Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road

Shannon carried an axe; Avila, a lamp. Shannon was talking, something about irrevocable mistakes, but she was too locked in to her own mind to listen. The dust of centuries

crunched underfoot. She wondered about the entity that had lived here so long, and the darkness pressed down on her. “I’ll he glad to be done with it,” she said.

“Tomorrow,” said Shannon. “We pack up and get moving in the morning.”

They entered the branch corridor, passed the washrooms, and confronted the door marked OPERATIONS. It was heavy and warped. Shannon tugged on the knob. ‘It’s not going to come without a fight,” he said.

He hit it once with the axe, without discernible effect. The door and the frame had swollen and fused together. A bar would have been more useful. But there was a rift near the bottom. While Avila held the lamp close, he inserted the axe head and worked it back and forth. The door groaned and gave slightly, and he was able to move the blade higher.

Something broke on the next try, and the door and frame both inched outward. “I think we’ve got it,” he said.

Avila set the lamp down on the floor and got hold of the knob.

Shannon leaned on the axe, pushed it deeper into the wedge he had made. “We’re in good shape,” he said. “On three.”

Caves and other areas that have been long sealed off present a special hazard to investigators. The potential for the buildup of natural gases over an extended period is very real. There have been instances in which unwary excavators have been rendered unconscious, and even smothered.

For Shannon and Avila, there was an even more immediate danger. The interior had been blocked off from the outside world for centuries, and had filled with methane. While they worked on opening the door, the open flame of the oil lamp burned virtually at Shannon’s feet.

Chaka was lying close to the campfire, deep in her own dark thoughts, when she heard the explosion.

Avila was lucky: The door shielded her from the worst of the blast. She came away with a few burns, bruised ribs and shoulder, and a twisted knee. Chaka found her propped against the wall, eyes glazed, beside Shannon. The big forester lay flat, boneless, crumpled. She tried to help him, to clear away the blood. But it was no use.

“I don’t know,” Avila said, replying to frantic questions. “It just exploded.” There was a strong odor of burnt cork in the passageway.

Quait checked for pulse and found none.

Chaka knelt beside Avila, lifting her gently away from Shannon, gathering her into her own arms. “You okay?” she asked.

“Okay—”

“It must have been a bomb.” Chaka’s voice was shaky. “Why? What’s the point?”

“Had to be,” said Quait.

Flojian was slower than the others. He arrived, struggling for breath, and his eyes went wide.

The door lay in the corridor, the frame half blown away Quait glanced into the room but took care not to get too close to the entrance. “Don’t touch anything. There might be more surprises in there.”

Chaka, trying to hold back tears, was asking Avila what hurt.

Avila couldn’t take her eyes from Shannon. “My fault,” she said.

“It’s not anybody’s fault,” said Quait.

She got to her knees, took Shannon’s right hand in both of hers, and bowed her head.

Chaka’s face was creased with tears and blood. “You think Mike did this deliberately?”

“Hard to see how else it could have happened,” said Quait.

Flojian nodded.

“I can’t believe it.” Chaka’s face was pale and her eyes were full of pain. “Why? Mike has no reason to attack any of us.”

“Maybe,” said Quait, “we should start by getting away from the first-name routine. That thing is not some friendly lost traveler or oversized dog. It’s an it. Maybe we were right the first time and it is a demon. And maybe it just wants to kill anyone who comes in here.” They looked at one another, suddenly aware that everything they were saying was probably being overheard.

“There are such things,” said Flojian. “There are all kinds of stories.”

Quait looked at the ceiling, which was mottled and water-stained and, near the blast area, scorched. “You didn’t even care, did you?” he asked it. “You had no way of knowing who would open the door.”

Chaka had a vision of being hounded through the abandoned city by an invisible thing. “We ought to get out of here,” she said. “Now. Get as far away as we can.”

“We’re probably safe on the platform,” said Quait. “Apparently it can’t just come after us, or it would have done so.”

Avila folded Shannon’s hand over his heart. She murmured 3 prayer and made the sign of the Traveler’s staff.

Quait watched her, his face rigid. “I’d like to find a way to give the son of a bitch what it asked for. Kill it dead.” A void lay behind his eyes. “I don’t imagine we can assume there’s any truth to the black disk story?”

“I doubt it,” said Chaka. “He wouldn’t give us anything we could use against him.”

“Listen,” Avila said, getting to her feet. “Let’s not waste our time talking about demons. Okay? Mike is a piece of the building, the same way the walls are, the same way the trains are. The real question here is whether this was deliberate.”

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should ask him.”

“I don’t like it,” said Flojian. “Whatever you want to call it, we can’t touch this thing. If it has more surprises, how do we defend ourselves?”

“We can’t,” said Avila. “But I don’t think we need to.”

“Okay,” persisted Flojian. “If we admit we can’t act against it, why don’t we just get out while we can? Leave it alone?”

“If he’s innocent,” Avila said slowly, “we’d be abandoning him. I can’t do that. Especially now. We’ve paid for his release with our blood.”

Quait stared at her a long time. “Then let’s get to it,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

But there was still an element of doubt in Avila’s mind. Consequently, she insisted that they move the animals and their gear across the channel into the lobby of the gray tower. “Just as well,” said Flojian. “Water’s a barrier against evil.”

They all insisted, against her better judgment, in going with her to confront the entity that Quait and Flojian now referred to routinely as the house demon.

“All right,” she agreed, caving in because she had no real choice. “But I do the talking. Okay?”

They went back into Union Station, walked four abreast through the concourse with a mien that reminded Quait of drill fields, and made a turn into the corridor that housed the stairway.

Flojian reminded them (if anyone needed reminding) that the house demon could probably see them, and undoubtedly had heard everything they’d said. They climbed the stairs to the second floor and walked into Mike’s room. Despite a bright sun, they stood in dingy gray light.

“Mike?” Avila said. “Talk to me.”

A sudden noise, a fluttering, at the window. A pigeon.

“Mike? I know you’re here.”

“I’m always here. “The voice sounded flat and cold.

“Jon’s dead.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“What happened?”

“Accumulated gas, I assume. Did you have an open flame?”

“An oil lamp.”

“I never thought of it. I thought the only danger would come from electricity. And that seemed minimal.”

“You didn’t say anything about risks.”

“There are always risks, Avila. But I am sorry. I couldn ‘t warn him. I get no visuals from there anymore. I never knew there was a problem until I heard the blast.”