Roman Ice

by Dave Bartell

  “I saw Hilmar’s wife giving Ian a package this morning,” said Stevie.

  “What’s in it?” asked Jón.

  “Lamb, carrots, potatoes, rutabagas, onions, cabbage, and spices,” said Eyrún.

  “What spices? I mean, we’re a long way underground,” said Jón. They had argued about preserving the environment of the tube and the extra weight of carrying a toilet. But when Pétur had asked, “What if we have to come back? I don’t want to step in shit,” a fold-up toilet had won its place on the ATV. Urine would absorb into the rock and the toilet would bag the solid stuff.

  “Nothing hot. It’s Villikrydd. It’s ah…” said Pétur, looking at Eyrún.

  “Arctic thyme, birch leaves, bilberries, and juniper. Icelanders believe it has healing powers,” said Eyrún.

  “God. I could go for that. My elbow is killing me,” said Stevie. She had tripped after lunch and banged her elbow into the wall.

  “I’ll eat Jón’s portion,” said Zac.

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t eat it,” said Jón.

  The smell grew stronger as they closed the gap to the ATVs. A small lamp sat on a box placed in the middle of the tube amid a half dozen tall shapes. At five meters away, the tall shapes resolved into brown long-neck bottles.

  “It’s about time,” said Ian, stepping out from behind the ATVs.

  “Beers? I could kiss you,” said Stevie, pushing her way around Ian and grabbing a bottle.

  “To our first day and a successful mission,” said Ian.

  “Skál,” said Karl.

  Darwin smiled as everyone clinked bottles. He had been quiet most of the day, thinking about how little was in Agrippa’s scroll. He turned and watched his headlight disappear toward Scotland. So far so good. The alcohol warmed his belly as a contrary thought pushed its way in. But it’s such a long way, he thought. What if ...

  A hand touched his arm, interrupting his thoughts. “This is amazing, Darwin,” said Eyrún, tapping her bottle against his. “A month ago who would have thought a bunch of us would be walking in a tunnel beneath the North Atlantic?”

  48

  “Holy crap, Darwin,” said Zac, pushing out of his sleeping bag the next morning. “How did your Romans do this?”

  Darwin boiled water for coffee. They allowed each person a few kilos of personal gear, in their own backpack. He figured three weeks of his normal coffee consumption would fill up his pack, so he rationed himself to one cup a day.

  “Nice hair,” said Eyrún. “I guess you always look that way in the morning.”

  Zac and Stevie looked at him.

  “Long story,” said Darwin, remembering the bunk beds at the cabin.

  “Who’s on the ATVs today?” asked Stevie.

  “I guess we need to figure out a rotation,” said Ian.

  “We could also go for shorter runs. Maybe swap midday,” said Eyrún.

  “I’ll pair with grumpy. I want to spend time studying the flora while you catch up at lunch,” said Stevie as Karl walked to the forward ATV.

  They went about packing up their bedding and filling their water bottles from the tanks on the ATVs. Karl showed Stevie how a lighter grip on the handle bars lessened the vibration and shock on the body; then, they powered up and rumbled off. Eyrún and Ian started off together again followed by Jón and Pétur. Darwin and Zac brought up the rear.

  “Why does it feel harder to walk today?” Darwin heard Pétur ask Jón.

  “Because we’ve leveled out,” said Jón. “Yesterday was more downhill as we went under the seabed. I adjusted the mesh app to use the accelerometers in the phones. We can now measure relative slope between the devices. Right now the ATVs are half a meter lower than we are,” said Jón. “What if we—”

  Darwin turned up the volume on his ear buds. Oh God, three weeks of this. How am I going to find any personal space? He liked people, just not all the time.

  Disgusting, thought Stevie, as she held up something that looked like a green bean during their evening meal. “I’ve seen this in a cave in New Zealand. Arachnocampa luminosa: it glows in the dark and makes sticky traps to catch prey,” she said.

  “Think we’ll find any here? We could make tacos,” said Zac.

  “I don’t know. A. luminosa lives in wet caves. Any life forms in this tube will xerophytic,” said Stevie.

  “Zero what?” asked Ian.

  “Adapted to little water. Like cacti in deserts, but the tube has no light, which means few energy sources. Anything living in here will by tiny,” she said.

  A few minutes later Zac asked Stevie about her name. “I mean, it’s not French,” he said.

  “My parents hooked up at a music festival in Provençe. They met while Stevie Nicks was on stage and said they conceived me that night,” said Stevie.

  “Cool. Did they get married?” asked Zac.

  “To the horror of my grand-mère and grand-père, yes. My mom was a free spirit rebelling against her parents. My dad was Australian, which is how I learned English.”

  “Was?” asked Jón, picking up on the nuance.

  “He died in a motorcycle accident when I was nine,” said Stevie.

  “So you and Eyrún both—” said Jón, stopping when a small lava rock hit him in the chest. He looked up to see Ian shaking his head.

  “It was a long time ago,” Stevie continued. “And he and my mom were on and off for years.”

  “How did you get into cave biology?” asked Zac.

  “My best friend’s dad was in the group that discovered the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave. He took us in once when we were thirteen,” she said.

  “You’ve seen them!” said Zac.

  “You know the Chauvet cave?” asked Stevie.

  “Are you kidding? The Cave of Forgotten Dreams documentary is on my regular watch list. What was it like? I mean, being one of the first people to see it in thousands of years?” asked Zac.

  She studied him a moment, curious. Who is this guy? Hell, most French confuse “Chauvet” with “Lascaux.”

  “It is hard to explain. Just getting to the paintings required crawling through tight openings. It was muddy and so cold. At one point, I screamed in panic and my friend’s father had to crawl back and hold my hand until I calmed down,” she said. “That tight section was only five meters long, but frightening. The other side opened into a passage where I could stand. I was soaked and freezing. And then I saw the first animal on the wall: a bison with thin figures surrounding it. Primitive, yet alive with action. I imagined the people yelling, trying to get close enough to throw a spear, but not so close as to be killed. I had never seen anything so beautiful.”

  “Then my friend called out from the other side of the room. He was pointing to a handprint, you know the kind where they splatter paint and leave a handprint on the bare rock? His dad said it was about thirty-thousand years old. I asked him what they were like and he replied, ‘Just like you and me’.”

  “I held my hand up to the wall. It was the same size. I was standing where someone my age stood, maybe with her father, so long ago I couldn’t even imagine it. I no longer felt afraid,” she said.

  “Whoa!” Zac sighed. “Did you go back in?”

  “Not for about fifteen years. Later, at university, when I heard the paintings were decaying from human and bacterial contact, I knew I had to help, so I worked hard to join the France National Centre for Scientific Research,” she said.

  “I’d do about anything to see them. Do you know anyone who could get me in?” asked Zac.

  “Perhaps. We shall see. You’re looking at the assistant curator of Chauvet,” she said, beaming.

  Darwin awoke and unzipped his bag to cool off. It was preternaturally quiet and he could hear the soft sounds of people breathing in their sleep. The air seemed to feel different, warmer or cooler, but Jón’s instruments showed the temperature was stable.

  The journey would enter its fourth day when they woke up and, so far, the tube was constant with no remarkable changes i
n geology. Still his mind spun up multiple worry threads. The strongest was Scotland. While Agrippa described an opening, it was far from clear what he meant. This tube was solid and likely had not changed in two thousand years; however, entrances were subject to weather and human interference. Finding a dead-end in Scotland would be devastating and dangerous.

  What if someone got hurt? What if there was a cave-in?

  During preparations in the condo, they had run through multiple scenarios like injury, illness or broken shoes and had over-packed the ATVs. Hilmar had details on their expected arrival in Scotland. If they were later than 23 days, then a rescue party would enter the Iceland side to help them.

  Darwin kept going over and over the same scenarios. He tried breathing using meditation techniques, but every time he relaxed another disaster reel played in his wide-awake brain. Eventually he drifted off because the next sound he heard was Zac’s daily complaints about the tube floor. He rolled his pillow and wedged it under his neck and spent a few more minutes easing his body awake.

  49

  After one week, they had fallen into a rhythm—walk, eat, walk, eat, sleep and repeat. A couple hours into the afternoon walk on day seven, Darwin asked Eyrún, “Do you think anyone figured out we went in?”

  “If they haven’t, they’re stupid,” said Eyrún. “Verslunarmannahelgi was over days ago. Everyone’s back to work and wondering why they haven’t seen Pétur, you, or me. It won’t take a genius to connect the dots.”

  “What will they do?” asked Darwin.

  “I’ve no idea, but I can’t think of anyone coming in after us. They’ll just wait for us to come out,” she said and added a few strides later, “although once we do, I doubt they’ll let any of us back in.”

  “Okay,” said Darwin and picked up his pace. We have this one shot, then. He ran through the plan again and the extra days they built in for research. What if we could squeeze in an extra day or two?

  A few hours later the walkers caught up with the ATVs. Karl and Ian had unhitched the trailer from one and rearranged the loads. Their plan called for leaving one trailer with supplies on day seven or eight. Over dinner Darwin proposed a change to the plan and added an extra research day.

  “Instead of leaving one trailer, what if we offload the supplies to the floor? Then both ATVs would haul trailers and we could put stuff from our packs onto the trailers. We should be able to cover more ground. Right?” asked Darwin.

  “Jón, will that leave us enough petrol?” asked Ian.

  After a minute of calculating, he answered, “Yes, but it won’t leave us enough to bring both ATVs all the way back to Iceland if we have to turn around.”

  “Is that going to give us more speed?” asked Eyrún.

  “Walking speed? Maybe a kilometer an hour, but we’ll be less tired, so we should be able to go a couple more hours a day,” said Jón.

  “That’s about ten kilometers per day faster. Anyone object?” asked Darwin, looking around the small circle. No one did. “Good. Let’s unload the trailer.”

  “What is it?” Pétur yelled over the ATV. Ian had stopped his ATV and waved for Pétur to stop.

  “Human remains,” said Ian.

  “Truly?” Pétur leapt off his ATV and ran around Ian to look. A mummified corpse lay against the side wall, its jaw slacked open. The light from Ian’s ATV cast a freakish shadow of the body down the tube.

  “Is it one of the Romans?” asked Ian. “Shouldn’t it be just a skeleton after two thousand years?”

  They stood a couple meters away. Pétur scanned the area surrounding the body with his handheld light. “Wait here. Don’t touch anything. Something doesn’t look right,” said Pétur.

  “What’s not right?” asked Ian.

  “The clothing. See the feet?” He shined his light. “Leather boots or what’s left. Too modern for even the end of the Roman Empire.”

  Ian snapped photos and helped Pétur take measurements. They found nothing outside the immediate area where the body lay and moved in closer.

  “There’s no smell,” said Pétur. “But I recommend we don’t poke the body too much.”

  “Works for me,” said Ian who stood back.

  “Best not to take chances,” said Pétur. He snapped on latex gloves and adjusted a mask over his face. With the headlamp on full brightness he knelt next to the body. Ian watched him lift bits of clothing. The cloth tore and crumbled at the touch. The body lay on top of a pack and an animal skin, probably a water sack, sagged across some rocks to the left.

  “What’s that?” asked Ian.

  “Water skin, I’ll guess,” said Pétur, his voice muffled by the mask.

  “How old is it?”

  “Hard to tell,” said Pétur.

  “Best guess.”

  “A few hundred years. Judging by the clothes. Archeology deals with bodies much older, but I’ve been called into a few crime scenes. The police asked me to look at a body found in a restaurant remodel last year. Turns out it was a murder, but in the late 1800s. No killer to prosecute.”

  “What about the backpack?” Ian pointed at the body.

  “Let’s wait for the others, but in the meantime, I think this might help,” said Pétur, picking up a small notebook tucked between a desiccated hand and pant leg.

  The dead man revealed nothing else. The backpack broke apart when removed and contained clothing and supplies that disintegrated. Leather strapping and boots were the best preserved materials. After investigating a couple hours and debating the cause of death, they moved on. No one wanted to spend a night near a mummy. During dinner, Pétur and Eyrún turned the pages of the notebook.

  “It’s Icelandic for sure,” said Pétur. “But he uses some kind of shorthand.”

  “Any name or dates?” asked Darwin, who sat next to them.

  “No. The cover is rubbed out. There was something here. We can figure it out back in the lab with better tools,” said Pétur.

  “What’s the last entry?”

  Ian flipped the journal on its front cover and turned the pages until he found the last writing.

  Turned back yesterday. No signs of life or end of tunnel. Slept only hours ago. Why so tired?

  “That’s it?” asked Eyrún.

  “Yeah. Nothing else. All blank pages after,” said Pétur.

  “We could try this on the cover?” Jón held out a small light and shined an ultraviolet beam onto the journal. The rubbed out letters popped into view.

  Pétur Johansson

  1817

  Pétur’s hands sprang apart, and the journal landed on the floor.

  50

  Everyone spoke little during the next day’s walk. They had planned on finding evidence of Romans, not someone closer to their own era, a fellow traveler who died of an unknown cause. Darwin wondered how the dead guy had found the tube. There must be another entrance somewhere.

  Their mid-day meal break passed with little conversation and Jón and Stevie drove the ATVs during the second shift. Darwin’s legs ached from the relentless pace set by Karl to make up the half day they spent investigating the mummy. They walked seventeen hours with only breaks for meals.

  Exhaustion caused everyone to go through the motions of eating with none of the storytelling of the past few nights, and, after dinner, to collapse into sleeping bags. Darwin’s foot cramped, and he stood to stretch. He lay down and fell asleep to the gentle ticking sounds that came from the ATVs’ cooling engines.

  A piercing alarm ripped him out of a deep sleep. Lights flashed on around him.

  “What the hell is it?” someone yelled.

  “Carbon monoxide alarm,” yelled another. “Get your masks.”

  They dug into backpacks for the masks. Lights strobed around the walls like a carnival house of horrors.

  Jón moved his air analyzer about. “More CO,” he yelled.

  “What about other gases?” someone asked.

  “Everything else is normal,” said Jón

  “Why the s
udden change in the air quality?” asked Eyrún who was testing the straps on everyone’s masks.

  “Is it me or is it warmer in here?” asked Stevie.

  “Feels the same,” said Zac.

  “No, she’s right,” Jón corrected. “It is reading warmer, but only one degree more than earlier.”

  “I wouldn’t call that heating up,” said Zac.

  Their voices sounded like talking into paper cups. Eyrún and Ian gathered around Jón. “What was the last reading?” asked Ian.

  “The alarm triggered at one hundred parts-per-million. It’s almost normal now, but I wouldn’t take your mask off,” said Jón.

  “No, before the alarm,” said Ian.

  “About an hour ago was the last recording. It was normal,” said Jón.

  “And there have been no anomalies since we began the journey?” asked Eyrún.

  “None. Just air. Like an old cave.”

  “This isn’t a mine, so I’m out of my element. What do you think, Eyrún?” Ian asked.

  “It’s a classic volcanic signature. We see this kind of fluctuation around the geothermal plants. It’s like a dragon breathing. Any idea where this is coming from?” she asked.

  “Not clear, but I would guess that way,” said Jón, pointing toward Scotland.

  Darwin’s mind was reeling as he recalled what he knew. Carbon monoxide’s heavier than the other compounds. A documentary he had watched showed how low-lying areas in volcanically active regions could be death traps for animals and young children who wandered into them.

  “Shit. I’m still thrashed from that long march yesterday,” said Zac.

  “Will it get worse ahead?” asked Stevie.

  “I’m not willing to wake up dead to find out,” said Zac.

  “Make that two of us,” said Jón.