Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Future Lovecraft

A pillar of blood had flowed straight up into the air behind them. Pipaluk went into a roll, just as the formless spawn crashed down. Of course that was why there were no bodies—this must be one of Laila’s, injured in battle with the fail-safe and left behind to heal itself on the corpses of the fallen. It probably couldn’t have hid from the fail-safe for long, trapped alone with it in this bay, which meant they might be just behind the blasphemous Professori…unless she had died in this place, too. Well, no sense being optimistic just yet, Pipaluk reasoned, as her reflexes carried her backward, up, down, sideways, flipping away from the relentless, deadly ooze.

“Stink it!” Pipaluk panted, as she lured the pursuing wave back toward Nuka, who sat with his back to the final airlock. “Stink the thing, already!”

Nothing came over the subgineer’s channel and, cartwheeling up to his splayed body, she saw he was not simply lying down on the job; he had quit it altogether: His neck had been twisted almost completely off when the spawn had hit him, only the suit keeping it attached. Gross. The pistol in his hand seemed intact, however, and all she had to do was—

—Go spinning across the bay as the formless spawn caught her foot and hurled her away from her prize. It was on her before she stopped sliding over the slick basalt, but a low heatburst from her suit drove it back, the thing hissing as it smoldered. Before it could throw itself atop her again, she was on all fours and dashing back to Nuka’s corpse. It tried to put itself between her and the gun, but another suit-pulse let her slip past it, then the bony handle of the stinker was in hand. The spawn tried to hide in the pools on the ground, but her bio-helm filters picked up the creature immediately and she blasted it into oblivion with the foul little weapon.

“For Ane,” she caught herself saying, as she depressed the trigger a second, superfluous time, which surprised her—she was not one for redundancy or sentimentality, as a rule. If anyone found out she was going soft, they might make a move for her position, try to hit her with the old bump-and-shuffle. But there was no time for politics, not now. Giving the bay another scan, just to make sure she hadn’t missed any of the spawn in her haste, she turned and opened the final airlock, praying she wasn’t too late.

The ruins of Eibon’s tower retained their pentagonal design but little else, at least that Pipaluk could recall from the blueprints. There certainly hadn’t been any mention of mineral cacti, molten streams of metal crisscrossing the floor, or a perpetual ashy cloud in the toxic air. A yellow moss coating the walls and fallen blocks confused her, for it was surely a close relation to the squamous fungus that grew only in the most hallowed temples of Tsathoggua, and yet she could not imagine a place less-favoured by the god than this foyer to his uncle’s realm.

The moss also carpeted the floor wherever the mercurial creeks did not, but was trampled down so thoroughly that she could make no estimate of who had passed this way, or when. Everywhere she looked were wet scraps of Voormis, oily hunks of fail-safes, and puddles of deconstructed formless spawn, but nothing seemed alive in the ruins. The grotto was cramped, dark, and malodorous; it immediately put her at ease.

Pipaluk crossed the bizarre chamber, ducking beneath acid-dripping stalactites that whispered to her in a foreign tongue as she methodically searched the area. She paid them no mind, for she made out the name ‘Hziulquoigmnzhah’ amidst their stony gibberings and knew them to be heretical deposits. Then, at last, she saw a florescent reddish panel set in a spit of black gneiss that rose from a pool of the liquid metal—the small plate had a crack at its base, and from this fissure issued the iridescent fluid that dribbled down the ebon rock to feed stream and puddle alike. There was no sign of Laila, any member of her team, or even an active fail-safe. Pipaluk had failed.

“Pipaluk!” Provost Ole blared in her ear, the Quorum channel forcejacked back on. He sounded upset. “We’ve been monitoring everything. You’ve failed.”

“Impossible,” she sneered, too tired and disappointed for diplomacy. “You’re bluffing; you can’t—”

“Subgineer Refn here sneakpatched us into your bio-helm before you even reached the second airlock,” said Ole. “He’s also filled us in rather thoroughly regarding the numerous infractions you have committed in the course of your tenure. Effective immediately, you are to return to the first bay, where politibetjents are waiting to relieve you of your government equipment. Thereupon, you will stand trial for putting your subgineers in harm’s way instead of using spawn, as is basic protocol . And then there is the matter of your refusal to obey my direct order to return to the Quorum for further instruction, and—”

Pipaluk couldn’t deactivate the channel anymore, but she found she could still mute it. Subgineer Refn, eh? She hadn’t seen that coming—she’d taken him back to her warrens a few months ago, but hadn’t found him particularly enjoyable or even memorable. Now she wondered if he had been researching her, probing for weaknesses, rather than probing for—well, no matter, the damage was done. She had to admit he’d made a decent play of it, going directly to the Quorum, but it was hard to admire an action that would most likely result in her being painfully sacrificed to the inscrutable god she had spent her entire life trying to serve.

Of course, there was a second option. Depriving Ole, Refn, and their cronies of the political points her public trial would bring was a proposition too tempting to pass up, interdimensional, reality-shattering horror be damned. Pipaluk smiled to herself, shaking her head, and stepped into the shallow pool of shimmering metal. Just as she put her hand on the portal, however, a cry came from just behind her. Spinning around with the olid-pistol primed, she saw Professori Laila rising from behind a softly-chanting stalagmite, the camouflage of her suit falling away as she willingly revealed herself.

“Wait!” Laila repeated. “Don’t!”

“Fancy seeing you here,” said Pipaluk, dialing the gun down to Reek. She wanted Laila alive and sane enough to stand trial, after all. Pipaluk might be going down, but it wouldn’t be alone. Then she remembered the portal just behind her, her potentially suicidal resolution of moments before, and she cocked her head curiously. “What are you doing here? I thought the whole point was to go through the Gate, not get your team killed just to skulk about some ruins.”

“The point was to determine if the Gate could be safely used,” said Laila, crossing her arms. “Just as I always said. You were the one who insisted I was trying to enter the damn thing.”

“Right,” said Pipaluk. “Sure. So, you’re telling me you didn’t have any of your team go through?”

Laila winced. “Most of them didn’t make it this far. Those fail-safes were—”

“Most. But you made it. And so did…?”

“A couple of grad students.” Laila shivered. “Their names aren’t important now. They’ll come up at the trial, I’m sure, and—”

“What happened to them!” Pipaluk barked. “You crazy kanaak , what happened to them?!”

“They went through.” Laila looked down at the blurred shadow of her reflection in the metal pool. “Dorthe went first. She was supposed to return immediately, if she could. When she didn’t, after a day, Nivi went and—”

“A day,” Pipaluk groaned. “Those toe-dragging fools on the Quorum.”

“More like two,” Laila said sheepishly. “No sign of either of them. Which, well, isn’t surprising—the portal is older than we could date. Even if it still leads to Cykranosh, there’s no telling what might be on the other end by now. Maybe the Gate projects you into solid rock, the bottom of an ocean. Maybe the planet’s shifted so much it just dumps you into space.” The Professori shuddered. “None of the probes we sent through came back, observation cables were severed as soon as they crossed over, remotes failed, blah blah blah, and so those two volunteered. And now we know—it’s not safe, anymore. If it ever was.”