1

When Richard Marin saw the bungalow again, this time completed, the clouds above rolled alarmingly.

Research Bungalow 10 is installed in a rock plateau at the highest point of the New Planet. At some distance to its west begins a gradual slope that descends all the way to sea level; to its east, somewhat closer, is an abrupt drop of some thousand meters. An unpaved road begins at the bungalow and follows the gradual slope, eventually curving around at the end and wrapping around the plateau's base, ending at the bottom of the thousand-meter drop. Here, unexplored, a cave breaches the smooth rock face. The cave opening faces a glittering mangrove that expands past the eastern horizon.

The bungalow comprises two levels. The basement, once filled with building materials, is empty, presumably waiting for food rations. The top, or "junior apartment" level, is modeled after an on-base apartment, save the laboratory stuffed into a closet-sized space adjacent to the living and dining area. Because the location is so remote, the man who died in the bungalow's construction was stored in the basement level in a thermal capsule designed for food until the project was completed eight months later, when he was returned to Earth with the building equipment and remainder of the crew.

Richard Marin and Laura Ramirez had earned varying degrees of success in their chosen military specialty, that of alien cryptozoology. Twenty years before, the two officers had been in the same flight at Candidate school. Tension (Marin preferred this term) arose between them when Ramirez reported a sexual battery that had taken place at a party which both she and Marin had attended. Marin had found an alibi; because there was no physical evidence, and Ramirez had been intoxicated, the military court had dutifully kept the case open and provided her extensive counseling.

Marin understood this mission on the New Planet to be his final one before retiring. As the days passed, the buffer of professionalism he'd erected against the tension began to wear thin.

2

At 0945, Colonel Marin awoke from a dream in which his own ruined face smiled over him and walked unsteadily to the living area, where he found Captain Ramirez hunched at the dining table over a breakfast of eggs and coffee. He set an outdated incident report that he found in his chair on the counter.

"Morning," he said.

Ramirez acknowledged him with the slightest nod, forked a dimpled lump of egg into her mouth, and sipped coffee.

"How long have you been up?" he asked.

"Couple hours."

Colonel Marin sat down heavily. "I've been groggy," he said.

"Maybe your suit is too tight," Ramirez said, giving him an up-and-down glance.

Richard Marin had entered his forties reluctantly. Instead of the disposable subsistence clothing that had been lifted in at the start of the mission, he dressed in a small rotation of terrain-exploration jumpsuits which flattered his frame and which he laundered by hand. The one he wore now, midnight blue with his name sewn into the chest, stretched slightly at the underarms as he leaned into his chair. The creases in his face deepened.

"You picked up anything on the reader?" he asked.

"No."

'The reader' was a motion detector they had installed near the cave mouth at the start of their mission; it had gone offline several days previous, Marin assumed. It waited for them some three hours' drive away. As he contemplated this, the morning heat intensified.

"Sounds like we need to get down there and fix her," he said in his best command voice, and stood up. Ramirez' smell - a disquietingly alluring floral scent - found his nostrils. She took another mouthful of egg.

"I could have told you that," she said.

"Oh?" Colonel Marin said. "And where did you learn to troubleshoot motion equipment, Captain?"

"Common sense."

"They give you a prescription for that at OCS?"

Captain Ramirez said nothing.

Marin smiled tightly. "Looks like you never learned to address a superior officer either. I understand that sort of thing makes a difference when you're up for promotion."

"I heard the same thing about decency," she said. She set her fork carefully on her plate, as if gathering herself. "But judging by the disparity in our rank, which I'm sure you're referring to, I'd say I was misinformed. Did you get a chance to look at that incident report yet?"

"Don't worry about what I do."

"I don't." Captain Laura Ramirez smiled broadly. "I'm just curious."

"I didn't, no."

"Oh," she said. Now she stood too; the top of her head was in line exactly with Colonel Marin's chin. Shd dropped her half-eaten ration in the trash, from which a swarm of small white bugs emerged and flew in a line out the west-facing window. "I used some of the extra time I had this morning to pull together our equipment, since I figured you'd want to fix the reader today."

Colonel Marin hoped the captain could not see him relax. "Good," he said. "We're ready to go, then?"

"Whenever you are."

3

The heat hung in the air, augmented by humidity. Colonel Marin drove the transporter carefully along the unpaved road that wrapped around the plateau. Even though he took his time, periodically he struck a dry rivulet or bump that caused the transporter to rock alarmingly. The flat expanse of the New Planet and its soft sky opened before them, holding the warmth. The Colonel paid no mind to the rapidly-moving images that boiled when the clouds ran together. The planet's sun was nearly a billion miles away; what maintained its limited medley of life was its thick atmosphere, which embraced warmth jealously. It was similar in size to Earth, rotated at roughly the same speed, and had the same tilt to its axis, but still, nearly all of its surface was barren. The Colonel's hypothesis was that much of the planet's life huddled underground, in and around vast bodies of highly mineralized water.

They reached the cave mouth at 1315. The mangrove expanded motionlessly to their east as they unloaded various pieces of spelunking and sample-gathering equipment: water, lighted helmets, ropes, hooks, pitons, hammers, jars, and, more reassuring, M-16 automatic rifles and half a dozen magazines, which Captain Ramirez had checked repeatedly during the drive over. They had brought the equipment as a precaution, supposing that the reader had not gone offline but simply had no motion information to transfer, in which case they would make their first cursory expedition into the cave.

The inside of the cavern curved so that it pinched off the outside light. Minutes after entering, they were forced to switch on their lighted helmets. The tunnel's walls curved and dipped uninterestingly, sparkling with clusters of what was probably quartz; shadows lengthened as they turned their heads; the sounds of their footsteps bounced harshly from the rock. The reddish sheath of the cave snaked before them, unobstructed, heading generally down, for a full hour before they reached a chamber over a hundred meters in diameter bisected by a high wall.

This they scaled for ninety minutes, after spending nearly half an hour searching its smooth surface for handholds. They climbed with their pitons, securing themselves, and as they ascended the Colonel noticed that, disquietingly, the sound of their hammers had stopped echoing. In the places they had damaged the rock, quartz powder shone invitingly. Colonel Marin's jumpsuit was marred with expanding patches of sweat; he attempted to wipe his forehead on his sleeve discreetly, but found before long that the fabric over his arms was so heavily soaked that, when squeezed, it would drip. Ramirez climbed above him, her narrow waist (he noticed) twisting deftly as she ascended.

At the top of the wall opened another expanse, unknowably large, for its floor dipped abruptly in the formation of a vast lake. The water shimmered before them in a plain as clear as ether. Here they reached the end of their journey. Colonel Marin resisted the temptation to drink from it; instead he took a loud gulp from his canteen. Captain Ramirez seemed to disappear as he hung his head over the water, willing his light to reach the bottom. The surface rippled with the droplets of sweat that slid off the Colonel's face.

The thing floated to the surface gradually. Colonel Richard Marin stared at it, watched as it transformed from a pinpoint of light hundreds of meters down to something dead, fish-white. A man-shaped hunk of flesh, its bloated hulk packed into a midnight blue terrain-exploration suit, floated lifelessly up. The face - the Colonel scuttled away too quickly to look closely - had been destroyed, smashed in on itself, the ridges fattened by the water.

4

He didn't know where Captain Ramirez was. Probably outside. He was tired.

His head buzzed when he entered the bungalow and dropped his bag on the floor. The pitons inside clattered. The rifle, still slung over his back, swayed as he strode into the laboratory and switched on the communicator. He paid no attention to the smashed image that stared out at him from around the block-shaped patches of interference; he switched it off and on. This time, the familiarity of the command post on earth greeted him, with its plush chair, the whole thing made more reassuring by the continents of Earth outlined tastefully in shining gold-colored metal in the far wall.

An alert beeped on the Earth side for several seconds, during which the Colonel wiped sweat from his face and attempted to compose himself. A thin older sergeant appeared in the command post, disabled the alert, and sat in the plush chair.

"Yes, sir?" The sergeant asked.

"I need an Emergency Transport," Colonel Marin said. "Get me out."

He saw a shade of alarm appear on the old sergeant's face as he must have registered the M-16 still slung over the Colonel's back. The soft pouches under his eyes and folds running between his nose and corners of his mouth became more prominent as his face darkened.

"Is Captain Ramirez stable?" the sergeant asked.

This dug into him a little. "The captain is uninjured."

"Your location?"

"The biggest fucking rock on the Planet, sergeant. Look for me in the only man-made structure for a thousand lats. Do you need a mission briefing while we're at it?"

The sergeant smiled with a small tilt of his head. The Colonel knew that many of those in supporting positions of this mission resented him. So what? Had they worked like he had to be where he was? Earth's continents swam behind the sergeant.

"The Transport is en route, sir. It's coming from the relay point, so it will be around fifty hours. Can you hold out until then?" Another smile.

For his answer, Colonel Marin shut off the communicator. He strode out to the dining area and dropped a molding plate of eggs into the trash, from which a swarm of white bugs emerged and flew in a line out the west-facing window. Outside, the mangrove shifted with an incoming breath of wind; its glittering expanse went past the end of the world.

He crawled into bed with his terrain-exploration suit still on. It was stiff with rime. He supposed that those on his periphery had good reason to resent him, for he did everything he could to present himself as a rugged, old-time adventurer. He could not remember the last time he had worn anything else.

5

When Colonel Marin awoke in the wee hours, the diffuse light of the atmosphere pooled in the hollows of his bedsheets and a tall shape that smelled like blood stood over him.

The thing lurched forward. The front of its terrain-exploration suit, still damp from the lake, was dotted with blood patterned as though it had come showering from above. It held out a hand that looked like it was made of wax. A thing very like Captain Ramirez writhed in the next bed; it made a sound that Colonel Marin could not describe.

"I've told you," the Colonel said with the consternation of a small child. "You don't frighten me. You never frightened me." He felt immediately foolish.

Through its destroyed face the thing released a breath that smelled like meat. Its lower jaw, with its ring of unbroken teeth, hung uselessly. It withdrew its hand and turned and shuffled out of the bedroom. Staying put, the Colonel followed the sound of its footfalls as they moved into the dining room, paused at the dining table (there was a rustle of paper), and dragged slowly down the stairs to the basement; over the hammering of his heart, the Colonel heard a thermal capsule unlatch and open.

6

At 0945, Colonel Marin awoke from a dream in which his own ruined face smiled over him and walked unsteadily to the living area, where he found Captain Ramirez hunched at the dining table over a breakfast of eggs and coffee.

He glanced at an incident report that had been placed neatly in his chair. It detailed the tragedy of an Army construction worker employed in the fabrication of Research Bungalow 10, shunted from a specialization in cryptozoology amidst accusations of rape, who had wandered between a moving crane and the half-completed structure; his head had been pinched between a slab of rock being carried by the crane and the wall of the bungalow.

"Morning," he said.

Ramirez acknowledged him with the slightest nod, forked a dimpled lump of egg into her mouth, and sipped coffee.

"How long have you been up?" he asked.

"Couple hours."

Colonel Marin sat down heavily. "I've been groggy," he said.

"Maybe your suit is too tight," Ramirez said, giving him an up-and-down glance. He noticed again the way her hips swelled, seemingly more when she sat. He stared for a moment before looking up at her face. She'd caught him, but she didn't seem to mind too much, he thought. She gave him a look, of course; this was simply what women did.

"Anything with the reader?" he asked.

"No."

Colonel Marin stood and stretched. He knew people resented him for his success. Had any of them worked as hard as he had? Least of all Ramirez? After that night, she had skated by on pity while he'd labored in the sun - did she walk for these new men in their offices, as she had for him (he was sure), more slowly, swaying just a touch more? And here he was, laboring in the sun. Finding new animals? He wasn't sure. His head hurt.

"Sounds like we need to get down there and fix her," he said in his best command voice.

Captain Ramirez took another mouthful of egg. "I could have told you that," she said. Her eyes were empty sockets.

"Oh?" Richard Marin said, and swayed a bit. He was so tired.