He grinned as he ran. They don’t know just what they have done — rouse the dragon, as Captain Yang would surely say.
“Stop!”
Han Biao skidded and turned to look back at his comrade. Fan Kai stood, legs planted and his fists clenched in the glare of Han’s flashlight.
“What are we doing? We must fight them.”
Han Biao frowned, and then shook his head. “No, we must stay ahead of them, tell Captain Yang, and then regroup. Together we can overwhelm them. We are many more than them.”
“Stay ahead of them, or lead them to us?” Fan Kai glared. “We are PLA, not frightened children.” His eyes narrowed. “Yang will call you a coward. Perhaps even shoot you for running away.”
Dung eater, Han Biao thought. How dare he call me a coward? He grunted, thinking. “Then we should do both. You stay and slow them down. I will contact the captain via walkie talkie as I get closer to them, and bring back support.” He bowed. “Good luck, brother.” He turned and started to jog away into the dark. He had no intention of talking to anyone.
CHAPTER 26
Alex froze, listening, letting just his eyes move over the alien landscape. He pushed out with other senses, reaching out into the gloom, searching for traces of something that set his nerves on their very edge.
After a moment he relaxed, but the knot in his gut remained. He turned to find Cate, now a few dozen feet back and crouching beside a small plant. He watched her as she used the back of her hand to knock at its leaves, making them shrink back inside a sheath below the ground. She mouthed some words, and then smiled as if satisfied by her classification.
Alex turned back to the wall of drab green before him, inhaling the scents and hearing the tiny movements — so much life, he thought. He stepped back, craning his neck. Huge limbless trunks shot up into the air, and everywhere that should have had a fern or frond had something that looked similar, but instead its leaves were bulbs or polyps. Water dripped from everything, and some of the plants were covered in a greasy brown slime that was either a sign of rot, or some sort of natural coating — he couldn’t even guess at its function. But the overwhelming impression was of a mad, living density.
Alex swung back to Cate again, feeling his impatience climb. He needed to get to the submarine and then find a way out as soon as he could. The signal from the pulser in his hand was loud and clear — his objective was located many miles away. He looked up at the odd treetops. He needed to get to some sort of higher ground. Where they were now made him feel buried.
He continued to look higher — what might have seemed like a night sky full of tiny blue stars was actually a cave roof… and above that, miles of rock, ice, and snow. He half smiled — What was I thinking? I’m already buried.
The jungle was a solid wall before him, and the pulser only gave him an indication of which way to go. If he was off by even one degree, it could mean miles more hacking through the green knotted jungle. He didn’t have time for mistakes. He turned slowly, stopping at one direction. His gut told him that was the way.
Alex placed his gloved hands on the trunks of two large trees barring his way, and exerting huge pressure. They pulled apart, creating an opening. He turned to Cate.
“Let’s go. This way, quickly, but quietly.”
Cate Canning grinned as she walked. “We’re here, we’re really here.” She touched her face and winced. Her face felt raw and exposed where the goggles hadn’t been covering it. Her skin stung, and she bet it would blister and peel. Plus she had a thumping headache. Otherwise, she felt pretty darn good.
She sucked in a breath, not only smelling but tasting the earth, saltwater, fungus, and rotting vegetation floating in the air.
She moved from plant to plant. “It’s sort of quite beautiful when you get used to it.”
“Beautiful?” Alex continued to stride on, but he half turned. “In the eye of the beholder maybe.”
“And that’s me.” She slowed, looking around, and then holding her arms out. “We’re in a forest.” She continued to smile, undaunted. “Miles below the Antarctic.” She sped up to him. “Did you just hear me? A freaking forest — down here.”
“Yep.” Alex paused but continued to look down at the small box. “And a deadly one.”
Cate veered away to a large trunk and lifted her hand, but stopped short of touching it. “It’s not actually wood, you know. It’s more like a fungal growth, or,” — she spun — “a lichen.” She pointed up at the huge tree shape’s branching top that looked more like the tip of an asparagus.
“You know, I think I’ve seen something like these in the fossil record. It looks like a Prototaxite. Sort of makes sense, as they flourished in the warm, wet jungles of the Silurian and Devonian periods, about 400 million years ago.” She walked around the three-foot-wide trunk, and then craned her neck to see up into its thirty-foot stubby canopy. “They were more like huge rolls of liverwort matting. They could survive with little light.” She finally patted the hairy trunk. “And it’s alive. Here, now — this is probably the biggest find of the century.” She suddenly remembered the Pliosaur. “The second biggest find of the century.”
She held out her arms, looking like she wanted to hug the thing. She turned, her face beaming. “If I died now, it would have been worth it.”
“Be careful what you wish for.” Alex turned away to peer out into the gloom.
Cate looked across at another of the liverwort tree trunks, letting her eyes move up its trunk. She frowned and approached. It had what looked like bore holes in the hairy surface. The first was about six feet up and the size of a baseball. All the dark holes glistened at their edges.
“That’s weird, and interesting. Looks like something has been eating into it.” She lifted her hand towards the hole and used a couple of her fingers to rub at the glistening patch around its outside.
“It’s sticky, like webbing, slimy sap-web — ” Something launched itself at her hand like a jack-in-a-box. Its red, bulbous head ended in a wet looking sucker. Cate jerked her hand back with a squeak, and the thing’s head flopped down onto the surface of the lichen tree, feeling around the edge of its hole. It was like a lamprey eel, except the body was segmented like a wood louse, and no visible eyes were apparent. It lifted itself to wave its bulb-head in the air in her direction, small feelers rippling around its serrated mouth.
“I think it likes you,” Alex said.
Cate blew air between her lips as it pulled itself back into its hole. She could just make out a hint of red, as the thing crouched just inside. She stepped back, and could now see that in each of the holes, there was the smooth red head just poised in their opening.
“Jesus.” She made a fist of the hand that had touched the sticky web.
“Third find of the century, huh?” Alex grinned. “Best if you don’t touch anything.”
“Great, thanks for the heads up.” Her jaw clenched. “Maybe you should have given me some warning, seeing I’m the one who’s never been here.” Cate wiped her hand on her leg.
Alex shook his head, and looked up at the hairy trunks. “Never seen this and haven’t been here before. We were somewhere else entirely. But I know enough to be wary about anything and everything down here. You’ve got to remember that this place is as alien to us as we are to it.” He looked at her. “It’s a very primitive predator-prey environment, and we just dropped right into it.”