The wall was massive.
Putting her hands on her hips, Mac arched her head back as far as it would go and stared at the structure. The colossal wall they had seen from the river was higher than most skyscrapers back home and extended as far as the eye could see in either direction. A rampart ran the length of the wall, and there were sentry towers placed on top at quarter-mile intervals. It reminded Mac of the Great Wall of China but was much higher.
Three quarters of the way up the wall, Mac saw what she guessed to be birds. They looked like a cross between vultures and giant bats. The birds flew in and out of the clouds that were burning off in the morning sun, and some of them nested on the wall’s jutting sandstone blocks.
It hadn’t been an easy trek through the dense forest to the wall, but looking at the towering wall above her, which had no obvious point of entry, Mac knew that getting inside was going to be even tougher.
Earlier that morning at base camp, Tae had wanted to reconfigure the soil-mover with wheels, but the big mover couldn’t penetrate the dense forest, and they had left it behind. They had talked about leaving someone behind to guard the camp, but no one had wanted to stay. Mac also preferred to keep everyone together. They had left everything they weren’t taking in the cargo containers and locked them. They also had left a note at the campsite in case a rescue party had received the signal from their emergency locator transponder and came looking for them. That done, they had set out for the wall. It had taken them less than three hours to reach the enormous wall’s base.
Standing on a quarter-mile wide slab of stone that served as the wall’s base, Mac and the others took their first break of the day.
“Looks like there’s some sort of sentry tower over there, near the top,” Brett said. He stood next to Mac and peered at the wall through his binoculars. “Looks like some sort of an elevator up there, too.” He passed the binoculars to Mac.
Mac pointed the binoculars where Brett indicated and saw the small bastion atop the wall. Just below it hung a rickety, jury-rigged wooden platform that looked as though it had been added to the wall as an afterthought. The ‘elevator’ was little more than a platform that dangled from a worn rope and pulley system.
“I see it,” she said, “but it doesn’t look very solid.”
“Well, I don’t see an opening down here for miles. It might be our only option.”
She returned the binoculars to him. “Yeah, but how the hell are we going to get up there?”
Brett swallowed hard before answering. “I guess one of us will just have to climb up there and lower the elevator down for the rest of us.”
Mac noticed that Brett blanched at the thought of climbing the wall. Clearly, he was not thrilled at the prospect. “Brett, are you afraid of heights?”
“Lady, I’m not afraid of anything,” he said. But his attempt to conceal his discomfort failed miserably.
“Yes, you are.” She grinned. She found it hard to believe that the big bad commando was afraid of anything. “You’re afraid of heights.”
“I’ll climb it,” said a voice behind them. It was Stein’s.
Both of them turned to face Stein, who was already dropping his gear and disrobing down to his tank top. Stein, with his lithe, muscular body, seemed to offer the only viable option. “I used to climb in the Alps with my father when I was a boy,” he said. “I’ll be up there in a few hours.”
Brett was Mac’s first choice for the mission. If anyone was going to make first contact with the aliens, she wanted it to be Brett, especially after the incident with the river creature. However, having watched Brett pale at the sight of the climb, Mac knew that Stein was the best possible candidate. Stein was certainly the most physically powerful, and with his background in rock climbing, he was the most qualified. Besides, Mac thought, a small part of me wouldn’t mind if the murderous bastard fell to his death. No, she cursed herself silently, Stein’s still a member of my crew, and I can’t have thoughts like that.
“Okay, Stein. You’ve got the OP,” she said.
Stein nodded and began emptying one of the packs and selecting items necessary for his ascent: a rope, bottled water, food, and so forth. Tae helped him with his gear, but Leo chose not to.
To his credit, Stein had been going out of his way to be helpful and avoid confrontation with Leo and the others since his little performance on the river. She tried to keep in mind that the commando had shot the water beast to protect Leo, just as he had shot the professor to protect her. Mac’s inner voice kept repeating that there was definitely a pattern there, but she tried to ignore it.
Sensing her thoughts, Brett said, “You know, if you really want me to, I’ll make the climb.”
“No,” Mac said. She watched Stein stretch and was surprised at how limber the heavily muscled man was. “You were right. If we’re to go forward, Stein’s the best man for the job.”
She didn’t mention her concerns about what might happen if Stein was to make first contact, and Brett didn’t bring it up. It was a risk and they both knew it.
After she wished him luck, Stein moved to the wall and began his ascent. The bricks had been laid in a jigsaw pattern, and they jutted out randomly, affording him plenty of handholds. Still, the climb, which would be at least sixty stories high, was a massive undertaking.
Stein climbed only two feet and slid back down. Had he been over thirty feet, the same fall would have been fatal. And Stein had to climb over six hundred feet. The fall hardly inspired Mac’s confidence.
“Don’t worry,” he told her, spying her concerned look. “I’m just testing the handholds. I’d rather do it down here then up there.”
“Be careful,” she said with genuine concern.
Hesitating for a moment, he replied in a gentle tone, “Since when do you care about my well-being, Commander?”
“Since the day you boarded my ship,” she said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back — how do you say? — in a jiffy.” With that, he climbed ten feet in less than a minute. Stein stopped climbing long enough to turn back toward Mac. “Just one more thing, Commander.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” she shouted up at him.
“We’re no longer on board your ship.”
Before she could reply, the commando resumed his speedy ascent.
Tae stepped next to her. “If he maintains his present rate of climb,” he said, doing some mental figuring, “he should reach the top in about an hour and six minutes.”
“Not much else we can do until he reaches the top. We might as well break out some food and have lunch.”
As the others began unpacking their gear and settling in, Mac continued to watch Stein. After twenty minutes, she was finally satisfied that he wasn’t going to fall to his death, and she took some freeze-dried apples from Leo and sat down in the shade of a tree. She removed the Europa journal from her pocket and held it in her hands.
As she contemplated the book, she wondered if her shuttle had landed on the same planet that Harry had described in his journal. Both planets had the same amount of moons, and they also had similar features, notably the floating landmasses. But if Captain Reed were here, Mac wondered, how long ago was it? Seventy years ago? A thousand? Professor Bort had told her that Captain Reed’s corpse was over seven hundred years old. Is time even relative when traversing through a wormhole? She made a note to ask Leo or Tae about that one in the near future. Just not right now. She wasn’t in the mood to hear a sixty-minute dissertation on wormholes. Instead, she opened the Europa journal and began reading.