The Descent Part 26

'Relative to body size, Miocene ape, at best.'

'Nocturnal extremists, just as I thought,' said Spurrier. 'And look at the rhinarium, this wet patch of skin. Like the tip of a dog's nose. I'm thinking lemuriforms here. An accidental colonizer. The subterranean eco-niche must have been wide open to them. They proliferated. Their adaptation radiated wildly. Species diversified. It only takes one pregnant female, you know, wandering off.'

'But frigging wings, for Pete's sake.'

The gargoyles had begun struggling again. It was a slow, blind writhing. One made a noise midway between a bark and a peep.

'What do you suppose they eat?'

'Insects,' one hazarded.

'Could be carnivorous - look at those incisors.'

'Are you going to talk all day? Or find out?' It was Shoat.

Before anyone could stop him, he pulled his combat knife, with its blood gutter and double-edged tip, and in one motion cut the male's head off.

They were stunned.

Ali reacted first. She pushed Shoat. He didn't have the size of Walker's athlete-warriors, but he was solid enough. She put more weight into her second shove, and this time got him backed off a step. He returned the push, open-handed against her shoulder. Ali staggered. Quickly, Shoat made a show of holding the knife out and away, like she might hurt herself on the blade. They faced each other. 'Calm yourself,' he said.

Later Ali would say her contrition. For the moment she was too full of fury at him and just wanted to knock him over. It took an effort to turn away from him. She went over to the beheaded animal. Surprisingly little blood came out of the neck stem. Next to it, the other one was bucking wildly, curved claws grabbing at the air.

The group's protest was mild. 'You're a wart, Montgomery,' one said.

'Get on with it,' Shoat said. 'Open the thing up. Take your pictures. Boil the skull. Get your answers. Then pack.' He started humming Willie Nelson: '"We're on the road again."'

'Barbaric,' someone muttered.

'Spare me,' said Shoat. He pointed his knife at Ali. 'Our Good Samaritan said it herself. They're not house pets. We can't bring them with us.'

'You knew what I meant,' Ali said to Shoat. 'We have to let them go. The one that's left.'

The remaining creature had quit struggling. It lifted its head and was attentively smelling them and listening to their voices. The concentration was unsettling.

Ali waited for the group to ratify her. No one did. It was her show alone.

All at once, Ali felt powerfully isolated from these people, estranged and peculiar. It was not a new feeling. She had always been a little different, from her cla.s.smates as a child, from the novitiates at St. Mary's, from the world. For some reason, she hadn't expected it here, though.

She felt foolish. Then it came to her. They had separated themselves from her because they thought it was her business. The business of a nun. Of course she would champion mercy. It made her ridiculous.

Now what? she asked herself. Apologize? Walk away? She glanced over at Shoat, who was standing beside Walker, grinning. d.a.m.ned if she was going to lose to him.

Ali took out her Swiss Army knife and tried picking open a blade.

'What are you doing?' a biologist asked.

She cleared her throat. 'I'm letting her go,' she said.

'Ah, Ali, I don't think that's the best thing right now. I mean, the animal's got a broken wing.'

'We shouldn't have caught it in the first place,' she said, and went on picking at the knife. But the blade was stuck. Her fingernail broke on the little slot. This was going completely against her. She felt the tears welling in her eyes, and lowered her head so the hair would at least curtain out their view.

'You're in my way,' a voice said behind the crowd. There was an initial jostling, and then the circle abruptly opened up. Ali was even more surprised than the rest of them. It was Ike who stepped up beside her.

They had not seen him in over three weeks. He had changed. His hair was getting s.h.a.ggy and the clean white shirt was gone, replaced with a filthy gray camo top. A half-healed wound marked one arm, and he had packed the ugly tear with red ochre. Ali stared at his arms, both of them covered with scars and markings and - along the inside of one forearm - printed text, like cheat notes.

He had lost or hidden his pack, but the shotgun and knife were in place, along with a pistol that had a silencer on it. He was wearing the bug-eyed glacier gla.s.ses, and smelled like a hunter. His shoulder came against her, and the skin was cool. In her relief, ever so slightly, Ali leaned against that sureness.

'We were starting to wonder if you'd gone country again,' Colonel Walker said.

Ike didn't answer him. He took the pocketknife from Ali's hand and flipped the blade open. 'She's right,' he said.

He bent over the remaining animal and, in an undertone that only Ali could hear, he said something soothing, but also formal, an address of some sort. Almost a prayer. The animal grew still, and Ali pried up a piece of the cord for Ike to cut.

Someone said, 'Now we'll see if these things can really fly.'

But Ike didn't cut the cord. He gave a quick nick to the animal's jugular vein. Gagged with wire, the small mouth gulped for air. Then it was dead.

Ike straightened and faced the group. 'No live catches.'

Without a second thought, Ali balled her fist and clipped him on the shoulder, for all the good it did. It was like slugging a horse, he was so hard. The tears were streaking her face. 'Why?' she demanded.

He folded her knife and solemnly returned it. 'I'm sorry,' she heard him whisper, but not to her. To Ali's astonishment, he was speaking to what he'd just killed. Then he straightened and faced the group.

'That was a waste of life,' he said to them.

'Spare me,' said Walker.

Ike looked directly at him. 'I thought you knew some things.'

Walker flushed. Ike turned to the rest of them. 'You can't stay here anymore,' he said. 'The others will come looking now. We need to keep going.'

'Ike,' said Ali, as the group dispersed. He faced her, and she slapped him.

13 - THE SHROUD.

Thus is the Devil ever G.o.d's ape.

-MARTIN LUTHER, Table Talke (1569) Venice, Italy 'Ali has gone deeper,' January reported gravely, while the group waited in the vault. She had lost a great deal of weight, and her neck veins were taut, like strings holding her head to her bones. She sat on a chair, drinking mineral water. Branch crouched beside her, quietly thumbing through a Baedeker's guide to Venice.

This was the Beowulf Circle's first meeting in months. Some had been busy in libraries or museums; others had been hard at work in the field, interviewing journalists, soldiers, missionaries, anyone with experience of the depths. The quest had engaged them.

They were delighted to be in this city. Venice's winding ca.n.a.ls led to a thousand secret places. The Renaissance spirit pleasantly haunted these sun-gorged plazas. The irony was that on a Sunday spilling over with light and church bells, they had come together in a bank vault.

Most of them looked younger, tanned, more limber. The spark was back in their eyes again. They were eager to share their findings with one another. January made hers first.

She had received Ali's letter only yesterday, delivered by one of the seven scientists who had quit the expedition and finally gotten free of Point Z-3. The scientist's tale, and Ali's dispatch, were disturbing. After Shoat and his expedition had departed, the dissidents had sulked for weeks, stranded among violent misfits. Male and female alike had been beaten and raped and robbed. At last a train had brought them back to Nazca City. Now aboveground, they were undergoing treatment for an exotic lithospheric fungus and various venereal diseases, plus the usual compression problems. But their misadventures paled next to the larger news they had brought out.

January summarized the Helios stratagem. Reading excerpts from Ali's letter, written right up to the hour of her descent from Point Z-3, she sketched out the plan to traverse beneath the Pacific floor and exit somewhere near Asia. 'And Ali has gone with them,' she groaned. 'For me. What have I done?'

'Can't blame yourself.' Desmond Lynch popped his briarwood cane against the tile floor. 'She got herself into it. We all did.'

'Thank you for the consolation, Desmond.'

'What can be the meaning of this?' someone asked. 'The cost must be prodigious, even for Helios.'

'I know C.C. Cooper,' January said, 'and so I fear the worst. He seems to be carving out a nation-state all his own.' She paused. 'I've had my staff investigating, and Helios is definitely preparing for a full-scale occupation of the area.'

'But his own country?' said Thomas.

'Don't forget,' January said, 'this is a man who believes the presidency was stolen from him by a conspiracy. He seems to have decided a fresh start is best. In a place where he can write all the rules.'

'A tyranny. A plutocracy,' said one of the scholars.

'He won't call it that, of course.' 'But he can't do this. It violates international laws. Surely -'

'Possession is everything,' January said. 'Recall the conquistadores in the New World. Once they got an ocean between them and their king, they decided to set themselves up in their own little kingdoms. It threatened the entire balance of power.'

Thomas was grim. 'Major Branch, surely you can intercept the expedition. Take your soldiers. Turn these invaders back before they spark more war.'

Branch closed his book. 'I'm afraid I have no authority to do that, Father.'

Thomas appealed to January. 'He's your soldier. Order him. Give him the authority.'

'It doesn't work that way, Thomas. Elias is not my soldier. He's a friend. As for authority, I've already spoken with the commander in charge of operational affairs, General Sandwell. But the expedition's crossed beyond the military frontier. And, as you pointed out, he doesn't want to provoke the war all over again.'

'What are all your commandos and specialists good for? Helios can slip some mercenaries into the wilderness, but not the US Army?'

Branch nodded. 'You're sounding like some of the officers I know. The corporations are running amok down there. We have to play by the rules. They don't.'

'We must stop them,' Thomas said. 'The repercussions could be devastating.'

'Even if we had the green light, it's probably too late,' January said. 'They have a two-month head start. And since their departure, we've heard nothing from them. We have no idea where they are exactly. Helios isn't sharing any information. I'm sick with worry. They could be in great danger. They could be walking into a nation of hadals.'

This led them to a discussion of where the hadals might be hiding, how many might still be alive, what their threat really was. In Desmond Lynch's opinion, the hadal population was spa.r.s.e and scattered and probably in a third or fourth generation of die-off. He estimated their worldwide numbers at no more than a hundred thousand. 'They're an endangered species,' he declared.

'Maybe the population's retreated,' Mustafah, the Egyptian, ventured.

'Retreated? To where? Where is there to go?'

'I don't know. Deeper, perhaps? Is that possible? How deep does the underworld go?'

'I've been thinking,' said Thomas. 'What if their aim was to come out from the underworld? To make their place in the light?'

'You think Satan's looking for an invitation?' Mustafah asked. 'I can't think of many neighborhoods that would welcome such a family.'

'It would need to be a place no one else wants, or a place no one dares to go. A desert, perhaps. A jungle. Real estate with a negative value.'

'Thomas and I have been talking,' Lynch said. 'After a certain point, where else can a fugitive hide, except in plain sight? And there may be evidence he's up to just that.'

Branch was listening carefully.

'We've learned of a Karen warlord in the south of Burma, close to Khmer Rouge country,' Lynch said. 'It's said he was visited by the devil. He may have spoken with our elusive Satan.'

'The rumors may be nothing more than a forest legend,' Thomas qualified. 'But there's also a chance that Satan is attempting to find a new sanctuary.'

'If it's true, it would almost be wonderful,' said Mustafah. 'Satan bringing his tribes out from the depths, like Moses leading his people into Israel.'

'But how can we learn more?' said January.

'As you might imagine, the warlord will never come out of his jungle for us to interview,' said Thomas. 'And there are no cable links, no phone lines. The region has been gutted by atrocity and famine. It's one of those genocide zones, apocalyptic. Supposedly this warlord has turned the clock back to Year Zero.'

'Then his information is lost to us.'

'Actually,' Lynch said, 'I've decided to go into the jungle.'

January and Mustafah and Rau reacted with one voice. 'But you mustn't. Desmond, it's much too dangerous.'

If discovery was part of Lynch's goal, the adventure was another. 'My mind's made up,' he said, relishing their concern.

They were standing in a virtual cage, with a ma.s.sive steel door and gleaming bars. Farther in, Thomas could make out walls of safe deposit boxes and more doors with complex lock mechanisms. Their discussion went on as they waited.

The scholars began presenting evidence. 'He would be like Kublai Khan or Attila,' Mustafah stated. 'Or a warrior king like Richard the First, summoning all of Christendom to march upon the infidel. A character of immense ambition. An Alexander or a Mao or a Caesar.'

'I disagree,' said Lynch. 'Why a great warrior emperor? What we're seeing is almost exclusively defensive and guerrilla. I'd say, at best, our Satan is someone more like Geronimo than Mao.'

'More like Lon Chancy than Geronimo, I should say,' a voice spoke. 'A character capable of many disguises.' It was de l'Orme.

Unlike the others, de l'Orme had not been restored by his months of detective work. The cancer was a flame in him, licking the flesh and bone away. The left side of his face was practically melting, the eye socket sinking behind his dark gla.s.ses. He belonged in a hospital bed. Yet because he looked so weak beside these marble pillars and metal bars, he seemed that much stronger, a one-lung, one-kidney Samson.

At his side stood Bud Parsifal and two Dominican friars, along with five carabinieri carrying rifles and machine guns. 'This way, please,' said Parsifal. 'We have little time. Our opportunity with the image lasts only an hour.'

The two Dominicans began whispering with great concern, obviously about Branch. One of the carabinieri set his rifle to the side and unlocked a door made of bars. As the group pa.s.sed through, a Dominican said something to the carabinieri, and they blocked Branch's entrance. He stood before them, a virtual ogre dressed in a worn sports jacket.

'This man's with us,' January said to the Dominican.

'Excuse me, but we are the custodians of a holy relic,' the friar said. 'And he does not look like a man.'

'You have my oath he is a righteous man,' Thomas interrupted.

'Please understand,' the friar said. 'These are days of disquiet. We must suspect everyone.'

'You have my oath,' Thomas repeated.

The Dominican considered the Jesuit, his order's enemy. He smiled. His power was explicit now. He gestured with his chin, and the carabinieri let Branch through.