“It’s fickle,” he said.
“You talk as if it has consciousness,” Dr. Cummins remarked. “Does it, Dr. Jasso?”
“Thoughtful fire? What would Dr. Bundy say to that,” he answered without answering.
Dr. Cummins hmmmed as they walked on in silence.
Mikel was peering ahead, through the alternating light and dark of the interconnected modules, his mind back on Skett . . . and Flora. He was not sure how he even felt anymore about Flora and the Group. He did not believe it was incumbent on any employer to keep employees informed on the inner workings of the firm. Either you trusted your superior or you did not.
But this withholding . . . that’s a big one, he thought.
Mikel had trusted Flora and now he did not, and he wasn’t sure where that left him. If she didn’t know everything about the Group’s past, she had to have known—and withheld—at least some vital information about why they were seeking Galderkhaani artifacts. That was a dangerous secret to keep from agents in the field. Mikel and the handful of others should have been given the option of whether to risk their lives to obtain and turn over such powerful tools for something other than pure research.
What was more troubling was that he couldn’t even be sure she was not playing Casey Skett or both of them playing him. Bad cop, worse cop.
Nonetheless, he had no choice but to let this play out as Skett had laid things out. At the very least, Mikel told himself, he would learn more about the power of the stones.
The truck assigned to Dr. Cummins was a Toyota Tacoma. It sat hefty and fat on the ice just outside the exit of the central red module.
“I was hoping for a dozer,” Dr. Cummins said. “The treads are good for getting over small crevasses, the plow for filling them in.”
“Maybe Dr. Bundy doesn’t want us to get where we’re going,” Mikel suggested.
The woman shook her head as she pulled on a wool cap then tugged her parka over it. “He’s a snob, and gruff, but he’s devoted to science and learning and, believe it or not, to this evolving mission.”
Mikel would have to take her word for that. He found it appropriate that while he had lost faith in one woman, he did not hesitate to trust the judgment of another. That was the bequest of his grandmother in Pamplona, a borderline mystic who knew her Bible inside out and also read everything she could find about obscure religions, talked to every priest she ever met, bounced new ideas, strange ideas, off her only grandson. Her interest in the arcane was what spurred his own fascination with ancient civilizations and set him on his career path. Even if his father hadn’t been in prison for armed robbery, Mikel couldn’t have had a more compelling and substantial role model.
The truck had been refitted for driving across the uneven Antarctic terrain. Resting atop forty-four-inch wheels with thick axles to absorb the rugged thumps and dips, the truck had an indomitable suspension system, side skids to prevent the truck from rolling over into a crevasse or sudden break in the ice, thirty-two gears for shifting out of almost any landscape, and a reinforced passenger cabin to protect the occupants against unlikely falls and landslides. There were also forward and rear winches, solar panels to supplement the 2,200-liter fuel tank, several additional tanks of gas, and a powerful V6 engine. On the roof rack were two insulated cases. One was filled with bottled water, oxygen, first-aid supplies, and battery-powered heaters. The other carried shovels, axes, ropes, pitons, blankets, flashlights, flares, spare clothing, and other gear.
No one had bothered to unload the truck from the last move; station personnel were still busy restoring communications and restarting the electrical systems that had been shut down during the unexpected transit. Dr. Cummins brought along a backpack filled with extra water and snacks; as soon as the vehicle was fueled, it was ready to go. Siem was busy taking care of that from a tank that was still attached to the skis that had been used to haul it here. He waved as the two scientists boarded.
The truck’s solar panel had been left on and the inside was warm when the occupants settled in. The parkas, gloves, and scarves came off immediately. Though the gear had been needed for the fifteen-foot trek to the Tacoma, their skin would heat very quickly inside the truck. They didn’t want to perspire, since sweat would heat and chill their flesh to dangerous extremes.
Dr. Cummins raised her sun goggles just long enough to poke on the GPS. The coordinates had been entered from inside the radio room; the truck could practically drive itself. Before they got underway, the scientist looked at Mikel through her dark-tinted goggles.
“You are preoccupied,” she said. “With the mission?”
He nodded unpersuasively.
“But also by something else.”
He nodded again. “Political stuff at the nonprofit where I work,” he told her.
“Ah ha,” Dr. Cummins replied. “You know, Dr. Jasso, it’s dangerous out there—”
“I’m focused, Dr. Cummins. Believe that. I won’t do anything to jeopardize this mission.”
“I’m glad of that,” she said. “However, there’s one more thing. How to put this?” She stopped everything for a moment and looked at Mikel. “As I indicated back there, I’ve been on many, many expeditions with fellow scientists. All ages, all nationalities, all kinds of temperaments, all kinds of agendas. I know when not to press a colleague for information. Many of them—and you too, I believe—are often uncertain about what they are about to undertake. They might be concerned about a vague goal, worried about censure for a radical idea, afraid because they flat-out lied to get funding, said they knew more than they did. That’s Fieldwork 101. So all I’m going to ask is this: Which of those has caused you to clam up?”
She put a little extra burr on the last two words so they came out “clahm oop” and added a touch of levity to a serious question. Mikel smiled a little, then exhaled and stared out the window at the jagged expanse that headed to a rolling horizon.
“All of the above?” she prompted.
“That’s a very fair analysis,” he admitted. He looked back at the weathered but compassionate face. “Dr. Cummins, I don’t like clamming up. I don’t learn anything when I can’t share. So now that we’re alone—we are, aren’t we?”
“No hidden mics or open lines,” she assured him.
He nodded once. “Here’s what I can say with certainty. I have spent my professional life studying a human civilization that, as I began to tell you, thrived approximately thirty or forty thousand years ago,” he said. “But it’s possibly older than that. Much older, if they went through an evolution similar to our own.” He shrugged. “Even that may not be the case. I know absolutely nothing of their origins.”
He paused to let that sink in. Dr. Cummins needed the respite: she said “hmmm” three times before she nodded for Mikel to go on.
“My colleagues and I, and those who came before us—at least four centuries of researchers—thought the occupants of this land might have been protohumans of some kind,” he continued. “Recent experiences I had out there—” he pointed almost accusingly toward the ice, “have proved that idea to be incorrect. These people, the Galderkhaani, were modern in every sense of the word, with sophisticated structures and language, with ships that sailed in the air and sea—”
“Galderkhaani,” she said, making sure she got the name.
“Yes.”
“How?” she interrupted, “How?”
“You mean, what was the scientific mechanism that created ancient technology, or how did we not know an advanced civilization was out there?”
“All of that!” she said. She switched on the ignition and the truck hummed loudly, a fine vibration tingling through the seat, as she put it into drive and set out. “For starters, just biologically speaking, there is no model of evolution that places modern humans in that time period.”
“I am very aware of that,” Mikel said.
; “Have you seen a likeness? A carving.”
“I have seen . . . yes. They had ruddy, exotic eyes, but . . . well, they were groomed, clothed in togalike garments. They had a complex language. They were not Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon. They were Homo sapiens.”
“Dr. Jasso, are there remains out there?”
“There is so much out there,” he answered. He needed to lay a little more groundwork before diving into the spiritual nature of his contact with the Galderkhaani. “As I sit here, looking out at the world, our world, I can hardly believe the things I’ve seen and heard. But it’s all real. More to the point, that explosion we saw, it is linked to ancient conduits that ran beneath the cities, powered by various mechanisms using the heat and flow of deep pools of magma. Something caused the prime conduit, what they called the Source, to overload and destroy the entire civilization. Pompeii writ very, very large.” He nodded ahead. “The pillar of fire we saw was a surviving part of that.”
“And the face within?”
“A surviving spirit,” Mikel told her.
That stopped her, again. After a long moment she asked, “You’ve seen it?”
“Yes,” he said. Then went on: “And others.”
“Living Galder . . . Galderkhaani?” she asked, pressing him.
“No,” he said. “They were spirit.”
Now she made a face. “That’s just great.”
“I didn’t imagine it, hallucinate it, or make it up,” he said.
“You broke your wrist, bruised your face. You appear to have taken quite a beating—”
“So I could have hit my head and imagined everything I just told you? Yes. That is possible,” Mikel said. “Only that isn’t what happened.”
He held off telling her about the olivine tiles that were like sophisticated living neurons. He didn’t want to hand her so much seeming fantasy that she turned back.
“Fine, Dr. Jasso, you didn’t dream these things and they’re not the result of a concussion. But what evidence do you have for any of it?” Her expression, like her voice, was suddenly very dubious.
“It’s all out there,” he gestured ahead. “If you go down into that pit, enter the tunnels, I have no doubt you will see ruined structures under the ice. You may see conduits that were used to transport the ancients via wind—”
“Wind?”
“Incredible wind generated by the heat of the magma,” he said.
She made another face. “So now they were not just ancient humans, they had wings?”
“Sleds,” he said. “Made of a substance similar to this.”
Mikel reached into his pocket; it was time. He withdrew the hortatur mask he had used to help him breathe. He passed it to her.
“Lord Jesus,” she said, slowing the truck as she stared. “Is that from—”
“It’s Galderkhaani, yes.”
Stopping the truck on a flat, smooth patch of compacted ice, Dr. Cummins stared at the ancient mask then started to reach for it but stopped.
“Are you sure it is safe to touch?” she asked. “Without gloves, I mean?”
He nodded. She took the mask, felt the texture between her thumb and index finger.
“You’re a glaciologist, Dr. Cummins, I’m sure you’ve been around Arctic and Antarctic life,” Mikel said. “Tell me, what animal does that come from?”
“It feels almost like seal,” she said. “Walrus, perhaps.”
“It’s from a creature called a shavula, a kind of sea ram with fangs,” he said.
“You know that how?” she asked. “From their writings?”
“There are libraries out there, down there,” he said evasively. “Very comprehensive. I can read them.”
“It’s still oily,” she said. “How is that possible? Did you treat it?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t know how it was treated—though it wasn’t exposed to the elements for millennia, so that may change. Swiftly.”
She returned the mask to Mikel and started up again. “Why didn’t you tell all this to Dr. Bundy? He’s rough around the hem but he’s not here for his health. He has a right to know.”
“That was not the time and place to explain,” Mikel said. “There are time-sensitive reasons for going out there. And I didn’t want him using it as a reason to delay. You know, sending it to the lab, waiting for results.”
“What could be that ‘time sensitive’ about a dead civilization? Did you open a tomb? Are artifacts decaying?”
“It will be easier if I show you when we get there,” Mikel replied.
They drove for a short period in silence. Then Dr. Cummins said, “When we saw that pillar of fire in the air, we thought we heard a voice. Strange words. So, that might have been Galderkhaani?”
“I am fairly certain it was,” he replied.
“Spoken by—a spirit? A ghost?”
“Something like that,” Mikel told her.
“Christ in his heaven,” Dr. Cummins said. “That was the real reason Siem went back to collect you, that he was allowed to go back at all,” the scientist went on. “He said that you were the only one who might be able to explain. But then you lost credibility with Eric Trout when you commandeered that vehicle. He decided you were—‘unhinged’ was the word he used.”
“Remarkably, I’m not.”
“I mention that in light of what you said, about these ancients having had libraries, technology,” Dr. Cummins said. “Is it possible that rather than being a spirit, the fire activated some kind of recording? Because it’s not as strange as it might sound. The Greeks had all the materials they required to make voice recordings: clay, a stylus, funnels—only they never thought to do it.”
“That’s a smart supposition and there are recordings,” Mikel admitted. “But this was a spirit. She pursued me underground. She tried to kill me.”
Dr. Cummins was silent again. “Galderkhaan,” she said. “Is that their word or yours?”
“Theirs,” he replied. “From the words I saw and heard, I believe that Galder means an amount of some kind and that khaan means ‘a city.’ That was actually something my colleagues and I pieced together years ago.”
“A collective of cities?”
“That seems to be the idea. It’s fairly common in our world, isn’t it? ‘United’ this or ‘Confederation’ of that. Unfortunately, there was a signing aspect to the spoken language to give it nuance, so the words alone don’t tell the entire story.”
“Fascinating,” she said. “Like the click consonants in many African tongues.”
“Exactly. But there is still a big piece of the puzzle I am missing,” Mikel said.
“And that is?” she asked.
He was silent again.
“Are you thinking, Dr. Jasso, or am I going to have to pull each answer from you?” Dr. Cummins asked.
“Sorry,” he said sincerely. “I was thinking. I’m trying to clarify ideas in my mind, which isn’t easy. I’m not accustomed to discussing this away from the Group in New York, where everyone throws ideas into the ring. My confusion has to do with the Galderkhaani beliefs about the afterlife.”
“Religion.”
“Broadly,” he agreed, “though I’m not sure they made a distinction between religion and everyday life. What I mean is, it wasn’t so compartmentalized. Even the scientific class entertained a very strong belief in what we’d call the mystical.”
“Like alchemists or druids,” she said.
“I suppose that would be a good comparison,” Mikel concurred. “Yes, quite apt.”
“I grew up in Scotland, and it is steeped in those old beliefs, as you are probably aware,” Dr. Cummins said. “As a child I first went to the mountains known as the Old Woman of the Moors, as their shape reminds some of a sleeping goddess. Every eighteen years, the full moon moves in such a way that a person standing with a
rms outstretched like Mr. Da Vinci’s drawing would be perfectly framed by the moon. To those watching from one of the stone avenues constructed for that purpose, time and space vanishes and human and celestial body are one.”
“An illusion of geometry,” Mikel suggested.
“Now who is the doubter?” Dr. Cummins asked. “What you just said is quite true, but there’s more. From that same vantage point, the course of the moon is such that it strokes the sides of the goddess Earth, rousing great energies. Everyone there feels it.” She chuckled. “One reason I am out here with you, Dr. Jasso? Not because you are especially persuasive. The earth is, however. I went back home a year ago. Even with all my mental safeguards working on behalf of scientific explanations, I couldn’t quantify the feeling I got inside. It was a kind of tickling in my belly that rose and fell from my skull to my toes. It made me smile long after the moon was gone. And I’ll tell you this: I do not approach any peaks here, ice or stone, without feeling some of that sensation return. The geology, the cosmos, they waken something. Even in scientists.” She gave him a quick look. “You too? Or are you more hard-nosed than that?”
“I was,” he admitted as they thumped across a patch of snow that was rippled like speed bumps. “My grandmother’s belief in spirits was absolute, but she was very old world.”
“You say that as if ‘new’ is automatically better than ‘old.’ ”
“The eyes are fresher, less steeped in accepted tradition than in proof.” He looked in the direction of the pit. “I want, I need proof of what I experienced out there. I didn’t become a scientist to disprove old ideas. Nothing would please me more than to know that what my grandmother felt was right.”
“I understand that and I respect it,” Dr. Cummins said. “Like you, I was set on this path by someone else.”
“Who?”
“My uncle Timothy, who had a ranch in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. The first time I saw a horse shyte, unicorns lost their magic for me. I need things that keep more than my curiosity alive. I am constantly searching for places that rekindle my sense of wonder.”
The Sound of Seas Page 12