The Prize: Book One (23 page)

The remainder of the team bunched together as they moved, knives out for mutual protection.  They'd left their useless weapons behind, along with the power packs, thereby reducing their load by a considerable amount.  Ellis even dumped her comm unit, useless now, and nothing more than dead weight she had to carry around.  So much for updating General Tandy on their progress.  On the plus side, she wouldn't have to listen to his constant bitching, and complain about Penn.  They found themselves in a maze of identical passageways.  Every surface identical to every other, the walls, floors, ceiling all the same tones and textures.  All covered with blue, green, and silver icons, with an odd-looking hieroglyphic script, reminiscent of Arabic that wound between them in no discernible pattern.  Penn suspected that if you could read the script, you could tell where you were, and where you were going.  To make matters worse, at Ellis's direction, troopers counted one hundred paces to a crossway, and another hundred to the next.  They soon discovered their compasses were useless, the needles stayed in the same position no matter which way they turned.

The passageways remained the same no matter which turning they took.  One hundred feet to the next crossing, and the next.  They tried stationing a trooper at each cross passageway as the Penn walked in a square, but that didn't help.  Penn felt baffled, which way to go?  Penn had no more idea than anyone else.  They walked for hours, the view unchanged except for a few glimpses of the Thrakee.  The lizards made no attempt to attack, and looked more concerned with finding a way up and out of this maze, much as they were doing.  At last, Penn trailed behind the others, trying to calculate the size of the task ahead.  From the aerial holographs Ellis showed him, he estimated the planet's atmosphere was approximately 150 miles deep.  If the tip of the pyramid was above the atmosphere that would make the base of this pyramid some 300 hundred miles on each side, and the footprint covered an area of some 90,000 square miles.  With a limited amount of food and water, it was impossible to explore that large an area with what they had.  Even if they could find the outer wall, just to walk around the base was a grim prospect.  They'd have to walk over 1,200 miles.

"Hold up there, Ellis.  This is no good.”  Penn stopped, leaning against a wall.  The pulsing sound, just outside his hearing, grated on his nerves.

"Tell me about it.”

"Let's go back to square one, and start again.”

"How the hell do we do that?”  Dana snarled, gripping his knife tighter.  ”We're fracking lost.”  The sound was starting to get on everyone's nerves.

"Not really,” Penn answered, smiling despite his jangling nerves, “the up ramp is just around the corner.  Follow me.”  Penn hadn't seen a ramp of course, but he concentrated on the ramp being there, and two corners later, it was.

"How the hell did you do that?  Photographic memory?”  Captain Carras asked.

Penn just shrugged.  For some reason, even though she was still angry with him, Ellis was impressed.  Penn didn't bother dissuading them from their belief in his extraordinary abilities.  But he knew they still didn't understand the truth about this building.

"Okay, people.  Now comes the hard part.”  Penn knew his next suggestion would take a leap of faith.  ”Get something to blindfold yourselves with, and no cheating, or this won't work.”

"Do what he tells you.”  Ellis ordered, unsure of what Penn had planned.

She took her pack off and pulled out a tee shirt.  The others did little to hide their displeasure in taking part in Penn's experiment, but the prospect of wandering around these endless passageways was even less appealing.  After ensuring everyone had their blindfolded in place, Penn walked to the front of the line.  Each had his hand on the shoulder of the trooper in front of him.  Now came a leap of faith.  If he were wrong, he'd know in about three steps.  What he'd do after that, he didn't know.  Wrapping a strip of cloth around his eyes, he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, clearing his mind of everything.  He didn't try thinking the walls weren't there as that would probably have the opposite effect.  Like meditation, he blanked his mind of everything except the moment, and his breathing before taking his first firm step, anticipating nothing, wanting nothing, then a second and a third.  Nothing happened, so he simply kept walking, hearing the troops shuffling along behind him, feeling Ellis's grip on his shoulder.  With his senses working overtime, Penn 'felt' something and slowed, his hand reaching out.  He stopped, his hand braced against some hard surface in front of him.

"What?”  Ellis asked, peeling off her blindfold.

"We're there.”

“Oh my lord!”  She breathed.

They stood in the center of a vast open space with no walls as far as the eye could see.  In front of them, where Penn had stopped was a single, massive support column that appeared to hold up the pearlescent ceiling some ten feel above their heads.  Though he'd done the math in his head, Penn wasn't going to try to explain how they'd walked three hundred miles to the center of the pyramid in less than twenty minutes.  The down side was that they'd lost the last man in the train, trooper Pretrov, their explosives man, but the others were too spellbound to notice his absents at the moment.  Penn bet that he'd looked, and in doing so brought the walls back into existence.  He was now trapped in an endless maze with no way out, unless he had the nerve to do the experiment again.  Even so, there was no guarantee he'd end up here.  Hopefully they wouldn't need his expertise before this was over.  Penn didn't want to contemplate his fate.

'Holy crap!'  Carras exclaimed, blinking in surprise at the seemingly endless expanse around him.

"Where the hell did all the walls go?”  Romm asked as he pulled his blindfold down.

"I don't think they were ever there.”

"They sure as hell felt real!"

"Now what?”  Ellis asked, looking at the gigantic pillar.

"You wanted an elevator," Penn thumped the massive column, "I think this is it.”

He ran his hand over the smooth surface, hoping he was right.  He and several others had taken over an hour to walk all the way around, but there was no door.  Penn thumped the column in frustration, and without warning, a section of the wall pull silently back then sideways to reveal a small room. If this was their elevator, it had just enough room for two people at a time.

“Pair off, big and small.”  Ellis commended after a quick look inside.  ”Class, you will have to go by yourself.”  She said, looking the big man up and down.  He grinned.

“I bet we could squeeze in there,” Class said, grinning from ear to ear and blowing the Captain a kiss.  Carras just gave him a dirty look.

"Who goes first?”  Penn asked, wanting to see the look on their faces.

"I think someone should go up to whatever floor this goes to, have a look around, and come back down,” Squad Leader Dena gave Penn a dirty look, ”at least that way we'll know what we are getting into.  Don't you think so, Major?”

“Yeah, Penn is our point man, right?”  Sergeant Jaxx added with a nasty grin.

With a slight sigh, and a shake of his head, Penn entered the elevator, not that he expected anything different from this bunch of Girl Scouts.  He looked at Ellis, seeing her nibbling one side of her lower lip, but he couldn't tell if it was worry about him, or what he was doing.  Maybe both.  With no button or controls on the inside wall all he could do was wait.  A moment later, the door slid soundlessly shut, fusing itself seamlessly with the wall.  At least he didn't have to stand there looking at the bunch of grinning idiots outside all waiting to see if he got killed in some horrible way.  As the door started to close Ellis took a half step toward him as if changing her mind at the last moment.

CHAPTER - TWENTY ONE:

He felt no movement, but ten minutes later the door slid open onto a different room.  Penn walked out cautiously and looked around.  The room appeared to be no different from the passageways they'd explored, the walls covered with the same colorful motif.  Several passageways led off in several directions, but rather than explore, he quickly stepped back into the elevator, not wanting to risk investigating this area alone.  When at last the door opened again he saw Ellis standing there, a worried look on her face.

"Where the hell have you been?” she snapped in greeting.  The rest of the troop didn't look all that happy to see him either.

"What?”  Penn asked, puzzled.

"You've been gone two hours!” clearly she'd thought Penn had run off to go after the Prize by himself.

"What are you talking about?”  He knew he'd been in the elevator less than twenty minutes.  ”No way, twenty minutes at most.”  Ellis looked at him a moment seeing no reason for Penn to lie.

"Christ on a crutch!” she muttered.  ”Now the place it screwing around with time as well.”  With the level of technology they seemed to be dealing with, there was no telling what this place could do.

"Come on, Princess, let's go for a ride."  Penn motioned her inside, and reluctantly she grabbed her pack and stepped in.

The space was tight, and even with their backs pressed against the circular wall with their packs between their legs they were almost touching.  Standing face to face, each tried to avoid the other's eyes as they waited for the door to close, diligently inspecting the spotless walls for something, anything to keep their eyes from meeting, but at last, they did.  Without them noticing it, the incessant grating sound in the background slowly changed.  Instead of the otherworldly sound that could be music, it changed, now sounding soft and lilting.  Even the air inside the elevator subtly changed, now filled with the scent of spring and flowers after a rain, invoking memories of bright sun on placid water.  Without them being aware of it, they both slowly relaxed, the tension of the situation gradually drained away.

"What did you mean when you said you didn't want me to get killed?”  She asked after what seemed like an eternity.  Ellis felt shocked.  It was the last thing she ever thought she'd say to him, but something compelled her.  Maybe the oxygen content in the air was making her high.

"Nothing."  Penn answered, evasively.

"Come on Penn, spit it out!”  She knew she was pushing him, but for once, he had nowhere to go, literally.

"Just what I said.”  Penn tried to flatten himself against the wall.

"Why don't you want me to get killed?” She held her breath, unconsciously moving closer.  Penn breathed deeply, drawing in her lilac scent, unable to think of an answer that didn't make him look and feel like a fool.

"Because…” he stammered, feeling himself blushing, “…because, Sub-Major Ellis, I have the hots for you.”  He whispered at last, his yellow eyes locked on her gray ones.

“You just want to fuck me.”  She snapped, biting her lower lip.

This was crazy.  She knew asking that question would just complicate an already screwed up mission, but suddenly, for some reason she couldn't name she didn't care anymore.  She in turn breathed in his scent, spicy cinnamon, suddenly wanting this man as she'd never wanted anyone in her life, but she was afraid.  Penn looked at her, knowing the consequences.  He'd trusted… no, loved a woman once, and it had almost cost him his life.  Was he stupid enough to do it again?  He fought a silent battle with himself as he looked deep into her eyes, feeling something inside him melt, maybe the ice around his heart, he didn't know, just that he felt compelled to speak.

"No, damn it!  I don't want to get into your pants!”  He snapped at last.  His angry words rocking Ellis back on her heels.  It wasn't the answer she expected, biting back a small sob.  Penn took a deep breath.

“I don't want to just get into your pants, Sub-Major Ellis, I want to roll over every damn morning for the rest of my life, and kiss you.”  Saying it, felt as if someone had lifted a enormous weight off his shoulders he didn't know he was carrying.

That she hadn't expected.  It felt as if Penn had just reached into her chest and squeezed her heart.  She could hardly breathe, and for a moment, she wanted to smash him, and throw the words back in his face for the lies she knew they were, but she couldn't.  Ellis jerked her head away as Penn lifted his hand, half-fearful he'd hit her.  She raised her arm to fend his hand away, but her heart wasn't in it.  The back of his fingers stroked her cheek, gently, caressing, a lover's touch.  She closed her eyes and let out a soft sob.