The Tethys Report (The Rise of the Chirons Book 1) Page 13

  “Over there. At the center of that huge spherical building, EROS seems to be able to communicate with the portal to let us through. It looks like we might be able to fit through while inside this vessel.”

  “Do we have suits that we can explore with in case we can’t?” I asked.

  “Yes we do. I prepped them before we left the base, but I’d rather not leave this ship unless we have to,” she replied.

  I looked at that massive dome and thought, My god who could have made such a thing that could last for twenty million years or longer? How in the hell did we miss any trace of its existence for so long? It was like traveling to another world.

  There should have been a lot of stress from the pressure on the walls of the dome. Its builders could never have known that there would have been this much stress placed on it. How could they have known it would have been covered by a huge glacier someday?

  Now that the light was hitting the surface of the rounded building at a good angle, I could make out more features. It was large, perhaps ten stories. The surface itself was black, made with some kind of metallic material, at least it seemed and amazingly had very little growth, which I thought was nearly impossible. This lake was teaming with life, and yet there was no plant or algae growing on it? The activity at the bottom of the structure drew my attention. There was a massive amount of life teeming at the bottom like some kind of huge gathering ground. Fish of all kinds were swimming from underneath the structure, moving into its depths and leaving the same way. A multitude of sea creatures were swimming and some were feeding off the small and medium-size fish. I zoomed in on some of the images and saw huge amounts of algae and what looked like phytoplankton, which I thought was impossible this far away from the sun.

  “My god, it’s as if the sunlight came through and was concentrated in that building. This must be how all the life we see down here is possible. Something inside that building has replaced the sun as the source of all energy and food down here. It’s got to be it. There is no other way to explain how such a diverse ecosystem is maintained down here—not without access to the energy from the sun.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Jen. “Just look at all those creatures swimming inside it and coming outside. Alan, what on earth did you get yourself into?” she said.

  I was feeling the same. In normal times, a city like this would have provoked endless newspaper coverage. The headlines would write themselves: Vast City Inside a Lake Underneath a Frozen Glacier, Ancient City Discovered! Possible Intelligent Life Existed Long Before Mankind, etc. These were not normal times, however. I knew Command would immediately try to cordon off the area and set up troops to stop anyone from getting in and out. Their first priority was for no one to know about it, nor to let one of their adversaries take control of it.

  As for myself, my mind raced at the possibilities to my ultimate quest: to discover the origin of life. What secrets would an ancient intelligent life similar to our own be able to share with us? How would it help shed light on the mysteries of the Last Common Ancestor to all life forms? My heart raced for the first time in a long time—possibly forever, and something new and unexpected bubbled forth: hope for the future. I rubbed the Chert rock on my necklace. I could feel the answers approaching.

  Chapter 9

  After carefully probing the dome structure’s internal machinery and electrical circuitry, EROS managed to locate the best viable way of entry: the huge portal that would appear to accommodate the Cucumber. After some communication between EROS and the internal controls within the building, the portal opened without a sound and even some light turned on to illuminate the area inside. It was still hard to make out what the area beyond the portal contained. There was strong interference that gave trouble to the Cucumber’s enhanced detection imagery.

  “Can we fit inside with this craft?” I asked.

  The portal to entry was also not far from Dr. Aspect ’s location according to our systems grid. It was circular with a diameter of about twenty feet. The side of the building looked like some strange microchip with tiny lines of electricity coursing through its surface—detected only with the assistance of EROS, but the portal was completely dark. In fact, the reason it was noticeable, even without EROS, was because of the absence of any electrical activity in contrast with the rest of the outer wall.

  There was little movement around us. Whereas all the fish and other sea life were moving underneath the building through some large vent, the portal seemed designed more for a different purpose other than feeding the sea creatures.

  Jen stopped the vessel from going any further.

  “Do you think we should go in there?” she asked. I could tell she was getting rather nervous about going in now. Whereas before she had been concerned about Dr. Aspect ’s safety, she now worried about our own.

  “It can’t hurt,” I replied. “Listen, we’re stuck down here without a really good way of getting out. We need all the help we can get. Besides, what could have happened to him. It says here on the sensory panel that he’s still alive and—”

  “Possibly still alive,” Jen interrupted me. “This tracking system can’t tell if the person is recently deceased or not due to the way it estimates the life function. We’ve had incidents where the person has been dead for several hours, but it still comes up as alive.”

  “That changes things,” I said. I was starting to get second doubts myself. I glanced again at the dark portal that led into the strange domed building. Some of the information was updated. Beyond the portal was a square room that was twenty meters high and twenty wide with unknown depth according to our readings.

  “Beyond what I’m seeing here, are you getting any readings from what’s inside there?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I’m looking at the panel now. That whole building is an enigma—and Dr. Aspect is in there somewhere—probably somewhere beyond that room.”

  “What does EROS tell you?”

  “The results from EROS’s sensory probe were inconclusive. As far as we know, it’s a black hole in that building. What you see of the room beyond the portal is what you get. Look around us. None of the sea creatures are near us. They’re just massing below us—probably lured by food.”

  She was right. Oddly enough, the sea creatures didn’t go anywhere near the portal. Their only way of entry was further to the bottom, and none of them even seemed to be curious enough to come up towards the portal.

  “Maybe I’m wrong about the creators of this building having a pathway to the portal. Perhaps it was used as a side entrance at one time. But why make it way up here? They obviously didn’t build this thing when there was water.”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “It’s very strange. Let’s review the threats that could be beyond this.”

  “Who the hell knows,” she said.

  “Had you seen this city before?” I asked. I thought I knew the answer already, but I wanted to make sure—to verify.

  “No, of course not,” she said looking at me. “You know that we would be all over this place if we had found it before. It’s almost like it evaded our sensors before.”

  “Maybe it’s got defenses,” I said. “I want to find Dr. Aspect, but there might be dangers in there for us. No one leaves a building undefended.”

  “Even after twenty million years or so?”

  I shrugged. “It could be that Dr. Aspect is in danger because of this building. I’ve puzzled about how well maintained this building is. Why aren’t the walls on the outside of this building—or any of the buildings not coated in sediment. They look completely clean—maintained even. That’s impossible after even just a year let alone millions of years. If the walls can be maintained, then other things can as well—including defense systems. Something doesn’t strike me right here.”

  “What are we going to do then?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t like the idea of going inside this submersible. The rest of this lake is spooky enough.”


  Now it was her turn to convince me. She took in my words and frowned. In the end, she made the move. “We didn’t come all this way for nothing.”

  “Do you think we should contact back to base?”

  Her face changed immediately. “Contact my colleagues? I don’t think it would be a promising idea. Plus, we’ve been generally getting a lot of interference down here, believe it or not.”

  “I believe it, but why isn’t it a clever idea?”

  She sat there in the pilot’s chair with a look of sadness on her face. She looked down at the control, but she didn’t answer.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Let’s go, OK? I don’t want to contact them. There’s some internal strife with my colleagues I can’t talk about. Let’s just go. That’s final.”

  “Jen, is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “No. Look, we should get going. The time until the oxygen is gone is quickly disappearing.”

  “OK. Let’s go,” I said. Though I wasn’t certain of what the real story was, I trusted her enough to put my doubts aside for the moment. As for my colleagues, I didn’t need convincing. Hal and the others would be fine. They knew how to take care of themselves while I was gone.

  “OK. Here goes nothing. We’re going through now. Wow this is strange.”

  We were immediately met with some light that exploded from the panel. All colors bombarded our eyes, and I couldn’t figure out what the source was right away.

  “I’m shutting down the imagery, at least a bit—not all the way,” she said.

  “OK. Good idea. Wasn’t it strange how we never had any indication there was light from the outside?”

  “Yeah, it’s like all the light ended at the edge of the portal.”

  We moved through the portal of the building and suddenly more bright light shined on us. Not just bright colored light, but a sheer pure blazing white hit our eyes. Even through the medium of the viewing panel, I had to shield my eyes so attuned were they of the darkness.

  “God. I have to turn this down some more. It seems like the light is getting stronger.”

  “What’s happening? This is so strange. You’ve already turned the light down a notch.”

  Eventually, I was able to open them again. I saw immediately that Jen had the same problem as I did, but luckily the ship seemed to move as easily without her actively steering it.

  “Look at that,” she said.

  “I’m looking.”

  “Up there—that looks like the source of the light. It’s in the exact center of the building it seems. There were two openings that were letting the light in. Both of them hit us back there. That must be why we got hit twice.”

  Now that we could study the source of the light through the panel, it was time to figure out what it was.

  “That must be where all the energy comes from to feed all the plants,” I said while viewing the readings from the display panel. “It’s amazing. It looks like a miniature sun. It’s made up of all colors, and the display is showing that even more light frequencies—ones that we can’t even detect with the naked eye are shining. How is it made? How is this possible?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “None of this can be easily explained. An ancient human-like being makes a city 20 million years old or more, and the lights are still on—at least one of them.”

  “It can’t be possible, but look down there,” I said pointing towards the bottom where the sea life was massing in great clumps with the occasional disturbance of a large predator swimming through the thickness of the swimming mass. It was something beautiful to behold. The bottom of the building seemed to be growing life forms made of a green and red substance. It was separated from the hungry creatures below by some kind of invisible barrier, but at certain intervals, the barrier would be removed, and the sea life would be fed.

  “That’s where all this life comes from,” she said. “But what is the source? How did they make that light?”

  “It sounds crazy, but it can’t be possible,” I said.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Nuclear fusion,” I replied. I studied the light and its surroundings now that I could see better. The entire structure was basically a shelter for a large apparatus which placed the light at the center. Around it was a large globe of an unknown substance that I could obviously see through. The largest space between the outer globe and the light was at the bottom. We were positioned somewhere between the middle of the globe and towards the bottom where the sea life was teeming.

  “Where is Dr. Aspect?” I asked.

  “Oh right—the reason we’re here. Sorry—I was just so amazed by this thing that I almost forgot,” she replied while looking at her instruments.

  “Don’t tell me he’s where the light is.”

  “No,” she replied. “Thankfully not. He’s somewhere below us, not far at all now.”

  “Near the high-tech feeding trough?” I asked.

  “Feeding trough? Is that what that thing is,” she said nodding downwards and then laughed.

  “How else would you describe it?” I asked with a laugh of my own. “We’ve got what looks like a miniature sun here, a ton of algae—phytoplankton—or whatever that is down there dropping into the floor like some kind of timed feeding mechanism.”

  “It’s amazing isn’t it? But how could a civilization have predicted something like this? That their city would be underwater—much less underwater and beneath a huge layer of ice for so long. And how in the heck did it keep running this long—assuming of course that it is millions of years old.”

  I looked at the massive inner structure. There was so much complexity in the huge room, which had to have been designed without all the water being there. My eyes were always drawn back to the sun-like object in the center. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed like there was some kind of inner core that was sealed from the water in the building. The water obviously hadn’t interfered with the operation of the mini-sun. There were etches along the sides of the building that reminded me of circuitry on a computer chip or motherboard. Obviously in our world, such circuitry could not have contact with water, but I wondered if there were energy flows running through the lines. There had been no sign of any kind of activity from the other structures outside, however.

  “Can you hear that?” Jen asked.

  “What is it? Do you hear something?” I asked.

  “Yes, can’t you hear it too?” she replied.

  I stopped to listen. For a moment, all I could hear was the clank-clank-clank from the motors of our ship, but then I did hear something. It sounded like faint violin music, but it was a symphony, not a solo.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Is that coming from all those fish down there?”

  “No,” Jen replied. “I think it’s coming from this place—from all the walls around us. My instruments are coming in, and I think there are some kind of soundwaves being produced all around us. It’s as if the walls are part of the computer structure that includes this mini-sun or whatever you want to call it. This is truly fascinating.”

  We had forgotten about the oxygen. The smart panel reminded us that although we had enough oxygen in the vessel, the home base was running low.

  “We should get going,” Jen said after the warning finished. “They’re going to wonder what happened to us.”

  “Why didn’t you want to radio back to let them know what we were up to?” I asked.

  She looked at me for a moment, her face showed evidence of struggling to decide something. At last, she said, “You’re military, but I think I can trust you.”

  “Military-scientist,” I said. “The name of the program I’m in is STAR. There’s a difference.”

  “Yeah, right,” she replied. “Anyway, I know you’re a complete jerk at times, but I do believe the incident back there in Afghanistan was not your fault, and—”

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  “And—let me finish—and I think I can tru
st you. Here’s the deal. I think that someone—I’m not going to say who—isn’t trustworthy.”

  “One of the scientists?” I asked.

  “Yes. And I know Kranehouse suspected sabotage, but I know it was, in fact, sabotage that caused the deaths of my colleagues.”

  I sat there thinking as the strange music drifted around us like heavy steam. The more I listened to it, the more I could catch its sweet supple cadence. There was something calming about it. “How do you know for certain?”

  “I just know, OK? You’re going to have to trust me on this. I think I know who is to blame too.”

  “Who?”

  “That part I won’t say now. I can say this though. We can’t tell base what we’re doing because I think someone might want me dead.”

  “Oh my god,” I said. “I would say, ‘You can’t be serious,’ but I know better now. I know you probably are right. This whole mission stinks. I knew it stunk from the moment I got my briefing. My orders were so vague and contradictory, but the way they assigned it was so specific and forceful. Nothing made sense about it.”

  “Well, you’re the military expert.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said looking at her with genuine remorse.

  “You don’t have to apologize. Things are so surreal at the moment. The shrinking earth, locked in a huge Super Cold War, us trapped down here, scientists dying, the rest carrying on their research as if nothing happened and pretending everything is normal.”

  “There is nothing you can do. Even if you had made it to that elevator and gotten out, they would still be dead Jen.”

  “I know, but it doesn’t make things easier. I’m depressed about where the world is headed. Something like this thing here would have filled me with so much excitement. Now, I just want to find some way to reverse all the madness that’s out there. We’re both only children. My mother and father are still alive—but barely. The air in Hong Kong was so bad for them. The city has been nearly washed away, but they’re alive. They wouldn’t be without the nano-drugs they take.”

  “Yes, I know about those,” I said. “My mother is on those—what’s left of her anyway.”