‘I hate to break up a family reunion,’ said Sid sarcastically, ‘but we ain’t no closer to finding a way out of this hole.’
‘I’m afraid he’s right, Mr Bentley,’ said Verity. ‘We could really use your help again.’
She drew him a hasty sketch of how they had arrived at Ironheart, talking him through the stages of their adventure. His eyes opened wide when he heard about their encounter with Lucifer Stone in the missile room.
‘Stone’s here?’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘Then it’s as bad as I feared. Once he has those weapons, no one will be safe.’
‘We tried to stop him,’ said India. ‘We were going to blow up the geothermal plant before Stone got here. Perhaps we still can still do that?’
‘I doubt we can do anything from down here,’ said Calculus.
‘Calc’s right,’ said Verity. ‘The best we can hope for is to keep out of Stone’s way until he leaves.’
‘I know these tunnels like the back of my hand,’ said John Bentley. ‘I can lead you to an exit, but we’ll need to lie low for a while. We’re safe enough in here but the caverns are thick with Valleymen during the hours of darkness. In the meantime, perhaps I could offer you something to eat?’
He led them to a wide, dry cave that had been partially converted into a living space. There was a camp bed, some personal effects and a small wooden desk spilling over with papers and notebooks. India noticed a cracked and grubby photograph of her and Bella on the desk. Along one wall, a set of shelves groaned beneath a stack of canned goods bearing Russian labels. Bentley lifted down tins of beans, sardines and pears in syrup which he opened while Verity lit a small fire using a stack of Bulldog’s banknotes, striking a flame expertly using the edge of her hunting knife against a piece of flint. As the bedraggled group peeled off their wet layers and held out cold hands to the fire, the smell of oil and salted fish began to fill the air. India realized she was salivating.
‘You’ve got enough food in here to feed an army,’ said Bulldog as Verity draped a blanket over his shoulders.
‘Yes,’ said Bentley. ‘The rats have been at the dried goods but the tins are mostly fine and I can get fresh fruit and vegetables from the gardens when I need it.’
Bentley asked a stream of questions over the meal. India talked about home in between mouthfuls but she decided not to tell him about Roshanne’s scheme to marry her off to Clench just yet.
‘What about your friend over there?’ said Bentley. ‘Isn’t he going to eat?’ Sid had positioned himself as far away as possible at the other end of the cave and was sulkily cleaning his pistol.
‘He’s no friend of ours,’ said Clench.
On an impulse, India put some beans on a metal plate and took them over to Sid.
‘What do you want?’ he said suspiciously.
‘I thought you might want some food.’ She set the plate down carefully and backed away.
‘I didn’t ask you for nothing.’
‘Well don’t eat it then!’ she snapped. ‘See if I give a damn!’ She turned to walk away but he called after her.
‘Hey – how’s your metal man? Is he going to live?’ India was surprised to see that Sid looked almost concerned. ‘I thought my pa’d be pleased if I shot him. But he’s never pleased about nothing I do, so I’m sorry I done it now.’ India wasn’t sure if that was an apology or not. ‘You can tell your friends I ain’t about to kill none of them neither. Not unless they come trying to kill me first. There’s only one man I want to kill when I get out of here and that’s my pa.’ He went back to cleaning his pistol. ‘And thanks,’ he said as she walked away. ‘For the beans, I mean!’
Back at the fire she sat down next to her father and he patted her hand.
‘OK, Dad, tell us what’s been going on here – and don’t leave anything out!’
He poked the fire thoughtfully, sending a shower of paper sparks into the air. ‘I first found this place about three years ago,’ he began. ‘Angel Town had always been rife with rumours about a treasure trove in the mountains and the Company were offering huge rewards for information about its location. Every rigger had their own theories about where it might be and I had my own ideas too. I spent six months trying to talk to the local tribesmen but they just used to mutter something about mountain spirits and then refuse to speak to me. Eventually I met a crazy old woman who lived on her own in the forest – she was as blind as a stone.’
India’s eyes widened. ‘You mean Nentu. We met her too,’ she said. ‘She gave us a map showing us how to get here.’
Bentley looked surprised. ‘Well she didn’t do that for me,’ he said. ‘At first she sent me away without telling me a thing. But that night I had the most vivid dream I ever had in my life. I dreamed I was an eagle, flying over the landscape. I could feel the wind under my wings and sense the small creatures hiding from me in the forest. I saw the whole land; the mountain, the lake, the trees. And then I saw Ironheart, right here on the mountainside as clear as daylight. When I woke up I knew exactly where to find it.’ He stared absently into the fire. ‘Damnedest thing . . . When I finally got here I found the underground gardens and realized what a treasure trove this place really was.’
‘We saw them,’ said India excitedly. ‘They’re beautiful.’
‘There are seeds for every major food crop in the world in there. They have the potential to feed millions.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘I thought if I could bring the seeds back to London then people wouldn’t need to fight over every last scrap of food. It would be a new start for everyone. I wanted to catalogue the seeds properly and bring samples home before Stone or anyone else got here. But it was late in the season and I had to get back to London before the winter set in. I did my best to hide the location of Ironheart. Before I came back to London I burned all my records, then I programmed two small computer chips, one to hold all my notes and the other with the codes to operate the doors.’ He glanced at the pendant around India’s neck. ‘I never thought anyone would use them to follow me here, let alone my own daughter.’
India grinned.
‘When I returned in the spring Ironheart had changed. The mountains were being rocked by earth tremors and even the sky looked strange. When I got inside I had my first encounter with those foul creatures, the Valleymen. Nentu had warned me about them but even so I was absolutely terrified of them. But I was determined to save the seed vaults.’ He patted the bulky shoulder bag that lay beside him. ‘These are the best samples I could gather: wheat, barley, oats, fruit trees and vegetables, all carefully catalogued and packaged. The contents of this bag will ensure that the Hunger Wars are over for good. But the longer I stayed here, the more I was haunted by the feeling I was not alone. I became convinced that something was watching me, something ancient.’
‘I felt that too,’ said India with a start.
‘Whatever it was didn’t much like me being here,’ said Bentley. ‘The Valleymen were always out looking for me and I began to realize it was controlling them somehow.’
India shivered. ‘So why did you stay?’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you just leave once you had the seeds and come home? We needed you, Dad – I needed you.’
‘I meant to, India,’ he said. ‘But then I discovered something incredible.’ He took a deep breath. ‘There is something buried under these mountains, beneath Ironheart itself. Something ancient, an artefact, if you like, and its presence here changes everything.’
‘What do you believe this artefact to be, Mr Bentley?’ said Calculus. ‘You make it sound as though it was alive.’
Bentley nodded thoughtfully. ‘The artefact protects us,’ he said. ‘It has the power to determine whether we live or die. And, yes, I do believe it is alive and possibly even intelligent.’
The words stirred a memory in India. ‘Nentu’s Elder Spirit?’ she whispered.
Bentley nodded. ‘Perhaps.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Bulldog, ‘but you’ve lost me entirely. What is an Elder Spirit when
it’s at home with its feet up?’
‘Something that mad old crone was gibbering on about in the tent,’ supplied Clench. ‘No idea what she meant.’
Bentley stood up abruptly. ‘There’s no way to explain this without sounding like an utter lunatic, so the best thing is if I show you. But brace yourselves for what you’re going to see because nothing will ever seem quite the same again.’
CHAPTER 26
THE COPPER CAULDRON
He led them down a flight of concrete stairs to a corroded metal door. The space beyond was the deepest black, making them all hesitate on the threshold. Bentley fumbled for a switch and a series of overhead floodlights clanked on in sequence.
‘Holy mother of all riggers!’ said Bulldog. ‘Would you look at the size of this place?’
They stepped on to a metal gallery that ran around a cathedral of solid rock. The high roof was supported by natural stone columns and India guessed her entire village could have fitted comfortably inside the space. The chamber was dominated by an enormous copper cauldron. The rim stood twenty feet high and two hundred feet wide. At evenly spaced points around the rim, pillars made of the same metal rose towards the roof, curving and tapering gracefully like the petals of a vast copper tulip.
‘What is that thing?’ said Verity. ‘And who built it?’
‘It doesn’t look like it was built at all,’ said Bulldog. ‘It looks like it grew here.’
There wasn’t a hint of a join or a weld anywhere. The metal at the base appeared fused to the rock.
They peered over the lip of the cauldron, which sloped down to a yawning hole at the centre. Bentley picked up a stone and tossed it into the bowl. It rolled down the metal surface and dropped into the hole. They strained their ears for a sound.
‘Didn’t hear it hit the bottom,’ said Clench, using the sort of voice people usually reserve for church.
‘That’s because it’s still falling,’ said Bentley, ‘and it will be for several hours yet.’ He leaned back on the railings. ‘When I first came down here and saw this thing I was desperate to know what it was. I searched the offices for clues. That was when I found their records.’
‘Whose records?’ said India.
Bentley shrugged. ‘They were either the government or the military but they were very secretive about their work. All I know for certain is what I read in the files. About two hundred years ago a massive explosion completely devastated this entire region. Eyewitnesses said they saw a huge fireball. It caused a blast which flattened the trees for twenty miles in every direction. They thought it was a meteorite or an asteroid so they sent a scientific expedition out here to search for it. The team spent six months searching and found no trace of a meteorite or a crater anywhere. But what they did discover was this chamber and the artefact, right here under the lake.’
Verity and India exchanged baffled glances.
‘Their first thought was that it was some kind of weapon that had been put here by their enemies. But when they examined it more closely they got their first surprise.’ He looked at the cauldron. ‘What you see here is just the tip of it,’ he said slowly. ‘It goes down nearly a thousand miles.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Clench. ‘Nothing could go down that far.’
‘I hate to agree with Archie about anything,’ said Bulldog, ‘but that’s a quarter of the way to the centre of the Earth. I’ve been a rigger all my life and nobody’s ever made a hole that deep.’
‘No one in living memory,’ said Bentley. ‘Which leads me to their second surprise. When they ran more tests, they found the artefact was over twelve thousand years old!’
‘How is that possible – humans were still living in caves then,’ said Verity. ‘Who is supposed to have built it?’
‘They asked themselves the same question,’ said Bentley, ‘so they looked for anything that would give them a clue. They discovered that this cauldron tapped into the Earth’s magnetic energy field and that it had the potential to generate more electricity than all the world’s cities put together. After that they started to call it the machine. But it was still a complete mystery as to who had built it or what it was for.’
‘Then what?’ said India eagerly. ‘What did they find out?’
‘Nothing,’ said Bentley. ‘Over a hundred scientists came and went, carrying out thousands of tests. But nobody could say for certain what the machine was for or what it did. The only thing that did happen was that nearly everyone who worked here reported an unpleasant sensation of being watched all the time.’
India cast an involuntary look over her shoulder.
‘After a while it got so bad that no one wanted to stay here. So they finally locked up this room and forgot all about it. Later on, when the Great Rains started, they used the caverns for storage. The records got patchy after that. The Hunger Wars started and governments began to collapse. At some point during the enduring chaos, Ironheart was abandoned completely. I began to develop a theory. I thought that the machine and the asteroid might be connected somehow. Then it struck me.’ He leaned towards them, his eyes gleaming. ‘The expedition that first came here never found any trace of the actual asteroid. No craters, no fragments of rock, nothing!’
‘Well, meteorites don’t just disappear,’ said Clench. ‘It must have gone somewhere.’
‘There was only one explanation that fitted the facts,’ he said. ‘The reason they couldn’t find the asteroid was that it never reached the Earth. Before it could collide with the planet, this machine blasted it out of the sky – hence the explosion.’
Everyone began to talk at once.
‘You can’t shoot down an asteroid,’ said Verity. ‘They’re too fast.’
‘I know it sounds impossible,’ said Bentley, ‘but the facts back up my theory. This machine detected an asteroid while it was still in deep space and destroyed it before it could hit the Earth. Somehow the shamans in the region knew it was coming and led their people to safety. Incredible as it sounds, this is a machine designed to protect the Earth, and after twelve thousand years it’s still working!
An eerie feeling stole over India as she listened to her father’s story. She thought of the empty tents by the frozen lake, the absence of animals in the forest, and the earth tremors and shooting stars that had become more and more frequent on their journey. ‘It’s starting again, isn’t it?’ she whispered. ‘That’s what Nentu was trying to tell us. The machine, the thing she called the Elder Spirit, has detected another asteroid.’
‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ said Bentley. ‘Something is shifting underground, causing the earthquakes. Not to mention –’ he dropped his voice – ‘the cauldron storms.’
‘What’s a cauldron storm?’ said Clench, looking nervously at the machine.
‘It’s a term I came up with. Some sort of electrical energy storm that moves across the surface of the metal. The first time I saw one I made the mistake of trying to touch it and I got this for my trouble.’
He rolled up his sleeve and showed them an angry red scar that ran from his wrist to his elbow. India winced. ‘It’s always the same: first the earth tremors and then the cauldron storm. It scares the hell out of me every time. The first time was after I’d been here for eight months, then it happened again four months later and then eight weeks after that.’
‘Half the elapsed time between each event,’ said Calculus.
‘It’s a countdown,’ said India in a hushed voice.
‘Exactly,’ said Bentley. ‘I think it’s measuring the time until the asteroid arrives. What’s more, the storms are only a few hours apart now. I think the asteroid must be quite close.’
There was a stunned silence as they absorbed the implications of his words.
‘Well, what’s going to happen then?’ said Bulldog. ‘Is the machine going to shoot it down?’
‘I don’t know for sure,’ said Bentley, ‘but it is capable of producing an enormous amount of energy. If it did fire, it would probably release enough rad
iation to vaporize everything in Ironheart.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘The gardens, the seed vaults, everything would be lost.’
‘But not the warheads,’ said India. ‘Stone will have taken them. They’ll be the only thing that gets saved.’
‘There’s nothing we can do about that now,’ said Verity. ‘How long do we have before the asteroid arrives?’
‘Nentu said a “bringer-of-death” called Nibiru was going to come. She must have been talking about the asteroid. If she was right, then we have less than a day left.’
Bentley’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Good grief! I had no idea it would be here so soon.’ He looked around anxiously. ‘I must collect my seeds and then we have to leave immediately, before the machine fires.’ A faint tremor ran through the cavern and a light fall of dust and stones descended from the roof. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll show you how to get out.’
He led them around the outside of the chamber to a ventilation grille, which he pulled away to reveal a broad tunnel bored into the rock. There was a steady trickle of water running from it.
‘These tunnels drain the meltwater from the lake in the summer,’ he said. ‘It’s how I get in and out when I go hunting. They come out on the far side of the lake and I have a snow wagon parked up in the old boat shed.’
Verity crouched down and shone the torch into the narrow opening. ‘It’s a bit tight in there,’ she said, ‘but if we leave now we should have plenty of time to get to the lake and then make some distance before the machine goes off. Let’s collect everything together and get moving.’
‘Wait,’ said Calculus. ‘I am picking up some strange readings from the machine. I think one of Mr Bentley’s cauldron storms may be starting.’
They turned to look but nothing seemed to have changed.
‘We’re wasting time here,’ said Clench, ‘I say we—’
He stopped short.
A sound like distant thunder rumbled around the chamber and the gallery began to sway. India gripped one of the handrails for support as the floodlights crackled and dimmed.
Ironheart Page 18
