Read Online Subterrestrial by Michael McBride - Free Book Online Page B

The government is well aware of what happened here and is assisting us in our efforts to fully evaluate the extent of our position. You have to understand that our proximity to the Russian border makes our predicament considerably more . . . delicate. An international incident is in no one’s best interests.”
    “All politics aside,” Payton said, “if what we’re about to see down here is as amazing as we’ve been led to believe, the entire world deserves to know.”
    “And it will.” Thyssen looked away from them and through the window above the console. “When it’s ready.”
    The way he said it gave Payton a tingling sensation in the pit of his stomach. What could possibly be down here that the world wasn’t ready to see? For the first time he wondered if it was possible that the “higher orders of life” weren’t quite as ancient as he’d assumed.
    An enormous cavern opened beneath their feet. The sound of the motor changed and took on a flat intonation. Payton watched the walls of the chute fall away. The spotlights diffused into a space so large they barely limned the damp sandstone walls. Portable lighting arrays had been erected in a ring around the machinations of the elevator. The rubble had been cleared from the center of the cavern and restrained behind chain-link fencing. A channel had been cut into the ground to funnel the water into a retaining pond, from which a pipe ran back up through the shaft. Others snaked along the ground deeper into the tunnel, following the course of the large inflatable tube through which the surface air flowed.
    “This is an epikarst zone,” Duan said. “The sandstone roof does not erode like the limestone floor. It is a very stable system. Like Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.”
    “I assure you, Dr. Duan, this is unlike anything you’ve ever seen.”
    The elevator settled to the ground beside a metal platform. The clanging of their footsteps as they disembarked echoed far off into the distance. The sound of blowing air and running water provided a constant, grating hum.
    Butler opened the first in a row of freestanding cabinets, inside of which were a good dozen diving helmets with a single halogen lens built into them like a cyclopean eye. He stepped aside so each of them could take one and opened the second cabinet. It was filled with black Thermoprene diving suits arranged by size. The adjacent cabinet housed a good number of what looked like miniature scuba tanks attached to harnesses and face masks.
    “These will give you roughly fifteen minutes of compressed air, which isn’t a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but a whole lot better than nothing. Besides, trying to get through some of these fissures with a full thirty-pound SCBA on your back just isn’t going to happen. This little tank weighs less than five pounds and sits right here on your hip. Just clip the belt around your waist and the strap over your shoulder like this. The mask hangs over here, on the opposite hip. All you need to do is slip it over your head, connect it to the tubing, and crank this knob.” He demonstrated with a hiss of air. “Easy as that.”
    “Now, I believe it’s high time I showed you what you’ve come here to see,” Thyssen said, and struck off into the cavern.
    “This is where I bid you adieu,” Butler said. “Someone has to do the grunt work while you guys have all the fun.”
    He returned to the elevator and, with a clatter of metal and an electric hum, ascended back toward the surface.
    Payton glanced at Duan, who stared up at the ceiling with an expression of sheer wonder, and couldn’t help but smile.
    “Is it everything you hoped it would be?”
    “They mapped three hundred seventy miles of passages in Mammoth Cave. How many do you think are down here?”
    Payton clapped him on the shoulder and belted himself into the harness of his breathing apparatus. His headlamp shined on the backs of the others, casting their long shadows across the damp