"Ready the robot arm. Extend it down one meter."
"But that would put it in contact with the surface of-"
"Exactly."
There was a pause. Then Rafferty spoke up. "Forgive my saying so, sir, but are you sure that's wise, given the apparent nature of-"
"I'm letting them know that we're accepting their gift."
Another pause. Then, murmuring something in Greek, Flyte turned to his station, grasped the arm's trigger mechanism.
On the screen, Korolis watched as the robotic arm came into view below the Marble. It moved forward hesitantly, a little jerkily, one steel finger extended. And once again his mind flashed back to his childhood trip to Rome. He remembered standing in the Sistine Chapel, staring upward, mouth agape, at Michelangelo's depiction of the Creation of Adam: the fingertips of God and man about to touch-the first moment of life-the start of a universe…
The arm came in contact with the glasslike surface. It dimpled inward, like transparent gelatin.
Korolis thought he heard a faint singing, a low susurrus of sound like a choir atop a distant mountain. This is what it is like to touch eternity…
Instantly, the two sentinels floating on either side winked out of sight. One moment they were there; the next they were gone, ghostly reflections now of mere memory. As he stared, a bright light bloomed deep within the cavity below them. It had the golden brilliance of a tiny sun. And its fierce light suddenly revealed all the secrets of that deep void. Korolis gasped, stunned, as its true enormity-and the staggering, overwhelming number of artifacts contained within it-was laid bare.
This was a cache of death that could threaten the entire cosmos.
"If just one could blow up a solar system, why do they need thousands?" he muttered.
In the sudden silence, Flyte asked a question. "Do you know why the Parthenon is such a ruin?"
This was so bizarre that Korolis turned toward the old man despite himself.
"The Turks," he went on, once again sounding serious. "They used it as a munitions depot in the eighteenth century. A stray shell blew it up. This is the same thing, Commander. It's a weapons dump, the fruit of some intergalactic arms race. Something far beyond our technical comprehension."
"That's rubbish," Korolis said. "Has Dr. Crane been talking to you?"
"I'm afraid it's not rubbish. We were never meant to find this. These weapons were buried so they could never be found or used. Because they could absolutely destroy not only the world, but this section of the universe."
"Sir!" Rafferty said. "I'm getting some very strange readings."
"What kind of readings?"
"I've never seen anything like it. A completely alien energy signature. And it's moving toward us at a tremendous rate of speed."
"'A generation of men is like a generation of leaves,'" Flyte sang in a low, mournful, dirgelike voice. "'And the season of spring comes on.'"
As he turned back to the viewscreen, Korolis realized the sun that had blossomed into existence far below them was not so tiny, after all. The singing grew louder, became an unearthly shriek. A moment later, Korolis realized the sunlike object was moving-passing by the sentinels and the artifacts, bomb artifacts, so quickly now they were mere blurs of color. For a brief moment, something about its single-minded trajectory reminded him of an antiaircraft missile. And then, as it drew closer and became clearer, it no longer looked like anything he'd ever seen before; racing up through the void toward him, growing and still growing until its fiery light filled the entire viewscreen, flinging off tongues of flame in bright angry curls like molten shavings…
…And then-as it engulfed Marble Three and erupted up the tunnel, vaporizing Korolis's flesh and carbonizing his bones in less than a millisecond-there was no time to feel surprise, or fear, or even pain.
61
"Thirty seconds," the tech at the control panel said. "Maximum buoyancy achieved."
Vanderbilt looked up from the instrumentation. "Hang on, people. This is going to be a rough ride."
Below, the sounds of gunshots had ceased.
Crane looked around. The escape pod had gone utterly still now, and in the faint blue light the sea of faces looked drawn, tense, worried.
"Ten seconds," the tech said.
"Ejection sequence initiating," said Vanderbilt.
Now Crane could hear-echoing up through the entrance tube-the clang of some metallic object against the outer hatch. Over his shoulder, somebody began to pray loudly. Crane reached over and took Hui Ping's hands in his.
"Ejection under way," said the tech.
There was a sharp jolt, the grinding of metal on metal, and then the escape pod shot upward like a cork. Crane felt himself pressed into his seat as they rocketed toward the surface. He glanced down through the porthole but could see only a storm of bubbles, illum-mated by the pod's running lights.
At that moment, he heard a strange sound. It was low, almost at the threshold of audibility, and it seemed to come from far below. It sounded as if the earth itself was crying out in pain. The escape pod trembled in a way that had nothing to do with their rapid ascent.
There was a sudden confusion of shouts and groans. Beside him, Hui suddenly raised a hand to her face. "My ears," she said.
"Change in air pressure," Crane told her. "Try swallowing or yawning. Or the Valsalva maneuver."
"The what?"
"Pinch your nose and shut your mouth, then try forcing air through your nostrils. It helps equalize the pressure in your ears."
He glanced downward through the porthole again, searching for the source of the strange roar. The welter of bubbles had cleared and he could just make out the curve of the dome, already hundreds of feet below them now, its cluster of lights like the faintest of stars in a black sky. As he watched, they faded from view, and all was dark.
Then-just as he was about to look away-an explosion of light came from below.
It was almost as if the entire ocean had suddenly been illuminated. Crane had a brief vision of the sea floor-stretching away in all directions like a grayish lunar plain. Countless bizarre and alien-looking deepwater fish hung below him. Then the brightness became too intense and he had to turn away.
"What the hell?" he heard Vanderbilt say.
The porthole was like a lightbulb, bathing the inside of the escape pod in brilliant yellow. But even as he looked, Crane noticed that the light was beginning to fade. More sounds came from below now: sharp booms and rat-a-tats like a legion of enormous fireworks. He leaned forward again, squinting into the porthole. He caught his breath.
"Oh, my God," he breathed.
In the light reflecting upward from the ocean floor, he could just make out the dome. It had been abruptly blown open, peeled back like a banana. Inside it, he could see unearthly flashes of red and brown and yellow, a furious cascade of explosions as the Facility tore itself apart.
And there was something else: a massive shock wave-roiling and churning like a living thing-boiling upward toward them at a furious rate.
He sat up instantly, grabbing Hui Ping with one hand and the safety railing with the other. "Brace for impact!" he yelled.
A moment of terrible anticipation…and then the pod was abruptly thrown on its side, nearly upended by the force of the wave. There were cries, screams. The lights went out, and the only illumination was the dying yellow light from below. Crane clung grimly to Hui as they were shaken violently back and forth. Someone went tumbling across the cabin, colliding with a safety railing and sinking to the floor with a groan. More screams, shouts for help. There was a popping sound, then a hiss of water.
"Seal that breach!" Vanderbilt shouted to the tech above the tumult.
"What is it?" Hui asked, her face pressed against Crane's shoulder.