Subcutis (Bona Dea Book 1) Read online

  Flora nodded. “Even with the map, you could get yourself lost down here pretty easily. I wouldn’t want to go wandering far. Look there, though … Salomon marked that room as a point of interest, though he didn’t trouble to say why. It’s pretty nearby.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  * * *

  It only took ten minutes to reach their destination, half of which were spent walking along a single corridor, which ran on for hundreds of feet in a dead straight line. There were no Matans growing out of the walls here, which relieved Flora – the sound of their perfectly synchronized breathing still gave her chills. The tunnel itself was mostly made of rock, though the occasional strut of metal gleamed in the light of their torches. The walk along it felt almost peaceful at first, with nothing to hear but the scuffling of their feet and their occasional hushed exchange. As they progressed, however, they heard noise coming from up ahead: dripping water.

  “Sounds of the rainstorm?” wondered Annie. “We’re a long way below ground level.”

  When they reached the end of the passage, they found not a door but instead a short flight of wooden stairs. These led them up to a quite striking room. The floor was small and circular, perhaps 40 feet across. The walls, by contrast, leapt straight up and kept going for perhaps ten times that distance. They eventually tapered together to form a point, which their torches were barely strong enough to illuminate.

  Almost every surface was covered with a lattice of tubes. They displayed the by now familiar Matan theme of merged substances, being wooden in some areas and metallic in other, with never a clear delineation between the two. Each of them throbbed gently. The layout was almost regular, but slightly convex segments suggested hulking forms to the left and right. Humanoid figures, realized Flora with a jolt. Twin giants watching over us. No … not quite twins. The left figure is slightly irregular; male and female parts combined, I think.

  The effect was awe-inspiring, conjuring thoughts of human cathedrals, though there were no altars or other familiar religious trappings in sight. Instead, there were two paths leading out from where they stood, forming a V shape on the floor. Each led to an alcove. Against all logic, there was a healthy layer of grass covering each path.

  The light from their torches cut through columns of dripping water. The top of the chamber was evidently so near to the surface that the effects of the rainstorm could seep through. They could dimly hear it beating down, far above them.

  “Just look at this,” said Annie with reverence. “First thing I’ve seen down here that I might call beautiful. Kind of intimidating though.”

  Flora could only nod. Cautiously, she advanced into the room, taking the left path while Annie took the right. She stooped to run her fingers through the grass. Soft and soothing to the touch, and all of one length, much as the grass above ground had been. The alcove before her was a couple of feet taller than she, a simple half cylinder of gnarled wood cutting into the wall. A single word was carved above the entrance, composed of four of the Matan characters. She saw that Annie’s alcove, largely identical, was crowned with a slightly longer word; it looked like six characters.

  Annie stepped into the little space, running her hands over the inner surface. “Okay. There has to be something significant about these. Shrines, maybe? I can imagine a little altar standing here. Not that there’s any marks on the floor.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” said Flora, stepping inside her own alcove. The grass was underfoot here too, but the wood was bumpy and irregular, in contrast to the patterns of the main room. She also became aware of an odd smell that she couldn’t quite place. “The metal’s completely unrusted, the grass perfectly even. This room’s well taken care of. The whole planet is, come to that, but this is the most glaring example I’ve seen.”

  “So we’ve got an invisible janitor roaming about the place?”

  Flora shone her torch above her, searching carefully, though she knew not what for. “Perhaps the janitor is the place. The idea that the whole planet’s alive seems less and less far-fetched the longer I spend here. Look at what we’ve got so far. Firstly -”

  She stopped abruptly. “Do you hear that?” Leaning forwards, she put her ear to the back wall. “Yes, there’s a faint sound. Something’s shifting back there.”

  It happened so fast.

  The wood before Flora split wide apart with a sound like bones cracking. She screamed and jerked away, but too late. Slender metallic tentacles burst from the opening, wrapping around her hips and torso. She was pulled forwards into gaping blackness.

  “Flora!” Annie was scrambling awkwardly over the pulsing tubes which separated the two alcoves. The older woman had no energy to waste on responding. She flung her arms and legs to the sides, scrabbling for purchase, doing anything possible to pull away from the hungry maw. But she was being slowly drawn in.

  Annie reached the little alcove, immediately flinging her arms around Flora’s waist and adding her own strength to that of her friend. It was effective for a few hopeful seconds, but then reinforcements arrived on the other side. Smaller tendrils snaked forth, ignoring Annie and wrapping themselves around Flora’s arms and legs, squeezing and tugging.

  Flora’s wristband gave an incongruously cheerful chime, and Dr Little’s voice emerged, tinny but audible.

  “Cartwright, your vital signs are showing evidence of stress. Are you okay?”

  Annie managed to touch the response button. “We need help!” she screamed into the device. “Now!”

  But Flora knew there wouldn’t be time. There was no-one else below ground; no aid could come for 15 minutes at least, and even 15 seconds might not be soon enough. She felt her left arm and leg slipping, until both lost purchase at the same time. Annie managed to hold onto her right hand, but the rest of her body slipped through the opening. She had a fleeting impression of a large, cluttered area around her, but her eyes were locked on Annie’s horrified face. More metal tendrils had appeared, criss-crossing her face and neck. She thought of Charlie sitting in his little room, so far away, and tears stung her eyes as she was drawn in, in …

  But what was this? The metal bands were loosening, their iron grip slipping. With a renewed surge of hope, Flora kicked and clawed her way towards Annie, who still had a grip on her wrist. First her head was back through the opening, then her body, then with a shocking suddenness, she was released.

  She shot out as if fired from a gun, landing on top of her friend. After a moment of wordless shock, they both scrambled back out of the alcove, lying gasping for breath in the main chamber.

  As they watched, the tear in the wall calmly sealed itself. In seconds, all looked as it had before.

  VII

  Love liberates. It doesn’t bind.

  – Maya Angelou

  “I can still feel them closing around me. Hard and cold. So cold …” Flora shuddered.

  Charlie drew her closer. She’d gone straight to him once Little had discharged her from Medical. She thought someone in the corridor outside had seen her going in, but right now she didn’t care.

  “You’re safe now. You needn’t ever go back there.”

  “I can’t get over the feeling that this place has it in for me. First the ground gives way beneath my feet, now this. And Annie went into her alcove well before I did. Why did it ignore her and go for me?”

  “There are a lot of possible reasons. We know so little about that labyrinth and the people who designed it.”

  “If they were people.” She let out a long, calming breath. “So give me one of your possible reasons, then.”

  “Hmm.” He pondered for several seconds. Flora doubted whether a computerized brain really needed to think for that long, but his designers had covered every base in making him seem human. Charlie could pass the Turing test more easily than I could, she thought with an inward smile.

  “The two alcoves may not have had the same purpose,” said Charlie. “For instance, they may have been an entrance and
an exit.”

  Flora recalled the different words above the two doors. “Aren’t you the clever one? Okay, maybe I’ve just been unlucky. Still, I’m not going back underground if I can help it. I tried confronting my fears, and it backfired spectacularly. I’ll go to plan B: hide in here.”

  His fingers gently traced the outline of her birthmark. “I wouldn’t say that it backfired. You reacted well again – fought your way free.”

  “Did I?” she chewed pensively at a fingernail, thinking back. “It all happened so fast, but I’m not sure anything I or Annie did made a difference. Whatever it was just seemed to let me go.” She noticed suddenly that she was trembling, the horrible feeling of being drawn into blackness rekindled.

  “It’s okay.” Charlie said nothing more for the moment, simply holding her until she was at peace.

  Her doubts about him were lessening by the day, she realized. Already it seemed a lifetime ago when she had seriously considered trying to cut him out of her life. She still wasn’t sure whether he was “real,” but neither was she sure what that word meant, or whether it mattered.

  “I love you,” she said, trying the words on for size. They fit snugly enough.

  He smiled, but his face held a touch of sadness. “Thank you. And you know I’d like to say the same. But my programming expressly prohibits me from ever using that phrase.”

  “I can understand why. Start talking about love, and your visitors might get the wrong idea; before you know it, some poor fool’s going to come down with a severe case of Scarabelli syndrome. And what would become of her then?”

  He stroked her hair. “Sleep now. In the morning you’ll find your strength – and your courage – returned.”

  * * *

  “Okay,” said Hunter, with a glance at the two women across the table from her. “Let’s make a start.” Sandra Rivers nodded curtly, while Gypsy looked down at her feet and said nothing. The table was really too small for three – to accommodate Gypsy’s quirks, they were in Alice Cumberland’s quarters instead of the proper meeting room. Hunter, for the first time, was finding herself a little irked by the mathematician’s recalcitrant streak, but tried her best not to show it.

  “I can kick things off with a quick report on what we’re calling the ‘Cathedral’ room – the chamber where Flora suffered her assault, if that’s what it was.”

  “How is she?” asked Gypsy with an anxious tilt of the head.

  “Shaken up, I think, but to her credit she’s fighting through it. She’s already back to work on the ship. Tougher young woman than she gives herself credit for, I’ve always felt. Now, as far as our investigation goes, we’ve not much to show for our efforts. Our handheld tools confirm the existence of a large chamber behind the cathedral, but can’t tell us anything about what’s in it, nor does there seem to be an alternate route in there. We haven’t risked going near to either of the alcoves ourselves, though I did have ACM-2 go and stand in the same place that Flora did, and repeat her actions there as far as possible. No reaction. Oh, thank you Alice.”

  The elder Cumberland had placed two cups of coffee on the table. She smiled, gave her daughter’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, and went back to her painting.

  “Nothing to explain grass growing where there’s no natural light, I imagine?” asked Rivers. To Hunter’s relief, the scientist had shown no further signs of insubordination, committing fully to the ongoing investigations.

  “Nothing. It looks like ordinary grass, much the same as we’ve seen on the surface. We’ve taken a sample back to the labs; maybe your team can find something.”

  “I wouldn’t pin too much hope on that happening, Captain. The pattern of this investigation so far has been one of frustration. Continuing analysis of the composition of our landing legs still shows normal stone and titanium alloy, with no hints as to how their extraordinary physical metamorphosis occurred. The situation underground is no better. If the Matans have been there for any serious length of time, they should be suffering from pronounced muscular atrophy, and yet – based on our limited knowledge of their physiology – they appear to be in prime condition. Their partially metallic nature may perhaps provide some explanation for that, but the fact remains that the organic components of their make-up are in far better shape than they should be. The manner in which flesh is linked to steel, steel to wood, wood to flesh is an intriguing puzzle, but one we’re unlikely to solve until we install a heavy-duty scanner below ground.”

  Hunter held her hands over her cup, enjoying the warmth; it was freezing outside now, the Matan winter settling in for a long stay. “If the ACMs don’t find a more accessible entrance in the next couple of days, we’ll dismantle a medical scanner and move it down there piecemeal.”

  “Excellent. When that happens we’ll know more about the internal organs of the natives. For the moment, we’ve gleaned little about their inner workings. Though, by listening at their chests we have at least determined that their hearts are in the right place.”

  The captain smiled. “I do believe that’s the first joke I’ve heard you make.”

  Rivers looked playfully affronted. “‘Joke’” is a little strong Captain. “Double entendre” might be fairer.’

  “So how about external differences?”

  “They have much the same equipment as we do, albeit with certain differences of quality and quantity. You’ve doubtless noticed that they have only four fingers on each hand, four toes on each foot … they do have more teeth than we do, though. Extra pairs of canine and molars.”

  “They look a fair way bigger than us as well.”

  “Correct. Not so much in terms of height, but they’re heavier, more muscular. Their skin is rougher and less sensitive – fewer nerve endings. Also, gender dimorphism is far less pronounced than in humans. The women appear only slightly behind the men in terms of size and weight. Female mammary glands are significantly smaller than for our species, likewise male genitalia. This is based on a survey of 704 adults – still no sign of any children.”

  “None? We can add that to the list of mysteries.”

  “I do have a theory: if the Matans have been there for some time then maybe some of them started out as children, and aged naturally at first. After they reached a certain age, they were frozen there, preserved by whatever forces are at work here.”

  “Or there may never have been any children here at all.”

  “Also possible, if unlikely.”

  “Fascinating results. I’ll look forward to seeing how things proceed. Now …” Hunter turned to Gypsy with her warmest smile, hoping to put the young woman at her ease. Not all that young, she reminded herself – four years older than Rivers, actually – but an extremely shy speaker. She never seemed really at ease in the company of anyone other than her mother and Flora.

  “Gypsy, I understand that you’ve made some real progress with the Matan script.”

  “Ah, thanks, I’ve managed a bit of … I wrote some notes.” The mathematician looked fixedly at the sheaf of paper in her lap as she spoke, but her stumbling speech largely smoothed itself out once she got into her flow.

  “So, you asked me to work on the ceiling artwork of that massive cavern. I went by the assumption that the text described the images, and that it was describing history, something like the Bayeux Tapestry. A couple of the books we’ve found I actually already guessed were about history, and this find has really made some pieces fall into place. Of course, in any historical book there’s got to be place names and people’s names, which we can’t really translate, but we can still sort of get the gist. I just want you to understand, this isn’t a one hundred percent reliable translation just yet, there’s a lot of uncertainties.”

  Hunter sipped her coffee and smiled as patiently as she could. “We understand. Just give us your best guess.”

  “Okay, so there’s evidently been plenty of wars in the past. A few thousand years ago there was a great warrior queen who brought the whole of this continent together thro
ugh conquest, but the resulting empire split in two soon after her death, and the East and West kingdoms engaged in lots of these really brutal wars over the course of the centuries that followed, with the minor continents being dragged in to support one side or the other.”

  “A familiar story,” remarked Rivers.

  “Uh-huh. So … they did manage to make peace eventually. They’d been pretty much war-free for a while before the events of five hundred years ago.”

  Hunter leaned forwards expectantly. “Now comes the really interesting part. What happened next, Gypsy?”

  “Well … I think I need to talk a little bit about their religion first. They seem to have been fixated with the earth – erm, meaning the ground, not our planet – from their ancient times onwards. I see one phrase used a lot: ‘We asked of the earth, and the earth provided.’ There was a custom of being buried alive for a day when passing from childhood to adulthood, and a common religious rite where a priest and priestess would place their hands in loose dirt and pray to their God, Vitana, for favours.”

  “Based on what we’ve seen, that religion may have been based on fact.”

  “Yes, though as time went by they became more sceptical; there was a sort global mood of wanting the people to stand by themselves, without any deities helping them. They made advances in robotics, and a new philosophy took over; machines were looked on with great reverence, and artificial life became a sort of ideal model for what the people should aim for. They wanted to take on mechanical aspects, become one with their machines.”

  “And they got their wish.”

  “I guess so. Their scientists found that the old religions had been right, more or less. There was a powerful entity living in the ground beneath their feet, and in time they were able to communicate with it – I’m not sure how. It made them an offer: it would join them with their machines with a completeness that they could never manage by themselves. It had the power to make a Matan and a robot one with each other. They could merge to form a new being … a hybrid child of biological and mechanical lifeforms.”