Dangerous Ground

by Grant, Rachel

  He released her and said, “I think the rocks have settled. Before you move, you need to look up and see what we’re dealing with.”

  They were down inside the housepit, and there was a slight overhang where the roof hadn’t collapsed yet. They didn’t need more soil, rocks, and debris to collapse on top of them. It was going to be hard enough to scramble out without risking more destruction. Every move Fiona made would have to be careful to keep from undermining the structure further.

  She planted her hands on either side of his head, raised up, and stretched her neck to see the precarious overhang.

  She wore layers of clothing, yet he had a flash of what it would be like to have her on top of him like this in bed, her chest thrust outward above his face. It almost felt like a premonition.

  This will happen between us, beautiful.

  No. Not the time, and definitely not the woman.

  “Oh, hell,” she muttered softly.

  Yes, hell indeed.

  She slowly rose, moving gingerly—no longer a threat to the family jewels or the structural integrity of a fifteen-hundred-year-old house made of rocks without mortar and covered in sod.

  Pebbles made a dash for the low point in the loose soil, which lacked the moisture content of the top layers that had been exposed to the elements. It wasn’t dry by any means, but it also wasn’t permafrost.

  And beyond the collapsed area where they had fallen, he could see more rooms in the semi-subterranean house. There were more chambers. Intact.

  He wished he had Dylan’s expertise right now. He’d know how stable the layer of ash was that capped the site. Could he crawl into the other chambers and photograph them?

  Once Fiona’s body was extracted from his, he very slowly, very carefully removed his pack and pulled out his best camera. He was thankful it had been protected by both case and pack during the fall, but now he needed it in his hands.

  He focused on the dark chambers beyond their bubble of destruction and snapped photos, using the zoom lens to gaze upon rooms not seen by human eyes for fifteen hundred years.

  “Can you see anything?” Fiona asked, her voice breathless.

  “Yes, wonderful things.”

  NINE

  Fiona let out a soft, exhilarated laugh at their replay of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon’s exchange at Tut’s tomb nearly a hundred years ago. She hadn’t intended it, but subconsciously, the words had slipped out, and Bill, bless him, knew the next line.

  “Are you teasing me, or is there more?” she asked, because she couldn’t blame him if he’d fudged to complete the script.

  “There’s more. A lot more.”

  She couldn’t suppress the soft keening sound she made any more than she’d been able to suppress the sob earlier.

  Part of the site had collapsed, but there was more. A lot more.

  Except now, another portion had collapsed, and that jeopardized the remainder.

  She pulled out her phone—which she’d charged on the drive—to take her own photos, but it wouldn’t boot up. What the hell? This was a new phone.

  Had there been a power surge in the line to her tent that fried her phone? Perhaps the generator problems hadn’t all been fixed, and her tent, being first in the row, had taken the brunt.

  She pulled out her work camera, the one she’d had to sign six forms and put up her kidney as collateral to check out from the power-hungry supply misers on base, and discovered the fancy rechargeable battery was also dead.

  “I will name my firstborn after you if you get photos of everything. This might be our only chance to document this.”

  “On it.” The camera’s shutter sounded repeatedly.

  “Right now, you’re my favorite person in the world.”

  He laughed. “Glad to be of service. I hope you believe in the buddy system now.”

  She was thoroughly chagrined for how she’d treated him in the first minutes of their meeting. Standing behind him, she leaned her forehead on his shoulder and admitted, “You win that round retroactively.”

  “Ah, Fiona, I expected a longer battle.”

  There was something about the way he said her name. It was a caress. Like he’d said it before. Like he knew her. And that was the strangest thought to cross her mind in this situation.

  She took a deep breath and focused on the small opening that appeared to be an adjacent room. The housepit was a web of different chambers. She’d known some of these dwellings were built like this but hadn’t dared to hope to find more than the single room.

  “How big is this place?” Bill asked.

  “I have no idea. It would be great to use ground-penetrating radar to get a feel for the extent of the site or lidar to map the interior. Hell, even a magnetometer would be a miracle out here. Most of these kinds of houses are just a single oval room. But archaeologists have recorded collapsed ones that had a central hub with several branching chambers. This must be one of those.”

  He looked at the screen on his camera. “I’m getting a shine on the rocks in some of these pictures. Might be more of what you found before. More pieces of meteorite.”

  It was only a narrow opening to the next chamber, and Fiona didn’t dare move closer to see inside, given how unstable the walls and ceiling were. “Please tell me that’s a good camera for low light and hidden chambers.”

  “It’s the best money can buy, and I know how to use it.”

  “Not all heroes wear capes. Some carry cameras.”

  “Want to record a video? Get a three-sixty view of the pit?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Okay. I’ll start recording; you narrate as I turn.”

  She did, giving the date, time, weather conditions, and everything else she could think of to describe and document the find.

  She didn’t have a large-enough tarp to cover this new opening, and there was no way to protect it from the elements. This would be the most intact this portion of the site would ever be.

  Excavation was, by its very nature, a destructive process. Every dig she’d ever been on destroyed the thing they were studying, but this was different, and this site, with its perfect preservation, would have been treated differently, perhaps not been excavated at all in favor of remote sensing with lidar, GPR, and magnetometers, all of which could map the site without destroying it.

  And maybe that would still happen, but this part, without a doubt, would not survive the coming weeks or months. It had now collapsed twice after the first portion had been exposed. She would call higher-ups in the navy and ask for resources to protect the site, but it was probably too late to save it.

  Rocks high in the wall to her right shifted and threatened to fall.

  “We need to get out of here,” Bill said.

  She studied the opening and loose earth where they’d fallen. A few large rocks remained. Enough to give her footholds. She tested the lowest ones with her not-insignificant weight. Halfway up the slumped wall, she’d run out of rocks.

  “I’ll give you a boost if you need it.”

  “But how will you get out?” she asked.

  “We’ll deal with that after we get you out.”

  There wasn’t really much choice.

  She gingerly started to climb, trying to prevent the wall from collapsing further or, worse, bringing down the rest of the ceiling. Halfway up the six-foot slumping wall, she started to slide down again.

  Bill planted his hands on the place where her thighs met her butt and pushed, giving her the leverage she needed to clamber up and over.

  They’d now lain chest to chest and he’d had his hands on her ass. This was not a normal day at the office.

  She scrambled up and out, then scooted back as if the ground were a thin skin of ice formed on a winter lake. She turned and faced the opening, lying flat on her belly, still thinking of it as fragile lake ice, and said, “Hand me the packs.”

  He did, and she crawled backward with both bags, moving them away from the gap in the ground. When she star
ted to crawl forward again to offer Bill a hand, he said, “Nah. I got it. Move out of the way.”

  She moved to the side, then all at once Bill backed up, then bolted forward, vaulting up the six-foot wall like some sort of wildly talented summer Olympian. He moved so fast, the earth didn’t have time to collapse beneath him.

  Once he’d cleared the lip, he crawled away from the ledge like she had. She retreated with him, moving back until she was certain they were on solid ground. But what did she know? She’d thought they’d been standing on solid ground before.

  They were both breathing heavily as they lay in the sloppy, wet moss. She rolled over to look up at the gray sky above and took a deep breath.

  “So what does this mean for the site?” he asked.

  “I honestly have no idea. The collapse isn’t good, but there’s so much more here that could still be intact. I feel awful about the damage, but maybe . . . maybe data can be salvaged after all? Maybe parts can be preserved. I was just thinking it would be great to get lidar out here to map it. But the navy will never pay for that. I need to visit the village here on the island and talk to the Unangas, tell them what we found and what happened to it. They were the ones who asked me to record this as a Traditional Cultural Property.”

  “You want to go there today?”

  She sighed. “No. I need to contact my boss first, tell him what happened. Legal might need to get involved. Technically, it’s not my fault—it’s not like I had any other choice—but really, it’s totally my fault, and legal is going to want to approve the language that explains the situation.”

  “It’s not your fault at all. You didn’t know it would take this long to get back to the field.”

  “I shouldn’t have exposed so much and removed the cap on the hole. When I realized it was likely an intact house, I should have stopped and left it closed. So it is my fault.”

  “But isn’t . . . your whole purpose to dig in sites like this?”

  “My purpose is to find them. Digging is destructive. I should have stopped the moment I realized what I’d found.”

  “But how could you do that? You had to expose it to know what it was.”

  “Yes and no.” She considered that day she and Christina had found the site. It had happened three days before Dylan was booted from the team and four before they all were yanked from the field. At what point was she certain she’d found an intact Unangax̂ house?

  “We scraped off the moss and humus layers, followed by the tuff and ash from more recent volcanic eruptions. Below that was a layer of lahar—the volcanic mudflow that capped the site.” She remembered the thrill of it, knowing it could have covered something important. “The Unangas told us there was a village in this area. Their oral tradition tells of the time the volcano was active and they’d abandoned the island for safer ground, only to return and find their village gone. So when we found the lahar—a thick layer from a big eruption—Christina and I were excited. We were certain we’d find cultural layers beneath, not sterile soils followed by basalt that predated human occupation of the Aleutians.”

  In short, they knew. They’d exposed the site to confirm it.

  “But the lahar could cover a massive expanse. It probably does. You didn’t know the village would be here.”

  “No. It was an educated guess based on oral tradition and the landform. Access to fresh water. Proximity to fish and other resources.”

  “You’re determined to blame yourself for doing your job.”

  Was she? Or was she just being honest? Maybe it was a bit of both. They could have left the house sealed when they’d found what was, for all intents and purposes, the door.

  But even more than opening the door, they’d cleared a large expanse of moss, tuff, ash, going all the way down to the lahar—including the portion that had collapsed today. They would have covered the exposed areas with the layers they’d carefully removed had they known they were about to be evacuated. Being exposed for over five weeks must have weakened the roof.

  “We uncovered a lot of the site down to the lahar. That’s what we were standing on when it collapsed.”

  It really is my fault.

  “Are you going to get in trouble?”

  “I’m sure headquarters will have some choice words for me, but no, not in the sense that I was negligent. We had no idea we’d be leaving so soon, let alone that we’d be gone this long.”

  Bill went silent, and she figured he’d accepted there was no point in trying to talk her out of feeling guilty. Did that ever work with anyone? Guilt wasn’t easily logicked away.

  “What do we do now?”

  “I need to record the damage as best I can. If you could take more pictures, I’d really appreciate it. I don’t know what the deal is with my phone. All I can think is there was a power surge to my tent last night. I swear this project is cursed.”

  They spent the next hour documenting the damage. He took at least forty kabillion photos, and she followed along, creating a photo log that described the visible damage. More of the shiny rocks were spotted in the collapsed room. Were the rocks really debris from a large meteorite?

  Trevor had tagged along with Dylan the day he’d visited the site, and the geologist and volcanologist discussed the possibility that a large meteorite might have struck Mount Katin several thousand years ago—after the volcano formed but before the most recent cone-building events—because Dylan had seen superheated quartz-icicle-like things that were often found near impact craters. He speculated the crater might be underwater, but the debris field extended to land.

  Trevor had concurred with his findings and said he’d take core samples to look for associated tsunami soils that would indicate a meteorite had struck the area.

  Neither Dylan nor Trevor was on Chiksook now, though, to tell her the results of their study. She’d been so busy with her other projects once she’d returned to the Kitsap Peninsula, she’d managed only to shoot off an email to Pollux asking for Trevor’s findings on tsunami soils, and hadn’t followed up when she didn’t receive a reply.

  Were the metallic stones part of a many-millennia-old meteorite strike? Prehistorically, had the Unangas found chunks of meteorite and incorporated the pieces into their homes and tool kits? Or did the metal simply indicate a more extensive trade system than had been previously theorized based on the existing archaeological record?

  The prehistoric village site raised so many questions and was without a doubt eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion D: the site was likely to yield information important to prehistory, plus the site had the required integrity.

  Well, it had integrity before she’d kicked the domino that caused everything to tumble down, that is. But still, enough remained for inclusion in the National Register.

  An hour later, they sat down on the edge of the site to enjoy a midmorning snack of hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and salami. The amount of hiking required, long days, and unforgiving wind required protein-heavy snacks and meals.

  Fiona sipped her water and chewed on a pepperoni stick as she looked out over the site. Without thinking, she leaned her head on Bill’s shoulder.

  The moment her temple touched the shell of his raincoat, she realized the inappropriateness of the action and even had to wonder why it had felt natural in the first place.

  He stiffened. She could feel the tension in his body even through the slight contact that included at least three layers of clothing separating her temple from his skin. She wanted to jerk her head up, but that would only draw attention to the awkwardness of the moment.

  She decided to play it casual. No big deal. She let out an audible sigh and said, “It’s been quite a day, and it’s only eleven a.m.”

  His shoulder relaxed, and the awkward moment passed. Or maybe she thought it did simply because she wanted it to be gone. Whatever it was didn’t matter, because he was playing along. “Is your work always this exciting?”

  She snorted and lifted her head
, still sitting close but no longer leaning on him. “Hardly.”

  “What are your days usually like?”

  “Usually I’m in a cubicle on the Bangor sub base, managing contracts, working on reports, following up with tribes or the State Historic Preservation Office, trying to guide projects through the compliance process.”

  “A lot of bureaucratic hoops in addition to the technical work? That must get old.”

  “It does. But then there are projects like this, where I get to go to restricted islands and find wonderful things. Well done with the King Tut reference, by the way.”

  “Thank you. I’m a Tut fanboy, to be honest. I’ve even been to the museum in Cairo.”

  “Now I’m jealous. I’ve never been to Egypt. Never been to Africa at all.”

  “I did a sh—evaluation there. Even got a VIP tour of the pyramids.”

  “Seriously? They don’t have their own bird experts?”

  “I’m sure they do, but I know the right people.”

  “Damn. I need to get to know your people.” She chuckled. “I have several friends who are actual Egyptologists and they’ve done zilch for me.”

  “Yesterday, on the boat, you were telling Cara about an underwater dig you worked on in the Caribbean. That had to be cool.”

  “It was. I have been lucky. I’m not an underwater archaeologist—I mean, I don’t have a degree in nautical archaeology or anything—but I know scuba and did a field school in Jamaica, which was basically a summer in paradise going scuba diving twice a day, then drinking rum and dancing to reggae music all night.”

  She closed her eyes, remembering that carefree summer. Regan had been a senior in college and doing her own field school, but Aidan had been able to take a week vacation and visited her. That had been during the good times, when she and her big brother had been allies.

  She missed that brother. She grieved his loss, even though Aidan was still very much alive.

  “You’re describing a different woman from the one I’m working with today.”

  “We can’t always be carefree and young.”