by Greig Beck
In addition, the rock that Jamison had perched on and had probably stood in place as a silent sentinel for tens of thousands of years also toppled into the hole to follow the floating people.
The upper caves grew silent again, perhaps waiting for the warm and soft humans to return one day.
*****
Michael dreamed that he was Peter Pan soaring through the night air. His mother used to read him the story in bed when he was only six years old, and he hadn’t thought about it since then.
He was leading Wendy and the Lost Boys to Neverland, a place beyond the horizon and bound only by one’s imagination. But this time, Wendy had Jane’s face, and the Lost Boys were Andy, David, and even Angela all shouting to him, waving small pointed swords and displaying immense bravado.
They were all being pursued by a flying pirate ship that before his eyes transformed into a giant amoebic green blob. The fungal blob screamed in Ronnie’s voice.
Wendy shouted at him again, and he looked back dreamily to see her face contorted. He doffed his small green cap with a red feather in it and blew her a kiss, just before he crashed into solid rock.
Michael came instantly awake. He was lying at the foot of a huge stalagmite that reached a hundred feet into the air.
“Ouch.” He rubbed his head and looked upward.
High above him hanging down to meet the stalagmites were equally large stalactites. Some had joined up and formed columns but most looked like colossal daggers.
Jane was immediately beside him. “We were yelling—you were asleep and wouldn’t wake up.” Jane gently wiped his forehead with a cloth. “You were smiling. Was it a nice dream?”
“Yes, Wendy.” He winced and reached up to take the cloth from her. There was blood on it. He smiled at the concern on her face. “Don’t worry about it. I’m okay.”
“Don’t feel too bad—we all probably nodded off. We’ve been floating for nearly 20 hours.”
David, the only one with medical training, crouched beside him. “How do you feel?”
“Sore.” Michael touched his forehead again.
“How many fingers?” David held up a hand, showing three fingers.
“Eleven.” Michael pushed his hand away. “Three, I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“Luckily, the gravity well ended and we were slowing down anyway. But even striking a stone column at little more than walking pace will give you a nasty headache.” He waggled a finger at him. “Never sleep-fly, doctor’s orders.”
Michael laughed and carefully rose to his feet, hanging onto Jane’s arm. “Where are we?”
Michael looked around, noticing he could see without the glow of the headlamps, and actually had to squint a little from the red light.
“We’re here,” Andy called from near another column. He turned to stare out again, his eyes wild and wide. “We’re at the center of the Earth.”
EPISODE 03
“What pen can describe this scene of marvelous horror; what pencil can portray it?” ― Jules Verne
CHAPTER 14
Michael walked as fast as his stiff legs could manage to the columns of stone that formed colossal prison bars and jumped up to peer through.
His mouth dropped open. “Oh my God.”
He blinked and tried to organize his senses. Imagine sweet music after years of silence. Imagine color after only ever seeing in black and white, or perhaps tasting fine food after living on gruel. After days and days in the pitiless darkness of the cave, and only seeing life within a halo of white light, this world tore at his mind.
“What do you see?” Angela called up to him.
“I dream with my eyes open,” he whispered. It was one of his favorite quotes from Jules Verne, and it was never more appropriate than now.
Michael had read the works of Verne, studied Katya’s notes drawn from her own experiences, and also as much of the legacy of the Russian alchemist who influenced the author, all with the intensity of a student cramming for a final exam. And after all that he had hoped, but still didn’t fully believe, that what they wrote and talked about was real. And yet now, here it was.
“A world.” He leaned forward. There was an endless pellucid sea, with small waves breaking softly on a coal-black sandy beach. Its water seemed a burnished red and his gaze was drawn upward.
He grinned open-mouthed and pointed. “Look.” He turned briefly to Jane. “The sky.”
There was a boiling red liquid furnace miles above them but still plainly visible. As he had suspected and as detailed in Katya’s papers, it was the remains of the outer magma core swirling in its molten form.
He found it hard to get his head around that where he stood, he was upside down to the outer surface, and was staring upward at, and not down at, the core. Between that boiling magma and the atmosphere of this world was a layer of volcanic glass perhaps thousands of feet or even miles thick, providing heat and light insulation.
“I take it all back. Katya was right,” Jane said at his side.
He shook his head. “I never really expected it to be real.”
There was a splash from out in the ocean and their heads were dragged down. On the surface of the sea, huge ripples were moving away from something that had submerged just a hundred feet from the shoreline.
“Did something just fall in there?” Angela asked.
“No, see just a few hundred feet out to the left?” Andy pointed. “Those ripples moving along the water’s surface are caused by a moving body in, or under, the water. There’s something alive in there. And by the size of those motion waves, something pretty big.”
Michael sighed. “Magnificent.”
“What now?” Jane asked.
Michael turned to her. “I don’t know. I never really expected to be here looking at this.” He shrugged. “We explore, I guess.”
David put his hand over his eyes and looked up, squinting. “For how long? By my estimation, we’ve been gone from the surface for around two full weeks. We have few supplies left, and I can smell brine, meaning that body of water is not drinkable.”
Michael nodded. “I hear you. We’ll spend a day or two resting, and then…” He leaned even further through a gap in the columns and looked to the side, “…I want to see what’s along the beach. There’s something down there.” He pulled back in. “If it’s seawater, with life, then I’m sure there’ll be food if we forage.”
“Just remember, we have no idea what’s safe to eat or drink,” Angela said. “Remember Ronnie.”
“There’s risk, and there’s acceptable risk,” Michael said. He straightened. “I’m going to take a quick look. Everyone else, wait right here.”
Michael was first to climb between the colossal columns and leap down. His feet crunched on the black crystalline sand, and he walked a few paces toward the waterline.
The first thing he noticed was the amount of heat he felt on his face and neck. He felt giddily excited in his stomach.
The entire world was a giant cave of impossible proportions. And the humid sea glittered in a sparkling Titian under a red sky. It even had clouds suspended overhead. It’s so big, I bet it has its own weather, he thought.
He inhaled the salty sea air, and then let it all out. “Hallo-oooo!” There was no echo, as it was too big.
He turned, his arms still spread, grinning. He saw his team still behind the massive columns that looked like colossal melted candles. The cave they were in wasn’t easy to see, as it had mostly grown closed by the stone formations. Water ran down the sides of the columns and showed the layers of sparkling minerals were still being added to the stone growths. Eventually, the cave would be totally sealed over by nature.
Looking up, he saw that running on either side of him was a huge cliff face and its striations were all manner of layers that could have reached all the way back to the origins of the planet.
“Come on!” he yelled.
Before the words were even out of his mouth, Andy had leaped through to sprint down the sand.
When the group had all joined Michael, he laughed loud and held his arms wide. “I’ve dreamed of this.” He turned. “Am I still dreaming now?”
“If you are, we are. I guess it’s real, alright.” Jane smiled broadly. “And I still don’t believe it.”
He pointed along the beach. In the sea-misted distance, Michael could just make out where the cliff faces ended and perhaps something started that might have been a forest of trees.
“Worth checking that out. If it’s some sort of plant growth, then that might mean herbivores for us to catch for dinner.”
“Herbivores also attract carnivores,” Jane said and raised her eyebrows. “Just saying.”
“Also fish or shellfish.” Andy crouched and scooped up a handful of the sand. He held it out.
There were tiny shells in among the grains of dark sand. Some were the typical conical spirals, and others flat shells. But there were also purple, black, and dark-reddish spiked shells that looked more like tiny spiders.
“Notice the coloring,” Jane said. “Putting on my biology hat, I’d say those colors are due to the red light influencing their design and also their camouflage palette.”
“Are they the same as on the surface shorelines?” Michael asked.
Jane shrugged. “Some sure look like it. As you said, either some of the ocean poured in during a sort of great cataclysm in the long distant past, or there’s been concurrent evolution.”
Angela frowned. “Say what evolution?”
Jane got to her feet and dusted her hands off. “It’s where similar species of plant or animal can evolve to look exactly the same as each other, even though they might have been separated by time, geography, or maybe even a common ancestor. The similar environments had simply created a creature to fill a niche that suited that environment.”
“Sounds weird,” Angela added.
The group walked along the shoreline, their feet scrunching on the sand and shells. Andy walked right down at the water line, his eyes fixed on the clear water.
“I can see fish, plenty of them, but they’re only minnows.”
“We could make a net out of our underwear, if need be,” David said.
“David, I love you, but I’m not eating anything you catch in your underpants,” Angela giggled.
David chuckled. “Come on, it gets a wash and we catch some dinner at the same time—everybody wins.”
“Whoa, see that?” Andy pointed. “The fish all took off. They must have heard us talking about catching them.” He walked a few paces closer to the water, his shoes actually at the lapping waterline.
Michael turned, half-distracted, and saw the v-shaped waves about a hundred feet from shore, heading arrow-like right toward the young caver. Alarm bells rang in his head.
“Andy, get back!”
“Wha…?” He turned, saw Michael’s expression, and whipped his head back around.
In an explosion of water, a massive torpedo shape barreled up the shallows and came at him. Andy was fit and quick enough to react and he dove to the side as huge jaws snapped in the air where he had been standing.
“What the hell?” David’s voice was high-pitched as they all stared at the monstrous thing that had beached itself.
The creature was heavily armor-plated and dappled with blue and gunmetal gray stripes. Large prominent eyes on stalks swiveled to watch Andy, as the huge jaws still worked, opening and closing as though its brain had forgotten to let the mouth know it had missed its opportunity.
It flipped, made a grunting noise, and flipped again, crushing the sand and shells beneath itself, before managing to turn its bulk back into the water. In another few seconds, a huge scythe-like tail thrashed, showering the shore in seawater before it headed back to the depths.
“What…the hell…was that?” Andy jumped to his feet. He pointed. “That thing tried to eat me.”
“Did you see?” Jane said. “It knew it could get back to the water. It’s used that ambush technique before.”
Michael shook his head, but Jane put a hand over her eyes to stare out at the red ocean.
“That armor plating…I think it was a placoderm,” Jane whispered, her eyes wide. “There was a time on Earth’s distant past where the bony fish ruled. It was a long time ago during the late Devonian period, about 380 million years ago.”
“Dunkleosteus,” David said and raised his eyebrows.
Jane turned and nodded. “Well done, and yes, that’s what I thought as well. But it looked different, bigger. They were huge, and got to be over 20 feet, but this thing looked twice that. And I can’t be sure, but am I the only one who thought its eyes looked a little strange?”
“Yeah, I saw that. Not flat and glassy like a fish, but more like a lobster.” Andy blew air between his lips. “Weird, and freaking scary.”
“So, was it a dunkelosta thing?” Angela asked.
“Why not, or something like it? In this place, evolution could have stood still,” Michael added. “The climate certainly wouldn’t change from millennia to millennia, forcing adaptations.”
“It came out of the water!” Andy yelled. “Right…out…of the…damn water to get me!”
“Killer whales do that,” David said. “They beach themselves while trying to catch seals. It’s a perfected attack strategy.”
“Means they’re watching from under the water,” Angela said. “Did you see the size of those jaws? Andy would have been toast.”
“Maybe I’m wrong, as I’ve only ever seen fossils, but Andy was right about the eyes—they definitely didn’t have eyes on stalks.” Jane continued to look back out at the water. “But one of the reasons those things developed such heavy armor was to protect against each other and bigger predators.”
“Oh great! There could be something even bigger in there?” Andy threw his arms up and walked up the beach.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” Angela said softly.
“I suggest we stay close together, and also up from the water,” Michael said.
“And there goes our fish dinner,” David complained.
“Maybe not. That thing must have weighed several tons. If we find sand-banks or shallows, then it won’t be able to get its bulk up on them.” Jane turned. “But like Angela said, we need to pay attention, as this is not our world down here.”
“So no wandering off,” Michael said. “Even if you want to take a leak, you tell someone.”
They headed down along the sand and Jane noticed in among the tiny shells were larger fragments. Some were half bivalve shells, and some looked like discarded crustacean shells, but they could have been the remains of bony placoderm armor.
“Make sure you leave some sort of markers so we can find our way back,” Andy said.
“I’ve been thinking…it might not matter if we come back exactly here or not as there have to be other exits to the surface somewhere,” Michael said.
“They could be hundreds of miles away.” Angela frowned. “Our plan is to come back right here where we know we can return.”
Michael walked backward for a moment. “Hundreds of miles on the surface. But we’re walking upside down on the inside of a wheel. What is hundreds of miles up top might be only a few miles down here.”
“Nope, we return here,” Angela stated.
A line appeared between Jane’s brows. “Yeah, come on, Michael, why swap an unknown for a known?”
“Okay, okay. All I’m saying is we’ll probably have other opportunities to exit. And just imagine how cool it’d be if we entered via the Krubera and came out somewhere in, I don’t know, Iceland maybe. The press would love it.”
“Ha.” Andy scoffed. “Michael is already thinking ahead to his media appearances.”
Jane put a hand over her eyes, and then pulled her collar up as she felt the tingle of something like sunburn. She held up her hand, palm down, and saw the red light beating down on her skin, and after a moment, it began to sting from a needling type of burn.
She wis
hed she had a broad hat and sunglasses. But they weren’t exactly things you needed when caving. She also wanted some binoculars to see what was ahead. Something else you never brought on a caving expedition.
They trekked along the sand unmolested for three-quarters of an hour, and Jane took a sip of her water. She didn’t drink it all because there was little more than one sip left.
“I’m nearly out of water here.” She jiggled her bottle.
Michael nodded. “I’m out already. I hope that the forest ahead will allow us to replenish our stores and our energy.”
They were still at least a mile from what looked like a huge opening in the cliff wall that formed a valley, but now they could begin to see huge growing trunks and broad, green pads that could be palm leaves.
“I can see some sort of birds in there,” David said. “See, flying over the treetops.”
“They might not be birds at all,” Jane said.
David turned, laughing softly. “As long as they’ve got meat on their bones, I don’t care if they’re as bony as that damn fish that tried to eat Andy.”
As they approached the valley, they were nearing a small stream that cut the beach and ran from some cracks in the rock wall like a wellspring. By now, there was driftwood starting to be scattered on the sand.
David slowed a few dozen feet out and put his hand over his eyes. “There’s a sandbank out there. This stream must sometimes run heavier to push out sand.” He cautiously approached the stream; it was only about four feet across. He stared down into it.
“Shallow,” he said.
Jane stood at his shoulder and saw the clear water was teeming with sprats. She walked along its bank and saw that it looked to be only a foot deep all along its lengths.
“Nothing too big is going to make its way in here.”
“Those minnows are everywhere, and right about now, I’m prepared to eat them raw.” David licked his lips.
“Well, you know the old saying about cooking a rabbit?” Angela grinned.
