The Descent

'What's he doing?'

Still singing, the hadal took a child from one of the females and cradled it in his  arms. He made a sacramental motion, as if tracing ashes on its head or throat,  it  was  hard  to see.  Then  he  set  the  child  aside  and  took  another  that  was  held  up  to  him  and repeated  his gesture.  'He's cutting their throats,' January realized.

'What!'

'Is that a knife?'

'Glass,' said Foley.

'Where did he get glass?' Cooper roared at the general.

An  emaciated  female  stood  before  the  butcher  hadal.  She  cast  her  head  back  and opened  her  arms  wide  and  it  took  her  killer  a  minute  to  find  the  artery  and  saw  her throat open. A second female stood.

Voice by  voice, their song was dying.

'Stop him,' Cooper shouted at Sandwell. 'The bastard's killing off my  pack.' But it was too late.

Love  is duty.  He took in the crook of his arm his own son, as cold  as  a  pebble.  He  cried out the name of the messiah. Weeping, he made the cut and held his final  child  while  it bled down his breast.  At last he was free  to join his own blood with theirs.

BOOK THREE

GRACE

Inter Babiloniam et Jerusalem nulla pax est sed guerra continua....

Between Babylon and Jerusalem there is no peace, but continual war....

– ST BERNARD, The Sermons

21

MAROONED

The sea, 6,000 fathoms

No one had ever  dreamed such a place.

The   geologists   had   spoken   about   ancient    paleo-oceans    buried    beneath    the continents,  but  only  as  hypothetical  explanations  for  the  earth's  wandering  poles  and gravity  anomalies. The  paleo-oceans were  mathematical fancies. This was real. Abruptly  –  on  October  22  –  it  was  there,  motionless,  calm.  Men  and  women  who had been  racing  downriver  for  their  lives  stopped.  They  climbed  from  their  rafts  and joined  comrades  standing  agape  upon  the  pewter-colored  sand.  The  water  spread before  them,  an  enormous  flat  crescent.  The  slightest  of  waves  licked  at  the  shore. The  surface was smooth. Their  lights skimmed from it.

They  had  no  idea  the  shape  or  size  of  the  water  body.  They  sent  their  laser  beams pulsing upward, searching for  a  ceiling  that  finally  measured  a  half-mile  overhead.  As for  the  length  of  the  sea,  the  surface  bent.  All  they  could  say  with  certainty  was  that the  horizon  lay  twenty  miles  distant,  with  no  obstructions  in  between  and  no  end  in sight.

The  path split right and left  around  the  sea.  No  one  knew  which  led  where.  'There's

Walker's footprints,' someone said, and they  followed them.

Farther  down  the  beach,  they  found  their  fourth  cache.  Side  by  side,  the  three cylinders lay as neat as merchandise. Walker's men had  reached  the  site  hours  earlier and stockpiled the contents  within  a  makeshift  firebase.  Sand  had  been  heaped  into  a circular berm with entrenching shovels. Machine guns were  trained on fields of fire. The  scientists approached on foot. One of  the  mercenaries  came  out  and  put  a  hand up. 'That's close enough,' he said.

'But it's us,' a woman said.

Walker appeared. 'The depot is off limits,' he informed them.

'You can't do that,' someone shouted.

'We're in a state  of  high  alert,'  Walker  said.  'Our  highest  priority  is  the  protection  of food  and  supplies.  If  we  were  attacked  and  you  were  inside  our  perimeter,  there would  be  chaos.  This  is  the  wisest  course.  We've  located  a  campsite  for  you  on  the opposite  side  of  that  rock  fall  over  there.  The  quartermaster  has  issued  your  rations and mail.'

'I need to see the girl,' Ali said.

'Off limits, I'm afraid,' Walker said. 'She's been classified a military asset.'

The  way  he said it was odd, even  for Walker. 'Who's classified her?' Ali asked.

'Classified.' Walker blinked. 'She has valuable information about the terrain.'

'But she speaks  hadal dialect.'

'I plan to teach her English.'

'That will take  too  long.  We  can  help,  Ike  and  me.  I've  assembled  glossaries  before.' This was her chance to dig into the raw language.

'Thank you for your  enthusiasm, Sister.'

Walker  pointed  at  twenty  bubble-wrapped  bottles  lying  in  the  sand.  'Helios  sent whiskey.  Drink  it  or  pour  it  out.  Either  way,  it  stays  here.  We're  not  taking  liquid weight with us.'

Only  afterward  would  the  scientists  realize  the  whiskey  was  part  of  Walker's  plan. That  night  they  sulked  and  drank.  Their  estrangement  from  the  mercenaries  had been  building  for  months.  The  massacre  had  made  the  divide  even  wider.  Now  they were  two camps. The  bottles passed freely.

'We're ninety-eight-pound  weaklings down here,' someone complained.

'How much more can we take?'  a woman asked.

'By God, I'm ready  to go home,' Gitner announced.