Bad to Worse Read online

  After breakfast on the first fine day, when they were planning to resume the cave survey, Paulo told Nicholas that he had resolved to confront the issue, and he set off towards Glimpse’s truck. When he returned to their office hut, Nicholas was keen to hear how the exchange went. He asked what Paulo had said.

  ‘I said I would like to know what his plans were about moving on, that some of the staff found his presence distracting. Actually, I told him frankly that people here didn’t like the feeling that they were being constantly watched. I asked him what he was looking at all day.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘Nothing. He just sat on the running board staring up at me. Totally cold. I gave him several opportunities to speak, to explain himself, but he was completely unresponsive. In the end I lost patience and told him LDI had administrative leasehold for a radius of forty miles, and to leave the station within twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Good for you, Paulo. Did he say anything then?’

  ‘Votzefock.’

  The next half hour was spent packing and checklisting items into two weatherproof rucksacks. One was entirely filled by a jerry can of fuel for the generator. The other carried a miscellany of new torch batteries, camera equipment, tools, and food and water rations.

  Paulo shouldered the fuel pack and stepped out of the hut. Nicholas followed, carrying the second pack by hand, and pulling the office door shut behind him. At that moment the satellite phone on Paulo’s desk rang quietly, and an email was delivered to Nicholas’s inbox, copied to Paulo.

  Nicholas

  Glimpse is extremely dangerous. Assume he is armed. His truck was funded through illegal channels. I am investigating. Interpol has arson and murder warrants in the name of Franz Blick. Don’t go about alone. Stay in your station headquarters. Stay in large groups. Contact the police in Madregalo immediately. If you don’t reply within one hour, I will do that myself.

  Worse

  ‘Hold on, Paulo. I forgot the sat.’

  Nicholas re-entered the office, collected the phone and placed it in his pack. He didn’t see the missed call alert.

  At the cave entrance, they removed their backpacks and placed them on a natural rock shelf a few metres inside. Paulo took the jerry can and walked back to examine the generator. They had built a crude A-frame shelter over it for weather protection, and the last few days had provided their carpentry’s severest test. Paulo tilted the structure onto one end.

  ‘It looks fine,’ he reported, as he unscrewed the fuel cap. Nicholas was standing behind him, just inside the entrance.

  ‘Do you ever get the impression there’s a very slight draught in the cave?’ he asked.

  ‘Why should there not be?’

  ‘I don’t mean into the cave. I mean from the inside,’ said Nicholas.

  Paulo looked up from pouring fuel into the generator’s tank.

  ‘That’s interesting. I did say there might be other entrances somewhere, or chimneys. There could easily be airflow. That’s good for us as we go deeper, in terms of air quality.’

  Nicholas had been wondering how early people had installed the large josephites, which were over a metre in diameter, in the second chamber. It hardly seemed possible that they could have been carried from this entrance and then taken through the inside tunnel, particularly past the z-bend. He had reached a similar conclusion: there was probably another way into that chamber. But after his experience at the lake, he wasn’t keen to go looking for it.

  ‘I’ll be relieved when Edvard gets a survey team here. They can do the exploration and things like air analysis, so we can concentrate on the linguistics.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to that, too,’ said Paulo. ‘They’ll also do a more professional job of the lighting.’

  He started the engine and repositioned the shelter. ‘Time for the clamber,’ he said, as he joined Nicholas inside the cave.

  Nicholas picked up his backpack and followed Paulo. About twenty metres in, where there was little light from the entrance, they had positioned a makeshift switchboard. Paulo flicked the main toggle to light the way ahead. The next section pitched quite steeply down, and they had learned from experience the best stepping route with some natural handholds along the way. When the team came, some of these more challenging parts would be made passable with boardwalks, ladders, and handrails.

  Out of interest, Nicholas routinely noted the time it took to progress from the switch to the first chamber. He had set a private objective of thirty minutes but today, with his load, it required thirty-six. As they neared the end of this passage, the effort of descent, for Nicholas, was always alleviated by the imminent reward of seeing the great medallion wall.

  Today, they planned to stay in the first chamber. Much of it had been photographed, but Tøssentern had sent a list of specific questions regarding exact disposition and dimensions, and he wanted a more comprehensive mapping. The information was needed in support of funding applications for a multidisciplinary research team, involving a dozen Cambridge departments, to explore and document the cave systematically and date its artefacts. To make the task easier, Tøssentern had sent a laser ruler from England. Paulo linked this mechanically and digitally to a tripod-mounted video camera such that the range measure was automatically recorded wherever the camera pointed. On the same platform, he attached a spotlight, powered from the generator.

  It was Nicholas who would write the software to integrate their measurements into a stereo panorama, and Paulo consulted him about the best location for the tripod, which would thenceforth be their principal datum point for the whole exercise. Nicholas had already considered this, but still walked carefully over the cave floor, shining his torch at the wall. He chose a spot that was fairly central and level.

  ‘Here, Paulo, I think.’

  Paulo brought over the tripod, positioned it, and hammered anchor pins attached to its feet into the rock floor. He tested its stability and declared it satisfactory.

  He then brought a power board across. Nicholas opened a folding stool beside the tripod and placed a laptop computer on it. He connected this by cable to the camera. Another cable connected to the platform itself. When the platform, camera, ruler, spotlight and computer were all mains powered, there was an impressive tangle of cables and leads.

  ‘I was thinking we might begin with footage of the largest fire remains, and then pull back so the viewer can see where it is in relation to the main cavern wall,’ said Nicholas. ‘Then start the systematic filming. Agreed?’

  ‘Yes, good idea.’

  Nicholas’s first task was to zero and calibrate the accelerometers in the platform. As he peered closely at a spirit level, he asked of Paulo, ‘Is that true, the forty mile radius thing?’

  ‘Not exactly. In fact, not approximately either. I decided it was how far I wanted him to go, at minimum.’

  Nicholas smiled. He concentrated on his task for a few minutes before speaking again.

  ‘Any news from Edvard on the carbon dating?’

  Charcoal remnants from the main fire pit had been sent to Cambridge.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ said Paulo. He was adapting some light fittings to splice into the forward cable that they had laid on their last visit.

  They worked quietly for the next hour, Nicholas at the computer, and Paulo reticulating more lights, including one about ten metres into the tunnel leading to the second chamber. He had just returned to fashion more electrics when their silence was broken.

  ‘Don’t you focking move, you two.’

  It was loud and nasty, and Nicholas felt sudden, intense fear. Despite the instruction, he switched off the spotlight, and subtly redirected the camera toward the voice as he turned himself.

  Glimpse was just inside the chamber at the passage entry. His right hand was holding a rifle at waist level, pointed at them. In his left hand was a powerful torch, taken from their stock at the cave entrance. He shone it first at Paulo, muttered ‘Focker’, then at Nicholas.
/>   ‘Vich vun Missingden?’

  ‘Misgivingston,’ said Nicholas. ‘I am.’

  Glimpse walked closer to Nicholas, keeping the torch on his face. Nicholas still had one hand on the camera toggle, and he angled it to stay on Glimpse, who either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  ‘You die,’ he said.

  The light moved back to Paulo.

  ‘You die too. Too bad. Focker.’

  Glimpse noticed the light coming from the inner tunnel.

  ‘Vot’s in dere?’

  ‘It leads to another chamber,’ said Paulo.

  ‘Ve go dere, for you to die. Somevere you never be found. You first.’ He pointed the rifle at Nicholas. ‘Den you, den me.’

  Nicholas led the way into the tunnel. Ten minutes later, they were beyond the range of Paulo’s newly installed light, and Nicholas switched on his torch. His mind was racing to formulate an escape plan, but he couldn’t confer with Paulo.

  He thought of the z-bend. Immediately beyond the second hairpin, on the left, he remembered there was one of the side passages they had noted. Some were just alcoves but this was longer than most, though they hadn’t explored it far. Maybe they could slip in while Glimpse was still behind the bend. If he went forward to find them, they could make a run for it back to the first chamber. On the other hand, if he followed them in they might be able to overpower him in the small entrance. He spoke in Ferent to Paulo.

  ‘Keep close to me.’

  ‘You be quiet, fockers.’

  A minute later, Glimpse spoke again.

  ‘Halt. Vot’s dat sound?’

  Nicholas and Paulo stopped to listen. Glimpse was right. There was a definite scraping sound ahead of them.

  ‘Who’s dere?’ Glimpse asked. ‘You got verkers dere?’

  ‘There’s no one else here,’ said Paulo. Nicholas could sense a different fear in his voice. He felt it in himself as well.

  ‘Keep going. All you fockers vill die.’

  The tunnel floor was levelling out and Nicholas knew they were nearing the first hairpin. He held out one hand behind to urge Paulo to come closer, and increased his pace a little. The scratching sound was getting louder. More than ever, Nicholas was determined to get off the main tunnel path.

  They reached the z-bend. Nicholas leapt forward around the first corner, jerking Paulo along behind him, then around the second. At the entrance to the side alley, he pushed Paulo inside.

  Paulo instantly understood the plan and cooperated. In the moment before Nicholas switched off his torch to follow, he caught sight of something inexplicable. About four metres ahead there seemed to be a pale, pearlescent moving screen blocking the tunnel. He didn’t linger, but dived into the alley before Glimpse could see him.

  ‘Fockers,’ they heard him say as he struggled to catch up without the benefit of Nicholas’s torchlight ahead of him.

  The scratching sound was louder. It seemed to be right outside their entrance.

  ‘Fockers.’

  Glimpse was rounding the second bend.

  ‘Votzefock?’ It was loud, and followed by a throttled scream ending mid-note, as if interrupted by a circuit breaker. There was a clatter of rifle hitting the rock floor. The dim light reaching them from Glimpse’s torch was extinguished.

  The scratching intensified.

  Nicholas and Paulo were rigid with fear, trying to imagine what Glimpse had seen. They pushed up against the wall about two metres in—cold, uncomfortable, and in total darkness, straining to interpret what was happening outside. There were no more sounds from Glimpse. Perhaps he had fled from whatever was in the tunnel.

  The scratching became louder.

  Nicholas began to worry that it was coming from both directions, from deeper inside their refuge as well as out in the tunnel where Glimpse had been. He tried to dismiss the perception as an echo, unwilling to countenance being trapped between two encroaching, invisible dangers.

  In the blackness, trying to breathe silently, unable to change posture in case their presence were betrayed, he was progressively deprived of orientation. It was impossible to judge time. Paulo, huddled up against him, was so still that Nicholas couldn’t be sure that he was there.

  The scratching stopped. Just when Nicholas thought it might be safe to move, it resumed. Now it was more a scraping sound, lower pitched, and louder. Louder or closer.

  He felt Paulo start, and catch his breath; Nicholas feared that something might have brushed against him. Shortly after, he guessed the reason, when a drop of freezing water fell from the passage ceiling onto his own face. In his state of coiled terror and hypervigilance, isolated from the sensory world but for hard rock, threat and imagination, it felt like a sledgehammer out of the night.

  The scraping became even louder, continuing for what might have been a half hour, when it abruptly softened, and seemed to recede. Nicholas hoped it was not in the direction of the first chamber. They waited to be certain of the silence before Paulo dared to speak.

  ‘What was it?’ Even in the whisper, there was tremulousness.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Nicholas made no attempt to describe what he had seen earlier. He stood up, feeling above his head for the height of the cavern. They both knew instinctively their best course of action was to turn right in the tunnel and head back to the first chamber.

  They switched on their torches and Nicholas led the way. In the tunnel, he first turned his light to the left and was relieved to find the previous apparition no longer there. He began moving to the right as he swung his torch around. Still in darkness, his face collided with something solid. He was seized by instantaneous, visceral fright, gasping as he fell back against Paulo.

  Paulo staggered, then shone his own torch ahead of Nicholas. In the narrow beam, they first saw Glimpse’s rifle and broken torch on the floor. Facing them, dangling half a metre above the ground, were two boots. Paulo raised his torch the full extent of Glimpse’s body.

  Glimpse’s swollen head was close to the tunnel roof, supported there by a gigantic disarticulated crab claw clasped onto his neck, and itself wedged high up between the walls of the tunnel. The nearer of Glimpse’s legs was still swinging like a pendulum from the impact with Nicholas.

  The sight of a hanging man, magnified by torchlight and deep shadow into some grotesque expressionist artwork, was fascinating but profoundly frightening. Paulo moved his light away. On both walls, as high as the roof, they saw hundreds of scratch marks etched centimetres deep into the rock.

  Nicholas was recovering from his shock, and used his torch to examine the monstrous claw. Paulo moved around Glimpse’s legs, toward their escape. Before doing the same, Nicholas had the presence of mind to reach up and take a key ring from Glimpse’s coat pocket.

  He followed. Not until he could see the new ten-metre light beyond Paulo and the silhouette of his friend in front of him, did his thinking shift from the danger behind them to survival ahead.

  They crossed the first chamber and headed directly for the exit, Paulo still in the lead. Getting out was always slower than coming in, due to the climb, and it felt like a long time before they stood at the cave entrance.

  They hadn’t spoken since whispering in the alley. Nicholas passed a bottle of water to Paulo, who was reaching under the engine shelter to switch off the generator. The silence, fresh air and natural light were almost intoxicating.

  ‘I should report it from here,’ said Paulo, taking the satellite phone from Nicholas’s pack. He got through to police headquarters in Madregalo.

  It was a difficult interaction. Paulo was describing the death by giant crab of a man named Glimpse who had been about to murder two foreign linguists deep underground but was now himself suspended by a crustacean claw from the roof of a cave that no one knew existed. Yes, the crab had got away. No, they hadn’t actually seen it. Yes, the linguists were now safe. Yes, he would send all the information by email as soon as possible. Paulo’s frustration was obvious.

  They hiked in silence.
Nicholas was trying to piece together the facts. Glimpse was grasped by the neck. The claw was jammed nearly three metres from the floor. Granted, it was clearly a monstrous creature—but that was very high. And those deep scratchings up to the roof: how could that happen?

  Nicholas kept thinking about what he saw just before darting into the alley. It was like a pearlescent curtain filling the tunnel in front of him. He remembered in the moment seeing a curious movement, and its character now registered. It was shuffling.

  Suddenly he understood what was happening, and what explained the other facts. The creature in the tunnel was certainly some kind of giant crab, but it was more than that. It had been walking upright.

  Sustained bipedal locomotion in arthropods has not previously been observed in nature, though a highly specialized study by Lord Enright, Depictions of Arachnid Bipedalism in Etruscan Art, had given the concept a small place in academic discourse, albeit that of art history more than biology. The Etruscan imagery was taken to be fantastical or mythical with no basis in that people’s experience, an assumption that must be re-examined in the light of the Joseph Plateau discovery.

  Of course, it is possible that what Nicholas thought he witnessed is a highly localized adaptation to life in tunnels. Whether the Ferende cave crab is capable of a freestanding bipedal stance and ambulation (without the support of adjacent walls) is not yet known. Irrespective of issues of balance, however, the hindmost limbs must be suitably hypertrophied to perform in such a weight-bearing role. Anatomists speculate that coordination of gait is controlled by an enlarged caudal ganglion specialized for the purpose.

  12 NUSERO’S MAP

  Paulo crossed the clearing, heading straight for the administration hut. He slipped off his rucksack, which contained the empty jerry can, and dropped it by the door. Nicholas followed him inside to unload the equipment pack.

  ‘Look at this, Nicholas.’ Paulo was sitting at his computer. ‘It’s a message for you.’