He was pummeled by a surging deluge that burst in a great plume from the limestone roof of the cavern. The huge torrent of water barreled down a tributary that fed into the subterranean river from another source. Pitt was baffled by the sight of so much water rushing under an and and thirsty desert no farther away than the distance a good outfielder could throw a baseball. He decided that it must feed into the river by great pressure from a system of underground aquifers.
Once through the curtain of mist, he could see the walls had spread and the roof sloped upward into a chamber of vast size and proportion. It was a bizarrely decorated cavern filled with grotesquely shaped helictites, a family of stalactites that ignores gravity and grows in eccentric directions. Mineral deposits had also formed beautifully sculpted mushrooms over a meter tall and delicate gypsum flowers with graceful plumes. The spectacular formations would have been described by veteran spelunkers as a showcase grotto.
Pitt couldn't but wonder how many other subterranean worlds sprawled through the earth in eternal darkness, waiting to be discovered and explored. It was easy to let the mind run amok and imagine a long-dead and lost race who had lived down here and carved the magnificent calcite sculptures.
Not Giordino. The beauty was lost on him. He turned, gazed back at Pitt with a big I'm-glad-to-be-alive smile and said, "Looks like a hangout for the Phantom of the Opera."
"I doubt if we'll find Lon Chaney playing the pipe organ down here."
"We have a landing thirty meters ahead to the left," Giordino said, his spirits lifting considerably.
"Right. Start your turn into shallow water and swim like hell to get out of the main current."
Giordino needed no urging. He cut his angle sharply, pulling the canister behind him and kicking his fins furiously. Pitt released his grip on the big aluminum tube, swam strongly alongside until he was at its midpoint, and then, using his body as a drag, he heaved it after Giordino.
The approach worked as Pitt had hoped. Giordino broke free of the current and swam into calmer water. When his fins touched the bottom, he climbed ashore, dragging the canister with him.
Now unhampered, Pitt easily stroked into the shallows, landing ten meters below Giordino. He crawled out of the water, sat down, removed his fins and goggles, and carefully walked back upstream across the smoothly textured rocks as he removed his air tanks.
Giordino did the same before he began dismantling the canister. He looked up at Pitt with a look of profound accomplishment. "Nice place you've got here."
"Sorry for the mess," muttered Pitt, "but the seven dwarfs are on a break."
"Does it feel as good to you as it does to me that we've come this far?"
"I'm not sad to be alive, if that's what you mean."
"How far have we come?"
Pitt tapped in a command on the computer strapped to his arm. "According to my faithful wonder of technology, we have traveled two kilometers through damnation and dropped another two meters toward hell."
"Twenty-eight to go."
"Yes," Pitt said, smiling like a magician about to bedazzle an audience. "But from here on, we go in style."
Five minutes later the eight air chambers of the Wallowing Windbag were filled and the hull fully inflated, deployed, and ready to do battle with the river. Known as a water rescue response vehicle, the ungainly Hovercraft could ride on a cushion of air effortlessly over boiling rapids, quicksand, thin ice, and polluted quagmires. Vehicles in use by police and fire departments around the country had saved countless victims from death by drowning. Now this one was going on an endurance trial its builders never conceived.
Three meters (10 feet) in length and 1.5 meters (5 feet) wide, the compact craft mounted a four-cycle, 50-horsepower engine that could propel her over a flat surface at 64 kilometers (40 miles) an hour.
"Our engineers did a fine job of modifying the height," said Giordino.
"Adopting a horizontal engine and fan was a stroke of genius," Pitt agreed.
Amazing how much equipment they crammed inside the canister."
Before they cast off, they stowed and tied down ten reserve air tanks, extra air bottles to reinflate the Hovercraft, a battery of lights including two aircraft landing lights built into waterproof housings, spare batteries, first aid equipment, and three additional breathing regulators.
From a watertight container Pitt retrieved his battered, old .45 Colt automatic and two ammo clips. He smiled as he also found a thermos of coffee and four bologna sandwiches. Admiral Sandecker never forgot the details that make for a successful operation. Pitt put the thermos and sandwiches back in the container. There was no time for a picnic. They had to push on if they were to reach the treasure chamber before it was too late to save Loren and Rudi. He inserted the gun and extra ammo clips into a plastic bag and sealed the opening. Then he unzipped the front of his wet suit and slipped the bag inside next to his stomach.
He stared for a moment at the black collapsible Hovercraft. "Oh, Circe, who will guide us on this journey," he quoted. "To Hades no man ever went in a black ship."
Giordino looked up from coupling a pair of steering oars to their locks. "Where did you hear that?"
"The Odyssey by Homer."
"Verily among the Trojans too there be men that dive," Giordino recited glibly. "The Iliad. I can quote Homer too."
"You never cease to amaze me."
"It's nothing really."
Pitt climbed aboard. "Gear stashed?"
"All buttoned down."
"Ready to shove off?"
"Start her up."
Pitt crouched in the stern just ahead of the engine fan. He engaged the starter and the air-cooled engine sputtered to life. The small engine was well muffled and the exhaust sounded only as a muted throb.
Giordino took his position in the bow of the craft and turned on one of the landing lights, illuminating the cavern as bright as daylight. He looked back at Pitt and laughed. "I hope no one fines us for polluting a virgin environment."
Pitt laughed too. "A losing proposition for the local sheriff. I forgot my wallet."
The Hovercraft moved off the shoreline, suspended on its self-produced 20-centimeter (8-inch) cushion of air into the mainstream of the river. Pitt held the vertical grips of the control bar in each hand and easily steered an arrow-straight course over the flowing current.
It seemed strange to be skimming over the water surface without a sensation of contact. From the bow, Giordino could look down into the remarkably transparent water that had turned from the cobalt blue of the sinkhole to a deep aqua green and see startled albino salamanders and small schools of blind cave fish darting amid the spherical boulders that carpeted the river bottom like fallen ornaments. He kept busy reporting the river conditions ahead and snapping photos as Pitt maneuvered and recorded data on his computer for Peter Duncan.
Even with their rapid motion through the large corridors, their sweat and the extreme humidity combined to form a halo like mist around their heads. They ignored the phenomenon and the darkness behind them, never looking back as they continued deeper into the river-carved canyon.
For the first 8 kilometers (5 miles) it was clear sailing and they made good time. They skimmed over bottomless pools and past forbidding galleries that extended deep into the walls of the caverns. The ceilings in the string of river chambers varied from a high of 30 meters (98 feet) to barely enough room to squeeze the Hovercraft through. They bounced over several small, shallow cascades without difficulty and entered a narrow channel where it took all their concentration to avoid the everpresent rocks. Then they traveled through one enormous gallery that stretched almost 3 kilometers (slightly under 2 miles) and was filled with stunning crystals that glinted and sparkled beneath the aircraft light.
On two different occasions, the passage became flooded when the ceiling merged with the water surface. Then they went through the routine of deflating the Wallowing Windbag until it achieved neutral buoyancy, returned to breathing from their air tanks,
and drifted with the current through the sunken passage dragging the flattened Hovercraft and its equipment behind them until they emerged into an open cavern and reinflated it again. There were no complaints over the additional effort. Neither man expected a smooth cruise down a placid river.
To relieve the stress they began giving nonsensical names to the galleries and prominent features. The Fun House, the Wax Museum, Giordino's Gymnasium. A small spout from a cavern wall was labeled Postnasal Drip. The river itself they called the Old Sot.
After traveling through a second submerged passage and reinflating their boat, Pitt observed that the current's pace had quickened by two knots and the river gradient began dropping at a faster rate. Like leaves through a gutter drain, they rushed into the eternal land of gloom, never knowing what dangers lurked around the next bend.
The rapids increased frighteningly as the Hovercraft was suddenly swept into a raging cataract. The emerald water turned a boiling white as it cascaded through a passage strewn with boulders. Now the Wallowing Windbag was rearing up like a rodeo bronco as it surged between the rocks and plunged sickeningly into the next trough. Every time Pitt told himself the rapids couldn't possibly get more violent, the next stretch of river slammed the Hovercraft into a seething frenzy that buried it completely on more than one occasion. But the faithful little craft always shook off the froth and fought back to the surface.
Pitt struggled like a madman to keep the boat on a straight course. If they swung halfway around broadside to the tumult, all chances for survival would have been lost. Giordino grabbed the emergency oars and put his back into keeping the boat steady. They swept around a sharp curve in the river over massive rocks, some partly submerged and kicking up great waves shaped like rooster tails, others rising above the turbulence like menacing monoliths. Several boulders were skinned by the little vessel. Then one rose out of the trough that seemed certain to crush the boat and its occupants. But the outer hull sideswiped the unyielding stone without a puncture and was carried past.
Their ordeals never ceased. They were caught in a swirling eddy like a cork being sucked down a drain. Pitt braced his back against an air-filled support cell to stay upright and pushed the throttle to its stop. The howl of the racing engine was lost in the roar of the rapids. All his will and concentration were focused on keeping the Hovercraft from twisting broadside from the force of the speeding current as Giordino assisted by pulling mightily on the oars.
Lost when Giordino took up the oars, the landing lights had fallen overboard into the froth. Now the only light came from the lamps on their hardhats. It seemed a lifetime had passed before they finally broke clear of the whirlpool and were hurled back into the rapids.
Pitt eased back on the throttle and relaxed his hands on the grips of the control bar. There was no point in fighting the river now. The Wallowing Windbag would go where the surging water threw it.
Giordino peered into the black unknown ahead, hoping to see calmer water. What he saw was a fork in the river that divided the mainstream into two different galleries. He shouted above the tumult, "We're coming to a junction!"
"Can you tell which is the main conduit?" Pitt yelled back.
"The one on the left looks the largest!"
"Okay, pull to port!"
The Hovercraft came terrifyingly close to being smashed against the great mass of rock that split the river and only missed turning turtle by a hair as it was overwhelmed by a giant backwash. The little vessel dug into the turbulence and lurched forward sickeningly, burying its bow under a wall of water. Somehow it regained a level keel before being thrown forward by the relentless current.
For an instant Pitt thought he'd lost Giordino, but then the burly little man rose out of the deep pool filling the inside of the boat and shook his head to clear the dizziness brought on by being spun around like a ball in a roulette wheel. Incredibly, he cracked a smile and pointed to his ears.
Pitt understood. The continuous roar of the rapids seemed to be slackening. The Hovercraft responded to his control again, but sluggishly, because it was half-full of water. The excess weight was making it impossible to maintain an air-cushion. He increased the throttle and yelled to Giordino.
"Start bailing!"
The boat designers had thought of everything. Giordino inserted a lever into a small pump and began shoving it back and forth, causing a gush of water to shoot through a pipe over the side.
Pitt leaned over and studied the depths under his headlamps. The channel seemed more constricted, and although the rocks were no longer churning up the water, the river seemed to be moving at a horrifying speed. Suddenly, he noticed that Giordino had stopped bailing and was listening with an apocalyptic look on his face. And then Pitt heard it too.
A deep rumble boomed from the black void downriver.
Giordino stared at him. "I think we just bought the farm!" he shouted.
The vision of going over Niagara Falls returned. This was no spout from above they were approaching. The sound that reverberated through the cavern was that of an enormous volume of water rushing over an immense cascade.
"Hit the inflator on your buoyancy compensator!" Pitt roared above the chaos.
The water was sweeping them along at a good twenty knots and appeared to be funneling into a concentrated surge. A million liters of water sucked them toward the unseen precipice. They rounded the next bend and sailed into a maelstrom of mist. The thunderous rumble became deafening.
There was no fear, no sense of helplessness, no feeling of despair. All Pitt felt was a strange numbness as if all power of intelligent thought had abruptly evaporated. It seemed to him that he was entering a nightmare where nothing had any shape or form. His final moment of clarity came when the Wallowing Windbag hung suspended for a moment before soaring into the mist.
With no point of reference, there was no sensation of falling, rather, it seemed as if they were flying through a cloud. Then his hold on the control bar was lost and he was hurled out of the Hovercraft. He thought he heard Giordino shout something, but the voice was lost in the roar of the falls. The drop through the vortex seemed to take forever. And then came the impact. He struck a deep pool at the base of the falls like a meteor. The air was driven from his lungs and he thought at first that he was smashed to bloody pulp on rocks, but then he felt the comforting squeeze of water all around him.
Instinctively holding his breath, he fought to reach the surface. Aided by his inflated buoyancy compensator, he quickly broke clear and was immediately swept away by the torrent. Rocks reached out for him like shrouded predators of the underworld. He was flung down a spill of rapids, colliding, he'd have sworn, with every boulder that protruded from the river. The contact rasped and shredded his wet suit, stripping skin from his legs and outspread arms. He suffered a blow to his chest and then his head struck something hard and ungiving. But for the protection of the hardhat that absorbed 80 percent of the blow, he'd have cracked his skull open.
Incredibly, his buoyancy compensator stayed inflated and he floated half-unconscious through a short spill of rapids. One of the lights on his helmet was smashed by the impact and the other one seemed to cast an indistinct red beam. Gratefully, he felt loose stone beneath his feet and saw he was being spun toward shallows leading to a small open space along the shoreline. He swam until his knees scraped the coarse gravel, struggling to loosen the grip of the murderous current. He extended his hands to pull himself over the slippery stones onto the dry shelf. A groan of pain escaped his lips as one of his wrists exploded in agony. At some point after going over the falls, he had broken something there. His wrist was not all that was broken. He'd also cracked two or more ribs on his left side.
The rumbling thunder of the falls sounded far in the distance. Slowly his mind came back on track and he wondered how far he'd been swept by the ungodly torrent. Then, as more of the cobwebs cleared, he remembered Giordino. In desperation he shouted Al's name, his voice echoing through the air chamber, hoping but never
really expecting to hear a reply.
"Over here."
The answer didn't come much louder than a whisper, but Pitt heard it as if it came out of a loudspeaker. He rose unsteadily to his feet, trying to get a fix. "Say again."
"I'm only six meters upstream of you," said Giordino. "Can't you see me?"
A red haze seemed to block Pitt's field of vision. He rubbed his eyes and found he could focus them again. He also realized the red haze that had been clouding his sight came from blood that was spilling from a gash in his forehead. Now he could clearly discern Giordino lying on his back a short distance away, half out of the water.
He staggered over to his friend, clutching the left side of his chest in a vain attempt to contain the pain. He knelt stiffly beside Giordino. "Am I ever glad to see you. I thought you and the Windbag had sailed off without me."
"The remains of our trusty boat were swept downstream."
"Are you badly injured?" Pitt asked.
Giordino smiled gamely, held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. "At least I can still play Carnegie Hall."
"Play what? You can't even carry a tune." Then Pitt's eyes filled with concern. "Is it your back?"
Giordino weakly shook his head. "I stayed with the Windbag and my feet were caught in the lines holding the equipment when she struck bottom. Then she went one way, and I went the other. I think both legs are broken below the knees." He explained his injuries as calmly as if he were describing a pair of flat tires.
Pitt gently felt Giordino's calves as his friend clenched his fists. "Lucky you. Simple breaks, no compound fractures."
Giordino stared up at Pitt. "You look like you went through the spin cycle in a washing machine."
"A few scrapes and bruises," Pitt lied.
"Then why are you talking through clenched teeth?"
Pitt didn't answer. He tried to call up a program on the computer on his arm, but it had been knocked against a rock and was broken. He unbuckled the straps and threw it in the river. "So much for Duncan's data."
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