Overlord

6

Aston loitered near the back of the cavern by the elevator, stung by Slater’s verbal assault. He knew he deserved her anger, but that little ambush had been downright juvenile. At the thought, he couldn’t help a smile tugging his lips. In a way, he had to respect her for it. Maybe it was one step nearer to them having an actual conversation. At least public mockery was a level up from icy snubbing.

He watched as Slater did a piece to camera beside the stone door. She was a professional, and she deserved so much better than this. There was no reason she couldn’t front a serious show on the major networks. She had the looks, the presence, the eloquence. Sometimes, the world threw the strangest curveballs at people. The same could be said for himself, he supposed, staring past Slater at the mysterious markings on the smooth door. The door that filled him with a kind of dread. It marked a point where everything about this trip changed. Where he could no longer pretend things weren’t awry here. But, he had to remind himself, the presence of a door like the one under Lake Kaarme didn’t mean a prehistoric monster like the one they had encountered there also lurked here. Though that beast had been a guardian, if the local legends were to be believed. So maybe there wasn’t a cretaceous throwback here, but could there be a different type of guardian? Was it possible, or was he projecting his own fear? But his fear was well-founded. The temperate conditions, the strangely glowing fungus, the obviously man-made door. Or something-made, anyway. It all pointed to problems Aston didn’t want to run into. But what choice did he have now? He was committed to the job, even though Sol had said he could leave at any time. He questioned the truth of that, though he wasn’t committed to Sol, but to his own curiosity.

Slater finished her piece and looked up past the camera. She saw him watching and held his eye for a moment, her expression neutral. He stared back, gave a small, non-committal smile that he hoped conveyed a No hard feelings vibe. She didn’t respond, but didn’t immediately look away either. That was something.

“Can I talk to you a moment?”

Aston turned to see Jahara Syed approach him. He glanced back, but Slater was already back in conversation with Jeff and Marla. He sighed. “Sure,” he said to Jahara. “What’s up?”

“You’re a marine biologist, I know, but that’s a specialty, right? I mean, you’re a biologist first and foremost?” She looked frightened of something.

“Sure, I guess so.”

Syed pointed to a patch of wall nearby, bright with the glowing fungus the grew on it, spreading out in a web. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

“Honestly, I hadn’t had a close look yet. I’ve been distracted.”

“Yeah, but even from a distance, this isn’t normal, right? It’s so bright, so virulent.”

Aston looked at her face for a moment and realized what he had at first taken for fear was actually excitement. “There are kinds of photonic plankton that are really bright…” he started.

“I know, I know, but this is plant life!”

“Well, it’s fungus, isn’t it? I know that’s a gray area, but we have to be careful how we classify this stuff.”

Syed nodded, moving to look intently at the nearest growth. “I need better equipment. Sol said there’s a lab up top I can use.”

Aston went to say something else, but Syed plowed on. “And, dude, what in the name of Allah and all his angels is that?” She pointed to the stone door. “It was made by that expedition a hundred years ago, I’m guessing? Please say that’s what it is. But why go to such extravagant lengths?”

Aston drew a deep breath. “I wish I could tell you they built it. Truth is, I don’t really know.”

Syed’s neatly shaped, dark eyebrows drew together in a frown. She opened her mouth to say more, but Sol’s voice overrode her.

“Everyone ready to move on? As the old saying goes, you ain’t seen nothing yet!”

Aston and Syed exchanged a glance, then headed over to join Sol and the team at the stone door. Slater, Jeff and Marla stood off to one side to record things as Sol addressed the rest of the group.

“We’re going through here now. It’s the only exit from the cavern, other than the elevator shaft, of course. We’ve only gone as far as the next cavern before organizing this expedition, so after this next place, we’re all on new ground.”

Without waiting for any further conversation, he pushed against the stone door and it slid back and to the left, opening a wide gap to reveal a dark tunnel beyond. The guard with the fidget spinner stood to one side and let the team file through, but didn’t follow.

The tunnel beyond was short, surprisingly warm even after the temperate feel of the previous cavern. The ground sloped down quite steeply, the only sounds the scuffing of their feet and the occasional drip of water. They walked in darkness, the only light from the beams of flashlights playing over the walls. It grew warmer as they went, occasionally narrowing so they needed to move in single file, then opening out again so they could easily walk three abreast. Sometimes the ground sloped up briefly, but the overall trajectory was down, deeper and deeper. Aston resisted the urge to turn around and run back for the elevator, claustrophobia clawing at his hindbrain, some inbuilt, instinctive survival mechanism adding to his overall trepidation. Occasional patches of the glowing growths appeared, casting wan green light, but they were small and infrequent.

Aston glanced back, saw Slater and her crew filming from behind, then Terry Reid and his two subordinates following the party. Sol Griffin led the way forward. How far had they gone? It seemed as though they’d been trudging along for quite a while.

“How much further?” Digby O’Donnell called out, clearly sharing Aston’s concerns.

“It’ll take a while,” Sol said back over his shoulder.

“How much of a while?” Anders Larsen asked.

Sol paused, turned back to them. “Don’t worry. We’re nearly there. Maybe another ten minutes.” He turned and carried on, unaware or uncaring of the rest of the group exchanging concerned glances.

Eventually, another source of light began to show from in front. The now familiar green glow painted the walls and floor weakly, then brightened as they rounded a slight curve in the passage. They emerged into another cavern, similar to the first, only smaller, perhaps a little over half as big. Several passages led off in a variety of directions, more veins of fungus glowed softly from the walls, in far greater profusion than the previous cavern, though that one had been much bigger.

Jahara Syed made a noise of excitement and hurried across to one side of the cave. Slater jabbed Jeff in the ribs, and the man hurried to film the biologist. Aston went to join her, ignoring the camera but infected by her delight. She crouched beside a small clump of fern-like plants. Some leaves were open, others still curled, ready to unfurl. The leaves were tiny, no more than a couple of millimeters across, and oval-shaped. Each stem of leaves that had extended was only a few inches long, but stem and leaves alike were a deep jade green, shiny and waxy-looking.

Syed glanced up at Aston as he joined her. “Have you seen anything like this before?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. They’re vascular, certainly, so not related to the fungi or a simple lichen. They’re an actual plant, all the way down here.” He leaned closer. “Is it glowing too?”

Syed grinned. “I think it is, very subtly. Nothing like the fungus, but it appears to be at least mildly bioluminescent. It’s definitely some kind of leptosporangiate fern.”

“A true fern, you mean?”

“Yes, not a horsetail or rush or anything like that. An actual fern, but growing deep underground without sunlight for photosynthesis. How is that possible?”

Aston shook his head. “I don’t think it is possible. It can’t be a true fern, it must just resemble them in form. Unless the bioluminescent glow from the fungus is enough for it?”

“Then it’s an entirely new species!” She rubbed her hands together, eagerness shining in her eyes.

Aston smiled, further infected by Syed’s excitement. “It might be. You ever get to name a new discovery before?”

She grinned. “Polypodiopsida Syedii,” she said, trying a name on for size. “I like it! But I may have the class entirely wrong there. I need to study more.”

“Take a sample back up top.”

“I will!”

He left the biologist to gather her sample and strolled slowly around the rest of the cave. Anders Larsen, the geologist, ran his large hands over the rock at one side. He seemed to be lost in thought, as though he were trying to commune with the stone itself. Digby O’Donnell stood in the middle of the cave, hands on hips, looking up at the stalactites pointing down from above. The archeologist kept glancing back up the tunnel, then looking up again. Aston assumed the man was preoccupied with the door, but wondered what fascination the cave’s natural formation held for him.

Sol remained by the tunnel where they had entered. Terry Reid and his two fellow guards, Ronda Tate and Mike Gates, stood nearby. It seemed as though they were all waiting for something. Maybe they were simply anticipating the findings of the team. Aston himself felt like a spare wheel. Syed was the biologist, and there was no marine life for him to investigate using his specialty expertise. So he’d seen a weird door under Lake Kaarme. So had Jo Slater. He was superfluous to this group in every way.

Several small side passages led off from the cavern, radiating out away from the one they had entered through. Aston began exploring them, ducking to fit without banging his head. The first few were dead ends, and Aston couldn’t suppress his discomfort. He remained unnerved by the place. He could see no reason to believe they were anything but naturally-formed, yet the place had what he could only describe as an alien vibe. As he headed for the fourth passage, exploring clockwise, Sol called out.

“Okay, team. Once you’ve got what you want from here, shall we call it a day there? I know Syed wants to use the lab up top and I’m sure Larsen has some following up to do.”

“We haven’t been down here long,” Aston said. “Don’t you want to go on further?”

“Of course, but I want to do it well-equipped. You’ve all got an idea of what we’re facing here now, so when we come back tomorrow I want us to be ready for a long haul. We’ll bring supplies and aim to explore further, maybe spend the equivalent of a couple of days or more down here, yes? We’ll head back up now, you can make your notes, think about all the stuff you want to bring down, whatever else you may need. Feel free to leave anything here that you won’t need until next time. It’s about lunchtime, so by the time we get back up you’ll all be ready for a meal, I think. We’ll go eat and you can rest and plan for tomorrow.”

He gestured to the tunnel behind him and the team slowly made their way back to the elevator.