Beneath the Ice (29 page)

“Don’t mock the gods, Dr. Curtis,” Enkian
snapped, his smile dissolving in an instant. “I have no patience
with such things. And not Babylonian. Pre-Babylonian.”

“Hold on,” Jack said. “Why would someone
take the names of ancient gods?” His words ground to a halt.
“You’re telling me that thing is . . . is the Tower of Babel?”

“Not a bad guess,” Enkian said.

“I can’t believe that,” Curtis said. “It’s
in the wrong place. Maybe it’s just another pyramidal building. The
Aztecs built them, the Egyptians, and others. Pyramid shapes are
found all over the globe—they’re considered sacred shapes in many
religions—but that’s a far cry from the Tower of Babel.”

“Is it?” Enkian said. “Do you think I would
travel this far, spend this kind of money, take this kind of chance
for just another pyramid? If I wanted to see ziggurats, I’d have
flown to Iraq.”

“This is nonsense,” Curtis said. He looked
at Perry. “I’m not buying it. It’s impossible, Perry. It’s beyond
impossible. We’re at the South Pole. Babylon prospered in a land
far from here.”

“What you believe is of no consequence to
me,” Enkian said. “You can believe your eyes or not. I don’t care.”
He turned back to Sarah. “It’s time to launch the new cryobot.”

“We have to pull Hairy back up,” she
said.

“Disengage the power and optic lines,”
Enkian said. “We no longer need it.”

Sarah turned, the color
seeping from her face. “You’re not seri
ous. You want me to just leave Hairy down there?”

“That’s exactly what I’m ordering. Now do
it.”

“We can’t do that—”

“Yes, you can,” Enkian said. “When you
explained the operation of the device to me, did you not say that
it could be operated remotely through transmitters?”

“Yes, but we can’t transmit radio through
two miles of ice, not with enough signal integrity to operate
intelligently.”

“I don’t care about that.
I’m assuming that the device is designed
to release its umbilical. Is that true?”

Sarah didn’t answer.

“Your silence is answer enough,” Enkian
said. “Cut it loose.”

“It won’t take that long to pull it up,”
Sarah said. “We might need it later.”

“Don’t question me!” Enkian raised a hand to
slap her.

Perry was there before the enraged man could
begin his swing. Perry clamped a hand on the raised arm. A sharp
pain pierced his side, and Perry dropped to the ice. He looked up
to find Tia glaring down at him, the barrel of her gun pointed at
his head—the same barrel she had just thrust into his ribs. “You
are now expendable,” she said. Perry saw her finger tighten on the
trigger.

“No. I have a job for Mr. Sachs.” Enkian
directed his eyes to the dive suits.

“You can’t be serious,” Perry said,
struggling to his feet.

“You’re the one who brought the suits.”

Perry chose not to respond. Enkian nodded at
Tia, who stepped over to Griffin and placed the barrel of her gun
to his throat.

“Ease up,” Perry says. “I’ll do it.”

Wide-eyed, Griffin rubbed his throat.

Perry stood next to one of the AD suits and examined
it closely. The hardshell suit was going to be his lifeboat. Like
an astronaut, he was going to be fully dependent on the suit. There
were a dozen different ways in which he might die. If the suit’s
heater failed, he’d freeze before they could pull him to the
surface. If the suit had a flaw in its specially designed skin or
in its articulated joints, then the high pressure of the lake could
push freezing water in through the smallest of holes. It would be
an unpleasant way to die. Other death scenarios floated in the dark
waters of his mind, but he pushed them away. It was better to think
of life.

A sound behind him made him turn. He saw
Jack walking his way. With him were Griffin and Gleason.

“How you doing, buddy?” Jack asked, his face
chiseled with concern.

“I’m okay.” He didn’t feel okay.

“Why don’t you let me go?” Jack said. “That
woman gave you a pretty hard jab in the ribs.”

“You’re more busted up than I am,” Perry
said. He looked at his friend’s blood-soaked sleeve. “And my ribs
have fared better than yours did. Besides, I don’t think you’d fit
in the suit.”

“I’d make it fit,” Jack said.

Perry nodded. “Yeah, I know you would, but I
can’t allow it. From the beginning, the plan was that I would go
down.”

“That’s only because you didn’t include us
in the planning,” Gleason said.

“I’m sorry, but it had to be that way.”

“Then let me go,” Gleason said. “We’re about
the same size. In fact, I’m a little smaller. I’d fit in the suit
easily.”

Perry shook his head. “We’re not calling the
shots. Besides, I’m the one who practiced in the suit before we
came down. You’re not qualified.”

“I don’t believe this,” Griffin said. “You
guys are trying to elbow out one another for the privilege of dying
first.”

“We’ve always been a little competitive,”
Perry said. He began to examine the suit, which hung on a metal
support. “Batteries are charging, although I hope I won’t need
them.” Power from the surface would supply the energy the suit
needed to operate. The batteries were for backup. Perry thought
about how quickly and easily Enkian had cut off Hairy. He was sure
the man would cut him off with no more thought.

“I don’t understand,” Griffin said. “When
they held the gun to my head, you didn’t hesitate to say you’d go
down the shaft. I can understand why you’d do it for these guys,
but why me? You don’t even like me.”

“I never said that, Griffin,” Perry said.
“You’re a good man, just too full of yourself. Purpose and
happiness aren’t found in knowledge.”

Griffin choked. “It’s the only thing I’ve
found that brings me any peace.”

“Then you haven’t looked far enough,” Perry
said.

“This is about your faith, isn’t it?”
Griffin said. “You think by sacrificing yourself, you’ll be in good
stead with God.”

“Not at all,” Perry said.
“My standing with God is based on Jesus
’
sacrifice, not mine.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because Jesus did it for me,” Perry said.
“And because it makes the most sense. We’re in a tough situation
here. We need to do what we must to survive as long as we can.
Maybe something will happen to our benefit.”

“You mean God might intervene.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. We stay alive
as long as we can, and we look for opportunities to save
ourselves.”

“And this gives you comfort?” Griffin shook
his head.

“It gives me much more than that.”

“Such thinking is nonsense,” Griffin
said.

Perry met Griffin’s eye. “Do I look like a
stupid man to you?”

“Well, no . . .”

“What about Jack? He kids a lot, but have
you seen anything to suggest that his intellect is weak, or that
he’s subject to superstition? Or Gleason here? He’s one of the
smartest men I know. Dr. Curtis leads his field, but he finds faith
in Christ reasonable and compelling.”

“Rejecting the spiritual doesn’t make one
intelligent except in his own eyes,” Jack added. “To refuse to see
the truth of faith is the real insult to intelligence.”

“I’m after truth,” Griffin said.

“No, you’re not,” Perry retorted. “You’re
after truth that fits your view. You dispel everything else. Take
that object below the ice. I don’t know if it is the Tower of
Babel, but I know it’s there, and that means I have to consider
what at the moment seems unreasonable. That ziggurat is there
whether I believe it is or should be.” He turned back to the suit.
“In a few hours, Lord willing, I’ll be touching it.”

“Why does he want you to go down there?”
Gleason asked. “I can understand why you brought the suits. Taking
samples of the object would be helpful.”

“I don’t know what his motivation is,” Perry
said. “He sees himself as the servant to some ancient Babylonian
gods.”

“He may think he is one of the gods,” Jack
said.

“That’s a frightening thought,” Gleason
said. He paused. “I have some bad news.”

Perry shrugged. “Another log on the fire,
eh?”

“Slick is making better headway than we
thought. Enkian has it working at full steam, and it is moving
twice as fast through the opening. In another few hours it will be
down to the water column. I estimate it’ll break through six hours
after that.”

“That should give the batteries enough time
to fully charge,” Perry said. “Let’s set up the other suit too.
It’s here, so it might as well be ready.”

In college, Perry’s physics
professor had told the class something Albert Einstein had said.
“To paraphrase the great thinker, time is r
elative. Time spent with a pretty girl moves faster than time
spent sitting on a hot stove.” Perry understood Einstein’s point
all too well. Time spent in pleasure passes much faster than that
spent in pain—as does time spent in fear. Time was passing quickly
for Perry, too quickly. When Hairy began its descent through the
ice, it seemed like an eternity before it would reach the lake
below.
Slick was making the distance in a
third of the time.

Now something was eating
at Perry, something he couldn’t put a finger on. The last day had
been filled with thoughts of survival, his mind working to find a
solution that would save him and his
friends. In the midst of thoughts that swirled like leaves in
a torna
do was the undying inkling that
something wasn’t right, that just behind the veil of ignorance was
a revelation of great importance—a dangerous revelation.

“Suit up,” Enkian ordered. Perry looked at
the tanned man with the hard face. There was a malevolent
intelligence in his eyes, and determination was tattooed on his
face. It was that determination that unsettled Perry. Enkian was a
man with a cause. Perry didn’t fully understand yet, but he knew
the most dangerous men in the world were those driven by causes.
Causes made suicide bombers commit horrible acts against innocents;
they sent the unstable into murderous rages; they sent nations to
war.

What was Enkian’s cause? And what was Perry
missing?

The thoughts continued to
spin as Perry approached the dive suit. He had watched as the
apparatus was moved into position near the ice shaft. The sound of
cable being wound around its drum pulled
his attention away. Slick was being raised. Enkian had
ordered it lift
ed the moment it touched
the lake. The shaft was now large enough to accommodate a man in
the newly designed, hardshell dive suit. Slick would be back in the
Chamber soon, and Enkian was wasting no time. Perry was to begin
his descent as soon as possible.

The suit rested on its stand, its torso
separated from feet and legs like a robot cut in half at the waist.
Jack stepped to Perry’s side. His dark skin seemed darker, and the
twinkle that lived in his eyes was missing. Perry had never before
seen Jack truly frightened. Now he had.

Jack helped Perry remove his parka and the
rest of his cold suit. The frigid air assaulted him, stinging his
skin and sinking into his body like water into a sponge. He
shivered.

“Let’s get you into this tux before you
freeze,” Jack said. Perry was wearing nothing but his thermal
underwear. Jack handed him a rubberized suit, similar to a dry suit
worn by cold water divers. It was more formfitting and would help
keep his body temperature stable.

A bar hung over the lower
portion of the dive suit. Perry slipped on gloves, took hold of the
bar, and pulled himself up so he could swing his legs into their
intended opening. He felt a hand grab his
left foot. Jack was guiding him. Then he felt another hand
grab his
right ankle. Perry looked down
and saw Gleason on his right.

Perry wiggled, shifted, and squeezed himself
into the leg openings. Unlike older, bulkier JIM suits that allowed
more room for the diver but were unwieldy and difficult to handle,
the AD suit was close to formfitting. Perry had just enough room to
shift while in the suit and for warm air heated by onboard heaters
to circulate. Gel pads pressed against Perry’s legs.

“I still don’t know what you want me to do,”
he said to Enkian.

“I want a stone from the ziggurat.”

“A stone? Those things are huge. I can’t
lift one of those.”

Enkian shook his head. “You weren’t paying
attention, Mr. Sachs. Do you know the Bible?”

“I have an acquaintance with it.”

“The first book of the Bible is Genesis.
Chapter eleven tells the story.” He closed his eyes and began to
quote: “ ‘Now the whole earth used the same language and the
same words. And it came about as they journeyed east, that they
found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they
said to one another—’?”

“ ‘
Come, let us make
bricks and burn them thoroughly,’ ” Perry finished the quote.
“ ‘And they used brick for stone, and they used
tar for mortar.’ ”

“I’m impressed. The larger stones of the
ziggurat are made up of smaller elements. For all intents and
purposes they are bricks. The large building blocks are composed of
smaller bricks. You should have no problem.”

“How could fire-sealed mud bricks have
endured next to a lake?” Griffin asked. “The water would have
destroyed them.”

“Oh, the ziggurat shows
some damage. That is to be expected. But remember, Dr. James—”
Enkian raised a finger as he spoke. “The structure has not
been
in
the lake;
the lake is rising to meet it. It’s been encased in ice until now.
Now it is being revealed, just as the ancient prophecies
predicted.”