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“Significant geothermal activity.” Garin reached into his bag for another ration bar and passed it to Sazahk. “Steam vents, geysers, boiling hot springs, places where the ground gives out from under you and sends you into the fiery depths, things like that. In other words, incredibly treacherous terrain.”
“Microbial mats.” Sazahk’s eyes widened with excitement.
Garin inwardly swore. “Not necessarily.”
Sazahk leaned forward, clutching his ration bar tightly as though to discharge his excited energy. “But possibly. Probably even. Think of what we could learn from that. If there are microbial mats, then we can deduce what sort of biological processes contribute to survival in the Dead Zone. If there aren’t any, then it’s convincing, and frankly devastating, evidence that even the hardiest life forms are doomed here in the long term.”
“What was beyond the geothermal activity, though?” Garin panned his map looking for anything that might be more compelling than a land of fire and brimstone. “What were you originally aiming for?”
“The site of an ancient jungle and the location where my team encountered the Insects that took Patrick prisoner.” Sazahk sat back and unwrapped the ration bar. “It would have been a prime target for the ecological warfare that devastated this region, but I discovered moss not far from there. Given its previous biodiversity, and the interesting ways Insects may affect their environments, I’m hopeful some lifeforms were able to adapt and now possibly thrive.”
Garin finished his bar and brushed his hands off on his pants so he could study his maps more closely. “Is it this area?” Garin zoomed the picture out so Sazahk could see the perimeter of the Dead Zone on the screen and get his bearings. Then he circled his fingertip around the extensive cave system a few days’ walk from where they camped.
Sazahk took a bite of his bar as he looked at the screen. “Yes, that’s it exactly. It looks very busy on your map. What’s there?”
“Caves.” Garin set the map back in his lap. The geothermal hotspot lay directly between their current location and the caves, so closely that the edge of the cave system overlapped with it. Garin wanted to give all that a wide berth considering the room for error when assessing terrain safety from a spy ship.
“Natural?” Sazahk tilted his head as he nibbled on the bar and his long braid slid over his shoulder.
“As far as I can tell.” Garin traced a route that swooped around the dangerous area and approached the cave system from the north. “There’s no notation for suspected bunkers or other underground facilities.”
Sazahk gasped, and his eyes flashed with delight. “There could be a whole subterranean ecosystem down there. A speleological network would have been sheltered from the worst of the attacks and be shielded from the sun.” He leaned into Garin’s space. “We have to go there.”
“We will.” Garin stifled his chuckle at Sazahk’s enthusiasm. “We’ll head north tomorrow morning and loop around…” But Sazahk was already shaking his head. “What?”
“The geothermal hot springs are on the way to the ancient jungle.” Sazahk crumpled his empty wrapper and stuffed it in his pocket. “And they have the potential to provide just as much insight into the nature of life in this area. I’m going that way.”
Garin growled in the back of his throat as Sazahk stood and returned to his picnic blanket of tools. “Sazahk, be reasonable?—”
It was the wrong thing to say.
Sazahk went rigid as blue and purple wrapped up his throat like a bruise.
Garin snapped his mouth shut.
Sazahk rounded on him with an icy glare. “I’m being perfectly reasonable.” His hands clenched into fists before he hid them behind his back. “My explicit, stated goal is to discover how to support life in this region. There are two clear leads. The hot springs and the cave system. It is incredibly reasonable to visit them both.”
Except if he died investigating the first, then he’d never reach the second, but Sazahk wouldn’t stop talking long enough for Garin to make that argument.
“In fact, it would be unreasonable if not a complete dereliction of duty to abandon a lead out of an amorphous fear of dangerous terrain.”
Actually, Garin’s fear had a very clear form. It was shaped like a slippery ramp into boiling water.
“So, when I wake up tomorrow morning, I am going west.” Sazahk sat down on his sleeping bag as a final punctuation. “And whether or not you join me isn’t my concern.”
Garin stared across the fire at Sazahk’s stiff spine.
He was demanding Dom give him a raise after this.
What the hell did Sazahk have against a little caution? What was so infuriating about someone showing a little concern for bodily safety?
Finally, Garin released a breath. “And if I do come, I don’t suppose you’ll listen to me when I ask you to be careful around the steaming pits of corrosive death water?”
Sazahk twisted the fine focus dial on his microscope and answered without looking up. “No.”
No. No, of course not.
Chapter Three
