Slater took a long look at the door, enjoying Aston’s discomfort as he stood beside her, too scared to move away after she had stopped him. But the door held her attention. It felt somehow alien to her but she had no rational way to explain why. Discomforted herself now, she drove away the eerie feeling by focusing on a more powerful emotion: her desire to punch Aston in the throat. She took his elbow and yanked him back toward the door, then took up position next to him, and turned toward the camera.
He started to protest and she gave him a hard stare and held her index finger in front of his face. He shut up like a told off school boy. She turned back to the camera, caught Marla’s nod that she was ready, and said, “Three… two… one…,” then paused a moment before her television face fell down like a mask. With a soft smile, she said, “Believe it or not, this is Sam Afton…”
“Aston,” he said meekly, his expression annoyed and cowed at the same time.
“My apologies, Mister Aston.” She turned back to the camera. “Sam Aston is a member of the team,” she said, enjoying the juvenile pleasure of intentionally omitting any credentials. “Mister Aston, what can you tell us about this door, on the far side of a huge cavern, hundreds of feet beneath the Antarctic surface?”
He frowned, swallowed, shook his head. “I’m really not sure. It’s not necessarily my area of expertise.”
“Is it proof of life beneath Antarctica?”
From the corner of her eye she watched Sol and Dig smirking, enjoying her putting of Aston on the spot almost as much as she was. She remembered how resistant he was at Kaarme too, never even suggesting a theory he couldn’t prove. And how uncomfortable he was in front of the camera every time she had it pointed at him. And now he almost squirmed under the eye of the lens, and the others grinning at him.
“Maybe you should ask Dig,” he tried. “It’s probably more his…”
“What do you think could have made the door, Mister Aston? From among known Antarctic life, I mean?”
“I’m really not sure…”
“Do you believe subterranean penguins did it? Or Antarctic Terrestrial Invertebrates?” While she was enjoying her mockery of him, she realized it was also a cover for how much the presence of the door had disturbed her. She found herself perturbed by everything since the elevator had gone so deep, and was using her anger at Aston to deal with it.
“Penguins?” Aston said, forcing a smile. “What?”
“You said the door looks similar. Similar to what?”
Aston’s forced smile melted into a frown. “I know you’re not happy with me right now, but you know what? We’re done here.” He turned and stormed away.
Slater watched him go, then turned her attention to Sol, who startled slightly to find himself suddenly under her scrutiny, the grin sliding off his face.
“Sol Griffin, expedition leader,” she said. “What do you know about the door?”
“Not much,” he replied, rallying as the camera turned to pin him in its gaze. “The survivor of the twentieth-century expedition reported seeing it. Otherwise, we haven’t studied it yet.”
“And what’s on the other side?” Slater asked.
Sol smiled. “You’re going to find out very soon.”
5
Halvdan Landvik sat pensively in his office on London’s Threadneedle Street, one finger stroking his neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard as he looked at a painting on the wall opposite. It was large, dark tones of old oil paint in browns, reds, yellows, by Mårten Eskil Winge from 1872, depicting Thor’s Fight with the Giants. Landvik stared at the hammer Thor held high, yellow lightning arcing around it. He shook his head, thinking of what was lost. Of what might have been. He supposed he should be grateful to be alive, but sometimes that seemed like small consolation. The anger that boiled in his gut at those events would likely never go away. No matter, he could use that as fuel for future endeavors. A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
“Come.”
Two nervous-looking employees, Cooper and Waite, entered. Cooper was tall and thin, completely bald. Waite was of a bigger build, but shorter, his hair dark and curly. Both of them largely useless. Genuinely good quality help was almost impossible to find. Landvik watched them, his mood soured further by their obvious weakness. Where were the strong any more? Where were the heroes in this age of digital excess and human frailty? They were clearly waiting for permission to speak.
“Well?” he snapped. “What do you have to report?”
“Our man is successfully embedded with the team,” Cooper said.
Landvik nodded approvingly. At least his underlings could do one thing right. “What else?”
“Our operatives are on their way. They’ll be ready to strike at the appropriate time.”
“Good. I’m pleased that something is going to plan.”
“Should we not simply go ahead and take the base?” Waite asked.
“No. Let SynGreen’s team do all the hard work for us, then we’ll strike. No point making unnecessary work for our lot. The scientists will work harder if they believe they’re doing it for a financial reward, and not under duress. The carrot is more effective than the stick.” They both nodded, but made no move to leave. “I sense you have more questions,” Landvik said, his voice tired. “Reservations, perhaps?”
“Honestly, sir,” Cooper said. “We’re a little confused at your interest in this project. It all seems a bit sketchy, not to mention nearly impossible to believe.”
“Really? Why don’t you let me worry about that?”
“Can it be true though, sir?” Waite pressed. “A new source of energy?”
Landvik took out a folder from his desk drawer, opened it and thumbed through the several sheets inside. He had no intention of letting these two fools actually study the material, but often seeing some physical evidence helped people accept a truth. “I found confirmation of a sort in the form of this record. It’s from a pre-WWII Russian expedition to the very place SynGreene have set up their base. The Russians were in search of a powerful energy source, one they thought could make them the greatest superpower in the world. They ran into problems, unexplained in these documents. But of course, survival in the Antarctic that long ago was fraught with danger.” The two men still appeared puzzled. “What don’t you understand?” Landvik asked, losing patience.
“Well, this company isn’t exactly an energy corporation,” Cooper said, raising his palms.
Landvik smiled. “I’m not interested in the energy potential. That is for others to consider. I am interested in the military potential. Trust me, this is going to change the world.”
6
Aston loitered near the back of the cavern by the elevator, stung by Slater’s verbal assault. He knew he deserved her anger, but that little ambush had been downright juvenile. At the thought, he couldn’t help a smile tugging his lips. In a way, he had to respect her for it. Maybe it was one step nearer to them having an actual conversation. At least public mockery was a level up from icy snubbing.
He watched as Slater did a piece to camera beside the stone door. She was a professional, and she deserved so much better than this. There was no reason she couldn’t front a serious show on the major networks. She had the looks, the presence, the eloquence. Sometimes, the world threw the strangest curveballs at people. The same could be said for himself, he supposed, staring past Slater at the mysterious markings on the smooth door. The door that filled him with a kind of dread. It marked a point where everything about this trip changed. Where he could no longer pretend things weren’t awry here. But, he had to remind himself, the presence of a door like the one under Lake Kaarme didn’t mean a prehistoric monster like the one they had encountered there also lurked here. Though that beast had been a guardian, if the local legends were to be believed. So maybe there wasn’t a cretaceous throwback here, but could there be a different type of guardian? Was it possible, or was he projecting his own fear? But his fear was well-founded. The temperate conditions, the strangely glowing fungus, the obviously man-made door. Or something-made, anyway. It all pointed to problems Aston didn’t want to run into. But what choice did he have now? He was committed to the job, even though Sol had said he could leave at any time. He questioned the truth of that, though he wasn’t committed to Sol, but to his own curiosity.