The display showed the Unknown Intruder icon slipping rapidly down a feeder shaft, far ahead of the larger, slower-moving blue diamonds of the first CS-23s.
“Get me the fuck down there,” he demanded.
The soldier shook in fear as he responded, “Sir, we can’t enter Tunnel 3. The Vehicle will automatically abort the command because of the angle of descent-it’s past our ratings. And it’s caved in between Shelf 2 and 3. We can’t handle that grade of terra-”
“DAMN it!” he said and pounded the back of the chair. It made the tactical officer duck away, fully expecting to take a blow to the back of his head.
Roland didn’t want to hear any of it. “Stop here,” he said shortly. “Wait.”
He heard the CS-23s coming up from deep inside Dragger Pass. The ground itself shook with their approach. He knew that the Spiders would take care of whoever was down there, and that knowledge frustrated him terribly. “Get me a closed visual,” he snapped. “They’re only a thousand feet away now, just over the edge.”
His central view screen showed the Spiders in excruciating detail as they climbed the last three hundred yards. Their bulbous central bodies churned with dimly visible personnel inside; the long multi-jointed legs flexed and stretched for the best possible purchase, the greatest possible speed. They moved with an eerie combination of human intelligence and machine efficiency. Roland knew they could easily navigate the tunnel the intruders had just entered, just as easily as they could clamber up a mile of nearly vertical cliff face.
The massive size of the CS-23’s legs extending out of their bodies made them even more than menacing, and the sheer power and weight of the Spiders caused the ground to vibrate as they pulled themselves higher and higher.
They reached the edge of the precipice of Dragger Pass, a night-black cliff that fell straight down for more than five thousand feet. Roland watched with an outraged fascination as the first of them pushed upward over the edge, its huge arm digging into the ice twenty feet away from the commander’s vehicle, then pulled its metal body upward out of the fissure, limbs hissing and clanking.
The gigantic machine crawled over the commander’s vehicle, coiling in on itself to a smaller size just for a moment, then pushing forward into Tunnel 3 behind the intruders.
The two CS-23s that followed also reached over the commander’s vehicle, disappearing into the dark tunnel in a matter of seconds. The communications console inside the commander’s vehicle beeped in acknowledgment of the Spiders’ arrival, but he barely heard it. He was almost hypnotized by their passage; it took an effort of will to force himself to turn to his communications officer and ask a question.
“What’s your ETA for rendezvous with the intruders?” he asked. “For the Spiders, I mean?”
“Sir, the computer’s telling us eighteen minutes and counting, but we estimate the intruder will have to stop at Shelf 2, and we will immobilize it if it stays put. We are reading zero armament present on the vessel.”
Zero armament, he repeated to himself. So it’s not a military vehicle. It’s a spy ship. A fucking ghost.
And now it’s haunting my labyrinth.
THE ALCOVE
Trapped in the ice. Trapped in the dark. Utterly, completely lost. But glad they were not dead.
Still alive, each of them thought-almost in unison, barely aware of it, feeling the identical bloom of relief and dread. Still alive…but now what?
Simon realized they needed to regroup and make decisions quickly. “You think we’re still being followed?” he asked Max, who scowled at the thought, and then nodded.
“What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?” Hayden said, his voice trembling on the edge of hysteria. “This wasn’t supposed to be like this. Underground? In tunnels, for Christ’s sake? And being chased by I don’t know what!”
“Relax,” said Max, strong but reassuring.
“But-”
“Relax,” Max said again-and this time it was more an order than a bit of advice.
Hayden started to argue again. He opened his mouth; brought up an accusing finger, and suddenly Max was out of his seat and hovering over the inventor, almost nose to nose with him. The rest of the crew watched them in fascination and horror.
“Hayden!” he hissed. “We agreed to do this, all of us, together, no matter what. You
remember that?”
“But-”
“No fucking ‘buts.’ None of us knew what we were getting into at the time-how could we? But this is what it is. Now. Here. And if you can’t handle it properly, okay. Then get your gear and get the fuck out of the Spector.”
Hayden gaped at him in disbelief.
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“No, Hayden. I’m not. Get on board or get out.”
Hayden lifted his chin, still defiant, but his tone had changed. The hysteria was gone; the anger tightly controlled. He looked at the others now, talking to all of them. They listened in rigid silence. “We need to decide what to do quickly,” he told them. “That’s all I’m saying. We’re descending farther and farther into this hell, and if we don’t have a plan for escape, we will all freeze to death, stuck thousands of feet below the ice.”
Simon was in deep thought, listening with one ear as he contemplated their next move. These are ordinary people, he realized. Extraordinary brains maybe, but ordinary people. None were equipped for the danger that was confronting them. He was asking far too much, and he knew it, and there was nothing he could do about it now.
He stood up suddenly, nodding at his father’s oldest friend.
“Hayden, you’re absolutely right. None of us want to perish in this hell.” He looked at Max, who watched him closely, eyes narrowed. “So let’s assess what our options are and decide what we should do together, all right?”
“Maybe we need to contact the authorities, guys,” Samantha said, quiet but steady. “This is out of our scope. This is out of anybody’s scope.”
“Who is it that you want to contact?” Max said, frustrated at the sheer naivete of the comment. “Do you realize that we are violating international law by even being here?”
“You want to try and go back, then go,” Simon said with a weary finality. “Me, I’m ready to pack my gear and go searching for Oliver on foot if I have to. These very tunnels are evidence that something crazy is happening down here, and we’re part of it now, all of us, whether we like it or not.”
“And the longer we sit here,” Andrew said, his eyes still on the deepscan console, “the closer our pursuers get.”
“Still on our tail?” Max said, already knowing the answer.
“Tight as a tick on a dog’s ass, I’m afraid. Someone-three someones actually, though I have no idea what they are or what they look like-is heading our way this very moment. I’m gathering we don’t want to confront them quite yet.”
“Exactly,” Max said, but he couldn’t suppress the glint in his eye. “Not yet.”
While the others had been talking, Ryan had been scanning the walls of the alcove, looking for options. “I do believe I’ve found a possibility,” he said, and they all turned to see. “Max,” he said, “can you make just this section of the hull transparent? Right here?” He pointed to a large blank patch to his right.
“Sure,” Max said. He manipulated the console, and a portion of the wall as big as a bathroom mirror faded away, revealing the rocky floor and the cracked and not-so-distant wall of the alcove.
“This looks just large enough for us to go into,” Ryan said, walking to the transparent image and double-tapping on one particular portion of a crack in the ice wall-little more than a gap in the ice. But as the image zoomed forward at his command, they could all see it: a vertical crevice just a bit wider than the Spector itself that seemed to go far back into the wall, revealing an open, lighted area beyond.
“Good work, Ryan,” Simon said and clapped him on the shoulder.