Into the Abyss (Dark Prospects Book 2)

by Xu, Lei

  What was a Soviet doing here? I couldn't understand it. Given the secrecy of this project, it seemed impossible that a foreigner would be allowed down here. The Soviet was tall and robust with a close-trimmed beard and pale skin. He gave the impression of being capable of explosive force. A cigarette dangled from his lips as he stared blankly ahead. The black abyss was inches from his feet and a fierce wind blew from out of the void yet he was utterly indifferent to it all.

  I asked one of the soldiers beside me about the man, but discovered that he'd only just arrived and was supposedly an elite specialist of some sort. I was about to ask another question when the cannon suddenly roared. The ground shook and then the iron hunk was flying through the darkness, steel cable trailing behind it. Before long its forward momentum was exhausted and it dropped towards the bottom of the abyss. The steel cable continued to uncoil from the windlass, twisting back and forth all along its length and emitting a piercing sound as it cut through the air, threatening to slice in half anything in its path. The cable continued to uncoil for a long time. Only when the line stopped moving did I get closer. Piercing the darkness below the dam at a 45 degree angle, it ran into the blackness of the abyss.

  "Will it hold?" asked Wang Sichuan.

  Several of the engineering soldiers grabbed the line and pulled down as hard as they could. "This is the kind of steel cable they use for pile drivers," said one of the soldiers. "You tell me if it'll hold."

  "All right," said Wang Sichuan, imitating the soldier's accent. "I believe you. But if I fall, you're paying for my head."

  "No problem," said the soldier. "You could have a head the size of an elephant's and I wouldn't be worried."

  I was glad to hear the confidence in his voice. Sooner or later we were going to be sliding down that cable. Wang Sichuan laughed and handed the soldier a cigarette. I reached up and tugged hard on the cable. It didn't move a millimeter. That was a relief. After securing the windlass to the side of the dam, the soldiers cranked it until the cable was so straight and tight that no amount of wind could make it sway, or so they said. As I stood at the edge of the abyss I could hear a powerful wind whistling over the line, making it vibrate all along its length. Wang Sichuan was soon on good terms with several of the soldiers and he began asking them about the project. I continued to stare at the spot where the cable disappeared into the depths, wondering how I would to be able to make out anything down there. I thought again of the tall Soviet and his earlier nonchalance. By now he had long since left the dam, so I walked over and stood at the edge of the abyss, just as he had. The wind was so strong I was nearly blown over the side. Overcome with fear, I backed up.

  After that morning I didn't see the Soviet again for some time. Although my curiosity about him remained, it didn't consume me. I did manage to learn a little more while chatting with some soldiers after dinner. The Soviet's name was Ivan. He'd arrived only recently and he was known to haunt command headquarters. No one knew exactly what he did, but all the leaders showed him a great deal of respect.

  Thinking aloud, Wang Sichuan asked whether he might have been sent to develop our leftist spirit.

  "No way," I replied. "The Soviets lost their influence over us a long time ago. That's what makes his appearance here so strange."

  One week later everything was ready. A short mobilization meeting was held, then we strapped on our packs and prepared to move out. A pair of engineering soldiers would be the first to descend. The cable was strong enough to hold 100 of us at a time, but just to be safe we were going to descend in groups of two. Once each group made it down safely, they would fire a signal flare to alert those up top.

  The two soldiers strapped on their gas masks and were off. Their speed of descent was astounding. They disappeared into the darkness faster than the eye could follow. Only from the vibrating cable did we know that they were still attached. I was way more than nervous, smoking one cigarette after another as I waited to go next, but after three hours there was no sign of a signal flare. We waited a little longer, but at last there was no denying it. They were gone.

  Wang Sichuan and I glanced at one another, then over at the on-site commander. His face had gone pale.

  ***

  The operation was postponed at once. Old Tian was summoned to a meeting and I was given my own assignment: reassuring the troops and raising morale. But with the two other soldiers swallowed by the abyss, Old Tian in a meeting, and neither Wang Sichuan nor I in need of much reassurance, the "troops" consisted of only a single engineering soldier. This remaining soldier was clearly in need of something.

  As he sat before me his legs shook uncontrollably. Day in and day out, engineering soldiers like him braved countless dangers, taking in stride anything that came at them. If there was a river, they built a bridge. If there was a forest, they blazed a road. Even a wild tiger wouldn't have scared him this badly. Such soldiers are often most scared of what they cannot see. To be honest, the void frightened me, too, but I was more realistic. Why be afraid of one's fate, especially when it cannot be changed? In those years, no thought was ever given to aborting the mission. If difficulties appeared, then those difficulties were overcome. No victory came easily. Only through sacrifice and untold effort were the Chinese of my generation ever able to succeed. I was sure that we would soon be forced to descend.

  "How do you know it's not some paradise down there?" Wang Sichuan asked the soldier. "They've probably got nurses with long, thick hair and girls from the military academy. I'll bet those two were so happy they forgot all about firing the signal flare."

  No one laughed. It was a lousy joke. And so the morale-boosting meeting ended in failure. Thankfully none of the higher-ups ever asked me about it.

  Old Tian returned from his meeting later that night. He said nothing about it, just sat and looked over his notes. I figured he'd been unable to think of a solution. The way I saw it, though, the situation was simple; neither mathematical analysis nor deep discussion was going to yield a solution. In the end, we'd just have to go for it.

  My suspicions were borne out the following day. This time no one bothered to tell us there would be another test-descent. Luckily Wang Sichuan got wind of what was going on and, after I demanded that we be allowed to attend, command finally relented. We arrived atop the dam to see two more engineering soldiers wearing full-body protective suits. Long ropes were tied to their waists. I asked the on-site commander what they were doing.

  "This time we're making sure we find out what the hell is going on down there," he said. "The moment something seems wrong, we're pulling them back up."

  This didn't seem like it was going to turn out any better, but I knew there was no point in saying anything.

  The two soldiers were battle-hardened veterans—you could see it in the way they carried themselves. That didn't make them any less nervous. After all, some things take more than a gun to handle. Still, they loaded their machine guns, strapped them on, and holstered their flare guns. They began to descend, moving much slower than the previous pair. The searchlight stayed on them as they dropped bit by bit into the darkness, until at last they were out of sight. No one said a word.

  Please let nothing happen to them, I thought, listening to the fierce wind blow through the abyss. Seconds passed as we waited for the flare, then minutes, and I slowly realized that something was wrong but, with everyone else silent, I said nothing. After half an hour, I was positive.

  "Pull them up!" yelled the on-site commander.

  At once the soldiers began cranking the small winch, but when they pulled the rope in, the soldiers were gone. The rope had snapped and the end of it danced in midair, blown by the abyssal wind.

  As I stood there, stunned, the on-site commander angrily threw his hat to the ground. His eyes were bloodshot. He checked the bullets in his gun, then clipped himself to the cable, put on a gas mask, and prepared to descend. Wang Sichuan tried to stop him, but the commander just waved him away.

  "Deputy Squad Leader W
ang," said one of the young soldiers, his voice wavering, "please ask command for their orders."

  "You can ask them if I don't make it back out," said the on-site commander. "Now who's coming with me?"

  All the young soldiers promptly stepped forward. I knew this was a bad idea, but before I could say anything Wang Sichuan's voice rose above the hubbub. "Out of the way," he said. "I'll go."

  No way was Wang Sichuan going down there himself. There were only a limited number of us technical personnel and our safety had to be ensured. Command was not going to be happy if one of us got dragged into this. As expected, the on-site commander refused to take him, leaving us deadlocked. Fear gripped my heart. What kind of world was hidden within the abyss? Why did it swallow all who entered?

  Holding onto the cable, I walked to the edge, trying to figure out what to do next. Suddenly, I felt the cable trembling. I brought my ear up to it. I could hear vibrating.

  Something was climbing out of the abyss.

  CHAPTER

  28

  Incomprehensible

  I whistled for quiet and called the others over. As they listened to the vibrations their faces turned pale.

  "What the hell is on the cable?" asked Wang Sichuan.

  "I don't know," I said, my forehead damp with cold sweat. Either it was one of the soldiers, somehow still alive, or it was whatever had killed them. "Hand me a gun," I said. If it was one of the men, then he was in great danger. The distance was too far and the wind too strong to climb the cable alone. Someone would need to go help.

  Someone passed me a pistol. I very nearly clipped myself to the cable and slid down to investigate, but after all we'd been through, whatever bravado I had in me was practically gone. It was the on-site commander and one of the young soldiers who went instead, one after the other, while the rest of us kept our guns trained on the cable. If it really was a monster climbing up the cable, several machine guns would be more than enough to send it back where it came from.

  After 20 minutes, the on-site commander shined his flashlight into the darkness overhead, signaling us to send the next man. Two hours later he and the young soldier reappeared, carrying someone with them. As soon as they were close, the on-site commander yelled for us to find the head doctor as fast as possible. The man they carried appeared barely human. His skin was burned black as night. We laid him flat and waited for the doctor to come. No one present recognized him. His body gave off a strange odor and his face had melted away. His eyes were clouded and he seemed unable to see or speak. Every now and then his mouth would open, as if he wanted to say something, but no sound escaped.

  Tears fell from the on-site commander's eyes as he cleaned the man's wounds. "Where the hell is the doctor?" he yelled. "Tell them if they're not here in one minute I'm putting this man out of his misery!"

  It took Wang Sichuan and I a moment to get over our shock. Then we ran over to help. "Comrade," I cried, ripping open the wounded man's clothes, "hold on!"

  His whole body shook when I said this. He turned his melted face towards me, suddenly reaching out and seizing my collar. As he pulled me close, his terrifying features twisted and his clouded eyes seemed to go wide with surprise. Then he began to scream, again and again, his voice incomprehensible and filled with unimaginable anguish.

  Ignoring the pain in my ears, I listened closely. It sounded almost as if he was saying, "How can it be you again?"

  But sometimes it didn't sound like that at all. What could it mean? Moments later the doctors and nurses arrived. They loaded the man onto a stretcher and carried him away. The rest of the soldiers followed behind them. Soon Wang Sichuan and I were the only ones left atop the dam.

  Wang Sichuan looked off into the abyss and then back at me. His expression was stricken. "Old Wu," he said, "what did he say to you?"

  I shook my head and gazed out into the abyss. I'd been so scared I could barely think straight. Who knows what I heard? My hands were still shaking too much to light a cigarette. I reached up and grabbed the cable overhead. It was still vibrating slightly, wet with whatever had been on the man. We'd all been thinking the same thing: Thank Heaven I didn't have to go down there.

  Suddenly we heard shouts from the receding crowd. "There's something in his hand!" someone cried.

  Wang Sichuan and I looked at one another, then hurried over to the crowd. The on-site commander was still prying open the soldier's fingers. From them he pulled out a single stone the size of an ink bottle. It was covered with small holes, like a sponge. When held in the light it gave off a strange luster.

  ***

  The doctors later found an ID card in the clothing of the burned man identifying him as He Ruping, leader of the third company's fourth squadron. He'd just turned 26-years-old. Although he managed to survive, he soon fell into such a deep coma with no hope of reviving him. A verdict had yet to be reached on his full-body burns. There was no acidic residue, nor did his body bear signs of having roasted in flames. It was almost as if he'd been cooked from the inside out.

  The rock in his hand was black cloud stone, an extremely common variety, especially for where we were. Much of the rock surrounding the underground river was of this type. Old Tian believed that after He Ruping lost his mind from the pain, he'd grabbed the stone without really intending to and just never let it go. I disagreed. It made no sense for someone undergoing that level of suffering to pointlessly haul a stone inch by tortured inch back up the cable. It had to be some kind of clue, a window to the hell He Ruping had seen, one which he'd given his cognizant life to show us.

  The only truly curious thing about the stone was the tiny holes covering every bit of its surface. Black cloud stones were formed by eons of pressure bearing down on sediment. These holes wouldn't have appeared while the stone was forming. I guessed some corrosive element in the air—the mist, most likely—had eaten out the little holes. Old Tian split the stone open. Its interior and exterior were identical. We didn't understand this theoretical stuff, so Wang Sichuan and I left the examination to Old Tian and waited in our tent for the result.

  After three hours with no updates, we grew impatient. Several of us took turns strolling over to Old Tian's tent and attempting to learn what we could. At first, only Old Tian and his students were inside inspecting the stone. Later Pei Qing joined them. Pei Qing had been spending most of his time convening with the higher-ups. Whatever they were working on was not for us to know. He was a smart guy with an encyclopedic mind—by all rights he should have been invited to examine the stone from the start—but Old Tian couldn't stand him. For Old Tian to call him meant Old Tian and his students had become utterly stuck. Still, there was no news. I began to give up hope.

  Sure enough, we received a message that night: the mission was postponed indefinitely.

  CHAPTER

  29

  The Secret of the Stone

  While eating dinner that night, I thought again of He Ruping and shivered involuntarily. I was sure some kind of hell awaited us in the abyss and that sooner or later we'd be ordered to face it. The project might be suspended, but I knew this was only temporary. No one was going to escape this unscathed. For a moment I considered quitting the mission, but I didn't have the guts. Desertion was always an option, but the consequences would haunt us forever. Regular soldiers looked at cowardice as something that everyone must face and overcome, but I knew that sometimes there was reason to feel afraid. What could I do, though?

  Supposing I really did refuse to go on, endured the excoriation of the battalion commander, then the brigade commander, and finally the division commander—well, they couldn't make me do it. But my life would be ruined. Who knows what label would be waiting for me on the surface, what hardships I would be made to suffer?

  "There's a bit of a problem with this comrade." This sentence could be used as an excuse to mess with anything from my housing allotments to work salary. And if a deserter ever received something "extra," there would be the inevitable complaints, someone alway
s wondering, "Why does the deserter get this and I don't?"

  I didn't give a damn about what other people might say, but I didn't want to be pushed around because of it. A man needed to approach a decision like this as if his life depended on it. I thought about what my dad would say. Actually, the old man probably wouldn't care too much. He'd endured more than his share of suffering in his lifetime. Whether I deserted would be trivial. My little brother, however, would be furious. I'd always been his hero and I knew how sensitive people his age could be. In the end, though, I was sure he'd understand.

  Wang Sichuan was standing by the center tent pole, feeding wood to the stove while he spoke his thoughts aloud. "What if there's just a field of lava down there and the moment we land we're dead?"

  "Molten lava is bright enough that we would be able to see it from up here," said a voice behind me. "And the hot air rising off it would roil the mist. Right now it's much too calm." It was Pei Qing. He must have just returned from Old Tian's tent.