by Dan Simmons
Ordering him to silence with his eyes, Trumbo said, “Steve…sit down, join us. We’re just talking about Hiroshe’s last five holes. Dynamite game.” Trumbo’s look said, One fucking word about the news and you’ll be managing a Super Eight motel in Ottumwa, Iowa.
“May I have a word with you, Mr. Trumbo?”
Trumbo sighed again, the relief completely gone. “Now?” He nodded toward his almost full drink, a chi-chi with fruit and an umbrella floating in it.
“If you don’t mind, sir.” Carter’s voice was on the edge of…something. Panic perhaps. Insubordination, certainly.
Trumbo grunted, made his excuses to Sato, and joined the manager. They walked from the clubhouse terrace to a point near the tennis courts where they could not be overheard.
“Look, Carter,” began Trumbo, “if you’re insisting that we call the cops now, I’m here to tell you that it ain’t gonna happen. There’s too much riding on this fu…”
“It’s not that,” said Stephen Ridell Carter, his voice a sick monotone. “Mr. Bryant brought me back to show me the hand, but it wasn’t there.”
“Wasn’t there?” said Trumbo.
“Wasn’t there,” said Carter.
“Fuck,” Byron Trumbo said thoughtfully. “That is news. Well, maybe the crabs or something…”
“No,” interrupted the manager. “That’s not the news.”
Trumbo raised his heavy eyebrows and waited.
“The news is that Mr. Wills has gone missing.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Wills… Conrad Wills…our staff astronomer.”
“When?” said Trumbo.
“Sometime this morning. They saw him at breakfast. He did not show up for the noon staff conference.”
“Where?” said Trumbo.
“Almost surely in the catacombs…”
“The what?”
“Catacombs,” repeated Stephen Ridell Carter. “It’s what the staff call the service tunnels.”
“How do they know he disappeared down there?” asked Trumbo.
“His office…well, I will just have to show you, Mr. Trumbo. Security Chief Dillon is down there now. It is terrible, terrible…”
Trumbo had the urge to either slap his hotel manager or pat him on the back before the man started blubbering. Trumbo did neither. “Well, we don’t really need a staff astronomer over the next day or so, do we? I mean, it’s not like there’s going to be an eclipse tonight or something, is there?”
Stephen Ridell Carter stared, obviously aghast. Trumbo noticed for the first time that the man’s gray hair was a toupee. No wonder it always looked perfectly combed, thought Trumbo.
“Mr. Trumbo,” said the manager, his voice shocked.
For a second, the billionaire thought that Carter was responding in shock because he was staring at the man’s wig, then he remembered his offhand comment. “Oh, don’t get me wrong—we’ll search for poor Mr…ah?”
“Wills.”
“Yeah. We’ll have Dillon turn out all of the security looking for Mr. Wills, and we’ll certainly tell the police tomorrow…or whenever we tell the police about all this… I just mean that, well, perhaps Wills thought he wasn’t needed, because of the few guests and the low need for an astronomer and all.”
“I hardly think…”
“But we don’t know, do we?” said Trumbo, laying his hand heavily on the taller man’s shoulder. He squeezed. “We just don’t know. And until we do, it would be useless suicide to blow this deal just because of a few…irregularities.”
“Irregularities,” repeated the resort manager. His voice was much higher than usual and sounded almost drugged.
Trumbo squeezed his employee’s shoulder hard enough to bring on a wince and then removed his hand. “Let’s just let Security do its job while I do mine, all right, Steve? This is going to turn out all right. Trust me.”
Carter looked as if he had swallowed something too large to choke down. “But the office…”
“Whose office, Steve?” Trumbo’s voice was calming, almost lulling. This tone had worked with some of the most hysterical, high-strung women in America, he was thinking, it should work with this toupeed faggot.
“Mr. Wills’s office.”
“What about it, Steve?”
The manager took a breath and some strength came back to his voice. “You’ll have to see it to understand, Mr. Trumbo.”
The billionaire glanced at his Rolex. He did have some time. Sato and his people wanted a nap and lunch on their private lanai before the parties were to reassemble for the afternoon negotiations.
“All right, show me,” he said, patting the manager’s back in a friendly fashion.
Carter started to lead the way. “They don’t want to be down there now, you know.”
“Who?” said Trumbo, feeling like the conversation was starting over again. “Where?”
“The staff,” said Carter. “Everyone who has their offices in the service tunnels or who has to travel there. They’ve never liked it, Mr. Trumbo. There have always been stories. Now, with this…”
“Fuck them,” said Trumbo, tired of playing Mr. Nice Guy. “Tell them they only have to work down there if they want their paychecks.”
“But Mr. Wills’s office. It is too bizarre to tell you…”
“Don’t tell me,” said Trumbo, checking his watch again and almost shoving the thin manager ahead of him toward the catacombs, “Show me.”
“What are those holes in the ground?” asked Cordie, pointing past the petroglyphs and a’a boulders to where a ragged tunnel was visible between the rocks.
“Lava tube,” said Paul Kukali. He pointed toward the east. “They run all the way up the slope of Mauna Loa…twenty, twenty-five miles.”
“No shit,” said Cordie Stumpf.
“No shit,” confirmed the art and archaeology curator.
“The lava tubes are a source of mana, aren’t they?” said Eleanor.
Paul nodded. “Po nui ho’olakolako, ‘The great night that supplies.’ Legend says that the mouths of darkness are like the wombs of women, channels from which such power flows.”
Cordie grunted as if amused by the thought. She clambered over rocks to teeter above the black pit.
“Careful,” Paul said.
“It is a sort of tunnel,” said Cordie, as if she had doubted the curator’s explanation. “I can see where it curves away uphill. The walls are…whatchamacallit…they’ve got ridges.”
“Striated by the lava as it cooled and receded,” said Paul.
“Yeah.” Cordie sounded thoughtful. “We could all walk upright in that thing. Would it be safe?”
Paul Kukali shrugged. “The hotel discourages it.”
“Why?” said Cordie. “Bats?”
The curator shook his head. “No, most of our bats on the Big Island roost in trees. The resort is more afraid of someone falling. The lava tubes really are very extensive. One could get lost without much effort.”
Cordie grunted again. “Maybe this is where all the missing guests have been goin’.”
Paul Kukali stopped as if embarrassed by the sudden mention of the resort’s troubles.
Eleanor watched him. “Haven’t they arrested the person suspected of the kidnappings…murders…whatever they were?”
Paul nodded. “Jimmy Kahekili. But they’ll have to release him soon.”
“Why?” said Eleanor.
Paul looked at her, his face expressionless. “Because he’s not guilty of anything. Or rather, he’s just guilty of having a big mouth and being fanatical about the separatist movement.”
Cordie picked her way back across the boulders and stepped down onto the jogging path. “What separatist movement?”
“A growing number of Hawaiians…native Hawaiians…want the United States government to return the islands to their former status as a sovereign nation,” said Paul.
“Yeah?” said Cordie. “You mean it used to be a country? I always thought it was just an island w
ith natives and grass shacks and all that before the sugar cane people showed up.”
Eleanor winced a bit, but she noticed that Paul Kukali only smiled. “It had the natives and grass shacks,” he said, “but until a January day in 1893, Hawaii also had its own government—a monarchy. Queen Liliuokalani was on the throne when the white planters and some U.S. Marines annexed the isles in an illegal invasion…and that was that. Not too long ago, President Clinton signed a paper apologizing for the seizure. That mollified some of the Hawaiians. But other people, like Jimmy Kahekili, want it all given back and the monarchy restored.”
Cordie Stumpf snorted at such an idea. “That’s like the Indians asking for Manhattan back, isn’t it?”
Paul opened his hands. “Yes. If the demands are for total sovereignty on all the islands. No sensible person thinks that the U.S. will give back Waikiki and all the military bases. But some of us think that some sort of limited sovereignty is possible…rather like with the mainland Native Americans.”
“A reservation?” said Eleanor.
The curator rubbed his chin. “Have you heard of Kahoolawe?”
“Ah, yes,” said Eleanor.
“What?” said Cordie. Her sunglasses had white plastic rims and now they gleamed up at the two taller people. “What?”
Paul Kukali turned to her. “Kahoolawe is the Hawaiian island which no one goes to,” he said. “It’s only eleven miles long and six wide, but it was sacred in the mythology of the Hawaiians and still holds many heiaus and other archaeological treasures.”
“I’ll bite,” said Cordie. “Why doesn’t anyone go there?”
“One man—a white rancher—owned the island until 1941,” said Paul. “The day after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy took the entire island over as a bombing range and has been bombing and shelling it ever since.”
Cordie Stumpf smiled, showing small teeth in her childlike smile. “So Hawaiians want that as a reservation?” she said. “A bombing range? I’d at least ask for the Mauna Pele Resort.”
The curator grinned back. “So would I. But we’re getting far off the subject.”
“You mean who killed all the guests here?” said Cordie.
“No,” said Paul, glancing at his watch. “They pay me to talk about the petroglyph field here. And our time’s about up.”
The three continued strolling along the asphalt path that wound between black rock. They had not seen a single jogger all afternoon. “Tell us about Milu and the entrance to the Underworld,” said Eleanor.
The curator paused and raised an eyebrow. “You know quite a bit of local lore.”
“Not really,” said Eleanor. “I think I read about the Underworld in that same piece about Mark Twain’s visit here. The entrance is around here somewhere, isn’t it?”
Before Paul Kukali could answer, Cordie snapped her fingers. “That’s it then…we got the whole plot for why those people got disappeared. Hotel’s built on an old Hawaiian burial ground. Not only that, it’s the entrance to the…what did you call it…the Underworld. The old gods and ghosts and stuff got pissed and are haunting the place, dragging guests off for dinner in the tunnels. It’d make a good movie. Hell, I got me a friend who knows somebody who’s married to a Hollywood producer. We could sell this to ’em.”
Paul smiled. “Sorry, no special burial ground here. And the Underworld that Eleanor mentioned was supposed to have an entrance only near the seashore at the mouth of the Waipio Valley, and that’s diagonally opposite us, all the way across the island. Hours from here.”
“Well, shit,” said Cordie, taking her sunglasses off and cleaning them on the tail of her flowered cover-up. “There goes that movie sale.”
Eleanor paused. “Wasn’t there a second entrance to Milu’s Underworld? A back door? That would be on this coast, wouldn’t it?”
“According to Mark Twain, perhaps,” said the curator, his voice flat. “According to our people’s mythology, there was only one entrance and that was sealed by Pele after a major battle with the dark gods. None of the demons or evil spirits…not even many of the ghosts…have bothered anyone since she closed that door. I guess it comes down to whom you believe…the Hawaiians who made up these tales, or Mark Twain, who visited here for a few weeks and heard them secondhand.”
“I guess it does,” said Eleanor. She looked at her own watch.
“It’s almost three. We’ve kept you way beyond your duties, Paul. But it’s been fun.”
“Yeah,” said Cordie. “It’s been a real knee-slapping outing. I especially like the picture of the guy with the arrow-shaped weenie.”
They had turned back toward the Big Hale, talking and pointing at some of the more picturesque petroglyphs along the way, when the huge black dog separated itself from the black boulders and stepped onto the jogging path. It was staring at them, tail wagging. In its jaws was a human hand.
TEN
I have seen Vesuvius since,
but it was a mere toy, a child’s volcano,
a soup-kettle compared to this.
—Mark Twain, describing Kilauea
June 14, 1866, Volcano of Kilauea—
We arrived at Volcano House on the lip of the crater sometime before ten p.m. The approach had been quite spectacular with the blood-red glow of the active volcano illuminating low clouds until the crimson light fell on our entire party, making the horses’ eyes shine with a ruby gleam and causing our exposed skin to look as if it had been flayed away. Half an hour before the Volcano House came into sight, the smell of sulphur drifted down on the breeze to us. I used a scarf to cover my face, but I noticed that Mr. Clemens seemed unperturbed by the stench. “Does the smell not bother you?” I asked. “It is not an unpleasant scent to a sinner,” he replied. I ignored him for the rest of the approach.
I realized that I had been listening to the sound of the surf crashing on rock for some time, but that the ocean was thirty miles away. The noise must be the surge of lava and steam within the very rocks under our feet. As we grew closer, tall columns of vapor became visible like twisting pylons holding up the fiery cloud ceiling. Even though the horses had made this trip before, they rolled their eyes and stepped nervously as they approached the cauldron.
I had thought Volcano House to be a proper hotel, and it was not such a disappointment as the Half Way House. The caretaker of this unique establishment came out to meet us, and several native workers took charge of our exhausted horses. The caretaker wanted to show us to the only table in the dining room for a late supper, and then to our rooms, but as tired as we all were, all we had thoughts for was the volcano, and we went onto the veranda which hung quite literally over the crater mouth.
“Good Lord,” said the Reverend Haymark as we approached the railing, and I believe that he spoke for all of us.
Kilauea Volcano is over nine miles in circumference and our little veranda hung out over an abyss at least a thousand feet to the surface of the dried lake beneath us. The caretaker pointed out a structure which he referred to as the “look-out house,” a tiny building illuminated by the glow from the crater, and mentioned that it was three miles away around the lip of the volcano.
“It looks like a martin-box clinging to the eaves of a cathedral,” said Mr. Clemens.
Between us and the look-out house, the volcano floor was a maze of fiery cracks, black lava geometries spouting geysers of lava, rivers of fire, and seething columns of vapor which rose to the bloody cloud which hung over the crater like a ceiling of red silk. I glanced at my companions’ rapt faces and noticed their fiery countenances from the volcano light, their eyes glowing as red as the horses’ had.
“A bit like half-cooked devils, aren’t we?” said Mr. Clemens, smiling at me.
My first instinct was to ignore the correspondent’s comments so as not to encourage further japes, but I found the excitement of the moment overruled that response. “Like fallen angels,” I said. “Only not so handsome, I think, as Milton’s cast.”
Mr. Clemens laughed and
looked back at the fiery spectacle. He had lighted another one of his atrocious cigars, and the smoke from it was as red as the other sulphurous vapors rising from the pit.
While the major parts of the great caldera showed pools and cracks and rivers of red-running lava, the great glow was from the permanent lake at the southernmost end of the crater—Hale-mau-mau, or House of Everlasting Fire, which local mythology designated as the abode of the dreaded goddess Pele. Although all of three miles away across the lava bed of the pit, this lake threw up more fire and light than all the rest of the crater combined.
“I want to go there,” said Mr. Clemens.
The others were shocked. “Tonight?” said the hotel caretaker, obviously appalled.
I watched the ember of the correspondent’s cigar bob up and down. “Yes. Tonight. Now.”
“Quite impossible,” said the caretaker. “None of the usual guides will go down into the crater.”
“Why not?” said Mr. Clemens.
The caretaker cleared his throat. “The lava is much more active after last week’s eruption. There is a path, but it is hard to see in the dark—even by lantern light. If one were to get off the path, it would be quite likely that one would break through the crust of rotten lava and fall a thousand feet to one’s death.”
“Mmmm,” said Mr. Clemens, removing the cigar. “I would think that eight hundred feet would answer for me.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the caretaker.
Mr. Clemens shook his head. “I would still like to go. Tonight. If you would be so kind as to lend me a lantern and point out the path…” He paused, looking at the rest of us. “Would anyone like to accompany me?”
“I think I’ll get a good night’s sleep and wait for daylight,” said young Master McGuire.
“Good idea,” said the Smith twin, obviously appalled at the thought of entering that cauldron this night.
Surprisingly, the Reverend Haymark mopped his face with a handkerchief and said, “I say, I’ve been there before, I’ll go…and act as guide. I’ve been on the path in the daylight. I should be able to find it at night.”
