“I’m Philip Imukpak,” the Eskimo said, removing a glove and extending his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Furie. You do good work.”
“Not always,” Brendan said quietly as he shook the trooper’s hand, and then glanced back at the black gash between ice and rock.
“I take it you’re here looking for somebody. You need help?”
“No. I found who I was looking for yesterday—a nineteen-year-old boy by the name of Hector Martinez.” He paused, swallowed hard. “He stole some equipment, tied a rope onto one of the pitons left in the rock, and went into the cave last night.”
“Oh, Jesus,” the trooper said softly. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah. It’s my fault.”
“That sounds like a pretty heavy load to put on yourself, Furie.”
“But it’s a true load. We had a conversation yesterday, and it went badly. I botched it.”
“It still sounds like a pretty heavy load to put on yourself.”
Brendan took his gaze from the cave entrance and looked into the other man’s face. What he saw there was decency, honesty, and courage. He liked and trusted the face with its soulful brown eyes; it was a face to which he could confess, and so he said, “Hector’s a diagnosed manic-depressive, severely emotionally disturbed. I’ve known him for years, from a shelter for runaway children where I serve as a counselor. He always resisted taking the medication that would help him, and so he would suffer psychotic episodes and have fantasies that only reinforced his decision not to take his medication. Three weeks ago his mother died, and his father hired me to try to find him, give him the bad news, and then once again try to get him to come home and get the proper treatment. One of his strongest fantasies has always been that the world was going to end any day, and that he would get to meet Jesus. When I read about this cave, and heard that Dylan Parker was here on another one of his end-of-the-world vigils, I had a pretty good idea I’d find Hector here. I was right. I gave him the bad news, but I didn’t get him to go home. I was tired, and I got impatient. I should have handled it differently.”
“It sounds to me like he might have gone down into the cave anyway.”
“No. He was willing to wait for Jesus to come out. He’s gone down there to meet his dead mother. It’s why I have to go down after him.”
The trooper was silent for some time, studying Brendan’s face. Finally he said carefully, “You want to die because you think you made a mistake?”
“I don’t want to die; I don’t plan to die.”
“That sounds like a belief that could get you into a lot of trouble.”
“It’s something I have to do,” Brendan said quietly.
Again, the Eskimo was silent for some time as he stared into Brendan’s midnight eyes. Finally he nodded, said, “Yes. I can see that. When do you plan to go?”
“Now.”
“Have you ever done any rock climbing or caving?”
“No.”
“Do you have any equipment?”
“The rope Hector used is still attached to the piton. I was hoping to borrow or buy whatever else I might need from the other people around here.”
“Come with me, Furie.”
Brendan followed Philip Imukpak across the width of the glacier, past pup tents and sleeping bags and lean-tos and the blank-faced people who occupied them, to the Quonset hut. The layout inside the metal dome was simple, with wooden slats for floorboards, three kerosene heaters strategically placed at intervals around the perimeter, three cots draped with thick down sleeping bags, an electric generator, and a butane cooking stove on which a pot of coffee simmered. In one corner was a mound of dun-colored equipment—canvas bags, ropes, chain, battery powered lanterns and flashlights, automatic weapons.
“This is extra equipment the Rangers left behind,” the trooper continued. “I’ll show you how to use it. I don’t think you’ll want to lug everything. The Rangers went down loaded to the ears and armed to the teeth, and it doesn’t seem to have done them much good. I suggest you travel light in order to conserve energy.”
“Agreed,” Brendan said, and watched as Philip Imukpak began to remove various pieces of climbing equipment from the bags and spread them out over the makeshift floor. He was struck again by how much he instinctively liked and trusted this man, who was willing to offer so much help and ask so few questions. He continued, “I told you I didn’t handle this business with Hector well. I made a similar mistake once before. I bungled an exorcism.
The trooper stopped what he was doing, glanced up at Brendan. He was too polite to laugh, but curiosity mixed with amusement was clearly reflected in his dark brown eyes. “You bungled an exorcism?”
Brendan smiled thinly. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I agree it sounds funny; it would be funny if a woman hadn’t died as a result of things I did—and didn’t—do. It’s why I was excommunicated.”
The laughter left the other man’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Brendan nodded curtly. “The lesson is that you shouldn’t do things you don’t believe in.”
“Did you believe then?”
“No; not in demonic possession—and so I didn’t believe in exorcism.
“Then why did you do it?”
“I was ordered to. I should have refused, but I didn’t. It was Church politics. The girl I was supposed to exorcise was the daughter of a very wealthy and powerful man. She was another runaway, staying at the shelter where I counsel. The father gave a great deal of money to the Church, and played golf every week with the cardinal of our archdiocese. The girl’s story was that her father’s closest business associate, who also happened to be her mother’s lover, was repeatedly raping her. The father just couldn’t accept this; it was impossible for him to accept that all of this could be happening right under his nose, and so he decided that his daughter must be possessed in order to make up such a story. He asked his friend the Cardinal to arrange for an exorcism. The Cardinal was no fool; he knew he could never get Rome to approve the procedure and send one of their trained exorcists based on the evidence that was presented, and so he pressured me into doing it, simply to mollify the father. I investigated, determined that the girl was telling the truth, and I went to the mother to offer her my help in straightening out the mess. Big mistake. I didn’t handle that conversation any better than I handled the one with Hector. The mother ended up killing herself rather than face what she thought would be the shame and humiliation of having the truth come out.”
Philip Imukpak made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a hum. “Rome needed someone to blame, and you were it.”
“Something like that. They weren’t wrong. The point is that if that woman had disappeared into a cave instead of jumping off the roof of their mansion, I’d have gone after her, too.”
“You got the short end of the stick.”
“On the contrary. Now I consider my excommunication a great gift. It changed my life for the better, and I’m grateful I’ve had the opportunity to do some of the things I’ve done—except for times like yesterday. If Hector is dead, at least maybe I’ll be able to recover his body and take it back to his father.”
The trooper simply nodded, then went about instructing Brendan in the use of the bosun’s chair and other equipment laid out on the floor. When he had finished, he helped Brendan put on back and chest packs, and the rigging he would use to lower himself to the cave floor. Brendan gripped the other man’s shoulders and nodded, then headed for the door.
“You want company?”
Surprised as much by the trooper’s casual tone as by the question itself, Brendan paused in the doorway of the Quonset hut, turned back. The Eskimo had picked up a pack and coil of rope, and was looking at Brendan inquiringly.
“What?”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“I don’t understand. You’re convinced I’m going to die. Why should you be willing to die with me?”
“I’m not convinced you’re going to
die. And you are a man I would go into those caves with, Priest.”
Brendan was silent for some time, staring at the other man. Finally he said, “That’s the finest compliment I’ve ever received, Philip. Thank you.”
Imukpak grinned, revealing bright, even white teeth. “Of course, I’m also curious.”
Brendan grinned back. “Well, that’s understandable.”
“My curiosity is a bit more involved than you may think. We Inuit have a very curious Creation myth. It concerns a species of godlike creatures we call the Givers. Actually, the Givers were somewhat flawed gods—not very pleasant to be around. They rounded us up, used us as beasts of burden, and even ate us. The Givers had already lived for millions of years before the Inuit came into being, building a great city inside mountains that were near a volcano—a kind of underground Garden of Eden, if you will. They survived through many ice ages inside those mountains. But then the volcano died, and the Givers died with it when the ice and snow came again. But we didn’t die. The Inuit could live in the cold, using the things we had learned from the Givers to survive right up to the present day.”
Brendan turned around, gazed across the ice sheet toward the rock face and the entrance to the cave. “That mountain’s an extinct volcano?”
“Not that one. But the one behind it is. Interesting, no?”
Brendan turned back. “Your reason doesn’t sound as good as mine.”
Imukpak thought about it, then shrugged and dropped the pack and coil of rope to the floor. “You’re probably right. Good luck, Priest.”
“I’ll let you know what I find,” Brendan said, and thought now as he walked in the direction of the boy’s answering shouts that Philip Imukpak, and not a few other people, would be more than a little interested in what was in the caves.
He found Hector Martinez in what could only be described as a chapel, sitting on a stone bench. Strewn about him were dead batteries. The faint glow from his flashlight was just barely enough to illuminate the mummified remains of what could only be a Giver priest slumped over the raised stone rectangle of what could only be an altar. Brendan went to the boy, and they embraced. Then Brendan set out four flares, which were sufficient to light the entire chamber. He turned off his lantern, sat down next to the boy, and put his arm around him. “I’m so sorry about your mother, Hector.”
Tears sprang to the boy’s eyes, rolled down his cheeks. “Yeah. Me too. I’m really happy to see you, Priest.”
“And I’m really happy to see you.” Brendan paused, smiled at the boy, and added carefully, “From the looks of all the extra batteries you brought with you, I’d say you weren’t all that certain you wanted to die just yet. Also, you left your cap to show which cave you’d gone into. Am I right in assuming that you might want to live a little bit longer—or at least not die down here?”
Hector Martinez slowly nodded his head. He seemed transfixed by the figure on the altar, and by the myriad of paintings and stone sculptures illuminated by the flares. “What were those … things … that came after me?”
“If you’re referring to those big, black, ugly critters back by the entrance, my guess is that they’re mutated bats—carnivores. They’re a hell of a lot bigger than any of the other animals I’ve seen down here, so they must be at the top of the food chain. That means there aren’t too many of them, and they’re probably normally scattered all over the place. When people started coming down here, it was like the call went out, ‘Look what’s coming for dinner,’ and they started congregating around the entrance to wait for their next meal to drop in. It’s possible you and I got through because they’re pretty full right now, and not as aggressive—or hungry, or as numerous as they were when the others went down. In any case, they can be handled if we keep our eyes and ears open. They’re blind, but they must have residual photoreceptors in their skulls because they don’t like it when you shine a bright light on their heads. If all else fails, I have a gun and lots of ammunition with me.”
The boy slowly looked around him, then again fastened his gaze on the mummified priest, shuddered. “It’s horrible.”
“Horrible? I think this is a pretty cool place.”
The boy looked at Brendan, laughed nervously. “That’s only because you’re pretty cool.”
“Hector,” Brendan said seriously, “these caves are a place of wondrous mystery, and what’s to be found here will change the world forever.”
“How could it be, Priest? How could this place be?”
“At the bottom of the ocean there are animals, giant tube-worms and blind crabs, that thrive in very small areas around volcanic vents erupting from the ocean floor. They live solely on the warmth and nutrients that spew out of the vents, without benefit of sunlight or any other food. There’s also an ancient rock structure, called the Burgess Shale, where there are the fossil remains of millions and millions of tiny, wondrous creatures that all lived, evolved, and finally became extinct, all in an area of a few square miles at most. These species existed over millions of years in that one area, and no trace of them has ever been found anywhere else. Now think of what you have down here; it’s the Burgess Shale phenomenon magnified thousands of times, and it’s still alive. You have a living ecosystem, an entire world that has evolved over millions of years and is still evolving, in the total absence of photosynthesis. That, my friend, is truly remarkable—miraculous, if you will. My guess is that the energy source for the system comes from a volcano near here that isn’t as dead as the people on the top floors think. It supplies warmth and nutrients for the creatures and plants at the bottom of the food chain, which in turn are eaten by the bigger guys. There are chemical processes down here we’ve never seen before in nature. There will be new medicines, maybe a cure for cancer—or even the common cold—derived from the vegetation that grows here.”
The boy raised a hand that trembled slightly, pointed at the dead priest on the altar. “What about that? What about them?”
“What about them?”
“They used us like animals.”
“First of all, Hector, don’t jump to conclusions about what you’ve seen down here. These caves are millions of years old, and the creatures that are going about their business now are only the latest inhabitants. There have probably been all sorts of species, including Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon, and early humans, who have called these caves home at one time or another, but they didn’t all live here at the same time. Then the last ice age, or even the one before it, came. The glacier sealed off the cave entrance, and the things that are here now began to evolve.”
“But those things and humans lived at the same time. You saw the paintings and the carvings in the rock. They kept us. They ate us.”
“So what? So do lions, tigers, and sharks.”
“It’s different.”
“No, it’s not. We eat other animals, like whales and porpoise, that, in their own way, may be as intelligent as we are—or close to it.”
“But how could they have existed, and accomplished what they did, without our finding out about them before now?”
“Remember the lesson of the Burgess Shale, Hector.”
“These things had language, art, and writing. They kept us as slaves. How could they only have existed here? They walked on two legs, and they were smart.”
“Ah, but they were also cold blooded—at least the guy laid out on the stone over there looks pretty cold blooded to me. They couldn’t survive—or at least couldn’t function effectively for any extended period of time—away from the warmth that was radiated throughout those caves by the volcano. That, or they may have lacked one ingredient of consciousness that led our species to scatter ourselves all over the world: human curiosity. These caves were the entire world, and they simply may not have cared what went on beyond it. There’s no other trace of them to be found anywhere else over the tens of thousands, or even millions, of years of their existence, because they never went anywhere else. They were the ultimate home-bodies, Hector.”
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The boy was silent for some time, and then asked, “What do you suppose happened to the Army Rangers?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. We may never know—or they may pop out of these caves next week, or even be waiting for us right now up above. They went a different way, and we don’t know what they found, or what found them. This is truly a different world, and there are probably hundreds of ways to die down here that we can’t even imagine; it’s no different from what could happen to some Amazon pygmy suddenly dropped into Times Square. What would he or she know about cars and trucks, or muggers, or Saturday Night Specials, or traffic lights?”
Hector Martinez looked into the face of the tall, powerfully built man sitting beside him. “None of this bothers you, does it?”
“What’s to bother me? I’m alive; even more important, I found you alive. Now, there’s a sign.”
“How could God have created Man in His image, and then created those … things to do all of the things we did, and eat us besides?”
“Let me tell you a little personal secret, Hector. I’ve always considered it a rather curious conceit for a species as brutal and cruel, insensitive, and occasionally downright stupid as humans to presume that God would create them, of all things, in His image. If that were true, then we’d really be in trouble.”
“Then why did you become a priest in the first place?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then I needed to express what I’m not content merely to continue to feel—a sense of awe, of breathlessness at the world, and the gift to me of my presence in it. The basic lesson of all of humankind’s sacred texts is that humans invariably create all of our gods at least with our mindsets and prejudices, if not always in our image. They don’t glorify God, they diminish Him. God can only be an infinitely wondrous, and ultimately unknowable, mystery—like these caves.”
“Jesus looked like us; He was one of us. You don’t believe Jesus could have been God’s Son?”
“Look, Hector, I’m not going to tell you any more about what I do or don’t believe when it comes to faith in the supernatural. It’s irrelevant, and it wouldn’t do you any good. What I believe has changed before, and it will probably change again—evolving under the pressure of sunlight, rain, wind, love, hate, fear, observation, and reason. So I’m not going to tell you what to believe. But I am going to caution you to be careful what you choose to believe, because you become what you believe. What’s important is that you realize what’s being offered to you now, perhaps by God, at this moment. These caves are a tomb for a species that came before us, enslaved us when we came on the scene, and probably taught us a great deal. Let this place also be a tomb for your past life, for the beliefs and behavior that initially brought you down here to die. There’s an awesome amount of work to be done down here, and generations of scientists are going to spend lifetimes doing it, poking around and discovering the secrets of this place. Whole new sciences are going to be born. Be a part of it.”
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