Rest kept his eyes from drooping, but it provided neither clarity nor focus. He was still bombarded with random thoughts, things that sleep had allowed to bubble to the surface. He went back to his log to make a few final additions.
Several things occur to me now that I’ve had a bit of rest, he typed.They are puzzles that must be solved. I do not know whether the ascended soul of Enzo remained trapped in the magma of the Source, burning for millennia, or whether her soul somehow leaped immediately from her death ages ago to exist in the present. I am sure the answer could be found somewhere in the olivine tiles, but if I encounter them again I have—and will continue to have—too much respect for them to do more than skim the surface. When triggered slightly, just the single artifact that was appropriated from the geological survey vessel in the Falklands liquefied a human brain. I am not prepared to play Galderkhaani roulette.
What I know for certain is that the dead are somehow able to interact with the living, but, curiously, not with each other unless they cazhed. Otherwise, Pao and Rensat would have been able to communicate with Enzo. And I would not be alive to write this journal. I suspect the impediment was something the Priests suspected: that transcended souls are quite literally in a different time, realm, or dimension from ascended souls. Yet all can interact with the living—Pao and Rensat with me, Enzo with Jina Park. What is it about living matter that is a conduit, a conductor?
Clearly, Casey Skett wanted answers to those and similar questions. And while Mikel would welcome an ally, the risk was not just seeking to obtain knowledge; it was what Skett might do with it.
Now that his head was a little clearer and he had a chance to process his conversation with those in New York, there was the startling revelation about the Group. Mikel had been recruited straight from Harvard by Chairwoman Flora Davies. A Pamplona-born archaeologist, Mikel had indeed believed they were originally underwritten by a wealthy merchant who discovered Galderkhaani relics on a journey to Bengal in 1648. Mikel had seen those artifacts—shards of pottery with strange writing and pieces of an unknown skin that Mikel now knew were parts of the hortatur mask he had donned to help him breathe. The idea that the story was a lie, or at the very least incomplete, was disturbing. Especially when Mikel thought of the power the Group, or Skett, was on the verge of possessing. They still had two tiles in New York: by themselves, they were devilishly powerful.
Which one of the groups do you help? he asked himself.
Walking away was not an option. This had been his professional life’s work and there were profound questions he and only he could still answer. That was why there was no question about going out there, by bulldozer or Ski-Doo, or even on foot if it came to that.
So, he thought. Time to try and convince either base commander Eric Trout or chief scientist Dr. Albert Bundy to let me have one or the other.
Trout was the least likely. The burly, mustachioed former Royal Marine commando engineer was a hard-nosed manager, in charge of everything that wasn’t science. Mikel had nearly wrecked a key module of the base: Trout would not give the man access to anything with wheels or treads. The Oxford man was the better target. Bundy had previously given Mikel what he wanted thanks to Flora’s connection with the RAF—though that was before the base suffered its series of setbacks. Bundy would be less receptive now. Moreover, if the ice shelf had been compromised—and there was as yet no indication that the new location was secure—then it might be necessary to move again. Every means of transportation would be required.
The key may be assuring him that you can answer his questions as well by going back to where it all began, Mikel told himself.
Feeling cautiously optimistic, Mikel slipped from the bench. He walked past the rock-climbing wall that was used for exercise then headed down the spiral staircase to the cafeteria. Several of the staff had gathered there, hungry after the long hours of relocation and data crunching. Dr. Bundy was among them, sitting with several of his top scientists. The six-foot-seven-inch frame of Siem der Graaf was alone at a separate table, which was how and where Mikel had first met him. The maintenance worker was visibly stiff from having shared some of Mikel’s adventures.
“How’s everything going?” Mikel asked, pausing beside the table.
The young man looked up from a bowl of pea soup. His disinterested expression brightened slightly.
“I’m okay, my crazy friend. How’s the wrist? And, how are you even standing after the fall from the truck? I feel like a sack of corn.”
“I’ve learned to ignore superficial bumps and bangs,” Mikel answered. “A hazard of the trade. Also, I’m sort of built like a cat. I bend.”
“You under six-footers have an advantage there,” the big man said. “I move like a log. A hungry log,” Siem added as he returned to his soup. But his eyes remained on Mikel. “Speaking of which, you have a rather hungry look. Not for food, I think.”
“What kind of a mood is Bundy in?” Mikel asked, his eyes on the scientists’ table.
“Not bad. He seems to like having a crisis to manage,” Siem replied. “I don’t mean moving the base, that was mostly Trout. No, I’ve been hearing things like, ‘What bloody caused this instability?’ and ‘There isn’t a bloody computer model that predicted or can explain this!’” Siem said, mimicking Bundy’s stentorian British accent. “Oh, and he doesn’t believe it has anything to do with global warming.”
“The greenhouse effect wouldn’t quite explain a column of flame.”
“Apparently, none of the satellite images or data suggests any cause, which is why they started spitballing,” Siem said. “A new Russian superweapon. Shifting interaction between the Van Allen radiation belts and the plasmasphere. Dragons.”
“Dragons?”
“Yes. That was Dr. Cummins’s suggestion. She meant it in jest, I think. I hope. We don’t have armor-piercing weapons at the base.”
“Good God, Siem, why would you kill a mythical creature come to life?”
Siem snickered. “That’s a very good question, you know? Too many movies, I guess. And I never was much of a conservationist. I’m a big fan of the Industrial Revolution.”
Mikel smiled as he continued to watch the group. They either didn’t know he was there or were ignoring him. “Is Bundy planning to go out there?”
“Not yet, as far as I know,” Siem replied. “They want follow-up satellite imagery and more data from the remote automated systems before making any decisions.”
“Whatever happened to eyes-on scientific reconnaissance?”
“Gone with the insurance documents we all signed to be here,” Siem said. “They want to make sure it’s not going to go off again.”
“It isn’t,” Mikel replied quietly.
Siem looked up again. “How can you be sure? It’s happened three times already. Nerves are a little unsteady.”
He was referring to the initial appearance of the flame, the one that killed scientist Jina Park, and to the flare they had all seen while preparing to move the base.
“Because I know what caused that last flare-up, and I know it’s burned-out,” Mikel said. “The trick will be convincing them.”
“Just on your say so?”
“In addition to being a lousy spelunker, I am a first-class PhD,” Mikel pointed out.
Siem snickered again as he picked up the bowl and drank down the remainder. “Friend Mikel, I like you. And I might very well believe you. But even I wouldn’t risk a research party on your say-so.”