Those questions built in his head, swirling around his cranium as if they were caught in a tornado, every one of them demanding his attention, calling for him to solve them, when all of a sudden his whole body convulsed as if he'd been struck by lightning.
"Yes! I've got it!" he cried, just falling short of shouting out Eureka!
He tore open his rucksack and yanked out his notebook, literally dropping onto it as he dived to the ground and began to dash off what he was remembering. The remaining words from the central panel in the temple had at last surfaced in his memory — he could visualize very nearly all of the detail, not quite photo-perfectly, but enough so that he could use his Dr. Burrows Stone to attempt a translation once he'd gotten the letters down.
After ten minutes of furious scribbling, a big smile formed on his face.
"Garden of the… Second Sun! " he cried. Then the smile evaporated and his brow creased. "Garden of the Second Sun? What the heck does that mean? What garden? What Second Sun?
He rolled onto his side to regard the hole.
"Facts, facts, facts, and only the facts," he said, quoting an oft-used mantra that kept him in check whenever he felt he was about to be swept away by a wave of wild speculation. He tried to think in logical sequences, knowing he had to discipline himself to construct a foundation from all the things he'd discovered. Then, and only then, could he start to build some theories on top of it and set out to test their veracity.
One thing he could quite categorically assume was a revelation in itself. All the geologists and geophysicists back home had gotten it completely wrong. He was many miles below the earth's surface, and by their reckoning he should be cooked to a crisp by now. While he'd run into areas of intense heat, where there was very possibly the presence of molten rock, it certainly didn't correspond to the generally held belief about the composition of the planet and the increasing temperature gradient.
That was all very well and good, but it didn't help him get closer to any of the answers he was seeking.
He began to whistle through his teeth, thinking, thinking…
Who were the people of the temple?
It was clear that they were a race who, many millennia ago, had taken refuge under the surface of the planet.
But, as depicted in the "Garden of Eden" triptych, they'd made a pilgrimage back to the surface of the earth; what had become of them there?
With an expression of utter bafflement, he let out a final high-pitched squeak of a whistle and rose to his feet. He went back through the arch, then picked his way down the steps again.
Maybe he had been mistaken. Maybe the steps did continue somewhere down below, but he hadn't seen them. He took the blue-handled geological hammer from his belt and, squatting on the bottom step, lodged its tip into a fissure in the wall. He thumped it with the palm of his hand to make absolutely sure it was firmly anchored. It seemed secure enough. Then he gripped it with one hand and, with the light orb suspended by its lanyard in the other, he leaned out as far as he dared, attempting to see more of what lay below.
As he peered into the pitch-blackness, the light orb swinging and his brain still whirring away on the triptych, an idea popped into his head.
By jumping into this hole, did the people of the temple truly believe they'd reach some promised land? Was this they way to their Garden of Eden, or their nirvana, or whatever you chose to call it?
Suddenly, like a second bolt from the blue, he was hit with a bombshell of a concept.
Maybe he'd been looking in the wrong direction all this time. He'd been so intent on looking up, he'd never considered looking down!
Maybe there was a very good reason why the ancient people had had nothing to do with the cultures on the surface for so many millennia. Even if they had originally fled from the surface, bringing their ability to write and their enlightened ways with them, maybe they'd never returned there. This could be why he could recall nothing in the historical record of all the earth's civilizations that picked up their story.
So …
He came up from his thoughts for a quick breath before diving straight back into them again.
…did they have the secret of what lies below, in the center of the earth? Was there really a "Garden of the Second Sun" to be found there? And did they really believe that they could get there by throwing themselves into a whopping great hole? Why would they believe that? Why? Why? Why?
Perhaps they were right!
The whole notion was too fantastical for him, but, just the same, the primitive people quite evidently believed the act would take them to their idyllic paradise — believed it with a fervor.
Certainly Dr. Burrows was overtired and suffering from a lack of food, but a nonsensical suggestion popped into his head.
Should I chance it all and jump into the hole?
"You've got to be joking!" he immediately answered himself out loud.
No, it was lunacy! What was he thinking? How could he, a man of considerable learning, subscribe to a pagan belief that by some miracle he'd survive the fall and find wondrous groves of fruit trees and a blazing sun waiting for him?
A sun in the center of the earth?
No, he was being exceedingly foolish. Talk about rational scientific deduction!
Roundly dismissing the suggestion, he pulled himself back onto the step, and then turned around.
He screamed with fright.
The giant insect was there right behind him — his oversized dust mite — its mandibles swishing in his face.
Dr. Burrows recoiled, scrabbling away from it in complete and utter panic. He lost his balance, his arms cartwheeling as he tipped backward from the step.
There was no heroic yell as he fell, just a brief squawk of unwelcome surprise, and he was gone, a tiny figure corkscrewing through the air, down into the dark oblivion of the Pore.
46
From up ahead Chester pulled the rope with such force that it caught against Will's wrist and yanked his arm from under him. He dropped into the hot, sticky mud. He heard Chester's voice, muffled and indistinct, as it uttered what Will took to be curses, most likely directed toward him. Chester yanked the rope again, even more fiercely this time. In light of their earlier exchange, Will knew without a doubt that Chester would be blaming him for this unpleasant leg of their journey, just as he did for anything else that came along. Will's resentment grew — wasn't he suffering just as much as the others?
"I'm coming! I'm freakin' coming!" he shouted back furiously as he began to haul himself along again, spitting and swearing as he went.
He thought he was closing the gap on Chester, but he still couldn't see him through the mist. It was only when Will pulled on the rope that he discovered it must have snagged on something. It was stuck fast.
Chester was shouting again at the delay. Whatever he was saying sounded pretty disagreeable.
"Shut up, will you? The rope's caught!" Will screamed back as he lay on his side and used his lantern to try to see what was causing the problem. It was hopeless; he couldn't see a thing. Guessing it had become hung up around a piece of rock, he flipped the rope several times until it eventually came free. Then he crawled up the slope like crazy until he caught up with Chester, who, once again, had stopped — presumably because Cal, in front of him, had also come to a standstill.