Everyone sat forward as they followed the dotted line, branching off the main river, with notations, such as: Covered River, Shallows, Sunken Idol, River Of Paradise, Swamp, And Forest Of Tree Ferns.
Drake nodded slowly. “Not bad.”
Fergus grunted. “Scale is probably up the shit; but yeah, it’s a good start. We can work with that.”
“We’ve worked with worse,” Brocke added.
Emma moved them on to some hand-drawn images collected together; there was the tepui from a distance, the massive edifice like a giant wave of rock rising from the jungle. The next was a temple with gargoylish sentinels on each side of the massive doorway.
Andy squinted and then stood, coming closer to the illuminated wall. He pointed and then turned to Helen. “The Snake God — the Yacumama.”
“Mother of the river,” Emma replied. “That’s what Jenny… ” Emma grimaced. “… called it.”
“How high is that tabletop?” Ajax asked.
“Probably about 1500 feet, give or take a hundred. Not the highest in the jungle, but it was sheer on all sides.” She walked closer, her arms folded. “There was a hidden passage in the temple, a chimney that we could climb all the way to the top. Took us several hours.”
“Okay, good,” Ajax said.
“No, not good, as it’s not there anymore. It… collapsed.”
“So we do it the hard way,” Drake responded. “Going to take a lot more time to scale. I know you have climbing experience, so does my team.” He turned to Andy and Helen. “Anyone else?”
“Well… ” Andy bobbed his head, his eyes looking up and to the left into his head, as though rummaging for the necessary experience.
“No,” Helen said firmly. “Neither of us.”
Andy looked to her and then sighed. “Nah, not really. Some gym stuff on the climbing wall, but nothing… outdoors.”
Ajax guffawed, momentarily showing his silver tooth. “Don’t sweat it; it’s exactly the same.” His grin widened. “Except you’re not gonna have some sap holding your line on the ground, and there won’t be little colored bits of plaster to hang onto, plus no cushioned mat to land on if you fall. Oh, and then there’s the bit about being higher than the tip of the Empire State Building. Otherwise, yeah, exactly the same.”
Emma couldn’t help smiling at the shade of pale Andy went. “There are other caves, or rather one other I know of. It was the one I came down in. But it was no easy climb and took two days. I don’t want us to waste the time and take the risk.”
“Take a chopper. I know some guys down there who’ll loan us a Hewie — armor-plated, and we can refit the gun, 50 cal. We’re in and out fast, and we got decisive firepower.” Drake opened his arms wide. “You’re welcome.”
“Own the sky, own the war.” Brocke clapped his hands together once.
“Too easy.” Fergus leaned across and bumped knuckles with the man.
“Won’t work,” Emma said. “In fact, nothing electronic will work. Whatever magnetic distortion the comet, Primordia, makes, it renders all electronic devices useless. The locals think it’s just some weird weather effects, maybe ball lightning, but they avoid the place for a week.”
Ajax lifted his chin. “Then we go early and wait. You said the effect of this distortion thing only occurred for a little over a day. So we get there the day before, and wait for it. When it’s over, and the effect’s gone, we fly out.”
“I thought of that,” Emma said. “And I’ve spent ten years researching the phenomena. In 1978, they dropped some survey beacons on the tabletop mountain we’re interested in. Afterward, when they went to recover them, they found they had vanished. Not just destroyed, but gone-gone, like they’d been canceled out of existence.”
Emma folded her arms. “My theory is that if you happen to be there when this effect begins, the distortion is so powerful as the doorway is opening that anything underneath is obliterated.”
“Well, that’s fucked up.” Ajax sat back.
Emma waggled a finger in the air. “I believe there’s another, faster, and safer way.”
CHAPTER 11
Ben settled down in his cave with one mud-crusted arm behind his head. The theropod meat he’d dined on was tough and needed to be chewed until his jaws ached. But it was tasty, and nourishing.
Loneliness was the mind killer now, and as he drifted off to sleep, he let his memory take him back to the only friend he ever had in this hellish place. He closed his eyes and dreamed.
Ben traveled mostly during the night, heading east. He had crossed the Venezuelan Coastal Range, a line of huge jagged mountains that ran along the northern coast. There were no roads, and the only paths were animal tracks, and following those was a high-risk option, as it invited ambush from wily predators on the lookout for unwary animals.
It had taken him over a month, but finally, at one of the peaks, he had stared down at the vast, blue ocean. It sparkled, calm, inviting, and azure as the sun rose over it. It took him the rest of the day, but by dusk, he had stood at a slope looking down onto long sandy beaches to his left, and to his right, steep cliffs to the water’s edge, with the dark and mysterious mouths of caves, some huge, some small.
Caves meant danger. But then again, empty caves meant safety, and even better if they were ones that were hard to get to. Ben could see that some of these caves were 50 feet up from the ground and were very promising indeed. It was there he headed first.
Ben stood peering down from the cliff that dropped 80 feet to a horseshoe-shaped, sandy beach. It had a fair-sized lagoon that was barricaded off from the ocean by a breakwater ring of jagged rocks.
He then got down on his belly to inch forward and looked down over the edge. One of the largest caves was about eight feet down and with a nice ledge he could navigate — big enough for him, but way too small for serious predators.
Ben rested on his arms. “Well, looks like I just found home for the night.”
He strapped his spear and woven bag to his back and started down. With the fading light, he peered around the edge — he sniffed — fishy shit odor, but that was it.
He clambered in, pulled his spear out, and crouched there for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. There were a few screaming pterodons, but tiny ones no bigger than gulls.
Ben smiled. “Hello, breakfast. Mind if I join you?”
He took off his pack and sat with his back to the rear of the cave, watching the sun set on a shimmering ocean. After a full day trekking, in another moment, his eyes became so heavy he didn’t even remember when he had fallen asleep.
CHAPTER 12
“I got it. HALO drop.” Brocke clapped his hands together. “High Altitude Low Opening. If the tabletop mountain, or tepui thing, is as big as you say, then we can drop from high up, and only open our chutes over the top. Plus, if we’re really high, maybe the magnetic disruption won’t be an issue.”
“Brilliant.” Fergus sat forward. “And if it is an issue, we jump out a couple of miles from our target site and glide to where we need to be.”
“Jesus, and I thought the cliff climbing was going to be tough.” Andy’s mouth dropped open. “I can’t do that.”
“That’s me out too.” Helen just looked wearied.
“None of us can,” Emma said. “Besides, how do we get off, if we were all ever to make it down in one piece?” Emma asked.