Serpent (NUMA Files 1)

"Nor do I. Tell me again about the passageway, the one with water in it."

The professor took her hand. "Come," he said.

The chamber was almost totally in darkness, and Chi could have been leading her into the jaws of hell for all she knew. At one point he stopped, and a second later the flame from his butane lighter flared and threw grotesque shadows on the rough walls.

"Watch your head," Chi cautioned, leading her into a passageway. "The ceiling gets lower, but we don't have far to go."

After a few minutes the tunnel eventually widened and gave Gamay more headroom. The passageway sloped down slightly, abruptly ending in a blank wall. Below the wall was a small pool.

"The tunnel dips below the water table here," Chi explained. "Whether it goes up or down after that, I don't know"

"But it's not impossible that this tunnel might lead to the surface."

"Si. The ground of the Yucatan is simply a limestone . slab honey combed with natural caverns and tunnels carved out over the eons by water action."

Gamay shivered, not so much from the cold and damp but at the claustrophobic prospect of swimming into the waterfilled earth. She willed her fears away, but some lingered.

"Professor Chi; I know this is a long shot. I'm going to see if this leads anywhere. I can hold my breath for about two minutes, which will give me time to swim a fair distance."

"It is very dangerous."

"Not any more so than waiting for those jokers up above to decide when they're going to wall us permanently into this place. After my dentally challenged friend has some fun, of course."

Chi didn't argue. He knew she was right.

"Well," she said, "time for a dip."

She slid into the pool and started a sequence of noisy hyperventilation exercises to fill her lungs with oxygen. When she had absorbed air to the point of dizziness, she ducked underwater and scoped out the tunnel opening. She rose to the surface and reported her find to Chi. "It angles down, but I don't know how far it goes."

He nodded. "Make sure you allow enough air to return." Chi leaned over and handed her his butane lighter. "You may need this where you're going."

Gamay was already into her deep breathing exercises, so she tucked the fighter into her shorts, gave him the okay sign, and dove into the blackness. Counting seconds off in her headone chimpanzee, two chimpanzeelike a child estimating the closeness of lightning, she swam just below the ceiling. She had decided to push herself to the limit. Swimming forward for nearly two minutes, she could cover thirty or forty yards before having to turn around for a lung bursting dash back.

As it turned out she didn't have to burst her lungs at all. She was barely past her sixtieth chimpanzee when the ceiling angled up sharply and her extended hand broke out of the water, followed an instant later by her head. She exhaled and took a tentative breath. The air was musty but good.

Gamay couldn't believe her good luck. About time they got a break. The tunnel must dip then come up like the waterseal trap under a kitchen sink She was familiar with plumbing from the almost constant renovation work around her Georgetown house. She laughed at the thought of swimming in an oversized drain, but her mirth was also prompted by relief. The sound of her voice echoed in the darkness, quickly sobering her with the reminder that she wasn't out of this mess yet. Not by a long shot.

She dug Chi's lighter out of her pocket and held it high, Statue of Liberty fashion. After several tries the lighter flint sparked and the flame hissed into life. Treading water Gamay pirouetted and saw that she was at the bottom of a steepsided circular hole. She sidestroked around the perimeter, thinking this is what it must feel like to be a kitten down a well. How on earth would she climb these sides? She didn't relish a repeat performance of her Icarus-like plunge into the ceno

te.

She floated over to a shelflike waterlevel protuberance and raised the lighter. There was another ledge a short distance above the first. Her heart raced with excitement. Steps! There might be a way out of this pit after all. Losing no time she pulled herself out of the water and climbed the steps that spiraled around the inside of the stone cylinder.

Soon she was over the rim of the well. Using the lighter again, she explored her surroundings. She was in a small cave. Her eye fell on the narrow furrow in the stone floor, and she followed it to a low ceiling passageway. She held the lighter dose to the opening and watched the flame flutter. Air was blowing through. Stale and warm. But still air.

Within seconds she was back in the well. She hyperventilated a few times then swam back the way she had come. Surfacing, she blurted, "I think I found a way out."

The professor's voice answered in the hollow darkness. "Dr. Gamay. I was afraid you were gone for good. So much time had passed."

"'Sorry to keep you waiting. Wait'll I show you what I found. Can you swim?"

"I used to do laps every day in the Harvard pool." He paused. "How long will I have to hold my breath?"

"Just the other side of the wall. You can do it."

They found each other's hand, and Chi splashed into the basin. With their heads close together, Gamay instructed him in breathing exercises. Between breaths he said, "I wish now my ancestors were Incan rather than Mayan."

"Pardon?"