The Deep Zone

got my legs tangled up with the pack tow rope. Damned stupid and clumsy.”

He didn’t speak for a moment. Then he walked over, put a hand on one of her shoulders, drew her closer to him. He put a hand on her other shoulder. His jaw was clenched, brow furrowed. The air around him felt electric. It was the first time she had seen him like this. He started to speak, stopped, shook his head. Got control, then spoke.

“Hallie. You have to be careful.” His eyes were filled with concern, but his voice was sharp. “If anything happens to you, all of this will be for nothing.”

She had never taken well to being scolded. She reached up, grasped his wrists, and took his hands off her shoulders. “Who’s talking here?” she asked. “Secret Agent or Horse Man?”

She was confused. The eyes looking down at her were the eyes she knew she would have seen, had there been light, when she and Bowman had slept down in the boulder garden. But the voice had a crackling energy that made her feel afraid. It took her back to the first time they had seen each other at BARDA.

He hesitated, and she could tell that he was trying hard to find the right—the true—answer. He held his hands out, palms up, the first time she had seen him evidence anything even close to helplessness. “Both. I care about you, Hallie. You know that. You feel that, like I do. And I need you, Dr. Leland. You know that, too. You are the mission. You need to understand that. To understand both.”

Her anger dissolved. Oh hell. She pulled off her helmet, stood on tiptoe, took his face in her hands, and kissed him. Not on the cheek. Kissed him for real, sliding her arms around his neck, holding on. In for a penny, in for a pound. She felt the tension of surprise for just a millisecond, and then he softened. He put his arms around her, gathered her in, and the kiss went from her lips down her neck into her chest past her waist to her toes and all the way back up again. A breathless, giddy spinning like the first moments of a skydive free fall.

It lasted until both had to come up for breath. She laid her head on his chest, the top of it just touching his chin. What a hell of a place to fall for somebody, she thought.

She pulled back just enough to look toward his eyes, which she could see, dimly, in light reflecting from their helmet lamps, both of which had fallen to the cave floor.

“Roger that, ma’am.”

He leaned down and they kissed again, and they were more relaxed than ravenous this time, savoring rather than devouring. After a while they both leaned back and looked at each other, wide-eyed, panting.

“Roger that, sir.”

He shook his head as if to clear it, then set his jaw. “Al will be showing up pretty soon.

She took a deep breath, let it out, touched his face with one hand. “You’re right.”

They separated. He got some water from his pack and shared it with her. She peeled the wrappers off two energy bars and gave him one. They sat on the cave floor, leaning against some rocks, waiting in the dark, lights turned off. A smooth wind flowed over their skin, rockfall clicked and boomed, the river fought its way on down into the cave. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. She could feel Bowman starting to worry. Five minutes later he stood up.

“I know he moves slowly, but not that slowly. I’m going back.”

“No.” It escaped before she could stop it.

He turned. “What?”

“Maybe wait just a little. Al gets through, in his own poky way.”

He hesitated, torn between two responsibilities, one old, the other new.

“Five more minutes.”

“If you go back, I come along.”

Bowman didn’t respond. He shut his eyes, rubbed his face, breathed.

Five minutes came and went. The cave killed him, Hallie thought. Three down, two to go. At this rate, we won’t even make it to the moonmilk. She suddenly felt a depression so crushing she pushed out with her arms, in the dark, as though warding off a living thing. Bowman took a backup light from his pack. He turned to face her.

“Hallie, if you had trouble in there, it’ll be worse for him.” He glanced at the luminous face of his watch. “Look. If anything… if I’m not back in fifteen minutes, just go on.”

She thought, If you don’t come back, I won’t be able to get out of the cave because your body will block the passage. Maybe I could haul you all the way out. But maybe not. So we’d end up staying down here together.

But she said nothing. She helped him cinch the ankle and wrist seals to keep as much water out of his suit as possible. Checked the mounts on his three helmet lights to make sure they were secure. Made sure his diver’s knife was tight in the scabbard he wore strapped to the inside of his left calf. Then there was nothing else to do, nothing more to check.

When he looked at her, there was no mistaking with which eyes. “Fifteen minutes.”

She nodded. “Be careful. For God’s sake.”

“Always. The soul of caution.”

He turned and started wading back down toward the siphon. He was three feet from it when Al Cahner stepped out. They had been so intent on each other that they had somehow missed the telltale flickering of his light as he approached. He and Bowman almost ran into each other.

“Hi!” Cahner sounded almost chipper.

Hallie was dumbstruck. Cahner made his way toward her.

“Al! We thought you were…” Hallie couldn’t bring herself to say “dead.” Some deep cautionary reflex stopped her. Bad luck, don’t do that. “We were worried about you, goddamnit!”

He hung his head like a chastened boy. “I… look, this is embarrassing, but I had to go to the bathroom.”

“In the siphon?”

“Well, I had drunk a lot of water between camp and the siphon. Should have gone before we went in, but it didn’t feel so bad. I think all that flowing water was what did it.”

“So you… peed in the siphon?”

“I got to that place where the water was just about thigh-high. Whew. I was about to explode. Can’t tell you how much better I feel.”

“But… it took all this time?”

“Well, I kind of got messed up. See, I had to pull down the zipper on the front of the cave suit, but it got stuck. So I worked and worked and finally got it down. I went ahead and did my business, but then it stuck again on the way up. I yanked it so hard that my helmet came off. Guess I forgot to fasten the chin strap. I got the zipper back up, and fished for my helmet, and put it back on. Then I was ready to go again. I guess it did take a while.” He looked back and forth between them. “I’m sorry if I worried you.” Then he brightened. “But I’m glad you cared about old Al Cahner!”

“Of course we care, you jerk.” Hallie walked over and gave him a hug so strong his eyes bulged slightly.

“Do you want to have a rest, Al?” Hallie could tell from the sound of his voice that Bowman very much did not want to have a rest, but she admired him for resisting the need for haste.

“You know, I’m feeling pretty good. Why don’t we just mosey right on. I’ll let you know if I start to get really tired.”

“Okay,” said Hallie. “And let us know if you need to pee, for God’s sake.”

They headed on down.

Seven hours later they were all beginning to stumble from exhaustion. Cahner had fallen once, fortunately suffering nothing worse than skinned knees and cut palms. Hallie’s own knees were screaming from the constant pounding of descent. Her thighs were on fire as well, and her back felt like someone had been smacking it with a hammer. They agreed to keep going until they found a place where they could camp. It took another two hours.

“I think this is as good as it’s going to get!” Hallie yelled. She was only a few feet from Bowman and Cahner, but the watercourse here was a full-fledged river, booming and boiling and frothing, so powerful that the cave floor