Deborah Jackson

Chapter One

 

You’re insane, thought Kat. As she clung to the spear of limestone that projected into the river, she felt it again—a heart-stopping shift in the rock. Isn’t it enough that you drove them this deep? she berated herself. Now you’re risking their lives! She half-turned and looked at Ray, who clawed at the slick rock, battling the turbulent current of the sump, despite all his skill. Beyond him, the two inexperienced cave divers clutched the rope she’d secured to them, as tightly fixed as the nodes on the wall.

 

But if you don’t keep going . . .

 

“This rock’s weak,” she said to the others. “Don’t use it when you reach this point. I’ll try to find a more stable one.”

​

“I think we should go back,” said Ray. His voice came out as a tinny squawk on the underwater PA system.

 

Kat caught the gleam of his eye in the faint light cast from her helmet. Damn Ray. Mr. I-don’t-care-if-it’s-a-sheer-drop-into-hell was now the voice of reason?

 

“No,” she said, ignoring the nagging voice in her head. “Not yet. If we just descend a little farther, we’ll find a dry tunnel.”

 

“And more specimens,” said Pete. “We haven’t collected many yet.”

 

Kat felt another wobble in the rock. She reached for a more solid handhold.

 

“I’m ready to turn back,” said Megan, gasping as if the effort of hanging on was too much for her. “There’s no sign . . . that the Mayans . . . ever came down this far.”

 

Kat clutched the next rock node, the last remnant of some outcrop of karst that hadn’t been polished clean by the water. She dug her fingers into a groove at the side.

 

“There is something waiting to be discovered down below,” she argued. “I just know it, after what they’ve found in other caves and seafloor vents. Even on Mars. We have to keep going.”

 

“Kat, this is crazy. You said the rock was unstable,” said Ray. “And the current here is too strong. If we lose our grip, we’ll be swept away. No one comes back from that.”

 

“Just ten more meters,” she insisted.

 

Kat turned and gripped the next knob of rock, hauling the others along with the rope. They each had to copy her movements, clinging to the rock wall like spiders, just to keep the current from catching them and flinging them downstream. At this point in the channel, the current was so wild it whipped up a lather of bubbles, obscuring any view ahead. Kat reached blindly, latching onto another rocky handhold. But as her full weight rested on the next projection, the rock shivered. It twisted and shuddered and grated. Then it ripped free of the wall.

 

Kat screamed as the water punched her forward, dislodging Ray, Pete, and Megan too. Caught in the current, she flailed helplessly, her head crunching again and again on the walls. The flashlight in her helmet flickered, as it crashed into the tongues of rock and, all too soon, it was snuffed out.

 

This was it then, the end. She was flying blindly through a narrow stream framed by rocky outcrops that could snap her limbs and split her skull. The dark wrapped around her like a suffocating blanket, preventing her from grabbing any lifeline that might be within reach, and the force of the current pummeled her chest so violently she couldn’t even scream. Kat waited for the last brain-nullifying impact.

 

But it didn’t come.

 

Incredibly, and without warning, she bobbed up like a buoy into empty space. It must be an open chamber, but the suction pulled her under again before she could react.

 

Oh no, you don’t.

 

She pumped her legs. Her hands plowed through the water until she bounced up into the cavity again. Now, to stay there.

Kat grappled for a handhold in the dark and finally found purchase in a slippery crack. It took the last scrap of strength she had to pull herself out of the water and onto a flat surface. She flipped up her mask and gasped the stale, dank air.

 

Sanctuary.

 

But it wasn’t over yet. Ray, Pete, and Megan were still attached to the rope, and as the current swept them past and sucked them farther down the stream, it wrenched Kat from the solid ground and into the water again. At the last second she shot out a hand and just managed to clamp onto a jagged spear of rock. She had to hold fast or they were all dead. Somehow she had to pull them out.

 

Struggling against the vortex, Kat slapped another hand on the rock. Although it was smooth and slick—maybe a stalagmite—she managed to haul herself up, wedging a knee behind the limestone fragment.

 

She was out of the water now, but the noose about her waist felt like it could slice her in half. Keep going. Just a little bit more. Using the stalagmite as a pulley, she dragged the ropes around it. She heard the faint crumbling of calcite as she liberated the first team member from the water.

 

The suction snapped like a plug suddenly popped free from a drain. Kat felt Ray flop beside her, the seal-slick neoprene brushing her leg. He gasped and smacked wet palms on the porous rock. She hauled again on the rope, wincing as she heard chunks of limestone break off of the stalagmite and tumble to the ground with a hollow clatter. But the drag lessened when Ray caught his breath and added his biceps to the task. Out came Pete—the lesser weight—and then Megan, releasing the strain altogether. Kat could hear them panting as they stripped off their rebreathers.

 

“Thanks,” rasped Megan. “Thought we were goners.”

 

Kat collapsed on the stone slab, feeling the throb and sting of bruises and cuts. A sharper pain jabbed her leg—the one she’d sliced open six hundred meters above on a razor fragment of rock. She’d probably ripped it further. She couldn’t see anything, but her hearing was acute in the oppressive darkness. The slosh of the water from the sump was punctuated by a steady drip . . . drip . . . drip . . . of condensation from the ceiling of the cavern.You . . . stupid . . . idiot . . . Kat listened to the rhythm for the space of a few heartbeats before she responded.

 

“Thought we were, too.” She peeled off her helmet and neoprene cap. Chuckling nervously, she ran a trembling hand through her damp hair. “Thought I was going to meet my Maker. But I wasn’t ready for it. Not quite yet, anyway.”

 

Tentative fingers touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?” asked Ray.

 

“Never better.” She ignored the throbbing in her chest. “Does anyone have a light? Mine must have smashed against the rock, and I guess yours did too, Pete.” Ray and Megan had gone without in order to save batteries.

 

“I can find my extra,” said Pete. She heard a rustling and the plastic whine of a zipper. “Got it.”

 

He flicked on a beam, which slashed through the darkness and painted the rock with a pearly glow. Thick columns of limestone surrounded them, glistening tree trunks of white. The wall was three meters away, and to the side, a narrow crack in the stone seemed the only extension of the cave besides the sump. Kat could feel a shy breeze brush her face.

 

“Well, I could think of worse places to end up,” said Ray, smiling. His silver-streaked mustache sparkled in the pale light. “At least there’s air. There could be an open passage to an even deeper shaft.”

 

“You’re right,” said Kat. “Despite the fact that we nearly died, this may turn out to be a good thing. The walls are glistening—they’re probably slimy with microbial life. We still have our packs and the line. We can just explore here for a while and haul ourselves out again.”

 

“Um,” said Megan. “I think we have a problem.”

 

Kat turned toward her. “A problem?”

 

Megan held up the guideline. It had been severed two meters behind her. “I was just happy it didn’t snap in front of me.”

 

Kat smothered a curse. What more could go wrong? “I guess we have to call for help.” She sloughed off her waterproof pack and zipped it open. She’d placed a series of miniature radio relays every one hundred and fifty meters so she could communicate with the men topside who were monitoring their progress. Pete’s men from the pharmaceutical company and a caver called Harding. She rummaged through her pack and extracted the case that should contain the radio.  It was empty. It must have snapped open inside the pack during their white-water ride through the sump. Kat rooted frantically through her pack and unearthed the radio. What was left of it. Wires and shards of black casing dangled from her hand.

 

“Damn,” she said. “It’s trashed.” She rested her head against the pack. She couldn’t believe this. They were trapped at two thousand meters. No hope of rescue. Even this last sump was something very few cavers would risk.

 

“What’s the problem?” asked Pete. “All we have to do is go back the way we came.”

 

Three heads swung toward him.

 

“Well, gee, Pete,” said Ray. “How do you suppose we do that? Have you ever swum against the current in white water?”

 

Pete bit his lip and shook his head.

 

“Imbecile,” said Ray, reverting to his native French, something he only did when he was upset or angry. “We can’t get out through the sump. But maybe there’s another tunnel.”

 

Kat smiled. Never say trapped to a caver. If you can belly crawl a mile underground, you can find a way out. “Right,” she said. “We’ll get what we came for, then we’ll find the exit.”

 

She stood up and gazed at the magnificent thicket of stalactites and columns. Like fine white icicles, delicate soda straws pointed waxy tips into the air above her head. There were bound to be microbes here. Undetected, unchallenged microfingers that tickled life from the rock itself.

 

“This could be the place,” she said. A stab of pain from beneath the old surgery scar made her grunt and double over.

 

“Kat, are you okay?” asked Megan.

 

“Sure,” she gasped. Just dying.