The Descent Part 21

Suddenly they were plunging off the plain into a vertical chasm. They fell. 'Five thousand nine hundred seventy-one fathoms,' he said. 'That's 35,827 feet. Six-point-eight miles deep. The deepest known point on earth. Until now.'

The image flickered again. A simple drawing showed a cross-section of the earth's crust. 'Beneath the continents, the abyssal cavities are not exceptionally deep. They mostly exploit surficial limestone, which is readily eroded by water into such traditional features as sinkholes and caves. These have been the focus of public attention lately because they're close to home, underneath cities and suburbs. At last count, the combined military estimate of continental tunnels ran to 463,000 linear miles, with an average depth of only three hundred fathoms.

'Where you're going is considerably deeper. Beneath the ocean crust, we're dealing with a whole different rock from limestone, much newer in geological terms than the continental rock. Until a few years ago, it was presumed that the interior of ocean rock was nonporous and much too hot and pressurized to sustain life. Now we know better.

'The abyss beneath the Pacific is basalt, which gets attacked every few hundred thousand years by huge plumes of hydrogen-sulfide brine, or sulfuric acid, which snake up from deeper layers. This acid brine eats through the basalt like worms through an apple. We now believe there may be as many as six million miles of naturally occurring cavities in the rock beneath the Pacific, at an average depth of 6,100 fathoms. That's 36,600 feet below sea level, or six-point-nine miles.'

'Six million miles?' someone said.

'Correct,' said the cartographer. 'Very little of that is pa.s.sable for human beings, naturally. But what is pa.s.sable is more than enough. Indeed, what is pa.s.sable seems to have been in use for thousands of years.'

Hadals, thought Ali, and heard the stillness all around her.

The screen filled with gray, shot through with squiggles and holes. The overall effect was of worms burrowing through a block of mud, surfacing and diving into the nether zone.

'The Pacific floor covers roughly 64,186,000 square miles. As you can see, it's riddled with these cavities, hundreds and thousands of miles of them. From Level 15, roughly four miles down, the density of rock and our limited technology drop our scale to 1:120,000. But we've still managed to count some eighteen thousand significant subterranean branches.

'They seem to dead-end or circle on themselves and go nowhere. All except one. We think this particular tunnel was carved by an acid plume relatively recently, less than a hundred thousand years ago, just moments in geological time. It appears to have welled up from beneath the Mariana Trench system, then corkscrewed east into younger and younger basalt. This tunnel goes from Point A - where we sit this morning - all the way across to Point B.' He walked from east to west across the front of the screen, pulling his pencil point across the entire Pacific territory. 'Point B lies at point-seven degrees north by 145.23 degrees east, just this side of the Mariana Trench system. There it dips deeper, beneath the Trench.

'Where it goes, we're not quite sure. It probably links with the Carolinian system west of the Philippines. A profusion of tunnels shoots throughout the Asian plate systems, giving access to the bas.e.m.e.nts of Australia, the Indonesian archipelago, China, and so on. You name it, there are doorways to the surface everywhere. We believe these connect with the sub-Pacific network here at Point B, but our scan is still in progress. It's a cartographic missing link for the moment, as the source of the Nile once was. But not for long. In less than a year, you are going to tell me where it leads.'

It took Ali and the others a minute to catch up.

'You're sending us out there?' someone gasped.

Ali was staggered. She couldn't begin to grasp the enormity of the endeavor. Nothing January or Thomas had told her was preparation for this. She heard people breathing hard all around her. What could this mean, she wondered, a journey so audacious? Why send them all the way across to Asia? It was a stratagem of some sort, a geopolitical chess move. It reminded her less of Lewis and Clark's traverse than of the great expeditions of discovery once launched by Spain and England and Portugal.

It struck her. Their journey was meant to be a declaration, ap.r.o.nunciamento. Wherever the expedition went, Helios would be a.s.serting its domain. And the cartographer had just told them where they were going, beneath the Equator, from South America all the way to China.

In a flash, Ali saw the grand design.

Helios - Cooper, the failed President - intended to lay claim to the entire subbas.e.m.e.nt of the oceanic bowl. He was going to create a nation for himself. But a nation the size of the Pacific Ocean? She had to relay this information to January.

Ali sat in the darkness, gaping at the screen. It would be larger than all the nations on earth put together! Helios would own almost half the globe. What could you possibly do with such immense s.p.a.ce? How could you manifest such power?

She was awed by the grandeur of it. Such imperial vision: it was virtually psychotic. And she and these scientists were to be the agents in gaining it.

Her neighbors were lodged in their own thoughts. Most were probably weighing the risks, adjusting their search goals, adapting to the vastness of the challenge, reckoning the odds.

'Shoat!' a man bellowed.

Shoat's face obligingly appeared at the podium light.

'No one said anything about this,' the man said.

'You did sign on for a year,' Shoat pointed out.

'You expect us to traverse the Pacific Ocean? A mile to three miles beneath the ocean floor? Through unexplored territory? Hadal territory?'

'I'll be with you every step of the way,' Shoat said.

'But no one's ever gone west of the Nazca Plate.'

'That's true. We'll be the first.'

'You're talking about being on the move for an entire year.'

'Precisely our reason for sending you a workout schedule over the last six months. All those climbing walls and StairMasters and heavy squats weren't for your cosmetic enhancement.'

Ali could sense the group calculating.

'You have no idea what's out there,' someone said.

'That's not exactly true,' Shoat said. 'We have some idea. Two years ago, a military reconnaissance probed some of the path. Basically they found the remains of a prehistoric pa.s.sageway, a network of tunnels and chambers that are well marked and have been improved and maintained over a period of several thousand years. We think it may have been a kind of Silk Road for the Pacific abyss.'

'How far did the soldiers get?'

'Twenty-three miles,' Shoat answered. 'Then they turned around and came back.'

'Armed soldiers.'

Shoat was unflappable. 'They weren't prepared. We are.'

'What about hadals?'

'There hasn't been a sighting in over two years,' Shoat said. 'But just to be safe, Helios has hired a security force. They will accompany us every step of the way.'

A gentleman stood. He had Isaac Asimov muttonchops and black horn-rims, and had X'ed out the word 'Hi' on his name tag. Ali knew his face from the dust jackets of his numerous books: Donald Spurrier, a renowned primatologist. 'What about human limitations? Your projected route must be five thousand miles long.'

The cartographer turned to the glowing map. His finger traced a set of lines that ambled back and forth across the equatorial rhumb. 'In fact, with all the bends and turns and vertical loss and gain, a better estimate is eight thousand miles, plus or minus a thousand.'

'Eight thousand miles?' said Spurrier. 'In a single year? On foot?'

'For what it's worth, our train ride just gave us an easy thirteen hundred miles without a step.'

'Leaving a mere 6,700 miles. Are we supposed to run nonstop for a year?'

'Mother Nature is lending a hand,' the cartographer said.

'We've detected significant motion along the route,' Shoat said. 'We believe it's a river.'

'A river?'

'Moving from east to west. Thousands of miles long.'

'A theoretical river. You haven't seen it.'

'We'll be the first.'

Spurrier was no longer resisting. 'We won't go thirsty, then.'

'Don't you see?' Shoat said. 'It means we can float.'

They were dazzled.

'What about supplies? How can we hope to carry enough for a year?'

'We start with porters. Every four to six weeks thereafter, we will be supplied by drill hole. Helios has already begun drilling supply holes for us at selected points. They will drill straight through the ocean floor to intersect our route, and lower food and gear. At those points, by the way, we'll have brief contact with the World. You'll be able to communicate with your families. We'll even be able to evacuate the sick or injured.'

It all sounded reasonable.

'It's radical. It's daring,' Shoat said. 'It's one year out of your lives. We could have spent it sitting on our b.u.t.ts in a hole like this. Instead, one year from now, we'll go down in history. You'll be writing papers and publis.h.i.+ng books about this for the rest of your lives. It will cement your tenure, gain you chairs of departments, win you prizes and acclaim. Your children and grandchildren will beg you for the tale of what you're about to do.'

'This is a huge decision,' a man said. 'I need to consult my wife.' A general murmur agreed.

'I'm afraid the communications line is down.' It was a blatant lie, Ali could see it. But that was part of the price. He was drawing a line for them to step across. 'You may, of course, post mail. The next train back to Nazca City leaves two months from now.' Helios was playing hardball, a total embargo on information.

Shoat surveyed them with reptilian coolness. 'I don't expect everyone here tonight to be with us in the morning. You're free to return home, of course.' In two months' time, on the train. The expedition would have a tremendous head start on any leaks to the media. He looked at his watch.

'It's late,' he said. 'The expedition departs at 0600. That leaves only a few hours for you to sleep on your choices. That's enough, though. I'm a firm believer that each of us comes into this world with our decisions already made.'

The lights came up. Ali blinked. Everywhere, people were leaning forward onto seatbacks, rubbing their hands, making calculations. Faces were lit with excitement. Thinking fast, she looked for Ike's reaction to judge the proposition. But he had left while the lights were still off.

10 - DIGITAL SATAN.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

-FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil Health Sciences Center, University of Colorado, Denver

'She was caught in a nursing home near Bartlesville, Oklahoma,' Dr. Yamamoto explained to them. Thomas and Vera Wallach and Foley, the industrialist, followed the physician from her office. Branch came last, eyes protected by dark ski goggles, sleeves b.u.t.toned at each wrist to hide his burn scars.

'It was one of those homes that give adult children nightmares,' Dr. Yamamoto went on. She couldn't have been more than twenty-seven. Her lab coat was unb.u.t.toned. Underneath it, a T-s.h.i.+rt read THE LAKE CITY 50-MILE ENDURANCE RUN. She exuded vitality and happiness, Branch thought. The wedding ring on her finger looked only a few weeks old.

They took an elevator up. A sign, supplemented with Braille, listed the floors by specialty. Primates occupied the bas.e.m.e.nt. The upper floors were Psychiatry and Neurophysiology. They got off on the top floor, which bore no t.i.tle, and started down another hallway.

'It turns out the administrator at this Bartlesville scam had served time for a variety of frauds and forgeries,' Dr. Yamamoto said. 'He's back in, I guess. I hope. A real prince. His so-called facility advertised itself as specializing in Alzheimer's patients. Behind the scenes, he kept the patients just barely alive in order to keep the Medicare/Medicaid checks coming in. Bed restraints, horrific conditions. No medical personnel whatsoever. Apparently our little intruder was able to hide there for over a month before a janitor finally noticed.'

The young doctor halted at a door with a keypad. 'Here we are,' she said, and gently entered the code. Long fingers. A soft, sure touch.

'You play violin,' Thomas guessed.

She was delighted. 'Guitar,' she confessed. 'Electric. Ba.s.s. I have a band, Girl Talk. All guys, and me.'

She held the door for them. Immediately, Branch sensed the change in light and sound. No windows in here. No spill of sunbeams. The slight whistle of wind against brick quit. These walls were thick.

To the right and left, doorways opened onto rooms...o...b..ting computer screens. A plaque read DIGITAL ADAM PROJECT, NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE. Branch didn't see a single book.

Yamamoto's voice adjusted to the new quiet. 'Lucky for us it was the janitor who noticed,' she continued. 'The administrator and his gang of thieves would never have called the police. To make a long story short, the cops came. They were suitably horrified. At first they were sure it was animals. One of the cops used to trap coyotes and bobcats. He set out some old rusty leg traps.'

They reached a set of double doors. Another keypad. Different numbers, Branch noticed. They entered in stages: first a guard, then a scrub room, where Yamamoto helped them put on disposable green gowns and surgical masks and double pairs of latex gloves, then a main room with biotechs at work over test tubes and keyboards. She led them around gleaming banks of equipment and picked up her narrative.

'That night she came back for more. One of the traps caught her leg. The cops came roaring in. She was a complete surprise. They were not at all prepared. Barely four feet high and, even with her tibia and fibula broken in half, she still almost beat five grown men. She came very close to escaping, but they got her. We would have preferred a live specimen, of course.'

They came to a door labeled NIPPLES ALERT on a handwritten sheet.

'Nipples?' asked Vera.

Yamamoto noticed the sign and s.n.a.t.c.hed it down. 'A joke,' she said. 'It's cold in there. The room is refrigerated. We call it the pit and the pendulums.'

Branch was gratified by her blush. She was a professional. What's more, she wanted to look professional to them. She led them through the door.

Inside, it was not as cold as Branch had expected. A wall thermometer read thirty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Very bearable for an hour or two of work. Not that anyone was in here. The work was all being done automatically.

Machinery susurrated, a steady rhythm. Shh. Shh. Shh. As though to quiet an infant. A number of lights pulsed with each hush.

'They killed her?' Vera asked.

'No, it wasn't that,' Yamamoto said. 'She was alive after they got the nets and rope on. But the trap was rusty. Sepsis set in. Teta.n.u.s. She died before we arrived. I brought her here in a footlocker packed with dry ice.'

There were four stainless-steel autopsy tables. Each held a block of blue gelatin. Each block was positioned against a machine. Each machine flashed a light every five seconds.

'We named her Dawn,' said Yamamoto.

They looked into the blue gelatin and there she was, her cadaver frozen and suspended in gel and cut crosswise into four sections.

'We were halfway through computerizing our digital Eve when the hadal came our way.' Yamamoto indicated a dozen freezer drawers along one wall. 'We put Eve back into storage and immediately went to work on Dawn. As you can see, we've quartered her body and bedded the four sections in gelatin. These machines are called cryomacrotomes. Glorified meat shavers. Every few seconds they cut a half-millimeter off the bottom of each gelatin block, and a synchronized camera photographs the new layer.'

'How long has it been here?' Foley asked.

It, not she, Branch noticed. Foley was keeping things impersonal. For his own part, Branch felt a connection. How could you not? The small hand had four fingers and a thumb.

'Two weeks. It's just a function of the blades and cameras. In another few months we'll have a computer bank with over twelve thousand images. She'll end up as forty billion bytes of information stored on seventy CD-ROM disks. Using a mouse, you will be able to travel through a 3-D image of Dawn's interior.'

'And your purpose?'

'Hadal physiology,' Dr. Yamamoto said. 'We want to know how it differs from human.'

'Is there any way to accelerate your inquiry?' asked Thomas.

'We don't know what we're looking for, or even what questions to ask. As it is, we don't dare miss anything. There's no telling what might lie in the smallest detail.'

They separated and went to different tables. Through the translucent gel, Branch saw a pair of lower legs and feet. There was the place the trap had snapped her bones. The skin was fish white.