“Then we’ll need a dancing room,” I say, smiling.
“Speaking of dancing, an invitation came by messenger today. The Immari Annual Meeting and Christmas Ball, they’re having it in Gibraltar this year. There’s to be quite a celebration. I rang Mother. She and Father will be there. I’d like to go. I’ll take it easy, I assure you.”
“Sure. It’s a date.”
CHAPTER 89
Kate squinted, trying to read the journal. The sun was setting over the mountains and dread was building in her stomach. She glanced over at David. His expression was almost blank, unreadable. Maybe somber.
As if reading her mind, Milo entered the large wood-floored room with a gas-burning lantern. Kate liked the smell; it somehow put her at ease.
Milo set the lantern on a table by the bed, where the light would reach the journal and said, “Good evening, Dr. Kate—” Upon seeing that David was awake, he brightened. “And hello again, Mr. Ree—”
“It’s David Vale now. It’s nice to see you again, Milo. You’ve gotten a lot taller.”
“And that’s not all, Mr. David. Milo has learned the ancient art of communication you know as… English.”
David laughed. “And learned it well. I wondered at the time if they would toss it out or actually give it to you — the Rosetta Stone.”
“Ah, my mysterious benefactor finally reveals himself!” Milo bowed again. “I thank you for the gift of your language. And now, may I repay the gift, at least partially,” he raised his eyebrows mysteriously, “with the evening meal?”
“Please,” Kate said, laughing.
David gazed out the window. The last sliver of the sun slipped behind the mountain like a pendulum disappearing in the side of a clock. “You should get your rest, Kate. It’s a very long walk.”
“I’ll rest when we finish. I find reading relaxing.” She opened the book again.
December 23rd, 1917
I strain to see as the dust clears. Then I squint, not believing me eyes. We’ve uncovered more stairs, but there’s something else, expanding to the right of the stairs — an opening, like a gash in the metal.
“We’re in!” Rutger screams and rushes forward into the darkness and floating dust.
I grab for him, but he breaks my grasp. My leg has gotten some better, to the point where I only take one pain pill, sometimes two, each day, but I’ll never catch him.
“You want us go after ‘im?” The Moroccan foreman asks.
“No,” I say. I wouldn’t sacrifice one of them to save Rutger. “Hand me one of the birds.” I take the Canary cage, switch my headlamp on and wade into the dark opening.
The jagged portal is clearly the result of a blast or a rip. But we didn’t make it. We merely found it — the metal walls are almost five feet thick. As I cross into this structure the Immari have been digging and diving for going on almost 60 years, I’m finally overcome by awe. The first area is a corridor, ten feet wide by thirty feet long. It opens to a circular room with wonders I can’t begin to describe. The first thing that catches my eye is an indention in the wall with four tubes, like massive oblong capsules or elongated mason jars, standing on their ends, running from the floor to the ceiling. They’re empty except for a faint white light and fog that floats at the bottom. Farther over, there are two more tubes. One is damaged, I think. The glass is cracked and there’s no fog. But the tube beside it… there’s something in it. Rutger sees it just as I do and he’s at the tube, which seems to sense our presence. The fog clears as we approach, like a curtain rolling back to reveal its secret.
It’s a man. No, an ape. Or something in between.
Rutger looks back at me, for the first time with an expression other than arrogance or contempt. He’s confused. Maybe scared. I certainly am.
I put my hand on his shoulder and resume scanning the room. “Don’t touch anything, Rutger.”
CHAPTER 90
December 24th, 1917
Helena glows in the dress. The tailor spent a week taking it out and took me for a small fortune, but it was worth the wait and every last shilling I paid him. She’s radiant. We dance, both ignoring her promise to take it easy. I can’t say no to her. Mostly I stand stationary, but the pain is manageable, and for perhaps once in our lives, we are well-matched on the dance floor. The music slows, she rests her head on my shoulder, and I forget about the ape-man in the tube. The world feels normal again, for the first time since that tunnel exploded on the Western Front.
Then, like the fog in the tube, it all goes away. The music stops and Lord Barton is speaking, raising a glass. He’s toasting me — Immari’s new head of shipping, his daughter’s husband, and a war hero. Heads nod around the room. There’s some joke about a modern day Lazarus man, back from the dead. Laughter. I smile. Helena hugs me closer. Barton’s finally finished, and around the room, revelers are downing champagne and nodding at me. I make a silly little bow and escort Helena back to our table.
At that moment, for some reason I can’t understand, all I can think about is the last time I saw my father — the day before I shipped off to the war. He got drunk as a sailor that night and lost control — the first, last, and only time I ever saw him lose control. He told me about his childhood that night, and I understood him, or so I thought. How much can you ever really understand any man?
We lived in a modest home in downtown Charleston, West Virginia, alongside the homes of people who worked for my father. His peers, the other business owners, merchants, and bankers, lived across town, and my father liked it that way.
He paced in the living room, spitting as he spoke. I sat there in my pristine tan US Army uniform, the single brass bar of a second Lieutenant’s rank hanging on my collar.
“You look as foolish as another man I knew who joined an American army. He was almost giddy as he ran back to the cabin. He waved the letter in the air like the King himself had written it. He read it to us, but I didn’t understand it all then. We were moving down to America — a place called Virginia. The war between the states had broken out about two years earlier. I can’t remember exactly when, but it was getting pretty bloody by this point. And both sides needed more men, fresh bodies for the grinder. But if you were rich enough, you didn’t have to go. You just had to send a substitute. Some rich southern planter had hired your grandfather as his substitute. A substitute. The idea of hiring another man to die in the war in your place, just because you have the money. When they start the conscriptions this go round, I’ll see to it in the Senate that no man can send a replacement.”