'I don't know how, though. Anyway, it's irrelevant. What you're holding will be enough to save Lauren and your unborn child. Come, Ross,' she said, leading him back into the light of the garden. 'Let's return to the others and tell them we're leaving.'
As Ross clasped the crystal he knew he should feel grateful. But as his eyes strayed back to the tunnel, doubt nagged at him.
Chapter 54.
That night
Hackett shook his head at Sister Chantal. 'Do you know how many expeditions the big pharmaceutical companies have sent into the jungles of the world, looking for plants with healing properties? Hundreds. Thousands. They've found a few things but never a real breakthrough. Nothing like this. This place is incredible. It's got everything. It's a comprehensive medicine cabinet. It's our duty to share it with the world.'
Sister Chantal shook her head. 'Nothing living here can survive outside. The water and the plants are useless. More importantly, you all made a vow before you came. You promised never to speak of this place or to take anything from it.'
'But it's too amazing to be kept secret.'
'You made a vow and vows must be kept.'
'And I'll keep it. It's just that as a doctor--' Sister Chantal's passion flared. 'You can't equivocate with a vow. A vow is black and white. There's never a plausible excuse or justifiable reason to break it. You either keep a vow or break it. There's no middle ground. A vow is for ever.'
The sun had set and they were sitting round a small fire towards the top of the eye. They had had dinner and were now drinking coffee, arguing about the place in which they found themselves. Ross could sympathize with Hackett's view but earlier, when he'd shown Zeb the crystal concealed in his backpack and told her about his experience in the cave, she had sided with Sister Chantal. 'Ross, Lauren translated the Voynich. She deserves to be saved by the garden. In return, Sister Chantal will expect her to protect it. If Falcon and Sister Chantal believe that whoever translated the Voynich should determine what happens to this place they couldn't have chosen a more responsible person than Lauren. And I'll tell you now: the last thing Lauren would do is tell the world about it. Not until she knew what the world would do with it.'
Sister Chantal turned to the others. 'You will all honour the vow.' It was a command.
'Yes,' said Zeb, quickly.
Sister Chantal looked at Mendoza. 'And you?'
Mendoza met her gaze. 'People would pay anything to come to this place and be cured. But we have enough gold in the lost city. I'll keep my vow,' he said solemnly.
'But, Sister, why don't you want to tell the world about it?' pleaded Hackett. 'Think of the good it could do.'
'For whom?' said Zeb.
Hackett turned to her, surprised. 'For humanity, of course. This place will save lives.'
'But who will save this place?'
'What do you mean?'
'This place is a resource and not just for humanity. What do you think man would do with it if he found it?'
'Use it to heal, of course.'
'This small garden to heal the whole population of the Earth? Who chooses who to save first? Who takes priority before it's depleted and destroyed? And what do we do after we've exhausted it and killed all the living creatures here just to prolong our lives?'
'We could conserve it,' said Hackett.
Zeb laughed. 'The only thing mankind conserves are ruins - and I use the term mankind advisedly. We're crap at conserving living resources. Not until we've used them up or turned them into ruins. Only then, when it's too late, do we suddenly get all misty-eyed. Sister Chantal's right to keep this place secret.'
'But what if the pharmaceutical industry could analyse what's here?' demanded Hackett. 'We saw how important the spring water was to the lost city. It could contain stem-cell regenerators, electrolytes, amino acids. They could synthesize it. Make a limitless supply.'
Zeb laughed again. 'We also saw what happened to the lost city when the water dried up. Even if they could unlock this place's power, do you suppose the pharmaceutical industry - that paragon of ethics, morality and altruism - would give it away free?'
'They could make it affordable, at least.'
'Have you ever known any pharmaceutical company make anything affordable - particularly something as valuable as this - let alone give it away free? Just look at what's happening with HIV drugs in Africa. Even if they did give it away would that be a good thing? Think about it: a world with no more death or disease, just an ever-growing population, everyone needing their fix to keep them healthy and alive. Anyway, this place would put the pharmaceutical industry out of business overnight. They'd have to destroy it before it destroyed them.'
For all Zeb's pessimism, Ross feared she was right. If this was an alternative to oil he knew what his industry would do: exploit it or bury it.
Hackett was about to respond when Sister Chantal raised a hand, like a referee in a fight. 'Nothing in here can be synthesized,' she said. 'I had a sample analysed a few years ago and, apart from some amino acids and a low level of radioactivity, they found nothing. The synthesized version was useless.'
'They found nothing?' said Hackett. 'No stem-cell promoters? Nothing that might explain how it repairs DNA?'
The nun shook her head.
'I suspect that what drives life in this place is a precursor to DNA,' said Ross.
Hackett thought for a moment. 'You mean this whole place could be working on something like RNA? Or something even more primitive?'
'Whatever's the most primitive form of life,' said Ross. 'As a geologist the only way I can explain this place is if it's a throwback to when life first began on Earth. It may even be the place where life began. If DNA is like the Microsoft Windows software of life, then whatever's behind this garden is DOS or whatever came before that. This is the base programming behind DNA. The stuff that makes DNA. It might not exist anywhere else in the world. That's why labs can't detect it. They've never seen it before. They've no idea what they're looking for.'
Hackett was nodding. 'It seems as if every organism here has evolved different phenotypes from those in the outside world. Part of that could be environmental, due to its isolation, but a greater part could be that it stems directly from a more primitive genotype.'
'What the hell's the difference between a phenotype and a genotype?' asked Zeb.
'A genotype is an organism's genetic makeup, its book of instructions,' said Hackett. 'A phenotype is its physical form, what it looks like, determined by genes and environment. For example, your hair, skin and eye colour are largely determined by your genotype but expressed in your phenotype. The point is most creatures have evolved separate genotypes and phenotypes. The human genotype, for example, uses its phenotype to survive - by making our bodies want to have sex so we pass on our genes. But many evolutionary biologists believe that the first living organisms were so basic they were just bundles of instructions. The genotype was the phenotype. The software was the hardware. There was no secondary body. If life here is as primitive as Ross believes, then the base genotype, the original instructions for life, might still exist in its primal form, whatever that is.'
'This place can't be explained by science,' said Mendoza, solemnly. 'It's sacred. It's too important to be left to scientists or businessmen. Only the Church can know what's best for a place like this.'
'Which church?' said Sister Chantal.
Mendoza frowned disapprovingly. 'You're a Roman Catholic nun. There's only one church that can decide what's best for this place.'
Sister Chantal shook her head. 'A great man, a priest, once said that this place was the Garden of God and I believe him. It is sacred. Too sacred for any church or religion to control.' She gave a weary sigh. 'Let me tell you how this place was discovered and why my friends, Ross and Zeb, accompanied me here.' For the next few minutes she talked about Orlando Falcon, the Voynich, Lauren Kelly and Father General Leonardo Torino. Hackett and Mendoza listened, rapt, until she was finished.
But Men
doza was unconvinced. 'Sister, you'd rather entrust the future of this garden to a woman lying unconscious in hospital than to your own church?'
'Once Lauren Kelly has been cured I can hand over my burden. I'm simply fulfilling my vow. No more, no less. All I ask is that you fulfil yours.'
Hackett turned to Ross. 'You think the Father General could have been behind your wife's injury?'
'I've no proof, but I wouldn't put it past him after what happened with the bandits on the river.'
'But he's a senior officer of the Roman Catholic Church!' said Hackett.
'Then I guess they must really want this place.'
'So when do we leave?' asked Zeb.
'Tomorrow. We'll return first to the lost city.' Sister Chantal turned to Hackett and Mendoza. 'For your gold. Then Ross, Zeb and I shall go back to America.'
Hackett laid a hand on Ross's shoulder. 'We may have lost Juarez,' he said sadly, 'but it appears our trip into the jungle wasn't totally in vain. We all found what we were looking for.'
'Yes, I suppose we did.' But even as he said it, Ross thought of the light emanating from the tunnel of blood: the source. It was now clear that the garden and its unusual life forms were merely physical expressions of the miraculous powers that had drawn him here. The true source of the miraculous garden, and possibly life itself, was what Hackett had called the base genotype. And when he thought of its power and his desire to ensure Lauren's recovery, he realized that, despite the crystal in his bag, he might not have everything he had come for. Not yet, anyway.
Chapter 55.
The next morning Ross woke early and while the others slept he stole into the forbidden caves. He wasn't sure what he hoped to achieve, only that he had to explore the caves one last time before he left. As he entered, he wondered how old they were. He guessed that radioactive dating would place them at, or near, the dawn of creation.
In the half-light he saw two white figures in the pool, picking shards of crystal rock from the water and gnawing at them with small but impressively sharp teeth. Their translucent flesh seemed to pulse in the gloom. Immediately they saw him, they stopped and opened their mouths in song. Their voices filled the cave, building in a crescendo, then stopped abruptly. They didn't move, just watched him. So he mimicked their singing, note for note.
They opened their mouths again. This time they sang a higher, more complex sequence of notes.
Again Ross copied it.
One of the nymphs came closer. It had red flowers in its frondlike hair. Its mouth widened and a chattering sound came from it, like laughter. Close up the creature was disconcerting. Its large eyes reminded him of a Disney cartoon, but when he looked into them he couldn't see any emotion - any connection. Its mouth, full of sharp animal teeth, confirmed that it was no human. And yet, when he copied its sounds, it responded. He wondered if Orlando Falcon, the brilliant linguist and communicator, had done something similar all those centuries ago. Had he formed a bond with these creatures, especially after the conquistadors had been killed? Were they his only companions while he was stranded in this strange, dangerous paradise? Had he come to see them as a simpler, more innocent version of humanity, harking back to a time before we were corrupted?
Ross tried an experiment. He created his own sound - but as soon as he uttered the first note he knew it wasn't original. He was unconsciously reproducing the alien scales from Spielberg's CloseEncounters of the Third Kind. But when he stopped, the nymph copied him. Perfectly.
He tried another tune: the James Bond theme. Again the nymph reproduced it immaculately. Now more of them were emerging from the gloom, all keen to watch the parlour game.
He waited and his new friend, the nymph with red flowers in its hair, made another series of sounds. Unlike Ross's movie scores, the nymph's notes sounded random with no discernible tune or melody, the difference between prose and poetry. Nevertheless, he repeated the sequence and the nymphs resumed their laughter-like chattering.
He had begun to hum the Pink Panther theme, when a scream stopped him. The short, piercing sound made his skin crawl. The nymphs fell silent and turned as one to the back of the cave. Ross followed their gaze. In the gloom, among the mass of tubular stems, he saw one of the pods open to reveal a nymph with a huge, distended belly. Between its spread legs, curled in a foetal ball, was another nymph, greyer in colour but not much smaller than the mother - if that was what it was. The 'child' moved, and three of the watching nymphs lifted it from the pod and carried it to one of the pools, where they ground up shards of crystal between their teeth and fed it to the newborn, mouth-to-mouth. As it swallowed their offerings, it brightened to the radiant white of the others.
Four other nymphs walked to the pod and lifted the mother. Its colour was also changing, darkening, like that of a dead fish losing its freshness. The musky, mustard-seed smell he had detected yesterday was stronger now. The creature seemed barely alive but the other nymphs made no attempt to revive it in the pool, as they had with the newborn. Instead, they lifted it on to their shoulders and carried it towards the entrance to the tunnel of blood, where they stopped.
Six other nymphs rushed from the cave and returned with fruit and plants. There was a lull as they formed a procession behind the quartet bearing the dying mother. As if on some invisible cue, they began to sing, a fractured, haunting melody, as they entered the tunnel and climbed the path beside the rushing stream.
Ross looked around the cave. The other nymphs were occupied with the newborn. He hesitated, heart pounding, feeling the crystal in his bag, knowing he should be grateful for what he had and walk away. He couldn't, though. Not yet. He followed the procession into the tunnel of blood.
Chapter 56.
Ross hung back, keeping a discreet distance from the nymphs. The meandering path was wet and uneven but his Timberlands held their grip on the crystal-encrusted steps. As he climbed he became aware of two things: the tunnel was long, and it appeared to get brighter the further he went.
He estimated he had been walking for about fifteen minutes when the nymphs stopped singing. The light was now so bright it seemed to bleach everything. Unable to see without squinting, he pressed himself into a recess in the wall and put on his sunglasses. Now he could marvel at the gilded crystal rock that surrounded him. It was more dramatic even than the amazing formations in the vast Lechugia caves of New Mexico.
Peering out of the recess he saw that the tunnel ahead curved and widened to form a chamber with a small waterfall. The ground there was flat but beyond it the path rose to another level, leading to the light above. On this higher level, by the top of the waterfall, the tunnel widened again to form another small chamber to the right of the main path, its walls pockmarked with a warren of small holes and tunnels. Each was pitch black, beyond the reach of the light, but as he stared at the holes he thought he saw dark shapes writhing within them. Two spots of red flickered, then disappeared into the shadows, reminding him of the crocodile-infested river. A shudder rippled through him.
The nymphs had congregated at the base of the waterfall. Three, laden with the fruit and plants, approached the path to the higher level. As they climbed, the others again burst into song. This time it was more a chant, an incantation: two notes repeated again and again.
As the sound reverberated round the walls, the three nymphs reached the upper level and walked to the right, into the centre of the chamber. They placed the fruit and plants on the ground in front of the holes. Then, as soon as they'd returned to the others, the chanting stopped. Within seconds the upper chamber exploded into a writhing orgy of violence. Long dark shapes shot out of the holes and tunnels and attacked the food. They didn't linger, just tore at the fruit and plants and retreated to their lairs. Then they launched another attack, repeating the frenzied process until there was nothing left. It was over so fast that it was hard to make out what had happened.
When the food was gone and the creatures had retired to their holes, Ross could still see them shuffling restlessly,
red eyes staring. The nymphs started their chant again and the creatures froze. This time four nymphs carried the dying one to the same spot where the fruit had been left. It whimpered but didn't struggle when the others laid it down and retreated to the lower level. Again, when the chanting stopped, the creatures twisted out of the walls like missiles, their long worm-like bodies never leaving the holes entirely. This time the feeding frenzy took longer and Ross watched in horror as the dark, armour-plated beasts drilled through their prey, extracting circular chunks of flesh from the nymph, then retreating to their holes and propelling themselves forward again. In seconds the screaming nymph had been shredded. In a little more than a minute it had been consumed.
When it was over the nymphs made their way back down the tunnel, reverting to the same fractured melody they had sung on the way up. Ross pressed himself deeper into the recess to watch them pass. It seemed that even in this miraculous paradise nature had to maintain a balance, however cruel. For every birth there had to be a death. One in, one out.
As soon as the singing receded, he ventured out to where they had been standing and looked up to the next level. Ahead, he could see the tunnel leading to the source of light. To its right was the dark chamber, its walls pocked with tunnels and holes. A jutting shape, which didn't fit with the crystalline rocks, caught his eye. It took him some seconds to see that it was a sword. Its blade was encrusted with crystals but the handle and hilt were clearly recognizable. He looked round and saw, encased within the rocks, a breastplate punched with holes and half of a helmet. All lay only a few yards from the dark holes and in that instant he knew they had belonged to the ill-fated conquistadors who had climbed this passage to what they thought was treasure. He thought again of the passage in the Voynich.
The scholar priest watched each of them disappear into the tunnel andfor many minutes nothing happened. Then the screaming started. Andthe stream turned red with their blood.
If they had kept to the path on the upper level the conquistadors would still have fallen prey to the rock worms. Their armour and weapons, invincible against the Inca, were useless against such predators. He shuddered at the image of twenty-one men being butchered like the nymph. No wonder it had been a bloodbath.
the Source (2008) Page 21
