Sanji spoke up in his singsong accent. “But if they got to the elevator, would they not have to attack the whole camp?” Silence again dominated the conversation. The mood grew darker and more hopeless by the second.
"It's possible, but not likely,” Connell said. “They were probably just trying to hit the elevator and didn't suspect that Mrs. Hayes would discover their digging. Hitting an armed camp outright would require not only a task force, but a great deal of preplanning with intent to commit mass murder."
Expressions didn't change. They all knew that if the mystery faction had destroyed the camp, they were as good as dead.
"Well that's just fucking great,” Veronica said. “What the hell do we do now?"
They all looked at Connell. Confidence and control replaced his fear. These people needed a leader, and that leader needed to give them purpose, something to focus their attention on so they wouldn't dwell on the dim prospects of rescue. He had just such a purpose — Connell wasn't finished with this mountain. Not by a long shot.
"You're missing the obvious,” Connell said. “This mystery enemy dug toward the mine shaft. That takes equipment. And while maybe they could have slipped someone into our adit, or possibly put a spy in our ranks, there's no way in hell they could have sent mining equipment into our shaft without our seeing it."
Everyone fell silent, but their faces lifted with the first signs of hope. Lybrand was the first to voice the common thought.
"So there's got to be another way in,” she said.
Connell nodded. “Exactly. It's the only answer."
"So how do we find it?” Mack asked. “There's miles and miles of caverns down here."
"There's really only one way to go,” Connell said. “We have to head for the Dense Mass."
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!” Veronica stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at Connell. “We're stuck here, with no possibility of rescue, we've just seen two men die, and all you can think about is money? You just take the cake, mister!"
Connell gave her a neutral expression. He wasn't going to give her any fuel to continue the tirade. He waited until the echoes of her outburst faded away into nothingness before he spoke.
"Professor, please listen,” Connell said. “This isn't about money. We're cut off. It's going to take them days to dig us out, maybe weeks. The Dense Mass is what our enemy is after. They're either there already, or they're heading toward it. Either way, that's the fastest way to find them. We find them, and we find out how they got in."
Veronica eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then nodded. “I guess you've got a point."
"So we know where we're going,” O'Doyle said. “I suggest we all get some sleep. Everyone is in pretty bad shape, so we'll rest a few hours before heading out."
"Sleep?” Veronica said. “How the hell am I supposed to sleep at a time like this?"
"These caves are hard to navigate, so we'll have our work cut out for us,” O'Doyle said. “If you can't sleep, professor, fine, but at least lie down and relax. We need everyone sharp for the march ahead."
There was a brief, uncomfortable silence, then Sanji found a rock-free area and lay down. The others soon followed suit, all except for O'Doyle, who stood guard.
Kayla moved as silently as a shadow, carefully picking her way through the adit. She saw clearly courtesy of three-pound starlight-sight goggles. Through those lenses, the tunnel walls and floors glowed an eerie green.
She'd expected to see bodies, or at least some sign of a struggle, but there was nothing. She saw no sign of the creatures either, but she still moved carefully, her Galil ARM at the ready. She'd seen those things take out a dozen trained, well-armed men. Kayla had no intention of joining the mutilated ranks of EarthCore employees. Still, she had to assess the situation. When she finally made her pitch to the NSA, she needed complete information, and that required reconnaissance.
She moved down the adit until a pile of fallen rocks blocked her path. Some of the boulders must have weighed ten tons or more. It would take Army engineers at least a week to clear the tunnel. She knew she was close to the elevator shaft, which meant the shaft was likely filled with fallen rocks as well. Not good. Without a way in, all she could give the NSA was a story and a location. Kayla sighed — that would have to do. She'd simply have to do a better sell-job.
The adit's silence seemed to weigh down on her. She wondered if the people who'd been in the adit had heard anything before the monsters pounced. Maybe they hadn't heard anything at all. Kayla shuddered.
There was nothing more to see, so she quickly moved out of the adit.
Mack busied himself preparing backpacks. It gave him some level of escape from his frustration, but the facts that he'd lost two miners and that some unknown enemy had destroyed his mine were never far from his thoughts. It had been a masterpiece, a flawless work and the pinnacle of his career. Now it was gone.
Even his worst-case scenario was overly optimistic. He'd lied more than a little to the others — he couldn't bear to remove all hope, couldn't tell them the truth, tell them that they were already dead. The shaft's integrity was compromised. Another one would have to be dug to get them out. That meant rescue was at least another month away. They wouldn't last a week, especially not after the lights went out.
On top of that hopelessness, there was the unspoken fear of Jansson's abductors. They were down here somewhere, perhaps waiting for an EarthCore member to wander off on their own, to become separated just as Jansson had. Someone was down here waiting.
Someone.
Or maybe something.
The image of the silvery spider flashed through his mind. “Silverbug,” Fritz had called it. Mack gritted his teeth to fight back tears. Fritz had been so young. Mack had forgotten about the silverbug in the hubbub of the elevator crash. Could the spiders have taken the missing man? If they did, how did they take a two-hundred-pound man away so fast?
He and Lybrand had told the others about the silverbugs. The story only added to the doom-and-gloom feeling that filled the caves. Mack shuddered, thinking of the slender silvery legs flashing quickly in the dim light, wrapping around Jansson's hand, his leg, his shoulder, his face. Jansson would have screamed for help, but the tunnels ate sound as readily as they gobbled up light. No one would have heard him.
Mack found himself looking around the cavern in quick, nervous glances. Looking for a flash of silver.
"Listen, it's not his fault we're down here,” O'Doyle said. Lybrand listened to him carefully, but she had opinions of her own. They stood far down the tunnel that led into the cave complex, away from the Picture Cavern. The only light came from their headlamps, illuminating each other's faces like pale moons floating in the ether.
She wanted to slip away from the others. Away from Connell, in particular. Based on what she'd seen so far, Lybrand felt strongly that following Connell was akin to courting death.
"If it isn't Kirkland's fault, then whose fault is it?"
"Don't be stupid,” O'Doyle said. “It wasn't Connell who sabotaged the elevator and who mucked things up at camp. You know that."
Lybrand looked away, down the tunnel. Her fingers drummed a pattern on the hilt of her H&K. She liked the weapon, and she liked O'Doyle. Other than that, this whole situation was about as tasty as a turd sandwich.
She turned back to look at O'Doyle, admiring the hard lines of his face. She even liked the scar tissue that perched where an ear should be. He still hadn't told her that story. She knew he would, eventually. He'd told her a few stories already, some that were obviously difficult and painful to share. Some of the stories he wasn't supposed to tell, what with the oath of secrecy and all that happy horseshit.