THE SHADOW OF HEAVEN
There are more things in heaven and earth…
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-William Shakespeare, HAMLET 1.5.166
(Hamlet to Horatio)
I.
“There—I think I see it, Commander.”
Ensign Adams’s breath disappeared overhead as he lowered his binoculars, pointing with a gloved hand at the unstable horizon through the ice-rimmed main windows of the ship. “Looks like something about ten kilometers out, sir.” Backlit by the windows, he turned to face Commander Merritt, the senior officer aboard the destroyer USS Higgins. Cloaked in his winter overcoat, the ensign’s brittle voice seemed distant in the cold dry air, his words nearly obliterated by the surging wind and unforgiving swells of the squall. Outside, colossal waves, some the size of buildings, slammed the Higgins—exploding across the ship’s icebound hull in frosty white plumes, adding to the inches-deep transparent slick of frozen seawater on the deck as she plunged further into one of the most hostile environs on the planet: the Southern Ocean. Gales such as this arose suddenly and with terrifying ferocity this close to Antarctica, reducing visibility to a few feet, churning the barren seascape into a foamy lather as it thrust icebergs the size of city blocks into the path of interlopers to this foreboding, isolated part of the world. At times, mighty whitecaps pounded on the destroyer with such titanic fury that they caused the vessel to flinch backward, bobbing like an oversized cork in the roiling black depths.
Merritt, his drawn face numb from the chill, carefully considered the ensign’s words, leaning against an interior deck rail to keep his balance as they rocked in the grip of the storm. Bringing his binoculars to his face, he scanned the dead gray interface between leaden sky and dark water beyond the icy windows Adams was motioning toward, noting the faint curtain of blue-green ripples from the southern lights, streaked by rose-colored lightning ribbons in the distance as freezing night collapsed around them. Even on the closed bridge, the saline-tinged atmosphere had gotten so frigid that the inside of his nose crystallized with each breath.
Our luck to be the closest in the vicinity of a distress call.
“Are you sure you saw a vessel? Maybe it was a ‘berg,'“ the Commanding Officer asked at last.
“It didn’t look like an iceberg…” Adams was scrutinizing the horizon as he spoke: “One moment, sir.”
As he worked against the storm’s fury, the commander was troubled that, in their attempts to discover the exact whereabouts of the missing research ship Terra Australis Incognita, they might have gone astray. The weary leader and his crew of just over two hundred were stuck now, committed to the search even as they struggled with the dreadful conditions approximately 300 miles off the coast of West Antarctica—well off-course from their originally assigned bearing based on Australis’s last communique. Merritt was further aggravated that they had been pulled into this mess just as the Higgins was returning for shore leave after a long, tedious mission: Subsonic underwater audio testing. The original search-and-rescue order had instructed them to triangulate the position of the troubled Australis once they were within its last known trajectory, but it concerned him that perhaps she had lost power after her final transmission to the Oceanographic Institute of San Diego, drifting farther than anyone had anticipated. That could mean she was gone—especially if these had been the circumstances for her and her crew in the two days it had taken the Higgins to re-route.
“Still not seeing it, Adams.” Merritt grimaced in frustration.
“Sorry, sir. It was there just a minute ago…”
“Any recent pings, McConnell?” Merritt asked, addressing the Warrant Officer.
The haunting Mayday call that McConnell had picked up as they were adjusting course, scratchy with static and crosstalk, had made it very difficult to decipher who it was, but the co-ordinates and the radar image supported the notion that it had come from Australis. Or at least from a crewmember that might be stranded on the so-called “new islands” that Australis had been allowed to detour and inspect by the Institute.
“Negative, sir,” McConnell replied.
Contemplative, Merritt lowered his binoculars, sighing in annoyance as he stroked his face. Throw into the mix that the closer we get to the last known heading of Australis the worse the fucking weather gets… the more radio-electronic interference—faulty GPS signals, slow clocks, bad wireless connections. Adds up to a lot of irritating bullshit… Oh well—”Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” as they say…
Higgins had endured several of these storms, as powerful as any Merritt had ever encountered in his twenty-plus years as a sailor, in their efforts to find the Australis. Peering through his binoculars again as the mammoth destroyer heaved and fell like some vast roller coaster—lights flickering, deck rolling in the strong seas—the senior officer thought he vaguely made out what the ensign had seen: A shadowy triangular central mass situated among a scattering of large icebergs looming along the periphery of his vision like some ethereal vanguard of the Flying Dutchman. He frowned while adjusting the focus ring, his brow wrinkled in annoyance as he squinted past the thickening fog and billowing sea spray. Christ, it’s like something wants to keep us away…
He glanced over at McConnell, his gray-haired scalp bristling. “You seeing this?”
McConnell worked to keep his footing as he peered through his binoculars. “Aye… Something. Appears man-made, sir, but hard to make out through the mist and—” A crackle from the headset around his neck interrupted him. Placing the speaker to his ear, he listened intently, then moved over to his station, his dark features pressed into a look of apprehension.
Merritt: “What’s happening, McConnell?”
“Not—not sure, sir… There’s a lot of static; I thought I heard… A voice. It was coming in on the same frequency as the last transmission—”
Continuing to monitor the gloom outside, Adams said, “Definitely something there, Commander. Looks to be a modest-sized vessel.”
McConnell: “I’ve got something—putting up on speakers, sir. I have a radar reflection too. One small shape and a few larger masses; the larger areas could be land, but hard to say in this climate … And I checked again—not on our maps.”
A smoky haze of static filled the room, pushing back the sounds of the tempest for an instant: <<CH-CH-CH Gree! Mayday! [blip, blip, blip] Gree! CH-CH-ay! [blip, blip, blip]>>
More intense static. Then, garbled: “If you can hear my voice, please acknowledge! [blip, blip, blip] … is not— [blip, blip, blip] My name is Christopher Faust, over. [blip, blip, blip]… urgent mes— [blip, blip, blip]… communicate! Repeat: This is—”
Silence. The wind howled in the sunless tumult outside the Higgins, sending chunks of ice and snow to shatter against the windows of the darkened bridge. Lightning seared again: closer, redder, like an eruption of stroboscopic tendrils cracking the black-ice sky into pieces. Distant thunder bellowed.
“McConnell, stay on that frequency, but keep monitoring the others; Adams, your thoughts?”
The young ensign was staring into the starless night, struggling to keep his equilibrium in the storm. “I… I believe it’s Australis, sir. Who else would be this far from McMurdo? Granted, farther away than we expected her to be, but we heard the distress call… so we’re obligated to check it out, Commander.”
Merritt looked again, the stiff rubber eyecups of the Steiner chafing his eyelids: Illuminated by flashes of scarlet lightning, the triangular shape appeared to be a bow, with part of a mast attached as well; perhaps a half-submerged wreck, though it was too dim, too turbulent to make out anything definitive.
“Aye,” the commander said. “Set a course for it.”
II.
“Looks like we’ve found her, Commander. No one here, though.” Ensign Adams released the button on his handheld as he stared into the blue-toned water, the white mast and bow of the sunken Australis thrusting up from the briny deep like the hand of a skeleton. The elements had relented since their post-midnight arrival; the ocean was almost peaceful.
At first light, Commander Merritt had deemed it safe enough to dispatch a small advance team of four men through the half-mile or so of chop between the moorage of the Higgins and the suspected wreck of the Australis. Though slightly overcast, the sun was evident, clear, though quite low on the horizon even now, at midday; it was urgent that they discern what was happening before night fell and the temperatures dropped.
“Roger that, Adams,” McConnell replied. “Stand by.”
As Adams and his crew of three awaited their next orders on the drifting rigid-hulled inflatable, he studied the Australis: It was spooky, surreal. The water here was so clear he could see far down into it, almost to the bridge of the research vessel. Straining, he swore he could see something… something large; a supple darkness—
“Adams, we have something near you, but not from the wreck, over.”
Startled from his thoughts by McConnell’s gruff drawl, Adams replied: “Roger that. What do you have?”
“Well… there’s a signal coming from nearby. The co-ordinates are dodgy, as there seems to be some strange interference. Looks like it’s coming from that mass I was explaining from the radar, though. Some seismic disturbances there. I got another signal a while ago like a voice too. See anything? Over.”
“Actually, yeah; over to my left there’s a big fog bank. Looks like about 800 or so feet away. Could it be from there? Over.”
“That’s about the proximity of the radar image, over.”
Adams brought his binoculars up. As he peered through them, he thought he saw something large move in the mist on the horizon: What the hell was that?
“Roger, McConnell. I see something; request permission to investigate, over.”
There was a long pause.
“Roger, Adams; weather’s returning. Merritt says you’ve got an hour, over.”
III.
“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky—”
Like the Indianapolis at the bottom of the deep …
Down to a dreamless sleep …
Drifting,
Spiraling:
IV.
Back onboard the Higgins, Adams was shaken, dazed, as he reported what the search party had discovered: “So there are some islands, Commander.” He looked from Merritt to McConnell as they stood in the infirmary, regarding the apparent sole survivor of the Australis: an unconscious man now lying on the sickbay table. “The radar image was correct… We found Australis, and there was something else… something deeper in the water, looked like it was poking around in the wreckage—”
“What? Like a seal? A shark or something? Or did you see a body?” Merritt asked, his voice edged.
“I-I can’t say; it was some weird… black-looking shape, but iridescent too. Like oil on water. It seemed to be part of something else even larger… maybe it was just the water playing tricks on my eyes, or a part of the ship, but…” Adams looked to the floor. “Anyway, after we went through the fog, we all noted that the temperature was rising; it was becoming quite humid, too. I had to lose a jacket I got so warm. Then, as we disembarked onto this beach we landed on, we were accosted by these giant… flying bats or something, but with feathers. They were shrieking and carrying on. Sounded very human at times. Like a cat in heat. Our compasses were flipping out, and that’s when one of my guys saw a helicopter blade half-buried in the sand. We formed a search line and walked for a mile or so—”
Commander Merritt’s hands clenched. “No one authorized that, Adams! You should have radioed—”
“We tried, sir. The radios went dead right after we landed, and once we found the pieces of the helicopter… Respectfully, we weren’t trying to get into trouble; we just wanted to see if there was anyone hurt—”
McConnell: “He’s right, sir. The radios were unresponsive after the first forty-five minutes or so, and they were DOA back onboard.”
After a silence, Commander Merritt nodded: “Carry on, Adams. Then what happened?”
“Well, we thought we heard screams—human screams—coming from somewhere up the beach, though the place has strange acoustics; the surf, the wind make it pretty noisy, not to mention those flying things squealing overhead, so it could have been coming from the dense vegetation toward the center of the island. Anyway, after about ten more minutes of walking, we ascended a small dune, and that’s where the rest of the helicopter was.” Adams swallowed, staring at the C.O. in trancelike, unblinking remembrance. He motioned toward the man on the bed. “We found him like this… Completely nude, crumpled up next to a bunch of half-frozen papers and the debris of the ‘copter with the walkie-talkie in his hand. Only a few scratches on him from what we could see, just knocked-out. I’m… amazed he’s alive,” Adams said. His voice was quivering. “How… how could he be alive? In those temperatures… Naked? I mean it was warmer, but still plenty cold if you’re exposed like that. And … and the helicopter was demolished, like there was an accident or something. The bloody clothing next to him had a tag: Faust. That’s the guy from the transmissions, right, McConnell?”
McConnell was gawking at the man in the infirmary bed, stunned, his hand covering his mouth. He shot a glance at Commander Merritt, whose red-eyed gaze was also fixed on the sleeping man, and nodded. “Tell him about the other thing you brought back, Adams.”
Merritt broke away from his thoughts. “There was something else? What?”
Adams swallowed, his face suddenly ashen, and looked to the floor. Merritt looked again at McConnell, who took a deep breath.
“What did Adams bring back, McConnell? Another survivor? Where—”
“No, sir,” Adams interrupted. “Not a survivor. It’s in another lab; one of the medics is investigating it.”
“Well let’s go see, Adams,” the commander said. He looked at McConnell. “I want to know the second this guy comes to.”
McConnell nodded again. “Yes, sir.”
V.
“Commander, have you heard the term ‘globster’ before?” Medic Aaron Randolph asked.
“Yes. Like sea monsters or something.”
The medic smiled, thin blond hair falling over his forehead, freckled cheeks creasing at the corners of his eyes as he looked between the sullen Adams and his C.O. The ship was beginning to gently roll as night approached and a storm once more buffeted the Higgins. “That’s sort of it, sir. Globsters are… kind of mysterious relics that wash up periodically. They can be hard to identify, as they have features of several different animals, or it seems like they do. Almost like the chimeras from Greek mythology. Some people even claim they’re ‘cryptids’—previously unknown or undocumented creatures, possibly related by era or locale, like the Loch Ness Monster, or Bigfoot. I mean, maybe they are, but it’s doubtful; apocryphal accounts of plane wing gremlins, Chupacabras, and moth men make no sense, as they’re generally too divergent from one another.” Randolph paused, then added: “Of course, there are exceptions. They didn’t think Giant Squids, okapis, coelacanths, or Komodo Dragons were real once either. Usually, though, it’s a lot less interesting than that—they’re just pieces of some animal, like that huge blue eyeball that washed up a couple of years back that they now think belonged to a dead marlin, or the badly decayed carcass of a big shark or whale—”
Adams looked up sharply, eyes wide. “That’s no whale, Randy. Look again!”
The medic raised his hand: “I hear you. It’s weird, alright! But stuff is starting to show up all over; things that were unknown before from the deep, or critters that normally never appear where they’re found. Even mass strandings. Happened just recently in L.A.—one day a damn deep sea oarfish washed up, completely intact, then a few days later a barely-living Alaskan saber-toothed whale! They say it might be Global Warming or something, who knows? It’s weird, though, and becoming more common. Not sure what this thing is; I checked it out under the ‘scope, too. It’s not like any other specimen we have onboard, that’s for sure. The cryptozoologists would love it.”
Merritt straightened up. “Can I see what you’re talking about?”
“Absolutely, Commander. Right this way.”
They walked to the rear of the room where the storage freezer and the other autopsy tools were stowed. The medic opened the locker door, pulled a covered tray from inside, and set it on the counter. The tray was about two feet long and over a foot wide; the white cloth covering the specimen barely concealed the bulging object underneath. The medic smiled at the C.O. and the ensign. “It’s dense, heavy.” He pulled the cloth away unceremoniously.
The thing on the tray was hard to comprehend; there was no visual context for it. It was a drab gray, mottled with blooms of light pink. On one end, it was severed all the way through, the raw wound displaying its musculature and a core of bone. This side was slender, smooth; toward the other end of its length, there were what appeared to be scales that became an almost chitinous, hard appendage of some type, resembling a fixed-open claw. Within this structure, there was a softer retracted piece with what looked to be a suckered tentacle covered in miniature hooks. This black flesh was pliant, and the appendage seemed to be gently moving within.
Merritt’s eyes widened. “Is that thing—”
The medic nodded. “Yes: It’s moving. It’s been moving since I got it.”
Adams spoke at last: “It was moving around next to Faust on the beach. Pretty vigorously.”
“Jesus. What the hell is it?” Merritt asked, stepping back in revulsion. “And that smell! Is that—”
“Yes,” Randolph confirmed. “As it warms up, it starts emanating that strange odor… Like plastic burning.”
The intercom interrupted them: “Commander Merritt, this is McConnell. Faust is awake, sir. Not said anything yet, but he woke up a little while ago.”
The senior officer looked from Adams to Medic Randolph to the slowly writhing thing on the countertop. “Keep me posted on this, Randolph; I want to know what you find out about the microscopic results. Christ—gives me the fucking creeps. Let’s go, Adams.”
Merritt thumbed the button on the wall speaker: “Roger that, McConnell. On the way.”
VI.
Drifting,
Spiraling:
The breath of a sigh,
Or the blink of an eye
Is all that it takes;
And then the dreamer wakes—
VII.
“Faust. My name is Christopher Faust,” the man on the bed replied. His voice was weak, strangled.
Commander Merritt: “Were you with the Australis crew?”
Faust nodded; his gaze was distant, fixed on something just beyond the officer. Ensign Adams watched Merritt as he continued to question the man. “Where are the other members of your crew? Did they go inland?”
Faust nodded again. “Yes. Three… of them went to the center of the island. We started with nine. I was… the aviator.” Faust’s voice was curiously flat and atonal. He never made eye contact, just kept his gaze fixed straight ahead. “We… were attacked.”
“'Attacked?'“ Merritt shared a surprised look with Adams. “What do you mean? By whom?”
“Not whom—what.”
“Okay, then,” Adams said. “What?”
Faust slowly, mechanically, turned his head toward the ensign, his eyes staring forward. “By… the things in the air. The things from the sea.”
There was a tense silence.
“Okay, Airman Faust,” Merritt said at last, forcing a smile. “You’ve had a rough time. Let’s reconvene this later, once you’ve been able to regain your strength.”
Faust methodically turned to face Merritt again, features slack, rubbery, eyes unblinking.
“They’re… alive on the inside, Commander. Three of them went to the center of the island.”
Merritt nodded. “We’ll see if we can—”
“And then,” Faust interrupted, “the dreamer wakes.”
Adams gasped, and the C.O.’s head snapped back in astonishment.
“What?” Merritt stammered, “What did you say, Faust?”
“The dreamer has awakened.”
After a long and uncomfortable silence, Adams signaled Merritt to step out of the quarters.
“Let’s go over and visit Randy again, sir,” the ensign said as the two men moved away from the infirmary.
VIII.
“Wow. That’s really weird,” Medic Randolph said. “What does it mean? Is it from a book or something?”
Adams huffed. “Yeah, I’ll say… it’s from a weird dream I’ve been having—”
“And every time you nap or go to sleep,” Merritt interjected, “this dream picks up at exactly the same place… Same strange feeling, same bizarre imagery, right?”
Adams stared at Merritt, his mouth hanging open. Finally: “Yes.”
A cold sweat broke out on the C. O.’s body, yet he felt too warm. “I’ve been having it, too. Started around the time that we began looking for the Australis. Just shy of a week ago—”
“Oh shit, this is freaking me out, sir!” Adams exclaimed, plopping into a chair in Randolph’s lab.
The medic stared at the two men who seemed suddenly unable to communicate. “Pretty strange. Twilight Zone-type stuff… Well, not to add too much more weird to it, sir, but I found something… interesting during the microscopic exam.”
Merritt cleared his throat, rubbed his eyes, then turned his attention to Randolph. “Okay. What have you learned?”
“It’s odd, I’ll give you that, but just hear me out a minute…”
The medic sat down with the others, grabbed a pen and some paper and started writing and sketching. After a few moments, he began to explain his findings: “So this organism is… unusual physiologically. Perhaps you’re familiar with the concept of the Hayflick Limit?”
Merritt shook his head.
“Well,” the medic continued, “it’s an observation in genetics. Basically, it’s the idea that there are physical limits to the number of times a cell can divide… under certain conditions these limitations are able to be chemically or virally circumvented, avoiding the natural process of cellular suicide known as apoptosis. This thing not only looks to have solved this problem, but also has a ‘workaround’ for the shortening of telomeres as a creature ages. Conceptually, telomeres are the ends of genes that are worn down by cell division; imagine that they’re like the little plastic caps on the tips of shoelaces that keep them from fraying. ‘Younger’ telomeres keep the genes viable. This is also the case with several cancers—that they can keep the telomeres ‘young’—as a result, damage arises, in part, due to unchecked cellular division. Normally that’s a good thing, as it would impact the length of the telomeres negatively, thus applying a kind of brake to out-of-control division—” Randolph drew some examples on the paper to assist the visualization; Merritt nodded for him to continue.
“Anyway, from what I can tell with this thing, there’s very rapid, controlled cellular division, and an ability to deliberately allocate cell speciation. So in a way, these tissues have characteristics of a tumor, but without the need for a continuous—or in this instance any—blood supply, as they appear to take oxygen directly from the atmosphere; the integument acts as a porous gas exchange membrane, similar to the way insects breathe, but more complex. Sort of like an external lung.” The medic glanced over to Adams who seemed to understand.
“So what does that mean?” Adams asked, leaning forward.
Medic Randolph tilted back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Not clear, but it looks like it makes these cells immortal. Not only that, but there’s another strange element…” Randolph returned to the sketch paper. “See where I drew this? Here, and here?”
Adams and Merritt nodded their heads in understanding.
“It appears these cells are peculiar hybrids of some kind. They have aspects of genetic mosaicism, and are these little… independent units… they’re like tiny mirrors of the larger organism—”
Merritt: “I’m not following.”
Adams picked up the explanation: “What I think it means,” he said as he glanced at Randolph, “is that each cell is a microcosm of the complete organism.”
“Exactly: All of the material is there; each cell appears to have a pluripotent cellular reserve. It’s not only immortal, like certain jellyfish, but self-organizing; completely contained within itself. And not only that,” Randolph said, “but it seems that every cell is on some level … conscious for lack of a better word—”
“What are you saying, Randolph?” Merritt asked, touching his temple as he struggled to understand.
“I’m saying, Commander, that the cells react not just as cells—meaning with respect to extreme heat, cold and some of the chemical agents I’ve applied to both the biopsy cultures and the entire appendage—but they cannot be ‘killed’ in the normal sense of the term; they regenerate, and relatively quickly. Not only that—they behave as though they have a type of ‘collective awareness’ and each can respond accordingly to the stimuli or circumstances as either A) a unified being, or B) as an autonomous piece of that organism, thus ensuring survival at all costs. They even seem to be able to absorb and replicate other proteins, which gives them the ability to… become that protein.”
Adams laughed without humor. “Oh my God. You mean like that fucking ‘80s movie?”
Randolph looked surprised. “Yeah, actually. Quite protean. Just like that, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There are other examples in nature microscopically, and so on. Besides, this isn’t quite the same. I seriously doubt this is an alien; it’s probably just an evolutionary strategy. Most likely a viral thing, or at least started that way. Hell, turns out a shitload of our so-called ‘junk DNA’ is comprised of retroviruses that functionally seem to have no purpose now. Might’ve had some uses at one time, but those uses are genetically ‘turned off’, ‘cause we don’t need them due to the way we’ve evolved. Proof of that is the way our wounds heal; we have most of the same DNA as, say, a salamander, but they can regenerate arms and legs, and we can’t. We just scar over.”
Merritt’s head was swimming. “So what did you do with the—”
“With the specimen?” Adams finished.
Randolph nodded toward the storage freezer. “In there; won’t hurt it, but slows it down quite a bit. In fact, I noticed that the severed part is re-growing. Looks like it’s trying the re-create the missing body.”
“Shit! How do we rid of the fucking thing?” Merritt was genuinely alarmed.
Randolph assured him: “No worries, sir. It needs a lot of oxygen to facilitate this process. It’s fairly immune to temperature extremes, but it can’t stay submerged—kills the tissue in a matter of minutes based on my tests; of course, seems likely that a completely … integrated organism might be able to overcome that problem. Could be multiple types of organisms, too: They reported other strange creatures there, right?” He paused, noting the concern on the C.O.’s features. “But with respect to this thing, Commander, don’t be too worried—it takes a while to re-grow whole pieces. Probably a few days or more depending on size, maybe longer. The absorption trick is faster, but has similar limitations; I mean it’s an ‘organic machine’ in a way, so while the duplicated components are nearly perfect, they occupy a state between being alive and dead. Besides,” Randolph said, shrugging, “this is the find of a lifetime—we need to bring it back with us.”
Before Merritt could mount a protest, the intercom sounded: McConnell.
“Commander, something… interesting is happening. Could you please report to the bridge?”
“What is it?” Merritt asked, pressing the switch.
“The ship near the island, the Indianapolis has—”
Adams gave a stunned look to Merritt: “Did you say Indianapolis, McConnell?” There was a pause.
“Sorry, sir. I’m tired, and I’ve been having this crazy dream… I mean the Australis—she’s completely sunk now.”
IX.
Equipped with sidearms, survival gear, and machetes, they returned to the island the next morning. Once on the beach, Faust stoically led Adams, Merritt, and three others into the forest at the center. McConnell had briefed them of increasing seismic activity during the past day, warning them to be mindful of possible tremors.
Overhead, huge bird-creatures the size of small cars swooped and pirouetted in the overcast sky; as the team was making its landing in the surf, Adams managed to photograph a bizarre, man-sized purple and red mega-crab exoskeleton that was drifting in a backwater near some crags. As was the previous case, compasses, radios, and GPS devices became unreliable.
Inside the canopy, the kaleidoscope of brilliantly-plumed flowers, lush plants, and fantastically odd-looking—even menacing—giant insects was overwhelming: The place was an explosion of noise, a jumble of odors, a riot of color. The weather had graced them with a fortunate reprieve.
“Christ, the biodiversity of this place is unbelievable. It’s covered with all manner of independent ecosystems,” Adams observed, slicing through the thorny undergrowth with his blade, face slicked with sweat. Merritt nodded in breathless agreement, but before he could speak, an awful shriek peeled through the tangled wilderness. It was human: female.
“Faust, you mentioned that Australis had a woman on board?” Merritt asked, wiping sweat away with his sleeve. They paused, quietly trying to ascertain the direction that the scream had come from.
“Yes.” Faust replied, staring at Merritt, his face waxen, his demeanor indifferent. After another moment, he pointed. “That way.”
X.
The breath of a sigh,
Or the blink of an eye
Is all that it takes;
And then the dreamer wakes—
“What if Earth
Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein?”
XI.
The explorers had reached an opening in the mega-flora, the evident remnants of a collapsed volcano caldera: It was hot, humid; the otherworldly antithesis of Antarctica. Even more incredibly, inside the caldera were the apparent ruins of a vast city, with indications of a long dead, yet obviously advanced, civilization. Merritt was in a state of mental shock as the team hacked away at more overgrowth: Caressing the intricate stone buildings, marveling at the complex etchings which scored the coarse rock edifices, some more than three stories tall, he was astonished that this place existed, and wondered about the people that had carved these stones. How many other places are like this on Earth, just waiting to be uncovered? The commander took note of the sky: It was getting dark, and he observed that, strangely, there were no animals or insects to be found in this area. The heavy air was still, musky, preternaturally quiet.
“Help… Help us!” It was a hushed, breathy cry from somewhere in the twilight.
Merritt: “Adams! Did you hear that?”
The rest of the search crew paused to listen. Once more: “Help…”
Deep in the interior, the landing party found her: Julia Murphy—former crewmember of the Terra Australis Incognita.
What was left of her, at least.