Beneath the Dark Ice

Twenty

Tank climbed to the ledge and surveyed its interior. After several minutes he appeared at the edge and called them all up, adding, “Might be something you’ll find interesting up here, Dr. Kerns.”

The ledge was shaped like a platform roughly fifty feet long and about the same in depth. The back half of the ledge was sheltered by an overhang making a shallow indentation in the rock face. It gave the team better shelter and a feeling of more security, and for the HAWCs it meant they didn’t have a 360-degree defensive field to maintain. Monica and Aimee set to portioning the last dried food packets for each of the team members.

Tank took Matt to the rear of the small cave and showed him the far wall, just over a mound of stones. It had some small glyphs similar to those they had seen on their descent.

“It’s another message from the brothers. No, wait; I think it’s a farewell to one of the brothers from the other.” Matt ran his hands over the slightly raised markings on the wall and spoke softly. “Little brother. The gods rejoice at your bravery in battle. Your name will sound in the halls of Aztlan forever. I cannot hope to defeat Qwotoan and must climb back to the light to give my warning to the sun king. The Deceiver will not stay in Xibalba. It finishes with the sign for Hunahpu.” Matt looked down at the pile of stones. “Holy shit, this must be the grave of his brother, Xbalanque. It wasn’t a legend after all, it was all real!”

Matt dropped to his knees and began carefully lifting away the larger rocks and then the smaller stones until he was left to brush away pebbles. After a while he uncovered a small fossilised skeleton, no more than five feet long. Lying across the ribs was a small dagger made of a golden metal and what was once a short thrusting spear, it was now little more than a stain line of powdered wood and brown rust across the mineralised bones. Under the skull at the base of the neck were coloured stones and small pieces of gold that must have hung around his neck at one time. His arms and hands would have been folded across his chest, but it was obvious that his was no peaceful death. His left arm was sheared off above the elbow, leaving a splintered mess of his humerus. His left foot was missing and his skull showed multiple depressions — the tiny warrior’s death must have been a brutal one.

“Amazing, he made it all this way with just a sword and spear,” said Monica.

“Made it! He looks like he was hit by a fucking train. I hardly call that making it.” Silex was again working himself up to a state of high agitation.

Matt responded as calmly as he could to Silex’s fury. “Well, his brother had the strength to cover him up and write his death story. I figure Hunahpu headed back to the surface and we need to follow.”

“I think your stupid little Indian has probably been long digested over 10,000 years ago, and the trail will probably lead to nothing more than another pile of chewed-up, fossilised bones somewhere.”

Alex stepped quietly forward. “That’s enough, sir, this isn’t helping. You’ve got to pull yourself together or you’re not going to make it.”

“I’m not going to make it? What does that mean — you’d leave me here? Shoot me in the leg, is that it? You’re going to try to cast me off so you have more food and water for yourselves. I’ll tell you something, it won’t be me that dies next.” Dr. Silex’s stare was that of a man unhinged and dangerous. Alex put his hand on Silex’s shoulder, turning him round so he could bring his face very close to the scientist’s so that only he could hear. “Dr. Silex, my job is to keep you all safe. But if you look to endanger the rest of us, then I will no longer regard you as part of the group and my protection duties for you will cease. Do you understand me, sir?”

Silex spun out of Alex’s grasp and briefly turned to hiss something inaudible, then retreated to the back of the cave. As Alex watched him go, a small flame burned within him. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and pictured a golden beach with sparkling water and crashing blue waves — it all seemed a lifetime ago.

Several miles out on the black sea the water lumped as something large broke the surface. It stayed there for a few minutes, hanging in the water, its enormous body supported by fluid-filled sacs providing neutral buoyancy at any depth it chose. It had sensed the blood trail and felt the compression waves from the explosion. It could not yet detect the source of the scent but could sense movement on the water’s edge. The opportunity to feed close to its home and not have to hunt in the upper caves was too attractive; it slid silently below the surface and propelled itself swiftly towards the beach.

After scanning the surrounding walls for several minutes, Alex called the group together. Silex refused to join them and sat at the back of the small cave, watching the team from under his lowered brows.

“OK, there are multiple caves all around us — one or more must lead back to the surface. I figure we don’t have too many opportunities to make a wrong choice and double back. So, how do we narrow our search and make a higher value choice the first time?”

Monica was the first to respond. “Should be simple really; there are two indicators we can use. The first is change in temperature. The further we descended the warmer it became. Therefore, we should choose a cave that seems cooler than the rest, signalling that it leads to more topside Antarctic surface temperatures. The second, unfortunately, runs counter to the first. Warm air rises. We need to find a vent that is channelling warm air to colder temperatures. It will be like a wind tunnel. If the wind is strong, this will mask any colder air we could detect at this level.”

“Any others? Dr. Kerns?” Alex could see that Matt had something he wanted to share with the group.

“There’s a third indicator as well. Though we crossed paths several times, I don’t think that Hunahpu came down the river the way we did. We know from the near-surface caves that at least one of the brothers returned. If we find any carvings or glyphs indicating the place he made his ascent then it’s definitely the right cave. Or at least it was ten thousand years ago.”

“OK, good. If we find one of the tunnels with two of the indicators you mentioned then the chances are high it’s the one we need. Tank, give me some density readings starting from our present position in a two-mile grid search. Everyone else, we’ve got about ten more minutes of rest time before we need to push on.”

Mumbling to himself, Silex focused on Alex’s back with a look of such venomous intent it almost sent tangible waves of loathing across the cave floor. “You’ve forgotten who’s in charge, you grunt. This is mutiny. Just want the applause and the girl. Nice day’s work, glory-boy. Well, you aren’t going to hobble me and leave me for the spider crabs.” While the main group was huddled at the mouth of their small cave ledge, Silex reached into the uncovered grave mound of the fallen warrior. He tested the blade against his hand and finding it still intact he slipped it into his belt pouch. He mumbled once again to himself. “You just wait, you just wait.”

After a few minutes Tank was able to report that one of the larger caves, about a mile and a half to their west, was showing air movement in a single direction. Warmer air was being sucked in at a rate of about five knots — not significant, but enough to indicate a pretty good updraught.

“Temperature change?” enquired Alex.

“None I can detect, but as we expected this could simply be because of the constant warm air being drawn through the tunnel,” replied Tank.

Alex looked towards the large cave opening that Tank had indicated — it was not the easiest cave to get to. There was a section, about 200 feet in length, where there was no beach; the water came right to the cliff wall. They would have to either scale the rock face, or wade through the shallows — if they were shallows. He didn’t think the team would relish the idea of swimming in that water or even wading through shallows, given Mike and Takeda’s fate.

Alex turned to the group. “OK everyone, we have a route selected based on Ms. Jenning’s insights on air movement. Unless we have any better ideas I suggest we break camp and move off immediately.” Alex waited for a few seconds, scanning the strained and dirt-encrusted faces before him. With the exception of Silex, they looked tired but still fairly strong and Matt was now openly holding hands with Monica. He hoped he could get them both safely to the surface so they could share a happy ending — something good had to come out of this.

They repacked and prepared to make their way along the shore on the first part of the trek. Alex could see the fatigue etched into their faces as they all groaned to their feet and started to walk — all but one. “Please keep up with us, Dr. Silex.” Alex waited for him to catch up; he wanted to keep the group together, but more than that, something in Silex’s eyes convinced Alex that this was not a man to have at your back.

In the near dark the small group walked silently along the black beach, the squeak of the sand particles beneath their cave boots making a noise like they were a small group of rusting robots in need of oiling. Everyone was tired and looking only at the sand at their feet; the group was retreating into their own thoughts — all except Tank and Alex, who were on high alert, never taking their eyes from the sand, water, cliffs and ceiling. This was an extremely hostile environment.

Aimee thought of Tom again. Did he make it here? Was he still alive by then, and did he climb down or was he dragged? Maybe he had hidden; could he still be… No, that was silly. He wasn’t alive anymore, none of them were.

Matt and Monica also walked in silence, but sneaked a peek at each other from time to time to smile and give reassurance. Matt was worried about Monica and thought he would need to provide protection for her, while Monica knew she would have to be looking out for Matt. They were determined they would get to the surface and be sipping drinks on a warm beach before the week was out.

Dr. Adrian Silex was also silent, though his cracked lips continued to move in a feverish monologue of hate. His mind formed wilder and wilder conspiracies — they were planning to steal his imaging technology designs and then leave him here to die like an animal. Why was it that only the soldiers had guns? They were supposed to be taking orders from him, now they seemed to be the ones giving orders. If he had a gun he’d be the one giving the orders again. If anyone was going to be getting out it was him — everyone else could go to hell, and he might just make damn well sure of that.

Alex tried to keep the group as close to the cliffs as he could and away from the unfathomable black water. On the glistening walls in among the hanging fronds of mosses and lichens, lice-like creatures the size of his fist wriggled into crevices to hide as the small group passed. At the water line, something brightly coloured caught Alex’s eye. He called a halt, leaving Tank to stay with the team. He carefully approached the water. Lying still on the glass smooth surface was what at first glance looked like wood, but it had tendrils of orange material through it. There was more than one; roughly about ten feet long, they must have been organic as they were giving off a disgusting ammonia smell that made him hold his breath. Looking across the surface of the mess, Alex could see hundreds of the worms they had encountered in the upper caves that had so effectively ended Mike Lennox’s life. Some of them were as thick as his wrist and looked like small blind snakes.

Alex kneeled to get a better look and could make out metal objects that might have been rock climbing cams, coloured canvas and perhaps the broken handle of a gun. Alex knew Aimee was approaching before she kneeled down to examine what Alex was looking at.

“It stinks.” After Alex spoke he turned to look at Aimee; a single tear was streaking her dirt-stained face.

“That’s Tom’s jacket in there. I’ve only ever seen this type and size of excretion as coprolite — fossilised shit. Oh god, this is all that’s left of him and probably the entire party he came here with.”

“I’m sorry, Aimee. I know he meant a great deal to you.”

Aimee sniffed and wiped her cheek, then looked up at Alex. She started to laugh softly as tears welled in her eyes.

“You know, if anyone knew how to get himself into shit, it’d be Tom.”

Alex smiled at her as she looked back down at the large excreted packages. “At least now I know and can stop worrying. His suffering is long over.” A strong ammonia smell engulfed them. “Phew, that smell is a mixture of the cephalopod feces and ammonia. They compress and package all the indigestible items from their meals and expel them.”

“Great. Don’t tell me we’re right in the creature’s lair.”

“Maybe, maybe not — they’re very rare. Cephalopods usually hide them or deposit them away from their homes to throw off predators. However, they’re usually tiny, so I doubt predators exist for these things.” Aimee rubbed her eyes as if to clear away the image of Tom’s last seconds on earth. “This thing has got to be hundreds of feet long and though it might not be close, this must be near to where it lives. We need to get out of here or we could end up in the next pile that it excretes.”

“I hear you. Let’s go.”