MacDonald frowned and examined the two carefully. He’d looked at this many times, but the fact was he’d always been looking for trails, roads, and new construction. The removal or planting of trees was important, but he’d never really paid any attention to the rock formations. Frawley was certainly correct in this, though. The altar stone had changed shape—if the model was accurate. “You’re sure it’s not just the model builder?”
“I’m certain. The early construction photos we have indicate the same shape as the model.”
“Yeah, sure—but that’s tons of obsidian! How could they switch or carve or do anything to it without messing up the meadow—and why?”
“Well, it wasn’t carved. The mass now is larger than the mass at the start. Perhaps a side view would be more illuminating. See, here, that the computer complex goes down six stories below the common with the antennas. That’s roughly a hundred and twenty feet. Now extend that elevation out towards the down slope of the mountain, and you see that the meadow is almost exactly at the surface elevation you would be at if you extended this sixth level out to the south.”
“Yeah, but the engineering to do something like that would be enormous. We’d have seen something.”
“Not necessarily. Do you know anything about the geomorphology of volcanoes?”
“I’m a cop from Canada.”
“All right. Well, it’s not necessary to build one if you understand that the island is honeycombed with natural lava tubes. When the old mountain blew its cork, lava rushed through, cutting its own way through cracks and weaknesses in the rock. The outside was cooler and the flow was fast, so it more or less built its own pipe. This sort of lava is common in Hawaii, quite rare in the Caribbean, but it was true of our old mountain here. Now, masses of obsidian are formed when lava reaches the surface in such a state that it cools rapidly, too rapidly to form crystals and become true rock. It’s a glob of glass. It’s my guess that there was a first eruption, the tube was born, but the lava from that cleared the tube entirely, leaving it a slightly crooked cannon, so to speak. Then there was a second eruption with a heavier, more plastic flow, possibly a small amount that shot down the tube and hit a rainstorm, or was blocked in some other way, and cooled immediately. The obsidian, the altar stone, is a plug for the tube which still exists.”
“There are some old caves on the island, but they’re short and not much use and some of them are caved in or blocked off to prevent any accidents. None of ’em go anywhere that I know of.”
“Precisely. Now you know of one that does. I believe the chamber was opened up and then followed all the way to the plug. Then it was carefully excavated from the cave side, possibly with lasers or other high-heat diggers that wouldn’t be good on solid rock but would be fine for obsidian. I have discovered that some such prototypical tools were in fact used during the construction stage. They removed the plug in this manner, taking the remains out via the tunnel, and then replaced it with something that looked natural, probably during the construction although not in the official blueprints. That explains not only the shape change, but why the replacement is larger. They had to lose some of the surroundings during the operation. I think you’ll find long cables running from the power plant to the tunnel and through it to this stone or whatever it is. There’s your device—computer controlled, computer activated—for all the mumbo jumbo of special effects, specters in the air, and the rest.”
MacDonald was fascinated. “Then it is high tech, somehow. But these caves, these lava tubes, interest me more and more now. If they could do this with one of them, maybe they have a whole warren under there. No wonder they could hide so much in such tight quarters! I wish we had a way of knowing where those tubes were, though.”
“We do,” Frawley replied, and took out a set of rolled-up maps. “Remember, before this was anything it was a station of the Royal Geographic Society during its most active period.” He took first one map, then another, then another, examining each for a moment, then said, “Ah! Here we are! The summit area before any major construction.”
They were copies of what were less maps than blueprints of the mountain from the eighteen eighties, but they clearly showed all the known tubes, including a few that had crater openings. There was clearly one leading inward from the crater’s low point, although no exit point was indicated.
“I think I’m going to go talk to Maria again,” MacDonald told him, and walked out.
He walked out on the patio and found Bishop Whitely there, reading his Bible but dressed only in a pair of swimming trunks, a Panama hat, and sun glasses. Maria was out on the beach, doing something in the sand.
“Ah, my boy,” said the Bishop, putting down his book. “Have you and Pip solved the whole thing for us?”
“Not quite. Uh—how is she today?”
“Mixed,” the Bishop replied gravely. “She’s right on the edge, Greg. Right on the edge. Do you know what she’s doing out there? Building a sand castle. She’s got her hair in pigtails, and earlier she asked me if we’d buy her a dog to play with her. She’s put on a fairly thick southern American accent and let her grammar go to pot. When she’s like this she wants to be called Missy—apparently a family nickname from when she was this age.”
“You mean she’s becoming what she looks like?” That worried him.
“I only wish that were true. It would be easier to deal with. No, my boy, she’s splitting in two. When she’s Missy she doesn’t ask questions or take on airs, she just acts her physical age and that’s that. When she has to be Maria, though—when she’s forced to be—the change is quite remarkable. We took her on a shopping spree, so to speak, and the two sides were never more evident in what she bought or how it’s used.”
“I need to ask her questions about the island. How do I get Maria to come out.”
He sighed, stood up, and stretched. “You go back in to your little war games there. I’ll fetch her, but give her half an hour to get cleaned up. Be warned, though—Maria totally blocks out the idea that she’s in a child’s body. She doesn’t see herself that way, but rather as she was.”
“She’s going ’round the bend, then. How dependable will she be?”
“Well, that’s a matter of opinion. I don’t think it’s schizophrenia, if that’s what you mean. I think it’s deliberate, if not totally conscious. It is her way of coping.”
Greg nodded worriedly and went back in to Frawley. “O.K.,” he said, so we have the caves to deal with, and we have to assume they can get from here to there, maybe several places, without being seen. That just complicates the problem. Still, they wouldn’t have let me get all the way to the power plant when I ‘invaded’ the place if they thought that access posed a security threat. I mean, they could have stopped me without blowing their cover.’’
“I agree. Now, that power plant—it is a small experimental fusion reactor, totally self contained?”
“Yeah, that’s true. Not very cost efficient in that form, but it allows a totally independent power supply to be fed to the computer and the grids. It’s used only for that, though. The power for the basic Institute is still generated by burning oil, which comes in by tanker every six weeks. It seemed wasteful to build a whole pipeline from Port Kathleen up the mountain, so instead a shorter line was installed here, at the base of the cliffs in back of the Institute. A small pumping station takes off the oil and stores it in these two tanks here, at sea level, then pumps it up to the Institute’s tanks as needed along this nearly vertical pipeline.”