No. No. It couldn’t be true. He had to be hallucinating. It was panic—panic, and lack of oxygen. He’d ignore this illusion, pull himself up, then take that breath of sweet, sweet air.
He grasped the metal spar, pulled himself upward, until it was touching his chest. His movements were still slow, like a fly caught in gelatin, and his eyes were blind—but it didn’t matter. He was on the surface now. He had to be. He opened his mouth …
And in an instant it was filled with a mixture of mire, and silt, and particulate matter, and foul decay as old as the oldest tomb. And despite this most revolting of violations, Kowinsky—in extremis, as his last mortal act—breathed it in.
55
They broke free from the prison of mud only to find themselves in a world of fire. Keeping Tina close, Logan swam along the perimeter of the Station, sucking in air in great heaving gasps. Four of the Station’s wings—Red, Maroon, White, and apparently Yellow—were ablaze, gouts of flame licking out from below the heavy canvas tarps, eating away the mosquito netting covering the pontoon bridges as if it were strands of silk. The labs and medical facilities of Red seemed to be burning with special ferocity—the inflatable dome surrounding that wing was strangely aglow, lit from inside a hellish orange-red. As he watched, a huge fireball erupted from its dome, peeling back the canvas covering and rising in boiling clouds of black and crimson to engulf the Crow’s Nest. At least a half-dozen boats—tenders, one of the large airboats, other craft—were circling the Station, throwing tall arcs of water toward the flames. But the fire was too intense and the supply of water too limited—the Sudd itself was far too viscous to pulse through the pressurized jets. Logan felt the heat of the blaze hot on his face, baking the already-drying muck of the Sudd, and he turned away.
Now he could make out other figures, half swimming, half crawling through the swamp toward the burning Station. They were encrusted with the same brownish-black mud and impossible to distinguish, but Logan thought that one of them was Stone, another maybe Ethan Rush. They seemed to be making for Green, where Maintenance and the boat basin were located—the roaring inferno had not yet reached that wing. Still helping the exhausted Tina, Logan began to follow in their wake. A Jet Ski, circling the conflagration, spotted them and came over. The rider pulled first Tina, then Logan, onto the rear of his craft, turned, and headed back toward Green, under the protective tarp and into the shelter of the marina. Logan thanked the rider, then helped Tina off the Jet Ski and onto a jetty. He was clad only in his underwear, but with the coating of muck covering his body he could just as well have been dressed in a space suit.
The marina was a scene of barely controlled chaos. The din of shouted commands, shrieking alarms, and grinding engines was intolerable. The air was dense with acrid smoke. Technicians, lab assistants, roustabouts, and even cooks were rushing in from other areas of the Station, many with smoke-covered clothes and faces, carrying documents, foodstuffs, and as many of the precious artifacts from the tomb as could be salvaged. Logan saw at least a dozen evidence containers, piled willy-nilly against one wall. Even the coffinlike locker that held Narmer’s mummy—Niethotep’s mummy, he reminded himself—stood in a corner, listing slightly to one side. Other people were hurriedly carting objects onto the large airboat tied up to a nearby quay. Plowright, the senior pilot, stood beside the boat’s forward gangplank, barking orders.
Meanwhile, a few men and women in emergency gear were running out of the marina, back into the deeper sections of the Station, apparently in search of stragglers. A man in a lab coat carrying a blue evidence container in his hands tripped over a coil of rope and fell to his knees, dropping the container. Its lid sprang open and countless gemstones, rings, trinkets, and tiny golden statuettes spilled out, each in a sealed baggie with a printed label attached. Out of nowhere, Porter Stone rushed forward, knelt, and began stuffing the baggies back into the container with fumbling, clumsy movements. He was still completely covered in mud. Sweat—or, more likely, tears—were coursing down his cheeks, leaving thin trails of white in an otherwise unbroken mask of black.
Glancing around, Logan made out Valentino. He was speaking animatedly to a knot of security guards. Instinctively, Logan stepped toward the group. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ethan Rush approaching as well. Rush, Stone, Valentino—at least three of the others had escaped the tomb.
“How many casualties?” Logan and Rush asked in unison as they came up to Valentino.
The chief engineer looked at them, mud dripping from his meaty face. “They can’t give me exact numbers. Fifteen, maybe twenty, trapped in the flames.”
Someone tossed a lab coat at Logan; he shrugged into it, tied it into place around his waist.
“The explosions happened so fast,” one of Valentino’s men was saying. “The methane built up in the crawl spaces beneath the wings—then it just combusted.”
“What happened to the methane system, exactly?” Logan asked.
“Compromised,” the man replied.
“Can’t the emergency vents be sealed?” Rush asked.
Valentino shook his head. “It’s past the point of no return. The only way to the manual overrides is through either Red or White—and they’re both infernos. Impossible. The firewall’s approaching the central converter and storage tank. We have four, maybe five minutes. Then we’d all better be the hell away from here.”
“How did this happen?” Logan asked—but even as he asked, he was afraid he already knew the answer.
“We don’t know for sure,” Valentino’s man said. “But we think it was Mrs. Rush.”
“Jennifer?” Rush said, going pale beneath his mud-streaked face.
“She showed up at the Staging Area while you all were in chamber three. Had two canisters of nitro. She threw one of them at the Umbilicus. She’s still got the other.”
“You mean, she’s still in there?” Logan asked. “At the Maw?”
“She’s been holding everyone at bay with the second canister of nitro,” the man said.
“That does it,” said Valentino. “I’m giving my last team an order to retreat now—we have to evacuate immediately. Crazy, crazy woman.” He turned toward Rush. “Scusi!”
But Rush was no longer standing there. He had taken off down the gangway, heading in the direction of Yellow.
“Ethan!” Logan called after him. The doctor, forcing his way through the crowds streaming into the marina, did not look back.
Now the second huge airboat—as if admitting defeat in its fight against the firestorm—was approaching the marina, announcing its arrival with an earsplitting blast of its horn. Knots of people began lining up along the quay, carrying as many of the priceless antiquities as they could hold. Some of the smaller watercraft had already begun to evacuate the Station, heading north, not even waiting for the big airboats to cut them a path, riding low in the water and mud, overburdened with people and artifacts. Logan turned back, found Tina standing at his side. She, too, had covered herself in a lab coat.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, then wheeled away again—only to feel her seize his hand desperately.
“No!” she cried, wide-eyed.
He took her shoulders in his hands. The shock of the ordeal was just now beginning to take hold of her. “Get in one of the airboats,” he said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Then he turned, grabbed the radio from Valentino’s man, and raced up the gangway in the direction Rush had gone.
56
He tore past the deserted offices, cubicles, and equipment bays of Green. Most of the evacuation seemed to be wrapping up; the labyrinth of hallways was almost completely deserted. It was a matter of two minutes to get through the wing to the barrier at the far end. Ducking through the strips of plastic sheeting, he ran across the covered pontoon bridge to Yellow. The air was worse here, the heat growing increasingly intense. Another moment and he was through the far barrier and at the Staging Area.
He stopped. The vast space looked as if it had been struck by a
tornado. Racks of instrumentation had been overturned, spewing high-tech equipment across the concrete. The leads and power cables that snaked across the floor were blackened and charred, several spitting and arcing sparks. The rows of monitoring equipment were all dark. And the Maw itself, the centerpiece of the room, was a smoking ruin, huge curls of metal peeled back upon themselves, the torn and blackened shreds of the top ring of the Umbilicus testament to the explosion that had doomed the final expedition into chamber three.
And there—before the Maw—was Jennifer Rush. Her hospital gown was torn, and her normally perfectly coiffed hair wild. In one hand, she held up a small red canister that, Logan realized, must contain nitroglycerin.
Ethan Rush was standing about five feet away from her. His hands were reaching out in supplication. “Jennifer,” he was saying. “Please. It’s Ethan.”
Jennifer Rush looked at him, red-rimmed eyes cloudy.
Logan came up behind him, but Rush gave him a signal to keep back. “Jennifer, it’s okay. Put down the container and come with me.”
She blinked. “Infidel,” she said.
As he stood there, Logan felt a chill course through him. He recognized the voice—it was the gravelly, dry, distant voice he’d heard in the two crossings he had witnessed. His impression of a malign presence—which he had first felt at the accident by the generator, and sensed all too frequently since—spiked sharply, and he felt his heart start to hammer in his chest.
“Honey,” Rush was saying, “just come with me. Please. Everything’s going to be all right.” He took another step forward, then stopped again as Jennifer raised the container threateningly.
“Thou hast passed the third gate,” she said in that same terrible voice. “Now thou shalt burn in unquenchable fire. And my tomb will be sealed anew—and for all time.” She retreated toward the Maw, hand outstretched, as if to drop the canister into its depths.
The radio in Logan’s hand squawked. He retreated toward the doorway, lifted the radio to his lips. “Logan here.”
“Logan!” came the thin, scratchy voice of Valentino. “Get back here. Get back here now! I’ve recalled all search and rescue teams. The fires have reached the central converter, the main storage tank is about to blow!”
Logan put down the radio. “Ethan,” he said in as calm a voice as he could manage. “Ethan, we have to go.”
“No!” the doctor said, not turning to look at him. “I’m not leaving her. I’m not going to let her die—not a second time!”
“Logan!” came Valentino’s urgent voice. “That tank won’t last another sixty seconds! The final boats are leaving—!”
Logan snapped off the radio. Now he turned toward Jennifer Rush.
“Your highness,” he said. “Come with us.”
She turned, red-rimmed eyes swiveling his way as if seeing him for the first time.
“You can leave this place now,” Logan said. “You’re free. You’ve won.”
For a moment, she swayed, as if from great weariness. A new expression came over her face—one of uncertainty and doubt. She blinked, staring at Logan.
“Jen,” Rush said, “he’s right. Let’s go. Step away from the pit.” And he walked to her, arms once again outstretched.
Suddenly, Jennifer swiveled back toward her husband. As she looked at him, her eyes glazed over once again—and a strange smile formed on her lips.
“The pit!” she cried in a great, ringing voice. “The black god of the deepest pit will seize him! And his limbs will be scattered to the uttermost corners of the earth!” And then—with a sound that could either have been a bark of victory or a sob of despair, or perhaps a combination of both—she hurled the canister of nitroglycerin toward the concrete floor between her feet and those of her husband.
Instantly, Logan turned away but was knocked to his knees by the force of the explosion. He felt a spray of wet matter stripe its way up the small of his back.
“No,” he murmured.
Staggering to his feet, not looking back, he made his way as quickly as he could across the pontoon bridge and through the ruined corridors of Green, the smoke now so thick he could barely see.
The marina was, miraculously, as empty now as it had been jammed with people just ten minutes before. All the vessels were gone. A riot of papyri, scarabs, statuettes, evidence bags, gold figurines, coins, gems, printouts, broken crates, and countless other jetsam—much of it invaluable—lay scattered around the flooring, catwalks, and jetties.
Above the ever-increasing roar of the flames, he heard the honk of a nautical horn. A small tender had just left the dock, the last to depart the Station. Beyond it, Logan could make out a long line of other craft, some large, like the two airboats, others tiny, all stretched out across the Sudd, heading away as quickly as the foul swamp would permit.
The tender honked again, turned around, and approached the farthest jetty of the marina. On impulse, Logan reached down, scooped up a handful from the treasure strewn at his feet, pushed it into the pocket of the lab coat. Then he raced along the catwalk, tore down the jetty, and leaped from its end into the rear of the tender. The little craft banked around and resumed its course, following the caravan of retreating vessels.
“Thanks,” Logan said, gasping for breath.
“Better keep your head down,” the pilot said in return.
Logan ducked into what served as the vessel’s hold: a small space barely large enough for a few life jackets and a spare can of gasoline. And then—with a violence he thought would have been reserved for Armageddon, and Armageddon alone—the Station tore itself apart behind them with a roar that seemed to rend the universe and that turned the sky, and the surrounding earth, as black as night.
57
The motley procession of vessels steamed north in the fading light of afternoon. They had at last left the swampy hell of the Sudd behind and were headed for the upper cataracts of the Nile.
Whether the craft were going to attempt to pass the cataracts and head into Egypt proper, or whether they would land at some intermediate point and relocate the expedition to trucks or aircraft, Logan didn’t know—and he didn’t much care. After transferring from the tender to one of the large airboats, he had spent the journey staring moodily out of a porthole, watching the passing landscape but seeing nothing, wrapped in a coarse ship’s blanket. The overall mood of the ship seemed to match his own: shock, grief, uncertainty. People huddled in small groups, talking in low tones or comforting one another.
As the sun began to set, Logan stirred. He stood up, put the blanket aside, and walked out onto the deck. Not once during the journey had he looked back at the destruction and burning ruin they’d left behind; he did not look back now. Instead, he walked forward in search of coffee. He found some in a cramped galley near the bow. Within were Valentino and a few of his men, standing in a half circle around an espresso machine. Valentino nodded to him and wordlessly passed him a demitasse.
Cradling the cup, Logan walked sternward, then climbed the stairs to the vessel’s upper deck. Here he found Tina Romero, sitting on a deck chair, wrapped in her own blanket. She had managed to clean herself up, but in spots her hair was still sprinkled with flecks of dried mud.
He sat down beside her, passed her the espresso. She smiled wanly, took a sip.
As he settled into position in the deck chair, he felt something prick his side. He reached down, felt in the pocket of the lab coat, and drew out a small handful of items. In his palm, carnelians and rubies glowed richly in the light of the setting sun. He had completely forgotten snatching them up in his desperate run for safety. Now, looking down at them, he couldn’t imagine why he had done so. Was it some desire—some need—to salvage something from the ruin of the ill-fated expedition? Or something deeper, more atavistic—something to do with the loss of Ethan and Jennifer Rush?
Tina looked over. Her eyes, which had been dull and faraway, brightened somewhat. She reached down, her fingers rifling gently through the artifacts, and pi
cked up a small faience amulet. She held it up to the fading light. It was an eye—seen, as in all ancient Egyptian art, in full face rather than in profile—surrounded above and below by decorative sculpted curls.
“A wadjet,” she said over the cry of the waterbirds.
“Wadjet?”
“The story goes that one day, while Horus was asleep, Seth—his great enemy at the time—crept up and stole one of his eyes. When Horus awoke, he went to Isis, his mother, and asked her for another. This was the replacement she made: the wadjet, or healed, eye. It supposedly holds great magical power.” She stared at it. “This must have come from Niethotep’s mummy.”
“How do you know that?”
“Priests wrapped wadjet eyes into the bandages of mummies as a form of magical protection.” She turned it on its side, pointing at something.
Logan peered closer. There, engraved, were two images: a catfish and a chisel.
“Narmer,” he murmured.
“She appropriated even this,” Tina said. She sighed, shook her head, and passed it back.
“Keep it,” Logan said.
For a long time, they just sat there, in the slow, healing silence, as the vessel moved north.
“What do you think Stone’s going to do?” Logan asked at last. He hadn’t seen the expedition’s leader since the voyage north began.
Tina glanced at him. “About all this? He’ll come out smelling like a rose. He always does. He’ll have an interesting story to tell—assuming anyone believes it. But from what I can tell, it appears we managed to salvage a large number of the more important grave goods.”
“Salvage? I thought that word was anathema to you.”
She smiled mirthlessly. “Normally, it is. But here, we had no choice. The discovery was simply too important to leave to the flames—especially the large number of papyri we recovered. They hold priceless information—even if they do raise more questions than they answer.”
The Third Gate Page 27