by Greg Keyes
They’d had to tranquilize Kong again, of course. His fight with Godzilla had left him exhausted, but they couldn’t take chances. They had dosed him while he slept and strapped him into the same harness they had used to transport him onto the ship in the first place. The ship had lasted long enough to get them within around two hundred miles of their objective before she could no longer support Kong’s weight.
From there it had been a long, slow flight carrying the Titan by helicopter. Wilcox had used what resources they still had to set up an in-flight refueling schedule, since there was no place to set down. They had cast a wide net, alert for Godzilla, but fortunately, the big lizard didn’t catch on to what they were doing. Either that, or he no longer cared.
Nathan rode in the back of one of the helicopters, along with Maia, Ilene and Jia. They had all donned their flight suits, so as to be ready to board the HEAVs as soon as it became necessary. He noticed Jia still had on her red shawl, now configured to serve as a hood. The girl watched with fascination as the sea became spangled with broken sheets of ice and eventually merged into the ice pack of the frozen continent.
He noticed Jia signing to Ilene.
“What’s she asking?” Nathan asked.
“Why everything is white,” Ilene responded.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess she’s never seen snow before.”
“There’s a lot of things she’s never seen before,” Ilene said. “There are a lot of things I’m not at all eager for her to see.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She shook her head. “It’s not your fault. Well, some of it is. But really it has just been a chain of events that started with Monarch first finding Skull Island in ’73. We should have left it alone, once we knew what was there. That he was there. But we didn’t. And I was a part of it, too. I could have studied anywhere, but it had to be Skull Island.”
“You didn’t cause any of this,” he said.
“I didn’t stop it,” she said. “When they started talking about setting charges in the Skull Island Vortex, to open it up for exploration, I knew it was a bad idea. I knew it in my bones. And I did nothing. So now Kong and Jia have no home. Unless you’re right. Unless it’s down there.”
“You don’t think it is?” he asked. “It’s your theory.”
“It’s still my theory,” she said. “But to paraphrase Thomas Wolfe—who was, by the way, paraphrasing Ella Winter—sometimes you can’t go home again.”
Nathan nodded, not so much because he was agreeing with her, but because it felt like the conversation had run its course. Everyone had regrets, and everyone had fears for the future. He had let that petrify him on the ship. He couldn’t afford that kind of indecision anymore. Hindsight was easy. Looking forward was hard.
He watched the frozen terrain of Antarctica go by beneath him.
“We’re getting close,” he said.
Ilene nodded, but didn’t say anything. Jia’s young face was creased with concern.
The moment of truth was coming. He had been thinking of Kong as a walking compass needle, a guide with no agenda of his own. That was why it had been easy to watch him anesthetized, loaded onto a ship, strapped down, made helpless against his foe. But now Nathan knew better. Jia and Ilene had always known better, had been trying to tell him all along. Finally he had to face the fact that the Titan not only had agency but was accustomed to exercising it. Used to being in charge of his own fate. And while Nathan could drag the proverbial horse halfway around the world, he could not make him drink. A captive Kong couldn’t lead them anywhere; it was entirely possible at this point that a freed Kong wouldn’t either. In this moment it all hinged on the Titan—and the tiny girl who had bonded with him.
They approached a vast, snow-covered canyon, far too symmetrical to have been made by nature. The immense, squared-off trench ended in a gigantic metal valve that was opening as they arrived. The canyon walls were covered in catwalks and entrances to interior space, like a city had been built into the vertical walls. The new, improved, slightly relocated Monarch Outpost 32.
The helicopter Nathan and the others were in settled on a helipad dug down into one end of the canyon, which formed a semi-protected hangar, as the other choppers landed Kong into the snow below. He was still sedated, of course. If he had awakened in flight, Nathan shuddered to think what would have happened.
“Where are the HEAVs?” he asked Simmons.
“Downstairs,” she said. “Warming up.”
He nodded, feeling the heaviness of the moment. Despite his pretensions to the contrary, deep down Nathan knew they were about to truly venture into the unknown. Walter Simmons and his daughter insisted these new vehicles could make the trip, survive the gravity inversion that had killed Dave and his team. And while Nathan believed he understood the physics of how the HEAVs operated, he was a geologist, not an engineer. And whatever trials the Apex scientists had put these things through, they had not yet encountered the only test that actually mattered. The Vortex itself.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Ilene said.
He followed her gaze to the enormous circular opening that had been bored in the ice-covered cliff and braced with a metal frame. He knew that the hole was usually closed by a dilating door, but that had already been withdrawn into the surrounding mechanism, leaving the way to Hollow Earth wide open. He nodded.
“I’ve only seen it in pictures,” he replied. “Back when we were trying to decide on an entry. It’s bigger than I thought. And they’ve … uh, done a lot with it.”
“This is where they found Monster Zero,” she said.
“Near here,” he said. “In fact, I didn’t even know about Ghidorah back in the day. That was above my security classification. I thought Outpost 32 was all about that.” He nodded at the opening below them.
“It seems like more than coincidence,” she said. “That Ghidorah should be frozen in the ice so near an entrance to Hollow Earth.”
Nathan nodded. “Lots of theories there,” he said. “Was Ghidorah going into the Vortex, or had it just come out of it? Or neither? The ice all around here is more than thirty million years old. The ice around Ghidorah was younger, based on the samples they took when they found it. And the structure of the ice is different; it clearly melted quickly and re-froze quickly. How did that happen? There isn’t enough evidence to land on a good explanation.”
Ilene was staring down, off to their left, at the entrance to the rift.
“It’s bigger than the one on Skull Island,” she said. “Why didn’t you use this one before?”
“Bigger means less stable,” he said. “Wait until you see it inside. The opening is comparatively small. You’ve seen those little burrows sand crabs dig in the beach? Just an inch or less in diameter? Those are pretty stable. Now imagine trying to dig a burrow ten feet in diameter in the same sand.”
“It wouldn’t hold,” she said.
“Right. The structural integrity of the sand doesn’t scale up. And it’s more than just that; I speculated that a larger opening also increases the intensity of the membrane. The acceleration will be even greater than in the Skull Island Vortex. Back then, math said nothing we could build would make it through. I thought at Skull Island we had a shot, but even there I miscalculated. But the HEAVs change everything.”
“You hope,” she said.
“That’s right,” he replied. “Look, it might be best if you and Jia—”
“If Kong goes, we go,” she said.
And there, of course, was the billion-dollar question. Would Kong go?
He noticed Jia signing something to Ilene.
“What?” he asked.
“Kong’s waking up,” she replied.
The cables snapped explosively from the net, and the helicopters turned and started to fly away.
Nathan looked down and saw the ape’s gargantuan eyelids fluttering open. Kong watched the helicopters leave, probably wondering what the hell was going on. Then he spotted them, looking do
wn on him from their balcony.
Nathan realized he was holding his breath. If Kong bolted now, it was all over. They might be able to capture him again, but that would further lower their chance of obtaining his cooperation. If they couldn’t, it was debatable whether the Titan would starve or freeze to death first.
This had to work. They could enter Hollow Earth without Kong, but it might take years to find what they were looking for. And with Godzilla gone mad, they did not have years. Or even weeks.
Kong scooped up some snow in his palm, looking puzzled, then angry. He roared as he sifted it through his fingers; he clearly did not approve of the frozen precipitation or his surroundings in general. How could he? He had spent all of his life on Skull Island, near the equator, where even the tallest mountain peaks had never known the kiss of snow or ice. There were no trees here, no underbrush, no waterfalls, and there had not been for tens of millions of years. It was difficult to imagine what Kong was thinking right now, what he believed was going on. How he would react.
It was easier to imagine, Nathan thought, as Kong clambered to his feet, who the Titan would blame for the situation. He had seen the intelligence in those eyes, the accusation. Kong knew who had done this to him.
Time to face the music, he thought.
Kong rose up from the frozen field below until his head was level with their perch. He stared right at them, anger evident on his features, so humanlike and so alien at the same time. His gaze switched between the three of them, as if weighing them somehow. Deciding something.
Then he huffed, reached down and scooped up more snow. He presented it to Jia, his brow furrowed. Nathan wasn’t an expert on Kong’s nonverbal communication, but it didn’t take a degree in ethology to figure this one out.
What’s going on? he was asking.
Kong was looking to Jia for the answer. That was a good sign. But Jia was no easier to control than Kong, was she?
Jia looked at Ilene, then back at Kong. The moment stretched out. Then, making her decision, Jia pointed to the Vortex.
Home, she signed.
That’s right, Nathan thought.
But when Kong looked at the rift, he seemed anything but convinced. Jia held up her little Kong doll, pointed to it, then back to the Vortex.
Nathan realized he was still holding his breath, and he was starting to get dizzy. He let it out and drew in the clean, cold air. But it did not make him feel more confident.
“It’s not working,” he said.
“Wait,” Ilene said. “Just wait.”
But that wasn’t good enough. All of those people who had died at sea, trying to get them here. And for what? It rested on a little girl being able to convince her god to do something he didn’t want to do. Kong had been told he was going “home” before, on the ship. Now he was in a strange, cold place—clearly not “home”—and now Jia was pointing him toward the only place around that looked even worse than where he already was.
“What…” Nathan said, thinking out loud. “What if she tells him that there are more down there? Like him?”
“We don’t know that,” Ilene said.
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Nathan demanded. “He’s not moving! We lost our entire fleet getting here. There’s no way back for him. And he can’t survive here. This is your theory. Hollow Earth is his home.”
* * *
As Kong’s options dwindled, for days Ilene had kept the despair at bay by trying to imagine alternatives. There were islands in the Pacific no one lived on. They were small, to be sure, but some were bigger than Kong’s containment had been. The ecosystem of Skull Island was destroyed, but before that destruction was complete, a team had collected seeds, spores, cell tissue, and even eggs from many of the doomed species. Why not populate some nowhere island with Skull Island flora and fauna, build a containment around it, and start again? It wouldn’t even have to be an island—they could build a preserve in some remote corner of the Congo or the Amazon Basin.
It was a nice thought. An alternative to the unknown. But now that they were actually here, on the precipice, the fantasy evaporated like morning dew in the desert. Even if she could get the funding and the staff to build such a place, it would still be cage, a zoo, a test tube. Kong would never be free, never in control of his own destiny. The next time somebody like Nathan came up with some “use” for Kong, he would be just as vulnerable—and the next person might not be as well-intentioned as Nathan.
Anyway, if Kong was anywhere in the known world other than in containment on Skull Island, odds were good that Godzilla would come for him again. On dry land, Kong might fare better in a rematch, might even beat Godzilla, although that was now hard for her to imagine—but it would also mean a return to the days of Titans fighting in human territory, and all of the destruction that meant. Even if he won, Kong would never be able to rest.
Down there, where she believed his species had originated—maybe he could. It was a chance, at least. And if Nathan was right, and the energy down there could also stop Godzilla—that was bonus points.
The way down was dangerous. Kong would not be in a HEAV. But the evidence was that Titans had been making the transition from the surface to Hollow Earth for millions—maybe hundreds of millions—of years. Their size and biological make-up must be adapted to the dangers posed by the Vile Vortex.
Kong’s species had come from Hollow Earth, of that she had no doubt. So there might be more of his kind down there. It wasn’t a lie to tell him so. To give him hope. He had been the only one of his kind since moments after his birth. On some level, he must long to meet others.
“All right,” she said, turning to Jia. All right. Tell him there could be more like him. Inside.
Family? Jia signed.
She didn’t want to lie to Jia. I don’t know, she said. I hope so.
Jia considered her for a moment, then turned back to Kong.
Your family might be down there, she signed.
Kong looked toward the entrance to the Vortex again, then back at Jia, who nodded incrementally. Kong held her gaze for a moment. He finally vented a loud huff .
Then he turned and strode toward the entrance.
Nathan stared after him, looking a little stunned. Then, as if suddenly remembering there was more to all of this, he sprang into action, grabbing the radio transmitter.
“He’s going right now!” he announced. “Prepare to launch! Everyone to your stations, we need to go now!”
And then everyone started moving at once.
Techs led them downstairs to the hangar where the HEAVs were waiting. Nathan had seen photographs of them, but this was the first time he’d seen them in person. They were compact, blunt-nosed craft, a bit on the boxy side. Not nearly as aerodynamic or sleek as a jet.
“Where are the wings?” Ilene asked.
“Oh,” Nathan said. “No, they don’t have those.”
Instead of wings they each had four stubby projections that resembled ramjets, one forward and one aft on each side. When the craft were at rest, the cylinders were vertical, and would act as hover jets to lift the craft from the ground. Once they achieved airspeed, they would rotate back to act as thrusters. Despite appearances, however, the engines were not ramjets, or jets of any kind, but were instead drives that manipulated gravity to create propulsion.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll vouch for them. You and Jia ride in that one. Simmons and I will take this one. See you down there.”
“Kong’s got such a big head start,” she said.
“We’ll catch him,” Nathan said, fervently hoping he was right. He had not expected Kong to just bolt like that. It seemed that when the Titan made a decision, he didn’t hesitate.
Maybe he could learn a thing or two from Kong.
* * *
After she helped Jia strap into the HEAV and secured herself, Ilene nervously listened as the pilots went through their checklists. Jia alternated between watching the pilots flip switches and looking off af
ter Kong, or rather, where he had gone, for he was now nowhere in sight.
The three HEAVs kicked off in unison, turning to enter the rift.
Ilene had studied diagrams of the Antarctic entrance on the ship coming over and had been trying to get its measure when they had touched down, but there really wasn’t much to see beyond a hole in the ice. As they entered it, though, it looked pretty much like a tunnel, reinforced with some sort of bands. It looked as regular and symmetrical as a subway tube, and for a moment that was reassuring. Then she understood why: the tunnel had been drilled through the ice pack to reach the caves beyond, which—as they drew within sight—she saw were much more unruly. In an instant the regular, predictable shaft was behind them, and they entered a sprawling natural cavern far wider than it was tall, branching off in all sort of directions. Steel I-beams had been placed into the stone like braces in an old-fashioned mine, presumably to increase the stability of the caverns. She remembered Nathan’s tunnel-in-the-sand analogy and was not reassured.
The HEAVs flew through this nightmare at a ridiculous clip, and studying the craft in front of hers Ilene could now see a pearlescent energy wrapped around what she presumed were the engines, spinning like mad on the side projections and emerging as something like exhaust from the rear jets. It did not look like any form of combustion, and she half remembered Maia jabbering on about a gravity drive or something and wished she had paid more attention.
Not that it really mattered. The engines were clearly working, and right now the how of it didn’t matter.
“There he is,” she heard Simmons say, over the intercom connecting the three craft.
And indeed, there was Kong, up ahead of them, brachiating, swinging from one steel brace to the other as if the whole thing was a set of monkey bars built to the scale of a god. She thought once again about Nathan’s analogy of a tunnel through sand and suppressed a shudder. Kong weighed … a lot. What if the tunnel couldn’t withstand the force he was subjecting it to? They were right behind him, moving far too quickly to slow down, much less stop if the passage collapsed.
She noticed the tunnel was tending decidedly downward now, growing steeper and steeper as they went.
