But Conrad, as usual, was too persuasive to resist.
He paddled with long, powerful strokes and they glided across the silvery surface. At 12,500 feet above sea level, Lake Titicaca was the highest lake in the world, and it felt like it. Serena thought she could almost touch the heavens.
“Now the odd thing about this lake is that it’s located hundreds of miles from the Pacific, yet it contains ocean-variety fish, seahorses, crustacea, and marine fauna,” Conrad lectured with a wink.
“And you think it’s seawater from the Genesis flood?” Serena asked.
Conrad shrugged. “When the waters receded, some got dammed up here in the Andes.”
“I guess that explains the docks in Tiahuanaco.”
Conrad smiled. “Right. Why else would the ruins of a city twelve miles away have docks?”
“Unless it was once a port and the south end of this lake extended twelve miles and more than a hundred feet higher,” Serena concluded. “Which means civilization flourished here before the flood and Tiahuanaco is at least fifteen thousand years old.”
“Imagine that.”
She could. She wanted to. A world before the dawn of recorded history. What was it like? Were people really that much different from us today? she wondered. There must have been women like me back then, she thought, and men like Conrad. He had dropped his skeptical pose and opened up so beautifully out here. So different from his posture before the academics.
The night air was chilly, and Serena was huddled in the bow. Conrad paddled slowly. The twilight sky above was a magnificent turquoise blue, and the lake stretched on like glass for eternity.
For the longest time they were silent, gliding along the reeds with only the dip of Conrad’s paddle making soft lapping sounds like an ancient metronome. Then, when they were in the middle of the glistening waters, he pulled up his paddle and let them drift beneath the stars.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He produced a basket of food and wine. “Absolutely nothing at all.”
“Conrad,” she began, “I really should be getting back. The sisters will worry.”
“As well they should.”
He sat beside her and kissed her, then pushed her gently backward until she was lying down. He stroked her face and kissed her on the lips, and she shivered.
“Conrad, please.”
Their eyes locked, and she thought of his childhood pain, their connection, thought that if there was ever any man to do this with, any time of her life and any place on the planet, this was it.
“Tomorrow I go back to Arizona and you go back to Rome,” he whispered in her ear. “And we can remember our last night in Bolivia as the night that never happened.”
“You got that right,” she said, and pushed him overboard to a satisfying splash.
Inside his compartment, as he packed his gear for the impending descent to P4, Conrad, too, was thinking about that night with Serena on the reed boat.
He had always been in awe of her determination and courage. And her beauty was unmatched. Yet she wore it so effortlessly, as if she didn’t care whether she was seventeen or seventy. She was charming and self-effacing, even funny. But that night it had been her glimmering eyes, almost glowing under the dark hair that draped down onto his chest, that had mesmerized him.
She told him she had always admired his purity and single-mindedness. He was what he was, she said, and not like herself-someone able to pretend to be what she was not. He wondered what dark secret she was about to confess but soon realized she had none. Her only sin was being an unwanted child.
It was then, for a fleeting moment, that he came closest to knowing her. For the first time he grasped her holy death wish and understood her drive to be a martyr, a saint, a woman who counted. If anything, he realized, her works of compassion were her way of avoiding intimacy. She feared being “found out” and thus not measuring up to her standards, much less God’s. She would do anything to avoid those feelings of not being needed, of feeling worthless, a “mistake” like her birth. But she didn’t fear that rejection from him. She knew he loved her.
And that’s how he knew she truly loved him.
He felt he had come to the end of his lifelong quest, had found the Temple of God. That he was a thief in the sacred shrine, taking what did not belong to him, only made the experience more exciting, dangerous, and satisfying than any relic or ancient artifact he had ever taken, before or since.
But he knew it was over when she pushed him off the reed boat and into the freezing waters of Lake Titicaca. When he climbed back on board, she wasn’t laughing. It hadn’t been a prank. Instead the fear had returned to her eyes.
Suddenly Conrad realized she was the one who had stolen something from him. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
“Back to Tiahuanaco,” she said, “before anybody realizes I’m missing at breakfast.”
“Be a risk taker. Let’s enjoy what time we have.”
“I’m disappointed in you, Doctor Yeats,” she said, handing him the paddle. “I didn’t think you were the kind of man who took advantage of nuns.”
Conrad, a man with no small ego, was disappointed that she had spurned his advances. Worse, she was denying her own complicity. “And I didn’t think you were the kind of nun who cares what other people think.”
“I’m not,” she shot back.
She was right, of course. That much was obvious to anybody. But Conrad also sensed that what she was truly afraid of was her feelings for him, of losing control. And if Serena Serghetti could be defined as any kind of nun, she was most definitely the kind who made damn well sure she was always in control.
Their parting was not happy. She acted as if she had made a huge mistake and had potentially blown her whole future with their night together. In truth, however, she didn’t regret it for a minute. At least that’s what Conrad eventually concluded. What Serena feared was further intimacy. Like she had something to hide. Then he understood. It was herself. She had disappointed herself and as a result felt unworthy of him.
She was wrong, he knew, and he vowed to prove to her that she was worth something without the title of Sister and that he was worth the price of her sacrifice. But she would have none of it.
The last memory he had of her was standing at the shore, trying to kiss her good-bye, and watching her run to hail a cab. He waved to her, but she never looked back. He tried to reach her in Rome by phone a week later, and after months of unreturned calls, he even showed up at one of her conferences unannounced. Now she had become famous, throwing herself so fully into her work that he wondered if it was the unwanted child in her she wanted to forget, or him.
In any case, a private audience with Mother Earth, he soon discovered, was about as probable as he discovering his beloved lost Mother Culture.
Until now.
The nun’s got titanium balls, Yeats thought as he reviewed Serghetti’s exchange with Conrad on a video monitor in the command center. I have to give her that. The pope knew exactly what he was doing when he sent her.
“How does she know so much, sir?” asked O’Dell, who was standing next to him.
“Moot point now,” said Yeats. “I doubt the Vatican wants her to talk. But for all we know, she’s right. Her presence may even be necessary for what’s ahead.”
“And your son, sir?”
Yeats looked at O’Dell. “What about him?”
“I’ve seen the DOD report.” O’Dell looked concerned. “Your boy’s been in therapy since kindergarten. Nightmares of cataclysmic doom. Visions of the end of the world. With all due respect, sir, he’s a lunatic.”
“So he had a traumatic childhood,” Yeats said, wishing O’Dell would put a lid on it. “Didn’t we all? Besides, the DOD doesn’t have his complete file. Trust me, I wrote it.”
Yeats was about to turn his attention back to the monitor when Lieutenant Lopez, one of his communications officers, walked up. Besides Sister Serghetti, young
Lopez was the only other woman at Ice Base Orion.
“General Yeats,” she reported. “I think you better see this.”
Yeats followed her to the big screen and saw the U.S.S.Constellation on TV with a CNN logo in the lower right corner.
“Warren,” Yeats cursed under his breath. He stared at the intrepid Greenpeace vessel juxtaposed on-screen with the mighty Constellation. Goddamn that sausage in a sailor suit!
O’Dell said, “How did they know, sir?”
“Take a wild guess, Colonel.” Yeats pointed to Sister Serghetti in her cell on the little monitor. “She’s been stalling the whole time, waiting for the cavalry to arrive. It’s only a matter of time before an army of U.N. weapons inspectors comes knocking at our door.”
Which meant the insertion team had to be in and out of P4 before then, Yeats concluded, and he mentally began to make the calculations. P4 would have to be wiped clean of significant technology or data before any internationals reached the site.
“It gets worse, sir,” Lopez said. “McMurdo reports that Vostok Station intercepted our communications with Flight six-nine-six. They’ve already dispatched a UNACOM team.”
Yeats groaned. “I knew it. Who’s leading the team?”
“An Egyptian air force officer,” she said, handing him a report. “Colonel Ali Zawas.”
“Zawas?” Yeats looked at the photo of a handsome man in uniform with dark, thoughtful eyes and black wavy hair. “Holy shit.”
O’Dell said, “He wouldn’t be related to-”
“He’s the secretary-general’s nephew,” Yeats said. “And he’s a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. Flew with the Allies during the first Gulf War and downed two Iraqi jets for us. Damned fine officer and gentleman.” Yeats handed the report back to Lopez. “What kind of backup does Zawas have, Lieutenant?”
“Well, there are the Russians at Vostok under the command of a Colonel Ivan Kovich. And the Aussies are offering support from Mawson Station.” She paused. “So are some of our own American scientists from Amundsen-Scott who have been kept out of the loop.”
“Damn it!” Yeats growled. “The whole world’s going to be here in a few hours.”
“Not with this storm kicking up again, sir,” O’Dell said. “ETA six hours. WX Ops says this thing is going to slam us hard. Might pin everybody down for three weeks.”
Yeats looked out the window. The skies had darkened. Snow pelted the glass like bullets. “The storm might stop the Aussies, but it will only slow down Zawas and his UNACOM team.” Yeats turned to O’Dell. “You hold off the barbarians here on the surface while I take the insertion team down to P4.”
O’Dell said, “And how am I going to explain holding Mother Earth against her will?”
“You won’t have to,” Yeats said. “I’m taking her with us. Now.”
Part Two
Descent
11
Descent Hour One
The Abyss
The sky over the chasm turned an ominous deep black, and Serena felt the wind pick up with a sudden chill. If this was supposed to be a lull in the polar storm, she didn’t want to stick around for the real deal. Mist boiled up from the abyss below, where the nearest shelter, the so-called P4 Habitat, was a one-mile drop.
“You sure you’re up for this, Sister?”
It was Yeats, sliding down the icy wall above her in his white freezer suit, grinning like the devil under the blinding light of his head torch. Back on the surface, he had detailed the risks to her about coming down with the insertion team. But what other choice did she have? To wait back at the base with the rest of the world until the team resurfaced would be to remain in the dark.
“Technically, it’s Doctor Serghetti, General,” she said, digging the crampon attached to her plastic boot into a toehold. “And I climbed Everest with my first Mother Superior.”
“She give you the garter?”
Yeats was pointing to Serena’s harness. It actually did look like a red garter belt with two loops around her thighs. In case of a fall it would spread the shock evenly throughout her lower body.
“No, just this.” Serena pulled out her ice ax and hammered an ice screw into the frozen wall before attaching a new line with a carabiner. She wanted to show Yeats she was more than up to the challenge. But in fact she was feeling strange. Her heart was pounding and she was breathing rapidly. “Do you smell something?”
“Yeah,” said Yeats. “Your story.”
She had never met the infamous Griffin Yeats until Ice Base Orion, only heard about him from Conrad. But she didn’t trust him. Like Emerson said: “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.” The guy was a rogue at heart, just like this expedition. He simply did a better job of hiding it than Conrad, who was refreshingly honest and even charming about his shortcomings. She also concluded that Yeats hadn’t agreed to let her join the team out of the kindness of his heart or even because he valued her for her expertise as a linguist.
“Tell me again why you changed your mind and let me tag along?”
“If anything, I learned from NASA that women are always a pleasant addition to astronaut crews.”
She had expected something sexist like that coming from him. “Gee, I thought it was because women are actually better with precision tasks, more meticulous, and more flexible at multitasking than men.”
“Whenever they’re not too emotional or easily upset,” Yeats replied and dropped out of sight just as Conrad rappeled alongside her.
“Anything wrong?” Conrad asked.
Serena sighed and shook her head. “Your father never stops, does he?”
“It’s not in his nature,” Conrad answered without feeling. “Once he’s programmed, he keeps going and going until he finishes the job.”
“And leaves a trail of bodies behind him.”
“Then we better not let him get too far ahead of us,” Conrad said, rappeling down.
She went after him. He was an expert climber in tropical climates. But overconfidence could be fatal in icy conditions like this. And she was worried for him. For his soul. For her own too. Because in trying to save him once before she felt she had condemned them both.
Conrad was within reach now, and she dropped down a few feet and found a hold. The color of the ice was a beautiful blue and almost seemed to glow. “Pretty,” she said.
“Don’t stop, Serena. Keep going.” Conrad spoke rapidly.
Serena continued to ease up on her line. But Conrad’s physiology concerned her. Was he hyperventilating? Serena didn’t know and could feel her own breathing quicken to an unnaturally fast pace. Her heart too. The pounding was regular but fast.
She eased up a bit more when Conrad motioned with a gloved hand. “Down there,” he said. “See it?”
Serena peered into the mist below. A hole parted and she could see a grid of lights, like a landing pad. “I see.”
“No, do you see it?”
Suddenly Serena could see that the landing pad was in fact the flattened summit of a gleaming white pyramid rising sharply through the floor of the abyss. She had to shade her eyes from the glare of the lights off the pyramid’s surface.
“P4,” she heard herself saying under her breath.
“Don’t ask me how it got here,” Conrad said, now sporting his sunglasses. “I can’t explain it yet. But I will.”
The conviction in his voice inspired confidence. His excitement was pure, unadulterated, and moving. Not a trace of fear, she thought with envy, just genuine curiosity and enthusiasm. She had almost forgotten what that felt like.
She slipped on her sunglasses. The flat summit, brighter than the whitest snow, was blinding. So this was why the pope had sent her down, she realized. She had suspected something spectacular, but she was completely unprepared for the sight or dimension of this monument. It was gigantic.
She was staring at it in wonder when she heard her line creak.
“Just some slack,” Conrad assured her. “No
worries.”
She heard a sharp crack and the ping of metal. The piton holding her line in the ice popped out, and she thought she was falling.
“Conrad!” she shouted as she buried her ice ax into the wall and hung on.
But Conrad said nothing. She looked to her side. He was gone. It was his piton that had popped out.
She looked down in time to see Conrad fall into the mist.
“Conrad!” she screamed.
Yeats rappeled down beside her.
“You couldn’t wait until afterward to bury him?” he asked, scanning the billowing mist below. Yeats flicked Conrad’s line with the back of a gloved finger. “He’s still floating.”
She heard a crack and looked up to see the ice screw on her own line start to slip. She instinctively pulled out her ice ax and swung it at Yeats, who put up a defensive arm. “Hold this,” she said and suddenly felt herself plunging into space.
She fell through the cloud a few seconds later, hurtling toward the lights below when her line snapped tight and she stopped with a jolt. For a moment she feared she had shattered her pelvis. But her harness had done its job.
She caught her breath and could hear her windproof parka squeaking against the nylon rope as she swung back and forth.
“Conrad?” she called.
“Over here,” he replied. “I found something.”
She swung her head in the direction of his voice, and her head torch found him swinging ten feet from the wall, unable to get a hold.
“Hang on,” she said as she swung over.
It took three tries before her arc was wide enough to reach him. As she swung toward him, she held out her hand, and he gripped it tight, holding her next to him. They swung together in space for a few seconds, clinging to each other.
“Finished bungee jumping, Conrad?” she asked, trying to mask her anxiety with sarcasm.
“Look!” he said.
She turned in the darkness and her head torch bathed the wall with light. There was something in the ice. Then her eyes focused and Serena found herself face-to-face with a little girl, frozen in time.
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