The Nexus Colony (31 page)

T
here was less chance of the rappelling rope anchors being torn away by the force of the wind than there was of the winch being blown off the ridge. Either way, Ruger only prayed that one of them stayed secured in the face of the roaring katabatic winds now a hundred and fifty feet above him on the surface.

Monroe was no longer present on the ridge. Ruger had to threaten to beat his brains out before he managed to get the man’s attention. Ruger convinced him to get into the snowmobile where he took the man back to camp. Monroe was in bad shape by the time Ruger managed to get him into the tent with Allison. If Ruger hadn’t gotten him off the ridge, chances were he’d have perished by the time the winds abated.

Allison, to his dismay, protested little about Monroe’s presence in the tent with her. He now started to worry seriously about her giving up.
Not now, Allie. Please. Not now.
Ruger forced some of the hot soup into the man trying to revive him. “You’re going to have to take care of him, Allison,” Ruger told her assertively. She nodded.

Ruger made certain he relieved the man of the automatic weapon. Not only the one he was toting, but the other two handguns he’d found in Prall’s and Monroe’s tent after a thorough search when he was satisfied Monroe would be all right. That was going to leave the two of them defenseless while he was gone. But from what he’d seen and figured out thus far, weapons of this type were meaningless anyway. Regardless, he stashed both handguns into his gear pouch and threw the other weapon into the back of the snowmobile.

The only thing Ruger wasn’t able to do logistically was to park three of the machines down here at the encampment. The two of them that would be left up on the ridge were more prone to getting destroyed. But that didn’t matter anyway either. The whole damn situation was falling apart at the seams. Ruger was finally convinced that some unearthly convention was taking place out here on the glacier.

The bottom of the crevasse seemed colder and more foreboding than when he had departed an hour ago. Ruger only hoped there was enough time left to get everybody to the surface before the winds got any worse in front of the pending storm. He went back into the corridor, and despite his now familiarity with the strange phenomena of the visible red light, his heart thumped with alarm about having to yet again enter this alien environment, warm or not.

Ruger’s eyes adjusted. Ahead, he heard the familiar human voices, and it momentarily belayed his uneasiness. There were scattered voices all along the bending corridor and it created a haunting acoustical effect. As he neared them, the voices became even more familiar, and his subconscious renewal with human contact changed his emotional state. They were still intently at work where they had found the panel buttons. The anger inside began to surface yet again. The way Abbott had handled this whole situation…It infuriated him. He thought of Allison and what this idiot was doing to all of them for the sake of…
what?

Abbott’s profile came into visual range. That’s when Ruger lost it. Before anybody even realized he had returned, Ruger’s physical attack on Abbott had begun. Tackling and wrestling him to the floor, Ruger easily overpowered the unsuspecting Abbott, grabbing him firmly by the throat in a choke hold as Abbott struggled frantically to release Ruger’s powerful grip. The initial tussle lasted only seconds before all hell broke loose.

The two combatants were instantly surrounded by the others, converging on them as fast as they could. Their shouts echoed through the corridor, and the reverberation sounded like a bass drum banging off the walls.

Then Prall suddenly screamed above the rest. “Let him go!”

The next thing Ruger felt was the cold steel barrel of Prall’s weapon being pushed painfully into his fleshy cheek, stretching the skin all the way past his teeth into the cavern of his mouth.

“I said, let him go, asshole,” Prall repeated, “or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”

Ruger had little choice. Slowly, reluctantly, he released his grip on Abbott. Gagging, clutching his throat, Abbott mustered enough strength to push Ruger off the top of him, rolling over to all fours.

Prall held the barrel of the weapon firmly planted in Ruger’s face. Abbott gasped for air. Prall readied to pull the trigger. “Adios, mother-fucker…”

“
Stop!
” Grimes screamed. “
Hold it!
” he implored.

As Grimes held up his arms in surrender, everyone else was yelling at Prall.

“Don’t do it, Gerry,” Lisk exclaimed loudly. “Put the gun down. Put it down now, Gerry.”

“Fuck you, Lisk,” he replied. “I’ve been wanting to blow this mother-fucker away for days.”

Abbott had risen to his knees. Still gasping for breath, he was waving frantically at Prall whose back was toward him.

“The Colonel says to stand down, Gerry,” Lisk said loudly. Lisk move toward Prall, holding his hands in the air. “The Colonel says stop. Put the gun down, Gerry.”

It was a tense few moments. Prall released the pressure on Ruger’s face, backed away glancing over his shoulder at Abbott. Prall continued backing off to the side a distance away. Ironically, Abbott and Ruger were now face to face, both on their knees.

“You make one fucking move…” Prall said, “and I’ll blow your ass to kingdom come.”

Ruger nodded acknowledgment. But the rage was still there on Ruger’s face. Even in the eerie, red light, they could see that Ruger was angry enough that he might have killed Abbott. It was a terrifying thought in itself.

Ruger was still panting, trying to catch his breath. “Why didn’t you tell us what was going on up there, Abbott?” Ruger inhaled deeply. “You knew when you came back down here that they had taken Lightfoot, you son-of-a-bitch!”

Grimes was visibly shaken. “What’s going on, Mike? What are you saying?”

“Tell him, Abbott,” Ruger replied, his eyes fixed on Abbott. “Why don’t you tell Hilly all about it?”

Grimes was growing panic-stricken. “We’re in trouble, aren’t we, Mike?”

“Yeah, Hilly,” Ruger replied as calmly as he could manage. “We’re in trouble all right. Worse part of it is, this useless bastard here had a plane come in and pick up the body. He’s left us stranded. Allison tried to get on, but they wouldn’t let her.”

“My God. Is she all right?” Grimes responded.

“Yeah. She’s all right,” Ruger replied, and Grimes could see the hatred in his eyes directed at Abbott. “At least she was when I left her to come back down here. The wind is blowing pretty hard.” Standing up, he moved a step toward Abbott, and everyone responded by raising their hands to hold off Prall.

Ruger held his finger pointed at Abbott. “I swear to God, Abbott. If anything happens to Allison, I
will
kill you.”

“What happened to Lightfoot?” Grimes asked.

Ruger backed off. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Ask the Colonel.”

Abbott tried to talk, clearing his throat. “Monroe…” he said. “Where’s Monroe?”

“He’s safe,” Ruger replied sarcastically. “Thanks to me. He was half froze to death. I left him in charge of holding the tent stakes down.” A look of disgust came over Ruger’s face. “He’d follow you into Hell, wouldn’t he, Abbott? Or maybe it isn’t you, but rather your devil friend over there.”

“Where’s Lightfoot?” Grimes asked again.

“Gone,” Abbott replied, getting to his feet. “He’s…gone.”

“Gone where?” Grimes responded. “On that plane?”

“Yeah. I wish it was that plane he was on.” Abbott walked around slowly.

“Mike…?” Grimes implored.

“
They
took him, Hilly,” Ruger responded. “Something up
there
. It must have kidnapped him.”

Grimes looked at Ruger, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. “It can’t be true.”

“Believe it,” Abbott replied, surprisingly calm.

“You crossed the line, Abbott,” Ruger said, angrily. “You said you knew where the line was. I thought you did.”

Abbott paused. “So did I, Mike.”

“You bastard…” but everyone held up their hands as Ruger started to move toward Abbott yet again.

“Back off, Ruger,” Lisk implored. “It’s over with now. What’s done is done.”

“Why did you people do this to us?” Grimes implored, looking at Abbott. “Why? We were helping you.”

“Because if they let any of us leave,” Ruger responded, “we’d compromise their precious secret. Like everybody is going to believe this crap anyway.”

For a moment, everybody was silent. The coldness and the thought of being abandoned slowly crept back into everyone’s mind. Ruger let out a loud sigh of disgust. “Well, this is just great, Abbott. Whatever these things are, wherever they’re from, we’re at their complete mercy.”

“Something like that,” Abbott replied.

“For God’s sake, Abbott!” Ruger exclaimed. “Come to your senses. You found what you came here to find. We could have gotten the hell out of here while we still had the chance. What more do you want?”

Abbott only looked off down the corridor which was still bathed in the eerie, red light.

“Look, Abbott,” Ruger continued to implore. “You’re going to need a whole army to blow your way into this thing, anyway. There’s nothing more you can do. You’ve been at it how many hours now?”

“Evidently not enough.”

Ruger’s outburst echoed throughout the structure. “Don’t start more bullshit with me, Abbott!”

Abbott stood to face him.

Ruger pointed his finger at him again. “Get something straight right here and now. Hilly and Allison and I are getting off this glacier. I don’t give two shits whether you and Prall and the rest of your gang care to leave. You can stay here and get an all expense paid vacation just like Lightfoot did. I really don’t care.”

“How are you planning to get out, Mike?’ Abbott responded, sarcastically.

There was a moment of silence, and they could all see the outrage on Ruger’s face. “Where are they, Abbott?” he replied, referring to the missing battery packs.

“Here, Mike,” Abbott replied. “Safe here with me.”

“What’s he talking about, Mike?” Grimes responded.

“He’s got the battery packs for the transmitter.”

“Can’t you use it without them?”

“No,” Ruger replied. “No, Hilly. But I managed to get out an emergency message over the computer. Fortunately, Colonel Abbott forgot to disable it.”

“But…what about the satellite window…”

“Too bad, Mike,” Abbott responded. “The window was closed.”

Ruger’s outrage was visible, but he held back. “We’ll see, Abbott. It might have just made it.”

“I doubt it.”

“I ought to just knock your head through that wall,” Ruger said. “I might as well. We’re all probably going to die anyway.”

There was an unexpected moment of lingering silence. A moment just long enough for everyone to realize the predicament they were all in. The relationship Ruger and Hilly had established with Abbott and his group had deteriorated to almost nothing. And even beyond Ruger’s outrage, he realized now that their very survival was in jeopardy, notwithstanding the obvious presence of these so-called
visitors
.

In the heat of the confrontation it had gone completely unnoticed. Not one man had realized the subtle environmental change that had taken place over the last several minutes. But now each man, standing there alone in the alien corridor regrouping their personal thoughts, without even a subtle warning was struck by the realization that something had drastically changed. The ambient lighting had changed from the infra-red portion of the light spectrum to visible light. Something…or
somebody
, was turning on the lights.

In one fleeting moment, the angry emotions that had flared were instantly erased, only to be replaced by a renewed surge of fear. The natural human fear of the unknown. They looked around in silence. They looked at each other. And then came the only sound they had heard since they’d entered this place that wasn’t made by them. It echoed from down the corridor around the bend. A very distinctive sound. They all recognized it. It was the opening of a door.

* * * * *

Encampment

It triggered the appearance of
The Visitors
at almost the very same moment that their alien world was being revealed to the human intruders below. It was inevitable that it should happen, but it had not been anticipated for at least another century. By then the program would have been completed, and what was left of this fragile human civilization on this planet could ponder what ancient forces had
directed the course.
The Visitors
were not evil. But neither were they benign. Only indifferent
.

It was the look of horror on the face of Donnie Monroe that shocked her emotional state almost instantaneously. Where she had been huddling in fear wrapped in the protective blanket awaiting the return of Mike Ruger, watching Monroe staring blankly at the walls of the tent, the unexpected change in his state of being sent a new surge of terror through Allison. Monroe had turned to look at her, but it was not a threatening glare. It was not the same face that had been etched on the man for the past few hours. It was the face of fear.

The winds howled with a relentless fury outside. Monroe’s hands began to shake. He stretched upward on his knees, peering at the ceiling of the tent. His eyes filled with tears. The din created by the wind drowned out his words. She could see them on his lips, “…no…no…please no…” he was saying.

She did not know how or what to respond, or even if she should respond at all without triggering some psychotic response from this lunatic. She was frightened more now by his impulsive actions than she had been up on the ridge. He held his arms upward, cowering, shielding himself as if some unseen force was tormenting him from overhead.
The man is lost
, she thought.

Ruger had evidently been correct. Monroe was in a state of shock when he had brought the disoriented man down off the ridge.
Thank God,
Allison thought, that Ruger had the presence of mind to take away all the weapons, even though Ruger knew Monroe could easily overpower her physically. It was a chance he had to take. Allison gripped the knife tightly that Ruger had forced her to conceal under the blanket.
Use it if you must,
Ruger had whispered in her ear over and over again.
Use it on him if you must.