The Weird Company (2 page)

Preparations were completed on January 21
st
and after a period of rest Lake’s team of twelve men and thirty-seven dogs boarded the four aircraft and at 0400 departed in a northwestern direction guided by the sensitive magnetic instruments operated by Carroll. The sky was clear and calm which made flying nearly comfortable for passengers, which were confined in the tight and cheerless compartments of the Dornier Whales with not only the sledges and equipment but the dogs as well. A safety precaution instituted by Mills required that each plane carry at least one sledge and seven dogs so that the loss of any one aircraft would not entirely eliminate this method of transportation. At 0545 we had travelled more than 300 miles from our origin and Lake ordered us to the ground. While the physicists set about recalibrating their equipment and refining their calculations, Mills and Fowler began drilling almost immediately with Lake and I inspecting the samples as they came up out of the bore. Meanwhile Watkins and Orrendorf prepared the materials necessary to widen the boreholes into larger shafts.

At 1100 using a combination of thermite and explosives, Watkins widened the shallow borehole and after clearing away the rubble Daniels descended and began to deliver samples back to the surface. Lake was ecstatic. The slate samples were ripe with those strange large triangular depressions that he was sure were from some unknown and extinct organism. What’s more, these samples were found to be mixed with fossils that we easily identified as belonging to the trilobite genus Phacopid that flourished in the Devonian. Lake was so stunned by how the number of triangular marks increased dramatically from between the two samples that it was left to me to point out the more startling implication. Using fossilized species as a guide the original samples had been dated back to the Carboniferous period, approximately three hundred million years, while the new samples dated back to the Devonian, approximately four hundred million years, whole species; whole phyla, had arisen and gone extinct in that time period. The first rooted plants had moved onto land, as had insects and other invertebrates. The first true sharks had appeared, as had amphibians. Yet while all this had happened across the face of the Earth, those marks, those strange triangular marks had not changed in size or shape whatsoever, their source had remained unchanged for more than one hundred million years. Yet as we tried to comprehend the implications of these unprecedented samples, Daniels delivered to us yet another sample that shattered all of our preconceived notions of evolution and geological prehistory. Daniels had sent to the surface yet another piece of slate, this one dotted with the undeniable forms of the Agnostida, trilobites, animals not seen on Earth since the early Cambrian, more than six hundred million years ago. And there amongst the clusters of ancient invertebrates were the unmistakable and undeniable triangular marks of a species that had wandered the Earth apparently unchanged for more than three hundred million years.

At noon, Lake made a cursory report to Pabodie via the wireless and then took Atwood aside out of earshot of the rest of the group. When they returned they revealed that they had set about formulating what I would consider the most devious of plans, one that would require the involvement of the entire group, and guarantee our place in the annals of science. There was no question in either Lake or Atwood’s mind that the group would soon have in its possession a find of either geological or biological significance, possibly both. It was also without doubt that as soon as such a find was reported, Pabodie and Dyer would demand that a plane be sent so that they could join the investigation. Once present it was inevitable that Pabodie would assume not only control but also credit as well. Lake and Atwood’s notion was to manufacture a storm, to report a gale strong enough to deter any air travel, effectively stranding Pabodie where he was and making sure he got no credit for their work. Not surprisingly every member of the team readily agreed and the plot to deceive was set in motion.

By 1500 we had broken down our drill site, reloaded the planes, and following the course determined by Carroll and Moulton, headed further northwest. Lake made a short and frantic report about crosswinds and a tremendous gale wreaking havoc with the planes. Dyer immediately responded in protest, but Lake chuckled and replied that new specimens were worth any and all risks. As Lake turned off the radio the three of us erupted into riotous laughter, and Orrendorf passed around a flask of bourbon from which we all drank. In that moment of common deceitfulness I knew the true bonds of brotherhood.

After several hours of flight we reached a vast plateau in the shadow of a tremendous mountain range that Daniels suggested would rival the Himalayas. Moulton indicated that his instruments needed to be recalibrated and Carroll indicated agreement, so at approximately 2200 we set down on the plateau and estimated our coordinates as 76
o
15’ and 113
o
South and 10’ West. From the comfort of the ground Lake reported to Pabodie on the massive mountain range using the most hyperbolic of language. Thirty minutes later Lake made contact with Pabodie once more, telling him this time that Moulton’s plane had been forced down and severely damaged. No one had been hurt in the faux crash, but Lake reported that the team was busy transferring equipment in case the Dornier was unsalvageable.

In the meanwhile, Daniels had begun a series of test borings searching for an appropriate spot to drill more deeply, while I and the others set about making camp and catching several hours of sleep. Once Lake was satisfied that Daniels had things well in hand, he and Carroll took one of the planes and went up to deploy the magnetically sensitive instruments over those massive peaks in hopes of pinpointing the exact location of the Small Magnet. The plane returned to our camp at midnight with the required data in hand. The secondary magnetic source was, based on calculations, not far from our camp. We could be there in a matter of hours. After some debate, the team decided that I and Lake would continue work at this location, while after several hours of sleep, Atwood, Daniels, Carroll and Moulton would venture forth in two of the planes in search of their strange magnetic anomaly. Had we only known what was to occur next, we would never have wasted such precious time on redistributing materials amongst the planes.

If Captain Douglas has followed the proper protocols, if Pabodie or Dyer, or any of the expedition has returned to civilization, then the basic facts of what occurred next should be known. However, as our expedition was already committed to a certain level of deception, it should not surprise the reader that certain details reported by our team to the others via the wireless, and then onto the world, were less than accurate. I should also say that the events of that day January 23
rd
, 1931, are in my mind not entirely clear. The rapid pace of events, my physical and mental exhaustion, coupled with a significant trauma to my head makes recalling the events of the day and their order extremely difficult. It is my full intent that the account I lay down here is as accurate as I can remember it.

Early in the morning Lake reported that our rouse was in jeopardy. A talk with Douglas and Dyer had led to the conclusion that Pabodie, Danforth and the rest of the staff would be joining us at our new camp as soon as possible, and that any future transportation to and from Ross Island would be over Lake’s newly discovered mountain range. Sensing that his ability to direct his own research was about to cease, he, Atwood and Carroll quickly prepared one of the aircraft and took off in a desperate search for another, perhaps more productive, site and the strange magnetic anomaly. In doing so Lake made it clear to me that if the next three hours of test borings did not produce I should be prepared to move to another site.

Given such a short timeframe I quickly reset the drill team to an area about a quarter of a mile away from the camp in an outcropping of soft sandstone. The drilling was easy, and much progress was made with little supplemental blasting. Approximately one hour after we had begun, the rock being brought up suddenly changed. We had apparently run into a vein of Comanchian limestone and almost instantly we were rewarded with the most magnificent of specimens including minute fossils of cephalopods, corals, and other marine invertebrates as well as the occasional suggestion of bones which I recognized as being from sharks, teliosts and ganoid fish. As I marveled at such finds, for these were the first vertebrate fossils we had found during the entire expedition, my attention wavered from the drill and was only brought back when Mills and Orrendorf suddenly began yelling. The drill mechanism had begun oscillating wildly back and forth, kicking up large chunks of rock which were being launched at terrific speeds in all directions. A rock the size of a golf ball flew past and imbedded itself in the ice beside me. Other pieces ricocheted off the drill itself leaving dents and gashes in the casing. Orrendorf had taken refuge behind a case of drill bits, while Mills had taken to cowering behind the spoil mound. Knowing that I was responsible for not only the drill but what also appeared to be an extraordinary fossil bed, I foolishly ran headlong for the motor engine all the time being pelted by a torrent of rock and ice. I flinched once as something hard caught me in the fleshy part of my cheek, but carried through with my resolve, reached the gas engine and quickly turned it off.

Without power, the drill slowed down and there arose the most horrendous of sounds. It was a cracking noise, a great cacophony of something ancient shattering, fragmenting into shards and dust as we stood beside it unable to act. A great cloud arose and the drill, suddenly denied of support, tilted forward, swung wildly and then settled slowly onto its side. When the dust and ice had cleared we emerged from our various shelters and beheld the most spectacular of sights. A portion of the limestone vein had caved in, creating an opening about five feet across that opened into a shallow hollow. Fearing another cave-in, the three of us cautiously crawled across the ice to the edge of the newly opened cavern and peered down into what had until recently been a stygian darkness. The hollow was no more than eight feet deep but extended off in all directions. The roof and floor were abundant with stalactites and stalagmites, some of which met to form the most spectacular of crystalline columns. But most importantly, what set me rushing back to greet Lake’s plane was the vast wash of shells and bones that seemed to cover the entire floor of the cavern.

It was just after 1400 when we finished securing the winch and our team carefully lowered down into the cavern. Within minutes all of us had realized that we had discovered what was possibly the greatest cache of paleontological samples ever discovered. We quickly identified the most amazing diversity of samples I had ever seen including mollusks, crustaceans, primitive sharks, placoderms, thecodonts, mosasaur skulls, pterodactyls, archeopteryx, primitive horses, and titanotheres. There were however no Pleistocene samples, no mastodons, camels or deer, and thus we concluded that the cavern had not received any new materials for at least thirty million years. There was however a curious abundance of primitive life generally found in the Silurian and the Ordovician, which seemed a tremendous contradiction to the latter more evolved species and the rock in which they were imbedded which was without a doubt Oligocene in origin. The fantastical conclusion that we drew from such information was that in some manner the life of more than three hundred million years ago had continued unabated and uninterrupted, mixing with the species that we knew had come into existence only about fifty million years ago.

It was at this point that Lake scribbled a hasty note and handed it to Moulton for dispatch over the wireless. The young engineering student had not been gone for more than five minutes before Fowler began calling for Lake and I to come and examine a large section of sandstone. For there in the relatively young sedimentary rock were several distinct triangular striated prints nearly identical to those we had found in the slate samples at other sites. There were some minor differences, the new samples were smaller and the markings bore a slight curvature at the end, Lake postulated that these markings indicated that the species might be undergoing a reversion, returning to a more primitive or decadent form, although I disagreed on drawing such conclusions based on limited data. Regardless I concurred with the note he quickly jotted and handed to Mills suggesting that our discoveries would be as important to biology as Einstein was to physics, as they would seem to indicate a remnant species surviving from a previous cycle of life prior to that currently in dominance perhaps a billion years old.

Lake had barely finished dispatching another radio message when Atwood brought our attention to several of the large vertebrate fossils, which showed strange wounds. These injuries seemed to fall into two categories, first there were the skulls of which we found more than a dozen, all showing a straight strangely smooth penetrating bore into the brain cavity. The other markings were on the long bones of the legs and consisted of straight lines perpendicular to the bone itself, which effectively bisected the bones in a single cut, though we found several examples in which the final cut was apparently preceded by multiple false starts. Neither Lake nor I could conceive of a predatory species to which we could attribute such marks.

Another note hastily dispatched, and another call of amazement. One of the men, I cannot remember who, had found a peculiar fragment of green soapstone about six inches across and an inch and a half thick shaped like a five-pointed star. The thing was curiously smooth and the angles were cleaved inwards. Carroll and I brought the thing up and into the light and placed it beneath his magnifying glass and he swore he could make out tiny dots grouped into regular patterns. As he twisted it back and forth in the light of the polar sun there arose from behind him the most peculiar of sounds; the dogs that were still harnessed to the sledge with which we had brought up the equipment had suddenly begun whining in the most distressing of manners. The whining of the dogs turned to yelps and then growls as Carroll came in to calm them, only to be snapped at as he came too close. As he drew suddenly back the stone slipped from Carroll’s hand and onto the ice beside the sledge. The dogs reared up from the thing in panic, growling in terror and fear as the sledge went over on its side the dogs retreated behind it with only their whimpering yelps to betray them.