Old Earth

by Gary Grossman

  “Dr. McCauley’s right,” Alpert said. “He should go.” She walked over to him and looked in his eyes. “But you better be careful.”

  McCauley nodded. “I will, thank you.” He turned to Tamburro. “Harness me up. I’ll go in feet first this time. Looks like I’ll need fifteen feet of line or more.”

  He described the next steps. Once down, he’d search for Chohany and determine her condition. He had gauze and bandages, a splint, water, and mild painkillers. “If she’s okay, we’ll raise her. If not, get the paramedics.”

  Tamburro concurred.

  Jaffe alerted Cohen. Lobel ran back to their campsite to find blankets they could use to carry Anna back.

  McCauley attached the rope around his stomach and shoulders in a way that would support him, but not cut into his flesh. He went in backwards flat on his stomach wishing he’d never found the cave.

  • • •

  London

  Morning, The same time

  Gruber noted Kavanaugh’s eagerness. Too eager?

  “Years ago, before all the instant reporting, the talk shows, everything going viral, we could contain. Today it is harder. My work was harder. Yours will be even harder, but you will not be alone.”

  “When will I know about the others? Who they are? Where they are?”

  “Soon.”

  “Not now?”

  “Soon.” Gruber was cold and emphatic.

  “But how can I—”

  Gruber cut him off. “When I decide.”

  Martin Gruber studied his prodigy. Perhaps he had moved him along too quickly. Perhaps it was just the difference in younger people today.

  He thought back to his own training. It was so long ago. He remembered how the old man in his time, an easier time, worked with him. Had I come to this point in my training with the same intense zeal? He laughed to himself. Of course.

  Gruber decided the time had come to reveal the remaining secrets to Colin Kavanaugh and begin the final test of will. In every generation only a few would be permitted access. Would the younger man remain true to The Path, as Martin Gruber had done? He would have to find out.

  Gruber pressed a button under his desk. The overheads dimmed and a warm blue light grew visible from hidden floor boards. Kavanaugh was quite surprised that he never noticed the array. Gruber was right. I have to pay more attention.

  “The regular lighting is too harsh on the old documents,” the old man stated. He kept his back to Kavanaugh as he slid open a portion of the rich wood behind the great desk. Kavanaugh had always taken it as just wall. Another oversight.

  A shiny metallic plate soon reflected the bluish tint. Gruber placed his hand firmly on the center. After twenty seconds, the color of the metal changed from silver to gold. Gruber lifted his hand, but the impression remained.

  “It’s a touch pad. It will read your hand print as well,” Gruber said softly. “It’s been programmed for months in the event of my death. But you see I’m still very much alive, so I get to share one of the high tech toys even I know how to use.”

  Gruber did not say that the technician who installed the pad had a rather unfortunate sailing accident on a trip he’d won, a trip he never remembered signing up for.

  The plate, actually a screen, switched from Gruber’s handprint to a touch screen with numbers and symbols. Kavanaugh recognized the symbols; ancient runes that dated back to the Vikings.

  “The combination will be yours. But first you will read. Remember how Latin was one of the job qualifications?”

  “Yes, sir. I never really needed it.”

  “You will shortly.”

  When Gruber finished inputting the code, the whole screen slid to the side and the wall behind it rose to the ceiling, revealing another room, no more than ten by ten meters. It was a combination of old and new, classic and antiseptic at the same time. Solid metal walls and a traditional black and white checkerboard floor.

  “Walk where I walk.” Gruber began a step-by-step pattern, ultimately in the sign of a cross.

  “Really?”

  “Don’t make all my years with you go to waste with one misstep.”

  It was all the warning Kavanaugh needed. Little pen-sized tubes in the wall and ceiling seemed to track his every move.

  At the far end of the room was an area composed of black tiles large enough to stand on.

  Gruber placed his hand on another wall touch screen that appeared as soon as he stepped on the forwardmost white tile. Soon, a pedestal rose from the floor with an ancient cast iron safe atop. “Even with all the high tech possibilities, I’m still a traditionalist. I like a good old combination lock. It’ll be up to you if you want to make a change.”

  Martin Gruber carefully turned the dial, saying the combination aloud. Kavanaugh instantly memorized it.

  Gruber completed his turn of the tumbler and the safe clicked open. As it did, the room light changed to the same blue as in Gruber’s office.

  Two items were inside the safe: a pair of white cloth gloves and an old parchment document. Gruber put on one glove and handed the other to Kavanaugh. “You must only handle the document with the gloves. Put one on. I’ll take the other and hand the paper to you. Then you’ll put on the second glove. Never touch it directly. It must never be exposed to natural light or leave this room.”

  Kavanaugh was caught up in excitement. What could be so worth all of this security and precaution?

  “And now, a test of your Latin.”

  Kavanaugh took the pages and the second glove. He breathed deeply and began to read slowly, methodically, religiously. At the top of the first page was a salutation to Pope Urban VIII, which placed it at more than four hundred years old. “Eminentissimo sanctum tuum, anno Domini MDCI de spelunca repertum … magnus et terribilis…”

  His Latin didn’t fail him. “Your Holy Eminence, in the year of our Lord, 1601 a great and terrible discovery was made…”

  • • •

  The cave

  McCauley felt his way down a space no more than three feet wide. The sides were rough and the air was getting colder. It was dangerous with a rope. Without? “Slowly,” he said again. He groped for places to hold onto as he descended, cursing the fact that he forgot gloves.

  “More…more.” He concentrated on not getting cut.

  Rich Tamburro was above him. He shone his flashlight down which helped give Quinn the sense that he was not alone in space.

  During the process, they missed their scheduled check-in. Jaffe’s walkie-talkie crackled. Leslie was trying to reach them. However, he didn’t dare take his hands off the lifeline. Not yet.

  “Almost,” McCauley said. He extended his toes in anticipation. But it wasn’t the ground he felt. It was emptiness. He had nothing to hold onto. His feet were not on the ground. He dangled in mid-air.

  He looked up at Tamburro. “Any more line?”

  “A little.”

  “Slowly then.”

  The end went from Jaffe to Tamburro, who held on tight. With all the rope out, McCauley was still not on the ground.

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes,”

  “Damn.” He misjudged the drop.

  McCauley looked up. “You’re going to have to let go. I’ve got about three more feet.”

  “Wait.” Tamburro turned his head back and asked Dr. Alpert to call for more line. They’d need it to secure and haul Anna, if that was even possible.

  “Okay, Dr. McCauley. Say when.”

  McCauley took a deep breath. “When.”

  A second later, McCauley hit the ground hard.

  “I’m standing,” he said. As he adjusted his position, his foot rubbed against something hard. It wasn’t a rock. He shined his light down. It was Anna Chohany’s head.

  • • •

  Gruber’s Office

  Kavanaugh reviewed the parchment first for language. He read the three pages again to put precise meaning to individual words and the full context. Then he read it a third time, asking
himself if there could be any other possible interpretation than what he had considered.

  Although Kavanaugh didn’t know it, Martin Gruber had reacted the very same way when he first read the letter written by Father Vincenzo Maculano da Firenzuola in 1633. It was the secret directive that led to the establishment of an organization that would be known as Autem Semita.

  • • •

  The cave

  “She’s here and alive,” McCauley yelled. He instinctively held her hand and felt Anna’s fingers tighten around his.

  McCauley gave her water and assessed her condition. Possible concussion, broken arm. Cracked or bruised ribs. He was most worried about her neck and back.

  McCauley knelt and checked her breathing. It was labored.

  “Listen, it’s not going to be easy, but we have to get you back up. Rich’s just up above. He’s looking right down. Rich, say hi.”

  “Hey, Anna. You’re going to be okay. We’ll get you out.”

  She opened her eyes.

  McCauley talked to her softly.

  “Can you move your toes and legs?”

  He shined the flashlight to see.

  “Good girl.”

  “Now can you roll from side to side?”

  She showed some movement, but it was difficult. But most importantly, Anna Chohany wasn’t paralyzed.

  An hour later, the Harvard student was strapped to a county medevac helicopter gurney and on her way to Glendive Medical Center. The paramedics were ready to start the IV drip.

  “No, no!” she screamed.

  Chohany dug her cell phone out of a pocket and struggled to compose a text. It was full of auto corrects, but she got the point across. She hit send. “Okay, now,” she said. “Pile on the painkillers.”

  Twenty-three

  Glendive Medical Center, MT

  The next day

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Stupid,” Anna Chohany told Rich Tamburro.

  “Not too bad considering it could have been worse.”

  It looked worse. She was hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor. Her right arm was in a cast, her neck in a brace. That’s all he could see on top of the covers.

  “Good thing you have such a hard head.”

  “Yeah, but not such a hard body. Sorry. And a body that’s out of commission. Even more sorry.”

  Chohany was lucky to be alive. In addition to McCauley’s amateur diagnosis in the cave, she had a dislocated shoulder and two fractured ribs.

  “So we’ll catch up after your rehab,” Tamburro said while holding her hand.

  “Right. You know I am sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I should have been more careful.”

  “You should have never gone in by yourself,” he argued.

  Chohany looked away.

  “We’re a team. What were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I can’t really say.”

  “Hell, you ruined a summer of great sex. That’s for damned sure.” He caught himself laughing.

  It hurt her too much to laugh. Besides, she was thinking of something else.

  “Listen, Rich. Will you keep me up to date on everything?”

  “Of course, hon.”

  “I mean really. Pictures. Everything.” She squeezed his hand and locked on his eyes again. “Like I’m still there. Emails and calls every day. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  • • •

  The cave

  Later

  Chohany had opened up the route to the new shaft, but she never saw where it led. Dr. Quinn McCauley and his team did.

  A new tunnel angled downward, far beyond the distance their extension cords reached. Far beyond the range of the walkie-talkies. Far into the obscure past told through Native American cave paintings, more of which appeared to plot a direction.

  “What do you think?” Katrina Alpert asked.

  “I really don’t know.”

  The plan was to stay only an hour-and-a-half. That meant turning back at the forty-minute mark. They had ten more minutes. And yet…

  “Getting chillier,” Jaffe noted.

  McCauley’s phone app showed that the temperature had dropped to fifty-three degrees. More interestingly, the sound of their footsteps had changed—like the tunnel was opening up.

  They needed additional electrical lights and longer extension cords. But even with the lights they had, they could see that they were entering a magnificent cavern. Yet unlike others formed by wind, water and violent geological episodes, this appeared different. The walls were shiny and smooth as if perfectly polished igneous rock. And further up, there was another tunnel, also smooth and reflective, but smaller and much more claustrophobic.

  • • •

  “We can’t rush through this,” Quinn McCauley said to his dejected team an hour later at base camp. “There’s a great deal we don’t understand.”

  “Like everything,” Leslie Cohen said.

  “Well, yes. So let’s look at this like the research scientists we are. Put our findings into identifiable categories: geological factors, seismic patterns, whatever we can deduce. Adjust for millennial cycles in climate change and how that might have influenced where and how people took shelter. Don’t make anything up or jump to conclusions. Through this we should come to see the expected in the unexpected; answers we can trust.”

  The team was already a fan of Dr. McCauley. Now Katrina Alpert was impressed.

  “I can add some insight,” she said. Katrina reached down for a handful of the dirt. “Volcanoes make for smooth rocks. Smooth rocks reflect light.” She found one on the ground; black, shiny, smooth. “Is this from the same geological period?”

  “Relatively so.” Cohen chose both.

  “You’re right. It is and it isn’t. Could be millions of years apart from the cavern. But where’s the rest?”

  “The natives picked them up for weapons and carving food. That’s expected,” Rodriguez declared.

  “Yes and why?”

  “Need. It made life easier.”

  “Okay, so reasoning backwards from the unexpected will provide us with credible answers in every case?” Tamburro asked.

  “That’s right,” Dr. Alpert responded.

  “I’m not so sure this time,” McCauley added.

  • • •

  Back in the cave, the team moved slowly. “Did I mention I don’t like fun houses?” Alpert whispered to McCauley.

  “Not to me. We’ve only had a few conversations,” McCauley replied. “I don’t recall discussing that.”

  “Well, put it on your list.”

  “Right to the top,” he said as they crawled uncomfortably through the cavern. “But you sounded like you were really into it back there.”

  “I think I was lying. And you?”

  “That I was born to work in the sunshine. Not in enclosed dark places.”

  At that moment his flashlight flickered and off. “Damn.” He tapped it twice. It came back, but only intermittently.

  “Quinn!” she said, “My flashlight’s on the fritz…”

  “Mine, too. Give me a sec. I’ll change up the batteries, then I’ll do yours.”

  He unscrewed his flashlight, found replacements in his backpack, swapped them out and pressed the button.

  “Dammit,” he said. “Same problem.”

  By now, the others were catching up and also complaining. All their flashlights were acting up.

  Twenty-four

  London

  The next day

  “Mr. Kavanaugh.” Martin Gruber’s assistant Felicia Dunbar was noted for her brevity on the phone. However, this was more clipped than normal.

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Kavanaugh, please come up to Mr. Gruber’s office.”

  Good, he said to himself. He urgently wanted to discuss information he gleaned from Ten. “Be right there.”

 
Following Gruber’s procedure for carrying sensitive papers through the building, Kavanaugh locked the report in his attaché case. One important lesson had stuck.

  Three minutes later he was at Dunbar’s desk. Gruber’s door was closed.

  “I’m ready?”

  “Mr. Kavanaugh…”

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Gruber is not here. He collapsed at his home today.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Mr. Gruber died thirty minutes ago,” she stated. “On the way to the hospital.”

  “Oh my God!” Words failed him, but his thoughts didn’t. He’d actually been waiting for the end, hopefully not too obviously. Gruber had been pestering him with lessons for years. The last few months were almost intolerable. Do this. Think that. Don’t question. Pay attention. No mistakes. Listen. Learn. Obey. He’d had enough of the old man’s endless diatribes. He’d been ready to take the reins, no take control, seemingly forever. But he would have to mask his enthusiasm and proceed respectfully.

  “Ms. Dunbar, I will expect your complete cooperation and faithful assistance through this difficult period.”

  “Just as Mr. Gruber instructed, Mr. Kavanaugh.”

  Bitch, he thought. Show some goddamned respect for me.

  “The first thing you will need to do is read a letter Mr. Gruber left for you. My instructions were to give it to you upon his death. Please come with me.” She stood at attention.

  It wasn’t a question and there was definite attitude. Kavanaugh would deal with the fifty-eight year old secretary later. Now he continued to project grief and sorrow.

  “Of course, Ms. Dunbar. But give me a moment.”

  Kavanaugh excused himself to the men’s room closest to Gruber’s office. Soon he’d have his own private bathroom. Such things meant something to him. He splashed cold water on his face and rubbed his eyes until they became bloodshot. He loosened his tie and slumped his shoulders creating the perfect look to bring back into Dunbar’s office and then into Gruber’s inner chamber.

  A few writers for Voyages saw him leave the bathroom. They’d report that he looked positively shaken. Soon they’d put two and two together and word would spread that the inevitable had happened. This would help him when it came time to bring the staff together; both the general editorial team and the others who only worked in Ten.