In addition to the fact that Apu Tupa was watching them closely there were half a dozen fully alert soldiers poised between him and the tunnel leading to the entrance. Reluctantly Carter controlled his itching feet.
Technicians continued to unload equipment and supplies from the command transport until a soldier came racing down the tunnel to jabber frantically at Apu Tupa. He was out of breath, his face showing a mix of bafflement and terror. The old man listened, occasionally glancing in the captives’ direction.
“Can you tell what they’re saying?” Carter asked Ashwood as he fiddled with his translator.
She shook her head. Igor had been paying closer attention. “There seems to be some kind of problem.”
“I can see that much.” He tensed as Tupa came toward them with two soldiers in tow.
“There is some difficulty. You will come with us. It may be that you can offer information.” The two soldiers moved into position to flank the reluctant prisoners.
“Where are we going?” Fewick inquired.
“Down to the central chamber.” Tupa’s manner was brusque yet cautious. “The general desires your presence.”
They were led into a side tunnel which soon sloped downward. It expanded rapidly in size. Light became visible up ahead.
The corridor opened onto the largest enclosed space they’d encountered since leaving Contisuyu. Like some long-forgotten sports arena it stretched off into the distance, a vast cavity hewn from the solid rock beneath the Nazca plains, lit by lights hastily emplaced by Contisuyun technicians.
Off in the distance Carter could just make out a twin to the huge transmitter they’d seen in action on Continsuyu. Squatting serenely on the floor of the cavern were the twelve huge military transports whose spectacular departure had preceded their own. They approached the nearest.
Pucahuaman and his closest aides stood by the transport’s door, dwarfed by its size as they argued heatedly with several technicians. The general looked up as the prisoners and their escort arrived.
“We have prodded the interior,” he told Apu Tupa. “There is no response.” He gestured at the paved area which lay between the transport and the upward-leading tunnel. “This place should be full of technicians and soldiers busily assembling the instruments of invasion. Instead it is quiet. As quiet as a tomb.”
Despite impressive threats, the captives were unable to shed any light on the mystery. The general’s anger and frustration compelled Apu Tupa to come to their indirect defense.
“It is clear they know nothing of what has happened. It is not even necessary to ask them. Their ignorance shines unblemished from their faces. It coats their very words.”
Pucahuaman whirled to glare at the transport. “Why don’t they come out? Surely all the doors of all twelve cannot be jammed or disabled? If they are being overly cautious they should at least respond to our presence.” He took a couple of steps and kicked hard at the side of the transport, as if the puny gesture might be capable of rousing someone on the other side of the thick plastic wall. It provoked no more response than had anything else.
“Open it,” he ordered the nearest technician curtly.
There was some confusion among the techs, who had prepared themselves thoroughly to deal with a multitude of complex possibilities but no simple ones. It was decided to begin near the bow of the transport, with a smaller door located near where the officers should be seated.
Instructions were muttered to a runner who promptly took off for the upper level. He returned shortly with a plastic case in each hand. The techs rummaged through the contents until one rose clutching a triple-tube arrangement. Everyone watched expectantly as he approached the towering wall of the transport and used the device to trace a clearly visible vertical seam. Telltales on the unit glowed silently.
A whirring noise sounded from inside and the technician stepped back. There was a soft click as the door began to slide aside.
As it did so a blast of emerging warm salt water caught the unfortunate technician smack in the face and knocked him off his feet. The flood intensified as the door continued to open, drenching the general, his staff, soldiers, and prisoners with equally damp equanimity and forcing a mad scramble for safety. Yells and screams in English, Spanish, and Quechua were barely audible above the roar of escaping water.
Carter reached out and grabbed Ashwood by the belt of her pants as she threatened to go floating past. She came up sputtering and choking. He held her steady until the deluge began to subside.
The volume of water had been considerable, but it dissipated quickly as it drained out of the transport and spread through the vast reaches of the cavern. A few pools collected in low spots on the pavement.
Along with the escaping water came living creatures. Not the soldiers of Contisuyu, armed and ready for battle, but fish and glistening collapsed coelenterates.
Pucahuaman, Apu Tupa, and the rest of the general staff looked rather less impressive in their saturated soggy uniforms. The general was too startled and groggy to curse.
The water had half drowned captors and prisoners alike. Carter watched Blanco Fernández help his brother to his feet. A waterlogged soldier had the presence of mind to keep between them and the tunnel. Nearby, Bruton Fewick struggled erect and with great dignity waddled over to recover his cat. The big tom had washed up against a slope and was so drenched he apparently didn’t know where to start cleaning himself. He looked like a rejected floor mop in Fewick’s hands.
People stumbled dazedly about, trying to wring out their clothes and thoughts. Carter was glad there was no breeze to chill them.
One by one the Contisuyun staff reassembled. The officers were angry, the technicians confused, and the soldiers shifting from foot to foot nearby more than a little frightened. What had happened to their brethren?
Though it struck Carter as anticlimactic, Pucahuaman had a thorough search made of the transport. As expected, no sign was found of the hundreds of soldiers and technicians who had transmitted from Contisuyu. Not a single body, not so much as a lost shoe.
“I wonder what the hell happened,” Ashwood murmured. “Not that I’m brokenhearted about it, mind.”
“They do not know.” Igor was listening intently to the arguments of the would-be invaders. “We came through without any difficulty.”
“Via a different transmitter,” Fewick pointed out as he stroked his armful of sulking sodden fur. “Remember, neither had been used in hundreds of years.”
When a door on the next transport was breached it too proved to be occupied by assorted finned and gelatinous sea creatures instead of eager Contisuyun troops. The apoplectic Pucahuaman raised his eyes skyward.
“Where are my soldiers!” he demanded to know. When the heavens declined to respond, Pucahuaman had no choice but to lead his much reduced and extremely damp invasion force back toward the upper chamber. Comical as the sight of the raging, waterlogged general was, Carter was careful not to laugh.
Behind them, the cavern was already beginning to stink.
“What happened to your people?” Carter asked Apu Tupa.
The old man fished an errant minnow from a pocket of his no-longer-elegant uniform and discarded it with obvious distaste. “The technicians have no idea. All they know is that during the process of transmission our forces switched places with a large volume of salt water and its inhabitants. This happened to one transport after another. We doubtless only escaped a similar fate because we traveled via a different transmitter.”
A middle-aged Contisuyun joined them, fumbling with his unfamiliar translator. Apu Tupa identified him as the expedition’s chief technician.
“Can any of you shed any light on this great tragedy?”
“‘Fraid not,” Ashwood told him. “Looks like y’all won’t be takin’ over Europe after all.”
