Chapter 16

The last image Benni had seen before the world went black were the two patriarchs sitting on crates with a game board of pegs between them. If he hadn't known better, he would have said that it looked like two old friends sitting down for a friendly game.

The first group of 15 had gone down the hidden transport ahead of Benni and Zylis with a guide to secure the loading area below. The second team waited upstairs in the Khan storeroom for the platform to return.

Benni was chafing at the wait as was typical for him. He had made a mistake for which he was still kicking himself. He had failed to ask how 65 Khan had died because he had made the assumption that they had been swept away in the plague.

The assumption could have killed them all because only half died from disease. The rest had been slaughtered. Zylis was not the only one seeking the lab and its contents. Khan, who had come hoping to find their business contacts, had found themselves in the midst of an ambush from which only a few had escaped. Those few had returned with no reliable number of how many had jumped them or how many of their adversaries were dead. All they could report was that there were a lot of bodies.

The platform operator reported back that all the bodies were gone when the first group of Family Volentin had reached 'One Under.' "Eerie," said the operator. Other than the absence of dead bodies where there was supposedly no one there to remove them, the subterranean tunnels were the same as previous visits.

Benni was aggravated. Young but tested, he had expected to be placed in the first assault team. He had no expectations of taking point, but he figured he was good enough for the first team. Instead, he had been given the lowly task of guarding the spaceman in the back of the second team. Shasa had made the first team and that really ate at him. He half wondered if he was being punished for not asking about the dead Khan, but he recognized deep down that Doyan was not that petty. Benni was insightful enough to recognize Zylis was primarily his responsibility yet he chafed at the duty. This was a rare, large scale family excursion.

Still, he was in the back of the back with probably no chance of using his knife. His silent grumbling came to an abrupt halt when the platform gave a small shudder indicating that they had arrived. He slipped his new, unbloodied knife into his right hand. His mouth felt dry as he balanced on the balls of his feet, waiting for the door to open.

The door opened. They walked slowly, so slowly, following the last of the first team as they moved forward. Benni was a bit miffed that no blades were flying. He had been expecting a battle since he learned of the fate of the aborted Khan expedition. He wanted to sigh, but Doyan had given strict orders to remain silent.

"Down Under" didn't have proper halls or corridors. The rock was raw and the gouges of various tools were easy to see. The walls were close. Only two people could walk shoulder to shoulder. Even the roof was uneven, at times low enough to make Benni want to duck his head. The few lights that worked were dull biomass luminescent domes that glowed from fluorescing microbes in a thin stew of microbe food. The domes had been placed far apart. The explosion had cracked a lot of domes, spilling out their contents and killing their microbes. The tunnel leading from the platform was dank and mostly dark.

This is where Dember worked every day, Benni thought as they walked. The place put Benni on edge, triggering a distrust of small, enclosed places that were void of life. He marveled at what must have been Dember's steely resolve to work down here in such conditions. How he missed him and his big, goofy grin.

The teams stopped. Benni stood in front of the spaceman and his den mate, Deedah, stood guard behind him. Hand signals passed down the line told of a large space ahead and the need to split the two teams. The first team was to circle to the left and the second team to the right. So far, not even the sound of a shoe scrapping rock had been made.

The sides of the basically square room were rough and the floor at the edges was uneven. One tunnel opened up on each side of the room. The one on the left was dark and the one on the right had one small glowing dome slightly askew far down the shaft, revealing nothing of what lay down there. Torches came to life briefly to check the tunnels for ambushes. All was clear. The teams headed for the third tunnel directly ahead of them.

Zylis slipped once on the uneven floor and Deedah caught him before he slammed into the wall. Benni was embarrassed for the man who claimed to be a warrior.

This tunnel split into branches more than once but the guides seemed to know their way. They passed several anonymous-looking doors. Finally they came to a halt before a recessed entrance with a door and a keypad. The lab stood before them. The walls around the doorway were plastmore. The rock walls near the door and also opposite it showed the scars and cracks of heat blasts. The plastmore appeared — Benni sought the word to describe the desiccated material and the best he could come up with was fragile.

"Bio clear," someone with a test kit whispered.

Another den mate stepped forward with a digi-crack and went to work on the keypad. Benni had rotated his knife twenty times in his hand by the time she had finished. She pointed to the [Enter] button and tucked away her little device. Zylis stepped forward and everyone moved back, taking up new defensive positions further from either side of the doorway. He pulled out three small packets from his pocket. Benni and Deedah unwrapped one of the proffered packets and unfurled a large, clear plastic sheet. Zylis pulled out a miniature breathing apparatus that clipped around his neck and ran a tube up to both nostrils. Holding out his arms out, he walked into the middle of the sheet which wrapped itself around his entire body, sealing him in.

With extra hands to help, Benni and Deedah unfurled the last package, another plastic sheet, and sealed the doorway with Zylis on one side and everyone else on the other in the hallway. Zylis hit the [Enter] button and the door started to slide open joltingly, but jammed halfway across. A red light was flashing in the lab.

Zylis disappeared inside.

They waited.

Four hundred and twenty-seven turns of his knife later, Benni watched Zylis reappear empty-handed. Except for the outer guards, everyone arose from their crouches to lean forward. Zylis hit the button again and used his hands to help the mechanism close the door. Once it closed he tore through his bio-shield and retrieved his knife from his hip which he used to slice off the rest of the material. Using a hand signal, he motioned Benni to lift up a corner of the doorway shield to let him out. Zylis slipped out quickly and Benni resealed the shield. It didn't seal as well as the first time, but it seemed adequate for the moment.

Doyan stepped forward and Zylis made his report. "They used a set of shaped charges on the right side to blow their way into the lab. There are two distinct sets of bodies still there but they are all contaminated. The virus got the invaders before they could get it. I'm guessing there is still live virus in there but I can't be sure. Nothing of value remains."

Doyan rubbed two digits together making a "thbb" sound, much softer than the snap of the fingers. The two teams reformed behind their guides. Giving the sign for speed, the two teams hurried as fast as they could back down the passages. Still expecting the worst, Doyan wouldn't let them pass cross-tunnels without checking for dangers. Benni listened as Zylis began to breathe harder from the exertion. The older man seemed drained after his foray into the lab.

Benni felt the sweat running down inside his shirt from the lack of ventilation in the shafts. His head would twist involuntarily to peer down the passing tunnels that led to somewhere mysterious in near darkness. He sensed a sudden kinship with a rat scavenging in the dark corners. Tucking that thought back in the dark recesses from which it came, he took a fresh grip on his knife and continued forward.