Part 11 (1/2)
The hours dragged on, seemingly multiplied by the heat and Hernandez's exhaustion. At her request, Pembleton increased the frequency of their stops, to once per hour. Each break consumed another canteen of water, and on the fourth stop they rested a bit longer and picked at their cold rations. After lunch ended, the landing party segregated by gender, and each person sought out some small measure of privacy in the thick undergrowth.
As the landing party regrouped, Hernandez looked around and realized that the trees in this part of the forest, while still larger than anything on Earth, were smaller than those they had left behind, and they were s.p.a.ced a bit more generously. Looking ahead in the direction they had been traveling, she could almost see some faint glow of white daylight in the distance.
The sharp, crisp sound of finger snaps turned her head and silenced the murmuring of the group. Private Steinhauer had his hand scanner out and open, and as the other MACOs looked at him, he made short chopping movements with his hand in several directions around the landing party. Hernandez followed his gestures and was barely able to notice unusual flutters in the thick greenery, like ripples in water.
In slow, steady motions, Major Foyle and the other MACOs raised and braced their rifles. Sergeant Pembleton motioned the rest of the landing party to get down. Then he selected a target and put himself between it and Hernandez. Around the rest of the landing party, the MACOs formed a tight circle.
”Set for stun,” Hernandez reminded everyone in a whisper. ”Remember this is a first-contact mission.”
The MACOs checked their rifles' settings and nodded to Foyle, who said in a low monotone, ”Weapons free.”
The forest erupted with bright flashes of phased energy and echoed with the screeching of rifles discharging in three-shot bursts. Piercing shrieks added to the cacophony as the soldiers' shots found their marks. Enormous, semitransparent creatures that reminded Hernandez of millipedes reared up out of the fronds, their antennae twitching and their multi-segmented bodies wriggling from multiple hits by the phase rifles. Within seconds, all the creatures were in retreat.
Foyle shouted, ”Cease fire!” The staccato roar of rifle fire stopped, leaving only its distant echoes reverberating in the cavernous s.p.a.ces of the forest.
Hernandez noticed only then that she had drawn her own phase pistol without realizing it. She tucked the weapon back in its holster on her belt. Then she looked around and saw the other flight-crew officers doing the same thing.
Foyle and his men lowered their rifles and grinned at one another as they watched the Columbia personnel holster their sidearms. ”Thank you for the backup,” the major said, ”but we have it under control.”
”Gracias, Major,” Hernandez said.
”De nada, Captain,” Foyle said. He waved to Pembleton, who gave him his attention. ”Sergeant, I want a defensive formation until we clear the forest.”
”Yes, sir,” Pembleton said. ”Mazzetti, Crichlow-each of you take a flank. Steinhauer, join Yacavino on rear guard. Major, will you join me on point?”
”Absolutely,” Foyle said, stepping past Fletcher and Hernandez. When he reached the front, he turned back and said to the landing party, ”We're less than an hour from clearing the forest. I'd like to pick up the pace and get this over with. Anyone who doesn't think they can handle it, speak up now.” No one said anything. ”All right. Double-time. Let's move out!”
The jogging pace was twice as difficult to sustain as Hernandez had expected, but she was determined not to set an example of frailty. Inhaling the muggy air was a labor, and within ten minutes her chest hurt with each heaving breath. Her black bangs were matted to her forehead by sweat, and knifing pains between her ribs felt as if they penetrated into her lungs. Exertion left the muscles in her calves and thighs coiled and burning, and each running step sent jolts of impact trauma through her knees. Only the widening slivers of light through the trees kept her stride from faltering.
She noticed Fletcher striding alongside her, her longer legs making it easy for her to overtake the captain. Fletcher asked with a smirk, ”Hangin' in there, Captain?”
Lacking the air to respond, Hernandez shot a venomous glare at her XO and kept loping along behind Foyle and Pembleton.
After almost twenty minutes of jogging, the tree line was within sight. A dark wall of Brobdingnagian trunks rose like columns in front of a curtain of pale illumination. Hernandez found it hard to let her eyes adjust; she stared at the light until she could make out the details. A narrow, vertical slice of landscape emerged from behind a veil of s.h.i.+mmering haze: green land below, a crimson s.h.i.+ne on the horizon, and a cloud-streaked sky above. But then the forest became a black ma.s.s around her, and she was unable to see where she was going.
She blinked and cast her eyes toward her feet, so that her eyes could readjust to the shadowy realm beneath the arboreal giants. The landscape beyond the tree line was washed away once more in a radiant, white flood. As the landing party neared the forest's edge, the ferns and fronds that choked the ground became taller, and the s.p.a.ces between them narrower and harder to traverse. Within moments, the lush green foliage towered over their heads, aglow with the intense light that slanted almost horizontally into the forest near its perimeter.
Pembleton slowed to a walking pace and called back to the others, ”Regroup and stay close till we get clear of this stuff.”
The heat from above grew stronger, and the light became much brighter. Filtered through the tall plants, it bathed the landing party in an emerald glow.
Then they broke through the wall of green into daylight.
Slack-jawed and silent, the landing party fanned out in a long line and stared at the vista before them.
Rolling knolls covered in knee-high flaxen gra.s.ses and brightly hued wildflowers punctuated the otherwise gradual downward slope of the landscape. The crescent border of the forest stretched north and south for hundreds of kilometers, disappearing into the misty distance. Flatlands stretched west toward the horizon, in front of which rose a jagged mountain range backed by a seemingly endless bank of storm clouds.
Rising from the center of the golden plain was a ma.s.sive city unlike any that Hernandez had ever seen. Metallic white and shaped like a broad bowl filled with fragile towers, it looked as if it were perfectly symmetrical, but her eyes couldn't discern all the minuscule details of its architecture from this distance. Its surfaces gleamed with reflected light.
”No air traffic,” Fletcher said. She took her hand scanner from her belt and activated it. After making a few adjustments, she added, ”And we're inside the scattering field, so scanners are drawing a blank.”
Hernandez eyed the landscape around the metropolis. ”No roads,” she said. ”It's like this place has no history.”
Major Foyle asked, ”What are you talking about?”
”A city this big doesn't just spring up from nowhere,” Hernandez explained. ”Urban centers are hubs for commerce, industry, and travel. Even in a society long past the age of ground travel, you'd expect to find evidence of old roads leading to a city this size.”
”Not to mention infrastructure,” Fletcher said. ”I'm not seeing any signs of civil engineering outside the city. No water or sewage-removal systems, no power grids, no comm lines.”
”I'm sure this is all fascinating, Captain,” said Major Foyle, ”but I just need to know one thing right now: Are we going forward, or going back?”
Hernandez nodded at the city. ”Forward, Major. We have to see if anybody's home.”
”Then we'd better get going,” Foyle said, pointing at the kilometers-long shadow of the city that was angled in their direction. ”We're losing the light.”
Hernandez looked up at the blinding orange orb of the sun, which was making slow progress toward the horizon. ”Move out,” she said, and she started walking to lead the way.
Her officers fell in as a group behind her, while Foyle silently directed his MACOs with hand signals to spread out in a triangle-shaped formation around the Columbia team.
Though the alien city was still nearly three kilometers away, it loomed large above the wild s.p.a.ces of the plains, an intricate jewel standing like a citadel of order and authority amid the undefiled chaos of nature. Hernandez's admiration of the city's austere beauty was enhanced by its contrast with the storm-bruised dome of sky in the distance.
Fletcher seemed wary of the majestic white metropolis as she asked Hernandez, ”What'll we do if it's deserted?”
”Plant a flag,” Hernandez said, only half joking.
Still leery, Fletcher said, ”And if it's not deserted?”
”We'll start with 'h.e.l.lo' and see how it goes from there.”
”Some plan,” Fletcher quipped. ”Showing up on their front porch empty-handed. Maybe we should've brought a gift.”
Hernandez grinned and played along. ”Like what?”
”I dunno,” Fletcher said. ”A nice ca.s.serole, maybe. Or a basket of m.u.f.fins. Everybody likes a basket of m.u.f.fins.”
”I'll put that on the first-contact checklist from now on,” Hernandez said. ”Phase pistol, universal translator, first-aid kit, and a basket of m.u.f.fins.”
Fletcher shrugged. ”Couldn't hurt.”
The slight downhill grade made the hike to the city an easy one, and the group picked up speed as they continued.
Hernandez sighed and muttered, ”d.a.m.n you, Fletcher.” When she saw her first officer's aghast reaction, she added, ”Now I can't stop thinking about blueberry m.u.f.fins. Thanks a lot.”
”My work here is done,” Fletcher said.
It was half an hour before anyone spoke again.
As the landing party crested the last knoll between them and the city, they saw that the metropolis didn't rest at ground level. The center of its convex underside hovered several dozen meters above the planet, and its outer edges were hundreds of meters off the ground. It was like standing beneath a giant, levitating bowl of dark metal. Hernandez saw no obvious means of reaching its surface.
Pembleton craned his neck and stared up at the city's edge. ”Well, that's just great.”