Chapters (42)
- BENEATH THE DARK ICE
- Table of Contents
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Epilogue
- One
- Two
- Three
After climbing, crawling and inching their way forward for over an hour, they stopped to catch their breath. They were over halfway across the stretch of dark water and they found themselves on a slightly wider shelf. The small resting ledge afforded them space to crouch or sit down carefully as its two-foot width was perhaps the widest place they were likely to encounter on the climb. If not for their fatigue and concern for their predicament, they would have said the view was almost magical. In some places they still could not quite make out the ceiling of the giant underground cavern as it was indistinct in the heights and obscured by a light mist. The enormous black sea stretched away into the distance and they could see hundreds of beaches like their own—some barren, others moving with the sea scorpions they had previously encountered, and some with other strange animals that would have been a paleobiologist’s dream. While they watched, high up in the mist something with the wingspan of a small plane looped down and back up to disappear again into the primeval fog.
“This place makes the Galapagos Islands seem boring. Imagine a biological expedition here to map and study the environment. How many new species would they find, or old species we haven’t seen for millions of years? And what secrets are beneath that water.” Aimee seemed to be musing to herself. “There may even be ancient species that have followed some completely different evolutionary path and turned into something totally new by now.”
“After what we’ve seen, I’m thinking they should bring a harpoon cannon,” offered Matt.
Under Tank’s enormous weight the ledge silently cracked and was held to the rock face only by tendrils of the strange ferns that grew all along the cliff walls. It just held as he passed, but when Aimee set her foot firmly with all her weight on the weakened rock it gave way. At that precise moment she also took both her hands off the rope so she was tipped outward as the ledge disappeared from under her. She flailed her hands back at the rope but she had already moved too far out from the rock face and was beginning to fall.