Beneath the Dark Ice (25 page)

Aimee looked at Alex and anger flashed in her eyes as she went on. “I know it wasn’t Tom, but for a minute back there I thought it was. Tom, Dr. Silex and who knows how many others are now nothing more than some form of lower-order memory in the brain of a creature that shouldn’t even exist.”

Alex reached out and put his hand on her arm but remained silent. He let Aimee speak, knowing she had more to say.

“This is not just a little by-road on the evolutionary path; this is like a whole new world, as alien to us as another planet. We don’t belong here, Alex.”

“I’ll get us home, don’t worry.” Alex was glad it was dark as he didn’t want her to see his eyes in case he betrayed some self-doubt at the chances of their escaping. He filled the projectile compression chamber with the propane gas and quickly shut the casing.

“I’ll need your help.” He removed his lighter from his pocket and handed it to her. “All you need to do is hold that under the muzzle of the rifle so the flame is just floating in front of the barrel. I’ll do the rest.”

He was impressed; she didn’t flinch when he asked her to move closer to the giant creature. They moved into position as close to the cave mouth as they dared. Though Tank had succeeded in shooting through and amputating several of the tips of some of the tentacles, the cave was now much wider than it was only minutes before. Alex nodded to Aimee who ignited the small lighter flame.

“Show time.” Alex depressed the trigger.

The result exceeded his expectations and made him smile grimly. The compressed balls of air now had a high proportion of propane gas in their makeup and ignited when they passed through the naked flame. The range would have been severely restricted as the gas was causing the compressed ball of air to expand and the flame slowed the projectile, but still it was a spectacular result. A stream of flaming balls shot rapidly from the gun muzzle. Even slowed down, they moved faster than the eye could see to give the same effect as a thin-beam flamethrower. It looked like a burning laser that spread its gas innards on contact with the beast.

There was an explosion of activity at the cave mouth. The orthocone extracted its tentacles in a boiling mass of confused and seared flesh. As the final hooked club was being withdrawn, the image of Silex appeared, followed immediately by Tom Hendsen, then another man in a jacket with the word “Buck” across the chest, and finally the visage of a young woman holding a baby before it retreated back to the water leaving a stink of charred meat and ammonia.

There was silence in the cave before Tank yelled. “Wow, I gotta get me one of those.”

Alex walked cautiously to the mouth of the cave. The sand was deeply furrowed and large chunks of pale, mottled-green flesh littered the area. He was soon joined
by the rest of the group. Monica clamped her hand over her nose and mouth.

“I get the feeling you don’t think we’ve seen the last of our multi-armed friend.” Matt was looking up and down the beach for signs of the giant predator.

“Aimee, could that thing grow its arms back?” Alex asked, without turning around.

“Yes, cephalopods have enormous regenerative powers. In a few months that thing will be as good as new. It’ll be back, Alex. Squid and octopus are smart; it won’t keep making the same mistakes.”

Alex turned to her. “Neither will we. In the military there’s something we call conflict education. In battle you want one of two things: to win outright, or to survive with greater knowledge. Every encounter with a new foe is an opportunity to be better educated for next time. We actually learned a lot today: its body is soft and vulnerable, it feels pain and shies from heat, it has an armoured body that reduces its manoeuvrability. We don’t have to kill it, Aimee; we only have to stay out in front of it.”

“Adapt or die—sounds like survival of the fittest.”

Alex nodded slowly, “That it is, Aimee, and speaking of adapting, you said that thing could regenerate in a few months—what about days? Do you remember in the upper caves we severed one of those long tentacles it’s using to try to lure us closer to it? This thing had two fully functioning clubs. I’ve got to assume it’s not the only one of its kind down here. One was a big enough problem; more than one and we might not be leaving.”

Alex also didn’t think that they had seen everything that made up the food chain, but kept that to himself as he needed everyone to stay positive about their chances of escape to the surface. Alex looked across at Tank and
realised that the big soldier was still going strong with a 10,000-year-old knife sticking out of his neck.

“All right, big fella, time for some minor surgery on that neck. And no tears, OK?”

After Alex closed the last stitch in Tank’s neck, he called them all together to repack and continue on to their destination cave. No one believed that they had seen the last of the giant beast and they remembered what Aimee said about it learning from its mistakes—next time they might not be so lucky.

The rest of the trek across the wide dark beach was slow and made in either rapid sprints between potential defendable positions, hunkering down to check for sudden movement from any direction, before sprinting off once again. It took them well over an hour to reach the mouth of the large cave that was set back from the shore line in what looked to be the widest part of the beach. The mouth was paved with a floor of crushed debris, giving it the look of a gravel driveway with pieces of quartz reflecting the blue glow from the ceiling far above them. Even though the cave was dark and its size meant that they could be followed by any number of large creatures, the slight breeze rushing past their faces filled them with hope.

Monica stood in the huge opening and inhaled deeply. The cave was enormous and made the giant Deer Cave in Borneo look like a mousehole. Most importantly, it tilted upwards at a fifteen-degree angle—not much, but at least it was heading in the right direction. The faint breeze blowing past meant no smells could be detected and small sounds hidden in the darkness were muffled or disguised in the updraught—however, the very movement of air meant that the warmth was being dragged towards a cooler air pocket. It was as good as they hoped to find.

The final piece of comforting evidence to indicate they
were heading in the right direction were more flaking glyphs carved into some broken stone at the edge of the cave. Thousands of years ago they had been carved into the wall, but had since crumbled to the cave floor. They paused for a break while Matt set to putting all the pieces together so they could hear the stone talk once again of the small warrior whose footsteps they were following.

“He’s still being chased. It says
Qwotoan
still taunts him by showing him the spirits of his lost kin. OK, this looks like . . . the moving, or could be . . . shaking ground has opened a door to the sun land, that could mean Aztlan or the surface, and now
Qwotoan
will find them and devour them all. There’s some more but I can’t make it out. This was meant to be a warning.” Matt sat back on his haunches and ran his hand over the ancient glyphs.

“Do you think he made it?” Monica had hunched down beside him and was looking at the broken stone as well.

“Not sure. Someone made it back to carve the story in the first cave. But it could have been anyone. We may never know whether he made it home or the creatures caught up with him; or even if they followed him all the way to the city. This area must’ve been undergoing shallow earth tremors around that time and one or more quakes opened the cave system that allowed the creatures to start to attack Aztlan and its people. Then, just as suddenly, another earth movement sealed them in or destroyed their city.” Matt rocked his head from side to side. “Of course, Aztlan could still be on the surface, but buried beneath a mile of ice. I still think the ‘sinking’ could be a reference to the ancient city disappearing below the ice as opposed to beneath the sea. At this point it doesn’t matter; at least we know we’re headed in the right direction.”

Aimee peeled back the dressing to check on Tank’s wound—though she could tell he was trying to mask the
pain, he must have been in agony from the deep laceration. There was also an odd yellowish colour starting to spread around the gash that worried her. After replacing the dressing and dispensing some all-purpose antibiotics she walked over to Alex.

“I’ve been doing some thinking. Did you see the last lure the creature showed us in the cave—the girl with the baby? Her clothes were old-fashioned . . . I mean really old England or something.”

Alex looked at her, knitted his brows and
hmmd
at her to go on.

“These things copy what they’ve digested. Well, she obviously wasn’t one of the recent teams that came here. I think they have been able to get out in the past, and I think I know how.” Aimee looked over her shoulder at Matt and Monica and lowered her voice. “Those abyssal shrimp I found can only live in the deepest ocean areas in the world. The Antarctic Sandwich Trench is over 25 000 feet deep and is just off the coast. Remember you asked if they could have been washed in? I think you might be right. I think there is, or was, an open vent, a deep ocean well-spring that flushes water in from the trench.” Aimee folded her arms across her chest as though cold.

“You think there’s another way out, under the water?” Alex looked intently into her face.

“Maybe not anymore, maybe only sometimes, and not for us. These giant cephalopods can take crushing depths and freezing temperatures. Matt mentioned earth tremors. I think when the Antarctic plates shift, a vent may be opened allowing these things out, or back in. That girl was probably taken a long way away, and a long time ago.”

“Aimee, you said yourself they’re cave dwellers now. We’ve never encountered anything like these things.”

“I think they always return here, but we might never see them anyway if they stay in the deep sea trenches or
seek out other underwater cave systems.” Aimee looked over her shoulder at Tank.

“Oh great. Well, let’s hope the vent is closed or only wide enough for shrimp now.” Alex wondered what the Hammer would make of all this.

“There’s something else that’s worrying me. That wound of Tank’s.”

“Deep?” asked Alex.

“Yes, but that’s not what worries me. I think it’s a type of infection, but nothing I’ve seen before. The chances are extremely high that there are microscopic life forms down here that we’ve never encountered. There’s also the chance that the knife had some sort of toxin on it. The poisons shouldn’t still be viable now, but whatever was on that knife stayed in there after we extracted the blade and it certainly isn’t getting any better with the antibiotics we’ve got. At the rapid rate the wound seems to be degrading, I think he’ll need professional medical care within twelve hours.”

“Great. Keep a look out for ladders or black cats, will you? I don’t think we need any more bad luck.”

Tank knew Aimee and the boss were talking about his wound. It took all his great strength and a warrior’s force of will to keep his focus away from the thumping ache that was spreading from his neck and down his side. It wouldn’t be long until his arm was useless and then he would be a liability to the group when they needed to be moving quickly. He would not let that happen.

“Let’s keep moving, everyone.” Alex ordered.

No one needed to be told twice; everyone wanted to feel the sun on their face again and avoid becoming part of the local food chain. They shouldered backpacks and prepared to climb up into the large cave. Inside the cave the walls and floor seemed to have been ground smooth by something continually coming out or going in to this part of the cave system—not a good sign.

Aimee helped Tank get to his feet. His entire shoulder and arm were now numb and there were bluish, threadlike tendrils blooming up around his neck. Under his armoured cave suit his body was a mass of darkened lumps and veins as the ancient bacteria converted his body for its own use. Aimee had done all she could; she had loaded his giant frame with penicillin and changed the dressing on the wound. However, it was clear that whatever was invading his body was winning the battle.

Tank ground his teeth from the pain and cursed to himself. The hair from his head and eyebrow on the wound side was falling out. This was not the way a HAWC should meet his end, brought down by something too small to even be seen by the naked eye. He masked the excruciating pain from Alex—if the boss saw he was badly wounded, he would feel obligated to help at a time he needed all his energy focused on getting them out. He unwound Aimee’s
arm, thanked her and when she wasn’t looking he brought his clenched fist down hard onto his thigh. The new pain brought a flood of adrenaline and some clarity. Just a little more time, just a little more.

Alex could smell it now; the creature had been in here. This cave was not going to be a sanctuary and he only hoped that the beast was behind them. He didn’t relish the idea of having a giant carnivorous creature between him and their potential escape route. He looked back towards Aimee and Tank.

Alex’s unique senses detected a pressure change. There was danger approaching in the near dark, and this was not the place to be caught out. He quickly scanned left and right. Out of the mouth of the cave in the distance he could make out an enormous V-shaped wave pointed directly at them and closing fast across the sea. Something very big was coming at them at about eight knots under the water.

“Time to move, people. Now!”