*
Carmen and Franklin trudged along the beach. They were almost at the river mouth, and had yet to see any sign of the dinghy or cutter. Aleesha and Thomas had gone south.
The forest was even thinner here, and would make their climb up the ridge easier. Franklin relished having a sweeping view of the coast; he was less enthusiastic about the climb to get there. They stood on a promontory on the south side of the river, and looked across to the north shore. The morning’s gentle breeze had died away, making it hard to tell where the ocean surf ended and the gentler waters of the estuary began.
Carmen turned and looked back at the ridge. “We’ll have a good view from up there.”
Franklin smiled in reply.
The old man and young woman picked their way back across the rocks. Moments later they were moving uphill among the trees towards the ridge.
______________
The cutter’s panel sections had automatically self-adjusted during their descent, expanding to absorb the increasingly forceful impact the craft was being asked to endure. The added depth of the exterior panels expanded the cutter’s volume by about thirty percent. That was likely what saved them, for as the craft came out of its high arcing trajectory, Mick and Turok felt the craft shudder as it began its descent, falling into a backwash of foam and spray. They braced for the shock of impact, but the foam at some point became water, and they were enveloped in silence again as the craft descended into the rapids at the bottom of the falls.
Their forward momentum subsided, and they felt themselves turn up. After their breakneck descent through a roaring tunnel of water, this slower, silent, underwater arc felt unreal. They rose smoothly, bobbed to the surface, and heard the noise of the falls recede. The cutter glided along, moving slower and slower.
Mick hit the strap release and stood up as Turok brought the panels down. They were soaked. Mick retrieved a towel from the sealed duffel bag and wiped his face and hair. He tossed it to Turok then lifted up the lantern. They had entered another cavern, much larger than the first. Mick shone the spotlight above them at the top of the waterfall. The cascade danced in the light of their beam like a snowmelt of liquid crystal, and emptied into the mist below. It looked like a scene from a holonovella. The roof loomed high above the waterfall and the canyon’s wall on this side was a sheer cliff, though in one section it sloped down almost parallel to the pool before dipping beneath it.
A current carried the cutter along until it drifted to a stop far from the falls. They sat back down and looked in all directions with the spotlight. As in the previous cavern it was pitch-black beyond the reach of their light. There didn’t appear to be any other tunnel or passageway out, though Mick knew there had to be. The water was not glass-smooth – light ripples fanned out from the falls.
Mick had wearily hung the lantern on the stern pontoon, switched to floodlight, and turned it upwards. They both lay back, and let their eyes roam along the uneven surface high above. Mick was fascinated by the play of lantern light – shifting shadows cast among the hollows and ridges.
Turok asked: “Do you think the others –?”
“They survived.” Mick felt certain, though he couldn’t explain it.
Mick was surprised at how crystal-clear their voices were. ‘Maybe it’s too big here for echoes,’ he thought. ‘The sound just dies away.’ The broad beam of light rose from the lantern in a veiled halo. It felt warm and damp, and a weak mist had appeared on all sides, laying a sort of gauze over everything. The roof seemed distant one moment, then much closer the next. It felt like a borderland after some great cataclysm, as though no other refuge had survived.
Turok laughed uneasily. “So – what’s the plan?”
Mick looked over at his friend. “I drifted off there. The plan?”
Turok stood and moved the lantern beam down so it flooded the high walls. Mick looked back towards the waterfall. It was hard to gauge the passing of time. Did they wake up hours, or days, ago?
“Do you think there’s any way back up that tunnel?” Turok asked.
“None that I saw.”
Turok looked disconsolately at the canyon wall.
Mick stood up. It disturbed him how they had fallen into a half-sleep. “We aren’t trapped here, Turok. Water’s coming in from the waterfall, so it must be moving out somewhere, maybe submerged, but it’s moving out.” He gestured around them. “If it wasn’t, all this would be underwater.”
“Even so, I still feel trapped.”
Mick reached over the gunwale, scooped up a handful of water, and tasted it. “It’s not from the ocean. This pool must be fed by runoff from the surface.”
Turok looked at the pool. “And that means?”
“Well, fresh water falls to the water table, which must flow back to the coast.”
Turok mused. “There’s no route from down here to Thomas’s rendezvous.”
Mick shrugged. “We lost that option once we entered these caves.” He paused, then added, “But a freshwater channel should take us back towards the mainland.”
“OK, let’s reconnoiter,” Turok said, as he looked off at the nearer wall.
Mick smiled as he scooted over to the engine module and started her up. They could see only a few feet down. He glanced back at the lantern. “Try shining the light.”
Turok switched it back to spot, pushed the slender pontoon further out over the water, and slanted it down. He fell back in shock as the lower depths of the canyon pool leapt up into view, half expecting some horror of the deep to come surging up. Mick was grinning as he took them in closer to the wall. Turok scrambled back up and shone the light down again. A narrow cone-shaped protrusion loomed up, its needle-point tip rising up to a depth of about forty feet. It was perfectly symmetrical. It reminded Turok of the delicate array of a communications satellite.
Mick turned, taking them along opposite the wall. Tips of other protrusions were visible far below. Turok swung the light so it angled towards the submerged cliff-face, which extended down another forty feet. A gentler formation of underwater hillocks and protrusions sloped away from the cliff into the lower depths.
Mick looked up. “It’s probably not more than twice this depth overall.”
“Eighty or ninety feet,” Turok agreed, and rested his arms on the pontoon.
“We’re looking for a submerged tunnel,” Mick said.
Turok looked thoughtful. “Let’s watch for a surface current.” He kept the spotlight aimed at the submerged wall, then leaned forward. “Stop here.”
Mick switched off the engine and looked down. Along the underwater wall lit up by the lantern there appeared an 8-foot high crevice, extending diagonally from a depth of fifteen feet at one end to about twenty-five at the other. The crevice was a deeper black than the surrounding rock. Turok shone the light back and forth.
“Only one way of finding out,” Mick said. He stripped down and pulled on his wetsuit. He rummaged in the duffel bag and drew out the pull-on synth-helmet. As it sealed with the synthetic tunic he felt the bubble take up position over his face, and he opened his mouth to receive the breathing template. It would give twelve hours worth of air, probably about twelve times what he would need. He reached down and snagged a regular, high-powered flashlight, and secured it to his belt.
Turok stepped to one side and retrieved a coil of mooring line, the size of a small disc. He clipped one end to the pontoon stanchion and handed the disc to Mick.
“Don’t get lost,” Turok said. “I’d hate to have to haul your ass out.”
Mick gave a thumbs-up, sat on the gunwale, and dropped smoothly backwards into the pool. He kicked twice and slowly descended.
The beam of light from the cutter shone flat around him. With no natural light he hadn’t expected to see any plant life, but its complete absence made the water seem worse than neutral, like a marine no-man’s-land. There was nothing here of life – not mineral or plant, and certainly not animal. He drifted down towards the wall, h
is shadow looming as he drew up beside the jagged surface, about ten feet above the jet-black crevice. He reached out, brushing his hand lightly against the rock.
His mind flashed back to his approach to the submerged sphere with Carmen. ‘Did they make it to shore?’ he asked himself again. As if by unspoken agreement he and Turok hadn’t spoken of it, the pain of it still too raw.
Moving his bent arms in short, vertical half-strokes, he descended towards the crevice. He retrieved the flashlight from his belt and switched it on.
They had hoped this opening would contain a concealed passage. It turned out the crevice wasn’t a crevice at all. It was just the glossy sheen of an intensely black section of the wall, creating the illusion of depth. He approached to within two feet of it, and could see his rippled, shadowy reflection in the obsidian surface. He reached out and touched it. He almost expected to see his finger push through. The surface was smooth, hard, and slightly pebbled.
He kicked again and descended slowly along the false crevice, its opaque blackness never varying, and came to the edge where it met the normal rock. The two sections were distinct, but along the line of separation there was no buckling or wrinkling.
He clicked off the flashlight, and the surfaces around him receded in the cutter’s diffused floodlight. He kicked gently and rose back towards the hovering shadow of their vessel.
They moved on in silence. Turok had the helm as Mick manned the pontoon light. The splash of water against the panel hull seemed louder, as though each runnel of droplets could be heard falling back into the pool. They eventually reached the far end of the canyon, the furthest point from the tunnel and falls. Mick thought he saw a fugitive ripple on the other side, a short distance away. As he shone the light on it Turok idled the engine. They exchanged a glance.
Turok re-engaged the engine, a flick of anticipation now in his handling of the cutter.
Mick swung the light down. “Another crevice,” he said.
“I think I’ll join you,” Turok announced. “This old tub won’t be going anywhere.”
Mick shrugged. Not bothering with a synth-helmet, Turok snagged a pair of goggles and a template from the duffel bag. Mick switched the lantern back to floodlight, disconnected the line from the stanchion and swung the light back out over the water. Turok took the line and hooked it to his own belt, so they were connected. Mick joined him on the gunwale, and they tipped over backwards into the pool.
As they approached the formation Mick saw it was longer and narrower than the earlier one. More importantly, it turned out to be not just a glossy black coloration in the rock-face – it was a real crevice. They hovered just outside it; the current was weak, but noticeable. Turok took out his template, adjusted it and popped it back in his mouth. Biting down again, a rush of air surged against the back of his throat. He nodded at Mick, who had taken the flashlight from his belt.
The lantern back in the cutter floodlit the area down to a considerable depth, but the interior of the crevice was dark. Mick shone the beam in, revealing a surprisingly large, elliptical tunnel. From their vantage hovering outside they could see about thirty feet in, where the tunnel appeared to dip down. They kicked twice and glided forward into the shadowed cavity. After advancing a short way a cocoon of darkness enveloped them. The narrow beam that was cast by Mick’s flashlight made the darkness beyond just seem more impenetrable. The tunnel walls had the same glossy black surface as the false crevice. Mick switched the flashlight to wide beam, and the sudden expanded light made the space around them leap back, as though the tunnel had suddenly convulsed and grown around them.
Turok’s hand brushed Mick’s shoulder as they approached where the tunnel dipped, and they looked back. The opening into the floodlit, submerged canyon behind looked like the top of a well, a slightly shifting shape high above. They crested the dip, and paused again. The tunnel ahead extended a great distance down, on a gentle gradient, and it was smaller, narrower.
They paused about a hundred feet from what looked like a T-junction. Mick glanced at Turok, and signaled they should go forward just short of the end, then turn back. Turok gave a thumbs-up. They moved on slowly. It occurred to Mick that they hadn’t felt any of the moderate current he had noticed at the opening. The water also seemed a bit cooler. The lateral tunnel ahead looked much larger, about the size of a double-track railway tunnel. The pressure of the current notched up a little as they got nearer – the lateral tunnel was gently tugging them forward.
They stopped thirty feet from the junction. The current wasn’t strong, but up closer Mick was sure it could easily pull them in. Even so, he wanted a closer look. They were still connected by the line. Turok motioned for Mick to stay put, and pointed to the line disc on Mick’s belt. Mick held his palm open – take it slow. He kicked to the sloping bottom of the tunnel, braced himself there, and started feeding out slack line.
Turok swam ahead, and stopped a short way from the end. His hand was on the wall, the line taut behind him. Mick watched, puzzled, as Turok removed the template from his mouth, and held out his arm. A trail of bubbles from the plate moved off quickly around the corner. He kicked gently away from the wall, and held out the template so it pointed directly into the lateral tunnel. The bubbles slid off into the slipstream – the new tunnel’s current was shooting by fairly fast. It was unsettling to see, yet from Mick’s vantage it looked not much worse than the tunnel before the waterfall.
Turok turned and swam back. Mick took up the slack. Moments later they set off on their return to the canyon and their waiting cutter.
______________
Thomas and Aleesha had spent much of the morning crossing one scrabble beach after another. When they reached the far end of the eighth lagoon south of their landfall they turned around. They had not found either of the other craft in any of the concealed inner bays and inlets.
Aleesha shaded her eyes and looked out across the reef. “Such an empty ocean.”
Thomas swept his raptor gaze along the horizon. “The shoreline looks emptier at low tide like this.”
“It’s a shame losing the Boleyn.”
“My father loved that old boat,” he allowed, sighing. But we survived, that’s what matters.”
They came over a slight rise and retraced their steps along the shoreline of the fifth lagoon. Aleesha gazed up at the gray sky as they walked. Absent of clouds, it seemed heavier, lower.
Aleesha dug her hands in her pockets. “Maybe they went even further south.”
Thomas shrugged. “The storm would likely wash them up somewhere along this stretch. Unless an undertow or deeper current carried them back out.”
“There’s my L-tree,” she said, pointing ahead. A webtree whose trunk emerged from the side of a hillock, had grown parallel to the ground and then turned straight up, forming an ‘L’. Aleesha had left her bright blue headband tied to its trunk. She raced ahead.
Thomas smiled, watching the young woman’s long hair tossing behind her. He saw her pause a few yards from the tree, her attention taken by something out on the tidal flats. She fell suddenly to her knees. He looked out across the water.
Partially submerged in the tidal loam about fifteen yards out, revealed now by the retreating tide, was a shoulder and an outstretched arm. Pale and rigid in death, the limbs still reached towards shore, and the head lolled to one side, half-turned away from them. It was unmistakably Giorgi’s body.
He quickly covered the rest of the distance. He looked up towards Aleesha, still kneeling near her webtree, and walked down to the shore. He stepped in. Aleesha looked up, and called out in panic. “Thomas, no!”
Thomas sank almost immediately to mid-thigh, and struggled to move back. Within seconds Aleesha was at his side. She took hold of his flailing arm and fell back, one of her legs falling into the mud.
She told Thomas, waist-deep in the tidal loam, to stop struggling. “Spread yourself out sideways.” She heaved back, and Thomas’s right leg came partially free. She scr
ambled back a few inches, clawing painfully at a larger rock, as Thomas dug into the low bank of gravel and wet clay. He pulled himself back, and his other leg popped half-way out of the loam. He fell over onto his side, and slid his legs along the surface. A popping noise of the loam’s suction followed as his legs painfully came free. Aleesha half-stood, her hands on her knees, as Thomas lay panting on his side, then sat up. His legs and arms were caked with grey mud.
The shock of seeing their crewmate’s sprawled and twisted body, half-buried in the loam, made it hard to think clearly. Thomas felt Aleesha’s hands on his shoulders, and his head dropped forward a few inches. He couldn’t take it in – all of his people in the second dinghy, taken by the storm.
Tears welled in Aleesha’s eyes as she looked out at Giorgi’s outstretched pale arm. His mouth hung open. The rest of his body was still immersed in the grey loam. ‘You’re no longer a walking ghost,’ she thought. She slowly turned and walked up the beach to her webtree. She laid her hands on its trunk and closed her eyes, as if drawing strength from it. She breathed deep for several beats. She turned and looked back, took hold of her elbows and sat on the sand in lotus. Her tears flowed freely. ‘Giorgi and Sorel are gone,’ she told herself. ‘And four of Thomas’s friends.’
Only when the hazy outline of the sun was much lower in the sky did she realize how much time had passed. Her face had dried, and she made her way slowly back to the shore. Thomas was walking towards her.
Without speaking of it, they understood that they couldn’t retrieve the body, not without putting themselves in grave risk. Aleesha took a last look, lifting her shoulders in a heavy intake of breath. It occurred to her that if the next high tide loosened the body from the mud, it would wash ashore somewhere else. She turned away and fell in beside Thomas.
As they moved off towards base camp she looked back at her L tree and her blue hair band still tied to its trunk.