by Lyndon Hardy
“It is the oven in the kitchen,” Fig pointed. “It’s on and its door is open. Fits in well with the idea the exiles are using this place.”
Briana forgot about her admonition not to disturb anything. Her memories about her first impressions of Hollywood Boulevard flooded back. This, too, was bizarre, but in a completely different way, more like the sty of an alien pig than the residence of an advanced culture.
Fig sat down at the table and turned on the computer.
“No need to do a data search,” Briana said. “I know how long such a thing can take.”
“Not the internet,” Fig said. “There is an email account here. Let’s see what we can find out.”
He clicked a few times and then pointed at the screen. “Look at this! A message to the broker you were talking about. The one in New York. See, there are instructions to buy up salt domes in the Gulf of Mexico.”
He pondered for a moment. “Sulfur,” he said finally. “Salt domes are a source for sulfur. Why would the exiles have any interest in that? “
Briana did not pay attention. Instead, she spotted coils of alabaster white material on the floor. She hurried to them and pulled up a helmet of the same color buried in the pile. It would completely cover one’s head with only eye slits protected by goggles and a speaking tube poking out.
“Exactly like what I saw in the council room!” she exclaimed. “The exiles! This is of their making.” She looked about again. “But a kitchen, an oven, computers? How long has this been going on? What have they been up to?”
Fig rose and came to examine the swathing. “Does it matter?” he asked. “Your task was to find if they had escaped from their confinement.” He waved his hand around the room. “Here is the proof.”
“But as you said,” Briana rebutted, “this is only for explorers, not for all seven hundred others remaining entombed. Maybe this is only a first outpost. Kept as a monument. Maybe there are more of them elsewhere.”
She returned to the table. “Continue searching on the computer,” she commanded. “I will look through this scattered paper for additional clues.”
LIKE THE relentless progress of an immense grinding wheel, dawn turned into dusk. Briana got up and stretched. Only one more bit of information had been found — in a letter, the address of a storage warehouse in downtown Hilo.
“I have been thinking,” Fig said as he joined her in the stretch. “There must be a way for the exiles to get from the caverns to this place. An opening, a cave…”
“Right!” Briana exclaimed. The taste of adventure strengthened into a seductive lure. “Let’s look for that before we go to Hilo. It must be around here somewhere.”
“I don’t know, Briana,” Fig said. “It is getting dark. Who knows what we might run into?”
Briana raised one eyebrow in imitation of Ashley and laughed. “Spoken like the true follower of, what did you call her, the Queen of the Eight Dimensions?”
Fig blushed. “Yes, milady,” he said. “I forgot. By all means, let us push forward.”
AS THE shadows grew long from the setting sun, the path leading away from the hut to the cave opening was found. Fig scrambled to enter and turned on the light of his cell phone. Briana tried to follow, but she could not squeeze through with the pack on her back.
“Leave it here.” Fig extended a hand to help. “Tucked away just inside, no one will notice, especially in the dark.”
Together they entered. The floor of the cave was littered with a jumble of rocks, some smooth and others jagged like teeth of a shark. They moved slowly, shining the phone light to show the way. As they progressed, the walls converged. The wide and low opening narrowed into a much narrower path.
“We’ve reached the end,” Fig said after a while. “See, there is only blank wall ahead.” He swung the phone from side to side.
“There!” Briana said. “Look on the left. The passage turns to the left.”
“Hmm,” Fig said. “We have come quite far, and it must be totally dark outside by now. Perhaps, we should get back and return on another day. Maybe there are many branches from this main conduit that we have already passed. With all of us armed with lights, we can be thorough.”
“Only a bit more,” Briana persisted. She felt she was getting near to the end of her quest. No sense in turning back now.
Fig smiled. “Of course, my Quee… of course, Briana,” he said.
They entered the passage to the side to continue their search. Again, Fig swiveled the phone around. This part of the cavern was much wider and extended far into the darkness. After a few hundred paces more, Fig suddenly tripped over one of the rocks on the floor. As he fell, the phone flew out of his hand and crashed to the ground.
The light winked out. Suddenly, they were surrounded by darkness.
Briana fell to her knees, and the two of them began groping the ground, trying to find the phone. They bumped into one another and shuffled around, increasing the area of their search from where they had first started.
“I’ve found it!” Briana said and stood up. She thrust it forward to where she thought Fig might be. He brushed against her low to the ground. For a second she felt a bit flustered by the close contact, but then it passed. She bent down and extended her hand forward. As she did, a thick wetness surprised her.
“What’s this?” she asked. “It’s sticky like blood. Fig, are you hurt?”
“I just fell,” Fig said. “Gravity is not just a good idea, it is the law.”
“Are you hurt?”
“A little bit,” Fig agreed. “I must have cut myself on one of the rocks when I went down. It’s my leg. It stings a bit. But no matter. When we get out of here, I can get stitched up.”
The transfer of the phone in the darkness took a little while. Briana did not want it to be dropped again. Fig pressed the ON switch when he finally grasped it firmly, but nothing happened. He exhaled through his mouth. “Apparently, it is broken,” he said.
“My glowsticks are in my backpack. I should have brought them.”
“It is too bad the micromites refused to come with me,” Fig said. “Something about the loop back through their own realm that frightens them. Our only choice is to feel our way out in the dark.”
“Okay, which way?” Briana asked.
“I… I don’t know,” Fig said. “We will have to put out our hands until we find a wall and then travel along it. Cup a finger through one of my belt loops in the back. We don’t want to get separated.”
Briana did not like this. It did not feel like something from the sagas at all. They had to get back to Ashley’s and then to an emergency room and quickly.
Like a two-person clump in the game of Sardines, they shuffled forward a dozen steps, and then Fig halted.
“Wall,” he said.
“Now which way?” Briana asked.
“I… I still don’t know,” Fig answered. “With all the groping on the ground, I lost my bearings.”
Briana felt panic begin to swell within her. No one knew they were here. The only ones who had any idea of their general vicinity were thousands of miles away.
If they waited to morning, there might be enough light. But the blood she had felt seeping out of Fig’s pants was more than a trickle. They had to get him out now as soon as possible. Back to the portal, to Ashley’s and then an emergency room.
What should she do? What would Ashley do if she were here?
Ashley would think, she decided after a moment. She would use whatever resources were at hand, and somehow, somehow, use them to find a way out.
But what resources did she have? She was no thaumaturge, no alchemist, no magician, no sorcerer, no wizard. All she had was Fig, and he was the one needing the help.
Fig! Yes, Fig was her resource. He had been able to track her down even though she was a continent away. He would have to save them both.
“Fig, Fig!” she said. “Start thinking. Use your head. Come up with something.”
“I think I need
to sit down for a while,” Fig said. “Put my head between my legs. I’m starting to get a little woozy.”
“No, not that,” Briana said. She twisted him around to face her as best she could and smartly slapped him on the cheek.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“Think! Fig, think! Physics, right? How can that help?” She was yelling now, and her words bounced off the walls echoing repeatedly, making their plight feel even worse.
“Echoes,” Fig slurred. “Sound bouncing off of walls and returning. The time delay tells us how far away they are.”
“Echoes, yes, and then what?”
Briana felt Fig slowly rise back to his feet. “Keep me oriented exactly as I tell you,” he said, “but do not say a word.” She felt his arms rise to his face to cup his mouth and then heard him shout, “Hi!”
Immediately she heard “Hi!” bounce back, then weaker a second time, and then a third.
“Now turn me exactly 180 degrees,” he said, “and I will try again.”
Briana did as she was told, and this time… she could not be sure… this time the echo returned a little later.
“The two side walls,” Fig said. “Now turn me ninety degrees from where I am now.”
The third echo took still longer to return. There was little doubt about it.
“Okay, now we are oriented along the tunnel direction,” Fig said. “One more echo will tell us which has the longer path.”
“The way you are facing now was the longer one,” Briana said when the next echo returned.
“I think so, too. So we will go in the opposite direction.”
“But — ”
“I know. I know. This passage might not be long, but let’s assume it is. We had only travelled down it a little bit. The opposite direction is the way we want to go.”
Fig continued to send out signals, and as he did, the response time grew shorter and shorter. Eventually, they found themselves facing another wall. Fig turned ninety degrees and then the other way after that. This time they chose the direction having the longer echo return.
After what seemed excruciatingly long, they were back to the surface. Fig had stopped speaking the last few hundred steps. Briana had to become the one calling out, to prop him up, using all of her strength to keep him moving forward. When they reached the open air, she let him sink to the ground gently as best she could.
Then Briana opened her pack and broke one of her remaining glowsticks. She took another with her and hurried down the dimly lit path to the hut. Rushing inside as the glow of the first faded away, she broke the second. There! What she was looking for — the swathing on the floor.
Returning to the mouth of the cave, she hacked off a strip of the shrouding long enough to serve as a tourniquet and bound up Fig’s leg. She looked down at him while she cradled his head in her lap. Should she talk to him, trying to keep him awake? She did not know.
Briana pressed the little button on the side of the watch she had bought at a thrift store. A half hour more before the portal would return. If something should happen to him… The thought hit her with the blow of a pile driver. If something should happen to him, she would be the one responsible.
She had fallen into the role so effortlessly — the leader commanding the troops. Exactly as in the sagas. She was the torchbearer, giving the command to go into battle — to enter a cave with no real preparation at all. And her loyal followers — follower — so wanting to please, so trusting…
The sagas did not speak of all the realities of a quest, she realized. Certainly, they told of the glory, of the hard-fought battle to be waged when everything seemed lost. But of responsibility, they were silent. The journey was not only for the goals of the leaders. No. The leaders also were given the burden of trust. Being true to the faith bestowed upon them.
The Catalytic Seed
ANGUS PRESSED the power button, and the heavy door to the loading dock rolled down into place. The warehouse had the musty smell of airborne mold. It had been unoccupied for some time. The grime on the large, frosted windows was as thick as scum on an undisturbed pond. A catwalk circled at the height where a second floor would have been, and his footsteps reverberated throughout the mostly empty volume.
The deliveryman who brought the portable gas leak detector did not even comment on Angus’ attire. Nor did the truck driver who rolled the cylinder of liquefied fluorine gas to where Angus had specified. Like building blocks scattered by a small child, the large crates containing the powdered sulfur stood in disarray all about the exile. Well enough, he thought. He had instructed Emmertyn only to get the cargo from the ship transported, not place it in an orderly array.
With the unfortunate change of plans, he would have to procure the fluorine commercially rather than merely tap the source from underground. And that meant an additional risk for exposure. A series of small shipments of compressed gas staged over time to minimize that as much as he could. The fact one delivery happened without a hitch did not prove much. He needed many more.
Angus emitted a long, low growl to push the anxiety of failure away and focused his attention on the experiment he had to perform. He opened one of the sulfur crates, scooped out a small amount of powder, and poured it into an abandoned wine bottle he had found in the litter on the floor. It took him a half-hour more to locate a cork from an unemptied trash bin that would fit. Finally, he pressed the container against the gas output spigot and eased open the valve.
The fluorine shot into the bottle, covering the sulfur in a swirl of pale yellow. Coughing at the fetid odor, he reset the cork and watched for what would happen.
The chemicals started reacting immediately. The light yellow color began to fade. After less than a minute, only the faintest hint remained. Yes, exactly as he had hoped, the two chemicals combined spontaneously. Three types of gas would result, and getting rid of the two he did not desire would be easy. An hour later, only the important one remained.
Angus then unpacked the leak detector and read the operating instructions. Simple enough. Deploy the probe and read the output. Now for the real test. He placed the bottle into the tummy pouch of his hoodie, grabbed the handle of the detector, and called a cab.
TWO HOURS later, Angus handed Oscar’s credit card to the taxi driver at the barrier across the Crater Road in the Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park. No one else was about. It was dark. The features of the landscape receded into the blackness — all except one. Off to the left a short hike away, a pool of hot lava glowed with fiery yellows and reds. Occasional spheres of gas bubbled to the surface and then popped, releasing their contents into the air. Had there been more light, one could see wisps of smoke curling into the air like strands of uncombed hair.
“Are you sure, mister?” the cabbie asked. “The rangers have blocked the road because of the new eruption. The trail is closed. It is too dangerous now.”
“I am sure,” Angus said through the Halloween mask. “This is official business.” He tapped the detection probe.
“You can go now,” he continued. “I will call when I want a ride back. And, oh, make that a twenty-five percent tip to thank you for your warning.”
Angus watched the cab turn around and vanish into the night. He hopped over the barrier and walked along the deserted trail leading to the overlook. A dime store flashlight showed him the way. He whiffed the air and smiled despite himself. Ah, sulfur dioxide. Fatal to the natives, but for him, it tasted as if a pungent perfume was in the air.
He reached the edge of the reborn lava pool glowing fiercely in the night and took a preliminary reading with the probe. None of the gas like that in the bottle was present. Then he inverted the small container and pulled out the cork.
Angus had reviewed all the steps of the incantation a dozen times. Nothing should go wrong — even though what he was attempting had never been tried before. His home world was inert. Its core had cooled ages ago.
He started speaking the incantation. Traditiona
lly, one surrounded the words of power with nonsense both before and after, but he did not bother. No one else was within hailing distance. No native would listen and record what he heard.
Angus’ words bound the molecules to the spell as they spilled out of the bottle and sank. Then, the liquid sulfur and fluorine gas escaping from the lava also were coupled, and finally the heat of the liquid rock itself. The last was essential — the motive force.
After the links were complete, even though he could discern nothing about the path of the invisible and released gas, he visualized what must be happening. The vapor was heavier than air and therefore sank onto the surface of the molten pond.
The atoms of gas from the bottle and those emerging from the pool would mingle and swirl about. But because of ‘once together, always together,’ there then would always be a connection between them. Marshalled by the driving heat energy of the lake, ‘like produces like’ would force the free sulfur and fluorine to combine, to mimic the molecules that were now their cousins. More of the desired gas would result. None of the other possible reactions would occur.
Angus felt the anticipation build within him. If this did not work, then what? Decades of preparation and planning wasted. Would he even have the heart to start over from scratch? He waited a dozen heartbeats more and then turned on the leak detector a second time. He watched the concentration of the gas that was important. It began to rise — an unseen mist over the now calm pool of lava.
As he continued to monitor, the dangerous gas churning in the pool continued to increase. More and more of it was forming and contributing to the seed catalyzing the production of even more. As long as there was binding energy, as long as the spell was not broken, the cycle would continually repeat. Like an invisible ghost of a giant rising from the dead, it grew and grew.
He grunted with satisfaction. The incantation had worked! Worked exactly as he had hoped. Exactly as he had designed. With a final few words of power, he broke the coupling between all of the elements, and the pond again began to bubble. The monitor reading stabilized and no longer changed.