The Descent Part 42

'And what's your part in it?' Thomas asked him. 'Why are you here? With them. Helios.'

The general bridled. 'Operational configuration,' he growled.

'Ah,' said January, as if she had been told something.

'Yes, I've left the Army. But I'm still manning the line,' Sandwell said. 'Still taking the fight to the enemy. Only now I'm doing it with real muscle behind me.'

'You mean money,' said January. 'The Helios treasury.'

'Whatever it takes to stop Haddie. After all those years of being ruled by globalists and warmed-over pacifists, I'm finally dealing with real patriots.'

'Bulls.h.i.t, General,' January said. 'You're a hireling. You're simply helping Helios help itself to the subplanet.'

Sandwell reddened. 'These rumors about a start-up nation underneath the Pacific? That's tabloid talk.'

'When Thomas first described it, I thought he was being paranoid,' said January. 'I thought no one in their right mind would dare rip the map to shreds and glue the pieces together and declare it a country. But it's happening, and you're part of it, General.'

'But your map is still intact,' a new voice said. They turned. C.C. Cooper was standing in the doorway. 'All we've done is lift it and expose the blank tabletop. And drawn a new land where there was no land before. We're making a map within the map. Out of view. You can go on with your affairs as if we never existed. And we can go on with our affairs. We're stepping off your merry-go-round, that's all.'

Years ago, Time magazine had mythologized C.C. Cooper as a Reaganomic whiz kid, lauding his by-the-bootstraps rise through computer chips and biotech patents and television programming. The article had artfully neglected to mention his manipulation of hard currency and precious resources in the crumbling Soviet Union, or his sleight of hand with hydroelectric turbines for the Three Gorges dam project in China. His sponsorship of environmental and human-rights groups was constantly being shoveled before the public as proof that big money could have a big conscience, too.

In person, the entrepreneurial bangs and wire rims looked strained on a man his age. The former senator had a West Coast vitality that might have played well if he'd become President. At this early hour, it seemed excessive.

Cooper entered, followed by his son. Their resemblance was eerie, except that the son had better hair and wore contacts and had a quarterback's neck muscles. Also, he did not have his father's ease among the enemy. He was being groomed, but you could see that raw power did not come naturally to him. That he had been included in this morning's meeting - and that the meeting had been offered in the deep of night, while the city slept - said much to Vera and the others. It meant Cooper considered them dangerous, and that his son was now supposed to learn about dispatching one's opponents away from public view.

Behind the two Cooper men came a tall, attractive woman in her late forties, hair bobbed and jet black. She had invited herself along, that was clear. 'Eva Shoat,' Cooper said to the group. 'My wife. And this is my son, Hamilton. Cooper.' As distinct from Montgomery, Vera realized. The stepson, Shoat.

Cooper led his entourage to the table and joined the Beowulf scholars and Sandwell. He didn't ask their names. He didn't apologize for being late.

'Your country-in-progress is a renegade,' said Foley. 'No nation steps out of the international polity.'

'Says who?' Cooper asked agreeably. 'Forgive my pun. But the international polity may go to the devil. I'm going to h.e.l.l.'

'Do you realize the chaos this will bring?' January asked. 'Your control of ocean shipping lanes alone. Your ability to operate without any oversight. To violate international standards. To penetrate national borders.'

'But consider the order I'll bring by occupying the underworld. In one fell swoop, I return mankind to its innocence. This abyss beneath our feet will no longer be terrifying and unknown. It will no longer be dominated by creatures like that.' He pointed at the stadium video. The hadal was lapping its own vomit from the turf. Eva Shoat shuddered.

'Once our colonial strategy begins, we can quit fearing the monsters. No more superst.i.tions. No more midnight fears. Our children and their children will think of the underworld as just another piece of real estate. They'll take holidays to the natural wonders beneath our feet. They'll enjoy the fruits of our inventions. They'll own the untapped energy of the planet itself. They'll be free to work on Utopia.'

'That's not the abyss man fears,' Vera protested. 'It's the one in here.' She touched the ribs above her heart.'

'The abyss is the abyss,' said Cooper. 'Light one and you light the other. We'll all be better for this, you'll see.'

'Propaganda.' Vera turned her head in distaste.

'Your expedition,' Thomas said. He was angry tonight. 'Where have they gone?'

'I'm afraid the news isn't good,' said Cooper. 'We've lost contact with the expedition. You can imagine our concern. Ham, do you have our map?'

Cooper's son opened his briefcase and produced a folded bathymetric map showing the ocean floor. It was creased and marked with a dozen different pens and grease pencils. Cooper traced his finger helpfully across the lat.i.tudes and longitudes. 'Their last known position was west-southwest of Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands. That could change, of course. Every now and then we harvest dispatches from the bedrock.'

'You're still hearing from them?' asked January.

'In a sense. For over three weeks now, the dispatches have been nothing but bits and pieces of older communications sent months ago. The transmissions get mangled by the layers of stone. We end up with echoes. Electromagnetic riddles. It only suggests where they were weeks ago. Where they are today, who can say?'

'That's all you can tell us?' asked January.

'We'll find them.' Eva Shoat suddenly spoke up. She was fierce. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying. Cooper cut a glance at her.

'You must be worried sick,' Vera sympathized. 'Montgomery is your only child?' Cooper narrowed his eyes at Vera. She nodded to him. Her question had been phrased deliberately.

'Yes,' said Eva, then looked at her husband's son. 'I mean no. I'm worried. I'd be worried if it were Hamilton down there. I should never have allowed Monty to go.'

'He chose it himself,' Cooper tautly observed.

'Only because he was desperate,' Eva snapped back. 'How else could he compete in this family?'

Vera saw Thomas across the table, rewarding her with the slightest hint of a smile. She had done well.

'He wanted to be part of things,' Cooper said.

'Yes, part of this,' Eva said, throwing her hand at the skybox view.

'And I've told you, Eva, he is a part of it. You have no idea how important his contribution will be.'

'My son had to risk his life to be important to you?'

Cooper disengaged. It was an old argument, obviously.

'What precisely is this, Mr Cooper?' Foley asked.

'I told you,' said Sandwell. 'A research facility.'

'Yes,' said January, 'a place to season your hadal captives. By the way, General, are you aware the term was once used about African slaves arriving in this country?'

'You'll have to excuse Sandy,' Cooper said. 'He's a recent acquisition, still adapting to the language and life on campus. I a.s.sure you, we're not creating a population of slaves.'

Sandwell bristled, but kept silent.

'Then what do you need live hadals for? What is it you're researching?' Vera asked.

Cooper steepled his fingers gravely. 'We're finally starting to collect longer-term data on the colonization,' he said. 'Soldiers were the first group to go down in any numbers. Six years later, they're the first to show real side effects. Alterations.'

'The bony growths and cataracts?' said Vera. 'But we've seen those since the beginning. The problems go away with time.'

'This is different. In the last four to ten months we've been monitoring an outbreak of symptoms. Enlarged hearts, high-alt.i.tude edemas, skeletal dysplasia, acute leukemia, sterility, skin cancer. The horning and bone cancers have come charging back. The most disturbing development is that we're starting to see these symptoms among the veterans' newborns. For five years we've had nothing but normal births. Now, suddenly, their newborns are displaying morbid defects. I'm talking about mutations. The infant mortality rate has soared.'

'Why haven't I heard of this?' January asked suspiciously.

'For the same reason Helios is rushing to find a cure. Because once the public finds out, every human inside the planet is going to evacuate. The interior is going to be left without security forces, without a labor force, without colonists. You can imagine the setback. After so much effort and investment, we could lose the whole subplanet to whatever this is. Helios doesn't want that to happen.'

'What's going on?'

'In twenty-five words or less? The subplanet is changing us.' Cooper gestured at the creature on the stadium screen. 'Into that.'

Eva Shoat laid a hand upon her long throat. 'You knew this, and you let my son go down?'

'The effects aren't universal,' said Cooper. 'In the veteran populations, the split is roughly fifty-fifty. Half show no effect. Half display these delayed mutations. Hadal physiologies. Enlarged hearts, pulmonary and cerebral edema, skin cancer: those are all symptoms that hadals develop when they come to the surface. Something is switching on and off at the DNA level. Altering the genetic code. Their bodies begin producing proteins, chimeric proteins, which alter tissues in radically different ways.'

'You can't predict which half of the population will develop the problems?' asked Vera.

'We don't have a clue. But if it's happening to six-year veterans, it's eventually going to happen to four-month miners and settlers.'

'And Helios has to find a solution,' observed Foley. 'Or else your empire beneath the sea will be a ghost town before it ever starts.'

'In vulgar terms, precisely.'

'Obviously, you think there's a solution in the hadal physiology itself,' Vera said.

Cooper nodded. 'Genetic engineers call it "cutting the Gordian knot." We have to resolve the complexities. Sort out the viruses and retroviruses, the genes and phenotypes. Examine the environmental factors. Map the chaos. And so Helios is building a multibillion-dollar research campus here, and importing live hadals for research purposes. To make the subplanet safe for humans.'

'But I don't understand,' said Vera. 'It seems to me research and development would be a thousand times less complicated down below. Among other things, why stress your guinea pigs by transporting them to the surface? You could build this same facility at a subterranean station for a fraction of the cost. You'll need to pressurize the entire laboratory to subplanetary levels. Why not just study the hadals down there? There would be no transportation costs. The mortality rate would be far lower. And you could test your results on colonists in the field.'

'That's not an option,' de l'Orme said. 'Or it won't be soon.'

They all turned to him.

'Unless he brings up a sample population of hadals, there won't be any hadals to sample soon. Isn't that the idea, Mr Cooper?'

'No idea what you're talking about,' Cooper said.

'Perhaps you could tell us about the contagion,' de l'Orme said. 'Prion-9.'

Cooper appraised the little archaeologist. 'I know what you know. We've learned that prion capsules are being planted along the expedition's route. But Helios has nothing to do with it. I won't ask you to believe me. I don't care if you do or not. It's my people who are at risk down there. My expedition. Except for your spy,' he added, 'the von Schade woman.'

January's expression hardened.

'What's this about a contagion?' Eva demanded.

'I didn't want to worry you any more,' Cooper said to his wife. 'A deranged ex-soldier has attached himself to the expedition. He's lacing the route with a synthetic virus.'

'My G.o.d,' his wife whispered.

'Despicable,' hissed de l'Orme.

'What was that?' Cooper said.

De l'Orme smiled. 'The individual planting this contagion is named Shoat. Your son, madam.'

'My son?'

'He's being used to deliver a synthetic plague. And your husband sent him.'

The a.s.sembly gawked at the archaeologist. Even Thomas was dismayed.

'Absurd,' Cooper bl.u.s.tered.

De l'Orme pointed in the direction of Cooper's son. 'He told me.'

'I've never seen you in my life,' Hamilton replied.

'True as it goes, no more than I've seen you.' De l'Orme grinned. 'But you told me.'

'Lunatic,' Hamilton said under his breath.

'Ach,' chided de l'Orme. 'We've talked about that sharp tongue before. No more humiliating the wife at c.o.c.ktail parties. And no more fists with her. We agreed. You were to work on governing your anger, yes? Containing your tide. '

The young man drained gray beneath his Aspen tan.

De l'Orme addressed them all. 'Over the years, I've noticed that the birth of a son sometimes tempers a wild young man. It can even mark his return to the faith. So when I heard of the baptism of Hamilton's son, your grandson, Mr Cooper, I had an idea. Sure enough, it seems fatherhood changed our spoiled young sinner. He has thrown himself onto the Rock with that special fervor of a lost man found. For over a year now, Hamilton's kept away from his heroin chic and his expensive call girls and he has cleansed himself weekly.'

'What are you talking about?' Cooper demanded.

'Young Cooper has developed a taste for the holy wafer,' said de l'Orme. 'And you know the rules. No Eucharist before confession.'

Cooper turned to his son with horror. 'You spoke to the Church?'

Hamilton looked afflicted. 'I was speaking to G.o.d.'

De l'Orme tipped his head with mock acknowledgment.

'But what about the confidence between penitent and confessor?' marveled Vera.

'I left the cloth long ago,' de l'Orme explained. 'But I kept my friendships and personal connections. It was simply a matter of antic.i.p.ating this venal man's mea culpa, and then installing myself in a small booth on certain occasions. Oh, we've talked for hours, Hamilton and I. I've learned much about the House of Cooper. Much.'

The elder Cooper sat back. He stared out the skybox window into the night, or at his own image in the gla.s.s.

De l'Orme continued. 'The Helios strategy is this: for disease to rage through the interior in one vast hurricane of death. The corporate ent.i.ty can then occupy a world conveniently sterilized of all its nasty life-forms. Including hadals. That's why Helios is preserving a population up here. Because they're about to kill everything that breathes down below.'

'But why?' Thomas asked.

De l'Orme gave the answer. 'History,' he said. 'Mr Cooper has read his history. Conquest is always the same. It's much easier to occupy an empty paradise.'

Cooper gave a sulfurous glance at his foolish son.

De l'Orme continued. 'Helios obtained the Prion-9 from a laboratory under contract to the Army. Who obtained it for Helios is blatantly obvious. General Sandwell, it was also you who recruited the soldier Dwight Crockett. That's how Montgomery Shoat could be immunized under a scapegoat's name.'

'Monty's been immunized?' his mother said.