But what she really wanted to do right now was employ option B: she wanted to pull that hatch closed and slam home the locking pin. She ached to do it. She felt guilty for even having this thought, but it was there in her mind and it wouldn’t go away. After all her big talk about honor and behavioral analysis, she’d been quickly reduced to base instincts by fear.

  She fought the urge and won. She wasn’t going to leave Tanner out there, even if he was a fool, even if he had quite possibly just wandered off and killed them both.

  With her heart pounding so hard she couldn’t think, she stepped to the hatchway and looked outside.

  A figure came at her in a flash. If she’d had a weapon, she would have aimed and quite possibly fired—but she was unarmed. Then she realized it was Tanner, running for his life.

  A moment later he pushed past her. He pulled her into the hatchway and reached for the latch bar. The big round metal door began swinging shut again. Malena didn’t bother to ask questions, she just grabbed the latch and began helping.

  It was too late. A single hand with gray leathery skin clamped on the edge of the hatch. The door began opening slowly, despite all their desperate strength.

  Tanner braced both his knees on the rim of the hatch and his muscular back corded up. His neck reddened and he roared with effort. Malena did her best to help, straining despite the pain in her shoulder. She felt a single hot tear roll down her cheek.

  Had she killed them both? She could not help but ask herself that question as the uneven struggle went on. She knew in her heart her ideas had been the very essence of wishful thinking. She’d reasoned within the confines of her own mind until she’d conjured up civilized thought processes and pasted them atop the behavior of savage, unknown aliens. She knew that in the past, others had done the same when first meeting new cultures. Many were the names of explorers who’d ended up in the stewpots of the subjects they’d studied and considered harmless, or at least manageable.

  The hatch continued slowly opening. It was an uneven contest. They were two children facing the strength of an enraged father. An ogre was at the hatchway, and its power couldn’t be reasoned with or resisted.

  A moment later, Malena saw a huge face appear in the expanding crescent-shaped crack. It was something she’d hoped to never see.

  Twice the size of any human that had ever walked the Earth, the alien’s face was that of an angry devil. The eyes were green, the teeth yellow. The pupils and nostrils were vertical slits, all drawn tight.

  The visitor was a nightmarish creature of unrelenting fury and determination. It had the bestial look of an animal, but the eyes possessed an indefinable intelligence. The face pulled away after meeting her eyes briefly. It was only a glimpse, but it was enough to make her falter. The hatch was wrenched open another fateful inch when her hands slipped.

  The hatch continued to open. Malena wasn’t certain if she was crying or screaming or roaring with exertion. Perhaps it was a combination of all three.

  Tanner stayed more focused. He hadn’t even looked at the face when it appeared. He stubbornly clung to the hatch as it yawned open. Every sinew and vein stood out on his skin in sharp relief.

  Malena couldn’t get that face out of her mind. The most disturbing thing was the intellect she saw in those big green eyes. The thing in the passageway was smart, and pissed. She wondered if was the last thing she’d ever see.

  -28-

  When the hatchway had been ripped about a quarter of the way open, the beast’s work began to go faster. They no longer had good leverage. They were being pulled physically out into the passageway itself. There was nowhere left to brace their feet or hands. Slowly but inexorable, they were both dragged out into the passageway.

  Malena had already determined her next move. Perhaps it would be too late, but she planned to sprint to the nearest capsule, lay her hands on a wafer and yank it free. If the monster saw what she was doing and retreated, she would slam it back into place. If it charged instead, she’d smash it on the floor as a final act of defiance before she was overwhelmed.

  Tanner, for his part, was clearly planning to go down with the ship. She had no doubt that when the beast broke in, he would grapple with it, however briefly. She’d seen his eyes. He would defend her hand-to-hand until he was slammed down onto the steel decking.

  What happened next was a surprise to everyone, however. A blue flash brightened the passageway. It didn’t die down, but instead glared even brighter. For nearly a second, this blue-white glare grew, until it was as bright as an arc-welder when rod and steel meet and melt.

  A moment later a great howl sounded. It was an ear-splitting noise, and if she hadn’t been fighting for her life, Malena would have slammed her fists to her skull over her ears and screamed herself. Instead, she clamped her eyes shut, hunched her head down against her shoulders and pulled on the hatchway.

  Clang! The hatchway suddenly slammed in their faces. They both nearly fell on the floor.

  Panting and shocked, Tanner scrambled for the locking pin. His hands were numb and bleeding from where the sharp edges of the latch had cut into them. Malena reached down and grabbed the pin. She rammed it home and they both slumped down onto the floor, gasping for breath.

  “It went away?” she asked.

  “I think something happened.”

  A moment later, a rapping sound came at the hatchway.

  They both froze and their eyes met. Tanner shook his head. They stayed quiet.

  The rapping began again, this time with a more urgent, impatient series of sounds. Tink. Tink. TINK!

  “Who’s there?” Tanner shouted.

  “Open the damned door!” came the reply.

  “Haak, is that you?”

  “No, it’s that thing you call an Easter bunny, cowboy. Open the hatch or I’ll burn it through.”

  “We have an accelerator of our own,” Tanner lied. “We got one from the creature. Leave us.”

  Distantly, they could hear a muffled laugh through the metal hatch. “You’re a terrible liar, cowboy. If you had a weapon, you would have used it to shoot that one-handed demon. Now, open the hatch or I’ll burn through it. I may just burn through you as well—by accident, of course.”

  Tanner and Malena looked at one another. Malena nodded. Tanner removed the locking pin. A few moments later they were face to face with Haak and his accelerator. Behind him was Carl, who looked even more grim than usual. Malena saw Dekker as well, standing behind them nervously in the passageway. He was trying to look in both directions at once. Clearly, he had the job of covering the other two while they got the hatch open.

  Only three of the Dutch team were left. Malena found this alarming, but she found it hard to feel bad for them.

  “Such gratitude I see in your faces,” Haak said. “Do you know how often I save the life of a rival?”

  “Never?” Malena asked.

  He gave her a wintery smile. The effect was disturbing, especially when combined with those two black stone eyes of his. She wondered once again how the world looked to Haak. She wondered if she could put on something so strange and wear it so long that vision through alien artifacts seemed normal to her. She didn’t think she could do it, not even if ordered to.

  “Good guess,” Haak said. “But it has happened upon occasion. What you should be asking yourselves is why Haak has returned to open your tomb and give you the breath of life for another day.”

  “Why, Haak?” asked Tanner.

  “I want the X. What did you do with it, you two weaseling bastards? I traced it to this level. The demons haven’t moved it farther. You must have stashed it somewhere.”

  Tanner stared at him defiantly.

  Malena cleared her throat. “I only see three of you,” she said. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”

  Haak made an airy gesture. “That’s a philosophical question. There are many afterlife scenarios to choose from. Personally, I’m of the opinion they’re pulp at the bottom of shafts, nothing more.”

  “We’ll give up the X,” she said. “But we’re leaving with you.”

  Haak chuckled. “Why do I need you?”

  “Because the X is heavy. We’ll need lines with tackle at top and bottom of the shafts to carry the sphere out of here. It’s going to take teamwork.”

  Haak mulled that over for a moment. Finally, he nodded. “All right, come out here with your hands raised.”

  They did so, but made no move to show him where the X was. Haak quickly became frustrated and listed threats.

  “You have to arm us first,” said Tanner. “We want weapons and a way out.”

  At this demand, Carl spoke up. He glared at Malena. “The last time we gave you a gun, you shot me with it.”

  “Because you attacked me,” Malena said. “It wasn’t Tanner that killed Sophie. You do realize that now, don’t you? That beast did it, or one of its cousins.”

  Carl nodded, but he was still glowering. Malena tried to remind herself not to bring up Sophie. The topic was obviously still a sore point for Carl.

  “Aliens are waking up all over the ship,” Tanner explained. He told them about the control wafers and the open capsules. He told them what had apparently happened when they’d ransacked the chamber two levels above.

  Tanner’s explanation left Haak rubbing his chin. Finally, he shrugged, but didn’t express any regret. The clarification concerning recent events had a much greater effect on Carl, however. Malena watched as Carl shifted his glaring eyes away from her and onto Haak. She knew that he now realized Tanner and Malena hadn’t caused Sophie’s death. Haak was as much to blame as anyone, as they’d retrieved the X on his orders.

  “We’ll need to be armed to stop them,” Malena said.

  Haak eyed the scene and nodded thoughtfully. “You make a strong argument. Now, where is the big sphere?”

  “First the weapons,” Malena said.

  “How can I trust you?”

  “I’ve never broken my word to you,” she said. “Neither has Tanner.”

  “We’ve lost the other accelerator. There’s only this one.”

  “Keep it then, and give us guns. The visitors don’t appear to be armored.”

  “We know they feel the sting of bullets. But they don’t die easily, let me tell you.”

  “We don’t have to do this,” Tanner said, turning to Malena. “Let them search on their own. Let them keep what they find.”

  “No,” said Malena. “Let’s take the deal. Our only other choice is to be left here in the dark, without supplies or arms. Getting out would be improbable. If we meet up with just one of those things in an open passageway, it would overpower us and kill us.”

  Tanner mumbled his agreement at last.

  Haak finally gave them each a gun. Carl watched them closely once they were armed. His grip tightened on his rifle.

  “Now, show me where you stashed it,” Haak said urgently.

  Malena felt much better with a gun in her hand. It might not stop one of these huge beasts, but it was much better than facing them with her bare hands. Tanner got an automatic weapon, it was a stubby carbine with a big clip. Malena didn’t recognize the model, but it looked European to her.

  Tanner led the way to the small hatch. The X was inside, crackling now and then when it arced to one of the walls. The three of them had to work together to get the sphere of X out of its compartment. Every time it made contact with a piece of metal, it released an alarming jolt of current.

  “Hidden in such an obvious spot!” Haak said. “I doubt I would have found it for days. I’m in your debt, Tanner. Soon our two countries will be transferring a great deal of wealth over this singular artifact.”

  Tanner ignored him, but that didn’t stop Haak from talking.

  “Imagine what it will do when it is switched on,” Haak said happily. “The power companies will have to work for years just to build a switching system that can take so much power from a single source. If we tried to use the grid we have now, once we engaged the system, it would melt. But that is a problem for our Dutch engineers. I’m sure they will be up to the task when there are trillions of dollars to be made.”

  Malena could tell Tanner was very unhappy about giving up the X, even in a bargain for their lives. He couldn’t contain his anger. He spoke little and stared at Haak murderously whenever the other man’s back was turned.

  Haak noticed Tanner’s black mood, but remained jubilant. “We’re all on the same side in here, my man!” he said. “The human side. Let us fight like brothers if the visitors try to stop us.”

  Tanner ignored him as best he could. They used insulated gloves and tools to nudge the spheroid down the passageway. Malena followed with her pistol in her hands. More than once she considered putting the gun to Haak’s skull and threatening to pull the trigger.

  She was positioned behind the two men and it would have been an easy thing to do. But she couldn’t bring herself to break their deal. Perhaps it was because they were the only five humans left alive in the ship. When in the face of a deadly alien enemy, they’d naturally bonded on the same side. She didn’t want to betray the Dutch now and cause the entire group to be overwhelmed by the aliens. There had already been enough in-fighting on the human side as it was.

  What she found most galling was that Haak seemed to know what she was thinking. Worse, he knew that she wouldn’t break her word. It was annoying to be transparent to someone as irritating as Haak. He didn’t even bother to question why she was walking in the back of the group with a handgun. He’d judged her with complete confidence, and it annoyed her to know he was right in his assessment.

  Instead of breaking the deal now, she figured she would bide her time. Maybe Haak would have an unfortunate accident on the way out of the ship.

  “The biggest trick has yet to come,” Haak said, stopping at the edge of the nearest dark shaft. He peered up into the hanging darkness, then down. “We must somehow lift this treasure a hundred feet up a nearly vertical surface. Any ideas on how we’re going to accomplish this task?”

  “Winch and wire?” Malena asked.

  Haak shook his head. “No, thin metals will not do. Imagine the sparks! If we make accidental contact, the energy released would turn a wire white-hot in seconds.”

  He turned his face toward her, then to Tanner. No one said anything. The black stones on his eyelids regarded them. It was like being examined by the dead eyes of a doll.

  “No ideas? A pity. But have no fear, because Haak has a plan!”

  He lifted a hand with his fist balled up. He was grinning. Malena shifted in irritation, scratching at the burn on her shoulder. He was playing games with them even now.

  “Just tell us what you want us to do, Haak,” Tanner said. “Let’s get out of here as quickly as possible.”

  “Right. Of course! The key is below us.”

  They looked down doubtfully.

  “I don’t see anything,” Malena said.

  “Are you sure? There, on the next level down. Shine your light upon it.”

  They did so, and squinted. Malena did see a shadowy hulk down there. She frowned.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “That is your handiwork, my pretty young friend. The crab machine you disabled and sent down into the depths of the ship. It came to rest one level below us, hung up on the walls.”

  “How’s that going to help us?”

  “I’ve learned a few things by experimenting,” he said. “These machines are automated and capable of flight. I suggest we power it and guide it up to this level. Then we’ll load the big sphere on it and fly out of this vessel in style.”

  They both looked at him as if he were mad.

  Tanner laughed openly. “You’re nuts, Haak. How are we going to fly that thing?”

  “I’ve already done it. While you were running around in the swamp, my team was experimenting carefully with the alien equipment. You never know when it will come in handy.”

  “Okay, let’s say I believe you can make it fly. What will you do to keep it from killing us?”

  “I didn’t say I was going to repair it and then turn my back on it. I simply plan to use the primary lift system. The rest of the machine I’ll leave alone.”

  “But how will you power it?” Malena asked. “You don’t want us to roll this sphere of X down into that pit, do you? That would be crazy.”

  “Indeed it would. But I have other sources.”

  Haak opened a large pouch he had slung around his mid-section. Inside, they saw what looked like a marble collection. As they stared at it, a few of the marble-sized objects flickered with blue-white electrical sparks.

  “They aren’t completely stable if you mass them up this way,” Haak explained, “but I didn’t have any choice.”

  “How did you get so many samples of X?” Tanner demanded. He seemed angry that Haak could have been so successful.

  “I’ve been busy, as I said. This is the X gathered by my entire team on this trip.”

  “So you looted everyone—by the looks of it even the bodies of your fallen comrades—then left the dead for the aliens?”

  Haak shrugged. “I could hardly bury them or haul them out of here. A man does what he must.”

  Malena noted that Tanner’s eyes were glued to the X. She could tell he was having thoughts of murder and theft. She could hardly blame him. Haak was insufferable even when he wasn’t stealing their find and transporting an additional fortune in stolen X batteries.

  “Now,” Haak said quietly, looking from one of them to the other. “Shall we get to it? Here are the correctly-sized items.”

  He held out four metal marbles and put them into Malena’s palm. They were warm and made her hand feel as if it ran with static. She wondered how Haak could take carrying so many. It must make his skin crawl.

  “When you get down there to the crab machine, place one marble under each of the largest claws. There is a sliding opening there, and you can eject the existing power source and place this fresh one into the slot. When you’re done with that, I’ll tell you how to get it to fly.”