The Descent Part 30

'And you killed him,' she said.

He looked at her.

'You have no idea how brutal this looks,' she said. 'Dear G.o.d. What did they do to you?'

He shrugged. In the span of one heartbeat, he had fallen a thousand miles away from her. 'I'll find him,' he said.

'Who?'

He pointed at the raised scars on his arm. 'Him,' he said.

'You said that was your name.'

'It was. His name was my name. I had no name except for his.'

'Whose?'

'The one who owned me.'

Four days farther on, they found Shoat's river.

Ike had been sent ahead. He was waiting for the expedition at a chamber filled with thunder. They had been hearing it for days. In the center of the floor lay a great vertical shaft, shaped at top like a funnel. A city block wide, the hole roared up at them.

The walls sweated. Small streams sluiced into the maw. They girdled the rim, trying to see the bottom. Their lights illuminated a deep, polished throat. The stone was calcareous serpentine with green mottling. Ike lowered a headlamp on a rope. Two hundred meters down, the tiny light skipped and skidded sideways on an invisible current.

'I'll be d.a.m.ned,' Shoat said. 'The river.'

'You didn't expect it to be here?' someone said.

Shoat grinned. 'n.o.body knew. Our cartography department gave it a one-in-three chance. On the other hand, it was the most logical way to explain the continuum in their data.'

'We came all this way on a wild guess?'

Shoat gave a happy-go-lucky shrug. 'Kick off your shoes,' he said, 'no more backpacks. No more hoofing it. From here, we float.'

'I think we should first study the situation,' one of the hydrologists said. 'We have no idea what's down there. What's the river's profile? How fast does it run? Where does it go?'

'Study it from the boats,' Shoat said.

The porters did not arrive for another three hours. Since leaving Cache I, they had been freighted with double loads for double pay, some carrying in excess of a hundred and fifty pounds. They deposited their cargo in a dry area and went over to a separate chamber, where Walker had arranged a hot meal for them.

Ali came across to Ike, where he was rigging lines into the hole. At their parting on the dance floor, she'd been drunk and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with curiosity and, ultimately, repulsion. Now she was as sober as a pebble, and the repulsion had abated. 'What happens with them?' she asked, referring to the porters. 'Everyone's wondering.'

'End of the road,' he said. 'Shoat's retiring them.'

'They're going home? The colonel's been hunting the runaways down, and now they're all being turned loose?'

'It's Shoat's show,' Ike said.

'Will they be okay?'

This was no place to cut men, two months out from the nearest civilization. But Ike saw no reward in arousing her indignation all over again. 'Sure,' he said. 'Why not?'

'I thought they'd been guaranteed employment for a year.'

He hooked a coil of rope with one hand and busied himself with knots. 'We've got worries of our own,' he advised. 'They're about to become a powder keg. Once they figure out we're ditching them, it's a matter of time before they go for us.'

'For us?' she started. 'For revenge?'

'It's more basic than that,' Ike said. 'They'll want our weapons. Our food. Everything. From a strictly military point of view - Walker's view - the expeditious thing would be to frag them and be done with it.'

'He would never dare,' Ali said.

'You don't see it?' he asked. 'The porters are segregated from the rest of us now. That side cave is a cage with no door. They can only come out one at a time, and that makes them easy targets if they get tired of being cooped up.'

Ali couldn't believe this other, meaner layer to the expedition. 'He's not going to shoot them, is he?'

'No need. By the time they finally decide to poke their heads out, we'll probably be long gone down the river.'

All over again, the quartermaster opened the loads and laid out the supplies from Cache I. One of his first tasks was to distribute specially made survival suits to the soldiers and scientists. Made by Jagged Edge Gear for NASA, the suits were constructed of a ripstop fabric that was waterproof but land-friendly. He issued the suits in sizes from small to extra large. A wiry mercenary ran them through the basics.

'You can walk in it, climb in it, sleep in it. If you fall overboard, pull this emergency ring and the suit will self-inflate. It preserves your body heat. It keeps you dry. And it's shark-proof.'

Someone made a joke about a magic suit of armor.

The suits were a composite of rubbery shorts, sleeveless vests, and skintight oversuits. The fabric was night-striped with charcoal gray and cobalt blue. As the scientists tried on their elastic clothing, the unsettling effect was of tigers on two feet. There were a few wolf whistles, male and female.

They tried lowering a video camera to examine the lowest reaches of the shaft. When that didn't work, Walker sent down his crash dummy: Ike.

Not so many years before, a trail must have led from the chamber down to the river. Ike had already spent part of a day looking for it. But along the most likely tunnel, there was a boulder-choke triggered by recent tremors. Hadal evidence was everywhere - carved pillars, washed-out wall paintings, spouts to lift streamlets, rocks piled to divert them - but no suggestion that the hole had ever been used the way they were about to use it, to access the river from straight above.

Ike rappelled into the stone throat, feet braced against the veined rock. At the bottom of the first rope, a hundred meters down, he peeked upward through the falling water. They were watching him, waiting to see what would happen.

The shaft gave way to a void. Ike had no warning. His feet were suddenly pumping against the blackness. He halted, dangling in a vast, quiet bubble of night.

Casting around with his light beam, he found the river fifty feet below. He had descended into a long, winding geological cupola. Its vaulted ceiling hung above the flat river surface. Strangely, the thunderous noise stopped the moment he left the shaft. It was practically silent here. He could hear the water slithering past, little more.

If not for his rope leading up through it, the shaft hole might have disappeared among all the other gnarled features above and around him. The walls and ceiling were scaled with igneous puzzles. It was a complicated s.p.a.ce with one logic - the river.

He let himself down the line and locked off within reach of the water. It ran smooth as black silk. Tentatively, Ike reached his fingertips against it. Nothing leaped up to bite him. The current was firm. The water felt cool and heavy. It had no smell. If it had come from the Pacific Ocean, it was no longer sea water; the journey inward had filtered any salt from it. It was delicious.

He made his report on a short-range radio that Walker had given him. 'It looks fine to me,' he said.

They lowered like spiders on silk threads. Some required coaxing for the rappel, including several of the soldiers. Clients, thought Ike.

The launch was tricky.

The rafts were roped down with their pontoons fully inflated and the seats and floor a.s.sembled. They reminded Ike of lifeboats descending from a doomed s.h.i.+p.

The river swept away their first attempt. Luckily, no one was in it.

At Ike's instruction, the next raft was suspended just above the water while a team of boatmen rappelled down on five other ropes. They might have been puppets on strings, all hanging in the air. On the count of three, the crew pendulumed into the dangling raft just as it touched the water. Two men didn't release from their ropes quickly enough, and ended up swinging back and forth above the river while the raft drifted on. The others grabbed paddles and began digging at the water toward a huge polished natural ramp not far downstream.

The operation smoothed out once a small motor was lowered and attached to one of the rafts. The motorized boat gave them the ability to circle in the water and collect pa.s.sengers and bags of gear hanging on a dozen different ropes. Some of the scientists proved to be quite competent with the ropes and craft. Several of Walker's forbidding avengers looked seasick. Ike liked that. The playing field was growing more level.

It took five hours to convey their tons of supplies down the shaft. A small flotilla of rafts ferried the cargo to sh.o.r.e. Except for the one raft, and the sacrifice of their porters, the expedition had lost nothing. There was general contentment about their streamlining. The Jules Verne Society was feeling able and sanctioned, as though they could handle anything h.e.l.l had to throw at them.

Ali dreamed of the porters that night. She saw their faces fading into blackness.

15 - MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE.

Send forth the best ye breed - Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need.

-RUDYARD KIPLING, 'The White Man's Burden'

Little America, Antarctica January had expected a raging white h.e.l.l with hurricanes and Quonset huts. But their landing strip was dry, the windsock limp. She had pulled a lot of strings to get them here today, but wasn't quite sure what to expect. Branch could only say that it had to do with the Helios expedition. Events were developing that could affect the entire subplanet.

The plane parked swiftly. January and Thomas exited down the Globemaster's cargo ramp, past forklifts and bundled GIs. 'They're waiting,' an escort told them.

They entered an elevator. January hoped it meant an upper-story room with a view. She wanted to watch this immense land and eternal sun. Instead they went down. Ten stories deep, the doors opened.

The hallway led to a briefing room, dark and silent inside. She had thought the room empty. But a voice near the front said, 'Lights.' It was spoken like a warning. When the lights came on, the room was full. With monsters.

At first she thought they were hadals cupping hands over eyes. But one and all were American officers. In front of her, a captain's jarhead haircut revealed lumps and corrugations on a skull the shape and size of a football helmet.

As a congresswoman, she had chaired a subcommittee investigating the effects of prolonged tours of duty into the interior. Now, surrounded by officers of her own Army, she saw for herself what 'skeletal warp' and osteitis deformans really meant: an exile among their peers. January reached for the term: Paget's disease. It sent skeletal tissue into an uncontrolled cycle of breakdown and growth. The cranial cavity was not affected, and motion and agility were uncompromised. But deformity was rampant. She quickly searched for Branch, but for once he was indistinguishable from the crowd.

'Welcome to our distinguished guests, Senator January and Father Thomas.' At the podium stood a general named Sandwell, known to January as an intriguer of extraordinary energy. His reputation as a field commander was not good. In effect, he had just warned his men to beware the politician and priest now in their midst. 'We were just beginning.'

The lights went out. There was audible relief, men relaxing back into their chairs again. January's eyes adjusted to the darkness. A large video screen was glowing aqua blue on one wall. Maps came up, a seafloor topo, then a wireframe view of the Pacific, then a close-up.

'To summarize,' Sandwell said, 'a situation has developed in our WestPac sector, at a border station numbered 1492. These are commanding officers of sub-Pacific bases, and they are gathered here to receive our latest intelligence and to take my orders.'

January knew that was for her benefit. The general was declaring that he had determined a course of action. January was not annoyed. She could always influence the outcome, if need be. The fact that she and Thomas were even in this room was a testament to her powers.

'When one of our patrols was first reported missing, we a.s.sumed they had come under attack. We sent a rapid response unit to locate and a.s.sist the patrol. The rapid response unit went missing, too. And then the lost patrol's final dispatch reached us.'

Regret pulled at January. Ali was out there, beyond the lost patrol. Concentrate, she commanded herself, and focused on the general.

'It's called a message in a bottle,' Sandwell explained. 'One patrol member, usually the radioman, carries a thermopylae box. It continuously gathers and digitizes video images. In case of an emergency, it can be triggered to transmit automatically. The information is thrown into geological s.p.a.ce.

'The problem is, different subterranean phenomena r.e.t.a.r.d our frequencies at different rates. In this case, the transmission bounced off the upper mantle and came back up through basalt that was folded. In short, the transmission was lost in stone for five weeks. Finally we intercepted the message wave at our base above the Mathematician Seamounts. The transmission was badly degraded with tectonic noise. It took us another two weeks to enhance with computers. As a consequence, fifty-seven days have pa.s.sed since the initial incident. During that time we lost three more rapid response units. Now we know it was no attack. Our enemy is internal. He is one of us. Video, please.'

'Final Dispatch - Green Falcon' a t.i.tle read. A dateline jumped up, lower right. ClipGal/ML1492/07-03/2304:34.

Whispering, January translated for Thomas. 'Whatever it is, we're about to see something from the McNamara Line station 1492 at the Clipperton/Galapagos tunnel on July 3, starting at fifty-six minutes before midnight.'

Heat signatures pooled out from the blackness on screen. Seven souls. They looked disembodied.

'Here they are,' said Sandwell. 'SEALs. Based out of UDT Three, WestPac. A routine search-and-destroy.'

The patrol's heat signatures resolved on screen. Hot-green souls metamorphosed into distinct human bodies. As they approached the cameras, the SEALs' faces took on individual personalities. There were a few white kids, a couple of blacks, a Chinese-American.

'These are edited clips taken from the lipstick video worn by the radio operator. They're putting on their light gear. The Line is very close now.'

'The Line' was shorthand for a robot perimeter first conceived during the Vietnam War, an automatic Maginot Line that would serve as a countrywide tripwire. Here, in remote parts of the underworld, the technology seemed to be holding the peace. There had been next to no trespa.s.sing for over three years.

The screen flared to a lighter blue. Triggered by motion detectors, the first band of lights - or the last, depending on which direction one was traveling, inward or out - automatically flipped on from recesses in the tunnel walls. Even wearing their dark goggles, the SEALs hunched and turned their faces away. Had they been hadals, they would have fled. Or died. That was the idea.

'I'll fast-forward through the next two hundred yards,' Sandwell said. 'Our point of interest lies at the mouth.'

As Sandwell fast-forwarded, the platoon seemed to speed through ribs of light. With each successive zone they entered, more lights snapped on, and the zone behind them went dark. It was like zebra stripes. The carefully woven combinations of light and other electromagnetic wavelengths were blinding and generally lethal to life-forms bred in darkness. As the subplanet was being pacified, choke points like this one had been outfitted with arrays of lights - infrared, ultraviolet, and other photon transmitters - plus sensor-guided lasers, to 'keep the genie bottled.' Evidence of the genie began to appear. Sandwell resumed normal speed.

Bones and bodies littered the deadly bright avenue, as if a vicious battle had been fought here. In full view, spotlit by the megawatt of electricity, the hadal remains were almost uninteresting. Few had any coloration to their skins and hides. Even their hair lacked color. It was not white, even, just a dead, parched hue similar to lard.

As the patrol neared the tunnel's far end - what Sandwell had termed the mouth - attempts at sabotage became obvious. Lights had been broken, or blocked with primitive tools, or plugged with stones. The hadal sappers had paid a high price for their efforts. The SEALs came to a halt. Just ahead, where the tunnel mouth turned black, lay true wilderness.

January swallowed her suspense. Something bad was about to happen.

'Anybody see it?' Sandwell asked the room. No one replied. 'They walked right past it,' he said. 'Just the way they were supposed to.'

Again he fast-forwarded. At high speed, the troops took off their packs and began their janitorial duties, replacing parts and lightbulbs in the walls and ceiling, and lubricating equipment and recalibrating lasers. The on-screen clock raced through seven minutes.

'Here's where they find it,' Sandwell said. The video slowed.

A group of SEALs had cl.u.s.tered around a spur of rock, obviously discussing a curiosity. The radioman approached, and his lipstick video camera gave a view of a small cylinder the size of a little finger. It was lodged in a crevice in the rock. 'There it is,' Sandwell announced.

There was no soundtrack, no voices. One of the SEALs reached for the cylinder. A second tried to caution him. Abruptly, one man fell backward. The rest simply slumped to the ground. The lipstick camera spun madly, and came to rest - sideways - upon a view of someone's boot. The boot twitched once, no more.

'We've timed it,' Sandwell said. 'It took less than two seconds - one-point-eight, to be exact - for seven men to die. Of course, it was in its concentrated form at release. But even weeks later and three miles away, after dispersing on the air current, it took just over two seconds - two-point-two - to kill our rapid response units. In other words, it is nearly instantaneous. With a one-hundred-percent mortality rate.'

'What is this?' Thomas hissed at January. 'What is this man talking about?'

'I have no idea,' she muttered.

'Here it is again, slower, with more detail.'

Frame by frame, Sandwell showed them the death scene from the cylinder onward. This time, the finger-length of metal tube revealed its parts: a main body, a small gla.s.s hood, a tiny light. Magnified, the SEAL's fingers reached in. The tiny light bead changed colors. The cylinder delivered the faintest burst of an aerosol spray. Men fell to the ground, as slowly as drowned sailors. This time, January was able to see evidence of the biological violence. One of the black kids twisted his face to the camera, mouth gulping, and his eyes were gone. A man's hand swept past the lens, blood whipping from the nails. Once again the boot twitched and something, a human liquid, seeped from the lace holes.

Gas, January recognized. Or germs. But so fast-acting?

The officers caught up with the information in a single leap. CBW - chemical and biological warfare - was the part of their training they least wanted to engage in the field. But here it was.

'Once more,' Sandwell said.

'Impossible, absolutely impossible,' an officer said. 'Haddie doesn't have anywhere near this kind of capability. They're Neolithic throwbacks. They barely have the sophistication to make fire. They acquire weaponry, they don't invent it. Spears and b.o.o.by traps, that's their creative limit. You can't tell me they're manufacturing CBs.'