The call came from the doorway, and he turned to see Stroyev leaning in through the cockpit cabin hatch.
“What is it?”
“There is something you should see.”
Zlatan turned to Torshin. “Find me that data.” He followed Stroyev outside again and into the broken rear-bay area of the craft. Immediately he was assailed by the smell — rotting plant and animal matter, and something else he couldn’t identify. The particle mist was even thicker inside.
“Look.” Stroyev pointed.
In a cradle was a long piece of jagged stone. It had cracked open, showing a glowing green interior, and looked to be cooling as it gave off smoke-like vapor. Zlatan stared and saw that the vapor was actually the particle mist, and it came in waves, is if from exhalations. There was also a gray sludge seeping from it and plopping to the ground.
“So, this is where our strange mist and slime is coming from.” Zlatan felt an odd attraction to the thing.
The mass inside the rock seemed to throb and drip the ooze. But closer to it, the odor was the most powerful.
“Stinks,” Zlatan said.
Russlin seemed transfixed. “No, I think it smells… glorious.”
“Why would they carry this with them?” Stroyev held a hand up. “I can feel it; it’s warm.” He went to approach.
“Don’t touch that,” Zlatan said sharply. “Maybe they didn’t take it with them, but collected it from space.”
He snorted. “It’s just a rock… filled with hot mud.”
Zlatan went to step closer, just as Russlin’s voice turned his head.
“And these…” Russlin used his knife to lift something orange from the ground. “They’re everywhere, shredded uniforms.” He squinted at the material. “Ripped to pieces.” He looked up. “They tore them off?”
Stroyev snorted. “So, we have some naked American astronauts running around, da?” he bobbed his head, leering. “Was any female?”
Russlin crouched. “Bones.” He gathered a few in his large hands. “And fresh.” He straightened. “These look chewed.” He lifted the two halves of a skull, cracked down the middle. “I think it used to be some type of ugly monkey.”
The skull had huge teeth, more akin to that of a bear or wolf. But the cranium was oddly enlarged, deformed, and with way too many eyeholes.
Zlatan remembered the manifest. “They had live specimens onboard.”
Russlin nodded. “Well, I think maybe someone got hungry.” He grinned momentarily, and then brought it closer to his face and sniffed. He then shut his eyes and inhaled deeply, looking like he was enjoying the perfume. His mouth slowly opened, and his tongue eased out toward it.
“What are you doing?” Zlatan frowned.
“Uh?” Russlin shook his head, and looked confused. “Nothing, it just smelled…” He dropped the skull portions. “…nothing.”
Zlatan looked around. The rear of the shuttle reminded him of something — the remnants of a meal, the balled packing materials, and torn cloth… Then it hit him. A nest. Something was living here. Could it be the astronauts?
He turned, and tried to remember what Torshin had told him about the specimen list. There was nothing larger than a sloth or monkey.
But that skull Stroyev held up looked like neither. Had it changed somehow? Zlatan also remembered the monstrous thing that had attacked them and dragged Naryshkin down below the slime. It slid beneath the ground and burrowed up to get them — like a giant worm. He glanced at the worm specimen tank. Could it be the same thing? A creature that had somehow changed or been changed? By what?
Zlatan looked again at his men. All now seemed bulkier, misshapen. He looked at his hand and saw the fingers looked longer and thicker, and the end two now didn’t separate until nearly the first knuckle. Plus, the nails were darkening and growing more round and sharp like talons.
What would Rahda think?
He turned to the rock fragment. The gas. The smell inside the bay area was overpowering. It was sweet and corrupt like decomposing vegetable matter. He walked toward the fragment of rock in its cradle, feeling the warmth against his face as he approached.
Zlatan stood before it, peering in past the glow and squinting to get a better view. He waved away some of the mist and saw the repulsive blob, like a ball of tangled spaghetti that throbbed and wrestled with itself. Tendrils emanating from a central mass undulated softly and it reminded him of some sort of giant amoeba. His head now thumped mercilessly as he bent forward.
Zlatan was transfixed, and watched as a one of the tendrils reached out and encircled his wrist. He recoiled, cursing, and was about to lash out at it but his mind scrambled and fizzed like static.
“Kapitin.”
“Huh?” He turned, confused. What had he been doing? He couldn’t remember. His memories had been whited out, and there was a small ache in his wrist that made no sense.
Torshin held up a small disc, marked with the serial numbers they’d been told to look for. “Got it.”
Zlatan nodded, relieved. “Good news. We go.” He turned to leave, but his legs momentarily disobeyed him. He wanted to stay. More than anything in his life, he wanted to stay, with the rock, within the ship. He inhaled the gas, the scent was so strong inside the bay area, and its bouquet suddenly seemed intoxicating.
He pushed back; his mission was complete and home was where Rahda was. He shook his head, and then led his three Kurgan out.
He stopped dead, holding up his hand. Zlatan tilted his head, listening. “We have company.”
He squinted, seeing the faint images of the approaching people. “The Americans.” He reached behind him and pulled a four-foot steel rib from the skeleton of the Orlando.
His men did the same, and then spread out into the gloom.
CHAPTER 24
Drake Monroe held up his tracker and turned to Alex. “Shuttle, 300 feet, dead ahead.”
“Got it.” Alex slowed them from a jog to walking pace. He didn’t need to see the slow-moving bodies to know there were living beings out there, waiting for them.
At first, he thought it might have been the monstrous attackers that had taken Steve Knight, but as he reached out and concentrated on them, he noticed something strange. He wasn’t detecting the bestial sensations he had from the Morg. And he knew what human patterns felt like — the heartbeat, the breathing, and body warmth — but this was different again. Something in-between.
Everything is messed up in this damned place. Had to be the strange atmosphere; it was still making it difficult to identify anything accurately. Alex slowed again, and this time spread his team.
“What is it?” Russell Burrows asked.
Alex ignored him, and turned to the HAWCs. “Erikson, keep ’em all back, and keep ’em quiet.”
“Sir.” She slid away to the civilians pushing them away from the soldiers.
“The rest of you, eyes out. We’re not alone.” Alex turned back to the shuttle. Casey, Sam, Dunsen, Monroe, and Garcia had all drawn their RG3s and were moving like ghosts.
The HAWCs deployed their quad scopes with the four lenses lumping the front of their visors making them look like alien robots. Alex knew the HAWCs would be switching between thermal, light enhance and motion sensors trying to get an idea of what awaited them out there, but he knew nothing was fully penetrating the biological fog.
Alex didn’t like leaving the civilians so far back, but he had no choice. If there was going to be an ambush, it’d be here, and he didn’t want them put at risk any more than they were already.
When he saw the outline of the Orlando take shape in the mist, Alex waved the HAWCs down, and walked forward by himself. He then stopped and waited. There was something else there, inside the craft, he knew it, and it was trying to invade his mind. The more he tried to probe it, the more it pushed back. His neck prickled with the danger, and he expected an attack from anywhere and everywhere at any second.