Hollow Earth Expedition - Maddy's Journal

[Legauche]

Part 16

Journal of Madelyne Morgan, Vol. 3

2 PM, April 15(?), 1931, Valley of the Snakes

I think so. A man in a dapper linen suit exited the car, and went to one of the trucks. He withdrew a standard – a long, seven-foot pole topped with a large, metallic lozenge with a snakey design and with 3 progressively smaller shields mounted beneath. All of those were made of the Atlantean metal!

From our hiding place in the building they've parked in front of, we pick up a snippet of conversation (as translated from the Italian):
“The Doctor wants us back by nightfall!”
“Looks like we won't make it!”
“Keep those vehicles running! I want to get out of here!”
It would appear that our nemesis is near! But first, we need to avoid getting caught by his minions!

They make the job easier by dividing their forces; half join the officers and the civilian to go further into the city (no doubt to treat with our former captors) and the other half stay to guard the vehicles. We huddle to formulate a plan.

We come up with a risky one. Lucky is to go out, loop around and come up from the other side. He is going to try to secure the vehicles. But the real risk is being run by Kleio. She is going to go out and pretend to surrender. When the soldiers gather her to them, she is going to speak to them the Atlantean word “forget” to help stun them, while we rush out to effect the capture. The rest of us cover Kleio from our shelter, just in case she is unable to spring the trap.

Kleio goes out, babbling in Italian, drawing them to her, and our plan works like a charm. Our porters are able to arm themselves from the Italians, and now we have vehicles. The staff car has a map showing the way to a camp placed in the “Valley of the Giant Serpent”. Uncle is unfamiliar with the place, but it looks like our next destination!

While we are sorting out the vehicles, the soldiers are trying to confirm if Kleio is Kleio. When we ask how they know to ask that question, they tell us that they'd been given descriptions of us and given orders that we be taken prisoners. And that they not shoot any “creatures” accompanying us – like Basil!

With that information – and the desire to get out as soon as possible, we loaded ourselves into the vehicles and drove off. About a half-hour away, both Lucky and I realized we lost that odd, residual feeling we'd had once we'd lost the headaches we'd woken up to in the prison. It seemed like a good omen.

Soon, we were getting threatened over the vehicles' radios by the soldiers we'd left behind. Things like “Get back here! Dr. Milton knows you're coming! Without us, he'll just open fire! Your mission will fail, Professor!”

Well, we figured that their walkie-talkies didn't have the range to reach the Valley (they faded out about ten miles out), so we didn't have to fear their warnings. Of course, Dr. Milton was probably ready for us anyways, but we did have a chance of having tactical surprise. And if they wanted us alive, then we aren't likely to be greeted with a hail of gunfire once we get to Dr. Milton's camp. Of course, he probably had something else waiting for us, so just walking up was still a bad idea!

A few hours later, according to the map, we entered the Valley of the Snakes! The reptiles that festooned the trees and ground confirmed the location. It was now that we started to catch radio messages from the camp ahead. There was no indication of concern; the messages were mundane.

We stopped a couple of miles away from where the camp was located on the map. It was time to review our options.

The first thing was – what to do with the bearers. While increasing our numbers, we figured we were still going to be badly outnumbered. And our foes would be trained soldiers, too – it would have been a massacre! Since a frontal assault was out-of-the-question, keeping our group as small as possible would make going in by stealth easier. We told the porters to take one of the trucks and head back to Joanna's. They looked very grateful at not being dragooned into a hopeless fight and promptly left after wishing us luck. I handed them a copy of my journal for them to bring back to Joanna... in case...

With the bearers safely(?) away, we camouflaged the remaining vehicles. Just in time, too. First, the Italian DAT-3 sputtered over us, then a truck comes on down the road. We escape detection from both encounters, but it underscores that we need to be on the move! Especially if that truck ends up picking up the soldiers we left behind!

Our normal route would have had us come to the camp from the north. We figured we'd loop around to the west and come in from there. I found a couple of game trails that brought us by the route we wanted with no fuss. When we got to where “X” marked the spot of the camp, we crept to the edge of the trees and beheld...

A MAYAN PYRAMID!!! Smackdab in the middle of Africa!!! Betsy would have a heyday in the Land Beneath The River and it's T. Rex; I could set a TIGER amongst the canaries of Archaeology with this find! Too bad I had more pressing things to worry about now.

Like the military tent village that lay spread before the main entrance, complete with machine gun emplacement! But giving the upper part of the structure a closer look, I found at the edge of the overgrowth that had capped the building a small entrance that looked unguarded. A quick discussion and we made the obvious choice – we'd take the high road.

If there was anyone in the group who was having a worse time of it than Lucky, it would have to be Basil, Uncle's simian companion. He was unenthusiastic as we set off from Stanleyville; the encounter with the Snakemen soured his mood completely. Now, confronted with this structure, he wanted nothing to do with it. However, Uncle was insistent that he was going in; Basil reluctantly followed.

As we positioned ourselves to ascend by the side opposite of the military camp, we noticed that Uncle was beginning to fret, as if he's trying to tell himself a story, but he can't seem to get it right. Finally, we reach a resting spot near the top and he can suffer in (relative) silence no more.

“Children, I'm afraid I may have led you into great danger! Something in me keeps telling me about this place, but I cannot bring up any memories of it – NONE! My fear is that Dr. Milton has somehow gotten to me and that all I am doing is leading you into a trap! I wish I had never brought you here!”

The face, usually full of bright smiles, was downcast. The voice, usually booming and cheerful was muted and full of worry. We were all stunned for a moment. Lucky was the first to recover.

“'Children'? We're G-d-d-mned adults, now! If you stopped treating us like children, maybe we'd have had fewer rude surprises!”

It was my turn to find my voice. “Each of us have had nasty scraps for years!” I gave him an intent glare. “SOME of us have been listening too well to your stories all these years! We've been waiting for this moment!”

“Well, I haven't!” retorted Lucky.”I'm only here to get back at Milton for my parents and for the people at the house! But....” He paused, quickly thought of what next to say, then gave Uncle Horace a cold look. “You're picking a bad time to have Adventurer's Remorse, old man. Now, are we continuing on into the jaws of the trap? Or have we been wasting our time – and my future – only to leave this G-d-forsaken wilderness just before the Final Act?” Lucky was crunching a paper in his jacket pocket – his AADA acceptance letter!

Uncle looked upon Lucky with a stricken gaze, his regrets plainly etched on his face. Kleio came up and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“We didn't want this, but we are here now. But if Dr. Milton thinks he has us right where he wants us, we'll make sure he'll regret it!” She gave a cockeyed smile.

“Yeah,” added Thea. “We've all grown so much over this adventure! We probably couldn't face Dr. Milton at the start, but I like our chances now!” We went up and kindly kissed him on the forehead. “You chose our parents to help you. Did they fail you?”

Uncle's face softened. “No,” he replied quietly.

“No,” Thea affirmed. “We're their children. And we've been taught by the greatest Science Adventurer of the age! As well as the streets of New York, the boardrooms and backrooms of the cultural elite, the jungles of the Amazon and the trenches of the Great War! If anyone can stop Dr. Milton, it's us!”

Uncle Horace's face recovered its broad, bright smile; he returned Thea's forehead kiss, then looked around at each of us, face brightening with each face he saw – even Lucky's.

“Excuse an old man and his sentimentality. My promise to your parents to keep you safe has always been foremost in my mind. It has been so hard to get away from that, even as I've watched you grow into wonderful people; I'm so proud of you!” He sighed and straightened. “Maybe I'm not the man I used to be, but I still have something left!

“Let's go!”

And we moved through the encroaching jungle to reach the top of the pyramid and the entrance we hoped to find.

[Legauche]

Part 17

Journal of Madelyne Morgan, Vol. 3

Evening, April 15(?), 1931, Valley of the Snakes

It proved that our entrance was part of a Mayan(!)-style sacrificial chamber. On the walls were carved motifs featuring jungle animals – snakes, elephants, and everything in between, interspersed with blocks of Atlantean script.

The sacrificial altar was cunningly carved so that troughs carried the victim's spilt blood down from the altar top to a four-inch wide drain in the floor of the chamber. The altar also had more examples of the Atlantean writing. Kleio interpreted it; it said the altar was dedicated to “Those Who Have Been Here First” and “She Who Is Not Worshiped”. Hardly reassuring. Neither was the realization that the altar was designed for HUMAN sacrifice!

Returning to the script on the walls was not much of a relief. It was like the users treated the walls like blackboards (though without being able to reuse the surface). The inscribers recorded all sorts of generalities – but, maddeningly, no specifics – about “The Work”, as Kleio ended up calling it. Well, there was one specific. An overriding concern that ”The Work” would be considered “good enough”. Not at all ominous.

There were no obvious exits from the chamber into the pyramid. There was, however, concealed on the floor an access to a ladder leading down. I take the front on the trip down.

We descend and soon, we come to a broad interior platform, the walls carved with more of the animal iconographs. We explore the space and find that it encircles a core. There is no entrance to the interior of this core, but gaps in the core wall indicate that there is a huge empty(?) space within. We find a staircase going down and we come to another level, slightly larger than the one above, again encircling the core, bearing the same carvings, but also unoccupied. The next level is more of the same, but here, the air took on the tang of death. Thea thought it felt... “old”. We advanced more carefully then.

Three more levels we descended until we hit, by our best estimation, the ground level. We turned a corner and discovered that the interior core was actually a temple set within a temple. And the entrance was guarded by a hundred-foot-long snake! And it was sitting on a veritable nest of bones!

We ducked back around and reviewed our options. None of them were good. As we investigated the possibility of bypassing the giant guardian, we noticed some pipes that opened up over the snake's resting place. Lucky sourly commented upon those pipes as being the other end of that drain we'd seen at the top. I then remembered some of my Meso-American architecture classes and I informed Lucky that he was probably correct. He wasn't pleased.

We finally settled on a dangerous plan that would have Lucky act as bait for the snake to draw it off while the rest of us got in to the inner sanctum. But, as we observed the snake to gauge the best time to begin, we noticed how motionless it seemed. Lucky changed tack; he advanced carefully, inspecting it diligently for any signs of life.

There were signs of life. As he got closer, he saw no movement of mouth or tongue. But the skin was... undulating some. He resorted to the time-honored “poke-in-the-side”. The snake itself didn't respond. What was in the snake did. Three wasps the size of dogs hovered up from a rent on the other side of the carcass.

Giant wasps! We finally noticed the low hum coming from the nest. And the death-reek we had noticed above was now shown to have its source here. We managed to swiftly dispatch the initial trio quietly (for a change!), but the continued rippling snake skin warned us that the next wave could be overwhelming.

We rushed to the doorway to the inner temple and set to work. Of course, it would have to be heavy and hard to move and impossible to move completely silently; each scrape upon the stone floor caused our hearts to leap up into our throats. But finally, we opened it enough that we could squeeze in, with the wasps none the wiser. We closed it as best we could, then turned to see what we'd gotten into.

We'd gotten onto a landing, walls covered with script and iconography. Unlike what we'd seen in the outer temple, the script and icons were now Atlantean. The writing was certainly less fraught, from what Kleio could tell; the subjects were abstract, philosophical. At the other end of the landing, a set of stairs led down. We followed them down to a four-way intersection at their foot,

All the way down, we could hear men talking. As we got closer to the bottom, we could make out the language (surprise! - Italian) and some of the subject matter, which seemed to be us. Lucky brightened, then he began responding in Italian. After a spirited and friendly conversation, Lucky concluded with a “Gratzie” and he hurried us down the corridor directly in front of us. As we passed through the intersection, the branch to our left turned left a few-dozen feet up and we could tell there was a group of men stationed there. After we got safely by, Lucky told me and Thea, “I told them we were a squad newly-assigned to duty and that we were late for a meeting with The Big Boss. But we were lost and afraid that we'd catch H___ for it. They sympathized and gave me the directions to 'The Dig'.”

“How did you get them from watching us go across the intersection?” asked Thea.

Lucky gave a sly grin. “I asked them to not look so they could honestly say that they hadn't seen us if they were ever asked when we came in!”

We all chuckled at that.

What we weren't chuckling at was the writing that continued on the walls. Kleio and Uncle Horace would have DEARLY loved to have stopped and studied the inscriptions, but our need for haste allowed us only to jot some notes down about the subjects and themes. One major theme was the implication that there were other sites like this is all kinds of places – north and south, on the coast or in the mountains! The description of one place even led me to wonder if Professor Pollard had been actually following up on a clue to one of these places when he led on on our disastrous expedition up the Amazon!

Finally, after a couple of twists and turns, we reached a large chamber. Our first impression: Were we back in New York, waiting for the subway? For it certainly had the look of a large subway station! If you didn't mind the rubble covering all the other entryways (which could be seen on one or two stations back home). And a huge dug-up area in the corner (in-process construction was not a rarity...). And the six large pillars that almost reached the ceiling (Uhhhhhhh...) And the huge, cylindrical mole-machine idling atop and the numerous soldiers and snakemen working around that dug-up area (Okay – NOW we were getting weird. Machinery and workers – normal. Mole-machines and snakemen, not so!). Thea noted that the mole-machine was an Italian SSR-1, a new entry to the underground traffic jam that was beginning to arise in our New Age of Engineering.

We had just enough time to take this all in when an intercom went live, and what sounded like Dr. Milton's voice cheerily greeted us with a “Welcome, Father! And your children, too!” (We later agreed that the voice spoke with a kind of mechanical timbre. We have yet to have discussed its implications.)

Dr. Milton's gloating alerted his minions and shook us out of our contemplation of the scene. While they rushed to their weapon stands, we pulled ours. Lucky, his portable pyrotechnics mortar; I, my Thompson; Thea and Kleio, their pistols. As Uncle Horace and Basil cowered behind one of the pillars, we opened up.

Ah, for once, fascist efficiency was our friend. Having obligingly placed their weapon stacks in one spot, many of the workers took it very badly when Lucky' s first explosive shell burst in their midst! Meanwhile, I emptied a clip into a group just to one side and, voila! We had most of them down or wounded at the start! Unfortunately, they still outnumbered us – barely – and with their weapons ruined, they recovered their tools and charged us. We drew blades and a melee commenced.

While we were thus engaged, a second front opened on us from above! Three giant apes suddenly leaped down from the tops of some of the pillars that did not quite reach the ceiling. Before we could do anything, they pushed Uncle Horace away and grabbed Basil! Myself, Lucky and Kleio managed to shed our attackers and we converged on the ape-nappers, but one of them took charge of its prisoner and bounded off towards the mole-machine as the other two fended us off. The captor made it to the open hatch while we finished with our current foes. Basil was crammed into the mole-machine before we could effect a rescue. But not without making a perfectly understandable cry of “Help!”

With package and delivery-ape safely inside the machine as its hatch clanged shut, the intercom opened again.

“Thank you, father!” boomed the mad doctor in triumph. “Thank you for delivering the Prince to me! Now, I shall rule as is my station!” With that, the machine clanked into gear and after a jolting start, buried itself into the dug-up area. It quickly went beyond our reach.

In any event, we were too dumbfounded by the last moments of the fight to have put up a decent pursuit, even if we had the means to pursue. In all the years that Basil had lived with us, he had never before uttered a word, never before even looked like he wanted to utter a word. And Dr. Milton said something about “a Prince”? All heads turned to Uncle Horace, who was slowly returning to his feet and dusting himself off. He looked miserable.

“Uhhhh..., there's more to this than meets the eye...,” he started.

That opened the floodgates and our pain and fatigue, chagrin at our failure and our exasperation pushed a torrent of invective and frustration that filled the spacious room. Uncle Horace quailed at the aural storm that broke on him unintelligibly until it ran out of steam as we ran out of breath. Then Lucky, his face burning with fury, came up to Uncle and gave him a hard right to the face! Uncle staggered, but the “frail old man” could still take a poke in the puss. His misery was palpable as he rubbed the impact spot.

We were shocked at the blow, but none of us moved to comfort Uncle; none of us said anything to Lucky. For myself, Lucky had done to Uncle that I couldn't have brought myself to do, but what I would have done to anyone else under the same circumstances. What galled was the continuing paternalism, the unconscious belittling of our capabilities. It showed me that even our greatest supporters can have blind spots. While the rest of us stood there, coming to grips with it all, Kleio managed to sum up our arguments rather aptly.

“Once again, you fail to give us critical information. Once again, we get blindsided by events we could have prepared for, if only we had known.” Each word cut thanks to Kleio's cold, analytical delivery.

Uncle Horace hung his head. “This knowledge could lead to our deaths! I was trying to protect you!”

Lucky and I exploded with frustrated exclamations. I turned away, fearing that I might follow Lucky's example. Lucky was about as inarticulate as I was, but his one poke satisfied him enough to not want to do another. But he was no less aggravated than I. Once again, Kleio spoke for us.

“Thea fought in the trenches during the Great War. Maddy spent months fighting to survive in the Amazon. We've all spent the last few months fighting monsters and men here. And none of us were children when this started.

“Every piece of critical information you've had has had to be dragged out of you after a failure or a mistake. And you keep saying that it was 'for our protection'.” She shook her head. “Is Basil Prince of the Apes? What does that mean? Why does Basil fit into Dr. Milton's plans? How?

“If we had known how important Basil was, we would have been better prepared. We would have had someone stay near him, guard him. But now, he is in Dr. Milton's hands and, apparently, because of that, Dr. Milton's plans now advance a step. There's nothing we can do right now about that - “

And at that point, a distant explosion echoed through the building. It looked like Dr. Milton was cleaning up behind himself, and if we didn't want to be part of the trash, we would have to leave immediately! We retraced our steps and found that the outpost at the intersection at the bottom of the stairs had been abandoned by soldiers and replaced with explosives. We double-timed it up the stairs. The archaeologist in me raged at the loss of such a significant find, but there was nothing I could do. Add another crime to his tally, I thought.

We got out the way we came in, at the sacrificial altar overlooking the Valley of the Snakes. We could see the Italians packing up, getting ready to leave. I wanted us off this structure and in the shelter of the jungle before the desecration of the site could fully begin, so I got us moving down.

We were off and a good ways away when the explosions started in earnest. Uncle Horace and I winced at each one. None of us spoke a word. The trip back – to Stanleyville, at least – looks to be a grim one.

[Legauche]

Epilogue

Journal of Madelyne Morgan, Vol. 3

Evening, April 20, 1931, Stanleyville, The Congo

The trip home was as excruciating as I feared it would be. We spoke the barest minimum to each other. I brought myself to giving Uncle Horace a consoling pat only yesterday, and the grateful look he gave me tore at my heart. He wanted to speak about something, but I told him gently that I still needed time. Lucky kept away from him completely.

Adding to the joy of our trip back was the fact that, since we had dismissed the porters, we were getting by with only what we had on our backs and the few scraps and pieces we could pick out of the Italians' abandoned camp. I switched into my “Amazon” mode to make sure we all got back safely, and we did. Though anyone watching us enter town could easily guess how successful we had been.

So, we stumbled into Joanna's store, confessed our failure, then repaired to the hotel where Uncle Horace arranged for rooms. He asked us to join him for dinner, and we all attended. Cleaned up and in a more civilized setting took the edge off our mood, but what little conversation that occurred was desultory and confined to small talk and updates on physical conditions. Uncle Horace asked us to meet after dinner to discuss our next move.

“My next move is getting back to New York,” Lucky plainly stated.

Uncle Horace nodded sadly. “I understand. We'll talk about that this evening.” He sighed. “We'll talk about a lot of things, then.”

“A little late, now,” muttered Lucky sourly. Uncle Horace chose not to hear that.

So – I am back in my room, getting ready for our meeting. There's a lot on our table. First of all – where we are to go. If Uncle has insights as to Dr. Milton's lairs, it would be good to know that. Otherwise, do we stay here to do research? Return to New York? Someplace else?

In any event, if we leave here, I don't think we can retrace our steps back down the Congo. We've made plenty of enemies in coming upstream; it would be best if we take another route. The best option would probably be making for the Great Lakes of Africa and from thence, get to the Nile and follow it down to Cairo.

After the “Where?”, next was the question of “Who?” I am committed to the project. I will go. But there will have to be no more “protection”. EVERYTHING will be put on the table. If we return to New York, we are going to determine if it is going to be safe to get into Milton's old room; if it is, we go in, sensibilities be darned.

I'm pretty sure that Thea would also come. So would Kleio. But Doc – she spent most of the Congo portion of our adventure helping the locals than traveling with us. She obviously doesn't have the stomach for adventuring that I do, and I can't say that she's making a bad decision for herself. We will miss her and her skills. But this is the sort of thing where you have to go in whole hog or else you end up as bacon, as Daddy liked to say.

And Lucky? The only reason why he would accompany us any further is that we're heading for someplace that will get him back home. I think he no longer trusts Uncle's judgment. He DEFINITELY has had enough of traveling rough – the final leg from the Valley of the Snakes hammered in the final nail to that coffin. To be blunt, we'll miss him dearly: his negotiation skills, his combat capability, his language skills – all of those skills and others were crucial contributions to our efforts, and we're going to have to seriously reconsider our strategy and tactics with him no longer part of the group. I just hope he can get into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and have a brilliant career on Broadway.... He's done what he could. You can't expect a man to do any more.

Finally – Uncle Horace. Frankly, my first instinct is to insist on him staying home. The main reason why I wouldn't is that I am unsure how Basil would react without seeing Uncle with us. But his presence depends upon him coming clean – COMPLETELY clean – of any information he has been holding back in order to “protect” us. We are at the point where not having that information is more likely to lethal than having it.

Thinking about all this has led me down additional paths – and I will need to make some choices soon. Is one of the reasons why he withholds information from me – at least – is that I remain his ward? Ever since I returned to find that I am an orphan, I have lived at the Asylum. Safe within its walls, my wants and needs taken care of... maybe he still sees me as a child because I'm playing the part?

Regardless of whether that's the case, it is past time that I return to the Adult World. But where? I've made a lot of commitments here in the Congo. If Joanna is going to stay in Stanleyville, does it make sense for me to offer to act as an assistant or apprentice, learning what she can teach me and helping her do what she needs to do? Is another trip to the Amazon due, to tie up loose ends? I thought there might have been some references to the Amazon in the Temple of the Snakes – perhaps that was Pollard's real reason for the expedition (and the reason for all the secrecy)? Or, back to New York – to use as a base to operate anywhere? And, what about Thea? Maybe even Kleio? There are so many things that I have to consider over the next few weeks.

Growing up, I was always inserting myself into Uncle Horace's stories. I looked forward to this adventure as a chance to actually be a part of one. But I'm learning that these stories are often heavily edited. And that key details may be left out that would considerably alter the stories' meaning.

Maybe, instead of worrying about fitting into someone else's story, I should be working on one of my own.


(Publisher's Note: Thus ends Miss Morgan's very remarkable journal. Of course, we cannot vouch for some of the more fantastic portions of it, but we hope to be able to meet with her to confirm some of them. Alas, our inquiries at her known addresses (the Asylum and c/o Columbia University's Archaeological Department) have so far not met with success. However, rest assured, if we hear more from her, we will certainly publish it!)