by David Wood
“And if we find nothing after a few hundred yards?” Gates asked.
“Guess.”
“We come back and tell you?”
“Right.”
With a nod, the two moved off, shining their lights left and right. “Come on,” Reid said, and led Aston and Slater back around to the other tunnel. The rest of the team waited a few paces along.
“Anything?” Sol asked.
“No.” Slater’s face was dark. “Reid sent his two to have a look.”
“Okay. Meanwhile, let’s go this way. We might find Jeff up here.”
Slater didn’t reply, but exchanged a knowing look with Aston and Reid. They clearly didn’t expect to find Jeff any more than she did. They moved ahead, towards the next gentle green glow.
16
The downward-sloping path wound deeper into the bowels of the earth. Aston couldn’t shake the feeling they were descending into the maw of a waiting beast. After several minutes’ more walking, Reid led the team into a magnificent chamber. The group stood dumbfounded for several long moments, staring around themselves in wonder. The space was huge, stretching a good fifty yards or more across and almost as high. It was long, more than a hundred yards from left to right. The tunnel they had emerged from stood about one-third of the way along one long side. Across the other side, two more tunnels led away into darkness. The walls were largely smooth, crenelated in places, with stalactites and stalagmites bigger than two men, one standing atop the other, making a forest of upthrusting and down-hanging spikes. In the center-right of the enormous cavern a huge lake shimmered in the green glow. And that glow grew brighter as they stood there. More of the luminescent vines and fungus striped the walls, more small curling ferns filled the crevices. But more than that, sparkling flecks of bright, almost neon green glittered from every part of the cave, even the ground. The crystals seemed to absorb the light of their flashlights and grow brighter with it, as though they drank the brightness in and exulted in it.
“This is remarkable,” Larsen said, voice low with astonishment. “These crystals, they could be the...” He grimaced. “The greenium.”
“You think so?” Aston asked.
The geologist gestured weakly around them. “Look at it. What other explanation is there? It matches the profile. And the deposits are numerous.”
“Is this it?” Sol asked. “Is this the greenium?”
Larsen winced again at the word and Aston couldn’t blame him. But given the stuff was green, and the whole venture financed by Arthur Greene of SynGreene, it seemed unlikely the name would change. He felt that it had already stuck, however cringe-worthy it might be.
“I’ll start some tests,” Larsen said, setting down his bag.
Aston moved immediately to the large pool. The cavern floor sloped down towards it, the water filling a natural depression in the cave’s formation. He dipped his fingers in at the edge and smiled. It was warm, like a welcoming bath. He sensed a presence beside him and looked up. Slater stood there, filming with her smartphone.
“See what I’ve been reduced to?” she said, but her smile was weak. Aston saw some measure of fear in it.
Marla stood beside her, sound gear packed away in the bag over her shoulder. “At least you’re doing something,” she said. “I’m kinda redundant all of a sudden.”
“Kids are making entire movies on iPhones these days,” Aston said. “You’re hip, that’s all.”
“Hip?” She flashed a peace sign. “Far out, man! Peace, love, dope!”
He laughed, embarrassed. “Whatever. This is warm, almost hot. Must be fed by a geothermal spring.”
Terry Reid had been helping Sol set up some halogen lights and the cavern burst into brighter relief. Immediately the green crystals responded, brightening too, giving everything an alien vibe. But the light penetrated the water more and Aston felt a surge of joy.
“Look!” He pointed down into the water.
Schools of small fish darted back and forth in the deeper part of the pool, a few feet out from the edge. Jahara Syed came to squat beside him, Slater moving to the side to quietly film.
“You feeling better?” Aston asked.
Syed nodded. “A little shaky, but I’m fine. Look, see that plant life along the edge where the water gets really deep?”
“Almost the same bright green as the light from the crystals,” Aston said. “They almost look more like tentacles than leaves. Like some kind of giant anemone rather than a plant, you think?”
Syed scooted along on hands and knees to get closer and leaned over the water to look. “Could be. Hard to tell, they’re too deep to see properly.”
“And the fish!” Aston’s excitement had driven away all other concerns for the time being. This was his natural element. “I wonder if they’re a unique species or a strain evolved from a known species?”
“Do they have eyes?” Syed asked. “Or blind, like the cave fish we know?”
“Again, hard to tell from here. But they have bioluminescence, you can see the glow of it along their lateral lines, and around the face. Makes me think they have at least a rudimentary eye.”
“Do you think they eat this plant or anemone or whatever it is?”
Aston pursed his lips. “Maybe. There is some particulate matter in the water too. We need a closer look at all of this, and samples.” He dragged his bag over with a grin. “I’m going in.”
Syed watched him for a moment, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth, then she pulled over her own bag. “I’ll collect water samples and whatever else I can reach from the edge. Let me know if you need help.”
“Sure.”
Aston pulled off his shoes and clothes, keeping on only his underwear, and put his things in a small pile beside the large pool. Appearing unmindful of the stares from Slater and Syed, though secretly enjoying the fact that both were taking a good, long look, he pulled on his wetsuit and fins, then pulled a mask and snorkel from the bag. He strapped a dive light to his wrist and turned it on, then turned to sit on the edge of the pool and hung his legs into the water. The wetsuit seemed superfluous, the water was so warm, but it added the comfort of protection beyond simple temperature. He’d worn chainmail underwater before, against sharks, though doubted he’d need anything like that in this circumstance. Then flashes in his mind of blood on the rock, the missing cameraman, the metallic blue fidget spinner. Could there be danger down there? He pushed the concerns aside and slipped into the water. He’d go slowly and stay alert.
The warmth of the pool enveloped him. Knotted muscles began to loosen. He was at home here beneath the surface.
He swam across toward the far side, looking down into the shimmering, clear pool. The green glow in the cavern was so bright now that it illuminated the water to considerable depths, assisted by his dive light. He saw more tiny signs of life, crustaceans glowing the same ubiquitous green, curling and twisting in the beam from his wrist. The plant or anemone thing he and Syed had seen from the edge grew everywhere, deep past where shadow obscured his vision. He still couldn’t decide if it were vegetable or animal. He’d dive for a sample on the way back. Then something else caught his eye.
He turned in the water, shifted to better shine his light. Down deep he saw a distinct right angle of dark stone. Drawing a breath, he dived and kicked down. A small dome of rock, like a miniature hill, rose from the murky depths of the pool, and set into one side of it was a doorway. The frame was dark like the one they had encountered before, and carved with similar disquieting designs. But while it was similar to the one in the first cavern, this doorway looked exactly like the one he and Slater had seen under Lake Kaarme. A perfect rectangle, made from carved blocks of stone set into the rock. Around three meters high, nearly two wide, a man-made piece of engineering, leading away into pitch blackness, no actual door filling it. He had the same thought he had entertained back in Finland, a seeming lifetime ago. Man-made or something-made. Something with the intelligence and skills and tools to co
nstruct a portal like this, deep beneath the water in the middle of the most isolated place on Earth. His lungs burned and he kicked back up to the surface, blew the water from his snorkel and sucked in fresh air.
He floated on the surface for a while, breathing deeply, staring down at the impossible rectangle. He had to know more. Drawing and holding a deep breath, he kicked down again. His ears popped as he went, reaching for the top of the huge doorway. He could hold his breath a long time, having had a lot of practice in his chosen career, but he wished he had a SCUBA tank and plenty of time to explore. He would have a quick look, then insist on returning for a tank once he’d learned a little more.
He pulled himself down and into the stygian passageway beyond the doorframe. His dive light showed him a rocky tunnel going a few yards forward then curving up. He estimated he had about a minute to explore before the need for air became desperate, and pushed on. He swam a short way and saw the unmistakable rippling of light on the water’s surface. He frowned. There was no way he could be back at the surface now, he had to be a good twenty feet under at least, probably more. But he pushed up and his head broke through into fresh, cool air. Around him was another cavern, much smaller than the one he had dived from, but large nonetheless. More of the glowing vines and crystal lit the space, making dark shadows where the rock creased away. Stalagmites and stalactites filled the cave, making a strange forest, reflecting the light of the greenium.
Aston stared around himself, stunned and confused. He looked back over his shoulder and the rippling surface of the pool he had emerged into. Every sense of direction he possessed insisted the level of this pool had to be well below the surface of the large pool in the huge cavern above. Why didn’t this pool and cave flood, draining the one in the cavern he had come from? It had to be some strange property of trapped air or pressure. Or something.
“Who are you kidding, Sam,” he said quietly to himself. There was nothing natural about any of this. The others needed to know.
He sucked in a deep breath and dived back, through the short passage and out the large doorway, then kicked up to the surface shimmering with green light above. He burst up and shook water from his hair and face, about to call out to the team and tell them the impossible news, but the words died in his throat. Everyone was gathered on the far side of the huge cavern and they were all clearly upset.
17
Aston peeled off the wetsuit, gave himself a quick once-over with a towel, then pulled on his jeans and sweater again. The far end of the cavern had several tall outcrops, almost like the folds in a giant curtain. The team had gathered around one, shining their lights into its shadows. The green crystals all around glowed twice as brightly as they had when Aston had entered the water. It seemed they continued to draw energy from the torchlight and the halogens Sol had set up again. There wouldn’t be shadows in this place for much longer.
“What is it?” Aston called out.
Slater spun on the spot, face relieved. “There you are! Where the hell did you go?”
“I’ll explain later. What have you found?”
Her face soured. “More dead bodies.”
Aston pushed through to take a better look. A corpse lay in the depths of the indentation in the rock, propped against the wall in a slumped sitting position.
“The clothes are modern,” Aston said.
“And she’s not really decomposed at all,” Slater said. “Hard to guess how long she’s been here, but not long, I’d say.”
“What do you think, Doc?” Aston asked Sol, not caring that his sarcastic emphasis raised a couple of eyebrows.
“Honestly, I’m not sure what to think,” Sol Griffin said. “I’ve made a cursory examination and there are no obvious signs of injury or sickness. I agree, she can’t have been here long, but beyond that I’m at a loss.”
Aston frowned. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but he didn’t trust Sol at all. Right now, he was convinced the man was lying about something.
“Speaking of injury,” Slater said. “Wait until you see the next one.”
“There’s another?”
Slater led him around to the next recess of stone, holding her flashlight ahead of her. She stopped and gestured him forward, clearly reluctant to get too close to whatever lay in the shadows. Marla, Aston noticed, stood off to one side, her face dark.
Aston blew out a long breath. He was so over all this already, but they were in too deep now. He moved past Slater to see a body that had been horribly abused. Its head was missing, nowhere to be seen. The torso, arms and legs had been shredded, as though someone in a furious rage had taken to it with a machete. Or something with long, sharp claws and teeth, Aston mused, a tickle of fear at the base of his spine.
“What the hell do you make of that?” Slater asked.
“I wouldn’t think an animal would do this. The body hasn’t been consumed at all, just ripped up. Animals don’t tend to kill for fun.”
“So what then, if not an animal? A tribe of headhunters?”
Aston turned away from the atrocity, happy to look at Slater’s beautiful, living face instead, even if it was blanched with horror. He shrugged.
“Hey, come here,” Sol called out from a little further around the cavern. “We’ve found another and she’s alive.”
Anders Larsen sat back, smiling at the samples of green crystals in the jars in front of him. While the rest of the team were distracted with what appeared to be some rather gruesome discoveries, he’d had an opportunity to quietly complete an array of field tests. His geologist’s soul was buzzing with what he’d found. The sparkling stuff teemed with energy, off the chart for their size. It was like nothing else he had ever heard of, let alone seen for himself. It had to be greenium, however much he hated that name.
He couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around the how and why of it all. His mind spun with theory after theory, trying to make some sense of it. But nothing in his extensive professional bank of knowledge offered up any answers. It was almost as if the cave were seeded by aliens or something. He chuckled to himself. Why the hell not? After everything else they’d seen thus far, it was no more outrageous a suggestion than any other. But it didn’t matter. What he was certain about was that this miraculous stuff was exactly what Halvdan Landvik was looking for. While the others remained distracted, he hastily packed up his gear. Right now was the perfect time to slip away unnoticed.
“This is all too much!”
He startled, turned quickly to see Jahara Syed standing behind him. The biologist hadn’t noticed his guilty jump as she stared across the cavern at the rest of the team.
“Too much?” he asked.
She looked down at him, offered an uncomfortable half-smile. “Everything is so weird, and I can’t look at any more dead bodies.”
Larsen frowned. “You’re a biologist. You’re disturbed by bodies?”
“Human bodies, yes! I study animal and plant life. I’m not a damn medical examiner.”
“No, I guess not. Me either.”
She crouched beside him. “Have you found anything interesting?”
“Yes. The crystals have unusual properties, lots of energy.”
Syed looked nervous. “Radioactive?”
He laughed. “No, thankfully. But I can’t tell much down here. I’m limited as to the kind of analysis I can perform without decent equipment. I can’t wait to get back to base camp and investigate properly.”
“Me too,” Syed said. “I’m facing the same limitations. But even with the basic equipment I have here, these tough vines are bizarre.”
Larsen clenched his jaw, desperate to be away, but he couldn’t raise suspicion. “Bizarre how? I mean, apart from the obvious.”
“Well, the obvious weirdness is the fact that they’re even here at all. Then there’s the shock the thing gave me. I’m still tingling from that. But beyond all that, the structure itself is weird.”
“Cellular, you mean?”
Syed nodded eagerly. �
��Exactly. Based on what I can see with the portable microscope, the cellular structure is wrong.”
Larsen found himself fascinated despite his need to get back topside. “Wrong? What do you mean?”
Syed licked her lips, shook her head. “It looks crystalline. But it’s living, organic. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was from an alien planet or something.”
Larsen suppressed a physical reaction to her voicing exactly his own thoughts of only moments before. Thoughts that were frivolous at best, but echoed now by the biologist, they scared him. Before he could say more, Slater stepped out of the folded rock across the cavern and called Syed’s name.
“Jahara, we need your help here.”
Syed nodded and stood. She glanced down at Larsen, brows creased. “What do you think is happening?” she asked.
Larsen raised his hands. “I have no idea. But let’s stick to science, yeah? It’s always best to let emotion take a back seat and just study the facts.”
“Maybe that’s good advice.” She trotted away towards Slater and the rest of the team.
Larsen watched her go, relieved that Slater had done him an inadvertent favor, and then grabbed his bag and slipped quietly out of the cavern. Landvik’s men would be in place somewhere nearby, assuming everyone had played their part correctly. As soon as he could get a signal, he’d call them in. He smiled as he hurried back through the tunnels and caves, heading for the freight elevator.
18
Slater watched as Syed jogged over to her and then said, “We’ve found someone alive. Sol is taking a look, but she says she’s a biologist, so I figured you’d be interested.”
Syed gaped. “Someone is alive down here?”
Slater saw her own incredulity reflected in Syed’s eyes. And the realization as the woman quickly put together exactly what Slater herself had immediately thought: that there had been another party down here very recently. Slater thought perhaps Sol Griffin knew all about it. Her paranoid thoughts were becoming reality quicker than she liked. “Yeah,” she said. “Seems like none of us had a full story before, huh?”
