Yang continued to stare, but still looked like he had smelled something bad. “The freak must talk.”
“Well, it’s freaky anyway,” Rhino said, finishing his work, and holding the rope like a leash. The small being looked down at her bound hands, and then stood silently, her large black eyes unreadable.
Yang pushed in close. “Where are my men?”
Casey moved fast to intervene, grabbing Yang and spinning him so she could stare into his face. “Back off. You’re not in charge anymore.”
Yang glared at her, and his fists balled. Casey returned the cold stare, her face twisted into its usual sneer. “Just to be clear, I still want to kill you.”
Yang’s lips momentarily twisted before he turned to briefly lunge again at the small creature. This time, it bared its beak-like teeth at Yang, and then opened its mouth wider. Alex felt the splitting scream deep in the core of his brain. He doubled over, his hands pressed to his ears.
Aimee rushed to him, and knelt. “What is it?”
Alex lifted his head, his eyes tightly closed from the pain. “The sound.” He opened his eyes to slits and looked across to the being, who then snapped its mouth shut with an audible clack of teeth. The sound was immediately shut off.
Alex breathed deeply, feeling the white-hot needle of pain withdraw. “It came from her.”
“We heard nothing.” Aimee looked from Alex to the humanoid. “Just like in the cave mouth. It’s the subsonic wavelength again, a defensive mechanism.”
Alex got to his feet. “Now we know where the sound came from. But I don’t think it was designed to cause pain… more like a call to its own kind… or to something else.” He straightened. “We need to be on guard.”
Alex looked off into the darkness, and saw Yang watching them silently. The PLA captain turned to walk away a few paces into the dark. Shenjung and Soong were talking quietly, standing away from the being.
Alex ducked down, looking into the small pale being’s face. “You’re safe.” She recoiled from him slightly. “I’m sure we’re as freaky to her, as she is to us.” He smiled. “We mean you no harm… if you mean us no harm.” He repeated the words in his mind, trying to project them, the silence from the being making him think they might communicate by other means. She stood there as impenetrable as ever.
“It’s unnatural. The silence freaks me out,” Franks said.
“Like everything else down here,” Jackson added. “Guess they learned that being quiet is something that keeps you alive.”
Alex stood, and pointed to himself, then the others. Then he pointed at her, and made looping motions around her neck, and then walked away. “Where did you take them… our friends?” he said slowly.
Cate snorted. “You can say it as slow as you like, Alex, but she isn’t going to understand.”
The girl lifted her dark orbs to Alex, and he felt a sudden throbbing in his brain. She turned and started off down the dark tunnel, only stopping when she reached the end of her leash.
“You were saying?” Casey asked with a grin.
“Give her some slack.” Alex motioned forward and she set off again. “Keep the flashlights on, and watch side corridors and also overhead. Don’t want anyone having a noose dropped around their necks.”
Alex let the small being lead him. The tunnel narrowed, with huge age-patinated stone blocks having fallen from the ceiling or collapsed in from the walls. Alex stopped the girl at one of the fallen blocks, and looked up into the cavernous dark from where it had fallen. The rock fall was ancient, but the size of the boulders meant that if there were another cave-in, they would never be able to dig themselves out.
Aimee laid her hand on the wall. “This building, this entire city, is carved from the surrounding cliff face.”
“Like the ancient Jordanian city of Petra, the Rose City,” Cate said. “It’s carved straight into the side of a mountain. But this,” — she slowly panned her light around — “this far exceeds its complexity, and size.”
“It’s a maze,” said Rhino.
“Makes for good defensive fortifications,” Casey said. “Against everything except earthquakes.”
“Something sure hit it,” Jackson said. “But why is it a wreck on just this side?”
“Good question.” Alex turned back to the stygian depths of the tunnel ahead. He noticed that the small female being was staring off into the darkness. He laid a hand gently on her shoulder. “Hey, let’s go.” She turned to stare up at him with those glassy black orbs for a moment, before leading him again.
Alex sensed the change in air density long before the tunnel ended. “There’s something up ahead.”
The small female being led Alex around more fallen blocks and then out onto a ledge, perhaps once a balcony. She stopped and pointed. Alex lifted a hand, keeping the group back, as he surveyed the new surroundings. After a moment, he stepped to the side and waved them on.
They had passed through the cliff wall. Or the wall itself was only a partition of one underground world to the next. There was another huge cavern, this one even hotter than the one they had left. It was also luminescently lit, but this world was dominated by a body of water, nothing like what they had encountered with the previous underground sea. It was more a lake, miles across. Steam, like a low mist, hung over its surface, and on some of the banks, mangrove-like plants stepped out into the water on stilt-like legs. At its center, bubbles popped and small eddies swirled as submerged gas pockets were released from their muddy prisons.
“So much for the grand city,” Jackson said. “It ends here.”
“Look down,” Alex said, pointing to huge blocks half submerged. “That rubble? I think this was part of the city, but somehow it collapsed into here.”
“Maybe it’s like a giant sinkhole,” Soong said. “These things happen in China a lot. There are big land-drops that can swallow entire villages. Maybe this one opened under the city, swallowed it entirely.”
“Long, long time ago,” Rhino said. “This collapse is damn old.”
“Maybe it wasn’t just the land falling in, but maybe something else trying to break its way in. I got a bad feeling this is something’s backyard. Check out ten o’clock.” Alex stared out at the far shoreline as a veil of mist lifted.
Jackson squinted into the distance as the fog cleared slightly. His mouth hung open, and he adjusted the jawbone axe still stuck in his belt. “No fucking way.”
“This is why we’re here,” Rhino said softly.
Lining one of the far shorelines were ships, dozens and dozens of huge vessels. Some were small skiffs, and some were huge. There was even the skeleton of a WW2 bomber plane, many of its panels missing, and one wing sagging onto the bank.
Some of the boats had the three masts of centuries-old sailing clippers, ragged remnants hanging limply from the moss-covered wood. There were rusting iron hulks of cargo ships, and even a fishing trawler. They were all lined up, side by side, like a child’s collection.
“There’s an old goddamn warship — side cannons.” Rhino stepped forward. “Remains of a Union Jack still hanging on the bow.” He slowly read the name. “S-A-P-P-H-O — The Sappho.”
“It’s almost dream-like.” Aimee breathed the words. “The mist, the ships. You know, this reminds me of something, from childhood.” Aimee frowned as if searching her memory. “That’s it, the cove on Never-never Land, with all the ancient shipwrecks, lost in time.”
“Now crewed by ghosts,” said Cate softly.
“No,” Alex said, feeling a sense of elation. “These guys weren’t shipwrecked… they were brought here.” He lifted an arm to point. “Just like our sub.”