They ran on, keeping their headlamps aimed at the ground to avoid tripping on the rocky debris strewn everywhere. Finally, Slater noticed a soft luminescence ahead. The by now familiar green tinge was like a breath of fresh air. “Come on!”
They redoubled their speed and burst out into a cavern that was long and low, but had a fissure all up one of its long walls from which bright green vines snaked out like veins, lighting the place. As they skidded to a stop, Slater rejoiced at the sight of three other people already there. Her mouth started to form Aston’s name, but her relief was short lived. Anders Larsen and two mean-looking mercenaries she had never seen before turned in surprise and brought their weapons to bear.
Slater threw her hands up. “Don’t shoot! We’re unarmed.” She still had the pistol jammed into the back of her pants, but it was useless without ammo. She knew Syed didn’t even have a knife, but her bloodstone dagger was tucked safely in her jacket.
“Jo Slater and Jahara Syed,” Anders Larsen said. “Well, well, some of you still live after all. Just you two?”
“Yes,” Slater said quickly, before Syed could answer. “Everyone else is dead. We need to get out.” She couldn’t articulate exactly why, but she felt pretty certain Larsen was not their friend. If he thought Aston, Tate, and Jen were dead, as the others really were, perhaps she would buy them a chance to escape.
“Well, that’s okay,” Larsen said.
Slater was stunned. She was definitely correct that he was not their friend. “Okay? Everyone’s dead, Larsen! How is that okay?”
He grinned. “Because you’re still alive and we only need one guide.”
“To where?”
“Back to the big cavern, with the lake and all the greenium crystals. We got lost in these damned tunnels. We need to get back. So you’ll show us the way.”
“But we…” Syed started.
But Slater spoke quickly over the biologist. “Yeah, sure, okay. We’ll do that, if you use those guns to protect us.” She knew they had little chance, unarmed as they were. At least Larsen and his angry-looking friends had weapons. Perhaps she could use them as much as they used her. “But we can’t go back that way, it’s swarming with mantics. And they’re catching up.”
Two tunnels led from the far side of the long cave in which they stood. Larsen gestured to the one on the left. “Well, we can’t go that way for the same reason.”
Slater forced a smile, hoping to project a confidence she didn’t feel. “Not a problem.” She pointed to the other tunnel. “We can go that way.” It was a ploy to keep moving at least. Syed looked at her, but Slater refused to meet the woman’s eye. “Let’s move,” she said. “The quicker the better.” She hoped Aston was having better luck.
34
Aston stared in resigned astonishment at the second underground city they had discovered. Like the first one in pretty much every way, except this one was clearly inhabited. Dozens of creatures stood all around him, Ronda Tate and Jen Galicia, with bloodstone knives and spears all pointed menacingly.
His initial thought had immediately gone to aliens, the “grays” so commonly referred to in popular culture and conspiracy theories. But after a moment it became clear they were something different. Almost certainly not aliens, he decided, but hominids who had evolved and adapted to their subterranean surroundings. Where they may have originated, why they had been here, were questions he thought may perhaps never be answered, unless they could communicate. Even then, how much of their own history would they know? The habitation, the simplicity of the city, pointed to a largely undeveloped society, not unlike he imagined the Neanderthals of history to have been. But these creatures bore no resemblance to heavy-browed, hairy, dark-skinned cavemen he’d seen in displays at museums.
Small of stature, these people had pale, almost bone white, skin, and lean, spindly muscles stretched along fine limbs. Their skinny bodies made their heads appear overlarge. Their eyes were even larger than their heads should have allowed, with huge pupils, which Aston presumed were for drinking in maximum light. They had very little body hair, and what did cover their heads was wispy, nearly transparent. Their spear shafts were made of all manner of improvised tools, most clearly scavenged from other people like himself who had intruded into their domain. Among the weapons he saw shafts of ski poles, old-fashioned backpack frames, even rifles, with the sharpened bloodstone jammed into the end of now useless barrels.
“What the hell is this?” Tate whispered, her pistol hanging forgotten beside her thigh.
“It’s the answer to why we’ve seen signs of civilization that clearly wasn’t the work of the mantics,” Jen said. “Let’s assume they might be friendly.”
“What if they plan to eat us?” Tate asked.
“There’s too many of them to fight,” Aston said. “Let me try to talk to them.” He stepped slightly forward of the two women, then immediately stopped when the crowd of pale folk bristled, brandishing their weapons. “Okay, okay!” He raised his hands, palms out, tried to force a smile, though he felt nothing but fear. And a mild sense of wonder. Perhaps he needed to focus on that. He pointed at his chest. “I’m Sam Aston.” They tilted their heads at his words, clearly more curious than aggressive at this point. He tried again, tapped his chest. “Aston.”
One of the creatures lowered its spear and pointed to itself. “An-na-ki,” it said, in a high, breathy voice. Immediately many others became animated, started chattering in a series of rapid clicks and chirps interspersed with vaguely recognizable syllables of speech more akin to known language. Regardless, it was all far too fast and garbled for Aston to follow. The one who had spoken rounded on the others, its voice sharp, angry. They settled slightly and it turned back to Aston, gestured to itself again and made the same sounds. “An-na-ki.”
Aston pointed toward it. “You’re Annaki?”
The creature pointed to itself, then the two either side of it. “Annaki. Annaki.” It gestured to take in the crowd of gathered pale folk. “Annaki.”
“They’re all Annaki,” Jen said. “They have a collective name for themselves.”
“It’s a start,” Aston said. He smiled at the one who had spoken and gave a small bow. “Annaki,” he said. “Hello. It’s nice to meet you.”
The group chattered rapidly again, their tensions easing.
Aston pointed to himself again, said, “Aston.” He gestured to the others. “Galicia. Tate.”
The first creature bobbed excitedly. “Annaki-Akan!” it said, pointing to itself. It gestured left. “Annaki-Innka.” Then to the right. “Annaki-Oto.”
Aston grinned. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Hello, Akan!”
The creature gave a throaty cough that might have been a laugh. It pointed to its mouth and made chewing motions with its small, pale teeth.
“It’s offering us food,” Jen said.
“Hell, no.” Tate’s brows creased in a frown. “I ain’t eating anything from this crazy place.”
“They must live on something,” Aston said. “If it’s glowing green, we don’t eat it, though.” He nodded to Akan. “Okay.”
There was clearly still some dissension among the population, but on the whole the Annaki seemed to have relaxed. Aston and his friends were led to one of the larger dwellings and guided inside. He wondered how they remained safe from the mantics. Were they in league with the creatures? Or did they have better defenses? This cavern, like so many others, had webs of glowing vines crawling from fissures in the walls and ceiling, the enormous place lit in the gentle green glow they had become used to. Deposits of greenium glittered here and there, the dark curling ferns growing in fissures all around the walls and floor. But the mantics could clearly grow used to the brightness in time, as the recent attack had proven. They had hardly rested at all before they were overrun. And that cavern had been no different to this one, only perhaps it was a little smaller. Had the Annaki relocated to a bigger home cave? Regardless, they seemed to exist here quite comfortably, so they obviously had some way of controlling or holding back the mantics. He realized every weapon, from spears to knives to sword-like machetes, had been made of the strange rock Murray Lee had dubbed bloodstone. Was that the answer? If so, what was it about bloodstone that did more damage than bullets? And where did they get it?