—finally—he snapped his fingers.

“Got it,” he said. “I understand!”

“Understand what?” Jordan said, but Rodriguez looked at Sinjira, staring at the symbols, recording everything. He turned to her.

“Put this one in a special file, sweetheart,” he said, leaning close and mugging for her. “Label it ‘genius at work.’ “

She looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

“Can we get moving?” Ivan hollered.

“Faster than ever now,” Rodriguez shouted back.

He was feeling so confident—or maybe suicidal—he loosened the rope around his chest, wiggled out of the loop, and started striding down the stairs, stepping over the gaps while counting out loud as he went.

When he was standing on the step beside Ivan, the ex-runner grabbed him by the collar, yanking him off balance.

“Are you out of your mind? Are you trying to get us all killed?”

“Simple mathematics,” Rodriguez replied, letting his smile widen.

“Explain,” Annie said.

“Three steps up to the platform,” he said. “Then a stairway leading down. Look back and count the steps that have disappeared so far. Anyone see a pattern?”

Ivan glared at him for a moment, then looked up the steps, counting the black gaps where stones had disappeared.

“None.”

Ivan appeared to be in no mood for fooling around, but Rodriguez laughed in his face.

“One ... four ... one ... nine ... two ... six ... and five. Ring a bell? Anyone?” He looked up the stairs at the others, waiting.

Ivan shook his head as though he thought the man had lost his mind.

“So the next steps that will disappear as we go down will be three... five ... eight... nine ... seven ... nine ...
et cetera.”

“How do you know this?” Ruth asked.

“What do you mean,
et cetera
?” Ivan clenched his fist. “We don’t have the time for games.”

Annie said, “Yeah, Doc. I gotta admit you lost me here.”

As if to prove Ivan’s point, the flare Rodriguez held sputtered, the light gradually fading.

Before he dropped it over the edge, he fished another one from his backpack and lit it.

“It’s
pi,”
Rodriguez said. “The digits of
pi.
You know? The ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter? ‘

Ivan shook his head and said, “I gotta admit, I wasn’t much of a math student.”

“What a surprise.” He laughed out loud. “You see, you divide the-“

“No. No ... don’t explain,” Ivan said irritably. “If you can get us down these stairs any quicker, please, be my guest.”

“Follow me then.”

Rodriguez started down the stairs, moving fast and counting numbers out loud as he went.