Abaddon - Chapter 10

Penny Simpson’s notes, November 20, 2010

The room is bright and well-lit. Facing the speaker in the auditorium are the cameras of around fifteen international TV networks, as many as could be convinced to attend. The more cameras there are, the more chance there is that one of them will be filming the speaker’s killer if someone tries to assassinate him.

“The, ah, vent is certainly deep, deeper than was originally imagined”, says the speaker, pointing with a British MoD laser gunsight - a souvenir of several journeys into the Abyss - at an enormous Powerpoint display projected on a whiteboard the size of a galleon’s mainsail. What he means by ‘deeper than was originally imagined’, of course, is deeper than he originally imagined. “Its total depth still remains to be ascertained. However, it is certainly more than a kilometre - indeed, at this depth, the vent has still scarcely narrowed.”

The speaker is Craig Van Vreden, the Unfriendly American, pointedly wearing his very best suit without a tie, the modern power dresser's way of indicating the very highest status, of saying Look, see, I can get away with this. He is visibly annoyed as he delivers his presentation to a packed lecture theatre full of the world’s scientific press; annoyed because, however astounding the discoveries dredged up from the deep have been, they have still proved his own preconceptions to be wrong. Scientists are such arseholes.

“It was originally thought (I originally thought) the Na Abyss was a former lava tube, formerly filled with superheated gas”, says Craig. “As the lava dried, it left a hollow vent of considerable depth.” He gazes at his obviously meticulously-prepared lava tube slide wistfully. “Unfortunately, this is not so. Expeditions down to up to eight hundred metres in the vent have been unable to confirm a wall composition that would corroborate the lava tube hypothesis.” ( the slide changes to the same beautifully labelled lava tube diagram, this time with a big crude red cross drawn through it, and the single word NO.)

“Either the Abyss, then, is a feature formed in the abyssite by some sort of erosion, or it has always been here, and is not a feature of erosion at all.” ( a mediaeval woodcut of the sun rising up through the ground in the vicinity of Na, observed by happy smiling peasants.) “The greater part of the man-made structures in what we have come to call the Totalitarian Layer -“ ( a capsule’s-eye view of the Nazi and Soviet crane and Smoke facilities, taken from around half a kilometre down) “- have been explored extensively in several well-documented expeditions. However, there are further structures, in particular a set of ramps and galleries cut into the Abyss walls, going even further down than the German and Russian work. These appear to be, both from the way in which they were made and from graffiti cut into the rocks around them, Roman. Timber boards which seem to have been used to form moulds for some of the gallery pillars have been found by the lower entrance to the Totalitarian Complex here. The pillars, unusually, are made of concrete. Samples of the timbers used to shape them have been carbon-dated to around 200 AD. Only Roman architects were known to use concrete to make buildings at any time before the nineteenth century. Vertical samples of the floor surface inside the galleries indicate large, square-cut surface stones laid on a bed of finer gravel - exactly the pattern used by Roman road builders. There are even purpose-built wheel ruts for short-axled cart traffic, and stepping stones for pedestrians to cross the thoroughfare. The gallery arches are semicircular in section, a Roman development, and -“ here his voice drops as he records another major Roman development - “bodies discovered in a gulley seven hundred metres down seem to be those of dead Roman slaves. DNA samples taken from all the bodies present indicate that most of them were of Slavic extraction, with ten per cent Vaemna, five per cent German, and four per cent Finno-Ugrian and Turkic, just about the proportions to be expected from Roman slave populations of the time and area. The slaves were, uh, probably worked to death, then had their bodies thrown into the gulley when they were of no more use. The gulley also seems to have been used as a latrine.

“As vernacular Greek graffiti has also been discovered in this area, we have christened it the Classical Layer. Someone went to great lengths to build a road down here, much of which has disintegrated over the centuries, and we have not actually yet reached the end of that road. This is the reason for our fifth trip down into the Abyss, which we’ll be undertaking today.”

He takes his glasses off to massage his temples as he takes questions from the floor. I realize with some surprise that he has lost a good deal of his hair. I myself have been picking grey hairs out of my comb for some weeks now. Big frown lines are starting to spread out from the headwaters of my eyes like river deltas. I’m certain I didn’t have them six months back. We have all been living in the same cheap hotel, in the same four adjoining rooms in the same cheap hotel, since May. Three major British and American newspapers have been hiring cheap Russian mafia bodyguards to stand meaningfully in the hotel hallways to prevent incensed Vaemna from lynching us. All our food is flown in in hampers from Fortnum & Mason’s. (And the bodyguards have to be Russian, or at least Byelorussian; the local mob can’t be trusted. One of our earlier guards has already been shot.)

We really shouldn’t be staying here. The head has been cut off Ivan’s security apparatus, but I suspect two more heads will spring up to replace every one that’s pollarded. The Vaemna have lost their pharaoh, and they will surely be revenged. But try as I might, I can’t make it through the departure gate at the airport. Somehow I have to know what it is that’s at the end of the Romans’ road, why an entire legion and scores of slaves were employed (and, er, murdered) to build it.

Question from the floor (young pimply gentleman in a very smart suit, probably hasn’t been working for his rag for long, anxious to make a good impression):

“Is it true that the British government sent Special Forces troops to Vzeng Na to acquire samples of a German nerve gas found in the Totalitarian Complex?”

Craig locks gazes with me before replying. “Uh, we certainly didn’t see any British Special Forces when we were down there. If you’re talking about Captain Thomas Keogh, then, yes, I believe it’s a known fact that he was a member of the British SAS, but he’s now believed to have been acting alone - he was a keen caver, by all accounts, and he was on leave from his unit, his regiment, at the time. The gun he shot Captain Gushin with was the personal sidearm of a Na policeman who Captain Keogh seems to have earlier murdered. He certainly seems to have had some British military equipment on him, night vision goggles and such, but he could quite easily have just borrowed it from his barracks without permission.”

They always ask that question, and that is the stock paragraph we have for it. Next question, from an older, crustier journo (you can tell the older ones, they grow larger on hotel food and the colours of their suits grow drabber. And they always say isn’t it true, not is it.):

“Isn’t it true that Na police troops were involved in massacring homeless people in the tunnels that join the Abyss to the city?”

Craig frowns. “We saw no evidence of any massacre, which is understandable, as we didn’t actually enter the tunnels. We do, however, understand the Na police to have been involved in operations against heroin addicts and sex traffickers who were holed up down there. We don’t believe Captain Keogh has been linked with this. It is our opinion that whatever could have incited Captain Keogh to shoot Captain Gushin must have been a tragic misunderstanding. Possibly Captain Keogh had been participating in an illegal caving expedition - all caving expeditions into the Abyss that don’t have the Na government’s permission are illegal - and was mistaken for a heroin trafficker by the Na police. Maybe one or more of his friends was shot, and Captain Keogh was exacting his idea of revenge. But I’d like to stress that this is just speculation on our part.”

This second journalist isn’t stopping there, however. “Is it, in your opinion, a coincidence that four other British Special Forces servicemen died in the same week? Two missing presumed drowned in a training accident in Weymouth, and two trapped in a cave-in during an Army spelunking weekend in the Mendips. No bodies were recovered in either of these cases. Could these men have, in your opinion, actually been somewhere near the Na Abyss in the company of Captain Keogh when they died?”

"I can certainly tell you it's possible. I can tell you Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are possible too. But if you want to know whether it's definitely true, I think you really need to be talking to someone from the British government."

The journo doesn't even flinch. "Like, for example, Sir Reginald Washburton, in whose embassy Miss Simpson over there spent at least one night just before Mr. Keogh murdered Captain Gushin?"

Craig doesn't even flinch back. This paragraph is pre-prepared too. "Miss Simpson had been attacked by drug addicts while on a caving expedition. The two men she was accompanying had also been attacked, shot, and killed. She went to the Embassy because she was afraid she might be also be killed." All, in fact, perfectly true, apart from an entire infernal horde of devils and details.

The face of the old journo, who I realize with distaste works for a rival rag to my own, collapses into a mass of scowl wrinkles like a sea anemone poked with a stick. Then some science pundit in a brown suit sticks up a hand and, finally, we get asked where we're going.

"Down", smiles Craig, to general chuckles. The ice finally gets broken. "We intend to use Mr. Lifty to the full extent of its operating envelope of two kilometres. If the hole goes down that deep, the mere fact that it does will be interesting enough."

"What if the road goes down further?" says Mr. Lary Journo.

"We will set down a team to explore further on foot equipped with protective clothing and breathing apparatus if conditions allow."

"Surely", pipes up one audience member, "the Ancient Romans couldn't have built a road into a cave system they were unable to breathe in." Aha, bright lad. But you didn't know what we need the protective gear to protect ourselves against. It ain't firedamp, that's for certain. And Craig doesn't answer that one, despite how well prepared he is.

"How many people will go down in the foot party?"

"Six", says Craig. "Wilson here, Miss Simpson, Mr. Bogdanovich -" he indicates Sean, who's sitting slumped in a chair as if he'd rather die than stay above ground a moment longer - "and three veterans of scientific caving expeditions in the Bahamas, Borneo and Russia. May I introduce Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Dougal, and Mr. Oleg Bilibin."

There are grinning bows and patters of polite applause. I push open the fire exit and wander out into the first floor of the lobby, staring through reconstituted marble balustrades at a knot of people cluttering up the chequerboard pattern of the Hilton's lobby tiling. This is the other press conference. Down there I recognize Tom Keogh's widow, Vernon Hallam's daughter, an earnest young gentleman from Greenpeace, a trio of sinister-looking Scientologists in matching grey suits, and the Lost Subterranean Fastness of Shambhala Correspondent of the National Inquirer. I also recognize two gentlemen sitting nonchalantly drinking lemonade at the bar, wearing well-made lounge suits, carrying on a conversation that I am sure involves the prostitutes in Kabul. Both of them notice me and wave. I retreat back behind the balustrade. I'm not quite ready for that level of confrontation yet.

***

"We have no interest in the Abyss. We have been down there already."

Lounge Suit Number 1 has a Russian accent and a silk handkerchief tucked into his top pocket. Rather carelessly for a spy's hanky, it has his initials on it in Cyrillic.

"We haven't been down into the Abyss, but we believe our Russian allies when they say we do not need to go down there." Lounge Suit Number 2 has a Massachussetts drawl and a tartan handkerchief in green and orange. Hides the bogeys, I imagine.

"You're prepared to take the Russians' word on this", says Craig in disbelief. This may not be a good move. After all, the Russians are just about all that has been keeping us, including Craig, alive till now.

We are in the cellar of a Romanian restaurant popular with tourists for the fact that it is called DRACULAS and features waitresses with uplift bras and fake plastic vampire fangs. The wine is actually Bulgarian, not Romanian, and most of what's on the menu is Hungarian, as few people have heard of sarmale, but everyone has heard of goulash, even when spelt with a 'gh'. As the restaurant is popular with tourists, it is not popular with Vaemna, which is no doubt the reason for us being here. However, I notice that a lot of diners at the tables all around us are behaving themselves to what, for tourists, seems an unnatural degree. At least one of them is wearing an earpiece. I also do not recall having seen this restaurant in the past; and in the street where it is, I should remember having walked past it several times before.

"We have seen a good deal of intelligence material passed to us by our Russian allies", says Lounge Suit Number 2. "It has convinced us we do not want to go into the Abyss. We would like you not to go into the Abyss too."

"Why?" says Wilson. "With respect", he adds, probably having noted the man he's talking to is wearing a gun inside his jacket.

Lounge Suit Number 2 sniffs, looks up at Number 1, and nods. Number 1 gets to his feet, walks across the room, and (entirely unremarked by the waiters, which surprises me not at all) lifts two carriage clocks from either side of a big stone fireplace.

He sets the two clocks down on the table in front of us, reaches round the back of them, and winds them both to the same time. He's certainly not winding them up, as they both have QUARTZ MOVEMENT written on the back of their casings in very tiny letters.

"How good is your eyesight?" he says to me.

"Pretty good", I answer.

He nods, gets up with one clock, and walks it off to the other end of the room, setting it down on the table facing me.

"When the second hand on your clock reaches the number twelve again, take a look at my clock."

I nod, and watch the hand obediently. When it passes the minute, I look up. The second hand on the other clock is still at 59.

"So?"

"So this clock loses one second every minute. Not so good for a clock I bought in town this morning, yes?"

"So what? It's only a second." I realize this is moronic as soon as I say it. One second a minute is one hour every three days. Is six days every year.

"Bad Vaemna workmanship", says Craig dismissively.

Lounge Suit Number 1 gets up, walks back up the room, sets the clock back down next to the first one, winds both to the same time again.

"Now watch", he says.

I watch. The two second hands keep pace right round to the moment they cross the minute marker.

"And that means?"

Lounge Suit 1 casts a glance up the room. "It means there is something different about that end of the room."

Craig snorts derisively. "It means you've got yourself a magnet and some sleight of hand."

Lounge Suit 1 looks hugely offended. Lounge Suit 2, on the other hand, nods. "Yes, it would be possible for us to fool you. Given the resources at our disposal, it would even be easy. But now I've placed the seed in your mind, being scientists, you will make little experiments of your own, and I'm convinced you will convince yourself. Unless, of course, you're capable of fooling yourself, and I've met a few of those in my time, of course."

Craig stares at the clocks. "What are you suggesting? That one end of this room is travelling close to the speed of light, and the other isn't?"

"I'm suggesting nothing", says Suit Number 1, "apart from the fact that that end of the room is closer to the Abyss."

"How pronounced is the effect at the Abyss edge?" says Wilson, who already appears to be sold on the idea.

"Not much larger. About three seconds per minute. That also seems to be the case right down to two point two kilometres in, which is the lowest point for which reliable readings exist."

"No-one's ever gone down deeper than two kilometres", says Craig quickly.

"No-one that you know about", says Suit Number 1.

Wilson, and everyone else at the table - me, Sean, Craig, Bilibin, and the two Australians, Dougal and Dougal - stares in disbelief. Disbelief, and indignation - this is like someone tapping Neil Armstrong on the shoulder before he gets into Apollo 11 and saying, 'Ah, by the way, Armstrong, it's like this - the CIA have been on the Moon secretly since 1862."

"How deep did you go?" says Wilson.

Suit Number 1 clears his throat embarrassedly. "Ah, this is not entirely certain, as the debriefing was of necessity somewhat haphazard. Let us say three kilometres."

"Three kilometres?"

"That's impossible! What was the temperature down there?"

"Was the atmosphere breathable?"

"You do know there are one thousand metres in a kilometre, don't you?"

Suit 2 waves away the torrent of questions exasperatedly. "Enough please! We have a transcript of the debriefing. It will answer every question that can be answered. More complex answers we do not have."

Wilson settles back in his seat. "Show us."

Lounge Suit 1 reaches down under the table, and I hear briefcase-unclipping noises. He slides out a sheaf of papers, very gently, as if removing the innards of a bomb.

"These papers", he says, "will not leave this room. I am authorized to allow you to read them, one person at a time, one page at a time. I am also authorized, if you attempt to take any of them away from me, to shoot you."

"Read them to us", says Wilson. "Out loud."

Lounge Suit 1 looks narrowly at Wilson, as if imagining sights lining up between his eyes. Then, he reaches up and clicks his fingers in impatience, once only. The entire room clears. Diners, waiters, and for all I know, public health inspectors, simply get to their feet and, without casting so much as a glance in our direction, walk out in a manner so orderly it cannot be anything other than military. The contrast between the laughing, joking restaurantgoers of only a few seconds earlier could not be more marked.

"Thought so", said Wilson. "How long has this restaurant been here?"

"The restaurant is an international fixture", says Suit Number 1. "It can be packed into trucks and moved from country to country at a moment's notice. It is often essential to be able to provide a meeting location that is both credible and completely safe."

I blink and stare at the departing diners. "You move the whole building?"

Suit Number 1 smiles indulgently. "No. Just the interior décor and staff."

"The papers", presses Wilson. "Read them to us, please."

He does have good reason for needing them read to him as, of course, they're in Russian. Suit Number 1 clears his throat. "Ah, first of all it is important to realize the circumstances. This is the transcript of a conversation with a dying man. He was the only surviving member of an eight-man team sent down into the Abyss from what we call the Devil's Distillery, what I suppose you would call the lower gate of the Totalitarian Complex."

I nod. "We saw APC tracks in the Hall of Pipes. Would that have been them?"

"It may well have been. No-one has been down there since that time. Our team travelled in a specially made light reconnaissance vehicle adapted from a BTR-60 military APC, hand welded out of aluminium, made airtight, and powered by an ingenious and highly dangerous self-contained peroxide motor. Even its engine, you see, was designed not to need air to breathe. The vehicle was armed with a single turret-mounted twelve point seven millimetre machine gun. The crew were young, fit men, and three of them, the officers, possessed academicians' degrees in technical subjects. Two had fought in Prague and Cuba."

"I think you mean 'gunned down demonstrators in Prague' and 'stood at the back telling black guys how to fight in Cuba'", mutters Craig. Suit Number 1 continues as if no utterance has occurred. "The mission appeared to be proceeding well enough in its early stages, though it was necessary for it to begin communicating with base via coded light flashes after radio became impractical. For whatever reason, beyond a certain depth the Abyss seems to deaden radio signals. Messages received back were, beyond two point three kilometres, necessarily curt due to the nature of communication. A message from two point five kilometres reports back, UNABLE TO USE BRIDGING TOOLS TO CROSS GULF IN ROAD. PROCEEDING FURTHER ON FOOT USING BREATHING APPARATUS. LEAVING CORPORAL GERASIMOV AS OFFICER-IN-CHARGE, 'BASE CAMP'. Further down, they seem to encounter additional obstacles, and cross them with ropes in messages nine, ten and eleven.

"Then we see this - 'HAVE ENCOUNTERED MAN MADE OBSTACLE EXTENDS 10 METRES UP, 20 DOWN; INVESTIGATING.' An engineer at Tupolev later designed a camera mounted on a small balloon which was used to take photographs of this 'obstacle'. Many of them came out quite well." He produces a matt blow-up of a fuzzy obstacle, looking like a cross between a cathedral buttress and a caddis-fly larva, slicing down across the road.

“It can’t be man-made. There can't be people living down that deep", says the Australian woman, Jeanette Dougal. Luckily, Jeanette has not discovered either fashion or hairstyling, or she'd be better looking than me. "There's simply not enough food to supply them."

"There is if there's a constant supply of cavers", says Sean, without any apparent sarcasm, which only makes it worse.

"Mrs. Dougal is correct", says Oleg Bilibin, a painfully thin, middle-aged academic who seems to sustain himself purely on the weight of his own crapulence, as I haven't yet seen him eat or drink. "There is insufficient biomass at that depth. No energy source. No sunlight."

"I know Mrs. Dougal is correct", says Craig. "And six months ago, I would have agreed with her. But the fact is that, as well as being correct, she's wrong, because there are people down there, because we have the holes they left in other people to prove it."

"At least, they were down there in 1962", corrects Wilson. "They might all be gone by now."

Bilibin thinks about this and nods, trapped by logic.

"In any case”, continues Suit 1, “whoever built the obstacle, they knew enough about the engineering of iron to allow them use metal pieces to hold a wall together. If it were only built out of stone compressing stone like a Classical temple or basilica, I am told that a structure like this would fall apart immediately. Of course, iron reinforced structures would rust away in time too. We believe in fact that they already rusted on several previous occasions. I am referring here to the 'gulfs' the team passed in messages nine, ten and eleven."

"Previous...obstacles", says Wilson. "That rusted and fell into the deep."

"Precisely. The fact that the makers of this obstacle had a source of iron, and knew how to reinforce structures with it, is after all certain. Look at the number of sharp iron or steel blades that stick out of it. Iron, steel, and, by the reflections from the camera flash, glass. Anyone attempting to climb around the obstacle using only their hands would be losing fingers very quickly."

"So how'd'they get round it?" says Sean.

Lounge Suit 1 returns his attention to the document. "The, ah, next message is as follows. 'OBSTACLE POSSIBLY DESIGNED TO DEFEND AGAINST ARMED AGGRESSION. DISCOVERED NUMBER OF MP44 CARTRIDGE CASES, LOOSELY SCATTERED IN A CIRCLE. GATE IN OBSTACLE NOT LOCKED! HAVE DECIDED TO FOLLOW DOCTRINE OF BRITISH AFRICAN EXPLORER MARY KINGSLEY - LARGE ARMED PARTIES SUCH AS LIVINGSTONE'S / STANLEY'S ONLY PROVOKE NATIVE AGGRESSION. DECIDED TO GO THROUGH GATE WITH LT. PONOMARENKO, UNARMED, HANDS SPREAD WIDE TO INDICATE OUR PEACEFUL INTENT."

"Uh-huh", nods Wilson. "Peaceful intent."

"Last seen with his hands spread wide in peaceful intent with his own fingerbones hammered through them, was he?" says Sean.

"Ah, the next message reads 'DANILOV AND PONOMARENKO OVERDUE 3 HOURS NOW. HAVE DECIDED TO FOLLOW WITH NON-PEACEFUL INTENT.' That is Lieutenant Yezhov, one of the three men left behind by Captain Danilov."

"Smart man", says Sean. "What's next?"

"Then there are no messages for the next five hours. Gerasimov, the single man left on guard with the APC above them, reports in message fifteen that he has seen phosphor flares going off in the deep below him, almost all the flares that Danilov's party carried."

"The MP44 cartridges were left by someone spinning round in a circle firing blind", says Sean.

"Someone too scared and heavily surrounded to aim", I add.

Suit Number 1 clears his throat and continues. But he's visibly sweating, and breathing with some difficulty.

"The next message was very short, and the light used to flash it very dim. It says only, 'THEY FEAR THE LIGHT. THEY ARE NOT MEN ANY LONGER. THEY HAVE LIVED DOWN HERE A LONG TIME. THE GATE THROUGH THE BASTION WAS LOCKED WHEN WE RETURNED' -"

("Surprise surprise", says Sean under his breath.)

"- WE ARE TRYING TO FORCE IT. HAVE NO GRENADES LEFT. AM ONLY FLASHING MESSAGE AS THE LIGHT KEEPS THEM AWAY. DO NOT THINK ANY ONE WILL SEE IT. THEY FEAR THE LIGHT. TELL MY WIFE', and there it ends."

"So Gerasimov was the only man who survived", says Craig.

Suit Number 1 shakes his head. "Gerasimov died when person or persons unknown to us fired or stabbed or projected this into his neck." He opens the sheaf of papers to another blow-up of a grainy black and white photo of what looks like a slender icicle.

"It is hollow", says Suit Number 1. "At its centre, we believe it to have contained around ten milligrams of Samarobrin emulsion - Oracle Smoke. I suspect Corporal Gerasimov died very quickly."

"What is Samarobrin - uh, Oracle Smoke?" I ask.

Suit Number 1 shrugs his shoulders. "We have no idea. Being neither truly solid, nor liquid, nor a gas, but an emulsion, it defies most attempts to study it in situ, and it is not portable; it breaks down into carbon dioxide, water, methane, and complex organic compounds such as mercaptans if it is carried away from its natural environment. Even if carried in a sealed container."

"Alkanes and mercaptans", grins Craig. "Fart gas. Almost as if someone has a sense of humour."

But one of us, at least, has not lost track of one final detail.

"So, who was the guy who survived?" says Wilson.

"Gerasimov was found dead by the APC by a rescue team several hours later. His sidearm was still in his hand, and all around him was a little ragged circle of nine millimetre Stetchkin bullets." Suit Number 1 cannot deny himself a grim Russian smile. "However, forty-five minutes later, a single trooper, attracted by the lights of the rescuers, was also recovered. Sergeant Portnoy was missing all but two of his fingers and one of his thumbs. He had had to climb around the bastion. His battledress was full of the little glass vessels that had punctured Corporal Gerasimov, which luckily for him had not penetrated his skin. He had lost his signalling light, his backpack, his helmet, and a lot of blood. Debriefing him was difficult, requiring great effort both from him and from his interrogators, and may have hastened his death."

"What did he die of?" says Wilson.

"Inattention on our part, I fear. Whilst he was being driven from the debriefing to the military hospital here in Na, he kicked the doors of the ambulance open, ran three streets to the Beglerbeg's Wall, scrambled over it, and hurled himself into the gulf. In his debriefing", Suit Number 1 licks his lips, "he speaks of 'The City' and 'The Temple' and 'Men Who Are Not Men'. And - and he repeats this phrase a number of times - 'the dark, it has as many eyes as a peacock'."

I read down the page where Suit Number 1's finger is resting. "'I have been in their City. I have seen their - " I find the next phrase difficult only because it is so unexpected - "aquamarine idols. I have seen my comrades crucified, still alive...I shot one through the head, to kill him, to put him out of his misery. They hate the light. They hate the light and fear it, because it is good, and they are only evil. They live down there amid stinking pools and bubbling geysers of that foul poison...they speak no language known to man. They are not Russians, they are not Romans, they are not Germans. They are not human any longer.'"

“Still want to go down?” says Suit Number 2.

“Hang on”, says Wilson. “This is the Evil Empire we’re talking about. They wouldn’t be scared of a handful of whackjobs with good night vision and glass spears. They would have sent down helicopters, spetsnaz and poison gas.”

Suit Number 1 nods sadly. “But you are not remembering that as well as helicopters and spetsnaz, the USSR also had political infighting and very bad bureaucratic incompetence. The officer in charge of the operation was a General Anatoly Vlasov, and he did in fact send down a helicopter. It was a Soviet-maintained helicopter, and it crashed. It is possible, I imagine, that something in the pit might have attacked and damaged it, but it was a military gunship, a Mil-2, fully armed and prepared for fighting. It had a very experienced pilot who had been on many combat missions in Africa and Latin America. It is far more likely, I think, that one of the helicopter’s turbines was disabled by a piece of bat shit.

“General Vlasov was a Christian, and had enemies in the Politburo, and such a fiasco had to be blamed on someone. However, if anyone suggested that the General had failed due to incompetence, that person could be challenged to do the General’s job any better. And nobody, of course, knew for sure whether the job Vlasov had failed at could actually be done. So instead, the General’s enemies claimed that he had been foolishly chasing subterranean enemies that did not exist, that there was nothing in the Abyss but stupid Christian and Jewish superstition, things not right for good Communists to concern themselves with. General Vlasov was stripped of his rank, and no Soviet expedition ever went down into the pit again.”

"So you're suggesting we should turn tail and run from a sad race of underground mutants whose main weakness we already know", concludes Craig.

This appears to nonplus the suits. Suit 2 looks at Suit 1. Suit 1 shrugs and nods.

"Well - yes", says Suit 2.

"No fear", Craig says. "Their weakness is light, right? So we take a big old box of road flares with us, maybe a portable generator, a bunch of halogen floodlights...oh, and guns. Lots and lots of guns. Guns with infrared sights."

"What if they don't show up on infrared?" says Sean.

"You've been watching too many movies", says Craig. "Everyone shows up on infrared."

Sean counts on his fingers. "Count Dracula, the Id Monster, H R Giger's Alien, Star Vampires from unknown Kadath - that's four, do I need to go on?"

"Sean, none of those people exist."

"There is no smoke without fire."

"So", says Suit Number 2 to Craig, twiddling his thumbs, looking intently at the floor. "We cannot dissuade you. You are fixed in this course of action."

"Absolutely", says Craig.

"Categorically", says Wilson.

"It is not entirely unexpected", says Suit Number 1 with unconcealed distaste. "Previous survivors of expeditions into the Abyss have become disturbed if removed from it. It is a form of mental illness."

"I'll say", says Sean, sticking two empty bottles of Pilsner up his nose.

"Well", says Suit 2, licking his lips, mountainously embarrassed, "since you're dead set on going...would you mind taking some recording gear down there for us?"

Both suits seem genuinely surprised when the whole room erupts in laughter.