The 6th Extinction (Sigma Force 10)

It was a crude map, drawn on a piece of bleached sealskin, depicting the coastline of that continent to the south. That alone was intriguing enough, but the stories that accompanied the presentation only served to magnify all their interests.

One of the Fuegians—who had been baptized with the anglicized name of Jemmy Button—explained the Yaghan people’s history. He claimed their tribes had lived among the islands of this archipelago for over seven thousand years, an astounding span of time that strained credulity. Furthermore, Jemmy had praised his people’s nautical skills, which required less distrust, as Charles had indeed noted several of their larger sailing vessels in the cove. Though crude, they were clearly seaworthy.

Jemmy explained that the map was the culmination of thousands of years of Yaghan people’s exploration of the great continent to the south, a map passed from generation to generation, refined and redrawn over the centuries as more knowledge was gleaned of that mysterious land. He also shared tales of that lost continent, of great beasts and strange treasures, of mountains on fire and lands of infinite ice.

The most astounding claim echoed back to Charles now. He recorded those words in his journal, hearing Jemmy’s voice in his head: In times long into shadows, our ancestors say that the ice was gone from the valleys and mountains. Forests grew tall and the hunting was good, but demons also haunted the dark, ready to eat out the hearts of the unwary—

A sharp scream cut through from the deck above, causing Charles to scrawl ink down the remainder of the page. He bit back a curse, but there was no mistaking the terror and pain in that single piercing note. It drew him to his feet.

The last of the crew must have returned from that dread shore.

Abandoning his journal and pen, he rushed to his cabin’s door and down the short hall to the chaos atop the deck.

“Careful with him!” FitzRoy hollered. The captain stood at the starboard rail with his coat unbuttoned, his cheeks red above his dark frosted beard.

Stepping out onto the middeck, Charles blinked away the glare of the southern hemisphere’s midsummer sun. Still, the bitter cold bit at his nose and filled his lungs. A freezing fog hugged the black seas around the anchored ship, while rime ice coated the riggings and rails. Puffs of panicked white blew from the faces of the crew as they labored to obey their captain.

Charles rushed starboard to help the others haul a crewman up from a whaleboat tethered amidships. The injured man was wrapped head to toe in sailcloth and drawn up by ropes. Moans accompanied his plight. Charles helped lift the poor fellow over the rail and to the deck.

It was Robert Rensfry, the ship’s boatswain.

FitzRoy shouted for the ship’s surgeon, but the doctor was belowdecks, ministering to the two men from the first excursion to shore. Neither was likely to see another sunrise, not after sustaining such gruesome wounds.

But what of this fellow?

Charles knelt beside the stricken man. Others clambered up from the boat. The last was Jemmy Button, looking both ashen and angry. The Fuegian had tried to warn them not to come here, but his fears were dismissed as native superstitions.

“Is it done?” FitzRoy asked his second-in-command as he helped Jemmy back aboard.

“Aye, captain. All three barrels of black powder. Left at the entrance.”

“Good man. Once the whaleboat’s secure, bring the Beagle around. Ready the portside guns.” FitzRoy turned his worried gaze upon the injured crewman at Charles’s knees. “Where’s that damned Bynoe?”

As if summoned by this curse, the gaunt form of the ship’s surgeon, Benjamin Bynoe, climbed out from below and rushed forward. He was bloody to both elbows, his apron just as fouled.

Charles caught the silent exchange between captain and doctor. The surgeon shook his head twice.

The other two men must have died.

Charles stood and made room.

“Unwrap him!” Bynoe demanded. “Let me see his injuries!”

Charles backed to the rail, joining FitzRoy. The captain stood silently, staring landward, a spyglass at his eye. As the moans of the wounded man grew sharper, FitzRoy passed Charles the glass.

He took it, and after some effort, he focused on the neighboring coast. Walls of blue ice framed the narrow cove where they were anchored. At its thickest point, fog obscured the shore, but it was not the same frozen mist that hugged the seas and wrapped the surrounding bergs of ice. It was a sulfurous steam, a breath from Hades, rising out from a land as wondrous as it was monstrous.

A gust of wind blew the view momentarily clear, revealing a waterfall of blood coursing down that cliff of ice. It flowed along in crimson rivulets and streams, seeming to seep out of the haunted depths beneath the frozen surface.

Charles knew it wasn’t in fact blood, but some alchemy of chemicals and minerals exhaled from the tunnels below.

Still, we should have heeded that ominous warning, he thought again. We should never have trespassed into that tunnel.

He focused the spyglass on the cave opening, noting the three oil-soaked barrels planted at the entrance. Despite all the recent horrors that threatened one’s sanity, he remained a man of science, a seeker of knowledge, and while he should have perhaps railed against what was to come, he kept silent.

Jemmy joined him at the side, whispering under his breath in his native tongue, plainly resorting to pagan prayers. The reformed savage stood only chest-high to the Englishman at his side, but he exuded a strength of will that belied his small frame. The Fuegian had repeatedly tried to warn the crew, but no one would listen. Still, the stalwart native had accompanied the British to their foolish doom.

Charles found his fingers grasping the darker hand beside his own on the rail. The crew’s hubris and greed had cost them not only their own men but one of Jemmy’s tribesmen as well.

We should never have come here.

Yet foolishly they had—allowing themselves to be drawn south from their planned route by the wild stories of this lost continent. But what had mostly tempted them was a symbol found on that ancient Fuegian map. It marked this cove with a grove of trees, a promise of life. Intending to discover this lost garden amid the icy shores, the Beagle had set out, all in the hopes of claiming new virgin territory for the Crown.

Only too late had they come to understand the true meaning of the map’s markings. In the end, the whole venture had ended in horror and bloodshed, a journey that, by necessity, would be stricken from the records by mutual consent of all.

None must ever return here.

And if anyone dared try, the captain intended that they would find nothing. What was hidden here must never reach the larger world.