The Fifth Codex (5 page)

Not so much to my liking, Admiral Vanderbilt not only fails to defend me, but also chortles at this.  And I give him more than enough time to do so.

“We can all hear you, Dr. Saddlebirch,” I lecture calmly.  “Feel free to bet against me – the thought of sending you back to Texas penniless warms my heart.”  Heartless words spoken into the microphone plugged into my oxygen mask pass through the headset clearly, but carry no emotion.  I sound as if a repelling robot.  Radio silence follows.

“Um, yeah – that’s right,” Admiral Vanderbilt stammers finally.  “I was just about to tell him those exact same words.”

Many Russians immediately break out in howls.

“KORZHAK!” I shout through their giggles.  “There are cracks in the ice column wall! 
Why
are there cracks in the ice column wall?”

The laughs immediately cease.  Next, four or five different Russian voices banter about my headset for at least a minute.  Finally, their chattering stops and Korzhak speaks.

“Er – describe the cracks.”

“Did you just say ‘
describe the cracks
’?”

“
Da –
that is what I say.”  His question thicker than his accent, my sarcasm appears to have no affect on him.  “Describe the cracks,” he repeats again.

I make the most twisted of faces for my own bewildered amusement at this stupid request.  “Um … okay,” I return seriously.  “Describe the cracks: A separation of parts of ice, a fissure that would strongly suggest these nitrogen spider webs you have hanging along the walls
are – not – working
!  You have cameras all over the place – take a look with them!”

Forgetting about the camera perched atop my head; I reach into the mesh, pull a camera out a bit, and point it to the largest of many cracks around me.  For now, at least, they are not growing larger.

“Eh, do not worry about them.  No big deal.  Trust me, you are good.  You are safe.”  And
just
as he finishes saying this.…

“1,500 meters down.  One system lit yellow, two errors, eleven warnings.”  Not panicky for sure, but saying this more quickly than before, the voice is no longer so calm.

A flurry of questions and answers, some in Russian, but most surprisingly in English, now buzz about as if bees trapped inside my headset.  To speak in the midst of all this can only cause more confusion so I keep quiet.  The voices soon turn quiet as well.  My descent so steady and rhythmic, I feel myself begin to fall into a sort of trance.  The darkening of the drilled core, the ring of lights coming into view, and then dark again help little to combat my dreamy state.

“We have found the issue,” Admiral Vanderbilt radios after what feels like hours.  “Working on it.”

“Yes, yes, you are okay,” Korzhak cuts in soon after.  “Just some things on the crane not working right.  We fix it now.  Open ice column is … eh, intact.”

“Well,
that
is good news,” I lie with an awakened gasp.  ‘Open ice column is … eh, intact’ – even more good news?

Am I the only one who realizes the crane will be at least SOMEWHAT necessary to pull me out of the ice core?

Saying no more, I listen carefully as others continue to discuss random technical issues.  This goes on for several minutes until the crane’s cable suddenly stops.  Now suspended in midair two kilometers below the surface, this is more nerve-racking than the descent.

“2,000 meters down.  Time … 1326 hours.  One system lit yellow … one error … four warnings.”  The smooth calmness in the voice returns – if only my own nerves would settle down as well.  After a long pause, he speaks again.  “Restart descent … one-half meter per second.”  As if magic, the crane obeys.  Down, down, down – only the last fifth of the rabbit hole remains.

A faint light below turns into a warm glow.  My arrival the main attraction, extra lights and cameras come into view.  Aside from this, sweating more than I can ever remember and my heart pounding not just wildly, but to the point it hurts, the last 500 meters are relatively dull.  A random question or answer here and there, our headsets are mostly silent during this time as well.

“2,500 meters down.  One system lit yellow … one error … one warning.”

“
Presque
...
presque
...
presque
...
[4]
” I chant softly to myself.  A distance a little more than a football pitch remaining, I almost cannot breathe.  The iced bottom close, it appears much like the radar image, becoming clearer … clearer….

“2,684 meters down.  Time … 1350 hours.  One system lit yellow … one error … one warning.”

“
C’est ici
,” I gasp.

The crane stops – I am now barely a meter above the bottom.  This is on purpose, as I will need the extra space.  I unlock the harness keeping me upright and flip upside down.  With a dull thump followed by what sounds like someone eating crunchy cereal, I smash the top of my head into the column wall across from me.  The perched camera – now in more than a dozen pieces – falls atop the iced vault.

“What did you do to my best camera,
Rothschild
?” Korzhak shouts into my headset.

“Forget about it, Victor,” Admiral Vanderbilt shoots back.  “I’ll buy you a better one when I get back to the States.”

As Dr. Korzhak says nothing more, it appears this promise finally gives the grumpy Russian a reason to be happy.

Upside down and not caring in the least about the ruined camera, I relock my harness.  A sudden shearing sound pulls my head to the left.  The crack this shearing left behind catching the corner of my eye, my heart nearly stops.  As if sneaky and meaning to hide its intentions, once I lock both eyes onto it, the crack quiets.  I look away and then stare back again – nothing.  Fear for the moment shelved and paranoia pushed out of mind, I refocus on my prize.

“A coat of ice remains atop the vault’s cover – I will take care of this now.”

I withdraw a canister of de-icing spray from my harness and shake it.  A little more popping, a few more cracks in the walls, for now I ignore them.  With a thick spray of the chemical onto the ice, after ten minutes or so, it starts to work.

Most of the ice gone, this time my heart
does
stop.  Luckily, this is only temporary.  Once my wondrous eyes meet the massive bronze disk the ancient ice leaves behind, I begin to hyperventilate.  Its diameter is nearly as wide as I am tall!  Five simple, yet elegant, raised engravings sit atop the circular border – just like in the radar image.  Closest to the hinges at the most northern point shows the outline of a Sapien.  Evenly spaced and moving clockwise around the circle are similarly raised outlines: An Arachna Majora comes next, then a Centaur, then a Gryphon, and lastly, a Mermaid.

“A vault that keeps safe the key to unlock a world before the one we now know – we have found it!” I crow.  As if they are all dead – or simply stunned into silence – not a single voice crows back.  I am as if all alone.  AND I LOVE IT!

Now in control of an extended cable along my harness, I slowly lower myself to within a whisper of the ancient vault.  Still upside down, I next run my gloved fingers over the raised bronze carvings.  The only colors are of brilliant gems for eyes set in each engraving.  From the top and moving clockwise, I first touch those of the Sapien.  Unlike the others, the bejeweled eyes are not identical – its right eye a sapphire, its left one is a gem the color of orange flame.

I cannot believe the similarities!

With no choice but to promise myself I will revisit this shocking dilemma later, I next feel the pair of obsidian stones set atop the Arachna Majora, then the brown quartz eyes of the Centaur, and then the Gryphon’s sparkling diamonds.  I take in a deep breath.  Finally, I trace over the emeralds of my favorite, the Mermaid, and an avalanche of emotion hits me as if this vault had fallen out of the sky and landed on top of me.

“
C’est magnifique
,” I sob more than once into my mouthpiece.  Tears of joy gush from my eyes and I pray inwardly that what I seek rests just under this lid.  Cheers that now roar through my headset break the last few minutes of complete silence.  The cameras are clearly working well.

“Great job,” Admiral Vanderbilt gushes.  “You were born to find it, honey.  All along, it waited patiently just for you.”

“Congratulations, Dr. Rothschild, but we are not done yet!” Dr. Ravensdale and Dr. Leitz say as one.  Although they are over two kilometers away, I nod as if they are right next to me.

“Indeed, we are not,” I whisper back.

Just above me, a gaggle of hooks and other fastenings meander downward as if the tentacles of a squid.  I will need these to lift the cover.  Even if not still frozen in some places along it and me standing right side up for added leverage, to open the bronze cover would be impossible without these tools.  As I latch on the hooks, I notice a small chunk of the vault missing.  This is no doubt from the core sample referred to in my orders.  Luckily, this minor damage is on a side of the vault and not the middle.  I apply more de-icing chemicals to the edges for good measure and raise myself.

“Everything is set.  The fastenings, the hooks – all ready to go.”  I say quietly.  This process has taken about fifteen minutes.  I am giddy with anticipation, yet almost sad at the same time that I have found the vault and now stand ready to open it.

“Raise back into your harness,” Korzhak commands.  “Move to south column wall.”  I do as told.  “When ready, give the order to raise it, Rothschild.”

“Open the cover,” I croak, suddenly barely able to speak.  Through my headset, I can hear the whirring sounds of the crane’s second pulley.  Every part of me trembles as the echoes of the lid now breaking its icy seal bounce about the drilled ice core.  Its hinges creak, but stay sturdy.  The lid ever so slowly separating from the vault.…

My world stands still to watch in awe as the portal to an ancient one opens.

“
NOUS L’AVONS!  NOUS L’AVONS!
 
NOUS L’AVONS!
  WE HAVE IT!  WE HAVE IT!  WE HAVE IT!”

Desperate for a better look, I writhe about in my harness.  All at once, scared shouts ripple through my earpiece.

“What’s going on down there?” the Admiral demands.  “What happened?”

“Dr. Rothschild, are you there?” Alistair begs.  “Do you copy?”

Baffled by all this, I realize my hand is over my mouthpiece.  The vault lid only half raised, the cameras cannot show those above what I have already glimpsed.  Before shouting into it, I had grabbed the microphone and still not let it go.  I now remove my hand and give the all clear.

“The haystack has revealed its needle!”  My tone is triumphant and impossible to confuse this time.  Cheers – much louder than the first – fill my headset a second time.

“We have it, Grandfather! 
We have it
!  It is here, waiting for us.”  My swollen eyes tired of shedding tears; they happily do so again.  “After all these millennia, waiting … just as you said it would be.”

The lid almost fully open, the fifth codex greets us all.  I suck in a flurry of deep breaths and again lower myself until stopping just above the vault’s bottom lip.

“
Bonjour, mon ami
...
bienvenue dans mon monde
[5]
,” I whisper.

This sincere welcome spoken, I extend my hands toward the revealed codex.  And then freeze as if part of the glacier I am at the bottom of.  A second object tucked against the eastern edge of the vault stuns me even more than does the codex itself.  At least I expected to see the codex.

A twin?  My crimson jewel has a twin?

How I do not blurt this thought aloud for others to hear, I will never know.  I hurriedly shift my body to hide what I see from the spying cameras above.  As I sneak a peek at the scattered camera pieces no longer attached to my helmet – what a bold stroke of luck!

Or is it fate?

Fiddling in my descent suit’s right front pocket, I withdraw my own crimson jewel.  The spherical red diamond in its pendant attached to an overly thick, yet handsome gold necklace cradled in my right hand, I stare at them side by side.  The two gems nearly the size of my palm and set in identical pendants, there is but one difference: This buried one owns a dainty, elegant gold chain.  My mind already racing, I hurriedly pocket both; the gem I arrived with stuffed back into where I had pulled it from, I tuck the other in the suit’s left front pocket.

Barely able to breathe and beyond speechless, I again focus on the fifth codex.  Just as with the vault cover, I next run my gloved fingers along the gold top.  Aside from being at least three times taller and the differing gems on its cover, this magnificent codex appears much like the other four.

“Alright!  It’s time for Dr. Leitz to show off for us,” Admiral Vanderbilt announces.

More cables coming at me from above, the last cable holds a large pack.  I gather this pack while still suspended, lower myself, remove the harness, and now stand atop a small patch of ice with barely enough room for my two feet.  With a couple of deep breaths, I step into the insides of the vault.

“Is everyone seeing this?  The vault is a hollowed pentagon a little more than a meter deep … made of dark stone.”

“The black granite found only in the mountains,” Admiral Vanderbilt answers back, “just like I wrote in your orders.”

“This is better than expected!” Dr. Leitz declares.  “The rigid sides will be perfect for the pneumatic lifts in the pack.  Do you have all four of them, Dr
.
Rothschild?”

“Yes, yes I do.”  As if a robot under his command, I pull out each lift and then attach thinner than a credit card, but impossible to bend, titanium metal clips to all four lifts.  Set against the base of the codex, but flush with four of the five walls of the pentagon, they are ready.  “Finished,” I let him know a few minutes after I had started.  “Careful!  That is pure gold you are pressing into.”

After the pneumatic lifts raise the codex just a touch off the granite floor, much like wrapping ribbon around a most precious gift, I begin to crisscross strips of flexible metal coated with rubber around it.  This takes another fifteen minutes.  Sheer genius combined with robotics, brute force, and technique as old as time itself – the fifth codex is ready to depart its world and meet mine.  Lifted slowly by the crane and level with my wide-eyed stare and codfish mouth, I run outstretched fingers along the edges of the copper plates.  Salty tears stray into my mouth – none were ever sweeter.

Having shed so many tears already, if I run through today’s worth, is it possible to borrow ones from tomorrow?

The Sapien Codex now beyond my reach quickly moves higher.  Too quickly.  It is not long before small chips of ice begin to rain down on me from above.  The answer why is obvious: The codex is swaying against and bumping into the column walls.  As I consider the danger of the codex hurtling back down, an even more horrid danger dawns on me: the stability of the ice column.

“You are raising the codex too fast!” I screech into my mouthpiece as the chips turn into chunks.  “Pieces of ice are falling on me!”

“Get back in your harness – hurry,” the Admiral says quickly after a pause.  Realizing the hint of fear in his voice, I keep things short.

“I am doing that now – should only take a minute.”  As I work furiously to strap myself back in, the lights flicker on and off above me.

“Depth 2,685 meters.  Time … 1442 hours.  Two systems lit yellow; three errors; nineteen warnings.”  Once again, the calm voice is not so calm.  More breaking systems – more errors – more warnings: JUST PERFECT!

Instead of wondering about borrowed tears, maybe I need to start wondering about borrowed screams!

“The excitement
never
ends,” I seethe.  The crack that played hide and seek with me when first de-icing the vault cover hides no more.  A sound eerily like popcorn popping behind me, I spin around.  The crack is not only twice as large as before, but has brought along friends as well – lots of them.

“READY!”  Along with my shouted plea, a flurry of voices I find hard to keep track of run through my headset.  Sirens, bells, whistles, and every manner of sound we humans use to warn others when intent goes awry mixes in most horribly with these panicky voices.

“How fast is the codex moving, Korzhak?” the Admiral snarls.

“Six to eight meters per second,” the winded Russian shoots back.  “Halfway up.”

“Make it ten and get
her
up here now!”

“Ten meters per second?” I gasp.  “
By cable?
  That is too ––,” more popping, larger cracks surrounding me, the ground beginning to shake, “
allez, allez, allez
; you can go even faster if you ––”

Jerking me so fast that I bite my tongue as I scream, the cable reels skyward with me in my harness at the end of it.

“Depth 2,000 meters.  Two systems lit yellow, one system lit red; six errors; thirty-four warnings.”

Ever larger chunks of ice now hurtle down at me.  Same as with the codex, the cable is moving so fast that my body begins to sway.  With each smash into the column walls, I take a good many lights and cameras with me.  The danger presented by the nitrogen-cooled webs meshed against the walls grows with each crash into them.  I hold my arms and legs in as much as I can to keep them from tangling me up.

“Depth 1,500 meters.  Four systems lit yellow, two systems lit red; eleven ––.”

“No more errors or warnings, Matvei!” one of the Russians shouts angrily.  “We just need depth!”

More ice hitting me, an especially hard smash into the wall – the oxygen mask ripped from my face is now gone.  This dazes me to the point my eyes blur as well.  Using a curse word with every second one, Korzhak starts to shout.  Along with the many languages that I know well, I understand the crudest words from dozens of others.  Pounding on metal as if with a sledgehammer, grunts, groans, maybe even a punch – if not for so much ice and debris now pummeling me from above, I might have taken more of an interest in this.

“Depth 1,000 meters.”

“Alexys
Élisabeth
, are you there?” the Admiral wheezes, as if out of breath.  “Come on, honey, talk to me,
do you copy
?”  Although my mind fades in and out, his quaking, unsteady voice soothes me.

“Barely …” I answer back in little more than a whisper as ever-larger chunks of ice crash into me.  A heavy one slams into my head.  My chin pushed into my chest from this hit, I notice the frayed wire where my microphone once connected.

“Are you there?” he shouts.  “
Alexys
Élisabeth
!  COPY!”

Although ready to pass out, I want to scream, cry, anything but stay silent.  If not for Admiral Vanderbilt’s angered screams already rattling my headset, I would have.  All alone and in pain near everywhere, my own end suddenly seems possible.  No one to hear my words no matter how loud, I cannot even ask the ‘final’ question.

“The codex is secure!” one of the Russians declares.

Now, Korzhak,
now
!  PUNCH IT!”

With the screeching whir of the crane, I hit what has to be close to terminal velocity – upward.

“500 meters … 400 meters … 250 meters … 150 meters.…”

All around me, sheets of ice shear off the column walls as the crane drags me skyward.  Complete darkness in both mind and spirit; suddenly the sun smashes into squinting, panicked eyes.  My motion still upward, but as if riding a slide backward and upside down, my harness cable violently flings me out of the hole.  Even more gracefully, and more on my face than not, I crash into the glacier surface.

For a good many moments, I lay motionless on the ice.  Gulped breaths to re-inflate my flattened body seem like a good idea, so I do this first.  Next, I crawl to my knees with a flurry of moans.  Everything hurting, my suit in shredded pieces, the two sibling gems safe.  I spit blood from my mouth to mingle with the smeared blood already staining the ice and look up.

To my surprise, I face the open hole from whence the crane had thrown me.  It appears little as it did just before my descent.  Not even twenty meters away, I could slide down the hole to my death.  A deep, inclined driveway wide enough for three autos side by side now replaces the packed ice that had fallen atop me bit by painful bit.  In shock, I watch large slices of ice on the opposite side of the drilled column break free and fall away every few seconds.  The glacier ice making up the lip of the hole then suddenly collapses down into itself.  Hearing footsteps behind me, I slowly turn my kneeling body around to meet them.

Dr. Ravensdale and Dr. Leitz are the first to arrive.  As one drags me away from the collapsing hole, the other unhooks me from my harness.  Now safely far enough away, Alfred pulls out a first aid kit while Alistair removes my helmet and headset.  Both fall apart into pieces once he does so.  Even in this condition, I reach for my darkened glasses – they are long gone, of course.  Luckily, I had earlier put on my colored contacts.  Sucking in the crisp air, feeling the warmth of the sun on my face, gazing toward the green dome to my north.…

Are you kidding
?

Chance Saddlebirch stands proudly over our retrieved treasure.  Triumphantly, as if a conqueror, is a more fitting description.  With that smug look atop his rigid frame and hands on his hips, one would think that he and he alone recovered this fifth codex.  All that is missing is an oversized American flag behind him rippling with the breeze.

“
Americans
,” Dr. Leitz snickers.  His eyes had obviously followed mine.  He then looks west with a slight nod and I do the same.  Not the original operator, but Korzhak, sits in the crane operator’s seat.  With a piece of ice held against his jaw, the first operator sulks close by.

I
did
hear a punch!  In too much pain to get to my feet, I stay kneeling.  My eyes stray back to the ice.  Soon after, a shadow casts itself over me.

“Good … you are safe,” Dr. Korzhak says dryly.  “Just as I said you would be.”  I look up in shock.

“
Safe?  Seriously?
  Do you not see me,
here
, bleeding, gasping for every breath … scared out of my wits … waiting to catch with frozen hands a pounding heart just ready to leap through my throat?”

“Are you dead?  At risk of dying at this moment?”

As much in disbelief from this conversation as to answer, I shake my shivering head.  “But … but … that is not the ––”

“Then you are safe,” Korzhak interrupts curtly.  “I promised nothing more.”  With a step in the air and turned away from me, he looks back.  “We never discussed
comfort
, only safety.”  And with that same clumsy strut I had first noticed a few hours earlier, he walks away.

“
Je suppose que vous voulez une bouteille de vodka pour vos ennuis!
[6]
” I yell at his back end.  This is useless, but I am getting the last word in edgewise no matter what.