An hour or two after dawn, he stopped his ox and cautiously approached the edge of the crater. The unstable soil, mixed with frozen moisture, was vulnerable to crumbling. The edges tended to collapse, which was what kept the monstrous gash growing ever deeper and wider. No one knew how deep it would go, but the scientists had said it would likely eat through the entire hillside before it stopped or even slowed. Each year, the more surface that was exposed, the more the crater outgassed the carbon dioxide trapped in the frozen water. That in turn, they said, warmed the area, thawing it more, causing it to collapse more, and warming it more. It seemed to the old man that such a cycle would never end, until the hole reached the very center of Earth, Truly he believed the fiery center to be hell itself.
He drew a deep breath and paused to look around for perhaps the last time in his life before he would descend into the crater. The landscape was filled with thick vegetation. Dense forests of Dahurian Larch stretched to the horizon in the north. Siberian Pine and deciduous forests composed of birch and poplar species lined the Batagayka tributary of the river Yana to the south. It was beautiful in its own stark way, and he understood that it was only because of the warming of the earth in general that he had these forests to view. Only a small percentage of the trees were older than he was. Some of the scientists had said it was because of deforestation when he was a baby that the crater appeared in the first place.
He didn’t know. All he knew was that now, only two weeks past summer solstice, was his last chance before winter set in again and it was too cold to make the overnight trip. And that the crater into which he was about to descend was dangerous, treacherous, and his only chance of making a better life for himself. With that final look around, he sighed and picked his way carefully down the steep cliff face, occasionally slipping and reaching in vain for something to slow his slide into hell.
The interior of the crater looked a little like melting blobs of ice cream. Vegetation couldn’t take hold before the fragile soil collapsed under it. Steep hills inside dotted the lower reaches of the two hundred and seventy-eight feet of depth. Once inside, he despaired of finding anything because the landscape was so broken. Nevertheless, he walked slowly around the nearest wall, examining the surface of the cliff face closely for any hint of a fossil or frozen carcass.
He became so focused on not missing anything that he didn’t watch where he set his feet. He’d just seen something he wanted to examine more closely when the ground below him shifted and collapsed, throwing him to the side. He staggered, trying to catch his balance, and in the process, twisted his ankle painfully. A thrill of fear went through him. No one would come looking for him if he couldn’t climb out of this place.
Just once I wish something would go right.
He sat down right where he was, on the cold, damp ground, and allowed himself to feel sorry for himself for just a few moments. Only a few moments, though, because he knew he’d have to rescue himself.
To make matters worse, a strange, stinging precipitation began to fall. He huddled miserably by the giant roots of an upturned conifer tree, until he noticed that the downfall pelting him wasn’t moisture at all. Dozens of tiny, clear stones lay near him. He picked one up and held it gingerly between his fingers, bringing it close to his eyes. The stone was minuscule, but very pretty. It sparkled in the weak sunlight.
No sooner than the old man observed that, he looked up. The sky was a clear blue expanse, with the small stones still falling…out of nowhere. When several hit his face, he hastily looked down again. He caught his breath and carefully examined the stones.
Could these be… diamonds?
The idea made him gasp. Was it really this simple? He wished for his fortune to turn, and suddenly he was showered with diamonds?
The old man staggered to his feet and started to dance a joyful jig, thinking better of it when his weight fell on his injured ankle. Without pausing to analyze the why and how of the windfall, he fell to his knees again and began scooping up dozens of the tiny stones. No one in the village would believe this!
On second thought, he shouldn’t tell anyone. No, these stones could be dangerous to his health if anyone else knew about them. He felt a prickle on the back of his neck, imagining he was observed. He huddled over his small pile of diamonds and looked up. There… in the bushes at the edge of a crater, he imagined he saw movement. A moment later, a rustle of noise above the ping, ping, ping of the stones gave him even more evidence that someone was watching.
His attention was snagged by a larger ping close by. He whipped his head toward the sound and was stunned by the sight of a much larger stone lying on the ground about a meter away. He scrambled toward it and snatched it up. He opened his hand, with the stone resting in the center of his palm. He’d never seen one, but he knew beyond a doubt, this was a diamond. A flawless diamond, bigger he thought, than a normal diamond. All his dreams were about to come true.
He placed the diamond reverently in his watchpocket, a place that had never seen a watch deposited. Then he scooted back to the little pile of smaller stones he’d collected and stuffed two handfuls into his jacket pockets. Fearful that the watcher was human rather than animal, he didn’t want to stay where he was vulnerable to attack. Instead, he searched for a way to climb out of the crater.
It was difficult going with the cliff sides crumbling half the time, but he finally gained the top several meters away from where he’d left his ox. The patient animal still stood there, munching on what vegetation it could reach. He turned the ox and pointed back toward the village. This time he would walk through the night if he had to. His find was too precious to wait longer than necessary.
He’d walked for several hours when he encountered the path he’d taken away from the road. It led through a particularly dense area of larch forest. He was watching his footing, loathe to turn his ankle again, when a noise made him look up and his heart skipped a beat.
Twenty feet ahead, a man stood quietly in the path. He looked young and heavily overweight. The stranger stepped forward to greet him. The old man instantly thought uneasily of the treasure in his pockets.
The stranger greeted him through dark, hooded eyes. Examining him with the wry curiosity of a scientist assessing a primitive creature. The man had striking features — very pale skin, even for this region, and intensely dark eyes. There was intelligence in those eyes, and pain behind them, too. Something else was there as well. The old man couldn’t put his finger on it.
Was it triumph?
The stranger gritted his teeth and stared at him with eyes so dark they appeared almost black, with tiny specks of gold, like the devil.
The old man felt his chest constrict at the sight. He closed his eyes as though it might protect him from his past. There was only one person he’d ever met with such eyes, and that person had died a long time ago.
The man fixed his penetrating gaze at him and said, “Pressure! Everything of value in this world requires pressure to achieve its potential!”
When the old man opened them again, the stranger was gone.
A few minutes later, he heard the deep, guttural sound of a large diesel engine starting up. He stepped through the thick vegetation, and caught the glimpse of an oversized, Russian quarry truck. On the back of it, was a large dish — the sort found on a microwave tower.