They headed to the center of what looked like it may have been some kind of harbor. Mist still hung close to the water’s surface, alternately obscuring, then clearing, their view of the city ahead of them.
As they approached, Erich realized they were victims of some kind of optical illusion. He knew that sometimes when you approach distant objects which are of sufficiently immense proportion, you lose your sense of scale, and he suspected he had been thus fooled. Although they continued to paddle straight toward the unknown shore, the city appeared to remain at an unreachable distance. Erich realized part of this effect was the truly gigantic cavern, an enclosure on the scale of America’s Grand Canyon. The city grew out of the rock that held it as if it were a natural extension or growth of it.
And it was impressive, growing larger with each passing meter which drew them closer, despite the mist which tantalized them with ambiguous views of their target.
Everyone must have sensed what Erich felt about this place. No one spoke as their little boat slid across the inland sea. The gunners paddled in unison, drawing the dinghy closer to the center of what Erich had begun to think of as the harbor for the city that lay before them like a series of sculpted steps carved into the side of the mountain. Within several minutes, the soaring sun-tower lay behind them and along the shoreline the details of individual structures and buildings grew more defined. Checking his field glasses, Erich could see much smaller features now. Openings that must have been windows or doors — some of them in unexpected geometric shapes, and some like flattened rectangles. The latter reminded him of the ports of fortifications like the “pillboxes” the vermacht had strewn along the French coast.
“It looks dead,” said Manny.
Erich grunted softly. “But we know there are survivors.”
Erich nodded, but preferred not to imagine too deeply what forces might be at play. He didn’t like this place. Too many questions that could not be answered.
The rubber boat slipped ever closer to a narrow quay that fingered outward through the water as though pointing at them. Directing his men to put ashore at the base of the quay, Erich appraised the strange city from closer range.
The buildings were far from equal in size. There were innumerable honeycomb-like arrangements of enormous proportion, as well as smaller, separate structures. The general shape of these things tended to be conical, pyramidal, or terraced; though others were perfect cylinders, perfect cubes, clusters of cubes, and other rectangular forms.
Erich allowed himself to think aloud. “How could our people build something like this? In just a few years? It does not seem possible.”
“I have never seen anything like this,” said Manny as the boat was within meters of the quay. “Who builds things that look like that?”
A rhetorical question to be sure. No one offered an answer as Decker reached out with his paddle to ease them to a stop. “Captain?” he said tentatively.
“Stay here with our boat,” Erich said to him. “Everyone else — with me. Now.”
He stepped onto the quay first, followed by Manny, then Bischoff, then Liebling with the radio strapped across his back, followed by Stirtz with his MP-40 at the ready. Motioning his gunner forward, Erich looked toward the city which lay in wait for them. “You take the vanguard,” he said to Stirtz, whose growing beard gave him a dark, angular aspect. “Anything that looks threatening, shoot it.”
Stirtz nodded, swallowed with difficulty. “Aye” was all he could muster in reply.
Erich started walking toward the shore, noting the construction of the quay appeared to be a seamless shape of some sort of metal or polished stone. It looked as if it were one solid piece, as if popped from a gigantic mold, or rose fully-formed from the seabed. Whatever it was, he had never seen anything like it.
Walking in single file, they entered the city as Bischoff re-established contact with Dr. Jaeger, who gave them specific directions to navigate the station.
Up close, surrounded by countless structures, Erich felt overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the place. It was not so much the expanse of the city being so large, but the buildings themselves conveyed a sense of immensity and great age. It was like walking into the tomb of a great ruler, instantly knowing the chamber was sacrosanct, and apart from any other location in the world.
The effect was mitigated by the presence of German military equipment, large field tents, several motorcycles with sidecars, and large crates of supplies. And of course, flags and banners. And everything strewn and smashed as if by a cyclone
And many corpses.
As they moved deeper into the warren of buildings, they found the bodies of soldiers and civilians. So mutilated and bloodied, on cursory glance it was not possible to tell if they’d died from an explosion, gunfire, or something worse. The casualties littered the installation. Something terrible and sudden had happened here. But somehow, Dr. Jaeger and a few others had survived.
Erich did not like the situation. Too many questions. Too many ways to have a calamity.
In addition, Erich noticed an air of instability in the way things were arranged and set up. Hasty and impromptu — exactly how long had Dr. Jaeger and the others been established here?
“Easy now,” he said to Stirtz, who was advancing down a wide avenue bordered by soaring towers that appeared to have been lathe-turned into great, soft spirals. The gunner’s mate pointed his Schmeisser forward from his hip, finger on the trigger ready to fire instantly. He looked like most soldiers who believed they might die — anxious but resolute.
“Not much farther.” Bischoff pointed straight ahead.
“Captain?” Stirtz had spoken softly, but his voice, amplified by the architectural acoustics, rolled back over them as if he’d used a megaphone.
“Yes?”
“I think we’re heading into an open space up ahead.”
“I see it,” said Erich. “Keep going. We should be close now.”
Stirtz had managed to pull away from the others without realizing. He was more than fifty meters ahead of them when he suddenly starting shouting.
Looking up, Erich could see that his gunner had cleared the canyon-like walls of the buildings, and was now standing at the edge of what appeared to be a vast open space. As Erich advanced, he entered a plaza in the center of which stood a tall domed structure with eight sides. Each face of the building held a large arched entrance.
Stirtz moved carefully through the nearest opening, lost from Erich’s view. Several moments later, the seaman rushed out to face the rest of the party. His eyes were wide, his jaw slack. Something was wrong.
“Captain!” he yelled hoarsely. “You must see this for yourself!”
On Erich’s signal everyone, including Liebling, moved forward to join Stirtz, who guided them into the hexagonal structure. The interior walls were devoid of ornamentation or design — perfectly smooth. But Erich barely noticed this because his attention focused on the thing in the center of the space.
Towering 20 meters just below the vault of the dome, a gigantic statue dominated the space. Erich stopped in mid-stride, as did the rest of his crew, locked into a sudden paralysis. So shocking and utterly alien was this monstrous sculpture, no one could move or speak. A silence gripped them and an almost palpable sense of dread enveloped them.
The statue’s posture proclaimed total predator — hunched and coiled as if captured in stone at the moment just before it lashed out with primordial fury. A great hulking body supported by saurian-like hind legs ending in webbed claws and long, thickly-corded forelegs rendered ordinary only because of the hideous and hugely out-of-proportion talons that gripped the edge of its pedestal perch. Curving scimitar-sharpness that could gut a dinosaur with a single cursory swipe.