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  “All right, bring it to me,” Fishand said. He scribbled on official Inuit stationery, reading aloud as he wrote: “The board members of the Inuit Nation Council hereby acknowledge receipt of a certified check from Boster Denton, Inc., in the amount of one million dollars. The purpose of this check is to repay the Inuit Nation for damages incurred by that company, and to allow said company to proceed with clean-up efforts. The board has placed restrictions on these efforts, as recorded in the minutes of this meeting. Company spokesperson Mitchell Jones has agreed to these restrictions. If they are not followed, or if clean-up efforts are not concluded, the proceeds will be forfeited to the Inuit people.”

  He signed at the bottom and passed it to Tenbears with a smile. Tenbears signed and passed it to Nighthorse. Nighthorse’s nose read it, then he put down the paper unsigned.

  “I think we need more time to study this matter completely.”

  Mitch pulled the check from Fishand’s fingers and retreated to the podium. He knew Fishand would not give up so much money easily.

  Both Fishand and Tenbears stared at Nighthorse.

  “Can I see that check again?” Nighthorse asked.

  Mitch said, “The check in exchange for the receipt.”

  When Nighthorse signed the receipt, Fishand sighed in relief.

  “It seems we have a deal,” Fishand said. “And as to the matter of a guide…”

  The two guards flanked Mitch.

  Fishand smiled. “We have selected a man of impeccable qualities, someone who can make sure the job is done correctly. After careful deliberations, we have chosen Mr. Bearters.”

  Mitch felt a hand on each shoulder. “No, no!” he screamed, “Not that son-of-a—”

  Mitch lunged towards Bearters, but was restrained by the guards.

  “Now, Mr. Jones,” Fishand said, “because of this demand of yours, I will personally contact your company to make sure Mr. Bearters is acceptable to them—only if they question his qualifications will the board choose someone else.”

  “No! Oh God, please don’t do this!”

  There was a knocking on the floor and the robes disappeared with the check.

  Chapter 27

  LATITUDE 82° 10’ NORTH

  LONGITUDE 73° 42’ WEST

  LAPTITUDE 68%

  Month 3; Day 6, 1230 UTC, 6:30 PM LTD

  “Itar, I love her!”

  Itar sat across the fire from Des at Say-ance, his guards by his side. Alée was next to Des.

  “You must do something,” Des pleaded.

  “What would you have me do?” Itar asked calmly.

  “I know Anastasia loves me! But she told me she’s already married—taken. Who is he?”

  “Ah, now I understand,” Itar said.

  “Well, it’s about time somebody did! I’m sleeping with Anastasia while her husband is apparently off doing God-knows-what for the beasts, and the whole damn village knew about this except me. You can bet that makes me feel pretty stupid. You knew what was happening too, Itar, and you chose to ignore it.”

  “Mining coal,” Itar said.

  “What?”

  “He is mining coal.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Anastasia is not married,” Itar said.

  “What?”

  “She is promised. Sit, let the anger go.” Itar waited for Des to settle, then continued, “We are Anasazi.”

  “Yes, I know,” Des said, trying hard to curb his frustration.

  “Others are Aztec,” said Itar.

  “So what?”

  “Still, there are others—the ancient ones.”

  Where the hell was Itar headed? “Do the ancient ones still walk the Earth?”

  “I have not seen this,” Itar replied.

  “The beasts, they are descendants of the ancient ones?”

  “No. It is written in the legends that the ancient ones hated the beasts.” Itar grunted. “You cannot marry Anastasia. That would be—”

  “Yes I can!” Des shouted. “And I will.”

  Embers churned into the room as the logs burned brightly.

  Itar said, “Listen to me! Long ago, there was war between the Aztec and the Anasazi, but the beasts conquered all. To bring intertribal peace, the council forced union. The council has already decided whom Anastasia will marry, even though the marriage has not yet taken place. It cannot be changed; it is how it is. When he returns, they will be joined.”

  Anastasia was Anasazi, so she must marry an Aztec to intermingle the bloodlines to avoid warfare; they had become Anasazi-Aztec.

  But Des determined not to give her up. “I will fight for her. No one dared to take on the beasts until now. This can change, too.”

  Itar was also adamant. “No, Des. It is the only way. The Aztecs are a powerful people and we are small in number. They would have killed all of us if the beasts had not stopped them.”

  Des leapt to his feet. “Fire, down!” he commanded.

  The fire abated and extinguished. Des strode across the instantly cold embers to Itar.

  “Fire, up!”

  Immediately, the fire sprang to new life.

  “Itar, I don’t care if the whole bloody Aztec nation rises up against us; I won’t give up Anastasia. Besides, this time, you’ve got me on your side.”

  “He will kill you and offer your heart to the gods,” Itar said patiently.

  “Let him try!”

  The others seemed mystified because Des had scarcely given notice to walking across the fire.

  Itar said finally, “You are fighting the legends.”

  “Then let it be so,” Des said.

  “Fighting the man could be much worse,” Itar mused. “Alée, asa bui Anastasia.”

  Alée bowed and left. When she returned, Anastasia was by her side.

  Itar spoke to Anastasia in his own tongue for several minutes. Des understood some of the words, but had difficulty catching the entire drift.

  “Abba,” Anastasia said smiling. “Abba!”

  Itar said to Des, “I cannot marry Anastasia to you—“

  “Itar, you can,” Des interjected, realizing Anastasia had agreed to marriage.

  “—until the men return. To marry you now would be—”

  “Underhanded and cowardly,” Des finished for him. “You are a man above all other men.”

  “I am not dead yet,” Itar replied, “but with this pact, we are in much trouble.”

  Chapter 28

  LATITUDE 23° 43’ SOUTH

  LONGITUDE 133° 55’ EAST

  LAPTITUDE 32%

  Month 3 Day 8; 0700 UTC, 4:30 PM LTD

  Bill Evans tossed up another potato chip and watched it float. Nine more platforms finished in ten days, he thought—not bad. The loss of gravity had been troubling, but hadn’t held up construction. He grabbed the chip and ate it.

  Two men in pressurized spacesuits were suspended nearly one hundred kilometers below him, tethered from his platform at Level Nineteen. The somewhat bulky red-colored suits had steel and gasket joints at the wrists, shoulders, legs and ankles. The airtight helmets were gold. A rectangular backpack containing oxygen and ventilation equipment had a short, vertical antenna. Two corrugated tubes wound around each side to the chest-mounted oxygen flowmeter. From this box, a smaller tube branched at throat-level to enter each side of the helmet. A rock hammer and flashlight were attached to the right legging, below the waist.

  Bill didn’t need his spacesuit; the air was near normal, though the manometer had read four atmospheres—sixty pounds of pressure per square inch.

  The radio crackled and Josh’s voice came from below. “Bill? Can you hear me? Over.”

  Bill switched on the microphone. “Loud and clear.”

  “I’m going to put one more sta
ke in the wall, then you can lower me.”

  “Copy that.”

  Bill was able to watch on the monitor as Josh positioned the stake-gun’s barrel against the cavern wall, because Josh’s eighteen-year-old partner, Sam, had an infrared headlamp and camera focused on him. Josh fired; the recoil pushed him out of view. Sam’s camera found him across the Vent, his body slammed against the granite wall.

  “You okay, Josh?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so. Some force to this gun.”

  “Especially when you’re near zero gravity. Push back over and I’ll check your suit for air leaks.”

  Josh floated back towards the camera.

  Bill saw a gloved hand testing the stake for firmness, then tying on a yellow flag. Now, eight stakes had been placed at ten-kilometer intervals. After one more, Josh and Sam would be at zero gravity.

  Bill turned on the microphone again. “Josh, I don’t think we’ll finish today, but you’re close to zero gravity. Do you want me to pull you up now? Over.”

  “Just let me down about a kilometer—leave Sam here with the stake—then we’ll call it a day. Over.”

  “Okay.”

  Bill started the Climber’s Buddy and allowed the cable to feed out as Josh descended out of the range of Sam’s light and camera. Josh’s headlamp flashed periodically on the monitor before it disappeared completely.

  Ten minutes passed before the speaker crackled and Josh said, “Hey, what the—? Bill, stop!”

  “What’s happening?” Bill demanded, braking the cable.

  “Ah, shit!” Josh said.

  “Talk to me! Over.”

  “The damn cable—don’t pull me up! Ah, shit! Where the hell are you?”

  “I read you loud and clear, Josh!”

  “It’s not that! Oh, crap, give me a minute.”

  “Talk to me now! Do you need Sam?”

  “Don’t send him down here! We’ll both get lost.” Josh sounded confused. Bill said, “You can’t get lost. I’ll pull you up.”

  “No! The cable is around my neck and I can’t stop spinning. It’s tightening!”

  “Can you get to the wall?”

  “There is no wall.”

  No wall? “What do you mean?”

  “There’s nothing here! Absolutely nothing at all! It’s a void. I can’t even tell which way is up.” Josh’s voice was strained.

  “I’m pulling you in,” Bill said. He restarted Josh’s Buddy. “Sam? Let me know when you can see him.”

  Ten minutes passed before Sam said quietly, “Josh is dead. Over.”

  Bill stared at his monitor and watched as Sam’s light passed over dangling feet, then a limp torso, and finally Josh’s helmeted head, nearly decapitated by the cable cutting through his neck.

  Bill picked up the telephone.

  “Get me John Smith, right now!”

  The man leaning over charts and graphs spread across the hotel conference table had shockingly long, wavy, dark hair and wore a pink t-shirt proclaiming “Real Men Do It On Mars,” GAP jeans and Adidas running shoes. His pallid face was smooth without a hint of a beard; his long-lashed eyes were greenish-brown and entrancingly baleful. When he spoke, his voice was deep, darkly magnetic, and dispelled any thoughts of androgyny. John wondered if Anderson had difficulty commanding respect from his students at Yale University, given his attire and feminine facial features. Still, the students he’d interviewed hadn’t labeled him eccentric, although they had called him omnipotent, aloof and egocentric. It was his mind that they all cherished.

  When Bill’s call came in, John said, “I’ll send down a medical team. Upload the final minutes to my computer.”

  As Amy stared at him, John disconnected, then said, “There’s been another death.”

  “Is that so? How did it happen?” Anderson asked, absently.

  “Josh was exploring in the interface and apparently got tangled in his own tether cable. Before he died, he reported that nothing was there.”

  Anderson polished his rectangular reading glasses with his handkerchief. “And where, exactly, is ‘there’?”

  Amy pounded her fist on the table. “Wake up! People are dying! You suck as a guide for what lies ahead,” she snarled at Anderson.

  “Amy!” John shouted.

  She ignored him. “Anderson, what is your problem? We’ve been over this many times, yet you still don’t know what’s happening? Are you not paying attention?”

  Anderson said apologetically, “I haven’t gotten much sleep these past few days, with all the reporters interviewing me; being in front of cameras so much is a little tiring.”

  John sighed. Damned prima donna. “Bill is on Level Nineteen, and he tethered two men down to what should be Level Twenty, near zero gravity. That’s approximately 34% laptitude. One of the men he sent down is dead, but before he died, he had ventured into the interface and said that there weren’t even rock walls—a void, he called it.”

  Anderson repeated with a yawn, “A void.”

  “Yes. We can’t build a platform at Level Twenty because there’s nothing to attach it to.”

  John played back Josh’s final words: “There’s nothing here! Absolutely nothing at all! It’s a void. I can’t tell which way is up.”

  Anderson said, “You don’t expect me to give you an answer now, do you?”

  “I expect you to try,” John answered, holding his anger in check.

  Anderson concentrated on the charts in front of him. Several minutes passed. Then he sighed and flipped through pages. More time passed as he stared at the ceiling.

  Finally, he said, “I need more information. I need another man down near Level Twenty, someone I can talk to while he’s there.” He stood and pointed his glasses at John. “This time, anticipate zero gravity. Give him some way to move and a way to orient himself. I don’t need another confused individual. I need somebody who can tell me exactly where he is.” He turned to leave. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

  John telephoned Bill. “What’s going on right now?”

  “I’m still bringing up Sam with Josh’s body. No change in the situation.”

  “When they get to you, keep Sam there. I need him to go back tomorrow. Anderson wants to talk with him while he’s near the interface.”

  “Roger. I’ll ask him.”

  “I’m sending down a jetpack so he can maneuver near the void. Have him wear both the spacesuit and the jetpack because we just don’t know. I’m also sending down a couple of white lights. He can hang infrareds on most of the stakes, but I want white lights on the last two they set. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, but what about the mantibles?” Bill asked.

  “I don’t think the mantibles hang out in zero gravity and Sam needs to be able to see clearly to know which way is up.”

  “Got you. Did Anderson figure all this out?”

  “Of course. Who else would have such intelligence?”

  The following morning, John and Amy were in the hotel conference room. John was talking with Bill via telephone.

  “Where’s Sam now?”

  Bill answered, “He’s at the eighth stake. He’s putting a light on it and turning it on.”

  Anderson entered and Amy filled him in. John thought he still looked tired, but maybe he always looked tired.

  “Anderson is here. He wants to talk to you.” John passed over the phone.

  “Your man is at the eighth stake?” Anderson asked Bill. He listened, then asked John, “What’s the white light for?”

  “It’s a beacon to indicate which way is up.”

  “Good idea. Bill, Sam needs to work his way to the bottom of the vent wall.” John scribbled “jetpack on his back” and showed the note to Anderson, who nodded approval, then continued to Bill, “If he needs to, have him use the jetpack to get
down, but don’t get tangled in the cable.”

  Fifteen minutes passed.

  Anderson told Bill, “All right. Have your man work his way through the cone, but make sure to always keep the white light in sight.”

  John switched his monitor’s view to Sam’s headlamp camera and turned up the volume to listen to the conversation between Sam and Bill. The cavern wall became illuminated as the lamp moved horizontally, then the white light above Sam came into view.

  “Spinning,” Sam said.

  Bill said, “Fire your jetpack to stop the rotation.”

  The light on the wall stopped moving.

  Bill said, “Anderson wants you to go beyond the cone at the mouth of the Vent, but keep the light in sight.”

  “Roger.”

  Cable floated and curled across the screen. John hoped this wouldn’t become a reenactment of the previous day’s tragedy.

  “Gliding out of the cone and into the interface,” Sam announced.

  The light attached to the stake appeared.

  “What do you see?” Bill asked.

  “I see rock—a horizontal rock wall. It’s probably granite with some small crystals, most likely quartz. The top of the void is lined with rock and crystals, but below, there’s nothing. I’m turning on my flashlight.” Both lights shone back into the Vent. The cavern light had disappeared completely.

  “That’s all?” Bill asked.

  “Just a minute.” The staked white light reappeared. “Whew! Got lost there for a moment.”

  Bill said, “Anderson wants to know if there’s any dust or soil mixed with the rock and crystals.”

  Sam reached between two larger rocks and grabbed some dirt. It twinkled in his flashlight beam.

  “Yes, there’s dust.”

  “What happens when you let go of it?”

  When he released it, the dust burst out in a sphere, then sank towards the horizontal wall.

  “Uh, it clings back to the rock.”

  “Can you go to the center of the cone and move into the void?”

  “I think so,” Sam said. “Give me more cable.”

  His jetpack hissed as he traveled back until he was directly below the white light; cable curled up beside him. His feet appeared next to the cavern wall.