The Third Gate jl-1

by Lincoln Child

  Logan put the book down. “My God. Such a place really exists?”

  “It exists all right. You’ll see it before dark.” Rush shifted on the banquette. “Imagine: a region thousands of square miles across, not so much swamp as a labyrinth of papyrus reeds and waterlogged trunks. And mud. Mud everywhere, mud more treacherous than quicksand. The Sudd isn’t deep, often just thirty or forty feet in places, but in addition to being horribly honeycombed with braided undergrowth, its water is so full of silt, divers can’t see an inch beyond their faces. The water’s full of crocodiles by day, the air full of mosquitoes by night. All the early explorers gave up trying to cross it and eventually went around. The Sudd may not be quite as remote or impassable today as it was in the times Moorehead wrote of, but it’s no picnic. It’s in a wide, shallow valley. And every year it spreads. Just a little, but it spreads. It’s like a living thing-that’s why we need such a narrow craft. Trying to traverse the Sudd is like threading a needle through the bark of a tree. Every day we have a recon helicopter that charts the shifting eddies, maps new paths through it. And every day, those routes change.”

  “So the vessel acts sort of like an icebreaker,” Logan said. He was thinking of the strange equipment he’d seen at the bow.

  Rush nodded. “The shallow draft helps clear underwater obstructions, and the propeller at the stern provides the raw power necessary to push through tight spots.”

  “You’re right,” Logan said. “It does sound like hell on earth. But why are we…” He stopped. “Oh, no.”

  Rush nodded. “Oh, yes.”

  “Good lord.” Logan fell silent a moment. “So Narmer’s tomb is there. But why?”

  “Remember what Stone said? Think about it. Narmer went to unprecedented lengths to conceal the location of his tomb. He actually went out of Egypt proper, past the six cataracts of the Nile, into Nubia-a dangerous journey into hostile lands. Given how early in Egyptian history this was-remember, this is the Archaic Period, the First Dynasty-it’s an accomplishment on the order of the Great Pyramid. Not only that, but Narmer is the only pharaoh not buried in Egypt-as you probably know, all pharaohs had to be entombed on Egyptian soil.”

  Logan nodded. “That’s why Egypt never colonized.”

  “Given all this, Jeremy-all this incredible effort and expense and risk-do you really think it likely that Narmer’s tomb contains little of value?”

  “But an impenetrable swamp…” Logan shook his head. “Think of the logistics involved in tomb building-especially for a primitive culture, operating in a hostile region.”

  “That’s the fiendish beauty of the thing. Remember how I said the Sudd spreads a little every year? Narmer knew that. He could build his tomb on what was then the edge of the Sudd, keeping its location secret. There’s a vast system of volcanic caves just below the surface of the Sudd valley. After his death, the swamp, expanding ever outward, would hide all traces of his tomb. Nature would do the job for him.” Rush’s face took on a troubled look. “Almost too well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You heard Stone. The site is up and running, smooth as clockwork. All the experts are in place, the technicians and archaeologists and mechanics and the rest. Only…” He hesitated. “Only the precise location proved a little more difficult to find than Stone’s experts assumed.” Rush sighed. “Of course there is the usual need for a low profile-not as much as on a typical site, of course, but it’s there nonetheless. And it’s the worst time of the year to work, too: the rainy season. It makes the Sudd that much more difficult and unpleasant and unhealthy a place to work.”

  Logan remembered Stone’s words: We are under some significant time pressures. “So why the frantic pace? Why not just wait for the dry season? The tomb has sat there for five thousand years-why not another six months?”

  As if in answer, Rush stood and beckoned Logan to follow him out of the saloon. They regained the deck and walked carefully forward to the bow. The sun was sinking toward the horizon, the pitiless white ball now an angry orange. The Nile spread out from the prow in thick undulating lines. The cry of waterbirds was giving way to strange trumpetings from either bank.

  Rush spread his hands. Glancing ahead, Logan saw a range of hills rising on both sides of the river, widening to form a vast amphitheater ahead of them, marching on into the distance where sight failed. “You see that?” Rush asked. “Beyond those is the Af’ayalah Dam. Already it’s nearing completion on this, the Sudanese side of the frontier. In five months, all this-everything, the whole useless godforsaken place-will be underwater.”

  Logan peered into the gathering gloom. Now he understood the hurry.

  As he peered thoughtfully into the water ahead, he began to notice bracken floating in the lazy current. First, just bundles of papyrus reeds. But then the reeds began forming small islands, attaching themselves to promontories of mud that rose out of the river like miniature volcanoes.

  “The dam provides us with a great cover story,” Rush went on. “We’re posing as a team researching the ecosystem, documenting it before it’s gone forever. But that layer of phoniness costs extra money, and, again, the longer it continues, the more difficult the deception becomes.”

  The boat began to slow as the debris grew thicker. Now Logan could see huge logs, twisted together as if in titanic struggle, moss and rotting weeds hanging from their flanks like so much webbing. A stench of decay and overripe verdure began rising around them. A door in the superstructure opened and two mates appeared, each carrying a strange, harpoonlike weapon attached to pneumatic hoses. They took up positions in the platforms on each side of the bow, leaning out over the water, devices at the ready.

  Suddenly, a floodlight snapped on in the forecastle, sending a shaft of surreal blue light ahead of the bow. The turbine throttled back still further. A light rain had begun to fall. The vegetation was growing ever thicker, a nearly impenetrable carpet of weeds and papyrus and branches and vile muck that now surrounded them. The men in the bow began using their pneumatic devices to violently push the heavier logs and clots of fibrous matting out of the way. Their machines made deep, ugly snuck, snuck noises. Ahead, in the narrow lane of open water the boat was following, Logan caught sight of a small light, bobbing in the swamp, flashing quickly in the reflected glow of the vessel’s searchlight. One of the mates fished it out as they passed.

  “The daily search chopper drops beacons as it charts a fresh path through this hell,” Rush explained. “It’s the only way for the boats to get through.”

  They crawled forward into an ever-thicker tangle of logs and bracken. The noises from the riverbanks-if indeed there were still any banks to be found in this morass-had all but ceased. It was as if they were now surrounded by an infinite riot of flora, dead and dying, all wedged into one colossal tangle. They waited in the bow, barely speaking, as the boat followed the line of flashing beacons. Now and then the path seemed to Logan to lead to a dead end; but each time, after making a blind turn, the fetid tangle of vegetation widened once again. Frequently, the boat had to use its own superstructure to push aside the oozing warp and weft.

  At one point they reached a spot through which there was no clear passage. Up in the pilothouse, Plowright, the captain, goosed the turbine; the vessel lifted bodily into the air and forced its way over the matted surface-twenty-five, fifty feet forward-with a horrible clanging and scraping along the underside. It became clearer than ever to Logan why the boat’s motive power, the huge fan, had been mounted atop the deck: any normal propeller would have been snagged in a minute. The two mates leaned forward over the bow, plying their pneumatic prods. The cloying heat, the stench of rotting vegetation, grew overpowering.

  “It’s been a long day,” Rush said suddenly, out of the fading light. “Tomorrow, you’ll meet some of the key members. And you’ll get what I think you’ve been waiting for the most.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The last piece of the puzzle. The one that answers your other quest
ion: why you, of all people, are here.”

  Here? Logan glanced ahead. And then, quite suddenly, he understood.

  The boat had made a sharp turn through a vast screen of knotted limbs and papyrus, and now a most unusual sight greeted Logan’s eyes. Ahead, floating on at least a half-dozen vast pontoon platforms, lay what appeared to be a small city. Lights twinkled from beneath countless mosquito nets. Canvas tarps the size of football fields were erected over the structures, shielding them from the sky. There was a faint hum of generators, barely louder than the whine of insects that hovered and dove in clouds around their boat. It was an outrageous sight, here in this most remote and dreadful of spots: an oasis of civilization that might just as well have been set down on one of Jupiter’s moons.

  They had arrived.

  8

  The airboat slowed to a crawl, gave a blast of its horn. Almost at once, a rectangle of lights came on beneath one of the huge tarps. Logan watched, fascinated despite his weariness, as a bank of mosquito netting was drawn back from beneath the tarp like a curtain from a theater stage. Slowly, they glided beneath the tarp and into a covered marina. To their left was another huge airboat identical to the one they were on; to their right, moored to short, floating piers, were numerous smaller craft and Jet Skis.

  Plowright maneuvered the vessel into its slip, and somebody in shorts and a flowered shirt trotted down the pier to tie them up. With a whisper, the external netting was drawn back into place. Logan glanced at it: beyond the glow and sparkle of the marina lights, the Sudd was a wall of blackness.

  Dr. Rush led the way down the gangplank and onto the pier. “This way,” he said, ushering Logan onto a walkway made of stamped metal, then through a doorway and down a long, tunnel-like floating pier and onto what seemed to be an immense, bargelike structure covered by another vast sheet of what appeared to be opaque Mylar, almost in the fashion of a circus tent.

  “Seven p.m., local time,” Rush added. Even at this hour the air was sticky and oppressive. From the darkness beyond the netting, Logan could hear, amid the patter of raindrops, a strange fugal drone of insects, frogs, and other less-identifiable creatures.

  He looked around. “Does this thing have a name?”

  Rush laughed. “Nothing official. Most people just call it the Station-after Heart of Darkness, I suppose. The six primary floating structures, the ‘wings,’ that make up the base are color coded, and they’re referred to by their colors. The one we’re entering now is Green. It’s where the back-office work of the expedition is done: interfacing with suppliers, transportation coordination, vessel and equipment maintenance, that sort of thing. It’s also the, ah, public face of the expedition-such as it is.”

  They were now walking down a narrow passageway, rather grimy and scuffed, studded with open doors. It was cooler inside this enclosed structure, and Logan noticed that the walls were, in fact, painted green. He peered curiously into the rooms on either side. They were full of computers, video cameras on tripods, whiteboards covered with diagrams and legends. Messy-looking laboratories-apparently, ecological and biological setups-had complete suites of scientific equipment and paraphernalia for collecting samples. The rooms all had one thing in common: they were dark, devoid of any activity.

  “What’s all this?” Logan said, nodding toward one of the open doors.

  “The public face I mentioned.”

  Logan shook his head. “Unique or not, why study something as godforsaken as this place?”

  Rush chuckled. “That’s exactly what the local government thinks-and what we want them to think. Why document a swamp that’s been universally reviled ever since it was first discovered? But of course they were happy to take some money in exchange for the necessary permits. That’s probably the only benefit of being situated here-nobody’s likely to drop in for a surprise visit. We had an official flown in when the site first went active. We didn’t make it easy to get here, and we were sure to turn off the air-conditioning while he was on location. We don’t expect any future interruptions-but of course, if necessary, these decoy labs and offices could be up and running within five minutes.”

  They made their way along Green’s central passageway, now passing offices that were, it appeared, real: Logan made out someone typing at a terminal, another speaking into a field radio. They turned down another passage, which led to a dark, circular opening covered by wide, ceiling-to-floor strips of semiopaque plastic. Logan was reminded of the mouth of a baggage carousel. Rush pushed his way past the plastic strips, and Logan followed. Suddenly, he was outdoors again, in a narrow tube of mosquito netting, supported by pontoons. It was pitch-black, and-if anything-the insect noise had increased, completely overwhelming the drone of the generators. Listening, Logan didn’t think he could bear to spend a night outdoors with such an infernal racket.

  As they traversed the long walkway, it rocked back and forth, and Logan could hear sucking, sopping noises emanating from beneath their feet. Clearly, they were moving from one of the primary floating barges to another.

  “All these structures are anchored to the bed of the Sudd,” Rush said. “Very precisely anchored, too-there can be no shifting, not even by so much as half a meter. Our work is dependent on GPS positioning. But you’ll see that for yourself soon enough.”

  “Remarkable.”

  “The most remarkable part isn’t even visible. As you might imagine, a swamp like the Sudd throws off a lot of methane. There are collection devices underneath each of the wings. The methane is concentrated and processed into clean-burning fuel in special chambers. Then it’s piped out to the two external generators. It’s also used as fuel for everything from the boats to the Bunsen burners. We’re almost completely energy independent.”

  “That’s amazing. Why doesn’t everyone do it?”

  “Well, rotting vegetation doesn’t cover the rest of the earth-thank God.”

  “Of course.” Logan laughed. “Isn’t it a little dangerous?”

  “Having natural gas pipes running through your house is probably dangerous, too. It’s a closed system, monitored twenty-four seven, the whole thing set up with a safety mechanism that’s fully automatic. And flying in thousands of gallons of oil and gas on a regular basis might raise eyebrows. Besides, Stone not only likes to fly below the radar but prefers to leave no trace behind, do as little damage to the environment as possible. This helps accomplish that.”

  They passed through another barrier into a second vast enclosure, this one painted a pale azure, the dome high overhead arching over cubicles with seven-foot walls. “This is Blue,” Rush said. “Crew quarters.”

  Activity here was more pronounced. They passed a recreation room with pinball machines and shuffleboard layouts; then a mini-library with comfortable chairs, magazines, and racks of paperbacks; next, a lounge where several groups of four were sitting around card tables, immersed in games. Logan could hear laugher, snippets of conversation in French, German, and English.

  “Believe it or not, bridge has become a tradition on Porter Stone’s digs,” Rush said. “It’s encouraged during off-hours. Stone believes that it gets people’s minds off the day’s stress, helps prevent brooding over the isolation and the separation from loved ones, while at the same time keeping the mind sharp.”

  “How many people are on the site?”

  “I don’t recall the exact number. Somewhere around a hundred and fifty.”

  They paused outside what appeared to be half commissary, half mess. “Want a bite to eat before I show you to your quarters?” Rush asked.

  Logan shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  “Let me get you something anyway, just in case.” Rush disappeared inside. Logan waited in the corridor, observing the activity within. There were at least a dozen people in the mess, eating dinner. The atmosphere was remarkably heterogeneous: scientists in lab coats were practically bumping elbows with rough-looking roustabouts begrimed by mud or motor oil.

  Rush reappeared in the doorway with a pap
er bag. “Here’s a BLT, an apple, and a can of iced tea,” he said. “Just in case you get peckish.”

  He led the way around a bend and into a dormitory area. The chatter was louder here: conversations, laughter, the blare of music from digital players, movies playing on laptops or flat-screen monitors.

  Rush stopped before a closed door marked 032. “This is yours,” he said, opening the door and ushering Logan inside. Beyond lay a room, spartan but neat, furnished with a desk, bed, two chairs, a closet, and a set of drawers flush with the wall.

  “They’ll bring your luggage ’round in a few minutes,” Rush said. “And tomorrow we’ll get you officially processed and start the orientation. But now you must be tired.”

  “Make that overwhelmed.”

  Rush smiled. “I have to check in with Medical. Want to meet for breakfast? Say, eight o’clock?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll see you then.” Rush grasped his shoulder, then turned and left, closing the door behind him.

  The soundproofing was better than expected: the noises in the hallway immediately sank to a murmur. Logan was setting his watch to local time when there came a knock on the door and his luggage was brought in by a young man with a thatch of carrot-colored hair. Logan thanked him, closed the door, then lay down on the bed. He wasn’t fatigued, exactly, but he needed a while to sort out in his head all the surprises and revelations of the last thirty-six hours. It seemed almost unbelievable: here he was, in a vast complex of platforms, connected by walkways, shrouded by canvas and mosquito netting, and everything floating atop a dismal swamp, hundreds of miles from anywhere…