Catacombs (47 page)

They were at fifteen thousand feet, having spent most of the previous day inching past the treacherous, unstable moraine, putting distance between them and the wide path of the avalanche that seemed certain to come from the faltering glacier. But, according to Henry, they were still another thousand feet from the Catacombs. In this thin air it would be a difficult and perhaps fatal walk for the sick man. And they were now isolated on the high moor by a thick soup of fog and particulate matter sifting down from the caldera of Kibo. Belov found it increasingly difficult to leave the immediate vicinity of the camp in order to gather groundsel bark for their fire. If the fire should go out while he was away, he would lose his bearings and find himself marooned.

He cleared his throat, which felt gritty, stooped for another chunk of the bark, and put it into a makeshift bag, made from a shirt, with the other pieces he'd collected. The mountain boomed and shuddered almost hourly, and the cracking of glacier ice had him jumpy. His hair was stiff as cement from the sifting-down, slightly moistened ash; he had to keep wiping his face clean. They were not entirely out of the zone of maximum avalanche danger, although the steep granite face Belov had pitched their camp next to had looked smooth and free of loose rock and significant icefalls. He looked back and saw the reassuring flicker of his fire through the shadows and dream shapes on the moor, and continued slowly uphill.

Unless he was imagining it, the fog, which had been unmoving as a wall, now seemed to have a slight eddy and flow, as if a wind had come up. That was encouraging. With visibility better, it might be worthwhile getting Henry up and trying to improve on their position, while he was still lucid enough to direct them.

More bark. He reached for it.

By this time he was accustomed to the glow around his gloved hands, the blade of his alpine ax, and the plants that grew to human size from the deep grass. It was St. Elmo's fire; the entire side of the mountain seemed to be electrified. The radiance had a peculiarly enlivening effect on the ghostly, graceful giant lobelias, which resembled tall posts covered with coarse angel hair. They loomed, like sentient creatures, everywhere in the fog.

The mountain shook him and he slipped down, his feet going out from under him; he self-arrested with the ax and pulled himself to his knees, caught his breath. He looked, instinctively, for the fire. Saw it, not much brighter than the flare of a match. He had wandered a little too far. But he was now near a large level area where the tussock seemed beaten down, or worn away entirely. Groundsel and lobelia were missing, even large rocks had been removed.

He aimed his flashlight for a better look and discovered what could have been an old deep bootprint. He moved the light. There was a dull gleam of metal on the ground. He walked over to it and dug around the metal with his ax, unearthing a small aluminum foot pump for inflating pneumatic shelters.

Belov was sure he had found the base camp for the Chapman/Weller expedition.

He began chopping, at random, into the ground, searching for midden, and found, without too much trouble, some rubbish which hadn't begun to decompose: bits of foil-lined food packaging, exhausted fuel cells, an extensive compost of rinds, vegetable pods, and coffee grounds. The charcoal from many campfires.

So they were closer than Henry had thought. Excitement pinched his throat. Now if the fog would lift, for even an hour. . .

Belov hurried back down to his own campsite, homing in on the yellow pinprick of fire in front of the domed silvery shelter.

His mind was on his discovery, on the nearness of the Catacombs; the news, he was sure, would get Henry on his feet quickly. If he had to, Belov thought, he would carry the old man the rest of the way.

There was something in front of the shelter, behind the fire but unilluminated, a lithe dark shape with four legs and a high haunch. Even that much was hard to distinguish, and he'd been seeing too many anthropomorphized shapes on the moor that morning to trust his eyes. His rational mind told him it had to be Henry, that he had crawled out of the shelter on all fours in a delirium.

"Henry!"

But the head was small and catlike; it couldn't be a man. When it moved, Belov decided from the stride that it was a cheetah, like the one he'd seen on the afternoon he had pulled Henry from the mudslide.

Then his senses totally betrayed him: because the cheetah, in a kind of flowing elongated movement, appeared to rise from the ground and walk like a man. It walked away from the shelter and the trace of light that was repeated in the orb of a masked and flaring eye, and vanished in a split second.

As he was getting to the shelter, another earth tremor had Belov swaying on his feet. He ended on all fours himself and crawled inside almost in a panic. Henry Landreth was faceup in the sleeping bag, his eyes open, his mouth open; Belov thought he had died. Then he heard a bubbling breath that Henry dragged from his chest.

"Henry."
  
.

"Ahhh," Henry groaned, in obvious distress. The trembling of the mountain ceased. A few bits of detritus pattered above their heads on the Mylar shelter and Belov flinched, anticipating a Big One, a fifty-ton boulder hurtling noiselessly from high above. Time passed without mishap and his nerves settled down. He poured a drink for Henry, a mixture of brandy and water from melted ice. He helped the sick man to sit up, held the cup to his lips. The bubbling sounds in his chest were ominous. Belov gave him a liter of the precious oxygen.

"What–were we talking about?" Henry asked, as if hours hadn't lapsed since their last chat.

"We were talking about FIREKILL," Belov said with a smile. "And I told you I found it difficult to believe that a ballistic missile could be rendered into atoms in space by the force of electromagnetism. The earth's electromagnetic field–"

"Has been in existence–for at least two point seven billion years. During those eras the field has fluctuated in magnitude countless times. The secret to FlREKILL is to control the fluctuations, increasing their strength at will."

Henry suffered through a rugged coughing fit, and Belov eased him flat to rest.

"You were gone a long time," Henry complained. "I was afraid–something had happened to you."

"Henry, I may have found the site of the Chapman/Weller base camp. Only a few hundred yards from here. You were right. This is the way to the Catacombs. Can we be far?"

Henry was silent for so long Belov thought he hadn't heard. Then a faint smile appeared.

"No. Not far. With your help–I'll make it now."

"Henry, I think you've given it your best try. But you're a very sick man, and as soon as the weather breaks I'm going to bundle you back down the mountain–"

"No! I must–reach the Catacombs. They're depending on me!"

"Who?"

Henry turned his simmering eyes on Belov, and was silent again.

"Why don't you rest, conserve your strength. I'll fix you something nourishing."

"A little bouillon, that's all–I want. Right now–must talk to you, dear fellow. Convince you–I'm not a madman."

"Oh. I'm sure I haven't given you the impression I think you're insane, Henry. You're just overtired, and we both know you need medical attention."

Henry plucked at the sleeve of Belov's down-filled jacket.

"My friend. Listen. If I–I don't survive, then it will be up to you. You will be the caretaker of the secrets of the Catacombs. The great secret of FIREKILL."

"Not sure I'm keen on having the responsibility," Belov said lightly.

"Remember everything I tell you. It's of–critical importance."

"You shouldn't strain yourself like this. . . All right, if it's so important to you. I'm listening."

"The earth itself," Henry said, "is an enormous magnet. This has been known–since the early seventeenth century. But no one in modern times has been able to conclusively identify the source of the magnetic field. The Lords of the Storm, however–knew everything there was to know about it."

"What is the source?"

"The very core of the earth. It is nothing less than a fluid dynamo, a huge metallic sphere–almost the size of the planet Mars. It has nearly a sixth of the earth's volume, one third of its mass. Around the core–there are highly charged fields, called toroidal fields, whose lines of force lie parallel to all spherical surfaces. They are–much stronger than the dipoles on the surface of the earth, the north-south alignment of the lines of magnetic force with the earth's axis of rotation."

"I don't think I understand what the core of the earth has to do with FIREKILL."

Henry smiled. "It is what can so easily be made of it that matters."

"The Lords of the Storm must have used the electromagnetic power of the earth's core to greatly intensify the toroidal fields around the earth."

"In effect they created–new fields, to save themselves from heavy bombardments of meteors, a storm of destruction from space."

"And FIREKILL worked?"

"Oh, very well. But that of course–is the great joke–the cosmic joke–they were forced to play on themselves."

Henry began to laugh, and plunged into a coughing fit. The effects of it withdrew heavily from his small reserves of strength. Belov gave him oxygen. Then he went outside to rebuild the fire and heat beef bouillon in a pan for the Englishman. Visibility was improving; there was a hint of sunlight above the dreary moor.

Henry might have hours left; he might have a day. Belov was chafing with impatience, but he hoped that Henry's intense will to reenter the Catacombs, after Kumenyere's efforts to kill him, could keep him alive where even antibiotics, at this point, would fail.

The mountain shook; the bouillon was almost emptied from the pan. Henry was calling him, by his Swedish name. Ket Ket. It sounded like another spasm of coughing. Belov waited for the tremors to subside, then went back inside the shelter with the bouillon he had saved.

"Good news, Henry. The fog is thinning."

Belov helped him to sit up again; Henry's color was shockingly bad and his eyes rolled back in his head. Belov forced him to swallow all of the bouillon.

More earth tremors; Henry had to lie down. Belov was dismayed.

"Henry–the tremors are more frequent."

"I know. There could be tons of ash–at any moment. Toxic gases. A pyroclastic venting from the crater. Disaster. Nothing would be left alive–on the mountain. The Catacombs will be lost forever."

"Then we certainly ought to hurry."

In a moment of insight, his gaze lucid, Henry said, "FIREKILL must be built again. The Lords of the Storm are with me. They wish to know–if it will happen again."

"I don't understand. Is there someone else on the mountain with us?"

"Win or lose–there is no way
I
can fail, is there? England will realize, too late, my true worth. It's been thirty years. But revenge is a dish–"

"Best eaten cold. What revenge, Henry?"

Henry smiled enigmatically, then lapsed into a fretful silence. His breathing was rapid and shallow. Belov sighed. "Can you make it, Henry?"

"Yes. Let's go–at once. Give me a hand, my boy." Belov helped Henry from the sleeping bag, guided him outside the shelter. There Belov put on his pack, which was considerably lighter now. Besides the cylinder of oxygen, he took with him only emergency rations and his fluid recycler; Dacron rope; his cameras and film; and the powerful miniaturized photo transmission unit, which was about the size of a desk-top calculator. It was packaged with a detached, fully collapsible dish antenna the size of a beach umbrella. The ensemble weighed less than seven pounds.

Henry had on Belov's alpinist's sweater and knit cap, a pair of ill-fitting trousers, and cleated Dacron sneakers Belov had brought along to wear around the camp at night. Henry clung to him through another earth tremor. Particulate matter–tephra–was falling all around them, picking up some of the glow of St. Elmo's fire. But it wasn't a heavy fall, and the hazy orb of the sun could be detected for moments at a time through the ash-laden clouds and fog.

Belov carried the ice ax in his right hand; his left arm was around the coughing, chill-wracked Englishman. They made slow progress to the old Chapman/Weller campsite, where Henry had to rest. He sat on the ground and looked around him almost sightlessly. Belov had to keep a hand on him or he would have fallen over. He force-fed Henry a few bites of chocolate bar, got him up and moving again, following an uphill track still visible through the stunted tussock.

In the hours since he'd awakened, Belov had seen few signs of animals and had not heard the cry of a bird, although at these altitudes (he knew from his mountaineering days) one could still expect to find hyrax and duiker, eagle and ibis. The threat from within the mountain had frightened most of them away.

His own lungs were straining for oxygen, his legs had begun to ache. Henry labored painfully against Belov's side, all but dragging his feet. Belov was so accustomed to the deep-down rumble of the mountain that he didn't consciously hear it anymore. But the noise and the frequent and lengthy harmonic tremors took their toll of his strength. His eyes smarted from high altitude, from the fog and grit.

He had thought Henry was nearly comatose. He was surprised to hear him speak.