Volodimir Vladko - Descendants of the Scythians

He raised his lamp to light up the huge pile of rocks. The two giant stalagmites, standing like gateposts, were almost completely buried under the earth and rocks.

“I think we could attempt a breakthrough at this section. According to Pronis’s map, here, between these two stalagmites, another subterranean corridor or narrowing of the cave should begin. Is that so, Artem?”

“Yes, that’s correct, Ivan Semenovich.”

“So I think that at this spot it’s not thousands, or even hundreds tons of rock and earth that block our way but much less. Look: it’s mostly earth, a lot of it, true, but if you train your eyes upward, you’ll see that between the stalactites and tips of the stalagmites there sits a huge piece of rock, that looks like a pentagon. It was this rock which blocked the earth that was pouring down during the rock- fall. So, I would hazard a guess that in this section of the infall between these two stalagmites, only a thin wall of mostly soft earth has built up. It should be no more than a meter or so thick. So a mere meter of earth separates us from the passage we want to explore. You seem to be very sceptical, Dmitro Borisovich, so let’s see if I’m right.”

The geologist struck the wall of the rockfall to the right of the stalagmite, half buried in earth, which formed the right-hand post of their imaginary gate, watched as he did so by the distrustful archeologist. The sound of the impact was dull. Artem glanced at Lida surreptitiously: such a sound indicated that the wall was of considerable thickness. But Ivan Semenovich moved on, listening to the sound of the pickaxe striking the wall. When he hit the stalagmite itself, the sound was of a different, ringing quality.

“Isn’t it natural for crystallized limestone to ring when struck?” asked the mistrustful archeologist. “That doesn’t mean a thing yet, Ivan Semenovich, since the limestone…” He stopped short as the geologist struck the wall between the two stalagmites. There was definite change in the sound, suggesting there was a hollow space beyond the wall of earth. The indistinct echo died out only several seconds later.

“What do you say now?”

Ivan Semenovich lowered his pickaxe.

“It seems… it seems…” Dmitro Borisovich was hesitant. It was difficult to say for sure whether the blockage was too big or not — but now there was at least hope of getting through and moving forward. The archeologist grabbed his friend’s hand in a gesture of appreciation and said enthusiastically:

“I believe you’re right! No further proof is necessary!”

“Let’s consider the argument closed,” Ivan Semenovich announced solemnly, “and get down to work, my friends.”

The four pickaxes were raised in the air at almost the same time, but two struck a split second sooner, for Artem was eager to do something, and the archeologist was impatient to make up for time lost in futile argument. The strokes rained, sending stones and earth to the foot of the wall.

“One… two… one… two,” Artem paced himself putting all his strength into the blows. The others worked in silence. The pickaxes flew in a measured tempo, striking the earth and sending echoes through the cave.

Lida stopped for a moment to wipe the perspiration from her forehead. It seemed to her that the reverberations from beyond the wall were louder. Were they really making progress? She had to get back to work; there would be time to rest later.

Artem did not slacken his efforts. His pickaxe rose and fell with swift, mechanical precision. The hole in front of him was growing perceptibly. Stroke after stroke after stroke, without a letup.

Then his pickaxe suddenly slipped into an empty space beyond the wall. Before Artem had time to realize what had happened, grayish smoke began billowing from the hole with a whistling, hissing sound, covering the handle in a moment.

“Hold it!” Ivan Semenovich cried out, alarmed.

A jet of gray smoke shot from the small opening made by Artem’s last stroke. It was coming out under great pressure like water from a fire hose, sizzling and spreading in the air, sinking slowly to the ground. It flowed down in waves, burying the feet of the four people.

The alarmed dog began barking furiously. She jumped onto a broken stalagmite with a flat top and standing there, went on barking resentfully at the spurting smoke.

“What kind of gas is it?” asked Lida in a half-puzzled half-frightened voice, stirring the thick gray waves at her feet with the pickaxe.

Nobody knew the answer. It was definitely not mine gas since it had not exploded or caught fire when it came in touch with the flames of their miner’s lamps. Besides, the limestone environment was not conducive to the natural production of the mine gas. The archeologist, greatly intrigued, together with the rest, watched the gas flow down the slope like some viscous liquid. Then he stopped over and scooped a handful of the strange gas. It swayed in an elipsoid cloud in his palm without dissolving into the air or even dissipating. A very strange phenomenon indeed. Dmitro Borisovich sniffed the gas.

“It doesn’t smell of anything. But…”

He buried his nose into the gas.

“But you can’t breathe it. It lacks some vital ingredient, most probably oxygen.”

Artem inhaled some of the gas too but failed to discover either a taste or a smell in it. Something viscous and deadly heavy had lodged in his chest after he had breathed it in. An extremely unpleasant thing, this gas.

“Oh, look!” Lida cried out.

The gas was slowly filling the cave, its level rising exactly the way as if it were water pouring in. The gray waves of the gas undulated very close to the clear white flames of the lamps. Then one of the flames sputtered and;went out! The acetylene began spurting from the lamp with a characteristic sound, spreading its unpleasant sweetish smell around.

“The gas seems to be carbonic acid. It does not burn, neither does it allow anything else to burn. And you can’t breath it, since it has no oxygen,” Ivan Semenovich said, thinking aloud. “Artem, turn the gas regulator on the lamp down to cut off the flow of the acetylene.”

Noise of something breaking loose came from the wall: a huge piece of earth had been dislodged under the pressure of the gas and fell down with a crash. Now the gas began spurting like a big fountain, describing a wide arc in the air and falling down to flow into the cave in seething waves.

“We must retreat, my friends! The level of the gas is rising, and we can’t breath it. It’s dangerous to remain here any longer,” Ivan Semenovich said and then stopped short, going pale. Where could they retreat? To get out, they would have to go downward, retracing the route they had taken to reach the wall — a route which began on high ground but sank quite considerably to form a depression and rose again only a short distance from the rockfall. So down in the hollow, the gas would be the thickest as it was naturally flowing downwards. There was no way they could return the way they had come. In other words, there was nowhere to retreat! And the level of the gas kept rising; it was already up to their knees. What was to be done?

As far as they could see in the dim light of the remaining lamps, the waves of the dreadful gas were surging all around them; the level was rising implacably. It was impossible to.stop up the opening, for it had become wider under the pressure of the gas.

Ivan Semenovich looked around: Dmitro Borisovich appeared calm, his anxiety betrayed only by his tightly pursed lips; Lida was leaning against a stalagmite in a halfswoon; Artem was standing at her side. The young man’s big eyes moved back and forth from Lida to Ivan Semenovich anxiously, as though seeking advice, waiting for an order from the geologist that he would carry out immediately. The dog kept on barking furiously at the dense gas that was flowing ever closer to her.