Cate also flopped back for a moment, breathing in the humid air. The perspiration on her face refused to dry, and it stung her eyes. Laying down, her light beam became a pipe of light up toward a ceiling that was lost in an impenetrable darkness, a hundred or maybe a thousand feet above them. She lifted an arm to read her wristwatch. They had been paddling now for just over twenty-four hours. She did the math – at about two miles per hour, that meant they had covered around forty-eight miles – not bad, she thought.

She pulled in a deep breath and eased upright. Spots of light popped in her eyes, and she knew it was fatigue dizziness. She saw that Abby and Greg were lying down, and Jack had bent forward, his forehead resting on his knees. The raft continued to glide on the oil-dark sea, and she lifted her light, panning it over its surface. She wondered what they looked like from out there – she imagined them as a small dot of light on a fathomless sea, a speck, like a single, tiny star in a massive universe of darkness.

Cate carefully looked over the side – nothing, not even her reflection. Except down there, she knew there wasn’t nothing. She crushed her eyes shut, and rested her hands on her knees for a moment, feeling a gurgle of hunger gnaw away in her stomach. The warm smell of salt lifted from the tropical water, and the low mist smelled of seaweed and slick rocks. She lifted her flashlight again, this time higher – out to their side, she could just make out an enormous cave wall, with a small shelf of stone that formed tiny islands at its base. Ahead, and to her right, or starboard, there was nothing but infinite dark water for as far as her light beam extended.

In the bow of the small raft, Jack consulted his compass. He looked up, and seeing her watching him, smiled.

“Not far now, by my reckoning.” He lifted an arm out toward the front and slightly to their right. “Just a few more miles, and then we’ll be directly underneath the caves. Let’s hope there’s something there.”

“An elevator would be nice,” Greg said, groaning as he raised himself up to sit. He rubbed his face, hard.

Abby smacked dry lips. “You said the caves were eight hundred or so feet deep, but down here we’re at least double that. What happens if…” Her voice trailed off.

Jack nodded. “Yup. So we’re hoping there is some lower hole we can punch through. It only needs to be a few feet wide.” He sighed. “I’m not going to lie to you, there needs to be a lot of cave, heading upwards, before we even get to the basement level of the Heceta Island cave system.”