Slater quirked an eyebrow.“You think the fish eat the plants?”
“It’s definitely possible. And honestly, I’m not certain they are plants. I think they might be some simple form of animal life, like anemones. And perhaps they all eat the same particulate matter. Or the water itself causes the glow. We just don’t know enough.”
Slater pursed her lips. “Well, I’ll be glad when we get out of here, because I don’t want us to run out of food. Seems like nothing is safe to eat or drink here.”
Aston pointed at the book. “That entry ends there, but then there are a couple of pages of drawings. It’s headed here ‘Observations’ and then lots of these pictographs.” He turned the book so Slater could see.
“They look a bit like Egyptian hieroglyphics,” she said.
“A little. But I’ve never seen any like this.”
“Do you have wide experience with ancient Egyptian?” Slater asked with a grin.
Aston laughed. “Not really. But don’t you think they look different somehow?”
“There is a unique quality to them.”
“And look here,” Aston said, turning to the next page. More sketches, little people with large heads bowing down before a roiling pool of water, steam rising in thick tendrils. The style was simple, like cave paintings. “You think he’s done his best to copy what he saw on cavern walls?”
“What other source?” Slater asked.
“Maybe this is how he draws and he’s recording something he saw happening down here.”
Slater looked up sharply. “I’m not sure I want to consider that.”
Aston shrugged. “Let’s assume he copied carvings he saw.” He turned the page. Another scene depicted two groups of the odd little people. One group carried fish, arms outstretched toward the same pool of water as if the fish were an offering. The other group, bearing spears, faced the opposite direction, poised to battle an unseen enemy.
“Surely he’s copied scenes from markings on the walls,” Slater said. “Like he copied the pictographs.”
“I don’t know. We haven’t seen pictographs like those or drawings like these. We’ve seen the strange designs on the doors, but not this.”
Slater frowned. “Doors? There’s only been one door.”
“Oh yeah. In all the excitement of finding Jen and everything else, I forgot to tell you something. Let’s concentrate on this first, then I’ll explain.”
“Okay.” Slater said, a note of reluctance creeping into her voice. She flashed him a skeptical glance, then returned her attention to the book. She pointed to the sketch of people offering fish to the pool. “So assuming Lee has copied things he saw on cave walls, rather than things he personally witnessed, who or what made those drawings?”
Aston shook his head. “I think we have to assume that at some point, an ancient race of some description lived down here. Perhaps in a previous era, before the Antarctic was all ice?”
“That’s buying into a lot of conspiracy theory crap.”
Aston thought that comment a bit rich, given the woman had built her career spreading conspiracy theories.
“No use getting annoyed about that,” Aston said. “The evidence for it is building up.”
Slater’s frown returned. “Read more.”
Aston turned the page to find more neat, tight handwriting, and read on. “I needed to rest, my knee had blown up to twice its size and throbbed with my pulse. I cursed the crooked landing I had made, wondering if I would ever find a way out. And, if I did, whether this ruined knee would allow me to climb should I need to. I distracted myself with ruminations on the strange designs I had seen.
“A rudimentary study of these unusual hieroglyphs, about which I feel I have some inexplicable intrinsic knowledge, has given me a starting point to understanding. Making inferences based on this knowledge and the pairings of glyphs and scenes, I believe I have translated some of it.” Aston pointed at the page. “He’s drawn a kind of key here. It’s all a bit out of context, but he’s sketched some glyphs and what he thinks they mean. Fish. Fight. Worship. Stuff like that.” Then Aston indicated an odd glyph at the base of the page, like a stylized squid. Next to it were several words, each a question.
Master? Ruler? Leader? Overlord?
“What do you make of that?” Aston asked.
Slater shook her head. “I don’t know what to make of any of this, Sam.”
“In your work have you seen anything like this?”
“Not really. I mean, I’ve seen pictographs and hieroglyphics, but this…” She finished with a palms-up gesture.
Aston turned the page. “The handwriting is worse here, look. Shaking as if he’s shivering or weak.” He read on.
“I rested as best I could, even slept a little, I think. But hunger and a desire to escape drove me on again. But I’m sure I’m followed.”
“The things that Jen described?” Slater asked.
Aston kept reading. “I don’t mind admitting that I began to panic. The pain in my knee, the hunger, the incessant voice in my head beckoning me on. It all began to drive me mad. The voice told me which way to go, every time a choice appeared in the form of a fork, or alternate passages, the voice guided me. But every time I listened to its instruction, I found my path blocked. So I did my best to ignore it and forge my own way, fighting against all instincts while simultaneously trying to trust my gut. And the hunger chewed at me, and my knee has become so painful I can barely take weight on it at all. My staggering, limping gait is exhausting. And then I saw one.”
“One what?” Slater asked.
Aston turned the page, fear and a stubborn refusal to accept the words he saw curdling his gut. “It was a horrific sight,” he read. “A small, gray man with a large head and dark bulbous eyes. The creature brandished a spear and, without thinking, I reacted defensively. I drew my .45 caliber Colt Peacemaker, a gift from my grandfather, and emptied it in the direction of the creature. At least one bullet found its target, for the creature lay dead before me. And then from behind, I heard angry muttering and saw movement. Lots of man-sized, shining chitinous black creatures, with huge mandibles snapping like blades, stalked toward me from the shadows. I panicked, flung the revolver at them and ran blindly into the darkness, howling as I went from the pain stabbing through my knee. I felt as though the joint were disintegrating further with every agonizing step. Behind me, the mantic creatures followed, unhurried. In screaming pain, my flight slowed, but still they didn’t overtake me. This is, after all, their domain, and I suppose they knew they would find me in their own time. Perhaps the hellish things even enjoyed the sport of my impotent flight.
“I made it to a large cave before my ruined knee finally gave out and refused to carry me a single step further. Almost unconscious from the pain, the fear, the weakness of hunger, I dragged myself hand over hand into the deepest shadows I could reach. I am out of options, out of luck. I believe also I am out of time. I write this entry now and I pray, and I wait.”
Aston turned the page. Nothing. The rest of the journal was blank. “We know how far his prayers got him.”
“I guess that would explain the stone blade in his heart,” Slater said. “We found him where he wrote that last entry. But as he was killed by that blade and not chopped to pieces like Jen’s colleague, do we assume another of the little gray men finished him, rather than the creatures?”
“Mantics,” Aston said quietly. “That’s what he called them.”
“And little gray men?” Slater said. “Sounds a lot like the aliens described by modern-day UFO enthusiasts. Is this whole thing some elaborate hoax?”