by Dave Bartell
“Holy shit,” Zac said holding up a fist sized cluster of black glass. Karl used the pry bar to spread out the pile. They squeezed in like puppies on a mother dog. Darwin shrugged and knelt down at the pile. He collected a handful of fingertip-sized diamonds. He thought about the money to be made from selling diamonds and his mood soured. When they got out, the corporations would get in and destroy the place.
He stood and stepped back. “We only have about a day and a half to survey the place, so let’s get to it,” he said, but it was a few more minutes before the others moved away from the pile.
57
“What do you have, Jón?” asked Ian. During the lunch break, Jón had worked around Pétur to place sensors in the floor to record vibrations. Ian looked at his watch and calculated they had about twenty-seven hours before they had to continue. If they did not find the way out in Scotland that Agrippa had written about, then they would have to head back to Iceland.
“The cracks are superficial. Only a few centimeters deep. The floor is about a meter thick in the center and thicker at the edges. Think of it like a giant dome where the mass is distributed to the edges. It’s like the floor in the other chamber except for no hole,” said Jón.
“What about weak spots on the floor? Places we want to avoid?” asked Ian.
“There are three places where it’s thinner. Ten to fifteen centimeters in those spots. Our combined weight would be…” Jón looked from person to person, calculating mass. Ian put a hand on his shoulder. “Just mark the spots, Jón.”
“Oh sure. Okay,” said Jón and walked to the closest spot. Ian followed him and placed head sized rocks on the three locations. He then drove the unloaded ATV near the wall on the three o’clock tube side and away from the three thinner spots. The petrol was running low and with the reduced need for supplies, the plan called for leaving one ATV in the Iceland tube. What a place, thought Ian, walking back to the chamber. It’s a giant volcano laboratory.
He had listened to Jón and Zac talk for days of the different theories and studies they could carry out. The giant drain alone could provide deep access never imagined. Stevie, while not finding any life forms, mentioned using the tube as a laboratory to study lunar or Martian environments. Oxygen was near normal and the rock good for terra forming tests. Eyrún had showed him some of her notes about running a pipeline through the tube.
“What are you thinking?” asked Karl, who had walked up behind him. “We need to get started.”
“Nothing, let’s get to it,” said Ian, shrugging off his thoughts. It’s a job. It’s not like I’ll ever see these people again.
58
The Ten O’Clock Tube
“That looks like a giant tongue,” said Zac.
“That’s creepy,” said Stevie, shivering. She and Zac had entered the ten o’clock tube to explore. Its path curved back and forth like a frozen serpent, and the lava flow marks were more pronounced, the walls bulging in places. About an hour into their journey, they reached a half-meter-high blob that froze mid-flow. They stepped over it and onto the flow behind it to find a broken spiny surface.
“A’a,” said Zac.
“What?”
“A’a lava. It’s from a cooler flow that pushes up broken bits and blocks. Hawaiians call it ah-ah because that’s what people say when trying to walk on it,” said Zac.
Stevie took a few steps forward. Her ankles endured balancing on the crumbled surface. “I get it,” she said. “You don’t want to fall on this stuff.”
“Yep,” said Zac, holding up his forearm to show her two scars. “No need to remind me.”
“Let’s turn around if it doesn’t change,” she said.
“Agreed. After you,” said Zac.
The floor smoothed out about fifty meters farther. Zac explained that the front edge of the flow carried most of the clinker, or broken up cooled lava. The tube curved and their steps became lighter. They were descending. Another eighty meters and the tube went glass flat as the light from their head lamps reflected off water. They stopped at the edge of a lake.
“Oh là là c’est si beau!” said Stevie. She knelt down and peered into the water.
“A lake?” said Zac.
“Oui. It’s recent. See at the edge,” said Stevie.
Zac shined the light in the shallows.
“There’s no calcification. No signs of life. And fresh!” said Stevie, sampling the water. “I’d say this is recent, maybe a couple hundred years’ collection, but we’d need analysis to tell us more.”
“Looks like it goes about forty meters before the ceiling meets the water,” he said, shining his beam across the surface.
“There are a couple possibilities. One, the ceiling out there goes underwater or the tube dips down and rises back up again. Sometime in the recent past there was a flood, and this section filled in,” she said.
“How do we find out which?” asked Zac.
“We get wet,” she said removing her boots and stepping in the shallow water. She wiggled her toes, which sent ripples across the surface. “Mon Dieu, this feels good. I’m going in,” she said, pulling off her jacket and top.
“My backpack is waterproof. We can keep our clothes dry,” said Zac. He stuffed their boots in the pack, then stripped off his clothes, down to his helmet and briefs.
“You look silly,” she said, laughing. Nice ass, though, she thought as she watched him gingerly step into the water. She followed and worked her way across the sharp lava. The a’a had smoothed out, but it was still a hard surface. Once out past waist deep, she pushed off.
“It’s cold. What if it’s blocked on the other side?” she said.
“We swim back,” said Zac, his voice echoing off the walls.
59
The Three O’Clock Tube
“Looks like it opens after twenty meters,” said Eyrún. She and Darwin were just inside the low entrance of the three o’clock tube. They had strapped on knee pads and leather gloves as a protection against the lava shards covering the floor.
“That’s cute,” she said. “All those stalactites look like sleeping bats.”
“Huh?” said Darwin adjusting the pack that wanted to swing off his shoulders.
“The lava must have congealed on the ceiling and kept building up,” she pointed.
“Oh yeah. That’s weird. It looks like the way bats would hang,” he said. He balanced in their cramped position, bit the middle finger of his glove and pulled his hand out. He snapped photos of the bat stalactites and put the phone away.
“Watch your head. Some of these look sharp,” she said.
“Ow!” said Darwin shaking his right hand. “Look out for the floor too.”
“Let me look,” she said, pulling her gloves off and taking his hand. She probed the small cut on Darwin’s hand. They’re so warm. She looked up. His soft brown eyes locked on hers and he smiled. Her neck and face flushed hot, and she lowered her gaze again.
They put their gloves back on and moved on hands and knees until they could just stand about twenty meters in. The tube split into a near perfect Y shape. She decided on the left tube, which rose at better than a ten degree slope, then doubled back on itself before splitting into a series of smaller tubes.
“Looks like a braided maze. Dunno that we’ll find anything here,” said Darwin.
“What about the other tube?” asked Eyrún.
“Could be the same, but let’s see.” It rose in a wide spiral.
“We’re under the ocean right?” asked Eyrún.
“Certain. Why?” asked Darwin.
“What if this goes to the surface?”
“It’s got to be blocked off, otherwise it would be flooded. Must be a volcano structure in the seabed. Aren’t most volcanoes mapped?” asked Darwin.
“It depends,” said Eyrún. “The ocean is a last frontier. We’re learning more about some parts of Mars.”
“I wonder if there’s a way to figure out where we are relative to the surface. That migh
t make studying easier.”
“I think your Romans are about to get their names plastered in quite a few books,” said Eyrún.
“Crap. The tube ends,” he said. She squeezed next to him and the both looked at a balloon of lava that blocked the tube. She felt another warm rush as his shoulder pressed into hers.
“Looks like the giant got constipated,” said Eyrún.
“Then it really is crap,” said Darwin.
“We are in the bowels of the Earth,” she said. They laughed and turned to trek out. “Ahhh,” shouted Eyrún as she slipped sideways and landed hard on her left hip. Darwin crouched next to her and put one hand on under her calf and the other under the back of her boot. “Ahhh… easy,” she hissed through clenched teeth. He straightened her leg from its twisted position.
“How’s that?”
“Better. I was looking at something on the wall and didn’t see the rock on the floor.”
“It’s a wonder no one has twisted anything before now,” said Darwin.
She flexed her foot and gritted her teeth. “Shit, it hurts. Don’t think it’s broken though.”
“Should I take your boot off?”
“No. Leave it on. If there is any swelling, we might not get it back on. We have to walk out of here,” she said. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“It’s okay, we have time. We’re not due back for a few hours. Here,” he said, moving behind her. “Let’s get you more comfortable.”
She pushed on her hands and he lifted under her arms until she leaned against the tube wall. He sat next to her and dug food and water out of his pack. They switched off their headlamps. Darwin turned on a small rechargeable light, and Eryún pulled off her helmet and fluffed her hair.
“I’ve been saving these for an emergency,” he said and held up a small French salami and cube of Gruyere cheese.
“Oh my god, if you have wine in that bag, I’ll kiss you,” she said.
Darwin smiled as he pulled out a plastic airline bottle of Shiraz.
“You are a man of surprises, Darwin,” she said.
“Well, I promised you a picnic, and my grandfather always—”
She pressed her lips on his.
60
The Ten O’Clock Tube
“God this feels good,” said Zac. Waves of cold jilted his body with each movement. He took in a mouthful. It was sweet compared with the plastic taste of the water from the ATVs. He sucked in another exquisite mouthful, rolled on his back, and sprayed it out in a fountain. He heard a splash and rolled sideways to see Stevie take off her helmet and dunk her head. She held the helmet up with one hand and rubbed her hair with the other hand. She flung her hair back and sprayed the ceiling when she emerged, then lay back and floated. Good idea. He dunked under and scrubbed his scalp.
“So far so good,” he said after surfacing and kicked toward the low spot in the ceiling.
“How far is the opening?” Stevie yelled back.
He flipped around and surveyed the situation. “About seven meters, and there’s a gap.”
He rolled and side stroked as he watched the wall glide by. He noticed several parallel linear marks along the wall and kicked his way over for a closer look. Straight lines were not a natural occurrence and showed the hand of humans or water. The lines were faint, but he could see the marks left by receding water.
“What is it?” asked Stevie.
“Water marks,” he touched the wall. “It’s going down.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Lava is porous or maybe it’s evaporating.”
He glided under the arch and marveled at the quiet beauty of this place. He reached up and placed a wet handprint on the ceiling and was sure that no one had ever done so before.
From his hand on the rock, the water came to his elbow, a comfortable gap by caving standards. He pushed along the ceiling until it rose out of his reach. He rolled upright and surveyed the other side. As he suspected, it was a mirror of the other side.
He feather kicked until he touched the bottom. Turning to put a foot down, he saw Stevie walk out first. Tattoos in yellows and magentas flowed down her shoulders and under her sports bra. She squeegeed the water off her skin. There was no sound except for water dripping on the floor. This is a caver’s dream, a virgin cave.
“God that was great. I needed a bath,” said Stevie, shivering.
“Yeah, that was nice,” said Zac. “What are you doing?”
Stevie was looking up and down his body. The headlamp glared like he was in a doctor’s office.
“Hold still,” she said. “There’s a black spot on your shoulder.” He watched her fingers pick an object off his left shoulder.
“What is it? A leech?”
“I don’t know,” she said looking at it closely. “Turn around. I want to see if there are more.” He turned his back to her. She touched him in a couple spots. The soft graze of her finger tips caused him to shudder.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “What was it?”
“A bit of rock, but check me to be safe,” she said holding her arms apart.
“Nice ink,” he said, scanning her body.
“Thank you,” she said turning around.
“Who did it?”
“A woman in Paris. We drew it together from the art in the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said, following a deer-like creature that looked as if it were jumping across her shoulder. “All clear. Nothing.”
She turned back around and shivered. Her lips were blue, and she crossed her arms against the cold. He reached out and rubbed her arms and shoulders. She stepped into his body.
“I’m cold,” she said. He closed his arms around her back and rubbed. Her wet sports-bra felt like an ice pack on his chest. His groin surged.
“Sorry about that,” said Zac.
“There’s no camera in here,” said Stevie, sliding her hands in the back of his briefs.
“Doubt it,” he said leaning back to see her face. She tilted her head up and he moved a wet strand of hair from her forehead as they kissed. After a moment, she took a breath then playfully bit his lower lip. He pressed his mouth back on hers and grunted as her nails dug into his ass.
61
The Three O’Clock Tube
Darwin opened his eyes and was startled by the complete darkness, then remembered the light was on a timer. As he fumbled to turn it on, Eyrún woke.
“We fell asleep,” she said, stating the obvious.
“Yeah, but not for too long—like, twenty minutes,” he said, looking at his watch. “Must have been the wine.”
“Felt good, though,” she said, stretching her arms out.
He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed, thinking of their brief kiss. Tasted like salami. He suppressed a laugh. “How’s your ankle?” he asked.
“It’s not too bad. Help me stand,” she said, lifting her leg off the floor. She clenched one eye closed as she moved her foot around.
“Give me a second,” he said and put the remains of their lunch in his pack. “Close your eyes. I’m switching on my headlamp.” He helped her up, and it surprised them to find her ankle was only moderately sore.
“What brand is that wine? I’m going to put it in my first aid kit at home,” said Eyrún.
They made their way down the spiral and reached the level where the tube split.
“How are you doing? I think—”
A blast of air knocked them backwards and Darwin stumbled to his hand and knees. He struggled to his feet and moved toward the tube mouth as a roar of cascading rock and dust wave pushed him back again. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the bandana over his mouth and nose. He coughed in the swirling dust as their headlamps turned the space into a nightmare fog. He fished in his backpack for goggles and a mask and yelled for Eyrún to do the same. The air hissed as the heavier grit settled. Goggles on, they followed the roof line down until they reached a pile of rubble that blocked the exi
t to the diamond room.
“Oh no,” said Eyrún, her voice muffled by a breathing mask.
“Wait.” Darwin grabbed her arm. “Go slow. We don’t know what happened.”
62
The Ten O’Clock Tube
“Do you think we’ll have to swim back?” asked Stevie. God I hope not. She shivered and folded her arms for warmth as her body cooled again.
“Maybe, but we’re not due back for a couple hours. Let’s explore,” said Zac, pulling his shirt on.
After they were dressed, she hugged him. “That was nice.”
“Yeah, it was,” he said, and kissed her.
She started off down the tube, then went to the right. Around a sharp bend, the a’a floor became difficult to navigate. Streaks of rust orange and black gave the appearance of raku-fired pottery. Sections flaked off in places. Globs of lava hung on the sides where the ceiling curved to meet the walls and pencil length drips hung from the ceiling. It looked like paint and plastic had melted in a fire, then cooled.
“When someone says ‘hot as hell,’ they mean right here,” said Zac. “Stand over there. I want a picture of this place.”
“You mean you want a picture of me,” said Stevie.
“Well, yeah—beauty inside the beast. The temperatures in here must have been beyond intense.”
Stevie stood with one foot on a large rock. She placed one hand on her raised knee and the other on her hip. She tipped her head to the ceiling in a conqueror’s pose.
“Shine your headlamp on the spot right there,” said Zac, pointing at a fiery orange patch.