by Greig Beck
Shenjung focused on the carvings beneath the growth. There were whorls, strokes, and lines, some carved in, and some raised in relief. Further along, there were depictions of birds, snakes, something that could have been a big cat, and a bison type animal. And then there were the faces: tongues lolling, some gnashing teeth, and many with wide eyes, staring, holding looks of anger combined with fear.
“Look here, this one.” Yang pointed, and Shenjung followed his arm.
At the center of the relief was a huge glyph of a small mountain that had what looked like coiling snakes emanating from it, and a giant eye nesting in its middle.
“Their god?” Shenjung grunted, staring for several moments more. “Perhaps our demented survivor was right – perhaps it is Zhàyǔ, the devourer of men.” He turned. “Remember, it lives in the underworld.”
Yang scoffed. “I think I will ignore any intelligence briefings derived from a frightened dumpling cook.” He shook his head, his eyes flint-hard. “To me it looks like a representation of the sun … sunlight. It is telling us that this is probably a way out.” He turned away, to more brittle crunching beneath his feet, and stepped away from the wall.
Shenjung sighed, about to follow the PLA captain, when instead he crouched as something caught his eye. The crunching beneath their feet, it wasn’t stone chips as he expected, but instead bone fragments – different shaped shards and splinters, the fragments brown and aged and mostly pulverized. He picked up a tooth, a human molar.
“Captain Yang.” He held it up.
Yang leaned closer but didn’t take it. He shrugged. “Maybe some cavemen got trapped in here.”
Shenjung got to his feet. “Cavemen do not create this type of carven symbolism. They paint, using natural dyes, charcoal, and some rubbing.” He scoffed at the bone fragments. “And then what happened to them? They’re ground to pieces.”
Yang shrugged. “The cutter crushed the bones when it broke through.”
Shenjung shook his head. “No, even the edges are …”
“Captain?”
Yang turned towards the voice. A soldier, standing further along the stone shelf.
“Steps, Captain Yang. Cut into the cliff wall.” The tall soldier stood at attention. “There is evidence that they were used recently.”
“Steps?” Yang clapped his hands once, the sound like a gunshot in the cave. “So, now we are getting somewhere. Hoi!” He circled a finger in the air, and followed the young man. The rest of the soldiers fell in behind them.
A few hundred feet farther along, the ledge narrowed to about six feet, and then simply ended. Cut into the wall were steps, descending, and also disappearing upwards into the darkness. They were narrow, small, and barely wide enough for a normal foot. Shenjung could see that they changed angles as they descended, before they disappeared in the blackness of the void below.
Yang pointed his flashlight upwards. “To the surface?”
Shenjung also craned his neck, following the steps. “These look thousands of years old. The stone is age-darkened by moisture, and cave gasses.” Shenjung shrugged. “Maybe there was a surface when the steps were cut, but that was around 12,000 years ago. Our position now is far out under the ice sheets, so too much ice and snow above us.” He stepped back, lifting his light. “However, I would be interested to see where they lead.”
Yang turned away. “Lieutenant, beacon signal source and direction.”
The PLA soldier held up a small-screened device, panning it around. He then spun back to his captain. “Four point eighteen miles due west, point ninety-two miles on vertical descent … down.” He pointed.
“Good.” Yang turned back to Shenjung. “Upwards, is likely to be miles of more labyrinth, or a dead end.” Yang brought his light down to the descending steps. “If there is scuffing on the lower steps, then most likely it was made by Zhang Li and his team. If they went down, and our objective, the submarine is down, then we will follow.”
Shenjung could tell that Yang probably didn’t give a damn about the missing engineers. His priority was the signal, and only the signal. He waved his light over the stone ledge at its brink. “Doesn’t look like footprints, more like drag marks.”
“Come.” Yang ignored him.
Shenjung stared down into the darkness. He had a feeling that the massive hole in the earth was more like a gigantic mouth that was about to swallow them all. He could feel a slight updraft against his face – it felt warm, humid, and there were hints of salt, methane, and an odd sourness among other odors … odors of living things, or perhaps things long dead. It did nothing to dispel the image of the mouth open and waiting. He followed the PLA captain, but couldn’t shake the feeling that sunlight was a luxury he may never see again.
CHAPTER 18
Cate was smashed into Alex’s body. Her face became immediately wet, and she knew her nose was gushing blood. The upside was, her goggles were still around her neck and hadn’t cracked. She shifted position and groaned. Every part of her ached – muscles, bones, and even though she had covered up as much as she could, she could feel blisters under her wetsuit. But what she felt, and endured, must have been nothing compared to the man above her who hadn’t been covered in thermal sheeting and had literally acted as a shock absorber for her body. She had felt him go limp, and knew he was either unconscious or dead.
Inside the capsule it was blacker than anything she had ever experienced in her life, and a moment of disorientation washed over her. Then there came the sensation of the capsule turning slowly as it settled correctly in the water. That’s something, she thought. She had seconds now before the launch, and blindly reached up to find and then feel the soldier’s neck – thank god, a pulse. She lifted his mouthpiece and pushed it between his lips, automatically starting the oxygen. She covered her face with her own goggles and jammed in her mouthpiece.
Below them, there commenced a minute electronic vibration running up through the skin of the hull, and then came a more ominous sound – rushing water, welling up. She had a moment of panic, but swallowed it down, remembering what that meant: the outer doors of the capsule had opened, and Orca was about to launch.
Here we go, she thought, and reached down to wrap an arm around one of the propulsion struts, and then hung onto the limp form of Alex with her other arm.
Like a ten-foot torpedo being launched from its shaft, Orca, the deep-water submersible, began to slide free, taking Cate and Alex with it.
She felt an unbearable sense of alarm, as they were pulled out of the capsule and into the inky black water, miles below the Antarctic’s icy surface. Cate screwed her eyes shut and instinctively held her breath.
Darkness, warmth, and saltiness. She opened her eyes. Cate Canning’s laboratory readings had told her to expect it, to assume a near tropical environment of a constant seventy-eight degrees in the underground sea. But now, only when she was immersed, could she really believe it. What she hadn’t expected was the blue glow radiating down from above – bioluminescence, she thought. If she was at the surface, the radiance would still only be like twilight, but at least it wouldn’t be anything like the impenetrable nothing that was below her.
Orca pulled them along a few dozen feet below the surface, and Cate’s scientific mind took over, and blanked out any thoughts about what could be down underneath. The inky blackness fell away to crushing depths of over a thousand feet, and she knew there were organisms down there, big organisms, and she just hoped she could get herself and Alex to the nearest shoreline before they were detected.
Cate had one hand looped through a strap on Alex’s shoulder, and the other she gripped tight to one of the submersible’s rear struts. Her shoulders screamed from the strain, but Orca’s gentle speed made it easier. Still, she knew if she lost her grip on Orca, they would be stranded, and if she let Alex go, his heavy kit would take him down, and he would be lost.
She turned her head to look back towards the surface of the underground sea. She could just make out their bubbles
as they merged and then raced upwards. They were a silvery thread that ascended to a watery blue ceiling. She could imagine them popping on the calm sea, and she longed to be up there with them.
She turned back to the depths, and impatience started to take hold. One, two, three, four – she kept her mind occupied, and began to count seconds as Orca traveled onwards. The submersible’s propulsion units whirred softly, almost a purr beneath the water as the hydro-jets pushed liquid back towards them and over a bank of fins that guided it through the depths. Cate had programmed the machine herself, and knew one of its first searches was to be towards the east, before it was to head back out, and then dive deep. They needed to be well gone by then.
She looked back again at Alex’s limp body, his large arms and legs deathly still and trailing as they glided along. She wished she could check on him, but for now, hanging on was all that mattered.
Suddenly Orca slowed, and Cate’s head snapped back in alarm. The cigar shaped machine gave a little reverse thrust, to then hang motionless in the water. The submersible’s neutral buoyancy allowed it to be suspended without sinking or rising. She gritted her teeth, as she remembered her own program protocols – it would take audio readings now, and even though the propulsion units were near-silent water jets, it would also shut these off as it listened for the most minute of sounds.
Cate breathed in and out evenly, waiting, impatient, the only sounds she heard were her own exhalations, loud in her ears. She momentarily held her breath, and then there it was, all the clicks, squeaks, tapping, and pops of a living ocean. Around her, stars floated – tiny specks of light, either gliding or flashing before being quickly shut off. It was the silver biological glow of creatures in a dark sea, used for attracting mates, prey, or as a warning. To Cate, it seemed like she was floating in a night sky, not underwater, but high overhead, looking down on the stars in an endless universe.
Orca coming to a complete stop made her feel it was safe enough for her to let go of its strut. She lowered her arm and flexed her fingers, feeling immediately relieved. They were stiff and sore, but they’d be fine. She then dragged Alex up towards herself, looked into his face mask – his eyes were closed tight, but there was still the rhythmic pumping of his breather as he sucked in and expelled air. She decided she’d take the time to better secure him, and she dragged him closer, and unclipped his belt, then threaded it through her own belt at her back, so he was now lashed to her. It would cause more drag, but at least it gave her two free hands, that she could now alternate to share the load.
Orca hung in its aquatic inner-space a moment more before its nose-cone lit up as a bright ring of lights surrounding the camera eye came to life. To Cate in the dark water, it was as if the cigar-shaped probe was like some sort of deep-sea fish that had stopped to search for prey midwater.
The probe’s glowing eye created a pipe of light to try and illuminate the void. But it was a hopeless task as the darkness swallowed the glow without ever revealing the hidden world Cate knew was all around them.
But then from the corner of her eye, movement. Something the size of a hubcap glided past. It was circular, ribbed, and trailing ribbon-like tendrils. Cate concentrated, straining out from the probe to see it before it moved past the range of the light. Instead of disappearing, it stopped, and turned, drifting back towards them. Cate grinned around her mouthpiece.
You beautiful thing, she thought. Neuteloid – Cyrtoceras, I believe. It was banded blue, white, and black, something that never would have been known from the fossil record. The thing was a survivor of the ancient Ordovician Period. Their ancestors were around today, but much, much smaller.
The engines started up again, and the Crytoceras turned and sailed away. She then felt the fan of water on her face as the machine eased forward. She grabbed it and leaned out and to the side again, a passenger watching the strange world go by. From time to time, something would dart away from the beam like a laser had scalded it. The eyes of the sea creatures were probably more adapted to the dark, only ever having to deal with a soft, twilight glow whenever they rose to shallower waters.
Cate thought of her team, huddled together in a cold laboratory room over a mile above her, watching, recording, and marveling at everything they saw via their screens, while she saw it live. She hung on for her life, wishing Orca would stop again just for a few seconds so she could claw her way to the nose-cone. There, she could somehow communicate with them, tell them she was fine, and ask if they could shut down the light. Though the powerful globes pushed out a lot of energy and lit a pathway some forty feet in front of them, the wall of dark was only ever just pierced. But from out beyond the curtain of blackness, she knew its powerful beam would be seen for miles – the speck of white light would attract anything that hunted by sight.
Five hundred and one, five hundred and two … She counted more seconds as Orca sailed on. Her body began to ache again, and she changed her hands on the rail. She briefly wondered what would happen if she slipped – the probe would quickly leave them behind. Her team above may suddenly detect an improvement in maneuverability, but it was unlikely they would know to turn around for her. She could reprogram Orca. After all, she was its designer. But she was down here.
More than likely she and Alex would be cast adrift, a couple of slow moving non-aquatic mammals left to float in a fathomless dark sea. She shuddered at the thought and started to count again, trying to remember the probe’s search grid, and how long it was before they could expect to near any type of land. Alex had said it would be there, and close. She prayed he was right.
Orca suddenly dropped about twenty feet, and Cate felt a bone-chilling cold as the water temperature plummeted. She had heard there were temperature anomalies down here – silos and columns of hot and cold water. Her group had hypothesized that the warm water columns were caused by hydrothermal means, but the cold columns, they were the conundrum. One theory they had was that there could be a vortex in the underground sea. It literally breathed in and out, sometimes taking in cold water, and sometimes expelling warm. There was evidence for an open vortex, as the expellation had a physical manifestation – just recently a behemoth Antarctic algae bloom was seen off the Antarctic’s coast that was so large it showed up on satellite imaging from space.
She’d make a mental note, and hopefully one day they’d get to … she grinned around her mouthpiece. One day they’d get to what? She was stuck here, and the only thing she’d be doing from now on was simply trying to survive.
Cate felt the warm water return as they passed out of the freezing current, and Orca rose to its proper investigation depth. She resumed her somnambulant count once again. Thirteen hundred and twenty-five, thirteen hundred and twenty-six …
Cate felt the slight touch of a pressure wave push at her side, and momentarily create more drag on Alex’s body as he lurched on her back. A tingle raced up her spine – other than the vortices, there were no currents down here – something in the darkness had just moved past them. From far out behind them there came the sound of thump and then a grinding, metallic crunch that made her flinch. At first she struggled to understand what it was she could be hearing, but then knew it could be only one thing – the shell of the probe. The capsule would have been still floating on the surface, due to the pocket of air trapped inside its rear. It was a bigger physical signature than they were, and it was being destroyed, no, she thought, attacked.
Shit, how much farther? she wondered, just as the sound of the attacks grew louder, and then ceased. That meant whatever was occupying itself with the probe’s shell had either sunk it or had lost interest, and might be now on the lookout for something else – something more palatable. She began to kick her legs, hoping the minuscule amount of extra thrust would help in getting them further away from what was going on, maybe only a half mile to their rear.
She looked back over her shoulder – nothing but darkness and the limp form of Alex. She cursed him, the big tough soldier, now little more than de
ad weight. You bastard. She jerked one arm back, striking him in the back of the head. Big fucking help you turned out to be.
Would she cut him free if they were attacked? She’d like to think she wouldn’t, but it might not be in her control. And besides, if it came down to both of them dying or just Alex, then she’d vote for life every time. Sorry buddy, but for all I know you could be a braindead beanbag anyway.
She turned back to Orca, kicking hard now, and biting down on her breathing tube. Her neck and scalp tingled; the darkness surrounding her was impenetrable, but that was only to her. She knew something was out there now, and could feel the huge presence in the water close by.
She kicked harder, adrenalin giving her a burst of energy. Her breathing was becoming ragged, and she knew she was burning up her oxygen, but wasn’t able to help it.
Fourteen hundred and sixty, one hundred and sixteen, two hundred … she couldn’t focus, and whimpered around her breathing tube. Once again, she felt the gentle push of water against her, first from one side, and then seconds later from the other – they were being circled by something very large and very fast. For all she knew, it was close enough now for her to reach out and touch.
What are you? her mind screamed. She couldn’t help thinking back to the image of the huge eye she had seen on her screen all those years ago. It had baffled her and most of her marine specialist colleagues. Now, she would find out.
Orca powered on, and Cate and Alex were dragged along with it. She knew that in the control room miles above them, the instruments would be screaming at Bentley, Schmidt, Timms, and Sulley, and they might be whooping with excitement as the sensors told them of the approaching behemoth. Maybe by now they had swapped visuals and moved to either thermal or light enhanced to try and pick up the thing’s silhouette.
