A Warrior's Return (26 page)

“Very well then, where to start. Ahhh yes.
We tried to trace the signal emanating from the crystals, but it
appears to be hopelessly scrambled. We both felt that there had to
be something more to the map. We tried everything we could think of
to unlock some hidden code within the map, but we came up with
nothing time and time again, until I noticed something about the
globe map that I hadn’t before. The surface of the globe wasn’t
smooth, but instead it was faceted in a diagonal cross-section much
the same as this giant cut diamond. I examined both further and
discovered that they were identical only off in terms of scale from
each other. Then I asked myself what about the two oblong crystals,
they had to fit in somewhere. I thought about it and came up with
this.”

Ellanara pressed a button on a remote and
the globe of the earth changed to the faceted outline of a diamond,
similar to the one we had. The revolving images of both elongated
crystals floated out from the central diamond.

“I came up with this theory. The Earth is
replaced as a neutron and the two crystals serve as electrons. Not
only do the electrons spin around the neutron, but they spin in a
geocentric orbit like this.”

Ellanara hit another button and the
elongated crystals vanished into fast swirling balls of color that
rotated around the more slowly rotating neutron.

“Behold you now have hydrogen, the first
element on the periodic table. Add the planetary stresses
experienced by Earth to it with the addition of gravitational pull
by the sun, moon and the rotation on an axial alignment.”

The orbit of the electrons was pulled wider
slightly and everything was tilted over to the side in an
approximation of a rotation around an invisible axis.

“Now if we take lines off of the points of
the crystals which could be simulating the inner workings of an
electron, you get this crazy array of lines, but if you eliminate
all the lines except for those that intersect at the apex of the
diagonal platelets on the globe diamond map you get only twelve
lines, as these lines travel into the diamond they are repeatedly
reflected off surfaces with the last step of redirection focusing
all twelve lines into a single point on the outside of the diamond.
Superimpose the globe overtop and this is what you see. The
location of the bar-Seth, which I’m afraid dear Eva you are not
going to like.” Sparky finished with in summary.

I groaned at the spot indicated on the
globe. It was Antarctica, the coldest place on Earth.

“This is where it is Sparky?” Talaric asked
somewhat skeptically.

“We’re almost positive of it.”

“But…but….this is bad Sparky! It’s probably
encased in several hundred feet of ice!”

“Not necessarily.” Ellanara replied
calmly.

“How is that?” Talaric asked.

“Remember when we were in the bar-Seth’s
hanger and I told you there were three thermal generators, but that
only one of them was working.”

“Yes.”

“Well I wasn’t quite right at the time. I
discovered the truth out later, when we were setting the place to
blow up. The other two generators weren’t working, because they
weren’t there. I also saw that the fallen power ratings coincided
with Tadias’s visit to the facility.”

Talaric looked at her steadily for a moment
before responding, “So you think Tadias took the other two
generators and erected a force field to keep the ship intact and
perhaps even a clear space around it?”

“It’s possible, in fact it’s extremely
likely, as what other reason would he need so much power for. The
one generator was weak by itself, because they were designed to
help charge each other up. I think it’s safe to say that two of the
generators could maintain a force field almost indefinitely, if
they helped each other out and their power source remained
constant.”

Talaric nodded his head seeming to accept
what she was saying, “Even if all this is as you say, how are we
going to get through the ice, short of a nuclear explosion, in
order to get to the shield?”

“I think I can help you with that one,
“Sparky said almost sounding smug.

He turned a laptop screen towards Talaric.
It was a satellite image of most probably someplace in Antarctica.
It looked typical of what you would see. A cold looking barren
wasteland covered in snow and ice broken up here and there by a few
craggy mountain peaks.

Talaric looked as if he’d reached the same
conclusion as me, that there wasn’t anything to be seen other than
what one would expect.

“Look closely at the mountains, here’s a
better view.”

The second view made it much more apparent
what was different. One of the mountain peaks was completely bare
of snow and ice. It didn’t have a peak like the others did, it
actually looked a little like a…

“Volcano.” Sparky said finishing our
collective thought.

“We believe the volcano is slightly active.
The location of the bar-Seth is right next to it. It would seem
that there is a way to go down after all through the ice.”

Talaric looked at the screen and then
glanced over at Eleanor who saluted, “Find me a plane Sir and I’ll
fly the blinking thing down the old rim. Reporting for duty for my
first Vernian adventure to the middle of the Earth Sir!”

Talaric smiled beginning to look more
relaxed than I had seen him in days.

“Already picked out Eleanor. We just need to
go pick it up so to speak. All right everyone pack up were leaving.
Tonight!”

Ever since I had met Talaric my life had
been a nonstop adventure. I’d been on two continents already and I
was about to add a third.

The landing went surprisingly easy, almost
as if we’d touched down on a paved runway, because the ice was so
hard and flat. People sometime in the past had been worried about
the poles melting, with the first blast of arctic air that came
rushing through the open side door of the plane I could have
assured them that nothing was in danger of melting around here.

There wasn’t much light to see by. It was
sort of a faint twilight glow, but that was all. It felt odd,
because it was the middle of the afternoon.

I was so bundled up I couldn’t feel how cold
it was, except for my poor face. Rafael was beside me so swaddled
up that he looked like a little sausage. Holding each other’s hand
was made awkward by the heavy gloves we both wore. Soon it was time
for us to climb down out of the vanishing warmth of the plane.

It was hard to climb down into the darkness
of the strange cold barren land. It felt like I had already left
Earth and was on a strange new world. The knowledge that if
everything went right, I would be on a new world soon enough,
completely left me twisted up inside in self-doubt, as to my
reasoning that had brought me to this point. Was I doing the right
thing?

Was this the best thing for Rafael?

Yes it was dangerous, but then every path in
life was. This was the right choice, it had to be. It had better
be!

I stepped foot onto my third continent ready
to make the change. It would be a big change. Titus picked up
Rafael and held him securely against him for which I was extremely
grateful. Titus and I were together in our misery of the cold.

“We wasn’t made for this Miss Eva! No sir!
This is terrible! They needs some fire down here!”

A special rope was passed along that we were
each snapped to and then with a jerk I was yanked forward to walk
out over the crunchy terrain in near darkness. Even with the
goggles over my eyes, it felt like my eyeballs were going to
freeze. I shut them allowing myself to be directed forward by the
pull of the rope at my waist.

We marched through the crunchy darkness for
over an hour and I felt my feet start to lose feeling. I feared
that if I wasn’t careful on my numb feet I’d trip and break
something easily. I opened my eyes to see the darker blackness of
the volcano rising up before us and then we started to climb. The
effort of doing that helped to warm me up a bit, plus we had a
little shelter from the wind that seemed to pierce through all the
layers of clothing I wore.

I was really beginning to question Talaric’s
leadership. We’d been climbing the volcano for over an hour and I
felt wiped out. None of this made any sense. What were we going to
do when we reached the top of the volcano, jump in?

I was risking Rafael’s life out here and I
felt that there should be a better plan of action other than
apparently no plan at all!

My foot slipped and I didn’t even have time
to cry out before I plummeted over a drop off I hadn’t seen. The
rope caught me up with a jerk, as Titus next in line behind me
grabbed and held against the rope. I had almost dragged one of
Roric’s men over with me that had been just ahead of me.

The momentum of my fall had me swinging back
and forth on the rope and I swung in under a ledge and connected
hard with a wall of stone. I tried to catch myself with my hands to
avoid crashing into it, but I still hit hard. Dazed from the hard
impact I hung on to the rope idly swinging in the air.

A flashlight shined down on me and I blinked
my eyes against the harsh glare.

“Eva are you okay?”

It was Talaric’s voice and my already bad
mood had only been made worse by this incident, ‘Do I look
okay!’

That was what I wanted to yell back at him,
but I refrained from doing so at the last moment.

There were so many lights on me now that I
couldn’t even look up for the glare. I moved my arm in a wave, but
I stopped the motion of my arm, when I caught sight of something. I
looked at my hands and then down at myself at where I had bounced
off the wall.

I called up excited, “I’m wet!”

“You’re bleeding!”

From the sound of Talaric’s voice I could
tell that he was about to come down over the edge.

“No, no! I’m wet with water!”

I fumbled for my own light and switched it
on.

“There is a cave of sorts down here! You can
let me down. I’m only a few feet above the floor.”

After a moment I was lowered and then one by
one the rest joined me. The last to come down was Talaric, who
enveloped me in a tight bear hug and I forgot my earlier
aggravation with him, as I hugged him back. Stepping back he
glanced at the cave in the light of his headlamp.

The steamy mist coming out of the cave
entrance before us was the picture of foreboding mystery. I
quivered involuntarily at the sight of it and whatever lay
beyond.

“It seems safe enough to breathe. I think
we’ve come too far to go back now.” Sparky said, looking as if he
wanted a better option than what was available.

Eleanor patted him on the back, as she
slipped by him into the cloudy mist with a limp, “Wouldn’t matter
anyway old soul. The old deathtrap son of a sorry sea cook wouldn’t
fire back up in this cold anyway. It’s a one-way trip mates and I
for one, want to see what’s inside. Dibs on who gets to fire the
saucer up first.”

None of us had really been going to contest
her on that one and reluctantly we followed her one by one into the
darkness beyond, which was surprisingly warm.

The channel of the cave led steadily
downward and twisted and turned like a snake.

“Must be an old lava tube. Here’s one to jot
down in the old book of firsts.” Eleanor said in excitement.

I didn’t share her enthusiasm. I was
grateful for the warmth, but I didn’t like the thought of this tube
becoming active again anytime soon. The troubling thing was if this
dormant volcano was still active enough to be putting off heat like
this then what was the true classification of something being
dormant?

We walked for hours downward into the
volcano, stripping off layers of clothing as we went. Up ahead of
us a red glow had begun to appear. Titus wiped the sweat off his
forehead with his massive forearm.

“You is a dang fool Titus for asking the
good Lord for fire! He done sure enough give it to you! Lord have
mercy this can’t be healthy for you. Freezing your bone marrow one
moment and sweating it out the next!”

Katie’s steps ahead of me were getting
slower and slower, as we approached the red glow. I started to pass
her, as I held onto Rafael’s hand, but Rafael reached out and took
Katie’s hand with his other.

Katie looked at him in surprise and he said,
“I’m scared too!”

Katie smiled slightly and quickened her pace
a little, as she held onto his hand, while I suffered through a
moment of both pride for Rafael’s action and reproof of myself as a
person for not reaching out to Katie myself.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid like she was,
because I was! But the farther Katie legged behind the farther I
got away from Talaric at the front. In many ways he was my source
of security. It helped me to be brave myself if I could be near
him.

The cave ended on a terrace above what we
had all feared, a slow moving river of lava that lay another
hundred feet or so below us. We were all staring at it in a mixture
of morbid fascination, when I heard Eleanor cry out to us.

I looked toward her voice and saw she had
moved on out along the terrace and was gesturing to something. We
broke away from our view and moved towards her. She stood in front
of a bluish flickering wall of sorts. It was like glass in that you
could see what was on the other side of it.

“I wonder what this is?” Eleanor asked her
eyes wide with curiosity.

“Don’t!” Cried out Ellanara and Sparky
together, but it was too late.

Zat!

Eleanor jolted back away from the wall of
glass her hair frizzed up, as she shook her hand violently and
fought to hold back an entire litany of curses to express the pain
that she was feeling.

Rafael stood in front of her, his eyes as
big as dinner plates and said, “Ouch!”