The Other Tree (41 page)

It had occurred to Luke, as he watched Chris sprinting across the falling bridge, that perhaps faith was believing in something, and then making it happen.

“Luke?” said Chris breathlessly.

Luke hauled her over the ledge and onto the floor of the shuddering cavern. She sagged onto the ground, struggling for breath as he stared blankly at her, rocks crashing down around them.

“Are you a zombie?” said Chris, getting unsteadily to her feet.

Luke blinked at her unevenly, his pupils now slightly different sizes.

“Why do you ask?”

“Never mind. I’m glad you’re undead— I mean, not dead.”

She gave him an awkward hug, and Luke wrapped his arms around her.

“How are you going to get back?” he asked softly.

Chris looked over her shoulder, watching as the searchlights across the chasm rose slowly into the darkness.

“Yeah, about that…” she said guiltily.

He stood beside her and looked out across the chasm. Chunks of ceiling streaked past like falling stars.

“It’s okay,” said Luke. “Don’t be sorry.”

“Are you feeling alright?” Chris asked, looking at his expression of otherworldly calm.

“Actually,” said Luke. “I feel better than I have in a very long time.”

* * *

The extraction craft swerved sharply as boulders fell erratically from above. Hoyle’s hands danced over the controls, his gaze darting between the panel in front of him and the readout on his goggles. Xian-Fei sat in the co-pilot’s seat with an expression like taut piano wire, and Hoyle could feel displeasure radiating from her like long, sharp pins.

Hoyle could tell that, for Xian-Fei, watching him pilot was like being forced to observe a small child playing the violin very badly. The fact that Hoyle had vetoed using the Wasp in favour of this craft made it more akin to listening to the same child play a toy recorder. He had tried explaining to her that getting in wasn’t the problem, and he would need her fresh to get them back out. However, trying to convey this message to Xian-Fei was like being belted with red-hot pokers.

Certainly, the Bumblebee lacked the finesse of the Wasp. The former had been an early prototype of the latter, and it had actually been one of Hoyle’s first projects with SinaCorp. In what seemed like a former life, Hoyle had been an aeronautical engineer and crack pilot, contracted by SinaCorp to develop a range of highly manoeuvrable assault craft. The Bumblebee had been his first great creation, implementing all the major principles of the later vehicles, and with a capacity of eight, including the pilot.

However, over time, Hoyle had found himself being given supervisory responsibility over more projects, more departments, more teams, and he had grown to enjoy the satisfaction and the power of the bigger picture. But somewhere along the line, things had changed. The funding disparity between projects grew greater, resources for departments grew tighter, and fewer and fewer teams returned from assignments. He had started to run on automatic: keeping projects on track, keeping departments within budget, arranging for the growing number of funerals and condolence cards. At some point, he thought he had stopped caring.

Some people turned to drink, others to recreationally snorted powders. Hoyle had turned to numbers—sifting through reams of data streaming across multiple screens. He had come to the growing realisation that what SinaCorp saved in extraction teams and equipment quality might actually be outweighed by the cost of hiring, training, equipping, and paying for the funerals of replacement team members.

Hoyle had fully intended to bring this to Marrick’s attention, after he had made the executive decision to deploy the Bumblebee rather than the Wasp. However, it had not escaped his attention that Marrick did not appear to be among the team members requiring extraction. In fact, there did not appear to be much of a team to extract.

“Status,” said Hoyle, his gaze moving quickly between the console and the bug-eyed windshield.

“Mission unsuccessful,” said Emir, hunched over near the open hatch. “Multiple fatalities. And those two people need rescuing.”

Hoyle looked at the massive stone archway through the falling dust, just making out two specks by the edge of the cavern.

“How did they get in here?” said Hoyle.

“Long story?” said Emir.

Hoyle turned the Bumblebee around, dodging a succession of falling rocks.

“There’s no way we can get down into that archway,” said Hoyle.

“Maybe if we had the Wasp,” said Xian-Fei flatly.

Hoyle eyed the size of the archway, making quick computations.

“Can you do it with this?” asked Hoyle.

“Camel. Eye of needle,” said Xian-Fei.

“Is that a yes?” asked Hoyle.

Xian-Fei blinked.

“I want a pay rise.”

“I’m willing to negotiate,” said Hoyle.

Xian-Fei paused, sweeping her eyes over the console with distaste. Hoyle gave a faint smile.

“Controls to L-Pilot,” said Hoyle, and the console flickered as Xian-Fei’s hands began to race across the panel.

The whole feel of the vehicle changed as it dipped and darted like a hummingbird, pulling back, then surging forward towards the stone archway below.

Chris and Luke looked up as the humming noise grew louder, the searchlight growing brighter as a beautifully streamlined assault chopper descended like a vision. Three rotors of varying sizes were angled around the craft, and somehow it managed to hover in the archway, ducking and swaying as chunks of the cavern crashed inches from the whirring rotor blades. Dirt blasted through the cavern as the rotors churned the air, and Chris and Luke held onto each other to stop from being blown away.

“I guess that’s our ride!” yelled Chris, looking dubiously at the blazing gold SinaCorp logo on the chopper tail.

Luke didn’t respond.

She felt his arm slip from her shoulder and turned to see him sinking to the floor, his knees buckling underneath him. She caught him just before he hit the ground, but he was a dead weight.

“Luke—”

“Legs, having some issues,” said Luke, suddenly a lot paler than he had been five minutes ago.

Chris found it rather miraculous that Luke wasn’t having more serious issues, such as organ failure or coma, but as she watched the SinaCorp ladder whipping overhead, she couldn’t help thinking that another five minutes of zombie-Luke would have been handy. If she jumped, she just might make it, but Luke was fading fast.

“You figure they could make the ladder two metres longer,” said Chris.

“I think it’s so the person at the end doesn’t get sucked into that rotor,” said Luke.

Chris looked desperately around at the collapsing cavern, hoping to spot some hidden salvation. Unless salvation came in the form of cranial injuries, things looked pretty grim. Luke put his hand gently over Chris’s grazed, bruised fingers.

“I think this is the part where I tell you to save yourself,” he said.

He looked over at the thrashing ladder and gave Chris a wry smile.

“I made my peace after the sixth time I thought I was going to die,” said Luke.

Chris looked into his eyes. There were some things you never said, things that always seemed too cheesy, or too painful, or seemed best left to your deathbed when you knew there would be no awkward encounters in the supermarket later. You never said those things, hoping that they just knew.

Old habits died hard.

“Your arms still work, right?” said Chris.

“Possibly enough to control a hand puppet, but only a very simple one,” said Luke.

“Can you hold onto me?”

“Chris, even without most of my blood I weigh a lot more than a pot plant—”

“Can you do it?”

Luke studied her face, her eyes blazing with such sincerity, such conviction. A maelstrom of thoughts and feelings flared in those eyes, some of them quite random, but he could see the one there meant for him.

Believe in me. You wanted something to hold onto. Here I am
.

“I haven’t let you down so far, have I?” he said.

Luke wrapped his arms across Chris’s shoulders, and she could feel him trembling with fatigue. As the ground bucked beneath them, Chris leaned forward, taking on Luke’s full weight. Stubbornly fighting gravity and physiology, she managed to rise to her feet, trying not to imagine her kneecaps popping off. Steadying herself, she dragged her feet forward.

Chris bent against the stinging gale of sand and grit, staggering towards the chopper ladder as it flapped madly, the lights twisting like a cloud of fireflies. As she neared, her hand strained towards it, only just out of reach. The aircraft suddenly tilted sharply, as a falling boulder narrowly missed the windscreen. The ladder twisted away, then dipped back as the craft steadied.

The ground heaved and a thick crack suddenly tore across the cavern floor like black lightning, surging towards Chris and Luke. As the ladder swung past again, she stood on her toes, one hand straining upwards. Her hand grasped the bottom rung, closing around the rubbery surface. As she reached her other hand towards the ladder, she could see gigantic cracks racing across the cavern ceiling, like fault lines on a breaking egg.

The ground suddenly swept out from under Chris as the Bumblebee darted back out over the abyss, just as the stone archway came crashing down in broken chunks. Chris gripped the ladder as her legs swung out over the chasm, and the cavern behind her collapsed slowly in on itself.

The wind whipped around them as the chopper pulled away, spinning to avoid the falling debris. She could feel Luke’s arms shaking with effort as he held onto her.

Please don’t let go
, thought Chris, suspecting that Luke was thinking the exact same thing.

The ladder tugged steadily upwards, and she saw Emir leaning out of the chopper, drawing the ladder up into the cabin. Chris cast one last sweeping glance behind her, at the crumbling cavern complex, at the island tumbling slowly into the abyss, while sheets of rock calved around them. She felt the weight suddenly vanish from her shoulders and looked up to see Emir hauling Luke into the cabin. A moment later, Emir grasped her arms, pulling her into the relative safety of the chopper. Chris turned to stare out the hatch, watching as ancient ecosystems sank into poorly documented history.

“This is why scientists hate corporations,” said Chris breathlessly.

“I don’t hear any complaints about the extraction chopper,” said Hoyle from the cockpit.

“Well, I guess thanks,” said Chris, hoping he wasn’t going to ask about Marrick.

Hoyle’s eyes fixed briefly on Chris, and she had the uneasy feeling that some kind of facial recognition scan was going on in those goggles.

“Arlin. You were supposed to be Researcher on this team, weren’t you?” said Hoyle.

“Funny thing, about that…” said Chris, with the distinct feeling that Hoyle was not only holding a pretty good hand of cards, but probably also owned the casino.

“I’d like to speak with you, when we get back to head office,” said Hoyle, turning back to the console.

Chris leaned in to Emir.

“He’s not going to make us pay for the rescue, is he?” whispered Chris. “Because we’re really just hitching a ride with you.”

Emir shrugged. With Marrick gone, who knew what would happen?

Chris looked towards Luke, who lay on the thrumming floor, staring up through the transparent roof of the chopper. Between the spinning rotor blades, it was like looking up through falling rain, as dust and rocks sailed down.

The Bumblebee dodged and wove, climbing towards a growing pinpoint of light. As they pulled higher still, the falling debris slowly cleared, and they could see that the point of light was a break in the rock, a crack in the crust of the earth. From above, it would appear as an unremarkable scar in the desert, a crevasse pressed against the shadows of a ragged mountain range. But venture down, far down, and the chasm plunged deep into the heart and memory of the world.

Xian-Fei’s hands slid across the controls like a pianist’s as the chopper barrelled towards the line of light. The aircraft shuddered, roaring upwards at increasing speed, straining to align itself with the narrow gap. There was a breathless moment as the chopper plunged into the rocky gap, craggy walls rushing past them on all sides, the rotors rattling in the tight space.

There was an odd silence, followed by a rush of air, and suddenly they burst into the sunlight, embraced by open sky. A vista of grey mountains flowed into the wide golden desert, awash in the morning light.

21

Marrick’s office had already been cleared by the time Hoyle returned to headquarters. The stone table had been replaced by several large, white, drafting desks, and the wall-to-wall screens now displayed scrolling schematics and flow charts. No one had questioned the succession, and Hoyle did not try to quash the rumours regarding Marrick’s unexpected demise.

The private flight back from Massari had been somewhat awkward, with SinaCorp’s three guests remaining tight-lipped regarding the events of the Eden Two mission, citing exhaustion and gunshot wounds. However, it had not escaped Hoyle’s attention that both of the bullet wounds appeared to be from Marrick’s personal handgun.

Chris had insisted on taking Luke and Emir to public hospitals, despite Hoyle’s offer of complimentary medical care at SinaCorp’s private facilities. She had made it quite clear to Hoyle that she wanted no favours from SinaCorp. She had, however, stayed true to her word, and returned immediately to SinaCorp’s head office for a liability-free chat with Hoyle.

Chris stood in what used to be Marrick’s office, looking as uncomfortable as she had the first time Hoyle had shown her in. It was as though just being in the building gave her hives.

“I like what you’ve done with the office,” said Chris. “Less human sacrifice, more posh architect.”

Hoyle gave a faint, tidy smile, leaning against a nearby desk.

“As you’re aware, SinaCorp has recently had a change of management,” said Hoyle.

Yes
, thought Chris.
I think we had something to do with that
.

“As a consequence, a significant amount of funding has been freed up,” continued Hoyle. “I have an interest in expanding SinaCorp’s research and development arms. Engineering, nanotechnology, biomedical.”