8 - INTO THE STONE.

Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?

-JOB 41:1.

The Galapagos Islands June 08

It seemed the helicopter was bound west forever across the cobalt blue water, landless, stained red by the sunset. Night chased her across the infinite Pacific. Childishly, Ali wished they could stay ahead of the darkness.

The islands were all but covered with intricate scaffolding and decks, miles and miles of it, ten stories high in some places. Expecting amorphous lava piles, Ali was affronted by the neat geometry. They'd been busy out here. Nazca Depot - named for the geological plate it fed to - was nothing but a vast parking garage anch.o.r.ed on pylons. Supertankers floated alongside, mouths open, taking on small symmetrical mountains of raw ore conveyed by belts. Trucks hauled containers from one level to another.

The helicopter sliced between skeletal towers, landing briefly to disgorge Ali, who recoiled at the stench of gases curdling into mists. She had been forewarned. Nazca Depot was a work zone. There were barracks for workers, but no facilities, not even cots or a c.o.ke machine, for pa.s.sengers in transit. By chance, a man appeared on foot among the vehicles and noises. 'Excuse me,' Ali yelled above the roar of the helicopter. 'How do I get to Nine-Bay?'

The man's eyes ran down her long arms and legs, and he pointed with no enthusiasm. She dodged among the beams and diesel fumes, down three flights to reach a freight elevator with doors that opened up and down like jaws. Some wag had written 'Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate' over the gate, Dante's welcoming injunction in the original.

Ali got into the cage and pressed her number. She felt a strange sense of grief, but couldn't figure out why.

The cage released her onto a deck thronged with other pa.s.sengers. There were hundreds of people down here, mostly men, all heading in one direction. Even with the sea breeze brooming through, the air was rank with their odor, a force in itself. In Israel and Ethiopia and the African bush, she had done her share of traveling among ma.s.ses of soldiers and workers, and they smelled the same worldwide. It was the smell of aggression.

With loudspeakers hammering at them to queue, to present tickets, to show pa.s.sports, Ali was swept into the current. 'Loaded weapons are not permitted. Violators will be disarmed and their weapons confiscated.' There was no mention of arrest or punishment. It was enough, then, that violators would be sent down without their guns.

The crowd bore her past a bulletin board fifty feet long. It was divided alphabetically, A-G, H-P, Q-Z. Thousands of messages had been pinned for others to find: equipment for sale, services for hire, dates and locations for rendezvous, E-mail addresses, curses. TRAVELER'S ADVISORY, a Red Cross sign warned. PREGNANT WOMEN ARE STRONGLY ADVISED AGAINST DESCENT. FETAL DAMAGE AND/OR DEATH DUE TO...'

A Department of Health poster listed a Hit Parade of the top twenty 'depth drugs' and their side effects. Ali wasn't pleased to find listed two of the drugs in her personal med kit. The last six weeks had been a whirlwind of preparation, with inoculations and Helios paperwork and physical training consuming every hour. Day by day, she was learning how little man really knew about life in the subplanet.

'Declare your explosives,' the loudspeaker boomed. 'All explosives must be clearly marked. All explosives must be shipped down Tunnel K. Violators will be...'

The crowd movement was peristaltic, full of muscular starts and stops. In contrast to Ali's daypack, normal luggage here tended toward metal cases and stenciled foot-lockers and hundred-pound duffel bags with bulletproof locks. Ali had never seen so many gun cases in her life. It looked like a convention of safari guides, with every variety of camouflage and body armor, bandolier, holster, and sheath. Body hair and neck veins were de rigueur. She was glad for their numbers, because some of the men frightened her with their glances.

In truth, she was frightening herself. She felt out of balance. This voyage was purely of her own volition, of course. All she had to do was stop walking and the journey could stop. But something was started here.

Pa.s.sing through the security and pa.s.sport and ticket checks, Ali neared a great edifice made of glistening steel. Rooted in solid black stone, the enormous steel and t.i.tanium and platinum gateway looked immovable. This was one of Nazca Depot's five elevator shafts connecting with the upper interior, three miles beneath their feet. The complex of shafts and vents had cost over $4 billion - and several hundred lives - to drill. As a public transportation project, it was no different from a new airport, say, or the American railway system a hundred and fifty years ago. It was meant to service colonization for decades to come.

Out of necessity, the press of soldiers, settlers, laborers, runaways, convicts, paupers, addicts, fanatics, and dreamers grew orderly, even mannerly. They realized at last that there was going to be room for everyone. Ali walked toward a bank of stainless-steel doors side by side. Three were already shut. A fourth closed slowly as she drew near. The last stood open.

Ali headed for the farthest, least crowded entrance. Inside, the chamber was like a small amphitheater, with concentric rows of plastic seats descending toward an empty center. It was dark and cool, a relief from the press of hot bodies outside. She headed for the far side, opposite the door. After a minute her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and she chose a seat. Except for a man at the end of the row, she was temporarily alone. Ali set her daypack on the floor, took a deep breath, and let her muscles unwind.

The seat was ergonomic, with a curved spine rest and a harness that adjusted for your shoulders and snapped across your chest. Each seat had a fold-up table, a deep bin for possessions, and an oxygen mask. There was an LCD screen built into every seatback. Hers showed an altimeter reading of 0000 feet. The clock alternated between real time and their departure in minus-minutes. The elevator was scheduled to leave in twenty-four minutes. Muzak soothed the interim.

A tall curved window bordered the walkway above, much like an aquarium wall. Water lapped against the upper rim. Ali was about to walk up for a peek, then got sidetracked with a magazine nestled in the pocket beside her. It was called The Nazca News, and its cover bore an imaginative painting of a thin tube rising from a range of ocean-floor mountains, an artist's rendition of the Nazca Depot elevator shaft. The shaft looked fragile.

Ali tried reading. Her mind wouldn't focus. She felt barraged with details: G forces, compression rates, temperature zones. 'Ocean water reaches its coldest temperature - 35 degrees - at 12,000 feet below the surface. Below that depth, it gradually heats. Water on the ocean floor averages 36.5 degrees.'

'Welcome to the moho,' a sidebar opened. 'Located at the edge of the East Pacific Rise, Nazca Depot accesses the subplanet at a depth of just 3,066 fathoms.'

There were nuggets and sidebars scattered throughout. A quote from Albert Einstein: 'Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.' There was a table of residual gases and their effect on various human tissues. Another article featured Rock VisionTM, which produced images of geologic anomalies hundreds of feet ahead of a mining face. Ali closed the magazine.

The back page advertised Helios, the winged sun on a black backdrop.

She noticed her neighbor. He was only a few seats away, but she could barely make out his silhouette in the dim light.

He was not looking at her, yet some instinct told Ali she was being observed. Faced forward, he was wearing dark goggles, the sort welders use. That made him a worker, she decided, then saw his camouflage pants. A soldier, she amended. The jawline was striking. His haircut - definitely self-inflicted - was atrocious.

She realized the man was delicately sniffing the air. He was smelling her.

Several figures appeared at the doorway, and the presence of more pa.s.sengers emboldened her. 'Excuse me?' she challenged the man.

He faced her fully. The goggles were so darkly tinted and the lenses so scratched and small, she wondered how much of anything he could really see. A moment later, Ali discovered the markings on his face. Even in the dim light, she could tell the tattoos were not just ink printed into flesh. Whoever had decorated him had taken a knife to the task. His big cheekbones were incised and scarified. The rawness of it jolted her.

'Do you mind?' he asked, and came a seat closer. For a better smell? Ali wondered. She looked quickly at the doorway. More pa.s.sengers were filing through.

'Speak up,' she snapped.

Unbelievably, the goggles were aimed at her chest. He even bent to improve his view. He seemed to squint, reckoning.

'What are you doing?' she demanded.

'It's been a long while,' he said. 'I used to know these things...'

His audacity astounded her. Any closer, and she'd lay her open palm across his face.

'What are those?' He was pointing right at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

'Are you for real?' Ali whispered.

He didn't react. It was as if he hadn't heard her. He went on wagging his fingertip. 'Bluebells?' he asked.

Ali drew into herself. He was examining her dress? 'Periwinkles,' she said, then doubted him again. His face was too monstrous. He had to be trespa.s.sing against her. And if he was not? She made a note to say a quick act of contrition some other time.

'That's what they are,' the man said to himself, then went back to his seat, and faced forward again.

Ali remembered a sweatshirt in her daypack, and put it on.

Now the chamber filled quickly. Several men took the seats between Ali and that stranger. When there were no more seats, the doors gently kissed shut. The LCD said seven minutes.

There was not another woman or child in the chamber. Ali was glad for her sweatshirt. Some were hyperventilating and eyeing the door, full of second thoughts. Several had a sedated slackness and looked at peace. Others clenched their hands or opened portable computers or scratched at crossword puzzles or huddled shoulder-to-shoulder for earnest scheming.

The man to her left had lowered a seatback tray and was quietly laying out two plastic syringes. One had a baby-blue cap over the needle, the other a pink cap. He held the baby-blue syringe up for her observation. 'Sylobane,' he said. 'It suppresses the retinal cones and magnifies your retinal rods. Achromatopsia. In plain English, it creates a supersensitivity to light. Night vision. Only problem is, once you start you have to keep doing it. Lots of soldiers with cataracts up top. Didn't keep up.'

'What about that one?' she asked.

'Bro,' he said. 'Russian steroid. For acclimation. The Soviets used to dose their soldiers with it in Afghanistan. Can't hurt, right?'

He held up a white pill. 'And this little angel's just to let me sleep.' He swallowed it.

That sadness washed over her again, and suddenly she remembered. The sun! She had forgotten to get a final look at the sun. Too late now.

Ali felt a nudge at her right. 'Here, this is for you,' a slight man offered. He was holding out an orange. Ali accepted the gift with hesitant thanks.

'Thank that guy.' He pointed down the row to the stranger with tattoos. She leaned forward to get his attention, but the man didn't look at her.

Ali frowned at the orange. Was it a peace offering? A come-on? Did he mean for her to peel and eat it, or save it for later? Ali had the orphan's habit of attaching great meaning to gifts, especially simple gifts. But the more she contemplated it, the less this orange made sense to her.

'Well, I don't know what to do with this,' she complained quietly to her neighbor, the messenger. He looked up from a thick manual of computer codes, took a moment to recollect. 'It's an orange,' he said.

Far more than seemed right, it irritated her, the messenger's indifference, the idea of a gift, the fruit itself. Ali was keyed up, and knew it. She was frightened. For weeks her dreams had been filled with awful images of h.e.l.l. She dreaded her own superst.i.tions. With each step of the journey, she was certain her fears would ease. If only it weren't too late to change her mind! The temptation to retreat - to allow herself to be weak - was terrible. And prayer was not the crutch it had once been for her. That was concerning.

She was not the only anxious one. The chamber took on a moment-to-moment tension. Eyes met, then darted away. Men licked their lips, rubbed their whiskers, took bites at the air. She collected the tiny gestures into her own anxiety.

Ali wanted to put the orange down, but it would have rolled on the tray. The floor was too dirty. The orange had become a responsibility. She laid it in her lap, and its weight seemed too intimate. Following the instructions on the LCD, she buckled into the seat rig, and her fingers were trembling. She picked up the orange again and cupped her fingers around it and the trembling eased.

The wall display ticked down to three minutes.

As if signaled, the pa.s.sengers began their final rites. A number of men tied rubber tubing around their biceps and gently slid needles into their veins. Those taking pills looked like birds swallowing worms. Ali heard a hissing sound, men sucking hard at aerosol dispensers. Others drank from small bottles. Each had his own compression ritual. All she had was this orange.

Its skin glistened in the darkness in her cupped hands. Light bent upon its color. Her focus changed. Suddenly it became a small round center of gravity for her.

A tiny chime sounded. Ali looked up just as the time display dissolved to zero.

The chamber fell silent.

Ali felt a slight motion. The chamber slid backward on a track and stopped. She heard a metallic snap underfoot. Then the chamber moved down perhaps ten feet, stopped again, and there was another snap, this time overhead. They moved down again, stopped.

She knew from a diagram in The Nazca News what was happening. The chambers were coupling like freight cars, one atop another. Joined in that fashion, the entire a.s.sembly was about to be lowered upon a cushion of air, with no cables attached. She had no idea how the pods got hoisted back to the surface again. But with discoveries of vast new petroleum reserves in the bowels of the subplanet, energy was no longer an issue.

She craned to see through the big curved window. As they lowered one pod at a time, the window slowly acquired a view. The LCD said they were twenty feet underwater. The water turned dark turquoise, illuminated by spotlights. Then Ali saw the moon. Right through the water, a full white moon. It was the most beautiful sight.

They dropped another twenty feet. The moon warped. It vanished. She held the round orange in her palms.

They dropped twenty feet more. The water turned darker. Ali peered through the window. Something was out there. Mantas. Giant manta rays were circling the shaft, drafting on strange muscular wings.

Twenty feet lower, the Plexiglas was replaced by solid metal. The window went black, a curved mirror. She looked down into her hands and breathed out. And suddenly her fear was gone. The center of gravity was right there, in her grasp. Could that be his gift? She looked down the row. The stranger had laid his head back against the chair. His goggles were lifted onto his forehead. His smile was small and contented. Sensing her, he turned his head. And gave her a wink.

They dropped.

Plunged.

The initial surge of gravity made Ali grab for purchase. She grasped the armrests and slugged her head against the back of the seat. The sudden lightness set off biological alarms. Her nausea was instantaneous. A headache blossomed.

According to the LCD, they didn't slow. Their speed remained a constant, uncompromising 1,850 feet per minute. But the sensation started to even out. Ali started to feel her way inside the plummet. She managed to plant her feet and relax her grip and look around. The headache eased. The nausea she could handle.

Half the chamber had dropped asleep or into drugged semiconsciousness. Men's heads lolled upon their chests. Bodies dangled loosely against seat harnesses. Most looked pale, punch-drunk, or sick. The tattooed soldier seemed to be meditating. Or praying.

She made a rough calculation in her head. This wasn't adding up. At 1,850 feet per minute and a depth of 3.4 miles, the commute should have taken no more than ten or eleven minutes. But the literature described 'touchdown' as seven hours away. Seven hours of this?

The LCD altimeter soared into the minus thousands, then decelerated. At minus 14,347 feet, they braked to a halt. Ali waited for an explanation over the intercom, but none came. She glanced around at the asylum of half-dead fellow travelers and decided that information was pretty unnecessary, so long as they got where they were going.

The window came alive again. Outside the shaft's Plexiglas wall, powerful lights illuminated the blackness. To Ali's awe, she was looking out upon the ocean floor. It might as well have been the moon out there.

The lights cut sharply at the permanent night. No mountains here. The floor was flat, white, scribbled with long odd script, tracks left by bottom-dwellers. Ali saw a creature treading delicately above the sediment upon stiltlike legs. It left tiny dots upon the blankness.

Farther out, another set of lights came on. The plain was littered with hundreds of inert cannonb.a.l.l.s. Manganese nodules, Ali knew from her reading. There was a fortune in manganese out there, and yet it had been bypa.s.sed for the sake of far greater fortune deeper down.

The vista was like a dream. Ali kept trying to make sense of her place in this inhuman geography. But with each further step, she belonged less and less.

A gruesome fish with fangs and a greenish light bud for bait steered past the window. Otherwise it was lonely out there. Dreamless. She held the orange.

After an hour, the pod started down again, this time slower. As it descended, the ocean floor rose to eye and ceiling level, then was gone. There was a brief lighted glimpse of cored stone through the window. Then quickly the gla.s.s fell black and she was looking at herself again.

Now it begins, thought Ali, the edge of the earth. And it was like pa.s.sing inside herself.

INCIDENT AT PIEDRAS NEGRAS.

Mexico Osprey crossed the bridge like aturista, on foot, wearing a daypack. He left the sunburned GIs behind their sandbags in Texas. On the Mexico side, nothing suggested an international border, no barricade, no soldiers, not even a flag.

By arrangement with the local university, a van was waiting. To Osprey's great surprise, his driver was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. She had skin like dark fruit, and brilliant red lipstick. 'You are the b.u.t.terfly man?' she asked. Her accent was like a musical gift.

'Osprey,' he stammered.

'It's hot,' she said. 'I brought you a Coca-Cola.' She offered him a bottle. Hers was beaded with condensation. Lipstick circled the tip.

While she drove, he learned her name. She was an economics student. 'Why are you chasing the mariposa?' she asked. Mariposa was the Mexican term for the monarch b.u.t.terfly.

'It's my life,' he answered.

'Your whole life?'

'From childhood. b.u.t.terflies. I was drawn by their movements and colors. And their names. Painted Ladies! Red Admirals! Question Marks! Ever since, I've followed them. Wherever the mariposas migrate, I go with them.'

Her smile made his heart squeeze.

They pa.s.sed a shantytown overlooking the river. 'You go south,' she said, 'they go north. Nicaraguans, Guatemalans, Hondurans. And my own people, too.'

'They'll try to cross over tonight?' Osprey asked. He looked past their white cotton pants and decaying tennis shoes and cheap sungla.s.ses to glean hints of ancient tribes, Mayan, Aztec, Olmec. Once upon a time, their ancestors might have been warriors or kings. Now they were paupers, driftwood aiming for land.

'They kill themselves trying to leave their origins. How can they resist?'

Osprey glanced across the Rio Grande's coil of brown, poisoned water at the b.u.t.t side of America. Heated to mirage, the buildings and billboards and power lines did seem to offer hope - provided you could factor out the necklace of razor wire glittering in the middle distance, and the sparkle of binoculars and video lenses overseeing the pa.s.sage. The van continued along the river.

'Where are you going?' she asked.

'To the highlands around Mexico City. They roost in the mountain fir stands through the winter. In the spring they'll return this way to lay their eggs.'