“Yes. Thanks.”
When they were sitting down eating, Jerry smoothed out the quarto sheets of paper. The first contained some doodles.
“Frank’s in a bad way.” Jerry passed it to Miss Brunner.
“That’s the interesting one.” Miss Brunner pointed at the doodle with the lettering. “It gives our position and, I’d guess, his destination. But what’s it all about?”
Jerry studied the other three sheets. There were some figures that he couldn’t make sense of and more neurotic symbols. There was a pattern there, but he didn’t feel like digging too deep. Knowing Frank, he was more disturbed by these doodles than he normally would have been.
“The best way of finding out is to follow him and locate this cave. Maze symbols, womb symbols. It’s Frank’s signature, without a doubt. He’s developed a nice fat persecution complex.”
“I’m not sure,” said Miss Brunner. “You couldn’t blame him, really. After all, we have been persecuting him.”
“It’s about even, I’d say. I don’t feel up to going any further tonight. Shall we stay here?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mind if we spend the night here?” Jerry asked Marek.
“Of course not. It’s a strange place for you, no doubt, to celebrate the season.”
“The season? What’s the date?”
“The twenty-fourth of December.”
“Merry Christmas,” said Jerry in English.
“Merry Christmas,” smiled Marek, also in English. Then he said in Swedish, “You must tell me what things are like in the rest of Europe.”
“Pretty good.”
“I have read that inflation exists almost everywhere. Your crimes of violence have risen steeply, as have mental disorders, vice…”
“IBM has just perfected a new predictor-computer, using British, Swedish and Italian scientists; all kinds of books and papers are being published full of new observations about the sciences, the arts—even theology. There have never been so many. Transport and communications are better than they ever were…” Jerry shook his head. “Pretty good.”
“But what of the spiritual state of Europe? We share most of your problems, you know, other than the economic and political ones—”
“They’ll come. Be patient.”
“You are very cynical, Herr Cornelius. I am tempted to believe that Ragnarok is almost with us.”
“That’s an odd thing for a Christian minister to say.”
“I am more than that—I am a Scandinavian Lutheran. I have no doubt of the truths inherent in our old pagan mythology. Herr Cornelius, I would very much like to know your real reason for coming here.”
“I’ve told you. We are searching for my brother.”
“There is much more than that. I am not an intellectual, but I have an instinct that is generally quite astute. There is at once something less and something more in both you and your companion. Something—I am not normally guilty of coming to such a stern assumption—something evil.”
“There’s good and bad in all of us, Herr Marek.”
“I see your face—and your eyes. Your eyes look boldly at much that I would fear to look at, but also they seem to hide from things that do not frighten me.”
“Could it be that we are ahead of you, Herr Marek?”
“Ahead? In what way?”
“In time.” Jerry felt unusually angry with the pastor. “These old-fashioned rules no longer apply. Your sort of morality, your sort of thinking, your sort of behaviour—it was powerful in its day. Like the dinosaur. Like the dinosaur it cannot survive in this world. You put values on everything—values…”
“I think I can see a little of what you mean.” Marek lost his composure and rubbed his face. “I wonder… is it Satan’s turn to rule?”
“Careful, Herr Marek, that’s blasphemy. Besides, what you are saying is meaningless nowadays.” Jerry’s hair had become disarranged as he talked. He brushed it back from the sides of his face.
“Because you want it to be?” Marek turned and walked towards the stove.
“Because it is. I am scarcely self-indulgent, Herr Marek—not in present-day terms.”
“So you have your own code.” Marek sounded almost jeering.
“On the contrary. There is no new morality, Herr Marek—there is no morality. The term is as barren as your grandmother’s wrinkled old womb. There are no values!”
“There is still one fact we can agree on. Death.”
“Death? Death? Death?” There were tears in his eyes. “Why?”
“Have you decided to start from scratch?” Marek was rising now to Jerry’s challenge. Jerry was disconcerted and miserable.
“D—” Jerry paused.
“What’s going on?” Miss Brunner stood up. “What are you two quarrelling about?”
“The old bloke’s round the twist.” Jerry’s voice was low.
“Really? Can you ask him where we sleep and if there are any spare blankets?”
Jerry relayed the request.
“Follow me.” Marek led them into the adjoining room. There were four bunks, two pairs. He lifted the mattress off one of the bottom bunks, pulled back a panel and began lifting out blankets. “Enough?”
“Fine,” said Jerry.
Jerry took the top bunk, Miss Brunner the bottom, and Marek slept in the bottom bunk opposite them. They all slept fully clothed, wrapped in blankets.
Jerry slept badly and woke in darkness. He looked at his watch and saw that it was 8 a.m. The pastor’s bunk was empty. He leaned over and peered down. Miss Brunner was still sleeping. He unwrapped himself and jumped down.
In the other room, Marek was cooking something on the stove. On the table were an opened tin of herrings and three plates and forks.
“Your brother took most of our provisions, I’m afraid,” Marek said as he brought the pot to the table. “Sild and coffee for breakfast. I apologise for my behaviour last night, Herr Cornelius. My own bewilderment got the better of me.”
“And mine of me.”
“I considered what you had said as best I could. I am now inclined…” Marek got three enamel mugs from the locker and poured coffee into two. “Is Miss Brunner ready for coffee yet?”
“She’s still sleeping.”
“I am now inclined to believe that there is a certain truth in what you say. I believe in God, Herr Cornelius, and the Bible—yet there are references in the Bible that can be interpreted as indications of this new phase you hint at. Have you read Beesley at all?”
“You shouldn’t let yourself be convinced, Herr Marek.”
“Don’t worry about that. Would it, I wonder, be an intrusion if I accompanied you on this quest of yours? I believe I know the mountain your brother headed for—there is one with a cave. The Lapps are not very superstitious, Herr Cornelius, but they tend to avoid the cave. I wonder why your brother should be interested in it.”
“What do you know about this? I didn’t mention it.”
“I have a little English. I read the map your brother drew.”
“Could you make sense of the rest?”
“It made some sort of sense to my—well, my instincts. I don’t know why.”
“You can lead us there?”
“I think so. This is hardly the weather…”
“Will it be too dangerous?”
“Not if we take it carefully.”
“I’ll wake Miss Brunner.”
* * *
Through the white twilight of the Arctic winter the three people moved. On the higher parts of the ground stood a few silver birches, and on their left was a frozen lake, a wide expanse of flat snow. A little snow drifted in the air, and the clouds above were dense and grey.
A world of perpetual evening which would for six weeks in the year, Jerry knew, become a lush and glorious world of perpetual afternoon when the sun never went below the horizon, where lakes shone and rivers ran, animals moved, trees, rushes, gorse flourished. But now it was a moody, unfriend
ly landscape. By this time the station was out of sight behind them. It seemed that they were hardly on earth at all, for the grey day stretched in all directions.
They followed Marek on the snowshoes he had found for them. The landscape, silent and still, seemed to impose its own silence on them, for they spoke little as they walked, huddled in their clothes.
At long last the mountains came in sight, and they picked up the faint tracks of Frank’s snowmobile winding ahead of them. The mountains were close, but they hadn’t seen them until now because of the poor visibility.
Jerry wondered again if Miss Brunner’s telling him that Frank had the astronaut’s testament was a ruse simply to get him to go along with her. He was not alone in wanting to see what Newman had written. There was something unusual in the way in which he had been silenced, the few wild public statements he had made before that, the fact that he had done more orbits in his capsule than had been originally announced. Would there really be some observation in the manuscript that would clarify the data?
The ground rose and they began to climb awkwardly.
“The cave is quite close,” Marek said, his breath streaming out.
Jerry wondered how he could be so sure in this almost featureless country.
* * *
The cave mouth had recently been cleared of snow. Just inside they could see the runners of a snowmobile.
Miss Brunner held back.
“I’m not sure that I want to go in. Your brother’s insane—”
“But that isn’t your reason.”
“I’ve got that ‘I’ve been here before’ feeling again.”
“Me too. Come on.” Jerry entered the dark cave. Its far wall could not be seen. “Frank!”
The echo went on and on.
“It’s a big cave,” he said. He took his needle gun from his pocket. The others entered behind him.
“I forgot to bring a torch,” Marek whispered.
“We’ll have to hope for the best, then. It will mean that he won’t be able to see us.”
The cave was actually a tunnel sloping deeper and deeper into the rock. Clinging together, they stumbled on, uncertain of their footing. Jerry lost all sense of passing time, began to suspect that time had stopped. Events had become so unpredictable and beyond his control that he couldn’t think about them. He was losing touch.
The floor of the tunnel and the hands of his companions became the sole reality. He began to suspect that he wasn’t moving at all but that the floor was moving under him. He felt mentally and physically numb. Every so often vertigo would come and he would pause, swaying, feeling outward with his foot to find the chasm that was never there. Once or twice he half-fell.
Much later he was able to see the luminous dial of his watch. Four hours had passed. The tunnel seemed to be widening all the time, and he realised that it was much warmer and deeper and there was a saline smell in his nostrils as if of the sea. His senses began to wake and he heard the echoes of his own footsteps going away into distance. Ahead and below he thought he saw a trace of blue light.
He began to run down the incline, but checked his speed when he found he was going too fast. Now the light was good enough to show him the dim figures of his companions. He waited for them to catch up, and they went on cautiously towards the source of the light.
They came out of the tunnel and were standing on a slab of rock overlooking a gloomy, steamy gallery that stretched out of sight in all directions. Something had made the water slightly luminous, and this was the source of the light—a lake of hot water probably created by some underground hot spring carrying phosphorus. The water boiled and bubbled, and the steam soon soaked them. The floor of the gallery nearest to them was under water, and Jerry could distinguish several objects that looked out of place there. He noted that the rocks on his right led to this beach, and he began to slide down them towards it. The others took his lead.
“I had no idea that there could be a cave system of this size. What do you think caused it?” Miss Brunner was panting.
“Glacier, hot springs carrying corrosives looking for a way out… I’ve never heard of anything quite like it. Certainly nothing as big.” They walked along the slippery, mineral-encrusted rock beside the lake. Jerry pointed. “Boats. Three of them. One of them looks fairly recent.”
“These caves must have been known for at least a hundred years.” Marek inspected the most dilapidated of the boats. “This is that old.” He peered inside. “God save me!”
“What is it?” Jerry looked into the boat. A skeleton looked back at him. “Well, Frank certainly found something. You know, I think I’ve got an idea about this place. Did you ever hear of the Hollow Earth theory?”
“The last people to place any credence in it were those Nazis,” said Miss Brunner, frowning deeply.
“Well, you know what I’m talking about—the idea that there was some sort of entrance in the Arctic to a world inside the earth. I’m not sure, but I think the whole idea was Bulwer-Lytton’s—an idea he had in a novel. Didn’t Horbiger have the same idea, or was he just for Eternal Ice?”
“You seem to know more about it than I do. But this tie-up with the Nazis is interesting. I hadn’t thought of it.”
“What tie-up?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Anyway, I thought the Nazis believed the world was actually embedded in an infinity of rock—or was that someone else?”
“They gave serious consideration to both. Either theory would have suited them. Radar disproved one, and they could never find the polar opening, though I’m sure they sent at least one expedition.”
“They were certainly triers, weren’t they?” Miss Brunner said admiringly. Jerry picked up the skull and threw it out over the water.
8
Jerry inspected the most recent-looking boat. “It’s seaworthy, I’d say.”
“You’re not going out over that?” Miss Brunner shook her head.
“It must be the way Frank went. What do you think these boats mean? They weren’t dragged here for nothing—they’ve crossed and come back.”
“Crossed to what?”
“I thought you wanted to know what Frank was after. This is the way to find out.”
“Do you think he believes this Hollow Earth idea?”
“I don’t know. Isn’t it even possible?”
“It’s been disproved hundreds of ways!”
“So have a lot of things.”
“Oh, come now, Jerry!”
“What do you think, Herr Marek? Do you want to see if we can cross the hot lake?”
“I am beginning to think that Dante was a naturalistic writer,” said the Lapp. “I am glad I decided to come, Herr Cornelius.”
“Let’s get this boat launched then.”
Marek helped him push the rowboat towards the water. It slid along easily. Jerry put one foot in the water and leaped back. “It’s hotter than I thought!”
Miss Brunner shrugged and joined them as they steadied the boat.
“You get in first,” Jerry told her. Unwillingly, she clambered in. Marek followed her, and Jerry got in last. The boat began to drift out over the phosphorescent water. Jerry unshipped the oars. He began to row through the steaming water, his features, caught in the oscillating radiance, looking like those of a fallen angel.
Soon the wall of the great cavern was obscured, and ahead of them was only vapour and darkness. Jerry began to feel drowsy, but continued to row with long strokes.
“This is like the River of the Dead,” Marek said. “And you, Herr Cornelius, are you Charon?”
“I wish I were—it’s a steady job, at least.”
“I think you see yourself more as Cassandra.”
“Cassandra?” Miss Brunner caught a word she understood. “Are you two talking about mythology still?”
“How did you know that was what we’d been talking about?”
“An educated guess.”
“You’re full of them.”
“It’s to do w
ith my job,” she said.
Marek was in high spirits. He chuckled. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m not sure,” Jerry replied.
Marek chuckled again. “You two—you are an ambivalent pair.”
“I wish you were wrong, Herr Marek.”
Miss Brunner pointed ahead. “There is another shore—can you make anything out?”
He turned. The shore ahead seemed studded with regularly spaced and perfect cubes, some about two feet high and others ten feet high.
“Could that be a natural formation, Herr Cornelius?”
“I don’t think so. In this light you can’t even see what they’re made of.”
As they rowed nearer, they could see that some of the cubes were not on the shore at all but partially immersed in water. Jerry paused by one and reached out to touch it. “Concrete.”
“Impossible!” Marek seemed delighted.
“You can’t say that until we know more about this place.” The bottom of the boat scraped the shore and they got out, hauling the boat after them.
They were surrounded by the black outlines of the concrete cubes. They approached the nearest.
“It’s a bloody bunker!” Jerry entered it. There was a light switch inside the door, but it didn’t work when Jerry tried it. He couldn’t see anything of the interior. He went outside and walked around the bunker until he came to the machine-gun slit. The gun was still there, pointing out over the underground lake. He grasped the gun and took his hand away covered in gritty rust. “They’re not new. What is it—some abandoned Swedish project to guard against Russian attacks? All the roads into Finland have posts like these, haven’t they, Herr Marek?”
“They have. But this is Lappish land—the government would need Lapp permission. They are very particular about the rights of the Lapps in Sweden, Herr Cornelius. I think the Lapps would have known about it.”
“Not if there were security reasons. This place would be perfect as an H-bomb shelter. I wonder…”
Miss Brunner called through the gloom. “Mr Cornelius, I don’t think this was a Swedish project.”
The Final Programme Page 11
