Domain

by Steve Alten

  Welcome to the Navy adventure.

  Evans pulls back on the joystick. The chopper lifts away from the helopad, turning south as it climbs to three hundred feet. The pilot hovers the LAMPS directly over the swirling emerald sea.

  Hoi-lee shit- Evans and his crew stare at the growing maelstrom, mesmerized by its beauty, frightened by its intensity. The vortex is a monster, a spiraling eddy straight out of Homer's Odyssey, its walls oscillating with the force of Niagara Falls. Looking down upon the otherwise dark waters, the whirlpool's glowing emerald eye resembles a luminescent green galaxy, its cluster of stars brightening as the mouth of the funnel opens wider.

  Good God. Wish I had my camera.

  Don't worry, Lieutenant, we're snapping plenty of pictures back here.

  Who cares about infrared. I want a real photo, something I can e-mail back home.

  As Evans watches, the center of the maelstrom suddenly bottoms out, exposing a blinding sphere of light that blazes upward like an emerald sun from within the fractured sea floor.

  Protect your eyes-

  Lieutenant, two objects rising out of the funnel!

  What? Evans turns to face his radar operator. How large?

  Big. Twice the size of the LAMPS.

  The pilot pulls back on the joystick-as two dark, winged objects soar out of the funnel. The faceless mechanisms rise up along either side of the Seasprite-the lieutenant catching a quick glimpse of a glowing amber disk-as the joystick goes limp in his hand.

  Oh, shit, we've stalled-

  Engines off-line, Lieutenant. Everything's dead!

  Evans registers a sickening feeling as the airship drops from the sky. A bone-jarring jolt-as the chopper strikes the maelstrom's wall. The rotors shear off, the cockpit's windshield shatters as the copter is slung around the vertical column of water as if caught in a blender. Centrifugal force pins Evans sideways in his seat, his screams drowned out by the tumultuous roar that fills his ears.

  The world spins out of control as the funnel engulfs the LAMPS.

  The last thing Lieutenant Johnathan Evans feels is the strange sensation of his vertebrae popping beneath a suffocating embrace, as if his body is being crushed within a giant trash compactor.

  DECEMBER 8, 2012

  GUNUNG MULU NATIONAL PARK

  SARAWAK, FEDERATION OF MALAYSIA

  5:32 A.M. MALAYSIAN TIME (13 HOURS LATER)

  Sarawak, situated on the northwest coast of Borneo, is the largest state in the Federation of Malaysia. Gunung Mulu, the largest national park in the state, covers 340 square miles, its landscape dominated by three mountains-the Gunung Mulu, the Gunung Benarat, and the Gunung Api.

  The Gunung Api is a mountain formed out of limestone, a geology that not only dominates the entire state of Sarawak, but also its neighboring island of Irian Jaya/Papua New Guinea, and nearly all of southern Malaysia. The weathering of this limestone landscape by the slightly acid rainwater has led to remarkable surface sculptures and underground formations.

  Midway up the side of Mount Api, pointing skyward like a field of jagged stalagmites, is a petrified forest of razor-sharp, silver-gray limestone pinnacles, some of which tower more than 150 feet above the rain forest. Below ground, hollowed out from the limestone geology by subterranean rivers, lies a labyrinth containing more than four hundred miles of underworld caverns, representing the largest limestone cave system in the world.

  Honolulu graduate student Wade Tokumine has been studying the Sarawak caves for three months, collecting data as part of his master's thesis concerning the stability of the world's underground karst volumes. Karst is a topography created through the chemical weathering of limestone geology containing at least eighty percent calcium carbonate. Sarawak's network of subterranean passages are composed entirely of this vast network of karst.

  Today's journey marks Wade's ninth visit to Clearwater Cave, the longest underground passage in all of Southeast Asia and one of only four Mula caves open to the public. The geologist leans back from his seat in the longboat, shining his carbide light at the alabaster ceiling of the cavern. The beacon cuts through the darkness to reveal a myriad of stalactites dripping with moisture. Wade stares at the ancient formations of rock, marveling at Nature's design.

  Four billion years ago, the Earth was a very young, hostile, and lifeless world. As the planet cooled, water vapor and other gases were sent skyward in violent volcanic eruptions, creating an atmosphere high in carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and hydrogen compounds, conditions similar to those found on Venus.

  Life on our planet began in the sea as a soup of chemicals, organized into complex structures-four basic amino acid chain molecules-animated by an outside catalyst, perhaps a bolt of lightning. The animated amino acid double helixes began to replicate themselves, leading to a single-celled life. These organisms quickly rose in abundance and began depleting the oceans of its fast-food carbon compounds. Then-a unique family of bacteria evolved to produce a new organic molecule called chlorophyll. This green-tinted substance was able to store the energy in sunlight, allowing the single-celled organisms to create high-quality carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, releasing oxygen as its by-product.

  Photosynthesis was born.

  As planetary oxygen levels rose, calcium carbonate was withdrawn from the sea and locked up in rock formations by marine organisms, drastically reducing the planet's atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. This rock-limestone-became Earth's storehouse for carbon dioxide. As a result, the level of carbon dioxide stored in sedimentary rock is now more than six hundred times the total carbon content of the planet's air, water, and living cells combined.

  Wade Tokumine aims the beam of light along the dark surface waters of the cavern. The subterranean stream is laden with ten times the concentration of carbon dioxide. This part of the carbon cycle occurs as a result of the dissolved CO2 reaching its saturation point within the limestone. When this happens, the carbon dioxide precipitates out as pure calcium carbonate, creating the stalactites and stalagmites that now proliferate in the Sarawak caves.

  Wade turns around in the longboat to face his guide, Andrew Chan. The Malaysian native and professional spelunker has been leading tours through Sarawak's caves for seventeen years.

  Andrew, how much farther to this virgin passage of yours?

  The light of the carbide lamp catches Andrew's smile, which is missing two front teeth. Not far. This section of the cavern craps out ahead, then we go on by foot.

  Wade nods, then spits out the stench of the carbide fumes. Only 30 percent of Sarawak's caves have been surveyed, most of these remaining inaccessible to all but a few of the more experienced guides. When it comes to charting unexplored passages, Wade knows Andrew is second to none, a caver exuding a strong case of booty scoop lust, an incurable psychological condition common among Speleo-boppers.

  Andrew guides the longboat to a ledge, holding it steady so Wade can climb out. Better put your brain bucket on, lots of loose rock ahead.

  Wade fastens the helmet to his head as Andrew ties one end of a very long coil of rope known as a hog to the boat, tossing the rest over his shoulder. Stay close. It'll get a bit narrow. There's plenty of sharp popcorn sticking out along the walls, so watch your clothes.

  Andrew takes the lead, guiding them through a pitch-dark catacomb. He selects a tight, inclined passage and enters, allowing the hog line to feed out to mark their route. After several minutes of steady climbing, the passage squeezes to a claustrophobic tunnel, forcing them to crawl on all fours.

  Wade slips on the wet limestone, tearing the skin along his knuckles. How much farther?

  Why? You getting entrance fever?

  A little.

  That's 'cause you're a keyboard caver.

  What's that?

  A keyboard caver's someone who spends more time reading the cavers' mailing list than actually going-hold on. Whoa, what's this?

  Wade crawls forward on his belly, squeezing in next to Andrew to take a look.

>   The tunnel has opened to a massive sinkhole. Looking up, they can see stars still glimmering in the early-morning sky, the surface a good seventy-five feet above their heads. Andrew shines his light below, revealing the bottom of a massive hole, another thirty feet down.

  A luminescent amber glow casts bizarre shadows from within the pit.

  Do you see that?

  Wade leans forward to get a better look. It looks like there's something glowing down there

  This doline wasn't here earlier this morning. The roof of the cavern must have just collapsed. Whatever's down there probably fell straight through and landed in that pit.

  Maybe it's a car? Someone could be trapped down there.

  Wade watches as his Malaysian guide reaches into his backpack and pulls out a Knobbly Dog, a rope ladder made of a single length of wire, the rungs threaded through the middle.

  What are you doing?

  Stay here, I'm going to climb down and have a look. Andrew anchors one end of the ladder to the ledge, then allows the Knobbly Dog to unravel into the dark recesses below.

  The sky above has turned gray by the time the spelunker steps down into the pit. The early-morning light barely penetrates the darkness and swirling wisps of limestone dust.

  Andrew stares at the inanimate creature dwarfing him in the subterranean pit. Hey Wade, I don't know what this thing is, but it ain't no car.

  What's it look like?

  Like nothing I've ever seen. It's huge, like a giant cockroach, only it's got big wings and a tail, with a bunch of weird tentacles sticking out all over its belly. It's balancing upright on a pair of claws. They must be pretty hot, because the limestone's sizzling beneath them.

  Maybe you ought to get out of there. Come on, we'll call the park rangers-

  It's okay, the thing's not alive. Andrew reaches out to touch one of the tentacles.

  A neon blue, electromagnetic shock wave slams him backward against the far wall.

  Andrew, you okay? Andrew?

  Yeah, man, but this sonnuva bitch is packing a serious charge. Oh, shit- Andrew jumps back as the creature's hydraulic, mechanical tail rises, reaching up toward the sky.

  Andrew?

  I'm leaving, man, you don't have to tell me twice. The guide starts climbing up the ladder.

  The amber orb along the side of the being's upper body begins flashing, darkening to a crimson hue.

  Come on, climb faster!

  White smoke pours out from beneath the creature's talons, filling the vertical shaft.

  Wade feels himself getting dizzy. He turns around and slides, headfirst, down the slick tunnel as Andrew pulls himself up and over the ledge.

  Andrew? Andrew, you behind me? Wade stops his inertia and shines his light back up the tunnel. He can see the guide, lying facedown in the narrow crawl space.

  Carbon dioxide!

  Wade reaches hack and grabs Andrew's wrist. He drags him down through the crawl space as the rock around him grows hotter, scorching his skin.

  What the hell's happening?

  Wade stumbles to his feet as the passage widens. He hoists the unconscious guide onto his shoulder and staggers toward the longboat. Everything seems to be spinning, getting hotter. He closes his eyes, using his elbows to feel his way along the sizzling limestone walls.

  Wade hears a bizarre bubbling sound as he reaches the subterranean stream. Dropping to one knee, he rolls Andrew's body into the longboat, then climbs in clumsily, nearly tipping them. The cave's walls are smoking, the intense heat causing the underground river to boil.

  Wade's eyes are burning, his nostrils unable to inhale the searing atmosphere. He bellows a suffocating scream, thrashing about wildly as his flesh blisters and chars away from the bone and his eyeballs burst into flames.

  JOURNAL OF

  JULIUS GABRIEL

  Chichen Itza-the most magnificent Mayan city in all Mesoamerica. Translated, the name means: at the brim of the well where the Wise Men of the Water live.

  The Wise Men of the Water.

  The city itself is divided into an old section and new. The Maya first settled in Old Chichen in AD 435 their civilization later joined by the Itza tribe, around AD goo. Little is known about the daily rituals and lifestyles of these people, although we do know they were ruled by their god-king, Kukulcan, whose legacy as the great Mayan teacher dominates the ancient city.

  Maria, Michael, and I would spend many years exploring the ancient ruins and surrounding jungles of Chichen Itza. In the end, we felt convinced of the overwhelming importance of three particular structures, these being the sacred cenote, the Great Mayan Ball Court, and the Kukulcan pyramid.

  Simply put, there is no other structure in the world like the Kukulcan pyramid. Towering above the Great Esplanade of Chichen Itza, the precision and astronomical placement of this thousand-year-old structure still baffles architects and engineers the world over.

  Maria and I eventually agreed that it was the Kukulcan pyramid the Nazca drawing had been intended to represent The inverted jaguar within the desert icon, the serpent columns at the entrance to the temple's northern corridor, the icon of the monkey and whales-everything seemed to fit Somewhere, hidden within the city, had to be a secret passageway into the Kukulcan's inner structure. The question was-where?

  The first and most obvious solution that came to us was that the entrance was hidden within the sacred cenote, a naturally formed sinkhole located just north of the Kukulcan. The cenote was yet another symbol of the portal to the Mayan Underworld, and no cenote in all the Yucatan was more important than the sacred well in Chichen Itza, for it was here that so many maidens were sacrificed after Kukulcan's abrupt departure.

  Of more importance was the possible connection between the cenote and the Nazca pyramid drawing. Viewed from above (just as in Nazca) the sacred well's layered, circular limestone walls could easily have been interpreted as a serious of concentric circles. In addition, the carved Mayan serpent heads, located along the northern base of the Kukulcan pyramid, point directly at the well.

  Intrigued and excited, Maria and I put together a scuba diving expedition to explore the Mayan cenote. In the end, the only thing we found were the skeletal remains of the dead-nothing more.

  Alas, it would be another structure in Chichen Itza that would change our lives forever.

  There are dozens of ancient ball courts in Mesoamerica, but none rival the Great Ball Court at Chichen Itza. Besides being the largest in the Yucatan, the Great Ball Court, like the Kukulcan pyramid, is a structure that has been painstakingly aligned with the heavens, in this case, the Milky Way galaxy. At midnight of every June solstice,

  the long axis of the I-shaped field points to where the Milky Way touches the horizon, the dark rift of the galaxy actually mirroring the ball court overhead.

  The astronomical meaning behind this incredible design cannot be overstated, for, as I have discussed earlier, the dark rift of the Milky Way is one of the most important symbols of Maya culture. According to the Popol Vuh, the Maya book of creation, the dark rift is considered to be the road that leads to the Underworld, or Xibalba. It is here where the Maya hero, One Hunahpu, had journeyed to the Underworld to challenge the evil gods, a heroic, though fateful, challenge ritualized by the Maya in the ancient ball game. (All members of the losing team were put to death.)

  According to the Mayan calendar, the name One Hunahpu equates with 1 Ahau, the first day of the fifth cycle-and its last-the prophesied day of doom. Using a sophisticated astronomy program, I have charted the heavens as they will appear in the year 2012. The Great Ball Court will once again align itself with the dark rift, only this time on the day of the winter solstice-4 Ahau, 3 Kankin-humanity's day of doom.

  It was on a cool fall day in 1983 that a team of Mexican archaeologists arrived in Chichen Itza. Armed with picks and shovels, the men proceeded to the Great Ball Court in search of an artifact known as the center marker-an ornamental stone found buried at the center point of many other ball-court fie
lds in Mesoamerica.

  Maria and I stood by and watched as the archaeologists unearthed the ancient artifact. The vessel was like none any of us had ever seen-jade instead of rock, hollow, the size of a coffee can, with the handle of an obsidian blade protruding from one end of the object as if it were some Mayan sword in the stone. Despite many attempts to remove it, the weapon remained wedged in tight.

  Adorning the sides of the jade object were symbolic images of the ecliptic and the dark rift. Painted on the bottom of the piece was the detailed face of a great Mayan warrior.

  Maria and I stared at this last image in absolute shock, for there was no mistaking the man's facial features. Reluctantly, we handed the center marker back to the expedition's leader, then returned to our trailer, overwhelmed by the potential implications of the object we had just held within our hands.

  Maria had been the one to finally break the silence between us. Julius, somehow-somehow our own destiny has become directly entwined in the very salvation of our species. The image upon the marker-it's a sign that we must continue our journey, that we must find a way into Kukulcan's pyramid.

  I knew my wife was right. With renewed vigor, forged from feelings of trepidation, we continued our search, spending the next three years turning over every rock, exploring every ruin, uncovering every jungle leaf, investigating every cave in the region.

  Still-we found nothing.

  By the summer of '85, our frustrations had mounted to the point where we knew a change of venue was necessary simply to preserve what little sanity remained. Our original plan had been to travel to Cambodia to explore the magnificent ruins of Angkor, a doomsday site we believed was linked to both Giza and Teotihuacan. Unfortunately, access into the area was still bang denied to all outsiders by the ruling Khmer Rouge.

  Maria had other ideas. Surmising our extraterrestrial elders would never have fashioned an entrance into the Kukulcan that could have been stumbled upon by looters, she believed it in our best interests to return to Nazca and attempt to decipher the rest of the ancient message.