The Other Tree (25 page)

“Maybe it was created by those expelled from Eden. The instructions on how to return, passed down through the generations,” said Bale.

There was a pause, filled with the sound of humming engines.

“Anyway, we go where the loot is,” said Docker, shunting a lever as the helicopter surged forward.

Emir felt a certain sense of foreboding, as though they were crossing an imaginary threshold into a shadowland. The carving seemed an ominous sign—ancient and weathered, but the deeply cut images were still clear where the sandstone had been sliced away to reveal the granite beneath. It had shown a body dismembered and scattered into pieces.

* * *

It actually took a lot longer to cut through rope with a knife than movies would have you believe. Especially if you were tied to a chair and lying on the floor, while your fingers were going blue from restricted circulation.

“What was your plan if Thena hadn’t intervened?” asked Luke.

“Choke the snake to death from the inside using my chair,” said Chris. “Giving you the chance to do something equally heroic.”

Well, it wasn’t a bad strategy
, Luke admitted to himself, all things considered.

With a grunt, Chris finally sawed through the rope binding her wrists, and she cringed as a surge of pins and needles flooded her hands. She sliced through the rope tying her ankles before quickly moving over to Luke. She noticed a bruise on the side of his forehead, where his head had hit the concrete.

“How’s your head?” said Chris, starting to worry about the cumulative effects of multiple head injuries.

“Fine,” said Luke.

“How many fingers?”

“Just cut the rope.”

As the ropes fell away, Luke prised himself from the chair, getting stiffly to his feet. He swayed briefly, then walked across to Thena, who was still lying unconscious on the floor. Crouching beside her, he gently plucked the tranquilliser dart from her side.

“Okay,” said Chris. “We’d better go before crazy camp realise we haven’t been digested.”

“Just a moment,” said Luke.

He pulled a scrap of paper from his coat and clicked a pen quickly. Scrawling his phone number on the paper, he tucked it into Thena’s pocket.

“Time and a place,” said Chris, tapping her foot.

“Trust me,” said Luke. “We’ll want to hear what she has to say when she wakes up.”

“I can imagine what she’s going to say. And it’ll probably be mostly expletives.”

Luke followed Chris into the dim corridor, treading quietly through the silent warehouse. Glancing into the side rooms, they saw various bodies slumped on the floor and over desks, the tufts of tranquilliser darts poking out of shoulders and backs.

It made Chris uneasy, seeing so many unconscious people strewn throughout the complex. While she was enormously relieved that they didn’t have to sneak or fight their way out, since neither scenario would have ended well, she wondered if Lien had bothered to check whether any of these people had allergies or heart conditions. Or whether anyone had just put something in the oven, or had family expecting a call. But that probably hadn’t mattered to Lien—she had a job to do. Get from A to B, no matter what else got trampled in between. That was the SinaCorp way.

Chris paused when they reached the front hall, where Tate lay sprawled beside a rack of guns. She thought about it for all of three seconds, which she felt was as long as it deserved. She bent over and reached into Tate’s pocket.

“Everything else, I’ll deal with later,” said Chris. “But this is for the car deposit.”

Chris swung the vehicle keys into her palm, then turned to Luke with a faintly sinister smile.

“Hey,” said Chris. “You know what would be really ironic?”

* * *

Pillars of eroded yellow rock rose around the SinaCorp team like a petrified forest. The ground was virtually shadowless as the desert sun baked high overhead.

“I think this is it,” said Roman, the Argon-L scanner mounted on her shoulder.

Docker walked over and glanced at the rocky wall before her. It was a smooth, bare section of sandstone, with a man-sized chunk cut cleanly from the middle.

“Okay,” called Docker. “Bale on the X-ray repeater. Emir on the echo-scanner. Roman, keep the Argon going. Let’s find this entrance.”

Docker suddenly looked up towards a craggy ledge, a finger to his earpiece. There was the sound of grit falling, and then a figure appeared on the rocky outcropping, silhouetted against the hot sky.

“What took you so long?” said Docker.

Lien leapt gracefully from the ledge and landed in front of Docker with a slightly smug smile. She reached into her vest and pulled out a rumpled piece of paper.

“Missing something?” asked Lien.

“Cute,” said Docker. “Roman!”

Roman took the page from Lien, glancing quickly over the line of words.

“Did I miss anything exciting?” asked Lien.

“Bale, Emir, and I are scanning for the entrance,” said Roman. “This is the lead.”

Roman handed Lien a photograph of Subara’s carving.

“You’re on second gun,” continued Roman. “You okay?”

Roman was starting to feel uneasy, as though something slightly cold was washing through the air around them.

“Easy,” smiled Lien. “It was like following baby pandas. They were stopping to eat all the time. And sometimes, they would just stand in the middle of the street and argue for ages.”

“Okay,” said Roman. “Stay alert and keep Docker in sight line. Bale!”

Bale flicked switches on a device that resembled a portable film projector, the strap slung over his shoulder. His expression was one of intense concentration, and he appeared to be trying to decide whether there was any technical justification for giving the machine a solid thump.

“Bale!” Roman repeated.

Bale looked up and walked over to Roman, taking the proffered photocopy. He noted with some disgust the oddly coloured stains on the back, before turning the page back over. His eyes skimmed the dark strokes of ink.

“Blood without sin,” murmured Bale. “Blood of the blameless man.”

“Report to Docker,” said Roman.

She swept her gaze across the sandy canyon as Bale disappeared around a rocky wall.

“There’s something wrong with the machines,” said Emir, approaching from the north-east quadrant. “Or the rocks. I’m not getting clear readings on anything.”

Like the problem with the Sumerian tablet. Roman had been getting scattershot readings on the Argon-L—fluctuating results spurting gibberish. But there wasn’t anything extraordinary about the geology here—it was old rock, like any other part of this desert.

“If Bale’s having the same problem, we’ll have to resort to old-fashioned techniques,” said Emir. “Any good at finding secret doors?”

Roman was not good at finding secret doors without appropriate equipment. She was, however, fairly good at making doors where none previously existed, given the right weaponry. Unfortunately, this did not seem to be a situation where that skill would be particularly useful.

Emir quickly calculated the odds of being able to thoroughly search the area before their water ran out. It reminded him of his early days in recovery, when equipment was generally limited to a loop of rope and a hunting knife. There was a certain exhilaration to trying to find a solution when all you had were your own two hands and a destination. Just you and the goal, freefall or triumph. But there was a certain element of reckless arrogance to that approach, and Emir had learned that preparation and good judgement often made the difference between the two.

For instance, Emir had the distinct impression that water was not the only serious concern in this location. He was not superstitious, although he could sense Bale’s apprehension, creating vague links between the equipment failure and what they were doing. Emir did, however, have the keen sense of being watched. His muscles were tense, and his feet were staying light, as though preparing for something unexpected.

Roman tapped on her earpiece.

“Docker,” said Roman. “Equipment failure. Advise.”

“Any chance of a supply drop?” asked Emir.

“They have over a hundred teams out at any time,” said Roman. “In Docker’s words, ‘We shoot, we score.’ The money’s so good because there’s no failure rate. We return with the goods or not at all. Metaphorically speaking.”

Emir had the impression Roman added the “metaphorically” as a legal caveat, rather than because anything about her statement was actually metaphorical.

“How many SinaCorp missions have you been on?” asked Emir.

Roman adjusted the display on her Argon-L scanner.

“Do you know how much transgenic bone marrow therapy costs in the United States?” said Roman.

She snapped the shoulder mount back onto the device.

“That’s how many missions.”

There was a sudden, unnatural hush. Then it came upon them so quickly there was no time to react. It was like a trail of smoke rushing past a distant stand of rocks, and there was a sound like a rumble, like a hum. Roman and Emir both spun towards the noise—

Then they heard Lien screaming—an animal scream that ripped through the air and shattered against the stone.

There were three gunshots, in quick, measured succession.

Emir and Roman raced towards the sound.

* * *

Tate woke with the groggy impression that something had gone slightly amiss with his plan. The world seemed to be rolling around slightly, like whisky sloshing around a mostly empty bottle. And he couldn’t move, which was never a good sign.

As the world stopped reeling, his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room. Tate became aware of a dry, rustling noise very nearby. This was, however, secondary to him becoming aware of a pair of yellow, slitted eyes the size of basketballs staring at him with unpleasant interest, from an extremely uncomfortable proximity. This, in turn, made him very aware of the fact that he was tied to a chair.

Tate stared at the enormous caged snake, the only thing separating them being a firmly locked cage door with a neat sign stuck to it, written in black marker.

We could have, but we didn’t
.

That’s the difference between us
.

13

The truck was, quite simply, amazing.

Dusty solar panels on the roof powered a stuttering air conditioner, while rugged monster tyres churned through the desert. The horizon ribboned past as they roared across the plains, a long yellow plume of dust rising behind them. Pebbles bounced off the bull-bar and mudflaps, dry air whipping over the vehicle. Chris’s hands gripped the thick, rubber steering wheel, the sun guard keeping the glare of the sky from her eyes.

“Off-roaders are so bad for the environment,” said Chris. “Look at all those dead bugs.”

“I’d rather not,” said Luke, disturbed by the layer of chitin starting to encrust the vehicle.

“And you’ll probably have to dig out the lizards from the tyre tread later,” said Chris.

Luke took this to be a generic “you.”

“You’d think they’d have a gyrocopter or something,” said Chris. “Maybe some solar-powered paraglider thing.”

Luke had a brief image of them trying to steer a hang-glider across the stony desert.

“I think this is faster,” said Luke.
And marginally less likely to kill
us.

“How’re you feeling?” asked Chris.

Luke had not been looking particularly well for some time now, and Chris wasn’t sure if it was the food, or the dehydration, or the bugs, or the snakes, or the spiders, or all of the above. He didn’t look like he’d been the kind of child who climbed trees or swam through rivers. He looked like he might have been the kind of kid who stared at things until they caught on fire.

“Fine,” said Luke, taking a swig from his bottle of water.

They’d passed the town of Bihr’el a few kilometres back, and there were no roads out here. It was just yellow folds of sand and rock on all sides, as far as you could see. Chris glanced at the map on the dashboard, the intersection mark now circled in red. She peered at the compass, which seemed to be getting rather indecisive.

“What do you think we’ll find there?” asked Luke. “A garden? A gate? A themed restaurant?”

Chris blinked away a trickle of sweat.

“I don’t know how you religious types feel about the Sumerian
Epic of Gilgamesh
,” said Chris. “Written about three thousand years before the Old Testament, and telling almost exactly the same story, but with multiple gods and less moralising.”

“We generally prefer our version,” said Luke.

“There’s a part where Gilgamesh, the warrior king, goes on a quest for immortality. One of the gods tells Gilgamesh about a plant that grows deep beneath the sea which will make him young again. Gilgamesh goes through trials and quests, a lot of which seem to involve killing people he finds annoying, and he finally finds this plant. But at the crucial moment, the plant is stolen from Gilgamesh by a snake, who eats the plant and is reborn.”

“People have a thing about snakes.”

“For thousands of years, people have been telling the same story. Yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden—”

“Unto the nether parts of the earth,” completed Luke. “I think that was a warning rather than an invitation.”

“To humans, it’s often the same thing. If it’s here, it’s underground.”

Chris slammed on the brakes as they suddenly crested a rise she hadn’t even seen coming. The shimmering glare from the sand had created the illusion of another far horizon, when instead the ground sloped away dramatically into a gigantic, circular canyon spread before them. The truck slid several metres, spraying grit, before it snaked to a stop.

The canyon looked like an erratically carved quarry in the middle of the desert, approximately a kilometre long and four metres deep. Channels had been gouged through the rock by long-dried floods, leaving a labyrinth of sandy paths between sedimentary walls and spurs of yellow stone.

“Tell me that doesn’t look Biblical,” said Chris.

“It’s a canyon,” said Luke. “It’s all God’s work.”

But he felt a tug of something like excitement as he pulled his pack from the truck. They were getting close to something—maybe answers, maybe certain death. But there was something tangible and irrevocable about it now.