Subterranean

He glanced to where the damaged boat had eddied out a few yards from shore. Before the boat drifted back out, he decided he'd better salvage what he could-rations, flashlights, first-aid kit. No telling how long they would be down here.

He glanced at Jason. The boy was now staring back at him. A clear lucidity had returned to his gaze. Jason licked his lips. "My head hurts," he said, his voice a throaty whisper.

"I know, my boy. You got conked pretty hard."

Jason reached up and touched his head. He then stared at his bloody fingertips, his eyes wide.

Blakely patted his shoulder. "You're gonna be fine. It's only a small cut. I'm gonna swim out to the boat and get a bandage for it."

"But-"

"Don't worry, I'll be right back." Blakely pushed himself up with a groan, his chest sending flares of warning pains. He did not want to enter the water again but had no other choice.

Jason raised himself up on an elbow, watching silently.

Slipping into the water, Blakely struck out for the boat. Thankfully, it had drifted even closer to shore while he had consoled Jason. Only a few kicks and strokes and he was at the half-submerged boat. Though everything had been secured with ties and straps, some things had knocked loose. At least the rations and first-aid kit were still there.

He searched the remainder of the boat. Damn it, the plastic carton that housed the spare flashlights and batteries had been knocked free. Leaning on the remaining pontoon, he rested for a moment. In this cavern, it was no problem-the fungus gave off sufficient illumination. But if they should need to leave…?

Shaking his head, he explored the remainder of the boat. He found Jason's gym bag tied to a strap. He fingered the bag. Hmmm, made of waterproof material. This discovery should offer some consolation to the boy. He picked loose the swollen knot and added the bag to his armload of supplies. With a final cursory exam, he kicked away from the boat and headed to shore. Luckily, the rocky coast was near; still, by the time he reached shore, his lungs burned and a pain had developed in his left arm.

He threw his collected items up on the edge of the bank, then followed them, slipping a few times in his attempt to get up. Finally, after severely scraping a knee, he managed to clamber up on shore and stand.

He froze, staring at the empty life jacket. "Jason?"

The boy was gone.

Linda reached up and grabbed Khalid's offered hand, fighting back a wave of revulsion. At his touch, she almost pulled back, but his grip, dry and warm in her palm, held her tight. Reluctantly, she allowed herself to be hauled up the last yard of the rockfall. She risked a glance back down the cascade of boulders they had just climbed. Lit by the ubiquitous fungus, the cavern floor was hundreds of yards below them.

"I was right," Khalid said, pointing to the crack in the wall at the top of the rockfall. "Look. It is a fault-line crack. And it goes up." He turned to her with a huge grin. "Do you feel it? The wind?"

She felt a soft brushing of air across her cheek as the crack drew a breeze down its dark throat, almost like it was trying to suck them in, the draw of air whistling down the passage away from them. "It seems promising." She forced the corners of her lips up.

In answer, his grin became even wider. She stared up into his eyes, two black holes in this light. As he turned, she was tempted to twist free and rush down the rock face. But her feet followed Khalid into the V-shaped crack in the rock.

After a few yards, Khalid clicked on his helmet lamp. No fungus grew on these slanted walls. His beam of light thrust forward, ripping into the virgin darkness. She unharnessed her own hand lantern, twisting it to a diffuse setting to wash broadly across the rock.

Walls spread to either side like wings of stone. The roof far above their heads looked like a single slab of rock tilted and resting precariously in place. So fragile, it seemed even a loud noise might shake it loose, crushing them under miles of rock.

"I think this is a relatively new formation," Khalid said. "From a geologic standpoint, that is. Maybe only a thousand years or so. The rock"-he patted the wall on his right-"is not as water-worn as the rock in the previous cavern. Notice how sharp the rock is, like it was sliced with a knife. A recent seismic event must have created this crack."

"There's no fungus either," she mumbled.

"What?"

She waved her light on the walls. "No fungus here. I think if it was a million-year-old crack the fungus would have invaded here too."

He nodded. "True."

"We need to be sure that wherever we make camp tonight there's no fungus nearby. Or if there is, that I check it first," she said. She found talking seemed to push back the clinging terror around her heart. "During the rest breaks, I've analyzed several samples of the fungus. They're not all the same. I'm pretty sure that most of this glowing fungus is safe. The predatory species, though, has a distinct hyphae structure. So we need to watch out for it."

"Of course. We must be more wary." He turned forward.

She wanted to continue talking, to keep herself distracted from the thought that she was following a cold-blooded killer. "How did you get picked for this mission? Was it because of your geology background, or were you always a…" She almost said "terrorist," but she allowed the word to die in her throat.

"I'm not a geologist," he said. "I was assigned this mission two years ago and was taught as much geology as I could learn in that time. Not only to impersonate Khalid, but also to better understand what I might discover down here. I had plenty of time to study as I recuperated from my plastic surgery."

Her mind spun with his revelation. "You're not the real Khalid Najmon?"

He helped her over a blockage of tumbled stone. "I already looked much like the original Khalid. That's why I was chosen. But my superiors are thorough. They wanted a more exact match."

She watched his back as he climbed ahead of her, beginning to understand the depth of his drive, his fanaticism. "What happened to the real Khalid?"

He turned his dark eyes toward her, his gaze disapproving, as if her question were foolish.

"What is your real name?"

He ignored her question and turned away. "There's light up ahead."

She sidled next to him to look ahead, suddenly hopeful. Maybe a way out? The tunnel here widened to the size of a small cavern. A glow emanated around a turn in the tunnel. The characteristic green light left no doubt what lay ahead. "Fungus," she said tiredly.

He nodded. "But listen."