to Venice.
This was the Beowulf Circle's first meeting in months. Some had been busy in libraries or museums; others had been hard at work in the field, interviewing journalists, soldiers, missionaries, anyone with experience of the depths. The quest had engaged them.
They were delighted to be in this city. Venice's winding canals led to a thousand secret places. The Renaissance spirit pleasantly haunted these sun-gorged plazas. The irony was that on a Sunday spilling over with light and church bells, they had come together in a bank vault.
Most of them looked younger, tanned, more limber. The spark was back in their eyes again. They were eager to share their findings with one another. January made hers first.
She had received Ali's letter only yesterday, delivered by one of the seven scientists who had quit the expedition and finally gotten free of Point Z-3. The scientist's tale, and Ali's dispatch, were disturbing. After Shoat and his expedition had departed, the dissidents had sulked for weeks, stranded among violent misfits. Male and female alike had been beaten and raped and robbed. At last a train had brought them back to Nazca City. Now aboveground, they were undergoing treatment for an exotic lithospheric fungus and various venereal diseases, plus the usual compression problems. But their misadventures paled next to the larger news they had brought out.
January summarized the Helios stratagem. Reading excerpts from Ali's letter, written right up to the hour of her descent from Point Z-3, she sketched out the plan to traverse beneath the Pacific floor and exit somewhere near Asia. 'And Ali has gone with them,' she groaned. 'For me. What have I done?'
'Can't blame yourself.' Desmond Lynch popped his briarwood cane against the tile floor. 'She got herself into it. We all did.'
'Thank you for the consolation, Desmond.'
'What can be the meaning of this?' someone asked. 'The cost must be prodigious, even for Helios.'
'I know C.C. Cooper,' January said, 'and so I fear the worst. He seems to be carving out a nation- state all his own.' She paused. 'I've had my staff investigating, and Helios is definitely preparing for a full-scale occupation of the area.'
'But his own country?' said Thomas.
'Don't forget,' January said, 'this is a man who believes the presidency was stolen from him by a conspiracy. He seems to have decided a fresh start is best. In a place where he can write all the rules.'
'A tyranny. A plutocracy,' said one of the scholars.
'He won't call it that, of course.' 'But he can't do this. It violates international laws.
Surely –'
'Possession is everything,' January said. 'Recall the conquistadores in the New World. Once they got an ocean between them and their king, they decided to set themselves up in their own little kingdoms. It threatened the entire balance of power.' Thomas was grim. 'Major Branch, surely you can intercept the expedition. Take your soldiers. Turn these invaders back before they spark more war.'
Branch closed his book. 'I'm afraid I have no authority to do that, Father.'
Thomas appealed to January. 'He's your soldier. Order him. Give him the authority.'
'It doesn't work that way, Thomas. Elias is not my soldier. He's a friend. As for authority, I've already spoken with the commander in charge of operational affairs, General Sandwell. But the expedition's crossed beyond the military frontier. And, as you pointed out, he doesn't want to provoke the war all over again.'
'What are all your commandos and specialists good for? Helios can slip some mercenaries into the wilderness, but not the US Army?'
Branch nodded. 'You're sounding like some of the officers I know. The corporations are running amok down there. We have to play by the rules. They don't.'
'We must stop them,' Thomas said. 'The repercussions could be devastating.'
'Even if we had the green light, it's probably too late,' January said. 'They have a two-month head start. And since their departure, we've heard nothing from them. We have no idea where they are exactly. Helios isn't sharing any information. I'm sick with worry. They could be in great danger. They could be walking into a nation of hadals.'
This led them to a discussion of where the hadals might be hiding, how many might still be alive, what their threat really was. In Desmond Lynch's opinion, the hadal population was sparse and scattered and probably in a third or fourth generation of die-off. He estimated their worldwide numbers at no more than a hundred thousand.
'They're an endangered species,' he declared.
'Maybe the population's retreated,' Mustafah, the Egyptian, ventured.
'Retreated? To where? Where is there to go?'
'I don't know. Deeper, perhaps? Is that possible? How deep does the underworld go?'
'I've been thinking,' said Thomas. 'What if their aim was to come out from the underworld? To make their place in the light?'
'You think Satan's looking for an invitation?' Mustafah asked. 'I can't think of many neighborhoods that would welcome such a family.'
'It would need to be a place no one else wants, or a place no one dares to go. A
desert, perhaps. A jungle. Real estate with a negative value.'
'Thomas and I have been talking,' Lynch said. 'After a certain point, where else can a fugitive hide, except in plain sight? And there may be evidence he's up to just that.' Branch was listening carefully.
'We've learned of a Karen warlord in the south of Burma, close to Khmer Rouge country,' Lynch said. 'It's said he was visited by the devil. He may have spoken with our elusive Satan.'
'The rumors may be nothing more than a forest legend,' Thomas qualified. 'But there's also a chance that Satan is attempting to find a new sanctuary.'
'If it's true, it would almost be wonderful,' said Mustafah. 'Satan bringing his tribes out from the depths, like Moses leading his people into Israel.'
'But how can we learn more?' said January.
'As you might imagine, the warlord will never come out of his jungle for us to interview,' said Thomas. 'And there are no cable links, no phone lines. The region has been gutted by atrocity and famine. It's one of those genocide zones, apocalyptic. Supposedly this warlord has turned the clock back to Year Zero.'
'Then his information is lost to us.'
'Actually,' Lynch said, 'I've decided to go into the jungle.'
January and Mustafah and Rau reacted with one voice. 'But you mustn't. Desmond, it's much too dangerous.'
If discovery was part of Lynch's goal, the adventure was another. 'My mind's made up,' he said, relishing their concern.
They were standing in a virtual cage, with a massive steel door and gleaming bars. Farther in, Thomas could make out walls of safe deposit boxes and more doors with complex lock mechanisms. Their discussion went on as they waited.
The scholars began presenting evidence. 'He would be like Kublai Khan or Attila,' Mustafah stated. 'Or a warrior king like Richard the First, summoning all of Christendom to march upon the infidel. A character of immense ambition. An Alexander or a Mao or a Caesar.'
'I disagree,' said Lynch. 'Why a great warrior emperor? What we're seeing is almost exclusively defensive and guerrilla. I'd say, at best, our Satan is someone more like Geronimo than Mao.'
'More like Lon Chancy than Geronimo, I should say,' a voice spoke. 'A character capable of many disguises.' It was de l'Orme.
Unlike the others, de l'Orme had not been restored by his months of detective work. The cancer was a flame in him, licking the flesh and bone away. The left side of his face was practically melting, the eye socket sinking behind his dark glasses. He belonged in a hospital bed. Yet because he looked so weak
