15
He felt a hand on his shoulder, turned to see Dantec there,
out of his seat and swaying, his eyes glazed over.
“I’ll run the drill,” he said.
“But I’m the one—”
Dantec squeezed and a sharp pain shot to his shoulder
and neck; one of his arms went suddenly numb.
“I’ll run the drill,” said Dantec again, voice like flint.
“Move.”
It was a struggle to get the seat belt unbuckled with
Dantec squeezing his shoulder, but in the end he managed.
He stood up. Dantec was still holding on to him, but he
made his way to the other seat. Only once he was sitting
and buckled in did Dantec let go.
Hennessy breathed a sigh of relief and began
massaging his shoulder with his fingers. Slowly feeling
began to come back into his arm. He stared resentfully at
Dantec.
“You hardly know what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re
going to get us both killed.”
“Shut up,” said Dantec, not even bothering to turn around
to look at him. He powered up the drill and started it going.
The whole craft shook. With a jerk, they slowly began to
burrow into the muck.
· · ·
The F/7 performed better than expected, digging slowly but
inexorably downward, the drill gouging a path forward and
the pulverizers decreasing the debris. At first it was mainly
mud and silt, particulate matter that had filtered downward
over the years. It was easy to dig through, but also there
was very little for the drill to grab, so the going was slow.
The real question, thought Hennessy, looking out the
back through the navigation porthole at the way the tunnel
was already filling up, was how easy it would be to get out
again. The pulverizers were definitely getting rid of some of
the debris, but not all of it, and they could very well get stuck
if they just tried to reverse out the way they’d gone in.
They’d have to dig a circle and try to rejoin the tunnel. Either
that or just dig a second tunnel going up. As long as Dantec
was careful, it’d be okay.
“Dropship, can you read me?” he heard Dantec say.
“Dropship?”
All Hennessy heard on his own earpiece was static. He
assumed from the fact that Dantec didn’t continue speaking
that he was hearing the same. Just the two of them, then, at
least for the moment.
And me, said a voice within his head before scuttling
away.
He groaned.
The F/7 lurched a bit. The sound the drill was making
changed. They hit something harder—marl, he guessed,
from what he’d seen of the geological maps. Calcium
carbonate and mudstone. He’d be able to check the
readings and the exact composition if he were in the chair
he was supposed to be in.
He checked the readouts, looking over Dantec’s
shoulder. They seemed to be on track. So far, nothing to
worry about.
You’ll listen to me, said the voice in his head. Before
you’re done, you’ll listen to me.
“I’m busy,” he said aloud. He shook his head. He bit the
insides of his mouth until he tasted blood, hoping that would
distract him from the voice he was hearing. For a moment,
it did.
“What?” said Dantec.
“Pardon?”
“What did you say?”
“Oh, that,” Hennessy said. “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you.”
He held still, phasing out a little bit, listening to the hum of
the drill, feeling the bathyscaphe shiver around him. I’m not
here, he started telling himself at one point. This is all a
dream. Nothing but a dream.
He leapt into awareness again as the craft jerked and the
sound of the drill changed again. The F/7 slowed
considerably. He turned and plastered his face to the rear
navigation porthole, trying to see the side of the tunnel.
Darker rock now, a breccia amalgam and andesite glass.
Here and there traces of shocked quartz, due to an impact.
“We must be getting close,” he said to Dantec.
Dantec grunted. “Fifty or so meters to the tip of the
target,” he said. “It’ll take some time still. You’ll have to be
patient.”
Be patient, he thought. He couldn’t promise anything, but
he would try. All they could ask of him was that he try.
Then suddenly the drill stopped and the oxygen
recirculator died. The lights flickered out and the readouts
on the control panels were reduced to lines of static. Not
even the emergency lights were working. He heard in his
ears, for just an instant, Tanner’s voice, his tone terse: “—
do you read, co—” and then nothing but dead air.
In the silence he listened to the sound of Dantec pressing
buttons, trying to work the controls. Nothing. His hands, he
suddenly realized, were doing the same.
“What’s happened?” he asked, almost screaming it.
“I don’t know,” said Dantec. “It’s not working!”
Hennessy felt the porthole and started pounding on it.
“Stop it,” said Dantec. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it!”
The darkness was thick all around him, too thick. He
could feel it tightening its fingers around his throat, the air
already growing warm and then hot. It was more than he
could stand.
And then suddenly it got worse. There, briefly illuminated,
on the other side of the porthole, was a face. At first he
thought it was his own face, but it was pitch dark. How
could it be his own face? Or maybe a deepwater fish,
something with its own luminescence. But no, it was a
human face, not a fish, and he was sure it was not his own
face. It was there, just on the other side of the glass,
pressed between the glass and the wall of the tunnel they
had just dug, glowing softly. And it was a face he knew—a
puffy and slightly pudgy face, curly hair that floated in the
water, a somewhat slack mouth, crooked teeth. He and the
face shared the same eyes—their father’s eyes. It was his
half brother, Shane.
Shane had been dead for years. He had died in college,
a freak accident when he’d been driving down the highway
and a restraint broke on an automobile transport vehicle in
front of him, sending a car crashing off its top level to crush
him. Hennessy was sure he was dead. He’d seen the body.
Even seen, when the undertaker was looking the other way,
how if you grabbed Shane’s hair and tilted the head, a huge
bloodless gash opened up just under the collar. No, it was
impossible.
And yet, here he was.
Hello, Jim, Shane mouthed. Hennessy heard the words
sound aloud within his head.
“Hello, Shane,” he said. “What are you doing out there?”
“Shut up!” said Dantec. “What’s wrong with you? Shut
up!”
It’s good to see you, Jim, said Shane.
Hennessy put his face very close to the glass. “I have to
be quiet,” he whispered. “If I don’t, Dantec’s going to throw
a conniption.”
Shane nodded and smiled, then pretended, as they had
done when they were kids, to be zipping his mouth shut.
“I have to be honest, Shane,” Hennessy whispered. He
couldn’t see his own face in the darkness, but he imagined
his forehead to be wrinkled with worry. Hopefully Shane
could see that and would take the question in the spirit it
was intended. “I thought you were dead.”
Of course you did, Jim, said Shane. That’s what they
wanted you to think.
Hennessy nodded. “Those bastards,” he whispered.
Shane nodded. They’re not that bad, he said. They just
don’t know any better. But you know better, don’t you, Jim?
“I do now,” whispered Hennessy. “God, Shane, it’s really
great to see you. But I have to ask you another question.”
Go ahead, said Shane. You can ask me anything.
“What are you doing out there?”
Well, said Shane, looking down shyly, to be frank, Jim, I
was hoping you’d invite me in.
Hennessy looked around at the darkness, trying to
picture in his mind what the cabin looked like. “Shane, it’s
already pretty cramped in here. I don’t know if there’s
room.”
Trust me, there’s more room than you think, said
Shane. Invite me in and you’ll see.
“But what will Dantec think?” he asked.
“Stop whispering!” shouted Dantec. “Stop it now!”
Shane gave him a sleepy grin. He’s not the boss here,
Jim. I know how things really are. You’re the boss. Dantec,
he’s just a big bully. He needs someone to put him in his
place. I’ll be quiet. I bet he won’t even notice me.
“You’re right, Shane,” whispered Hennessy. “He’s nothing
more than a big bully.” He waited, pressing his face against
the thick glass of the porthole. “Why not, then? Come on in,
Shane. Come on in.”
With that, suddenly the lights flickered and went out
again, then came on in full force. The readouts went live
again. Hennessy heard crackling in his ear, saw Tanner’s
ghost on his holoscreen before it was rubbed out by static.
The oxygen recirculators started up and the drill began to
hum. Dantec gave a whoop. “We’re okay,” he said, casting
a quick glance over his shoulder. His face, Hennessy saw,
was slick with sweat. “We’re going to be okay.”
But Hennessy already knew it would be okay. His
brother, good old Shane, was here now, sitting right beside
him on a chair he hadn’t remembered being there before.
Shane must have brought it with him. He was smiling,
holding Hennessy’s hand in his own. Now that Shane was
there, everything would work out.
16
He gently disengaged his hand from his brother’s and
looked at his chronometer. Six thirty-eight, it read, but he
could tell by the way the numbers flashed and then slowly
faded that it had stopped. Why wasn’t it working? He
showed it to Shane, who just nodded.
Nothing to worry about, brother, Shane said. It doesn’t
really matter.
Shane was right, of course, it didn’t really matter, but he
still wanted to know what time it was.
“What time is it?” he asked Dantec.
“Leave me alone,” said Dantec. “We’re getting close. I
have to watch this.”
Hennessy waited a moment and then asked again.
Distractedly, Dantec looked at his wrist, then held his
chronometer to his ear. “It’s stopped,” he said.
“Mine, too,” said Hennessy.
Dantec turned and looked at him. He didn’t seem to
notice Shane, even though he was right there, right next to
Hennessy. People see what they want to see, thought
Hennessy.
“Doesn’t that seem weird to you?” Dantec asked.
Hennessy shrugged. “Nothing to worry about,” he said. “It
doesn’t really matter.”
Dantec narrowed his eyes. “And another thing,” he said.
“Why are you so fucking serene all of a sudden?”
Hennessy cast his eyes toward Shane, then realized
what he’d done and flicked them back quickly to look at
Dantec. Dantec’s eyes moved to the side, stared through
Shane, then moved back.
“It’s just like that,” said Hennessy. “I just feel better. I don’t
know why.”
Rolling his eyes, Dantec turned away.
Just between you and me, Jim, should he really be
doing this? asked Shane.
“I don’t know,” said Hennessy, “should he?”
Some things it’s better not to mess with.
Hennessy nodded. Shane was probably right, but if he
told Dantec that, he wouldn’t listen. What could he do about
it? Maybe it was a bad idea, but even if it was, he didn’t
know how he could get Dantec to stop.
After a few more minutes—or maybe it was longer,
impossible to say—Dantec slowed the drill. He drilled
forward slowly until they struck something and the drill made
a whining sound. He reversed it, backed up a little, and then
approached at a slightly different angle, shearing away the
side of the tunnel wall. Hennessy just stayed smiling,
glancing occasionally over at his brother, waiting.
Are you sure it’s a good idea? asked Shane again.
Hennessy shrugged.
Dantec backed up again, came in once more, then a
fourth time.
I think it’s a mistake, Shane said.
There was, Hennessy could see, a strange shape, still
half enclosed in rock on one side. It was hard to see past
the particles of rock and silt swirling through the water.
Dantec pulled back a little, then turned off the drill.
“What’s out there?” asked Hennessy.
“How the hell should I know?” said Dantec. “I’ve never
seen anything like it before.”
It’s the Black Marker, said Shane.
The Black Marker, Hennessy thought. As the water
settled, he began to see it more clearly. It looked like a
monolith made of some sort of obsidian. It narrowed to a
point at the top, the whole of it twisting slightly as it rose. It
was horizontally striated and covered with thousands of
symbols, symbols unlike anything he had seen before.
Were they glowing, or did it only look like they were
because of the way the light was catching them? He
couldn’t tell for sure. What he could see of it, of the part that
was uncovered now, was probably three meters tall.
“Oh my God,” said Dantec, his voice filled with an
uncustomary awe. “Who put this here? Or what?”
That’s the last question you want to ask, said Shane to
Hennessy. Better not to know.
He remembered suddenly the schematic that Tanner had
shown them of the Marker. He pulled it up on his
holoscreen. There were two horns at the top, pointing out in
either direction, and he could see the Marker went on much
deeper below them, probably another twenty meters or
more. “How big is it?” Hennessy asked.
Dantec, confused, said something, but Hennessy wasn’t
asking him.
Big, said Shane. He moved Hennessy’s hand to the
porthole, pressed it against the glass. Together they stared
out. You don’t want to mess with this, Shane said. You’re in
danger.
“I’m going to move us closer,” said Dantec.
“Are you sure?” asked Hennessy, still staring out. “Maybe
we shouldn’t mess with it.” Beside him, just at the edge of
his peripheral vision, Shane nodded.
“Try calling Tanner,” said Dantec. “See what he wants to
do.” Hennessy tried, got only bursts of static, little bits of
Tanner’s voice spliced into it like it had been torn apart.
“I don’t know,” said Hennessy. “There’s something
seriously wrong here. Let’s leave it alone.”
“We came all this way,” said Dantec. “We’ve been in this
coffin for hours. Now that we’re here, we have to get a
better look.”
Hennessy remained for a moment, staring at it, and
finally nodded. “It wouldn’t hurt to get closer, I guess,” he
said. “As long as we’re careful.”
He looked over at his brother, who was shaking his head.
It just might, he said.
Dantec eased the ship forward, then cut the engines, let
them drift. There they were, right up against it. The F/7
bumping softly against the Marker ’s side.
“It’s marvelous,” Dantec whispered.
It’s not marvelous, said Shane, his face stretched into a
strange rictus. It’s horrible. Dantec is becoming one of
them, brother. I’m afraid we’re going to have to get rid of
him.
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