Sam moved quickly.
His right hand felt like it had changed by a ninety degree angle. It might have been less. Perhaps only forty-five, but he was definitely no longer following the circular wall he’d expected. He swam several feet down the tunnel and then stopped. There was a light draft coming from the tunnel. The air tasted fresh, and moved. Unlike when he’d dived earlier into the subterranean lake, where the air was perfectly still, this tunnel had a definite draft. The revelation hit him like a cannon.
We’re in a different cavern!
Sam turned and placed his left hand on the wall so he was now facing back out the way he came in. “Tom, you still there?”
“I’m still here. The wall stopped being round. Where are you?”
“I’m down a tunnel. Wait there, and I’ll come to you, so we don’t get lost. We’ll need to find our way back to the main cavern where I left Zara.”
Sam started swimming back the way he came.
Tom said, “She’s going to be pissed as all hell at you, buddy. That girl was already terrified and now we’ve left her in a dark void.”
“She’ll forgive us, when we return. So long as we do return.”
Sam blinked a couple times, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness. They were more than a hundred and sixty feet below the ground. It was impossible for light to reach them. But ahead of him, he spotted the first sign of light he’d seen since surfacing. It looked blue and shimmered. His eyes couldn’t quite make out what it was. He swam faster and then collided head first into Tom.
Both men swore.
“You all right?” Sam asked.
“I’m all right, what about you?”
“I’m good.”
“What are you grinning like an idiot for, Sam?”
“It will hit you in a second.”
Tom swore. “Christ! I can see your face! It’s blue and kind of creepier than I remember it, but at least I can see.”
“It’s our DARPA thermal suits,” Sam said, already swimming back toward where they had come from. “Their chemicals are changing the color from grey to fluorescent blue as they attempt to mitigate against the cold water.”
“So all we have to do to be able to see is stay cold?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“What if we increase the desired temperature parameters?”
Sam adjusted small temperature gauge on his right upper arm. “You’re right. It will drain the power quicker, but we should be able use it on short bursts if we want to greatly increase the lumens.”
Tom checked his own power module. “At current rate of consumption, my suite has approximately three days to go.”
“Then let’s not waste the energy.”
As Sam swam across the small cavern he looked up at their new environment. It was another dome, like the one he’d found earlier. Only instead of being massive, this one was no more than ten or so feet in diameter. The ceiling was a perfectly formed dome.
Tom looked at the ceiling above. “What do you think, Sam?”
“I’m doubting any smuggler went to the trouble to build anything this advanced. Which means this must have been built by the ancient Garamantes.”
“You mean, we stumbled across the Golden City? The same fictional one we used as an alibi for why we were carrying dive tanks into the Sahara?”
“It looks like it.”
“I wonder. Do you think the other stories about it being a golden city are true?” Tom asked.
“I’m more interested in whether or not their subterranean aqueducts really did travel hundreds of miles between cities.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Zara rolled over onto her side. Something had changed in her environment. They say, when you lose one of your senses, the other senses become more responsive in order to pick up the slack. In this case, she didn’t even know what had changed. Only that something had changed. Her eyes had become adjusted to existing in complete darkness, but now, somewhere in the distance, the darkness turned slightly blue.
She sat bolt upright and then stood up. On the far side of the lake she could definitely see something. It wasn’t much. A blue haze beneath the water. Not bright enough to see what it was, but at least confirmation she was not alone. She stared at it, willing it to grow. And the light did grow. A second light followed behind. Both objects were moving quickly beneath the water.
There was just enough light to make out the island she was standing on. She spotted the water-tight backpack that Sam had brought down earlier, which carried her robes, and emergency provisions. Next to the backpack were three small bags of stones.
Instinctively, she bent down and picked up the largest one she could find and prepared to throw it at whatever enemy was now approaching. The thing looked like two vile blue monsters. She wondered if they could be some sort of fish that had evolved to live underneath the well, in perfect darkness. Her heart raced and she picked up a second stone to hurl.
The first monster broke the surface with a gasp, followed by the second one. They were both on the far side of the cavern. They turned and faced her directly.
“Zara! Thank goodness, you’re all right.”
Zara recognized the confident voice of Sam. She squeezed the cold stone in her hand and was tempted to pummel it at him, anyway.
She said, “Where did you two go? I thought you were both dead!”
“Sorry. I dropped the glow stick when I went back for Tom. When we surfaced we were in a different cavern and without light, so we had no idea we weren’t where we were supposed to be.”
Tom popped his head out of the water, a few feet next to Sam. He looked calm and there was no evidence he’d been holding his breath. Tom looked directly at her and smiled comfortingly. “You okay, Zara?”
“Fine,” she said.
Zara watched as the two men quickly swam towards the island and climbed out. They looked like giant blue, glowing, fish. The sort of unique deep sea creatures which had evolved to live in just such a place as this. Their thermal suits no longer silvery, but glistening in blue.
“I see you found out how to make your own light?” she said.
“Yeah, that was good luck,” Sam said opening the backpack to dry himself with his robe. “I never noticed and certainly never expected to need the thermal suit to produce light. They won’t last too long. The power will run out. So we’re on clock, if you know what I mean?”
“For what?” Zara asked.
“To find a way out, of course!” Sam stopped. His eyes darting towards the cold stone she still gripped in her right hand. “What’s the story with the stone? You look like you want to use it to smash someone’s head in?”
Zara said, “Don’t tempt me! You left me alone. I thought I was going to die here, in this cold, dark, place.”
Sam said, “I said I’m sorry.”
Tom grinned. “Sorry to interrupt. You two can fight about who hates each other more later. Can I ask where you found that stone?”
“Over there,” Zara pointed to three small bags made from gazelle hides.
Sam smiled. He walked up to the first one and loosened the drawstring. Inside there were enough diamonds to fund a revolution. “They don’t look like much more than dirty rocks to me?”
“Do you know anything about diamonds?” she asked.
“I know they’re the most artificially overinflated commodity in existence, but apart from that, no.”
“Those dirty so called rocks are worth enough to fund a dozen military coups.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Sam turned the temperature on his thermal suit up to its maximum setting. At the same time Tom switched his off completely to conserve energy. They were going to need the batteries to work as long as possible. Sam’s body shimmered with the deep blue glow as it quickly heated up to an uncomfortable temperature inside. The light glowed and permeated every corner of the subterranean cavern. All three of them looked up in awe. They were standing directly beneath the oculus of a massive dome.