The Betwixt Book One (16 page)

It was eerie. No, scratch that, it was scary.

I was on the dark side of an alien planet at an abandoned dig
site with a gun-toting Crag – this was the stuff of
holomovies.

‘
What's going on?’ I whispered, even though my voice could only
be picked up by the mic in my helmet and wouldn't disturb the
perfect quiet of the outside world.

‘
I am not entirely sure,’ Od said, investigating a patch of
dirt with the toe of his tiny space-suited foot. ‘It seems this dig
site has been abandoned, and quickly.’

‘
Abandoned,’ I squeaked, ‘that's not good. Why would they do
that?’

Crag'tal wasn't offering his suggestions, he was just holding
onto my rifle, even though he technically couldn't use it – but he
probably intended to thwack the first thing he saw on the head.
Which wasn't a good sign, if the security conscious Crag thought
something was up, then the sky was probably about to pull out a
knife and stab us.

‘
Well . . . shouldn't we go then?’ I didn't want
to sound like a coward, or, who was I kidding – I didn't care if I
sounded like a scaredy pants. But why should we hang around at this
abandoned base if there was nobody here? Were we going to build a
campfire and tell ghost stories or something?

‘
Underground,’ Crag'tal finally piped up, and his voice was
much harsher than I remembered. It had a note of something I'd
never heard in a Crag's rumbling baritone – uncertainty.

‘
Yes,’ Od walked over to some other patch of totally
uninteresting looking earth, and leaned down to get a closer look,
‘that is what I believe as well.’

I waited a moment, ready for them to elucidate on the
incredibly descriptive ‘underground’. Did they mean that there were
people underground, that there was something interesting
underground, or that maybe the reason this dig site was so well lit
yet abandoned was because there was a monster underground. But
patiently waiting to be filled in wasn't going to get me anywhere
with these two. ‘What's underground?’

‘
The crew of this dig site,’ Od stood back up again and walked,
somewhat slower than his usual bound, towards the large opening in
the earth before us. ‘I believe that at least . . .
some of them are underground.’

‘
Okay . . . is there anything else? I mean, what
are we going to do?’

‘
Why, the only thing we can do-

I winced, I knew what was coming next.

‘
We're going to go and find them.’

As we approached the circular cut in the craggy, moss covered
earth, I went through at least ten reasons why this was a bad idea.
We didn't know what was down there, or even if the crew of the dig
had just gone off for a drink somewhere and forgotten to turn the
lights off. Perhaps there had been a bit of a problem, but they'd
all flown out. Or perhaps . . . something frightful
from the center of a Crag moon had come upon them in the darkest of
nights and . . . .

It was a perfectly round hole reinforced with metal all around
the rim. All three of us walked up to the edge to stare down. The
huge powerful lights above us were placed in such a way as to shine
right down into the abyss. I could make out lights and struts at
equal intervals going down the tunnel, and to one side, a
ladder.

I hope they didn't expect me to go down
there . . . a ladder? Where were the safety force
fields, the elevators, or at the very least, hand railings? I was
used to life on a space station where safety was so well
controlled, that I could hardly imagine the real vagaries of space.
But here I was facing off against one – and it led down.

I shifted my feet uncomfortably, and watched as Crag'tal
stowed his gun and turned to go down the ladder.

‘
So we're going down then?’

‘
Going down is the only way we will be able to go down there.’
Od waited for Crag'tal to descend several rungs before he mounted
the ladder.

‘
But I don't get it. Where are all the . . . the
safety precautions – we could fall.’

‘
Falling will be the least of our worries. And as for your
observation that this dig site seems to lack rudimentary safety
precautions – I have come across this before. There seems to be a
predilection amongst some races, especially humans,
to . . . rough it. I am not sure exactly what it
means, but I believe the theory is thus: it is more joyous to
experience space without a safety net. And indeed, on a dig such as
this, one wonders whether they had the money to afford such things
after they had paid the Crag government.’

Oh great. So I was either going into a dig set up by hardcore,
safety-hating archaeologists, or poor academics who couldn't even
afford a scrap of metal for a railing. This was
fantastic.

I dithered at the top of the ladder for at least another
twenty seconds before eventually mounting it to go down. And down
we went, further and further. All the time my imagination ran wild
with what we'd find at the bottom. Not that I'd ever been to an
archaeological dig on an alien planet – but I could picture the
equipment, the consoles, the bare exposed rock . . .
the monsters.

It took us five whole minutes to reach the bottom. The ladder
led into a big circular room with a massive chunk of the ceiling
hollowed out to make a big antechamber. There were massive,
powerful lights down here as well, and their illumination bounced
off the jagged walls and filled the space like water in a glass.
The lights came from so many directions that there was hardly a
shadow in sight.

There was some kind of tech console off to one side. I
couldn't tell whether it was on, or what it might be used for, but
at least it was comforting to have a little technology
around.

I swallowed loudly as I stood exactly on the spot I'd
dismounted the ladder, not ready to move around just yet. I
wondered if the others had picked up my gargantuan gulp – or
whether they were too busy concentrating on . . .
the creepy abandoned dig site.

‘
I believe,’ Od said, ‘we should look down this path.’ He
indicated a path to the left.

I hadn't even noticed there were two ways leading out of this
room. Great. I may not have had the tactical experience of a GAM,
but I could tell having an unexplored path behind you
was . . . bad. It left you open, very
open.

There was one other thing I noticed though, Od's voice had
lost the chirp. Even he was whispering now.

Oh lord, why were we down this hole?

Crag'tal moved off down the route Od had chosen, but not
before handing me one of my rifles. He held on to the other one,
posture as combat-perfect as you could imagine.

Me, I gripped onto my rifle like it was a teddy bear you
cuddle after a bad dream.

The path we took was to the left of the ladder. The ceiling
was low, and massive chunks of rock jutted out of it, making the
walls about as smooth as an asteroid belt. The floor was uneven
too, and I had to concentrate so I didn't topple right over and
crack my head before the fight began. Because there was going to be
a fight of some sort, I could tell. That, or an extremely
protracted chase scene.

I shifted my finger till it rested just over the trigger –
touching the smooth metal, but only just.

There were blue lights dotted along the narrow, rocky corridor
– sunk right into the ground, illuminating the path amongst the
jagged brown and gray stones. They shone up into my face, and
seemed to bounce of the top of my visor and back into my eyes. Yet
the walls themselves were dark, collecting deep shadows in the
crevices and cracks.

We walked practically in silence, though my ears were
beginning to pick up even the slightest creak of my space suit and
amplify it till it sounded like a horn in an auditorium. I could
hear Crag'tal's breathing, like the roar of wind in a canyon. Even
Od sounded like an old Earth billy puffing on a fire.

But then there was another noise. Something
else . . . .

We rounded a corner and the path before us opened into a
massive chamber. It was at least as big as the promenade on the
station, if not bigger. We entered above it, though there was a
long metal walkway that led down to the rock floor
below.

This must be the real dig site, I thought to myself, because
there was equipment and technology spread all over the place. There
were also people and . . . 

I raised my gun.

Chapter 9

I held onto my gun like it was the only real thing in a vortex
of illusion. ‘What the hell is that?’

The bottom of the massive rock chamber was strewn with all
sorts of equipment, from tall standing lights to digging equipment.
It was all in disarray, though – as if a hurricane had been
through. But the lack of cleanliness wasn't what had me itching to
pull my trigger.

In the center of the room was a mound. It was surrounded by
the dugout ruins of some kind of building - its dark-gray stone
stark against the mottled brown of the cave. At the center of the
mound was very obviously an alien device. It was a large metal ring
that sat, hovering, about a meter from the ground. I could see the
strange, faintly glowing symbols that were etched around the
device, even from here.

But it wasn't the odd artifact that had me forcibly
remembering to breathe. It was the thing inside it.

There was a creature – tall, devoid of light, and horrible –
suspended in the ring. It looked, no, felt like a Twixt. I had that
familiar prick in the pit of my stomach, that shiver of cold that
spread across my back. But it was too different at the same
time.

This creature was ghastly. Where a Twixt was just a shadow
between you and reality, this thing was a gouge. It wasn't
completely black, but had flesh the color of gray, rotted meat,
with the occasional fleck of blue-red vein. And it was distended –
stretched and pulled out of shape like someone had tugged at a
human body until the skin had almost torn. It also had a visible
form, where the Twixt did not. I could make out the muscle groups,
the tendons; its sinewy strength. And it had eyes – sunken,
terrifying balls of white.

I wouldn't let go of my gun, not for a million teddy bears and
the ability to transport Commander Cole directly here to protect
me.

The thing was trapped, I could see that, but it was still
moving. It wasn't threshing about though, like a caged animal
should. It just . . . . cocked its head and
shifted it from side to side, watching silently.

There were people in the room, I could see them in my
peripheral vision, though I couldn't tear my eyes from the creature
long enough to look fully their way. It was such a horribly
mesmerizing sight. I felt completely
transfixed . . . .

The thing looked my way, the taught skin over its mouth
twitching in a violent spasm. Its colorless eyes locked on
mine.

I couldn't describe the way it made me
feel . . . like spiders exploding all over me from
some unknown source, like being drowned in a waterless
ocean . . . .

‘
Mini,’ Od grabbed my arm, hand trying to lower my gun. ‘It is
contained.’

I snapped out of it, but not without a full-body shudder as if
someone had dumped ice-cold water over my head just after I'd been
in a sauna. ‘Wh-what?’

‘
It is contained,’ Od looked back at the thing below us, ‘for
now.’

I was a good girl, I took my finger off the trigger, but there
was no way I was going to stow my gun. That thing
was . . . beastly.

But now Od had broken me from my spell, I could see that the
thing really was contained and that the people down in the chamber
below weren't running for their lives.

In fact, the majority of them were looking our way. Two of
them were even marching up to us, their footfall shaking up through
the metal walkway like mini explosions.

‘
Put that gun away,’ the woman at the lead snapped,
‘now.’

So much for a polite welcome. It seemed I was right after all
– showing up on dig sites uninvited really was considered a
bother.

‘
I said now!’ the woman had quite a voice on her, and it was
picking up and carrying through the room like the blare of a
siren.

It took me another second to realize she was talking to me. I
looked over at Crag'tal, who didn't seem about to stow his gun, and
decided the most I was going to do was lower mine. Even if the
woman sounded like she was about to brutally slay us for disobeying
her apparent ‘no guns’ around the freaking terrifying monster
policy.

She came into full view at the bottom of the stairs that led
up to our small ledge, and she looked mad. She had long, black hair
that was thoroughly streaked with gray. Her face had a vaguely
familiar serious nature to it, and she wore a fairly old-school set
of pants, a long sleeved shirt, and a brown leather
vest.

I found myself staring at the single-sided frown she was
offering us as she neared, heavy boots pounding along the metal. ‘I
said put those guns away. Who the hell are you to come onto my dig
site anyway? I've already paid my government—’