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Krubera: Part 3

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

3.

The Crow’s Cave

Elliot emerged from her pop-tent to greet the morning sun with a groggy apprehension. She adjusted her hair with the aid of a breeze that fluttered through area. The others still slept with sky’s massive star only just ready to breach the horizon. The previous day’s hike had been uneventful, tiring. They’d climbed over hills of dense conifers, trekked to high peaks, sprinted down them only to follow the Earth back up again. It was nearly nightfall when they entered the limestone valley.

They’d set-up camp outside of the Crow’s cave in time to cook dinner. But Elliot’s concern rose as time progress. The area was silent, desolate. Odd as it was, they had yet to see a single crow overhead– neither during the day, nor in the night. Common sense would have told her they no longer nested here, but she was certain they should have. For that matter, they should have feared being swarmed by them the closer the got to the cave. Instead Gagrinksy range was still, empty; as though its inhabitants had altogether abandoned it.

The furthest tent unzipped to tear Elliot from her thoughts. Liana emerged, Elliot surprised by her alertness in the early hour. She nodded to Elliot, moved to the embers that still glowed red-hot in the circle of tents, and tossed kindling atop them. In moments, the fire blazed forth as it had the night before as Liana cooked MRE-oatmeal in a hanging pot and trellis.

The others awoke one-by-one, levitated from their tents by the scent of food. The early sun rose around them, kissed dew away from the grasses and tents that had collected overnight. In time, they each took a place around the fire, disheveled, and slow to gain their bearings.

Elliot remarked on the absence of the cave’s avian namesake, directed it toward Liana, “I’ve noticed something. I haven’t seen or heard the crows.”

“I too, have noticed,” she said with a poorly masked suspicion. The others exchanged worried looks over tasteless gruel. Liana caught one, corrected herself, “It is strange, but perhaps they’ve migrated.”

“Not late enough in the season,” Raymond mused absently from a corner of his mouth.

“It is strange, no matter what,” Chad said with a minor agitation.

Elliot glanced around, “Even if they weren’t here, we should’ve seen them somewhere. There’s no way they’d have moved so far from the nesting grounds.”

Liana was quick to subdue her eerie fears, “Perhaps they’ve begun nesting in the mountain.”

The conversation ended here in silent contemplation, but Elliot felt a growing uneasiness at the birds’ absence. Everything about this had been problematic, but nothing near what they could encounter was they entered the cave. They’d been brow beaten, detained, searched, and stuck babysitting some pseudo-soldier consultant. None of that was nearly as bad as a mistake in the caves could be.

Though she suspected Liana was hiding something, she decided it would either work its way out of her, or remain hidden, irrelevant. She hoped for the latter, suspecting any other option meant it would affect their expedition. Even still, the absence of the Crows was disheartening, and Elliot was left unsatisfied with their speculations.

They prepared for the climbs and dives ahead, distributed and secured their equipment. Each person carried at most, eighteen kilograms– roughly forty pounds– as anymore risked their equilibrium or might over-stress their ropes. Though their supports would hold more than their weight, 2,000 meters from the surface and miles from a hospital, Elliot felt it was better to be safe than sorry. Moreover, they had only a few days before they were due to leave the country. With the fuss put up over their entrance, Elliot could only imagine the intrusions and interrogations once they’d over-stayed their welcome.

They traded their denim and plaid for full-body wet-suits, for inevitable sumps submerged below the water line. These passages would be otherwise impassable unless they each donned a breathing apparatus– a hefty portion of their weight-limits. There was little more than two hours of air in each of them; a supply required to last through the return trip. As such, each breath had to be deep, held as long as possible.

Liana understood Elliot’s instructions on the matters without further inquiry. Her immediate compliance somehow made Elliot both uneasy and relaxed at the same time. The expedition was already a mix of contrasted and conflicted emotions, and they’d yet to breach the cave.

They carried little else save small, personal hammocks, that would allow them to sleep from the walls of cave, and rations to last the length the trip. Elliot also wore a small device strapped to her wrist that communicated with SGSM as well as any scientific institution she could think to connect it to. Chad managed to stow a field medic’s first-aid kit in his pack, complete with sterilization liquids, field dressings, and surgical tools.

They consulted a series of scans and dye-tracings that formed a picture of the path to the cave-bottom. The first few hours would consist of a series of long, winding vadose shafts– areas where atmospheric pressure is that of ground level– that intertwined and threatened to throw mislead them from their intended route. Raymond assured them he was certain of their path, began the walk toward the mouth of the cave.

Indeed, he led them the whole first leg with barely a word. The group’s time was consumed by steep descents in claustrophobic crevices, confusing four way shafts that intersected one another as they crouch-walked the length of them, led forward by Raymond’s mental map.

The cave zigged with slopes, zagged with others, wound its way northwest, then down further still. It jutted at a right-angle, continued straight down with steep crevices that they were forced to hook into, inch down. More than once they expended the length of their ropes, forced to connect spares to follow the path further down. The deeper they went, the more Raymond was alight at the cave’s significance.

“In what we’ve passed since our start,” he said, unusually giddy. “Is the whole of human history, laid out in porous, porphyritic limestone.”

To his credit, the stone was an intriguing sight. The vertical walls seemed as though a child had mixed millions of pebbles and grains of sand with everyday cement, the shaped them like clay and pained them with a lime tint. Raymond always saw more than the others in them, as though he were the sculptor’s father that gazed lovingly over his child’s creation.

As they continued further down, the path became more treacherous. Fractures in the floor appeared in the straights, led down hundreds of feet or more to a claustrophobic ending, or otherwise disappeared altogether into the bowels of the Earth. In order to pass such obstacles, they secured themselves to the walls, shimmied over the missing bits of floor to the opposite sides of the chasms.

There were of course, those chasms just wide enough to be jumped over or stepped across. Even still, careful consideration was given to each of them. A single, false step might shift an already crumbling rock, cause the surface to give way. One crumbling edge did give way when Anthony tested its integrity. He fell, jolted the others forward by their ever-present tether. They managed to keep their footing as he slammed the side of newly opened chasm. He yelped, swore. The four worked to step backward together, pulled him to safety.

After it was over, he dusted himself off with a few, fresh and bloody cuts but none the worse for wear, “That was a close call.”

Elliot heart beat like made as she panted with waning adrenaline, “Too close, Tony.”

They traveled onward, crossed more chasms, pulled themselves up lips and plateau-like protrusions, inched down steep slopes until the path ahead became wider, clearer. The dive became a straight line with a few twists and turns, but ended level to the anticlinal formation that at the entrance.

Raymond stared up at stalactites as they stopped for water, “It’s an interesting thought. A few thousand feet above us the sun’s beating down on the ground. Yet nothing here’s ever touched sunlight. It’s a beautiful testament to the solidity of the rock which we on.”

Having long since switched to hanging lamps, flares, and strapped head-lights, the others found little beauty in the thought. They were merely party to its negative effects as they clambered and clanged over each new obstacle. They continued forward not long after Raymond’s musings. Then, after what seemed an eternity of doubt and vertigo, the first sump came into view. They’d reached the waterline, and pending their strength held-out, they would reach their destination by nightfall.

They broke for a quick lunch, traded their dry-gear for the wet, and prepped for the first in a series of sump dives. They secured guide-ropes to the dry land that they planned to affix one they made the other side, and strapped on their breathing apparatuses. They dove into the first sump, the way forward lit by water-proof HID flash-lights.

They managed the first sump without incident, emerged from a pool in front of a high pathway to climb it. The next passage sloped down, ended in a second large pool. They dove into it, search for a half-hour for its exit before they’d climbed onto a low passage. They had made excellent time, already achieved the lowest recorded depth in history. A second pool awaited them on the other side of the small island they found. They agreed to rest for the night. The next two days spent in a scientific exploration of the submerged, forward chasms. And, as Elliot hoped, in discovery of her lost world.

Poetry-Thing Thursday: Madness

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Madness

 

Sixes and Sevens,

I cry from the heavens!

No more of these set-ins,

My poor mind it maddens!

 

Hope’s a cyanide,

for a tearful abide.

I’ve known the wild ride,

Alice and madness, and badness aside.

 

Righteous indignation?

My capitulation.

What’s your situation?

I’ve no destination.

 

Madness ‘n numbers, mathematical formul-i

Tones ‘n notes ‘n out of tune, I die.

Seeking the seeker, whom seeks the sky?

I rhyme, and I rhyme– or at least try.

 

Oh King and Oh Queen,

Your relation’s obscene!

Incest is best when done in a dream,

stark raving mad or naked and clean,

Oh King and Oh Queen of soiled latrine!

 

The sheets! The sheets! What more repeats,

Of all those that preach, and little altar-boys eat?

Bloody madness, and bleached-cotton in heat,

woe to you, delectable treat!

 

War mines, star shines,

the Moon climes

all in desperate time,

to a beat, a tempo, a forgone sign.

 

Oh the madness we touch,

atop the hutch,

of reality’s crutch,

That’s silent? No such.

 

Thing in the dream, of a queen made a scene.

Appalling, appealing, and reeling in ‘tween,

Is it us or our madness that which I’ve seen,

Recall the fall of the madness and ream,

But who is the whom with untruly lean?

 

Is it you or the madness that you’ve desired?

The thunder of cannons yet to be fired?

Perhaps in the middle, something yet to be sired?

 

My final questions are these which I’ve asked,

of the moral majority and madness unmasked.

In the sun’s warm glow now shall we’ve basked,

with madness and numbers and Alice, up-classed.

Short Story: The Islands

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

The Islands

In this world, an aristocracy reigns supreme. It controls everything; from food-production and distribution, to education and transportation. While the latter two may not seem as important, I assure you they are. For there is no-one educated upon the whole face of this planet, but me.

Earth as we once called it– was filled with land that stretched as far as the eye could see and beyond. Seven massive plots of it– continents– totaled more than one-hundred and forty-eight million square kilometers. Its amorphous beauty was rivaled only by the greatest oceans of the age, smaller then than they are now.

While this was long before my time, I was benefited at a young age with education. My family is comparatively new to the aristocracy, one of those few with unnatural luck to have escaped the destitution of invisible borders. Even so, the others like me do not know the things I know. They care little for history, science, or mathematics– or for that matter, anything beyond their mounds of cement and currency.

At the present, that once voluminous land is gone, replaced by the supremacy of oceans and a few, dense clusters of man-made rock. Though the oceans are much shallower now, their volume spread over thirty-percent more area, they remain a force of nature to be reckoned with. We’ve had to adapt to them, overcome them, and at times, contend with them as warriors of brute strength against their ironclad-will.

How did this happen, you may ask? It is much simpler explained than imagined or understood. In simplest terms, human history has created a penchant for development. It first began millennia ago when the shelter of caves and rock overhangs no longer sufficed our needs. We gathered grasses, felled lumber, began to build crude lean-tos, shacks, and huts. Our species, Man, transformed from free-range animal to primal carpenter in an amazingly short time. With our new-found journeymen skills, we created tools. Over even shorter spans of time, and thanks to enlarged brains and intellects, we grew into the master carpenter. In the scheme of the skies and stars, it was but the blink of an eye before we concocted grand designs, constructed expansive suburbs, streets, and structures of unimaginable prowess.

This is where our history truly begins to take shape. Humanity, as we knew it, suffered from the strain of those whom wished for have bigger homes, more expensive, taller work-buildings, and more money to make them. These “novuea riche” wanted a world with material things the size of their collective ego, did their damnedest to create it. In order for them to have it, these “families” of economic-thieves had to invest in the public sector– to create goods for the less wealthy. (Or as they called them, the poor.)

It worked. Masses of wealth accrued, were used to procure the bigger, better desires. What began in early, civilized human history, and was otherwise subtly hidden from the masses, finally showed its ugly face. Though there had always been a division of class, with the “haves” on one side and the “have-nots” on the other, the gap appeared visibly, insurmountable. It was seen in the cities, the suburbs, the streets, where gates or high, cement walls separated the Elite from the lower-beings. It was seen in education, with public and private schools where the former were gang-riddled, and the latter lavish, better-funded. It was even seen in the public transportation, where “classes” of seat were established for only those well-off enough to afford the newer, cleaner seats.

At some point in this loathsome history of segregation, a total of four main “families” had gained control of the majority of the wealth. The rest of the money had been spread between their closest business interests, kept from all other hands to be dealt under tables of seemly, unethical dealers. So often did it exchange hands within the small groups, that no one person was without part of its bills at a time.

Where this matters not to most, it matters most to me. This massive gap still exists between the rich and poor, and because of this aristocratic party, those on the gap’s far-side continue to suffer. They’ve no homes, jobs, or money to feed, clothe, or care for themselves properly. Many die each day without medical treatment, or even kindly consideration.

Where before this gap was merely visible, proverbial, now it is undeniable. Where the beautiful homes end now, there is no city to divide them from the poor, only the a high-wall, and water. It is pervasive everywhere, a new segregation where it is not a man or woman’s skin color that determines their worth, but rather, their pocket-book.

Again, how did it happen? It is a most curious thing to any whom may examine it. Sometime in the late twentieth century, a strange thing began to occur. The world as we knew began to change, shift. Most scientists agreed that climate change– the natural shift of the Earth’s weather from one extremity to the other– was the cause. It was understood to be a natural phase of the earth that either preceded or succeeded an ice age. The last one, ten-thousand years before, still emanated waves at us through time and weather. We had shifted to the hotter phase of the cyclical weather. There would be longer, hotter seasons, colder, harsher winters.

But it was in this precarious shift that humanity found it had made a terrible mistake. Or perhaps more accurately, the aristocracy had.

You see, the Earth’s land mass– all one-hundred and forty-odd million kilometers of it– was simply not formed to sustain the pressures of what had been placed upon it. At least, that is, not in the advent of terrible quakes and tremors from beneath its surface. These upheavals of the Earth had been ever-present, but increased by the pressures the climate shift had brought on. Coupled with the aristocracy’s bigger, better dreams on its surface, it had no choice but to succumb.

This fact became widely known by the late twenty-first century, and in the absence of foresight, a plan was devised by those ego-driven dreamers. At first, it was solely to their benefit, but they soon realized they would need their “peasants” for the phases of their scheme.

In itself, it was rather grandiose. It was based on an ideal scenario that there would be enough time between the first quakes, before enough earth fell away, to complete it. It consisted three phases; construction of cement islands, construction of dwellings upon those islands (for the aristocracy), and finally, the construction of barges of enormous sizes unmatched by any in history.

Through out the process, many questioned this final phase. Why barges, and to what end? The obvious explanation was transportation for the masses. What was not known, was that these barges were never meant to transport anything, merely contain.

A barge, for the unfamiliar, is a massive ship with a flat-bottom. Before our times, some of the largest spanned just shy of five-hundred meters. Ours can be miles long. These ships, since their creation in the ancient eons of far-gone lands, are used to transport people and cargo over-seas. In more modern recent times, they were used for mass shipments of long, rectangular containers that held everything from high-priced automobiles, to foods, to garbage that stank like hell. It is easy then, to make a connection between this history and the revelation of the last phase of this scheme.

Grand and conniving as it was, the scheme’s phases gradually shifted. The cement islands sprang up in fixed latitudes, their distant horizons soon covered by towers of stone and steel. New, hidden agendas of the aristocracy were then revealed. Upon “break-down” of one of these barges, it was learned that they were no longer meant for transportation. With massive numbers of the aforementioned containers aboard, and full parties of peasants packed upon it like sardines, bound for new dwellings upon an island, the anchors were laid by their automated systems.

The ships were meant to house the poor.

With this startling new revelation in hand, I set about a scheme of my own. It is no secret among the aristocracy (of which I have am a part) that I am something of a miser, an eccentric. In their own words, I have crusaded tirelessly for the poor. While it is true, it is wrong, preposterous even, that they should be buried beneath the aristocracy’s trash simply because they lack worthless paper, and imagined credit. It was my grandfather’s ambitious construction company that partook in a large percentage of the Islands’ creation. Our family was afforded a rather sizable wealth off these old-money men. When my grandfather died, and my father took over, they were so pleased with his manners and knowledge of his place in their world, that they took him under their wings. Fortunate as my family has been, we are below them, and they treat us as such. They let us have just enough of “their” money to makes Elite, but not enough to ever rival them.

But they are stupid, ignorant, uneducated.

It is my elite-status, that I loathe, that has afforded me the opportunity to plan schemes of my own. And it is my foresight, imbued in no small part from my education, that has allowed my father’s passing to grant me his company, supplemented my own, personal fortune to carry it out. While those old bastards could never comprehend its purpose, I’ve began to build my own island.

While they view me as an outcast, it is with respect to my ailing mother that I have yet to be exiled. Surely when she passes, I will be cast out. There is much deliberation over how though. As they wish to keep money from the hands of the poor, and I have vast sums. They seem themselves as the generals of a pseudo-chess battle against the unfortunate, the object of the game, as it has always been, is money and power. The more they have, the more secure they feel in the future of “their” kind. They long ago abandoned words like “humanity” and “brotherhood.” Now, they know only “us” and “them.”

I fear that some of this has rubbed off on me, as I have yet to refer to them by name. Though it means little, the four families are; the Smiths, Johnsons, Gregarins, and Chos. These words are like acrid bile on my tongue, and represent the descendants of once-prominent CEOs, Executives, even Politicians. You see, those of the “family” are not bound in blood, but rather in status, money. They are the products of the incestuous relations between the four, once-wealthiest groups on the planet. Since the great flood, they’ve lost reason to quarrel or quibble over blood-ties, finding solace only in their shared status. Their Islands of higher-caste are impassable to all but the other elite.

The chess-battle of which I spoke, comes more into focus when viewing the Islands themselves. Where some lands are totally impassable, the Chos seem to allow passage in and out at certain times. Perhaps they remember days when even they had nothing, find nostalgia in pitying those below their station. Even so, the rest of times, they cast out their fellow man over a matter of dollars.

Herein lies the ideology I can never understand. It is the reason I shall never truly be one of them. Though I understand the necessities of fortune, wealth, status, they’ve no merit when so many others suffer unduly. Perhaps this ignorance is what fuels my schemes. In either case, I have passed word through the barges; As many strong-backs as can be found, should be assembled by a date. Upon that date, a massive crane ship will be sent by my company to receive them. I have let fly rumors that the ship contains salvation. In many ways, it does. It is no lie. I will be there myself, to accompany them along the journey. And, when far from the range the Elite’s electronic ears, I will give my speech.

On that day, it reads thus; “As I look out among the faces today I must admit; never have I dreamed so many dreams at once. Never have I felt so many varied admirations, or fearful apprehensions, or seen so much light and hope together in once place. Never once could I imagine to look out upon all you, and loathe that which casts you out more fiercely than I have before. But I do. And I want you all to know, I feel for you. As I always have. I wish you only the best. While you are anxious, hungry, exhausted, or otherwise, have lost the zest and zeal for life, I must ask this of you; take my next words gravely serious, for it is not my future in your hands, it is yours… Humanity’s. Beginning after a mandated rest, in which we will sail further from reach of the Elite, we will begin construction of a new Island that will rival that of their combined realms, and it will be all yours.”

The apprehension that flickers over the crowd I expect. They have heard these promises before, been lulled with golden promises that were little more than lullabies to soothe them as a mother soothes a weeping babe. Even so, I continue without pause, without concern. “It is true. Though few of you would believe it over death. I ask only one thing in return for this; that you earn it. Each of you men, young men, women, young women, and children, holds connections to others whom stayed behind. Use that to influence them, to clean, maintain, and love what you are given by whomever may give it. I am fortunate enough to take on this monumental project, and I won’t waste it. I’d ask only the same from you.”

A joyous cheer erupts, and I sense that apprehension is gone.

“Excellent! Now eat, and sleep, and dream! Tomorrow marks the beginning in a long, and exhausting process that will re-shape all of our worlds. So I say, good luck to all of us!”

I leave the stage to applause, adjourn to my quarters.

At first they thought I’d lost my mind, that I was not right in the head and should be committed. They threatened to do just that, but my mother, to her dying breath, defended me, pled for lenience. With her untimely death, her reserve transferred to me. I held fast, ready to die with the truth on my lips. They were the ones not thinking right– they were not in their right minds.

And so, on the three hundredth day since construction had began, the builders poured the last ounce of cement, laid the last brick, and kicked up their feet on ledges that overlooked the mass exodus that began. Zion, the name we chose for posterity, the fabled land of unity, peace, freedom. It is a utopia, a contrast to the oppressive Babylon, a juxtaposition that most befitted the world we’d grown to inhabit. A dozen men and women met with me upon the crane-ship as it ferried materials and people to their new home. The most perspective, thoughtful, and foresighted of those “lower-beings” and I sat down, began to discuss matters of economics, politics, law and order. It was then that we put forth a question to the populous; could these twelve remain to govern, think deeply on those issues that effected us all?

Most agreed, but there was still apprehension. The twelve believed it would fade with time, each of them hand-picked from the twelve barges that had held the populous captive for generations. The people spoke then, and they do so now. I wished not to attend these meetings in the beginning, but they felt my consultation was warranted. For that matter they trusted my words, trusted me, not to lead them astray.

The four continue attempts to thwart our plans, but fortunately for us they do not command the respect of their “pawns” as I do. My people– our people, merely relay the attempts to me, go about their business as usual. It is all so simple the Elite’s ignorance amuses me. It is simply because I do not see my people as pieces in a battle, but rather as human beings in their own rights. It is this simple understanding of the words “Humanity,” and “Family” that I command their respect. I see them as brother and sister, child and grandchild, father and mother. With this, I have become the supreme winner of their pseudo-chess game. I took the place upon which only a wealthy man could have, sat across the board where they had played one side against the other unimpeded so long they’d missed their opponent as he slipped into the chair before them.

They’ve lost at their own game. It is ironic really, that they’ve brought about their own demise by forgetting the meaning of that which they designate themselves; Family. As I watch the final ships arrive, bringing future merchants, carpenters, scientists, teachers, I laugh– at the irony, and at the Elite. I laugh for all those once down-trodden, all those whom may now triumph in the face of “old money.” I laugh so hard my sides ache and a profound, incommunicable joy explodes within me, compels me to brighten the faces of every man, woman, child and grandchild, grandmother and grandfather that now have a home. And the island expands, I laugh with glee that the refugees have finally found their Zion; that wondrous, magical and mythical place, that they call home.

Krubera: Part 2

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

2.

The Guide

Elliot emerged from the conference room with a huff. Her team anxiously waited to celebrate, she stepped into, smiled at them. The tension shattered into a half-dozen sighs. Elliot laughed, expertly masked her irritation.

Meeting with the Georgian officials had gone well, but they had refused to relent on a single issue. Elliot and her team would be forced to bring one of their countrymen along as a guide. Despite her vehement protests that they would be cave-diving, and could not assure the safe return of the guide, the officials refused to grant her access to the country until she agreed. In all of her expeditions she’d learned only two things were immovable; mountains, and politicians with an agenda. In truth, she didn’t want the straggler to hinder their pace, in addition to presenting a liability. Officially, the expedition was American, but if something happened to the Georgian, accusations would fly when the four Americans returned unscathed– no matter how loud they shouted that the Georgian was inexperienced.

Anthony Weir was the first to approach her; a thirty-five year old paleontologist from Brigham Young, and the jewel of her team. All of the others knew it. He was invaluable to an archaeologist, able to tell the era of bones on first observation. No one knew how he did it, but he was more accurate, and faster, than carbon dating. He also held a Master’s degree in paleobotany. Elliot joked that he must have “loved the idea of robbing the grave” as a graduate student.

“Well?” He asked with an anxious step forward. His hands shook change in the pockets of old khaki, cargo shorts, his button-up shirt curiously still. He looked out of place in a building full of suit-clad politicians, but didn’t seem to mind. Elliot wasn’t sure he noticed anyhow.

“Well, what?” She asked, almost oblivious.

“Are we in?” He retorted.

A voice piped up behind him, “Of course we’re in Tony, that was never the question,”

Chad Balzray, an Aussie-American and eternal rock star that even now wore his sunglasses despite the dark, wood-paneled hallway of the Embassy. His Hollywood-style blue blazer was draped over a shirt unbuttoned to the middle.

Chad held a Master’s in Micro-biology from Berkeley, but was also skilled herbalist. For as many times as Elliot re-considered his position, he’d come through doubly when someone was ill, and the team was out of or low on medical supplies. Through-out all of the various terrains they’d been through– deserts, jungles, even a few ocean-dives, and more– he’d made four times the amount of herbal remedies. He was, ostensibly, the team’s physician if they’d been allowed one. On-paper he was the consultant for fossilized micro-biology, able to stick rocks under a scope, deduce what bacterium had ruled the de-calcified life. Otherwise, he pulled his weight where it was needed, and that was enough for Elliot.

“So Ell, what’s the catch?” He asked intuitively.

She sighed through pursed lips, “We’re taking a guide.” The group remained silent. She continued with a shake of her head, “Something about tensions on the border. I’m sure it’s B-S, but I have to seriously question whether or not they’ll be a liability. They haven’t chosen who’s going yet, but I told them it needs to be someone that can dive.” She sank on to a bench in the hall, rubbed her forehead, “I swear it’s like talking to trees– you know they’re communicating, but talking back’s useless.”

“Egg heads,” Chad chuckled.

“Without a doubt,” Tony agreed.

The final member of the team, Raymond Bradley, was as quiet as ever. He sat on a bench across from Elliot in a tweed jacket that was tattered around the edges. He stared at a piece of limestone in his hand, as if it explained some deep, philosophical mystery of the universe to him. His mind and attention hung on its every word.

Bradley was the most eccentric of the group, with a PhD and tenure-ship from Stanford, and an undeniable geological-attitude he’d inherited from his life’s work. He weighed every word he spoke, as though to test its weight in his hands before it became a corner-stone to be laid with the greatest of care. His patience was eternal, because, in his words, “stone makes fools of us all.” He was also a walking, geological encyclopedia. Long before they had decided to explore Krubera, he had known all of its facts. To him, the expedition was an exercise in review; every twist and turn of the system undoubtedly already mapped in his mind.

“What do you think Raymond?” Elliot asked across at him.

He stared a moment longer, sighed with tongue-in-cheek, “Eggheads.”

***

The team’s lengthy flight exhausted them to irritation. They’d left JFK International for a connecting flight in Moscow, airborne for nine and half hours. Then, without warning, their second leg was diverted around Abkhazian airspace, back into Russia’s Krasnodar Krai. Their twin-engine charter was threatened by a pair of MiG-29 fighter jets, forced down on a long strip of dirt-road, boarded, then searched by Russian soldiers. They were held there until several Russian officials arrived with a translator who claimed they were bound for forbidden airspace.

No one was in the mood, Elliot especially. She produced their itinerary and signed, official documents. The translator explained the situation between the two parties, neglecting Elliot’s swears and curses. Evidently, the flight had warranted Russian authorization, Abkhazia a contested zone between the Russians and Georgians. Elliot assumed there would be political opposition to her entry, but never imagined the Russians would force her plane down

Unfortunately, as far as the Russian government was concerned, Abkhazia was an independent nation. To Georgia, it was not. Their government, as well as most of the world, refused to acknowledge Abkhazia’s independence, but it was Russia’s job to assert it.

Elliot didn’t care for the politics of it. There was more to be concerned with on this trip. She pressed the officials, and after several hours, they agreed her team could enter the country, so long as they not continue to Georgia. Elliot was fine with it: Krubera was only forty kilometers inland from the Russian border. Even so, she purposely neglected to mention the Georgian guide.

They took off once more from the stretch open, dirt road for their last stop; the Sukhumi Dranda Airport. Customs officials met them on the tarmac, no doubt sent by the Russians, pulled them from the plane, and ransacked their belongings with dogs. Haggard, jet-lagged, and on-edge, the team hurled their luggage into awaiting Land-Rovers. There beside them, was the Georgian guide.

Elliot guessed she wasn’t more than thirty, but she seemed out of place in the crowded terminal. A few inches taller than Elliot, and well-toned with black, mid-back-length hair, she introduced herself as Liana Lomidze. She watched them load their things with curiously wily-eye, took a seat on the driver’s side of the first of the two SUVs. Elliot and Chad, climbed in with her. Anthony and Raymond followed close behind her, drove as she did; the last thing they needed was to be pulled over, searched again.

Elliot watched the gray-cities pass by, matched by the gray-sky overhead, “Any idea why the pulled that stunt on the plane?”

Liana replied with a resonant guilt, “It is unfortunate. For as little good as it does, you have my apologies. It is sad that my homeland and my countrymen do not see eye-to-eye. It is not however, surprising in the least.”

“Why dogs? Do they think we’re militants?”

Liana’s eyes were focused ahead, her tone dead-pan, “Or smugglers moving weapons.”

Chad leaned in from the back-seat, “Is it really that bad here?”

Liana glanced back at him, then to Elliot, “Only to those in power, and those that fear change.” She returned to her focus to the road with a breath, “Truly, the situation is reflected by the people. And they’re very angry. A decade and a half of peace after a purge not seen since the likes of Stalin, interrupted by politicians pulling strings for their own gains. It is not bad. It is terrible.”

Elliot threw he head back against the seat, “Christ. What the hell was I thinking?”

Chad smiled as he relaxed backward, “Don’t worry, Ell, we’re Americans. No-one’s got the balls to mess with the U.S. military.”

Ellie breathed a reply, “I’m more worried about being an innocent bystander.”

Chad laughed, but Liana glanced sideways, “Your friend is right– however misplaced his humor may be.” Chad’s smile fell away. Liana refocused on the road, “There has been no fighting recently. When there is, it is on the Georgian border, far to the East. You are in no danger.”

“That’s helpful,” Elliot snarked.

They followed the twists and turns of the highways out of the city and into a wooded, forested region, stopped at a motel to pass the night. The small, cramped rooms smelled of damp mold and old, stale smoke. The storm that raged during the night shook open cracks in the bathroom ceiling. Water dripped from loud leaks, splashed on the bathroom floor to lull Liana to sleep, but kept Elliot awake in the bed beside her.

They left first-thing in the morning, well before sunrise, traveled highways and rural roads to a clearing that sprawled out into a forest. The mountains rose above far ahead, lit from the sun that rose behind trees to one side. The group set to breakfast on the hoods of the SUVs as the mountains continued to lighten, and the sounds of morning birds resounded from the forest ahead.

“Ever been spelunking?” Elliot asked Liana, between bites of food.

“Once, long ago.” She hesitated to drink, swallow food, “I am not usually one for exploration, but I was contracted by the Georgians for things of this nature.”

“What do you do normally?” Raymond asked as he balled up a sandwich bag.

“Travel. I am a consultant for several large industrial companies,” she replied vaguely.

Chad’s attempts to press her were obvious, “Uh-huh, and why’d the Georgians contract you to us?”

Liana sighed her wits too sharpened for Chad’s lack of subtlety, “I will be frank with you. I am a military consultant for the Georgian government. I was chosen to guide you as protection because of my background. The Georgian government, as you said–” she nodded to Chad. “–was afraid of involving you, and vicariously the U.S. Military, in the conflict here.”

Raymond gave a silent nod, as his eyes worked its way up the mountains ahead. Elliot looked to her feet, like the others, clad in blue-denim pants, hiking boots, and long sleeved plaid shirts. Her boots hung from the hood of the Land-Rover, dangled childishly. She dropped down on instinct, shifted uncomfortably across her hips.

Liana’s admission forced a silence over them that lasted through breakfast. When everyone was finished, Elliot broke the tense silence to spend a few minutes planning their trek along topographical maps of the area. They found the best possible route to lead them through the woods, down into glacial, limestone valleys, and straight to the entrance of the cave. With the weight the five were required to carry, it would take all day. They would make camp at the mouth of the Crow’s cave, sleep through the night, and begin their descent first thing in the morning.