Paradeisia: The Complete Trilogy: Origin of Paradise, Violation of Paradise, Fall of Paradise

by B. C. CHASE

  “Oh, but it looks like at least thirty feet long. It is definitely harmless.”

  “How can that be?”

  “With sharks,” he said, “bigger is usually safer. That looks like basking shark.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen's tension eased. Basking sharks were certainly not dangerous.

  “You know what basking sharks eat?”

  Of course he knew what basking sharks ate. Anyone knew that. Did Toskovic think he was in primary? He was a scientist, after all. “Plankton,” Doctor Ming-Zhen said.

  “Correct,” Doctor Toskovic's voice sounded as if he was teaching a class.

  Doctor Ming-Zhen seethed silently.

  Instead of stopping so Doctor Toskovic could take a sample of the shark, they continued on along the shoreline, much to Doctor Ming-Zhen's relief. Apparently Toskovic had finally found a sample that was indisputably too big for his canisters.

  “The basking shark is one more piece of puzzle,” Doctor Toskovic said.

  Doctor Ming-Zhen rolled his eyes. This was undoubtedly another attempt to show off by Toskovic, PhD, PhD, PhD, PhD, PhD. But he was curious, and couldn't resist asking, “What puzzle?”

  “What do giant isopods, jellyfish, and basking sharks have in common?”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen racked his mind. He was getting very tired of feeling like a spare wheel on the brain bike.

  Doctor Toskovic said, “They are all marine animals. They all live in salt water, not fresh water.”

  It was so patently obvious, Doctor Ming-Zhen wanted to pound his fists against the wall of his sub. He didn't dare, of course, so instead he just clenched them.

  He had to admit, though, it was an important observation. This was supposed to be a freshwater lake. It was inexplicable that oceanic creatures could be here. With a sigh, Doctor Ming-Zhen thought, Doctor Toskovic probably already has an explanation for that, too. He asked “How could this be a salt water lake?”

  “You are very curious, my friend. Such a curious friend, you are.”

  This time, Doctor Ming-Zhen did punch the wall of the sub. It hurt. Then he chastised himself. Why was he allowing this to upset him? He was miles under the ice with barely a prayer of returning alive. The least of his worries should be a silly game of riddles by a suddenly patronizing research partner.

  Doctor Ming-Zhen checked the oxygen monitor. Thirty-four hours left.

  “Are you wondering why I am so enlightened, yet?” Doctor Toskovic asked. Without waiting for a reply, he said, “I will tell you. Something happened the first time we were drilling to Lake Vostok all those years ago. Something happened that illuminated me. It gave me the power to know I was right and to wait until now when I could prove it.” There was a pause, and Doctor Ming-Zhen thought that Doctor Toskovic had become distracted. But then his voice continued, “I know you heard the story about our seven days of radio silence.”

  Cautiously, Doctor Ming-Zhen replied, “Yes, I heard about the radio silence.” He recalled that when he had asked Doctor Toskovic about it before, a month ago, the Russian had laughed it off; said his team was so busy with the drilling equipment they had neglected to answer.

  “We knew we were very close, very close to reaching the lake. We were filled with anticipation . . . . We had worked so hard for this, suffered so long for this, and now, we were about to achieve it. We would soon have water from the lake, we were sure.

  “But we were stopped. One of the scientists came inside to us and said he had seen something.

  “We all ran outside. I could barely see it, but far in the distance, just on top of the white ice, was—“

  There was silence. Then, Doctor Toskovic's voice, sounding eager and awestruck, said, “There it is.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen did not see anything except the endless dark water. Then he noticed that Doctor Toskovic's submersible had nearly come to a stop and all its lights were out.

  “Switch off your lights.”

  “I can't, not without turning off the sub.”

  “Yes, you can. It's in the menu on the touchpad, under diagnostics.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen looked at the touchpad and searched under the DIAGNOSTICS menu. Sure enough, there it was: “ALL LIGHTS OFF.”

  He tapped this and immediately he was engulfed in blackness. As his eyes adjusted, though, he began to see shafts of light that erupted in all directions from a vast expanse far in the distance. It was surreal, like seeing moonlight streaming through clouds. Size was difficult to determine, but by any measure the illuminated area was vast: farther across than he could even see. The source seemed to be deep within a funneling valley.

  “How did you know this was here?” Doctor Ming-Zhen accused.

  “Coral.”

  “What coral?”

  “There is little coral growing on the rocks down there. Coral does not grow without light. There had to be a source of light somewhere . . . and there it is.” Then, Doctor Toskovic's voice, sounding hollow, almost like someone else, asked, “What do you think this is, my curious friend?”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen was thinking that it was probably geothermal; that the light was from lava erupting at the base of the funnel. But if that were the case, he thought there should be smoke billowing up through the water, and there wasn't. As he stared, a continuous stream of innumerable small, glinting shapes flowed up among the shafts of light. It was like a giant, shimmering fountain of water within the water. It was beautiful.

  The front end of the stream suddenly changed trajectory and snaked around to aim directly towards them. As this happened, Doctor Ming-Zhen realized that they were fish: thousands and thousands of schooling fish.

  Then he realized that Doctor Toskovic's submersible was gone. No, it wasn't gone, he could just make it out ahead, approaching the light.

  He would have told him to stop, but Doctor Ming-Zhen realized that he himself was moving towards it. Although his controls were set to idle, the submersible was being gradually carried along. He thought with alarm, I'm being sucked into this light, just as powerless as Toskovic's jellyfish. He engaged his reverse thrusters, but they were powerless against the surge.

  The school of fish swung around like a lasso in the hand of a cowboy. As he was drawn closer to them, he could see their little bodies flickering as they struggled against the current.

  Doctor Toskovic's voice said, “We are being drawn in.” Far from sounding worried, his tone was actually entranced. “I believe that this, my friend, is our mysterious 'magnetic anomaly.'”

  So this is what he wanted, Doctor Ming-Zhen thought. He wanted to see the magnetic anomaly. He never cared about getting back. The lake was 160 miles long. To get back to the right side, at their max speed, would take thirty-two hours. The oxygen monitor read 33.

  But that was irrelevant now, because they were being drawn into a mysterious “magnetic anomaly,” and there was no telling what that might mean. Scientists had assumed it was just a thin spot of the earth's crust. Clearly, there was more to it than that.

  “It's the tide,” Doctor Toskovic said. “The tide is drawing us in.”

  Indeed, whatever was drawing them in was exerting an ever more powerful force, and their speed as they approached the light increased dramatically the closer they came. Doctor Ming-Zhen struggled to think of something to do, anything he could do. But his mind was blank. He had been down here twenty-three hours with no sleep and no food. He realized for the first time that he was exhausted; that his whole body ached.

  And it was Doctor Toskovic's fault.

  He had lied to Doctor Ming-Zhen; said the island was on the south side, just so they could go the wrong way and see this anomaly. He was filled with a terrible rage at the Russian. They might have made it back to the borehole, but now there was no hope. Doctor Ming-Zhen was angry that his daughter was now certain to grow up without a father, his wife was to be a widow. Most of all, he was angry with himself for listening to Doctor Toskovic. All the warning signs were there: the man had lost his mind. And I was stupid enough to
follow him right into this trap. He hated Ivan Toskovic. He wanted to see him dead.

  They would both be dead soon, he thought. Toskovic was not escaping this anymore than he was. They were shooting over the funneling valley towards the gigantic source of light, ever faster.

  The fish were beginning to break up and began spiraling around in the pattern of a gigantic vortex. The two submersibles were caught up in this flow, and soon they broke over the edge of dark rocks and were soaring around in a giant circle over the light source. He couldn't make out what caused it, all he could see was the light filtering through the water in giant shafts from a hole in the earth miles across.

  His submarine was shooting down at alarming speed towards the craggy edge of the opening. The porous, volcanic-looking rocks approached dangerously close, and before long he was barreling past them.

  He had lost track of Doctor Toskovic's submersible, but he didn't care. With any luck, it had smashed into one of the boulders. That's what he thought, and then he saw a giant projection just ahead of him. He hoped he would miss it—until his sub suddenly jarred right towards it. In his rear monitor, he saw that Doctor Toskovic's submarine had struck his.

  With the light now blinding in his face and the rock about to strike, he succumbed to a sudden sentiment. This place is diyu, where souls go after people die. It is real.

  The submersible cracked with a horrific jolt. Doctor Ming-Zhen felt himself spinning wildly and saw flashing spots all over. Then there was another hit. Blackness closed in.

  Cairo Museum

  After the spectacular Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza had opened, the Cairo Museum had become almost as much of a relic as the artifacts it contained. The old Cairo Museum wasn't on tourist shortlists anymore, so its halls were ghostly silent. The basement of the once-great edifice had become like one of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings: dark because few light bulbs worked anymore, foul with the smell of dusty antiquity, and damp from seeping pipes that had never been fixed. For these reasons, it simply wasn't the kind of place one would expect to find enticing.

  Yet Doctor David Katz was spellbound. He had been to the museum before, to the ground level where tourists used to congregate like cattle. But he had never been invited into the mysterious basement where stacks and stacks of crates containing a century of archeological finds were stored. Most of the items there had never been gazed upon by anyone but the person who brought them into the modern age. Artifacts were so plentiful in Egypt, especially during the twentieth century, that nobody had time to catalog most of them. As soon as they were dug up they were tossed into boxes and hauled away into storage.

  When Layla brought him down into the basement (armed with a flashlight), they had hardly gone two steps before he distracted her with some object of interest—a vase. No sooner had they examined this than he pointed to something else. Before long they were prying crates open in a cloud of dust as he indulged himself in a feeding frenzy of archeological delights. And the longer he indulged, the more enamored he became not only with the archeology, but also the female who shared the indulgence.

  As he interpreted various hieroglyphics they found or flaunted his savvy on facets of Egyptian history, she was an appreciative and even admiring audience. Not only this, but she had a shared knowledge to the extent that he would begin to say something and she would nod and smile with excited comprehension before he was finished saying it. And when she disagreed with him, they became entwined in friendly, flirtatious intellectual arguments.

  As the dust cleared from their most recent crate excavation, Doctor Katz was sitting on the floor holding a metallic amulet. In the shape of an eye, it had two lines extending out from the corner, one long with a spiral at the end, and the other short.

  “The all-seeing eye,” he said, “Otherwise known as the eye of Horus.” He smiled, “But I'm sure you knew that.”

  “Of course,” she replied. Scrunching up her nose, she said, “I don't like it.”

  “Oh, but it's everywhere these days. All the biggest names in entertainment use it. Have you ever seen a rock star in a photo covering one eye? They're making the all-seeing eye. Kind of a fad. But of course it isn’t anything new as far as fads go. It's been found in many different ancient cultures all over the world.” He paused, surveying the object, “You don't find it mystical?”

  She shook her head, laughing, “No. I don't like it. It’s scary.”

  “Well, this one is a precious artifact!” He looked at the piles of objects they had stacked up all around, “These are all precious artifacts. What should we do with all of these?”

  She smiled, “We should probably put them back in the boxes.”

  “We could sell them on the internet,” Doctor Katz laughed.

  “That wouldn't be responsible scholarship, now would it, Doctor Katz?' she said flirtatiously.

  “'David,' please,” he said. “I'm not your professor.”

  “David,” she repeated, letting the word roll of her tongue softly.

  Doctor Katz said, “You know, I think you have more knowledge than most of the professors I've worked with.”

  “You think so?” she said, leaning back and tilting her head to the side.

  “Yes, truthfully.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now let's test your knowledge. Why only one eye?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why is there only one eye? Why not two for Horus?”

  He casually leaned back, “Ah. That's simple. Because he lost his left eye in war. Did you ever hear the story of Horus? How he was conceived?”

  “I think so, but go ahead.” She said with amusement, “I’ve noticed you love to talk.”

  He laughed, “You know me well already, I see. The story is that Isis, his mother, gathered all the parts of her husband Osiris's body after he was killed and dismembered. She magically restored her fallen husband to life. But when he awoke, there was one major problem. He was missing a vital part. So she fashioned a golden one for him and they slept together. Through this, Horus, a sky god, was conceived.”

  “Pure gold?” she said, smirking. “Or was it an alloy?”

  He grinned, “Pure, I’m sure. An alloy wouldn’t suffice.” Gazing at her as he was, his heart was beating with an excitement he hadn't experienced since he was really young. “Layla,” he said.

  “What?” her voice sounded almost hopeful.

  “It's beautiful, your name,” he said. At this point, it wasn't even her beauty that was truly drawing him: it was the fact that she seemed to respect and admire him for his passion in history. It was a passion they shared. He stared directly at her eyes and could see desire in them. Her head was cocked to the side exposing the beauty of her neck, glistening in the heat from her sweat.

  She was ready. She wanted him. Some animalistic, carnal part of him made him aware of her need. Responding, he moved in.

  Her eyes closed but her mouth didn’t as he pressed his lips on hers. He rhythmically kissed her, both their mouths opening to each other, tongues restrained. Erotic desire, excitement flooded over his body. Their tongues touched, electrical lust shooting all over him. He wasn’t gold, he thought, but he was just as—

  The huge latch clacked loudly and then the door at the bottom of the stairs began to swing open.

  StarLine Regal Shanghai

  After they were all settled in their rooms, Aubrey ventured out with Maggie to finally shop (on Henry's dime) for some new things to wear. While they were out, she noticed that Maggie was treating her with barely masked hostility.

  After being snapped at for the third time, as they were stepping onto an escalator, Aubrey finally asked, “Why are you treating me like this? What's wrong with you?”

  “What's wrong with me?” Maggie said sarcastically. “There's nothing wrong with me at all! You know why? You know why? I've been working my rear off for Henry for almost ten years. I've taken his abuse day in and day out, I've given up my life, my kids, everything just for his measly paych
ecks. And now I'm nice enough to give you a job and you arrive on the scene like Chelsea Come Lately and think you're going to be the cute little teacher's pet. Well I have news for you. It isn't happening. I can get rid of you just as quickly as I brought you in.”

  Aubrey was really hurt. She certainly wasn't doing anything to try to make Henry like her, in fact very much the opposite in her mind, and she couldn't believe that Maggie would be threatened by her at all. But also, she was angry. It was very unfair of Maggie to totally forget that she tricked Aubrey into taking this job, a job that nobody in their right mind would have taken. “Maggie—I can't believe you. You lied to me about this job. I never would have gotten on that plane had I known the truth. Lorraine told me Henry can't ever keep an assistant. You were on the hook for someone and you found the biggest sucker you knew: me! So don't act all innocent all of the sudden.”

  “Well if you hate the job so much, I'll help you get back home on the next flight out.”

  Aubrey suddenly felt dismayed.

  But why?

  If she was totally honest with herself, she didn't want to leave. She was having the adventure of a lifetime, and never would have dreamed she'd be in the Caribbean one day and Shanghai the next. So even though Maggie had not told the whole truth, she still owed her something. She placed a hand on Maggie's shoulder, “I didn't mean that, Maggie. I do appreciate the chance at this. Like you said, 'It's not International House of Bacon.’ But honestly, I really haven't been trying to be teacher's pet. How could you think that I have when I've challenged him to his face? If I were him, I would hate my guts right now.”

  “He doesn't seem to.” Maggie sighed, looking away for a moment. Then she said, “Look, the truth is I've never seen Henry take to somebody so fast. In fact, I've never seen him act like he does with you. I'm just . . . .” Suddenly she wiped away a tear, “I really have tried so hard for him. You know, secretaries get fruit baskets at Christmas, maybe even flowers from time to time. But I haven't even had a word from him. Not one word of appreciation. Not even one word of kindness, really. Not a card, not anything that says, “Thanks, Maggie, for sticking with me for all these years.”