Deep Fathom (14 page)

Miyuki was silent for several steps. Her breathing, though, was strained and tight. She finally asked the question uppermost in Karen's mind. “Where do you think this leads?”

“I'd guess some royal burial chamber. But I'm not sure. This passage is pretty steep. We must be close to the base of the pyramid by now.”

Proving her theory true, the stairs ended at a tunnel. The next passage led in a straight line away from there. A long way. Karen's light failed to find an end. She assumed the tunnel led beyond the pyramid itself.

Frowning, she moved down to the last step. Ahead, the tunnel lay partially flooded. At least a foot of water covered the floor. Within the beam of her light, Karen watched trickles of water drip and flow from cracks in the ceiling. “We must be underneath the pyramid…underneath the sea itself,” she muttered. “Look at the walls here. They're not carved stone blocks, but solid rock. It must have taken decades to tunnel out this passage.”

Miyuki leaned beside her. “Maybe not. It might just be a lava tube. Japan is riddled with them.”

“Hmm…maybe.”

Miyuki stared over at the dripping water. “I don't know about this. Can't we just wait—”

A ringing sound cut her off, echoing down the stairs to them. Metal on rock. The two women's eyes met.

“They're trying to dig themselves inside,” Karen said.

Miyuki pushed Karen toward the watery passage. “Get going!”

Karen splashed into the water and gasped as the cold clamped around her ankles. The tang of salt was sharp in the stagnant air. Miyuki followed, holding her equipment bag tight. They continued down the long tunnel, their splashes echoing up and down the passage. The noise made them both edgy.

Karen ran her fingers along the wall here, too. It was still smooth, almost glassy. Too smooth to have been carved by crude tools. It seemed a natural passage, as Miyuki had suggested. She tapped the wall with a knuckle.

“Don't do that!” Miyuki yelled at her.

The shout startled Karen. She dropped her hand.

“Do you want to drown us?” Miyuki said.

“This passage has been down here for ages.”

“Still, don't knock on the walls. After the quakes and uplift, you don't know how fragile it might be.”

“All right,” Karen said, “I'll leave it alone.” She turned
her attention to the passage ahead, which seemed to widen. She increased her pace. Could it be the end? She prayed for another exit. The ringing strike of metal on stone still echoed periodically behind them. Their pursuers were not giving up.

Splashing in water up to her knees now, Karen hurried forward, then stopped. She looked around, mouth gaping open. The passage continued, but here the tunnel ballooned out. The ceiling became a dome overhead, as glassy and smooth as the passage itself. If this was a lava tube, a bubble must have formed at this spot.

Karen wagged her flashlight around. Overhead, embedded bits of glittering quartz dotted the roof. At first she thought it was a random pattern, then she turned in a circle, neck craned back. “It's a starscape. See, there's the Orion constellation.”

Miyuki looked less impressed. She glanced over her shoulder as another echoing strike sounded behind them. “We should keep going.”

Karen lowered her light. She knew Miyuki was right, but her legs would not move. Nothing like this had ever been discovered among the islands of the South Pacific. Who had built this? Her light, now pointing forward, settled on a waist-high section of the wall. A sharp glint attracted her attention. She narrowed her eyes. A small niche had been dug out of the smooth wall. A cubbyhole. Something inside reflected back her light. Karen approached it.

Miyuki started to speak, but Karen stopped her with an upraised hand. She bent to peer into the tiny alcove. Resting inside was a palm-size crystal star. Five points glittered brightly under her penlight. It was as if a rainbow had exploded inside. As she shifted her light, she noticed deep scratches on the nearby wall and took a step back. She had almost missed it at first. She cast her light along the curved wall.

“My God!”

Meticulously carved into the stone were lines of small symbols. Three rows of them. Clearly some form of archaic language.

Bending closer, she touched the first symbol with a finger. The wall etchings were precise, carved deep, as if written with a diamond-pointed tool. But for all the precision, the symbols themselves were crude. Rough hieroglyphics. Pictures of animals and men in distorted shapes and postures. Strange icons and repeated symbols.

Karen tilted her head, moving the light. The rows continued, waist-high around the bubble in the tunnel.

She turned to Miyuki, her breath rushed. “I need a picture of this.”

“What?” Her friend looked at her as if she were crazy.

Karen straightened, reaching for Miyuki's bag. “Video record it. Save it. I can't risk this being lost.”

Miyuki scowled. “What are you thinking? We need to get out here.”

“The looters might destroy this. Or the whole area might sink again.”

“I'm more worried about it sinking with us in it.”

Karen pleaded with her eyes.

Finally, Miyuki sighed and passed the satchel to Karen, who held it as Miyuki shuffled through it for her tiny digital camera. Freeing it, she passed Karen her own larger flashlight. “I'll need plenty of light. Follow as I record.” Miyuki returned to the wall, camera raised. She slowly edged around the chamber, tracing the wrap of ancient writing until she made a complete circuit.

Karen realized something as they worked. “It's not three rows,” she mumbled. “It's one continuous line—starting at the crystal star and wrapping around and around the room, like the groove in a vinyl record.”

“Or a curled snake,” Miyuki said, lowering the camera as she finished recording. She started to put it away. “Satisfied?”

Karen passed Miyuki the large flashlight. “Could you get a couple shots of the star map on the ceiling?”

Miyuki frowned but took the flashlight.

Snugging the equipment satchel over her shoulder, Karen turned away. “I'm going to take the crystal artifact with me. We can't let the looters get it.” She crossed to the cubbyhole and reached inside, grabbed the star and tried to pick it up, but failed. She gave it a cautious tug, but it didn't budge. “Goddamn. It's cemented in place.”

Finished with the recording, Miyuki joined Karen. “Then leave it.” She peered down the tunnel. The sound of digging had stopped a few minutes ago. “I don't like this quiet. Maybe they got through.”

Karen scrunched up her brow. She didn't want to leave the crystal star behind. “Shine your light in here so I can see what I'm doing.”

Miyuki moved closer and shone her light into the cubby. Again the rainbow brilliance sparked sharply. “It's beautiful,” she conceded in a hushed voice.

Again Karen palmed the star and tugged hard. This time it popped free easily. Caught off guard, she stumbled back, bumping into Miyuki. Her friend's flashlight went flying and splashed into the water.

Miyuki bent to retrieve it. “I hope you're done,” she said, fishing through the seawater. “Lucky the flashlight's waterproof.”

Karen held the star against her belly. It was like cradling a bowling ball. She had to hold it with both hands. The star hadn't been cemented into the niche, she simply hadn't expected it to be so heavy. “This thing weighs a ton,” she said. She lifted the star and dropped it into a side pocket of the equipment bag. The bag now pulled hard on her shoulder. “Okay. Let's keep going.”

“We should hurry. I don't like how quiet—”

The explosion caught them by surprise. The two women were thrown to their knees as the tunnel shook. The ringing blast deafened them.

Karen twisted around, keeping her bag above the water. She fumbled for her pistol. Miyuki pointed her light back down the tunnel. Smoke billowed toward them from the far end.

“Dynamite,” Karen said. “They must have lost their patience with a pickax.”

As the ringing faded, a low groan filled the tunnel. The drip of water became a deep gurgle. A few meters away a spout of water erupted, spraying a thick stream of seawater. Closer, a crack opened overhead, weeping water over them.

“It's breaking apart!” Miyuki yelled in terror.

Up and down the passage, more and more spouts opened. Falling rocks splashed.

“Run!” Karen shouted. Already the water rose from knees to thighs.

Karen led the way down the next tunnel, Miyuki struggling behind her, fighting through the deepening water. “Where are we going?”

Karen had no answer. First fire—now water. If not for her numbing fear, she would have appreciated the irony. But not now. Ahead, the dark passage stretched beyond the reach of their lights…quickly filling with frigid seawater.

In his usual red trunks and white cotton robe, Jack relaxed in a lounge chair on the bow deck of his ship. His hair was still wet from the long shower, but the late afternoon remained warm. It felt good to soak in the last rays of the setting sun. His dog, Elvis, lay sprawled beside the lounge.

Across the deck, the sleek contours of the
Nautilus 2000
reflected the light off its titanium surface. Robert worked under the dry-docked submersible, inspecting every square inch, while Lisa sat inside, doing the same. So far the sub seemed to have withstood the extreme pressures without a problem. The only concern: the radio glitch. Lisa had been troubleshooting the computer and com systems, trying to trace the gremlin in the works, but so far without success.

“How's your jaw?”

Jack turned his attention back to his companion. Admiral Mark Houston relaxed on a neighboring lounge. He puffed on a thick cigar, one of Jack's prized stock. With his other
hand, the admiral scratched Elvis behind an ear, earning a slow thump of a tail.

“I've had worse.” Jack rubbed his jaw. It still ached dully.

Houston held out his cigar, inspecting it with pleasure. “Cuban tobacco…I'm breaking so many laws…”

“But it's worth it, isn't it?”

He replaced the cigar, inhaling deeply. “Oh, yeah.” His eyes narrowed with appreciation as he exhaled.

Except for the admiral and his two personal aides, Jack had the
Deep Fathom
back to himself, at least for now. With the two black boxes wrapped and under armed guard, David Spangler and the other government investigators had left immediately for the USS
Gibraltar
. The admiral had remained behind. He would be alerted as soon as any word came through on the flight data and cockpit recorders. Until then, everyone was holding their breath.

“So I take it,” Houston said, “that your reunion with Commander Spangler didn't resolve anything.”

“What did you expect?” Jack slumped in his lounge chair. First the
Gibraltar
, then Admiral Houston, now David Spangler. All together again. He had run from his past for over a decade, and ended up right where he started. He sighed. “Nothing changes. Even before the shuttle accident, David hated me. He resented that I took his place on the shuttle.”

“It wasn't your decision. It was NASA's jurisdiction.”

“Yeah, tell that to Spangler. We had a major blowout the night before the launch. I was almost scrubbed.”

“I remember. He found out you were dating his sister during the year you spent at NASA training.” Houston pointed his cigar at Jack's swollen lip. “And it seems that old grudge is still strong.”

Jack shook his head. “He lost his sister. Who can blame him?”

“You should. We've lost other shuttles. Everyone knows the risks.” The admiral sucked on his cigar. “Besides, there's something I just don't like about our Mr. Spangler. I never did. There's always been a lot of hatred buried beneath that
cold surface. I'm not surprised he's fallen into the employ of Nicolas Ruzickov at the CIA. Those two sharks deserve each other.”

Jack was surprised at the admiral's words. His face showed it.

Houston's voice grew stern. “Just watch yourself around him, Jack.” He pointed his cigar at Jack's swollen eye. “Don't allow your guilt to weaken your guard. Not around him.”

Jack remembered the keen hatred in David's eyes:
This isn't over, Kirkland
. Perhaps he had better take his former commander's advice and steer clear of the man, he thought. Jack closed his eyes and leaned back. “If only I had spotted the glitch a few seconds earlier…or held her hand tighter.”

“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, Jack. But, you know what, sometimes shit happens. You can't see every bullet aimed at your head. Life just isn't that fair.”

“When did you become such a philosopher?”

Houston tapped his cigar. “Age grants you a certain wisdom.”

From across the deck Lisa called to him, perched at the sub's hatch. “Jack, come see this.”

Groaning, Jack pushed himself up. “What?”

Lisa just waved to him.

“All right. Hang on.” He got off his lounger, and the admiral sat up straighter, preparing to follow. “Relax,” Jack said. “I'll be right back.”

Elvis rolled to his chest, starting to push to his legs.

Jack held out a hand, stopping the dog. “You, too. Stay.” The German shepherd sank back to the deck with a clearly irritated huff.

Houston patted Elvis's side. “We old men will keep each other company.”

Jack rolled his eyes, then crossed the deck. He climbed down the stepladder to join Lisa. She lowered herself into the sub's seat, and Jack leaned over her. “What's up?”

“Look at the
Nautilus
's internal clock.” She pointed to the clock's red digital numbers. The seconds scrolled normally.
“Now look at my wristwatch.”

Jack studied the Swatch on her wrist, then looked back at the digital clock. It was off by a little over five minutes. “So it's slow by a few minutes.”

“Before the dive, I synchronized the clock myself when I calibrated the Bio-Sensor program. It was exact to the hundredth of a second.”

“I still don't understand the significance.”

“I compared the time gap with the Bio-Sensor log. The difference in clocks exactly matches the length of time you were off-line.”

Jack crinkled his brow. “So the glitch must have affected the clock, too. Must be a short in one of the batteries.”

“No, the batteries checked out fine,” she mumbled, and looked up at him. “When you were off-line, did you see the clock stop?”

Jack shook his head, frown lines creasing the corners of his lips. “No. In fact, I remember checking. The clock was running normally the whole time.”

Lisa wiggled up off the seat. “It doesn't make any sense. The diagnostics of the systems are perfect. Jack, is there anything you're not telling me?”

He glanced over his shoulder. The admiral was lost in his appreciation of his cigar. Jack lowered his voice. During the postdive briefing, Jack had glossed over the details of the strange crystal pillar. No one seemed interested anyway. “That pillar I discovered down there…”

“Yeah. The one on the disk you gave Charlie.”

Jack bit his lip. He didn't want to sound crazy. He ran a hand through his hair. “I don't know. The pillar was giving off some strange vibrations or harmonics. It screwed with my compass. I could even feel it on my skin, an itchy tingle like ants crawling all over.”

Lisa furrowed her brow. “Why didn't you tell me this before?”

“I didn't want to prejudice your examination of the
Nautilus.
If there was any other explanation, I wanted you to find it.”

Lisa's cheeks grew red. “Jesus Christ, you know me better than that. Either way, I would have been just as thorough.”

“You're right. I'm sorry.”

Lisa scooted out of the sub. Jack helped her onto the ladder. Her eyes flicked toward the admiral, then back to Jack. “Charlie is still holed up with George, studying that secret disk of yours. I'm going to find out if they've learned anything.” She shoved past. “You really should have told me, Jack.”

“What do you think it means?”

Lisa shrugged. “Beats me, but it's worth checking out.”

“I'm coming with you.”

Robert, the marine biologist, crawled from under the sub's tail. “All the seals check out fine, Jack. If you want to take her for another dive, you should have no problems.”

Jack nodded, distracted. “Robert, could you keep the admiral company for a few minutes? I have some brandy in the cupboard under the microwave.”

“Yeah, I know where it's at. But what's up?”

“We'll fill you in with the details as soon as we have any,” Lisa answered, casting an angry look at Jack. She moved off.

Jack called across the deck to Admiral Houston. “I'll be right back!”

He was answered with a nod and a dismissive wave.

Jack followed Lisa to the lower deck hatch. She descended the steep stair ahead of him, back stiff. This first of the lower levels contained Robert's wet lab, the ship's library, and Charlie's tiny work station. Below were the crew's cabins.

Lisa led the way through the wet lab to Charlie's smaller compartment. She knocked on the steel door.

“Who is it?” Charlie called out to them.

“Lisa and Jack! Open up!”

After a short pause, Jack heard the locks unlatch and the door creak open slightly. Charlie peered out at them. “Just making sure you're alone.” He sounded excited. The geologist
pulled the door the rest of the way open. “C'mon inside…you have to see this.”

“You found something?” Jack asked as he and Lisa entered.

“Oh, yeah,
mon
, you could say that.”

The geology lab was no bigger than a single car garage, but every square inch was utilized. Equipment and tools were stacked neatly on shelves and counters: rock saws, drills, sieves, scales, magnetometers, even a complete ASC Core Analysis System. Jack was ignorant of most of the equipment's use. This was Charlie's domain.

With a dual doctorate in geology and geophysics, the Jamaican geologist could have taught at any university. But instead he ended up on Jack's boat, doing his own research. “I didn't earn my degrees to hole up in no classroom,” he had explained seven years ago, eyes bright with excitement. “Not when there is so much to explore out here. The deep ocean seabed, Jack! That's where the Earth's history and future are written. Down there! It's waiting for someone to read it. And that someone is me!”

As Jack entered the lab now, he saw the same excitement in Charlie's eyes. The geologist waved them over to his worktable. A television and video recorder had been set atop it.

Crouched before it was the ship's historian. The professor leaned only a few inches from the video screen, squinting through his bifocals. George scribbled on a pad. “Amazing…simply amazing,” he mumbled as he worked.

Jack and Lisa moved to either side of him, trying to get a better look at the monitor. “What did you find?” Jack asked.

George finally seemed to realize their presence. He turned, his eyes wide. “You have to go down there again!” he said in a rush, clutching Jack's sleeve.

“What? Why?”

“We should start at the beginning,” Charlie interrupted. He pointed the remote, and the video image reversed. On the screen, Jack watched the view of the crystal spire vanish into the ocean gloom. Once he'd rewound it far enough,
Charlie stopped the DVD and allowed it to play forward. The obelisk slowly reappeared as Charlie spoke. “You were right, Jack. The crystalline substance appears natural. I've analyzed the video closely, and from the fracturing of the planes and uniformity of light refraction, it must be a spike of pure crystal.”

“But what type? Quartz?”

Charlie tilted his head, watching the video. “No. That's just it. I don't know. At least not yet. But I'd sell the
Fathom
for a sliver of it.”

“So you think it's something new?”

The tall Jamaican nodded. “Nowhere on this planet is there an environment like the one down there.” Charlie tapped at the screen. The sub slowly circled the spire, showing the brilliant shaft from every angle. The video image was crisp and detailed. Flawless. There was no sign of the interference that was described topside. “At these extreme pressures of seawater and salinity, who knows how crystals might grow?”

Jack sat on one of the stools. He leaned closer to the screen. “So what you're saying is that we're the first people ever to see such a crystal creation?”

Charlie laughed, drawing Jack's eye away from the screen. “No. I'm not saying that,
mon
…I'm not saying that at all.” Charlie manipulated the remote's shuttle, slowing the recording.

Jack watched the spire slow its spin as the submersible finished its circuit. Charlie stopped the video just as the sub's xenon headlamps began to swing away. Jack remembered this was the moment when he had turned back to continue his search for the black boxes. He had been looking elsewhere and missed what his camera picked up next.

With the light cast at an angle across the nearest plane of the obelisk, slight imperfections could be seen marring its crystalline surface.

“What is that?”

“Proof that we're not the first to discover this crystal.” Charlie played with the remote and zoomed in on the imperfections. The image swelled on the monitor. The imperfections
grew into rows of tiny markings, too regular and precise to be natural. Jack leaned in closer. Though the enlarged video image was fuzzy, there was no mistaking what he was seeing.

George spoke it aloud, voice hushed with awe. “It's writing. Some type of ancient inscription.”

“But at those depths?” Jack stared in disbelief. Etched deep into the crystal were blocks and rows of tiny iconlike images: animals, trees, distorted figures, geometric shapes.