Dan put his hands on his hips and turned about. “I can make a few educated guesses based on spot signal black outs in remote areas.” He turned to face them. “Signal jamming, shielding, or my favorite guess, a meteorite.”
“Huh?” Steve’s brows came together. “Did you say meteorite?”
“Yep.” Dan shrugged. “There’s a phenomenon that occurs sometimes where a large iron-based meteorite or meteorite fragments are scattered about — it can partially, or totally, disrupt signals. All I’m saying is, that maybe millions of years ago, it fell to earth and the entire mass is buried here, creating a slightly magnetic field and disrupting our signals.”
Dan looked up. “You know, if it’s this strong, it’d also cause a grey zone on satellite imagery.” He chuckled. “And that is real cool.”
The rain started to fall again, heavier. Andrea looked miserable. “Why?” she asked. “Why is it cool?”
He turned to her. “Because it means that with satellite blackout, and the remoteness, and the superstition keeping the locals away, and also that permanent cloud cover, means this place simply doesn’t exist on any map. We’re invisible.”
“But it does,” Jenny said. “This place has been mapped before. There are satellite images.”
“It only happens every 10 years,” Emma added. “So not something permanent.”
There was silence for a few moments before Ben grunted. “Maybe not in the wettest months… every 10 years or so.” He turned his head slightly. “In the notebook, Benjamin remarked that there was a window of opportunity when the hidden place was able to be found. Could this weird magnetic thing have any bearing on that?”
“No.” Dan’s mouth was turned down.
“Yes,” Emma shot back. “I think Dan might be partially right.”
Dan’s brows went up. “Oh yeah?”
Emma folded her arms. “What if it’s not a meteorite, but a comet? What if the effects are being felt, but it never actually crashed here, but was just passing by.” She grinned. “Like once every 10 years.”
“Fucking brilliant.” Dan clapped. “That could do it. Especially if this is the absolute closest point on the Earth where it makes its pass, or apparition as they call it. This is the focal disruption point. Maybe it creates some sort of humungous magnetic storm.”
“Passes once every 10 years and generates a humongous magnetic storm, giving this place the wettest of months.” Ben thought it through as something nagged at him.
“Sure, I mean there are hundreds of comets shooting through our solar system. They are swung from the sun, they return, and then head back out after a few days.” Dan’s eyes were bright now.
“Must hurry, only days until Primordia returns,” Ben said softly. He looked up. “That was a notation in Benjamin’s notebook.”
“Yes.” Dan pointed at Ben’s chest. “They give comets two names; a scientific name, and a nickname. I bet Primordia is the name of the comet that returns once every 10 years — he only had days until it was returning.”
“Like it did for Benjamin in 1908.” Ben turned to Emma. “We saw it; the streak in the sky.”
“Oh shit; you’re right. It must have been the comet’s tail.” Her mouth hung open.
“It’s called a coma,” Dan said.“So, it is a comet.”
“And now it’s back again for us in 2018.” Steve held his arms wide. “We’re here at the right time.” He held his hand out, letting raindrops fall onto it. “The wettest season.”
“This is so cool.” Andrea clapped her small hands.
Ben pulled out his long bush knife and slashed it into the trunk of a large tree several times, marking an arrowhead formation. “From now on, we’ll need to blaze a trail. With no compass, GPS, stars or sun to follow, we’ve only got line of sight.” He looked back out at the jungle. “Getting lost in here will be a fast trip to hell.”
After another few hours, the ground leveled out a little more and once again, the jungle started closing in. Andrea continually complained now, of being tired, having sore feet, of her thirst and headache. She also seemed to be turning Steve into her personal servant. Ben smiled. Perhaps Steve didn’t mind at all.
The tree trunks started to get closer together, and once again, the ever-present vines started to slow their progress. Ben turned to see Jenny had stopped to examine a peculiar-looking tree trunk. She squinted at it, and Ben raised a hand to call a halt.
“Jenny?”
She stepped back, craning her neck up the length of the trunk, and then simply pointed at it. “Impossible.”
Ben sucked in a breath and crossed to her. “What is?”
“This.” Her eyes gleamed.
Ben looked at the trunk; it had curious bark that was growing in segments like overlapping shingles. It was about 3 feet around the trunk, and it rose a good fifty feet into the air, where it sported only sparse branches and leaves that were flat and more like grass.
“Never seen it before.” He shrugged. “But then, I don’t think I’ve seen 90 % of the plants down here before. Nino?”
The Venezuelan glanced at it and hiked his shoulders. “No, Señor Ben, never seen it before.”
“You’re right, you haven’t, and neither have I, or for that matter, neither has anyone in modern times.” Jenny took a picture. “I think it’s a Lepidodendron; also known as the scale tree.” She turned to him. “And the reason you haven’t seen them before is the same reason no one has seen one before — they’re Carboniferous Period remnants and been extinct for over 100 million years.”
“So, old, huh?” Steve joined them and put a hand against the bark, and then rapped on it with his knuckles. “Feels soft. Not like wood at all.”
“That’s right,” Jenny said. “Because they weren’t like true trees, and probably more closely related to club mosses or quillworts.” She smiled. “You only ever see these guys now as coal.”
Emma turned about. “There’s quite a few of them here; maybe this is where they survived.”
“Unlikely.” Jenny pulled out her field glasses, but there was nothing to see through the dense foliage and cloud cover. “Modern competition wiped them out. They must survive somewhere else. They reproduce by spores and so probably would have blown in from somewhere else.”
“Or floated down. From where they’ve survived untouched for millions of years,” Dan added with a grin. “We must be so close.”
The rain eased, then stopped as if a tap had been turned.
“Let’s take five while we have a break in the weather. Grab something to eat,” Ben said and found a rock to sit down on. He opened the notebook and leafed through the pages. Emma came and sat beside him.
“What does Benjamin the 1st have to say?”
“He also says we’re close… I think.” He looked up and over her head. “We can’t see much with all this low cloud. But somewhere around here is the foot of the plateau, and also some sort of temple he mentions.”
Emma sighed. “You do know that even if we do find this plateau, it’s going to be difficult to climb. These things are usually sheer faces, and at least a thousand feet straight up. I, you, maybe Steve, could get up there, but I’m not so sure about the others.”
“I thought about that. We also don’t have that much rope, and I doubt Steve and I could do a free climb of that distance.” Ben gave her a half smile. “Best laid plans and all that.”