Subterranean

TWENTY-NINE

"I CAN'T JUST LEAVE HER," BEN SAID TO MO'AMBA. THE other elders had already left umbo's chamber, leaving only a cluster of armed guards around them. Ben stared at Ashley where she leaned over the tumescent image of umbo, studying the figurine. Always the anthropologist, he thought, always in command. Still, he noted the way her hand trembled as she coursed a finger down the figurine.

"I'm sorry." Mo'amba's words were translated by Harry. "It's the best I could do. You have today to prepare yourself and your team of hunters. Then you have one day to return ohna, or else Bo'rada will kill Ashley… and your unborn child."

Ben rubbed at his temples with the tips of his fingers. "You… you mean… she's really pregnant?"

The old man nodded.

"A father," he mumbled to himself, shaking his head. Things were happening too quickly. The winds were blowing in too many directions.

The old man leaned closer to Ben, whispered something guttural to him, too low for Harry to translate, then touched the center of Ben's forehead. With the touch, a sense of peace and calmness saturated Ben, like a cool shower after a hot day under the Aussie sun. Ben sighed. How does the bugger do that? Mo'amba stepped away.

Now calmer, Ben could think more rationally, rather than just relying on gut reactions. He needed to plan. At least the village elders had given him a day to work out a strategy. Still… he remembered the long journey down here. Even if supplied with a map, it would take longer than a day to reach Alpha Cavern.

Exasperated, Ben turned to Harry. "Are you sure you translated that correctly? They're giving us one day? Twenty-four hours?"

Harry nodded. "Almost. Their daily cycle, termed cu-curu, is actually twenty-six hours."

"That's a lot of help. Two extra hours. I don't suppose you happen to know a quicker way up to Alpha Base?"

"I know of a route up, but it'll still take at least a day and a half. And that's if we hurry and don't get ambushed by any of the crak'an. I was eventually planning on taking the journey myself once my broken arm had healed and strengthened, but Dennis beat me down here."

"Shit."

Mo'amba suddenly stamped his staff, looking frustrated. He motioned them over to the wall. He struggled to speak a few words of English: "I show… Fast. Up." He seemed to have understood the gist of their discussion.

Mo'amba crossed to the far wall and pressed the butt of his staff against a rocky outcropping. As he pressed, the outcropping receded into the wall, and a section of what looked like solid rock swung inward.

"It's a secret door!" Ben leaned down and stared into the revealed tunnel. "Leading to another of those goddamn wormholes." He waved Ashley over.

Mo'amba hobbled to the side with Harry in tow, the two already conversing animatedly.

Ashley knelt next to Ben. "I should have suspected," she whispered, a trace of tension in her voice. "The holy places of many cultures have hidden chambers and passages." Ashley sat back on her heels, seemingly despondent at missing a key anthropologic connection. Then suddenly she sprang up. "Damn, I've been so stupid!"

"What?"

"This… this tunnel. I can guess where this leads." Baffled, Ben raised a questioning eyebrow.

"This is the male spirit's chamber. I would bet the female spirit's chamber in Alpha Cavern has a similar hidden passage that we all missed. I would bet my life that this tunnel connects with her chamber. A symbolic vaginal canal linking male and female spirits."

"You mean…"

"It's a straight and safe shot right back up top."

Ben allowed himself a glimmer of hope. "But are you sure? If you're right," he whispered to her, "maybe we can make a break for it. Use this tunnel so all of us can escape."

Ashley knelt back down. "No. With their small physiques, they would be on top of us in seconds. We wouldn't have a chance. Besides, Mo'amba and his tribe are trying to accept us. This is a crucial test between our peoples. I won't betray their trust. As an anthropologist, I can't destroy this tentative bond that they are working to establish with us."

"But what if-"

"No," she said, but Ben could see the agony in her eyes. It was taking all her will not to rush into the tunnel and go seek out her son.

A few steps away, Harry and Mo'amba had finished their animated discussion. "Well, I'll be damned," Harry declared loudly, drawing their attention. He turned back to face them. "You're not going to believe this. This wormhole-"

"-leads to Alpha Base," Ashley finished for him, standing up.

Harry's brow furrowed with creases. "How did you know?"

"I finally remembered I'm an anthropologist," Ashley said sourly. "So what else did you learn from Mo'amba?"

"If I'm understanding correctly, it's about a thirty-mile long tunnel."

Ben eyed the tunnel. And about two miles up, he guessed. "It'll be a bloody long crawl. And'll probably eat up a good part of the day."

"Maybe not," said Harry cryptically. "Let's get out of here. Join up with Dennis. Plan your strategy."

Ben turned to Mo'amba. "Harry, ask him to help us plan. He knows these caverns."

Nodding, Harry blurted a few words to Mo'amba, gesticulating with his arms. The old man answered, shaking his head.

Harry translated: "He says he has much to prepare, and he'll talk to you later, but I don't know if I'm translating that correctly. It's a looser translation. It's almost like he said he'd be 'dreaming' of you later."

Ben nodded with a sigh. "Let's be going. We have a lot to do before tomorrow." As they turned to leave, he stared back at Mo'amba, the old man's eyes drilling him. Should be an interesting night of dreams, he thought as he followed Ashley out the exit.

Back at the hunters' enclave, Ashley stared at the still form of Villanueva at her feet, too stunned to speak. She had almost forgotten about the others left in the diamond cavern, figuring they were safer where they were. Eyeing the bullet wounds in the SEAL's forehead, she realized there were more dangers here than the caverns and its denizens.

"It must have been Khalid," Michaelson said.

"What about Linda?" Ashley asked. "Did the hunters see her?"

"I don't know," the major answered. "I didn't have a translator." He nodded toward his brother, who was deep in conversation with a hunter named Tomar'su. "Hopefully, Harry can get an answer to what happened."

Ashley couldn't stare at the corpse-white face of Villanueva any longer. As she turned away, something caught her eye-in a ragged pile of collected loot stood a familiar fluorescent green plastic object. Her sled. She had thought it lost after she and Ben had crashed here. She noticed Ben's red sled had also been recovered.

Pretty efficient scavengers, she thought, but that made perfect sense considering the meager resources afforded them.

Suddenly the conversation between Harry and Tomar'su escalated in volume. Ashley glanced in their direction. Harry was holding up his fingers, apparently counting off some point. Finally, in exasperation, Harry clenched his fist and turned away, ending the conversation.

"What was that all about?" Ashley asked as he rejoined the group.

"He wasn't making any sense," Harry said. "He described what sounded like gunfire. The noise drew his hunters to the diamond cavern. By the time they got there, they only found this… this dead soldier."

"Villanueva," Ashley corrected. "He was a friend."

Harry nodded, his brow furrowed in concern. "When I asked him about the other two, he said his team followed their trail to a cavern with a waterfall and observed them camping."

"So Linda is alive?"

"Well, that's the weird part. When I asked them how many were there, he said there were four of them."

"Four?" Ben said.

"I know." Harry ran a hand through his hair. "I kept asking him over and over again. He was adamant. Four." Harry held up four fingers.

"Seems as soon as we solve one mystery another crops up," Ben said.

The news gnawed at Ashley. Even with the recent events, she had to know… "Where are these four now?"

"Tomar'su says they went into a tunnel that smelled like death, and his hunters balked at following them."

"Smelled like death?"

Harry shrugged. "That's what he said."

They all stood silent for a long moment. Ashley finally spoke up. "To hell with it. We aren't going to solve this now. Let's concentrate on the situation at hand. Harry, you mentioned you might have a quicker way to traverse the wormhole."

Harry brightened at her words. "Yeah, maybe. If I can get it to work. Come see." He led her and the others to a neighboring cavern, almost a cubicle. "Not much," he said, ushering them in, "but it's home."

In a corner, thick green pillows huddled under a rumpled blanket. The remainder of Harry's cubicle consisted of an odd assortment of crude tools, spearheads, and a long tarp-wrapped object. Ashley curled her nose at the strong smell of gasoline. Gasoline?

Harry followed them inside, squeezing past her. "All the others at Alpha Base are electric-whining little put-puts-but I jury-rigged my own with a combustion engine. I wanted power." He bent over and grabbed the edge of the tarp. "After I was attacked, my fellow hunters retrieved it from our last camp. It was pretty beat up, but I've been tinkering with it."

He yanked the tarp free, revealing a transport sled. One of the big ones. "I built it out of aluminum to be light-weight. Blakely let me bring it since we didn't think we'd need heavy ammunition for our explorations." He sniffed in derision. "I brought one fucking pistol with me. Stupid!"

"Does the sled still work?" Ashley said, trying to keep the conversation on course.

"Mostly. It used to collapse down to a compact size for carrying, but it's jammed open. Still, this is just a straight trip up. So that shouldn't be a problem." Harry patted the sled. "The engine's sound, but I only have a single tank of gasoline, so I've been leery of running the engine for a long time. Probably needs a bit of tuning still."

"Is there enough gas to get all the way up?" Ben knelt down and cocked his head from side to side, studying it.

"Should be plenty."

"Harry used to race dirt bikes," Michaelson said. "He knows his way around an engine. If he thinks it'll work, it will."

Ben nodded, seemingly satisfied. "This'll buy me several hours."

"There's only one problem," Harry said. "The front axle's bent. If I can fix it, it'll be an all-nighter. So you might want to have a Plan B… just in case."

"Right," Ashley said, "then let's get a few things settled. Since I'm the only one being held hostage here, Isuggest everyone else accompany Ben on his mission. Put as few at risk as possible down here."

"No, ma'am!" Ben argued. "I'm going alone. A solo mission."

"You're gonna need firepower," Ashley said. "There's no telling how many of those crak'an are still hovering around Alpha Base."

"She's right," Harry said. "The council has allowed a small team of hunters to go with you. Since we're officially blood-bonded hunters, my brother and I can accompany you. Trust me, you'll need the backup. I can tie those cheap plastic sleds of yours to mine and form a train to drag everyone quickly up top."

Ben's face reddened with determination. "I won't leave Ashley here alone. She's-"

"I'll stay with Ashley," Michaelson interrupted. "My ankle's crap. I'll only slow you all down anyway. Maybe Ashley and I can come up with a contingency plan… if it comes to that."

Ben seemed as if he was going to argue further, but their arguments seemed to be wearing him thin. "All right! Harry can come. But, Michaelson, whatever it takes, I expect to see the mother of my child again."

"You will, Ben."

Ben nodded, but Ashley's mind was whirling. Mother? She had succeeded in pushing that fact from her mind, but Ben's words had dredged it back up. She placed a hand on her belly. Mother? She didn't even begin to know how to feel about that revelation. But one point of motherhood she was damned sure of… "Ben, you've got to find Jason. Even if it means scrubbing this mission. Promise me."

"I'll try," Ben said. "You know I will."

"Don't just try. Do it."

Ben reached to her and folded her in his arms. In his embrace, the tears she had been holding back finally flowed. She sank deeper in his arms.