What the-?
Absolute blackness.
And-water! Ponter Boddit’s legs were wet, and And he was sinking, water up to his waist, his chest, the bottom of his jaw.
Ponter kicked violently.
His eyes were indeed wide open, but there was nothing-absolutely nothing-to be seen.
He flailed with his arms while treading water. He gulped in air.
What had happened? Where could he be?
One moment he’d been standing in the quantum-computing facility, and the next Darkness-so unrelentingly dark, Ponter thought perhaps he was blind. An explosion could have done that; rock bursts were always a danger this far underground, and And an influx of subterranean water was possible. He swung his arms some more, then stretched out his toes, trying to feel for the bottom, but But there was nothing, nothing at all. Just more water. He could be a handspan from the bottom, or a thousand times that much. He thought about diving down to find out, but in the dark, floating freely, with no light at all, he might lose track of which way was up and not make it back to the surface in time.
He’d taken in a mouthful of water as he’d felt for the bottom. It was utterly free of taste; he’d have expected a subterranean river to be brackish, but this seemed as pure as meltwater.
He continued to gulp air. His heart was racing, and And he wanted to swim toward the edge, wherever that A groaning sound, low, deep, from all around him.
Again, like an animal awakening, like…
Like something under great stress?
He finally had enough air in his lungs to manage a shout. “Help!” Ponter called. “Help!”
The sound echoed weirdly, as if he were in an enclosed space. Could he still be in the computing room? But, if he were, why wasn’t Adikor responding to his calls?
He couldn’t just stay there. Although he wasn’t exhausted yet, he soon would be. He needed to find a surface to clamber onto, or something in the water with him that he could use as a flotation aid, and The groaning again, louder, more insistent.
Ponter started to dog paddle. If only there were some light-any light. He swam for what seemed a short distance, and Agony! Ponter banged his head into something hard. He switched back to treading water, his limbs beginning to ache, and he reached out with one hand, fingers splayed, palm forward. Whatever he had hit was hard and warm- not metal or glass, then. And it was absolutely smooth, maybe slightly concave, and Another groan, coming from His heart fluttered; he felt his eyes go wide, but they saw nothing at all in the blackness.
— coming from the hard wall in front of him.
He began to swim in the opposite direction, the noise now growing to earsplitting proportions.
Where was he? Where was he?
The volume continued to increase. He swam farther and Ouch! That hurt!
He’d slammed into another hard, smooth wall. These certainly weren’t the walls in the quantum-computing chamber; those were covered with soft sound-deadening fabric.
Whooooooshhhh!
Suddenly, the water around Ponter was moving, rushing, roaring, and he was caught up in it, as if he were in a raging river. Ponter took a huge breath, drawing some water in with the air, and then And then he felt something hard smash into the side of his head, and, for the first time since this madness began, he saw light: stars before his eyes.
And then, the blackness again, and silence, and Nothing more.
Adikor Huld walked back up to the control room, shaking his head in astonishment, in disbelief.
Ponter and he had been friends for ages; they were both 145s, and had first met as students at the Science Academy. But in all that time, he’d never known Ponter to be given to practical jokes. And, besides, there was no place he could be hiding. Fire safety required multiple exits from a room on the surface, but down here practicality made that impossible. The only way out was by walking through the control room. Some computing facilities had false floors to conceal cabling, but here the cabling was out in the open, and the floor was ancient granite, polished smooth.
Adikor had been watching the controls; he hadn’t been looking out the window at the computing chamber. Still, there had been no flash of light to catch his eye. If Ponter had been-well, what? Vaporized? If he’d been vaporized, surely there should have been a smell of smoke or a tinge of ozone in the air. But there was nothing. He was simply gone.
Adikor collapsed into a chair-Ponter’s chair-stunned.
He didn’t know what to do next; he literally had no idea. It took several beats for him to focus his thoughts. He should notify the town’s administrative office that Ponter was missing; get them to organize a search. It was conceivable-barely-that the ground had opened up, and Ponter had fallen through, maybe into another drift, another level of the mine. In which case he might be injured.
Adikor got to his feet.
Dr. Reuben Montego, the two ambulance attendants, and the injured man entered through the sliding glass doors to Emergency Admitting at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, part of the Sudbury Regional Hospital.
The E.R.’s casualty officer turned out to be a Sikh in his midfifties with a jade green turban. “What is it that is wrong?” he asked.
Reuben glanced down at the man’s nametag, which read N. SINGH, M.D. “Dr. Singh,” he said, “I’m Reuben Montego, the site doctor at the Creighton Mine. This man here almost drowned in a tank of heavy water, and, as you can see, he’s suffered a cranial trauma.”
“Heavy water?” said Singh. “Where would you-”
“At the neutrino observatory,” said Reuben.
“Ah, yes,” replied Singh. He turned and called for a wheelchair, then looked back at the man and started making notes on a clipboard. “Unusual body form,” he said. “Pronounced supraorbital ridge. Very muscular, very broad shouldered. Short limbs. And-hello! — what is this, then?”
Reuben shook his head. “I don’t know. It seems to be implanted in his skin.”
“Very strange,” said Singh. He looked at the man’s face. “How do you feel?”
“He doesn’t speak English,” said Reuben.
“Ah,” said the Sikh. “Well, his bones will talk for him. Let’s get him into Radiology.”
Reuben Montego paced back and forth in the emergency department, occasionally speaking to a passing doctor he happened to know. At last, Singh got word that the x-rays were ready. Reuben was hoping to be invited along, out of professional courtesy, and Singh did indeed beckon for him to follow.
The injured man was still in the x-ray room, presumably in case Singh decided to order more pictures. He was seated now in his wheelchair, looking more frightened, Reuben thought, than even a small child usually did in a hospital. The radiology technician had clipped the man’s x-rays-a front view and a lateral shot-to a lighted wall panel, and Singh and Reuben moved over to examine them.
“Will you look at that?” said Reuben softly.
“Remarkable,” said Singh. “Remarkable.”
The skull was long-much longer than a normal skull, with a rounded protrusion at the back, almost like a hair bun. The doubly arched browridge was prominent and the forehead low. The nasal cavity was gigantic, with strange triangular projections pointing into it from either side. The huge mandible, visible at the bottom of the frame, revealed what the beard had hidden: the complete lack of a chin. It also showed a gap between the last molar and the rest of the jaw.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Reuben.
Singh’s brown eyes were wide. “I have,” he said. “I have.” He turned to look at the man, who was still sitting in the wheelchair, babbling gibberish. Then Singh consulted the ghostly gray images again. “It is impossible,” said the Sikh. “Impossible.”
“What?”
“It cannot be…”
“What? Dr. Singh, for God’s sake-”
Singh raised his hand. “I do not know how it can be thus, but…”
“Yes? Yes?”
“This patient of yours,” said Singh, in a voice full of wonder, “appears to be a Neanderthal.”