leaped back and the HAWCs raised their guns. The creature started to move slowly back into the water, tentatively at first then with a rapid jerking. It wasn’t moving under its own strength. It was being dragged back into the depths by something else unseen.
“It’s the blood, seems to be a very attractive commodity down here. I think we better go now.” Alex instructed them to double-time it for a few minutes to clear the feeding frenzy zone. The cold light from the cavern was extinguished as the loud sounds of thrashing and ripping could be heard from where the small group had just been — nothing would be wasted down here.
In a little while their heartbeats slowed and Alex allowed them to return to a walking pace. But regardless of the team’s comfort level he had to order all lights be switched off. Batteries were becoming a prized possession and Silex had already been caught trying to buy Matt’s spares. They could never navigate their way back to the surface in the dark.
Once their eyes grew accustomed to the strange blue glow it was quite comforting to have a 360-degree light source instead of relying on narrow beams. After a while it was Matt who voiced what they could all sense. “It’s getting even lighter.” He was right; the dim blue gloom was turning to an evening-like twilight.
What they now entered could not be called a cavern, or a cave, cathedral or any of the other descriptions applied by cavers and geologists to underground openings or pockets. It could only be described as a world.
“Pellucidar is but a realm of your imagination — nothing more.” Matt had been the first to speak and break the sense of awe at what they were seeing.
“Maybe Edgar Rice Burroughs knew more than he was given credit for,” said Aimee in a slightly hushed voice.
Matt went to rush forward but Alex held up his hand, flat and open-fingered to indicate to Matt that he hold his position. Alex tried to reach out and sense danger but his consciousness was overwhelmed by the massive life forces emanating from the realm before them.
They stood at the mouth of the cave on the curve of a black beach, where the stream emptied into a vast dark ocean. The colossal hollow’s roof and walls were lit with an abundance of the eerie bioluminescent light, making it a permanent twilight. Huge chandeliers of lichens and primitive mosses hung from the ceiling hundreds of feet over their heads and draped the walls like ragged sackcloth. The walls they could see in the near distance were cliffs that had dozens of openings just like the one they had exited from, and the horizon, even though they were in semi-gloom, could not be seen. There was evidence of old rock falls but mainly the slick walls were smooth and draped in mosses, lichens and primitive-looking plants that resembled slime moulds more than any earthly flora. For the most part they were white or translucent, but now and then one would be blood red or cobalt blue, indicating it had tapped into some mineral vein and was converting the rich minerals for its own use.
The underground sea itself was not a dead sheet of glass, but alive with small ripples that appeared on the surface, indicating life was very busy beneath its surface.
Matt turned to Monica. “How can this world exist down here? It’s unbelievable. Looks like it’s been here forever.”
“Well, there are enormous cave systems all around the world that are fantastically old even by geological standards. There’s the Ursa Minor in the Sequoia National Park, St. Michaels in Gibraltar, or the Jenolan Caves in Australia that are supposed to be nearly four-hundred million years old. But this could easily top all of those.”
“It’s warm, and feels like jungle humidity. There must be geothermic activity keeping this underground water body in solution even though it’s buried under the coldest continent on earth. Or perhaps the heat from the earth’s interior is keeping the sea from freezing — a form of geothermal heat radiating up from below and warming rocks on the underground seabed.” Silex was wringing his hands and seemed to be talking to himself. He licked his lips constantly now, and they had become chapped and cracked. He rambled on.
“Hmm, yes, I’d say the ice sheet above would also be acting as a blanket, protecting the lake from cold temperatures on the surface. The heat source probably gives it the basis for its food chain in the near dark. Similar biospheres occur close to deep vents miles under the ocean, you know.”
Alex was looking at Dr. Silex with concern. “Let’s get further up onto that beach and rest — I’m not happy being this close to the water. Tank, get me some readings.” Alex needed to keep them all moving and focused on getting to the surface. As soon as someone started to give up hope, a malaise — or worse — would set in.
Tank reached into his backpack for his small radar unit and fiddled with the buttons before pointing it at the ceiling and then turning it in a wide semi-circle. “OK, we’re just under three miles down; we have moved that much again from our initial insertion point.” Some more fiddling. “The body of water is… well, it must be over a hundred miles in length as it exceeds this device’s readings, and about fifty-five miles wide, depth unknown. There are… there are multiple movement signatures in the air above and below the water — varying sizes. Christ, some of them are huge — maybe whales, at least that big anyway.”
Alex looked at Aimee. She shrugged and narrowed her eyes — he knew what she was thinking; they still hadn’t come across the creature that attacked them and owned the rest of the tentacle they hacked off. God help them if that thing wasn’t top of the food chain. Meeting something that size in a cave was one thing; you had a wall at your back and it was defendable, to a degree. Out in the open they were just more food for the taking.
“Let’s move. Single file. Takeda, lead us out, please.”
Alex looked into the distance through his scope and used its maximum magnification to try to find a safe place to rest. He spotted a ledge about a mile down the black beach that looked like the perfect site — up from the water line, dry and with a slight overhang making it defendable. Alex’s senses tingled — they were not in their world anymore and danger was everywhere.
Nineteen
Viktor Petrov sat up in his king-sized bed and sipped from the gold-rimmed china cup. The black, smoky- flavoured Russian tea singed his lips and he blew across the rim to cool it. He thought deeply about the information contained in the intelligence reports that were now fanned out over his red silk sheets. The Russkaya Station in western Antarctica had indicated a seismic ripple from near the site where Borshov and his men had entered the ice. Petrov knew that ripple could only be man-made.
Petrov took another sip of tea and stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed on a spot thousands of miles from his bedroom as he thought of the possible outcomes of the underground explosion. It could mean one of three things. One, Borshov had succeeded and the Americans were dead; good. Two, they were all dead — the big oaf had blown himself and everyone else up; still good. Or three, Borshov was dead and the Americans had survived. Lower probability, but the worst possible outcome for Petrov if true.
He’d put more feelers out and monitor every single blip of electronic traffic coming off the ice. But as a little insurance he’d transfer some of his accounts offshore — it might be a warm winter after all.
Monica moved up to walk beside Aimee; her eyes were wide as she tried to take in all the sights, sounds and textures of their fantastic environment. “In all my life I’ve never seen a cave like this. No, in a thousand lives, I don’t think
They rounded a small outcrop of boulders and saw a new black sand beach alive with movement — dozens of long-bodied spider-like creatures were scuttling away from the group. Each of the crustaceans was easily over three feet in length with a flat, heavily armoured insectoid-type body.
“Lobster, anyone?” asked Matt.
“Yuck, centipedes more like it,” responded Monica with some disgust. The clicking of their shells and the quick nervous way the creatures moved did remind the group of a hive of giant insects rather than some type of edible sea creature.
“Dangerous?” Alex asked Aimee as he and the remaining HAWCs kept their guns pointed at the scuttling mass on the beach.
“No, I think they’re some type of marine arthropod. I’m guessing more frightening to look at than harmful, but down here who knows?”
“They still look like lunch to me.” Though Matt had a slight joking edge to his voice, after nearly twenty hours of bitter dark chocolate the thought of real food made a few stomachs complain. None of the small group were on the verge of starvation just yet, however, Alex knew it wouldn’t be long before they would all be seeing lunch in
