It was the crater. They had found it.
From this angle, only a slice of the enormous depression was visible, but it was more than enough for them to know they were now just a stone’s throw from their target.
MacAlister pulled the binoculars from the case and glassed the distant sliver.
“What do you see?” Reilly asked. His voice had a nervous edge to it.
“Hard to tell. There’s an awful lot of shadow from the mountain and the lip of the crater.” MacAlister continued to scan the area, then replaced the binoculars into their case. “We’re not going to see anything from here. The angle is too tight,” he said, never taking his eyes off the distant crater.
“So we have to get closer?”
“No, not closer, that’s too risky,” said Emily to Reilly. She had already guessed MacAlister’s plan. “We need to cross over the culvert and get up to the mountain next to the crater. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to see down into the pit without getting any closer.”
MacAlister nodded. “If we continue this way, we’ll be close enough to kiss whatever is in there. No way can we take that chance. Emily’s right, the only way we’re going to be able to get a clear idea of what’s in there is if we get above it. Getting up the side of that mountain is our best option.”
Reilly did not look convinced. “Can’t we just go back and climb in the helo and get some pictures from the air?”
“Can’t risk it. You saw what happened to the UAV. This is the safest choice. You two can stay right here; I can do this on my own.”
“No,” said Emily. “We’re coming with you.”
“Jesus!” said Reilly with a huff, knowing he had no choice in the matter. “I thought I joined the navy, not the infantry.” He swung his pack over his shoulder and started to climb down the slope toward the valley floor.
MacAlister smiled and raised his eyebrows questioningly at Emily: You sure about this?
“Come on, let’s get this over with.” She peeked over the edge and picked what looked like the safest route down to the wide rugged bottom of the valley floor. Then she and Thor followed Reilly down the side of the wall, MacAlister close behind.
The scramble down to the valley floor wasn’t as difficult as Emily imagined it was going to be. The clay kicked out by the object’s entry was dense enough to support their weight, and it had formed a number of almost sedimentary levels, creating a natural set of steps that at least allowed for some confident footholds on the way down. The hard part was the exhausting climb back up the opposite side.
Emily winced when Thor yelped in pain as she tried to encourage him to climb up the sun-scorched side. Hours of exposure to the heat of the day had baked the ground to the point that it was just too hot to touch, and the pads of Thor’s paws were as tender as a human’s bare feet on the scorching clay.
“I’m not leaving him,” said Emily as she shaded the dog the best she could with her body.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” said MacAlister as he knelt down beside the panting dog. “But if we don’t get him out of this sun as quickly as possible he’s going to get heatstroke. Thor, come here, mate.”
The dog obediently trotted the couple of steps to MacAlister’s side, tail and head down, ribbons of drool dropping from the soft lips of his muzzle.
MacAlister stripped off his own backpack and laid it on the floor, quickly retrieving his water canteen, rifle, and binoculars and slinging them over his shoulder. “I’ll grab the pack on our way back,” he said, as he reached down and picked up the dog with both arms as if he weighed nothing.
Emily wasn’t quite sure who was more surprised, herself or Thor, as MacAlister began climbing up the wall toward the top of the embankment. MacAlister positioned the dog against his chest and slipped one arm securely under his furry butt while he used his free hand to pull himself up the slope of the trench. Thor, his head perched over the soldier’s right shoulder, regarded Emily wide-eyed and unblinking.
“Don’t look at me,” Emily mumbled to the dog, “you wanted to come along.” Then she grabbed a handful of roots jutting out from the valley wall and began to pull herself up after them.
Emily heaved herself over the lip of the embankment and rolled over onto her back, her heart pounding in her chest, utterly exhausted. Her hands felt raw and her shoulder muscles throbbed, stiff from the climb. Her legs were the only thing that didn’t ache, and she again thanked her years of biking for providing her with a good strong pair of pins. She fumbled her canteen and unscrewed the top, spilling some of the water over her face to wash the stinging sweat from her eyes. Sitting up she took two long pulls on the water that was now just a degree or two short of being reclassified as hot.
“You okay?” MacAlister’s voice sounded as though he had just taken a light stroll rather than pulled himself and a dog weighing close to one hundred pounds up a two-hundred-foot embankment. Thor padded over to her, sniffed her once in greeting, and proceeded to clean himself as if being carried around was the most natural thing in the world for him.
“I’m fine,” said Emily as she climbed to her feet and offered her hand to Reilly, whose head had just appeared above the edge of the chasm. He took it and allowed Emily to help pull him over the lip. He looks how I feel, she thought.
This side of the chasm had suffered a similar fate to the one they had just hiked over from: half-incinerated with shattered, spikey remnants of the alien flora stuck up from the ash-covered ground like Punji stakes, waiting to impale them. The red jungle started up again just a few hundred feet away. But beyond it, rising above the canopy as though it had been Photoshopped into place, Emily could see the mountain range they needed to reach, just a few miles away it looked like. Its west face was covered to the midpoint by alien plants, but from there on up, only sporadic clots of red ran along the mountain.
“Catch your breath,” said MacAlister as he swallowed water from his canteen, sloshing some over his face.
Minutes passed and Emily pulled herself to her feet as they set off again. They picked up the pace, moving at a fast walk as they headed out, and Emily welcomed the shade of the giant leaves of the canopy as they once again stepped into the jungle and pushed on toward the mountain.
The gradient of the ground beneath their feet began to increase the farther in they walked. Emily could tell when they hit the foothills of the mountain range because ahead of them; she could see the black-and-purple roots of trees rising above the ones they still had to climb over. They moved quickly now, with a definite sense of purpose.
“Let’s get to the top ridgeline of the jungle. We’ll stay under cover to avoid detection and then move closer about a half mile or so; that should give us enough elevation to get a clear view of the crater,” MacAlister ordered.
Emily could feel the muscles in her calves complaining as the gradient increased sharply. They climbed higher and higher. The canopy overhead began to thin out as the alien trees and plants grew less and less abundant. The ground lost its almost carpet-like softness of fallen leaves and lichen, replaced by rocks about the size of apples that threatened a twisted ankle or a sudden landslide with every step they took.
A quarter mile of walking later and MacAlister signaled for them to stop.
“This should do,” he said, hunkering down in the bowl of a nearby tree’s roots. He pulled the binoculars from the case again, and Emily took that as a sign to pull out the digital camera he had supplied her with when they’d landed. She fit the telephoto lens onto the camera body and turned it on, sighting through the viewfinder to check it worked.