Polar Shift (NUMA Files 6)

"Where are we?" she said.

Schroeder explored their surroundings with the flashlight. The tunnel was around thirty feet wide and thirty feet high. A section of the wall collapsed to uncover the hole. The ceiling was vaulted, and, unlike the cave they had come through, the floor was as level as a pancake.

"This isn't a cave," Schroeder said. "It's man-made." He aimed the light at the opposite wall. "Well, it seems we have company."

Life-size figures of men and women adorned the wall. They were painted in profile, as they marched along in a procession, carrying flowers, jugs and baskets of food and herding sheep, cows and goats with the aid of large, wolflike dogs.

The women wore long, diaphanous white dresses and sandals.

The men were dressed in kilts and loose, short-sleeved shirts. Trees and other greenery made a backdrop for the parade

.

The people had medium complexions, high cheekbones and raven hair worn in a bun by the females, cut short for the men. Their facial expressions were neither solemn nor happy, but somewhere in between; they could have been out for a Sunday stroll. The colors were brilliant, as if the paint had only been applied the day before.

The murals covered both walls. No figure was repeated. Most were young, in their teens and twenties, but there was a scattering of children and old people, including gray-haired men who wore ornate headgear and could have been priests.

"It looks like a religious procession," Karla said. "They're carrying gifts for a god or a leader."

Schroeder leaned on Karla's shoulder as he limped beside her. As they continued through the tunnel, the figures began to number in the hundreds.

"It's good to have company, in any case," Schroeder said. "Maybe our new friends here will show us the way out."

"They're definitely headed somewhere. Look!"

The mural had changed in nature. There were new animals in the mural-large, lumbering creatures that resembled elephants except for the shaggy, grayish brown fur covering their bodies. Flowers had been twined into their fur. The animals had high-peaked heads, and trunks that were relatively stubby. Some had tusks, almost as long as their bodies, that curved like the runners on an old-fashioned sleigh. Men rode on the animals like Indian mahouts.

"Impossible," Schroeder said.

Spellbound, Karla stepped closer for a better look. In her eagerness, she forgot that Schroeder was using her for a crutch. He went down on one knee.

"I'm so sorry," she said, seeing his predicament. She helped him up. "Do you know what these pictures mean? People of an advanced civilization lived on this island thousands of years before the Egyptians built the Pyramids. Probably back when the island was connected to the mainland. That's astounding enough on its own. But the fact that they had domesticated wild mammoths is just stunning. My paper on man's exploitation of the mammoth is trash! I had primitive man depending on mammoths as a source of food, and utilizing bones and tusks to make tools and weapons. The reality here is that they had learned to use these wild creatures as beasts of burden. This is the scientific discovery of the century. We'll have to rewrite all the textbooks."

"I share your excitement," Schroeder said. "But I think we have to look on the practical side. No one will ever know of this discovery unless we get out of this place."

"I'm sorry, this is just so…" She tore her gaze away from the stunning murals. "What should we do?"

Schroeder flashed the light along the wall. "We will let our friends tell us. The pretty young ladies up there are carrying flowers into the mountain. I propose that we determine where they came from and see if this tunnel leads outside. As you can see, I'm not ready to run in the Olympics, and our flashlight is dimming."

Karla cast a longing glance at the figures. "You're right. Let's go before I change my mind."

They started back. They had only taken a few steps when they heard men speaking Russian. Grisha and his thugs had found the opening into the main tunnel. Schroeder and Karla had to turn around and go the other way.

Schroeder broke into a loping run. The maneuver put pressure on his swollen ankle, but he gritted his teeth and kept moving. Leaning on Karla helped, but it slowed them down. He suggested that they turn off the flashlight. Its light was so dim now as to be almost useless, but it was bright enough to provide a beacon for their pursuers. Schroeder used his free hand as a guide in the dark, trailing his fingers along the wall. The tunnel seemed to stretch out with no end.

After a few minutes, the voices became louder. Grisha and his band of cutthroats were in full pursuit. Schroeder tried to take bigger steps, but the effort threw him out of synch and actually slowed their progress. He would have to stop soon and tell Karla to go on without him. He was formulating a reply to her expected protests, when Karla said, "I see light."

Schroeder blinked the sweat out of his eyes and squinted into the darkness. There was a paleness ahead that was only one shade removed from complete blackness. He was confused. Maybe he had been wrong about their direction and the wall murals had actually led them out of the mountain.

They kept on moving, and the floor sloped down in a long ramp. The tunnel fed into a vast cavern. The space was filled as far as the eye could see with two-story, flat-roofed buildings. The structures were built of material that glowed with a silvery green that cast the scene in a dusky light.

Rough voices came from behind and jerked them out of their trance. With a mixture of awe and apprehension, they began to descend the long ramp into the crystal city.

28

Housed on the tenth floor of NUMA headquarters is the modern-day equivalent of the famed Alexandria Library. The glass-enclosed computer center that takes up the entire level contains a vast digital library that includes every book and article, every scientific fact and record on the world's oceans, all connected to a highspeed computer network with the capacity to transfer enormous amounts of data in a blink of the eye.

The center is the brainchild of NUMA's computer genius, Hiram Yeager, who dubbed the artificial intelligence entity he created "Max." It was Yeager's idea to give Max a feminine human face represented by a three-dimensional holographic image with auburn hair, topaz eyes and a soft, feminine voice.