Below the Surface

By George Barthel and L. J. Kleeman

Alaska in the year 2314: Seventeen-year-old Nahanni Redfern and her people—descendants of First Nation tribes—have been living in a vast system of secret underground caves, hiding from the totalitarian government on the surface that would enslave them. Then one night, an explosion shakes their world, and Jack Correll, an enigmatic young physicist from the surface, discovers them. To everyone in underground Tanháia, discovery means only one thing: their years of secrecy have ended, and they are now facing capture or death.

Can their secrecy be maintained? Will Correll betray them, and what are his real reasons for coming? Nahanni is about to learn that appearances are deceptive, motives complex, and where people are concerned, no one knows what goes on below the surface.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Dec 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665730761

George Barthel

George Barthel is a New York City-based author and playwright, who has had nine plays, including The Naked Enemy and Murder Uncensored, produced in various small theaters around the city. L. J. Kleeman is a writer, stage director, and co-author of The Complete CATW Book, a guide to help students pass the CUNY entrance exam. When not involved in theater or writing, she teaches at Hostos College in the Bronx.

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Copyright © 2021 George Barthel and L. J. Kleeman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. The tribes of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth centuries are completely fictional and are in no way intended to reflect the religion, culture, lifestyle, or practices of contemporary Native Americans or First Nation people. Any similarity to existing individuals or groups is completely coincidental.

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ISBN: 978-1-6657-3077-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3075-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3076-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022917675

Archway Publishing rev. date: 12/21/2022

CONTENTS

PART ONE

THE ARRIVAL

(FROM THE JOURNALS OF NAHANNI REDFERN)

Chapter 1The Sun with One Eye Vieweth All the World

Chapter 2Unto the Breach, Dear Friends

Chapter 3Blunt Boar, Rough Bear, or Lion Proud

Chapter 4There Is a World Elsewhere

Chapter 5Ill Met by Moonlight

Chapter 6The Instruments of Darkness Tell Us Truths

Chapter 7Wrens Make Prey Where Eagles Dare Not Perch

Chapter 8Disguise Fair Nature with Hard-Favored Rage

Chapter 9Unquiet Meals Make Ill Digestions

Chapter 10The Devil Hath Power to Assume a Pleasing Shape

Chapter 11To Unpathed Water, Undreamed Shores

Chapter 12Hideous Death within My View

Chapter 13With Treason Wound This Fair Land’s Peace

Chapter 14A Sea Change into Something Rich and Strange

Chapter 15Even as I Shrink with Cold, I Smile

Chapter 16Murder Most Foul

Chapter 17To the Last Gasp with Truth and Loyalty

Chapter 18Beware the Ides of March

Chapter 19I Must Yield My Body to the Earth¹

¹ Part One chapter titles taken from the works of William Shakespeare

PART TWO

THE DESCENT

(FROM THE RECORDS OF JACK CORRELL)

Chapter 20O Blind Cupidity, O Wrath Insane

Chapter 21Woe unto You, Ye Souls Depraved

Chapter 22Be Silent, Thou Accursed Wolf

Chapter 23I Entered on the Deep and Savage Way

Chapter 24People I Saw upon a River’s Bank

Chapter 25Sighs, Complaints, and Ululations Loud

Chapter 26Do Not Disdain to Tell Us Who Thou Art

Chapter 27They Smote Each Other, Not Alone with Hands

Chapter 28What Was This Forest, Savage, Rough and Stern?

Chapter 29And to a Place I Come Where Nothing Shines

Chapter 30Upon the Dismal Shores of Acheron

Chapter 31The Souls of Those Whom Anger Overcame

Chapter 32I Heard on All Sides Lamentations Uttered

Chapter 33Let Us Descend Now into the Blind World

Chapter 34When We Were down within a Darksome Well

Chapter 35Through a Chasm within the Stone It Gnawed

Chapter 36The Way Is Long and Difficult the Road²

² Part Two chapter titles taken from Dante Alighieri 1265-1321 The Divine Comedy: Inferno (Longfellow translation) Project Gutenberg, gutenberg.org/ebooks/1001 Aug. 1, 1997

PART THREE

THE UPRISING

(FROM THE MEMOIRS OF OZIAS CHASE)

Chapter 37Deep in a Caverned Rock My Days Were Led

Chapter 38Soft Deceits and Well-Dissembled Love

Chapter 39Cast the Deep Foundations round the Pyre

Chapter 40And Dread the Ruin That Impends on All

Chapter 41Now, Valiant Chiefs! Since Heaven Itself Alarms

Chapter 42As Many Birds as by the Snake Were Slain

Chapter 43Repeated Wounds the Reddening River Dyed

Chapter 44Then to the City, Terrible and Strong

Chapter 45The Roaming Lion Meets a Bristling Boar

Chapter 46Again They Rage, Again to Combat Rise

Chapter 47Brave Was the Chief and Brave the Host He Led

Chapter 48Thou Canst not Call Him from the Stygian Shore

Chapter 49And Thus Explored His Own Unconquered Mind

Chapter 50Guard of Thy Life and Partner of Thy Way

Epilogue – Names Forever Dear³

Character Names In Below The Surface

³ Part Three chapter titles taken from Homer, The Iliad (Pope translation) Project Gutenberg, Gutenberg.org/ebooks/6130 July 1, 2004

For Parys,

my parents,

and people born on May 25th

PART ONE

THE ARRIVAL

(FROM THE JOURNALS OF NAHANNI REDFERN)

Nahanni%20and%20Correll%20at%20Boulder%20Creek.jpg114209.png

CHAPTER ONE

THE SUN WITH ONE EYE VIEWETH ALL THE WORLD

On the afternoon of my seventeenth birthday, my uncle took me to see sunlight for the first time. Like most children who had been born and raised in Tanháia, the thirty-three-mile system of caverns, tunnels, and corridors that made up our hidden underground world, I had known only the artificial lights that brightened at six in the morning and dimmed at six in the evening in the corridors outside our homes. Only my uncle knew of the secret place, almost at the very edge of our system, accessible only by a narrow tunnel and high natural chimney. It was a small cave with a crack in the wall, through which came a narrow beam of sunlight.

It had taken us almost an hour to get there, and the climb up the ropes through the narrow, claustrophobic shaft had been daunting, even for an experienced rock climber like myself. Some parts were so narrow that my uncle, a large, broad-shouldered man, had to twist and contort himself to fit the grooves of the jagged stone walls to pass through. But as we approached the top of the chimney, he called down to me cheerfully, Nahanni. Shut off your light and look up.

I quickly switched off the light on my helmet, and sure enough, there was a faint glow in the air and a scent unlike anything I’d ever experienced, green and salty. I climbed the rest of the way up quickly and emerged into the cave.

My uncle had one knee on the cave floor, his eye pressed to the crack in the wall, which was widest at the bottom. I found another branch of the crack and looked out. Far below, I could see the ocean and the waves rolling toward us to break against the rocks. In the blue air, a gull was flying. And farther out was the old extinct volcano on the island where my ancestors had once hunted seal. I hadn’t realized until now how many colors existed in the world or how bright they could be. I took deep breaths of the cool salty air, drinking it all in.

It had all begun that morning when I woke to the sound of car doors slamming in the tunnel outside our apartment. Looking out the window, I saw two black ground cars parked in front, and immediately knew what they meant. My uncle had promised he would talk to my mother the minute I turned seventeen. Apparently, he was on his way here to keep his word.

It was still early morning, so the day lights in the corridor outside were dim. But I could already make out Charlie Stillwater, my uncle’s chief of staff, standing directly below my window, talking to my mother. Another figure, lounging on the fender of one of the cars, looked like Kallik Wyatt, the captain of my uncle’s bodyguard. Wyatt was only five or six years older than I, with long black hair and a solid muscular physique that I’d been admiring for the past two years.

My uncle, Nicholas Konradin, was the hereditary chief of the Dene-Tanhái and high chief of the Pacific Tribal Alliance, and he rarely went anywhere outside his headquarters at the Center without an armed escort. Although he was extremely popular with most of our tribe, several factions opposed his rule and refused to recognize the authority of the Tanháian tribal council. Years ago, there had been an attempted assassination. In recent years, however, his guards spent more time preventing him from being mobbed by well-wishers, sycophants, and those seeking favors or advice than protecting him from actual harm.

I dressed quickly. Since little manufacturing could be done underground and our resources were limited, my clothes, like those of most of our people, were made of a combination of goat and rabbit skins, wool, and the small amount of cotton that could be grown at the Farms. But my new goat-wool longcoat had a belt trimmed with traditional beadwork, and the buttons were made of hand-carved bone. I plaited my hair and added some feathers to the ends. (Chickens were the only kind of bird we had underground, but we had artisans who made it their business to dye and paint tail feathers for use as ornaments, and I’d collected a variety.) It was the fashion back then to celebrate our Native ancestry as gaudily as possible.

After a few minutes, my uncle’s hovercar pulled into our corridor and parked next to the others. Even in the dim light, I recognized Konradin the moment the car’s hatch opened. It was hard not to; he was a full two meters in height with broad shoulders and a solid physique. His hair had been a dark iron gray since he was twenty, and like most men in our tribe, he never cut it, preferring to wear it tied back and clubbed. His other features reflected the mixed ethnicity of both our family and our tribe: he had the high cheekbones of his mother’s Haidan and Inuit ancestors, and the blue eyes of his father’s Russian grandparents. In two months, he would turn fifty-four, and though he looked and acted younger, he moved with the confidence of someone who had finally grown into himself. When I was a child, I’d called him Uncle Nick, and still did on rare occasions, but in my heart, thoughts, and journals, he was and always will be Konradin. No other appellation ever matched his size.

I decided to give him a few minutes to talk to my mother alone before entering the fray, so I paced the room a few times, rehearsing what I would say and spying on Wyatt. With the lights off in my room, I knew he wouldn’t be able to see me as long as I didn’t stand directly in front of the window. He was laughing and talking to the drivers, relaxed but alert, constantly scanning the road for any sign of danger. I wondered what it would be like to work with him and see him every day. In past years, my uncle’s staff had always treated me like a child, but I had a feeling that things would be different now.

I finally went downstairs but hung back in the hallway to listen to the arguing voices. My mother, Desiree Redfern, was eleven years younger than her brother and nothing at all like him, physically or temperamentally. Although only in her early forties, she was already tired and tight lipped, whereas Konradin, with his sense of humor and exuberance, had always seemed closer to my age than hers. They got along well enough it seemed, and we were always invited to state dinners at the Center. But they rarely had long or deep conversations.

Now they were sitting at the table, drinking coffee with my mother’s close friend and colleague, Dr. Simon Brown. He’d known both Konradin and my mother since childhood and was considered a member of our family.

But she’s only seventeen, my mother was saying. That’s too young to know what she really wants.

Des, I was sixteen when I took command of the Tanháian army, Konradin countered. And what about you? How old were you when you started studying medicine?

My mother, who still entertained hopes I would follow in her footsteps and enter the field of biological research, was putting up a fight. She was a biologist, a medical doctor, and the head of the small hospital and research labs at the Farms, the southernmost province in our underground world, where most of our food was grown in enormous silos with artificial light. I just wish she would stay in school a little longer. Maybe eventually she’ll develop a taste for science.

Dr. Brown laughed and pushed his chair back from the table. If that hasn’t happened in all these years, I doubt it’s going to. Nahanni’s no scholar, and research bores her to distraction. If she wants to go to work, let her.

My mother sighed. You’re no help.

They looked up then and saw me standing there. Konradin caught my eye and grinned, telling me silently not to worry. He and I had always been able to communicate without spoken words, a thing my family referred to as the talent. Although it seemed like telepathy, it was really just the ability to pick up on body language and subtle micro-expressions that others didn’t see. But my uncle and I were both extremely good at it. We always knew when someone was lying to us and could often sense subtext behind spoken words. It was partly what made Konradin a master politician. And he and I had always understood each other in a way that was almost uncanny.

Dr. Brown left, and I sat down at the table and poured myself some coffee. Like most people, we always ate in the cafeteria at the end of our corridor, but today my mother had gotten a pot of coffee from the communal kitchen in honor of my uncle’s visit.

Desiree, listen, said Konradin in his most persuasive tones. I’ve already had three assistants this year, and none of them worked out. I need someone I can trust completely, who isn’t going to gossip about what goes on in meetings or what I do in the rare times I have a personal life. It’s a job that should ideally go to a son or daughter, but as you know, I’m all out of those at the moment.

He spoke lightly, but I saw his eyes. Konradin’s wife and two young sons had been killed in a flood and tunnel collapse many years ago, and his daughter, Faith, no longer spoke to him. And that’s my other problem. I have no heir. I don’t know if the council is going to approve Nahanni, but she needs to be seen with me and start learning the ropes. We’ll see if she has any aptitude for politics.

I’ve always been good with people. And I like organizing things, I said.

See? That’s exactly why she’ll make a great P.A. Konradin’s eyes twinkled merrily. And she always knows what I’m thinking, so in the middle of a long, boring council meeting, I’ll be able to tell her silently that the speaker has food stuck to his front teeth.

Nicholas, really, my mother said disapprovingly. One would hope you’ve got more important things to think about during council meetings.

Konradin laughed. Trust me, Des, you don’t want to know what I think about during council meetings. Speaking of which, I need to get going. I’ve got one at nine. Sleep on it if you want, but I need an answer soon. Nahanni would be perfect for the job. And she’ll be paid the same as the rest of my staff.

It had been almost two centuries since the people of my tribe used money, but the credits and points we earned for doing our jobs could be traded for meals in the various cafeterias and used to purchase the limited amounts of clothing and electronics we were able to manufacture. There were also items made of glass, ceramic, carved bone, soapstone, shells, and recycled trash that could be purchased from local artisans, but as a culture, we had always frowned upon greed or hoarding and hated clutter. My mother earned far more credits than she could spend.

Mom, you know this is what I want too, I added. More than anything.

All right! Enough! my mother said in an exasperated voice. Fine! If you’re both that sure about it. Just don’t come to me complaining—either of you—if it doesn’t work out. I’m not getting in the middle of it.

We won’t, said Konradin and I in unison, and he grinned at me across the table.

By noon, I had moved my few belongings to a small dugout apartment next to Konradin’s headquarters. His bedroom, library, conference room, and office were all connected, adjoining rooms, but my apartment was completely separate and could only be reached from the outside corridor. When I looked out the window, I could see ground cars going by on their way into the Center or north toward Dante’s Pond.

Like most dugouts, my apartment was a single room with smooth earthen walls and some natural rocks jutting out on one side for decoration. There was a closet with three shelves; a bathroom with the usual shower, sink, toilet, and bidet; a raised platform with a feather bed, down pillows, and rabbit-skin blankets; two concrete chairs; and a marble-topped desk with a monitor screen on the wall above it. On the desk, I placed my most prized possession: a set of carved Russian dolls that each opened up, revealing a smaller one inside. My great-great-great-great grandmother had bought them in a city called Moscow over two hundred years ago.

Konradin had asked me to meet him as soon as I was done, and I hurried over to his office, thinking we were going to start work. Instead, I found two cars parked in the corridor, one for the bodyguards and one for my uncle and me. Wyatt was our driver, and my heart accelerated slightly.

There’s something I want to show you, said Konradin. It’s a secret. I’ll need you to swear never to tell anyone. Not even your mother or your friends.

I swear it, on the graves of our ancestors, I said solemnly. And even without that, you know I never tell anyone anything. It was true. As much as I enjoyed talking to people, I rarely confided in anyone or divulged anything personal. I’d been popular at school and had a lot of casual friends, but none of them really knew me.

Our hovercar passed through the short tunnel under the wide Acheron River, which flowed through the heart of our hidden subterranean world. It began miles away in the outside streams of the Wrangell Mountains and came underground far to the north. It passed between East and West Laurine, flowed through the Center with its huge cavern and hydroelectric plant, and finally into a narrow gorge that separated Rachelle from the Farms in the south.

We turned left onto Corridor 2 and were now in the province called West Laurine. Here, some tunnels and corridors were nearly two hundred years old and dated back to a time before the Great World War, when this had been a small geological research station. Later, the station was owned and operated by the American government, which found its remote location, a hundred miles from the nearest road, suitable for top secret research. They had expanded the station far back into the mountains, connecting it directly to the vast system of natural caverns carved out by the great underground river, which the scientists had playfully named the Acheron. In the south, there was a smaller tributary that we called the Styx.

Konradin, in an ebullient mood, entertained us by acting as the local tour guide, comically discoursing on the charms of every rat-infested hovel and sewage-treatment facility we passed, until Wyatt and I were both laughing helplessly. We veered north onto Corridor 3 and finally into a narrow, rough-hewn tunnel. There were no lights now except the headlights of the cars. And no road. If our cars had not been hovercraft, we could never have gotten over the mounds of rubble and shale.

End of the road, Konradin said lightly.

I took our helmets and a small pack from the back of the car as the guards fanned out, shining flashlights into all the corners. Wyatt returned, looking concerned. I don’t know about this, Nick. We shouldn’t let you go in there alone. If Morgann hears about it, there’s going to be trouble.

My uncle smiled. She won’t hear about it. Not unless you go and tattle. General Morgann was my uncle’s formidable second-in-command and head of security. She’d been one of the heroes of the Tanháian War, and the legends about her abounded. I found her slightly terrifying, and I wasn’t the only one. It’s all right, Kal. I’ve been doing this for years. Do you honestly think I’d take Nahanni anywhere that wasn’t safe?

Wyatt looked as if he had his doubts. Fine, he agreed reluctantly. We’ll wait here.

I followed my uncle through the dim half-light until we reached an open area with a shale-covered floor. He knelt at the base of the rocky wall, directing the beam of his light into a small hole, four or five inches in diameter.

I always make sure there’s nothing with teeth living in here, he said. And he reached in and pulled a lever.

There was a sharp click, and the entire stone wall pivoted slightly, one end retreating and the other thrusting out toward us, producing a gap at each end. It took me utterly by surprise. The wall looked completely natural, blending smoothly with the limestone of the rest of the cave.

My father had this entrance built, Konradin explained. The place I’m going to show you was his secret. He didn’t want anyone else finding it.

Do the guards know we’re going in there? I asked cautiously, peering through the opening at one end of the wall. There were times with Konradin when I felt like I was the adult.

Sure. I showed Wyatt how to open the wall in case of an emergency. But he doesn’t know what’s back here.

We passed through the gap, and my uncle pushed the wall shut behind us, submersing us in thick, opaque darkness. We both switched the lights on our helmets and belts to maximum and continued our journey.

There were a few places where we had to crawl through a low passage on our hands and knees. I didn’t mind. I had always enjoyed going caving with my friends and was the best in my school at rock climbing. But I was starting to wonder where we were going and why. Finally, we came to a narrow natural shaft that led straight up. Konradin tugged on some ropes that hung down from high above us and handed me one to hook to my belt. We’ll chimney up. You know how to do it.

The ropes were filthy and slightly frayed, and I examined them with growing apprehension. When were these last replaced?

Konradin laughed. Don’t worry. If they hold me, they’ll hold you.

I wasn’t so sure. But I braced my back against the wall of the shaft and my feet against the opposite side and began working my way up. Fifteen minutes later, we were standing in the cave, and I was gazing out at the world for the first time.

Our cave was high in a cliff above the Gulf of Alaska. The coastline had changed radically over the past three centuries; sea levels had risen dramatically, glaciers had melted, and low-lying land along the coast was now under water. Coastal mountain ranges had become archipelagos, and flooded riverbeds had brought the ocean to the knees of the St. Elias peaks. It was the same all over. The sites of the original cities of Anchorage and Juneau had been abandoned since the early twenty-second century due to storm-surge flooding, and south, along the Panhandle, the rising sea and the encroachment of Outsiders had forced some descendants of the Tlingit and Haida north from their ancestral lands. They had eventually moved into Southeast Alaska and traveled north into the Wrangell Mountains, merging with the descendants of Athabascan-speaking people and forming the tribe of the Dene-Tanhái.

But despite all the changes of the past three centuries, sunlight still glittered on the crests of the waves below. One of the Pacific Coast tribes had a legend that each glint of light on the waves was the spirit of an ancestor, and I felt myself believing it. And when I changed my angle slightly, I could see the snow-capped peaks to the north, the land of my people, unaltered by time.

I hunted in those mountains when I was a boy. Konradin stood beside me, also looking out. See that one at the end? That’s Rockledge Peak, where I killed that grizzly. I knew what he meant; he had the bearskin rug on the floor of his library. He went on naming the mountains as if they were old friends; Whitecrest, where the tribe of Tanháia had maintained its summer village; Sea Cliff, where, as a child, Konradin had sat on the rocks and watched the waves, while his mother gathered clams from the tidal pools. And finally, the Humpback, the extinct volcano on an island six miles out to sea, where years ago the Tanháians had hunted harbor seal. I’d grown up hearing legends of the outside world, and although I’d always known these places actually existed, seeing them with my own eyes brought them to life. It felt almost uncanny—like shaking hands with Hercules or meeting Romeo for lunch.

Unaccustomed to bright light, my eyes were watering painfully, but I couldn’t look away. I would have welcomed that dazzling pain for the rest of my life. I finally stepped back from the crack in the wall, mesmerized by the thin beam of light spilling through it and illuminating tiny dust motes drifting in the air. I reached my hand into it reverently, letting sunlight fill my palm like water from a stream. Does anyone else know about this cave?

No. Konradin’s mood had changed. He had always been prone to sudden bouts of gloom and depression, but they rarely lasted long. Believe it or not, I never even told my wife.

That surprised me. Why?

I was afraid she’d slip up and say something in front of the kids. The boys were too young to be trusted with this, and Faith was never good with secrets unless they were her own. My uncle sighed deeply. But someone needs to know about it, in case something happens to me. And lately, I’ve been feeling guilty about keeping it to myself.

You shouldn’t, I said. This was the only place in all the thirty-three miles of our underground world where it was possible to see outside. If you ever made it public, the entire tribe would be up here. They’d destroy it.

True. And it’s… well, my own. I come up here sometimes just to be alone. Especially after Kira and the boys died… He didn’t need to fill in the rest. Although their deaths had occurred years before I was born, I understood my uncle so well that I could almost share the memory of his uncontrollable grief. He returned to the crack, leaned his head against the stone, and took a deep breath of the outside world. Sometimes, I can’t believe we’ve been down here for thirty-eight years. I used to think I’d done the right thing by bringing the tribe underground, but now I wonder. Maybe we should have gone down fighting, like the Black Hawk and other tribes of the Mackenzie Nation. It goes against nature, living like this, without sunlight.

Don’t think that way. Everyone down here is glad to be alive. And we all know we have you to thank for it.

Outside, the sun had begun to sink over the water, turning the waves a metallic chrome-colored blue. A gull, tinted orange in the light, flew past the crack in the rock and dropped onto a ledge a few feet below to devour a fish. All was color: the red sky, the gilded rocks, the foaming orange surf.

God, Konradin said, and I knew he was addressing the spirits of the earth and the land itself: the ancient scent of spruce and cedar, the yield of the forest floor beneath his long-ago steps, the deer he had stalked through deep snow as it creaked and settled in the silence of ice-covered forests. Perhaps those of us born underground were the lucky ones; at least, we would never feel this desperate longing for what we hadn’t known.

The sun didn’t set until after ten o’clock, but we waited, eating the fried bread sandwiches we’d brought until the first stars appeared. Then we finally tore ourselves away and headed back.

For a long time, we were silent, Konradin still lost in melancholy thoughts. But as we rappelled down the craggy shaft, I could hear him swearing and cursing at the protruding rocks and narrow spaces and knew he was all right. The next time you see me over-eating, remind me about this, he said with a grin when we reached the bottom.

We talked all the way back to the Center, already anticipating working together and sharing the usual routine of fall holidays, Solstice Eve celebrations, spring floods, and minor crises. At the time, I was too young to know that happiness is a precarious thing, dependent on chance, balanced like a boulder on the edge of a ravine. For my uncle and me, in that long-ago summer, it would last exactly twenty-five days.

CHAPTER TWO

UNTO THE BREACH, DEAR FRIENDS

July 16, 2314, the day that changed everything, began ordinarily enough. In the morning, my uncle and I attended a long, boring meeting of the Council of Twelve and spent most of the afternoon going over plans to repair the dam above the power plant on the Acheron River. He then had a brief meeting with Wyatt, the first that I wasn’t privy to.

In the twenty-five days that had elapsed since my birthday, I’d discovered that I was good at something besides swimming, caving, and rock climbing. I excelled at my job. I was in charge of organizing every aspect of Konradin’s life, keeping a log of his appointments both political and personal, and making the necessary calls and arrangements. I scheduled his meals, helped him rehearse his speeches, and made sure that he was dressed appropriately for whatever events he attended. The rest of the time, I simply followed him everywhere, taking notes on every conversation that he held in my presence. I was Konradin’s shadow, his second pair of eyes, his second self. And he seemed to appreciate having me around. A man with the status of a king really needs someone to brush crumbs off his longcoat and tell him to comb his hair.

What free time I had was usually in the evening after seven or eight, when my uncle retreated into his office to catch up on work or settled down to read. Then I would go out and watch Wyatt and the guards play cards or dominos on the steps outside my uncle’s conference room. Wyatt had recently been put in charge of my uncle’s entire Elite Guard, a branch of our military that contained about forty men and women. They served in rotation as Konradin’s bodyguards and had other assignments the rest of the time. Wyatt always came by in the evenings, allegedly to supervise, but he usually stayed to play a game or two. Often the game was Clubs, which was played with cards and dice. I’d stay with them until their shift changed at ten and then return to my room and sleep. But sometimes, I could feel Wyatt’s eyes on my back as I walked away and knew that he no longer saw me as a child.

On the evening of July 16, my uncle was planning to dine tête-à-tête with Adele Whitefeather, his director of public relations and part-time girlfriend. Their relationship was extremely casual and had been going on for years, whenever they could find time for it. I liked Whitefeather. She was about forty, scatterbrained and bustling. I always knew when she’d stopped by to see my uncle because she inevitably left half her belongings behind. As soon as I saw that the dinner arrangements were satisfactory, I beat a hasty retreat. But just as I was leaving my uncle’s library, Wyatt appeared.

It seems we both have the night off, he said, looking at me in a way that made me think it probably wasn’t a coincidence. I was planning to get dinner in West Laurine, at the cafeteria in Riverside. Care to join me?

Sure, I said, trying to act as casually as possible. The butterflies in my stomach had turned into seagulls. Why West Laurine?

Because they always keep the best seafood for themselves, the same way the Farms keeps the best vegetables and eggs. He grinned, clearly bursting with news. And now that I’m a general, I can eat anywhere I want.

A general? I asked. When did that happen?

Konradin told me last week, he said, beaming. But I didn’t get my assignment until now. I’m going to be in charge of the Elite Guard and three reserve units. And he turned around to show me the new insignia he wore on a leather band on his upper arm. Like most of the younger men in my uncle’s armed forces, he wore only a leather vest with no shirt even though our temperature underground was a damp forty-eight degrees year-round. It was an old tradition among Tanháian warriors; it allowed them to show off their battle scars, muscles, and tattoos to their best advantage. Wyatt had plenty of all three.

I got ready quickly, and a few minutes later we were in a borrowed ground car on our way to West Laurine. Wyatt talked almost nonstop the entire way, telling me all about his plans for training Konradin’s soldiers. It didn’t bother me. I enjoyed just looking at him—his long black hair in a braid that reached to the middle of his back, the tattoos of hawks and geometric designs on his muscular arms, and the beads and shells that adorned his uniform. He was magnificent. At least, I thought so at the time.

We ate lobsters on the bank of the Acheron River. The cafeteria was very much like all the cafeterias in the underworld, but it had an outdoor dining area, and our high-ranking insignia earned us a table of our own even though it was dinnertime and the place was mobbed. None of our apartments underground had kitchens. The tradition of communal dining had existed since shortly after the Great World War when my people had returned to life in tribal units, and families had shared campfires and cooking duties as they had centuries ago. When we’d gone into hiding underground, the public cafeterias allowed what little food there was in those early years to be rationed and distributed fairly. My people had gone through times when no one got more than one meal a day, but no one had ever starved.

Now things were better, as long as one was content with seafood, chicken, rabbit, goat, and whatever vegetables could be grown at the Farms. But Wyatt had been right. The lobsters in West Laurine were fresh out of the pools where they were raised and definitely better than the day-old version we had at the Center.

I’m thinking of changing my name, said Wyatt. I hate having an English name.

Why? I asked. Half our people are ethnically mixed. Even my uncle and he’s the chief.

Well, ethnically mixed is one thing. Wyatt picked at a lobster claw. He was Native only on his mother’s side and wanted to be full-blood. But we’ve lost a lot of our genuine tribal cultures along the way. Tanháia’s nothing but a big melting pot of eight or nine tribes, and almost no one speaks the old languages anymore.

Your first name is Native.

Yeah. But men never use their first names. I had an ancestor named Lone Eagle. That sounds better than Wyatt.

It’s still English, I reminded him.

Wyatt frowned as if he had only just now realized this.

Why don’t you study some of the old languages? I suggested. We still have dictionaries in Lingit, Haidan, Tutchone, and some others. Ask one of the elders to teach you.

And then it happened.

We’d been drinking a bottle of brandy that my uncle had given Wyatt, and not being used to it, I was mixing mine with water. But as I was refilling my glass, I suddenly noticed the liquid moving—shivering and vibrating. Kal, look!

At our feet, the river was vibrating too.

Get down! Wyatt shouted, grabbing me and pulling me under the table. A sound like a thousand trains barreling toward us deafened our ears. Earthquakes were common in our part of the world, and I’d lived through plenty, but this was far louder and more violent than anything I’d ever heard before. Wyatt attempted to shield me with his body, and I clung to the pedestal of the table, but the earth lurched below our knees, sending both of us flying. I landed on my stomach and felt the bone of my wrist crack under me.

The world detonated around us.

Nahanni! Wyatt cried. Cover your head!

Rocks, shale, dirt, and debris rained down on me as I lay, clinging to the stone of the floor that kicked and bucked like an untamed horse. I heard walls collapsing, and the ceiling of the cafeteria crashed down twenty-five feet from where I lay, burying people under a hail of concrete. From everywhere around me came screams of terror and pain as boulders fell from the cavern roof over the river. Even the river seemed to have come loose from its bed, and suddenly I was lying in two inches of water. People crawled and stumbled past me, fighting the shifting ground, frantically calling the names of family members, and weeping hysterically. It seemed like the end of the world.

I got to my hands and knees, only to be thrown back down again. From the settlement down the hallway to the right, the sounds of more screaming reached us over the wild rumbling. People, jolted from their beds, poured out into the shuddering corridor. Breakable items fell from shelves and crashed; furniture pieces, at least those that weren’t made of concrete and attached to the floor, overturned. Emergency lights flashed in the corridors.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, everything stopped.

Wyatt picked himself up off the debris-scattered floor and hurried over to me. He was bleeding from multiple cuts and covered in what seemed like an inch of dust but otherwise unhurt.

Are you OK?

I’m fine, I said, slightly stunned. Just my wrist.

Call your uncle’s headquarters. We need a rescue team and medical unit down here. I’ll go see if I can help.

I followed his eyes to the devastated cafeteria. Those who had been sitting on the sides were now pinned by their arms or legs under slabs of concrete, while others stood there gaping in a state of shock. Wyatt didn’t wait for my response. Within seconds he was shouting orders to those who weren’t seriously injured and trying to lift the concrete and pressed-earth slabs off those who were.

There was no signal in my wristband phone, probably because the signal boosters and relays had been knocked loose or destroyed. I’m no physicist or engineer, but I knew the communication network in our underground world operated via a complex system of relays that boosted and fed signals from one to the next, often around tons of rock. In history class, I’d read that the world above ground used satellites for such things, but of course, we were far too deep in the earth for any such signals to enter or exit our system, especially with the signal blockers, scramblers, and other antidetection devices that had been installed years ago to keep the research base secret. Our underground network was a primitive, early twenty-second-century system, but under normal circumstances, it worked well enough for our needs. Although my phone was dead, I knew the car phone’s stronger signal would probably work, so I got up, climbed over a pile of rocks, and headed toward it.

People were still running everywhere, screaming and calling out to one another, and babies were howling lustily. Blood streamed down the faces of those who had been hit by falling rocks. Others had been pitched violently against walls and furniture and now, like me, had broken bones to prove it. A crate of chickens, probably earmarked for tomorrow night’s dinner, must have broken open behind the cafeteria because several terrified hens were racing along the corridor, squawking and fluttering frantically. It was utter chaos.

I reached the car, dusted the earth off the radio, and pressed the button that would link me directly to my uncle’s headquarters.

Morgann here, answered a gravelly voice with a heavy French accent. Morgann met regularly with my uncle, but I hadn’t seen much of her in recent weeks. That was fine with me. I still thought her profoundly sinister, especially with the long, black, left-hand glove she always wore, signifying her elite membership in the Gant Noir. The Gant was a secret society of spies and assassins that Konradin’s grandfather had used during the Tanháian War. No one had the faintest idea where the Gant Noir had come from; bizarre and far-fetched rumors abounded, linking their origin to organizations as strange and disparate as the Knights Templar or the medieval Assassins of Syria and Persia, whose techniques they imitated. Wherever they had originated, they had a reputation that sent chills up everyone’s spines. But despite her bizarre affiliations, Morgann was highly efficient.

It’s Nahanni, I said urgently. I’m in West Laurine, at Riverside, with Wyatt and a lot of injured people. We need a rescue unit and medical team.

Konradin tried calling you.

My wristband’s dead. I’m in Corridor 2 near the cafeteria. It collapsed during the quake and there are people buried in there.

There were collapses all over the damn system, grumbled Morgann. I’ll send down a team, but you and Wyatt need to get back here fast. Someone will get you in a hovercar—I don’t know what condition the corridors are in. Tell Wyatt not to be a hero. We need him back here. That’s a direct order.

In front of the ruins of the cafeteria, Wyatt was marshaling the crowd that had gathered around him. He had organized the uninjured into teams and sent someone for a doctor and first aid supplies. Already the dead and dying were being dragged out from under the collapsed roof.

Forty minutes later, I was tearing old clothes into bandages with my left hand and teeth, and Wyatt was tending to the injured when Charlie Stillwater appeared. Instantly, I knew something was even more seriously wrong than we had thought. Stillwater wouldn’t come to get us in person under any normal circumstances. During a crisis, he should have been at headquarters in the Center. My first thought was that something had happened to Konradin.

He’s fine, Stillwater reassured me. But you need to come back with me immediately.

A medic knelt beside Wyatt and took the bandage out of his hand. Wyatt got to his feet and noticed the members of the Elite Guard fanning out to help. Who’s at the command center?

Konradin and Morgann, Stillwater explained. I brought down a full unit to supervise things here, and some more medics from the Laurine Hospital are coming. We have to go. I’ll explain on the way.

All right, said Wyatt, as we followed Stillwater to his hovercar. We had an earthquake, and there’s extensive damage. What else?

Kal, Stillwater said in a low, urgent voice, and I noticed for the first time how pale he looked. We think there’s been a breach.

Wyatt stopped dead in his tracks and stared at him in disbelief.

So did I. No, I said stupidly. No. That’s impossible…

To everyone in the hidden world of underground Tanháia, a breach meant only one thing. Our years of secrecy had ended; someone from outside had finally gotten in; we’d been discovered.

And that meant that we were as good as dead. All of us.

In case you were dozing in history class, as I often was, I’ll give you a brief recap. The Great World War of the early twenty-second century destroyed almost 98 percent of the world’s population through a combination of nuclear and biological warfare and contaminated most of the land below the fifty-fifth parallel. The populations of large cities like Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks were almost obliterated by the viruses of germ warfare, but the Native American and First Nation tribes on reservations outside the cities were largely unaffected, for reasons still unknown to us at the time of this story. As local governments collapsed, survivors became lawless, roving bands. To escape them, our ancestors traveled north into the mountains of Alaska and the Yukon and returned to the land.

As the years passed, the tribes merged and also assimilated small pockets of religious Naturalists, off-the-grid Euro-Americans, and other non-Natives. In Alaska, several itinerant tribes formed the Pacific Tribal Alliance, first as a council to settle disputes over hunting rights, and later as a loosely structured government. In the Yukon of former Canada, other tribes did the same, becoming the great Mackenzie Nation.

For a century, roughly the years 2128 to 2231, our people lived in peace, flourishing and forming a culture that blended old tribal traditions with things that were completely new. Like the Amish and Mennonites of earlier centuries, the religious Naturalists of the late twenty-first century had advocated a complete renunciation of all things technical and gained many adherents both before and after the Great World War. Assimilated into the tribes, their philosophy contributed to our culture. Tribes respected one another’s hunting territories but made no claims to the ownership of land. Instead, they moved with the seasons, following the herds of caribou that had made a comeback; peregrinating from the northern Wrangell Mountains as far south as Sitka Bay.

But unfortunately, history repeats. By the mid-twenty-third century, small populations of non-Native Outsiders began to develop again and migrate north from what used to be southern Canada and the United States. Treaties were made, only to be broken. And so began nearly three decades of skirmishes and warfare that concluded in our eventual defeat and disappearance underground.

The legends of that war, the Tanháian War as we called it, were many. I’d grown up listening to tales of the daring exploits of our young generals, Julian Tell, Elyas Morgann, Louis Standing Bear, and the beautiful Adonira of the Black Hawk, and their heroic victories at Kluane Lake thirty-nine years ago. But in the end, we were no match for the sheer numbers of Outsiders who kept coming as relentlessly as a rising tide, bringing with them ever more sophisticated weapons and technology, until at last our forces were cut to ribbons on the Yukon River. The Black Hawk went east and made a last stand on their ancestral lands, fighting until every member was slain or captured. And the Dene-Tanhái would have met a similar fate, if not for the quick thinking of their seventeen-year-old chief, Nicholas Konradin, who brought his tribe underground into the secret subterranean system where his father had worked. But I’ll tell you more about all that later.

So well concealed was our underground world that for thirty-eight years no one had known we were here. Until now.

We’re getting no response from the security outpost out at the end of the Ocean Corridor, Stillwater told us as we drove back to the Center. The guards were last heard from shortly before nine o’clock. Then everything went dead—the cameras, the entire security system.

But makes you think there was a breach?

That was no ordinary earthquake, Kal. We think some sort of bomb exploded on the Humpback.

The hovercar sped quickly through the tunnel, skimming over mounds of earthquake rubble that littered the tunnels. Cold with fear and sick to my stomach, I sat, nursing my broken wrist and wondering why this had to happen now when I finally had a job I was good at and a man who had taken me to dinner. I was only seventeen. It wasn’t fair that everything should end so soon. I wasn’t ready to die. But then, of course, no one ever is.

By the time we crossed under the Acheron, I was shivering with terror and tears were running down my face. What would happen now? The Outsiders would probably invade at one of the two points at which our tunnel system was close to the surface. Our Forrest Corridor led to the wilderness below Whitecrest Mountain, where there had once been a point of access to the outside world. But Konradin had ordered that entrance sealed, shortly after he’d brought our people underground, and by now dense vegetation must have grown over it and concealed it completely.

The other point of access, through the extinct volcano on Humpback Island, had never been a source of concern. Few people had ever known about it. Even years ago, when Konradin’s father had run the secret laboratories down here, no one had ever worried about the Humpback entrance being found. Native hunting parties had visited the island regularly, never suspecting that there was anything more to the old volcano than what they saw. It seemed almost impossible that the Outsiders could have discovered the entrance, but then, their technology was a century ahead of ours.

Regardless of how they chose to enter, they would come with weapons we couldn’t match. We’d fight, of course, as we had years ago, but they would outnumber us ten to one. In the end, we’d all be killed or captured—and I’d grown up hearing horror stories of the containment camps, the factories where our people were forced to work until they died of exhaustion, of the labs in the Complex where we were used for genetic experimentation. Konradin had three boxes of tablets under the desk in his conference room—tablets that put one to sleep and then stopped one’s heart from beating. I’d make the choice my uncle and my most of my people would make. I’d die before I let myself be captured.

It was after eleven o’clock when the shuttle hissed to a stop outside Konradin’s headquarters, but it seemed that no one in Tanháia was asleep. The Center was swarming like a fallen hornets’ nest. Morgann’s security staff had been diligently attempting to clear the corridors of the swelling crowds, but there were people standing two and three deep along the walls. They had come to Konradin like children to a parent, with their broken limbs, damaged homes, and flooded corridors, expecting that here they’d find the latest news and solutions to their problems.

Outside my uncle’s headquarters, a crowd of news reporters immediately surrounded our car and followed us up the steps, asking questions. Almost every clan and settlement had someone who made it their business to collect news and report it via broadcasts to their followers on our limited internet service. It took us several minutes to elbow our way up the steps and into Konradin’s conference room.

They were all there: gaunt, gray-haired Morgann, black gloved, black clad, and even more surly and dour than usual; dizzy Adele Whitefeather, sitting on the edge of Konradin’s desk; Lynx Crowfoot, chairman of the Council of Twelve; and Dex Arviat, our computer expert. Three other generals, Quissa Ross, Joe Dakota, and Cameron Hart, were sitting cross-legged on Konradin’s huge conference table, examining a geological map. Wyatt immediately went to join them. Quiet, efficient Stillwater leaned against the rough cave wall, awaiting orders. The air seemed damp with tension.

I quickly found the electronic tablet I used to take notes during meetings and pulled out my recording pen. The pen recorded conversation and automatically transcribed it with about an 80 percent accuracy rate. I could mark any errors with my uninjured hand and correct them later.

Konradin entered, and all the frightened, expectant faces turned in his direction. He scanned the room, making sure I was there, and then faced his staff with a confident smile. So, he said to the sudden silence, I hear we may have visitors. Didn’t exactly pick the best time to drop in, did they? What do we know? Morgann?

Morgann had always been the one person Konradin could rely on for cool, solid assessments, based solely on hard evidence. At eight o’clock, the security cameras at the outpost below Humpback Island showed two guards with their guns drawn, running toward the old elevator shaft that once led up to the surface. Then the cameras went dead. And so did everything else. The explosion occurred an hour later.

I sent Unit 5 out there to look for them, Ross interrupted. Morgann, who didn’t care for interruptions, glared at her. I just got their report. The entire Ocean Corridor’s been destroyed. There’s nothing on the other side of the sea gates now but water. Thank God someone closed the gates and locked down the Corridor before the blast or half the province would be under water.

How can you be sure it was a bomb? Wyatt asked.

We aren’t. But whatever it was, it was powerful enough to destroy the entire island and trigger the aftershocks, said Morgann.

And we haven’t picked up anything else on the scanners or security cameras?

That’s the problem. Our entire security system is down, and we don’t know why. So are all our computers.

This isn’t a simple malfunction or a virus—or anything else we’ve ever seen, added Arviat. It’s as though all our programming has been completely disrupted.

But I still see no proof of a breach, Konradin said. The Outsiders could be at war with one another. Maybe the guards heard something on the surface and ran to the old elevator to investigate. Then the bomb went off, the tunnels flooded, and they drowned.

And the cameras simply chose that moment to die? Morgann asked dryly. And the computer system conveniently went mad an hour later?

Recommendations?

We assume it’s a breach and act accordingly, said Morgann.

All right, said Konradin. But I don’t want this made public until we have more information, or we’ll have mass panic to deal with on top of everything else. The Ocean Corridor is completely flooded now, so I doubt we’ll be getting any more visitors tonight.

They’re probably an advance unit or scouting party, sent down to collect information, Hart speculated.

I don’t know, Konradin said. The explosion makes no sense. If they’re a hostile advance unit, why would they blow up the island behind them? But whatever they are, they’ve got to be captured immediately. Wyatt and Dakota, take my guard and search all of Ocean Ridge and the areas immediately adjacent to the Ocean Corridor. Report back to me directly and in person—we don’t want to discuss this electronically in case anyone’s listening in. Ross and Hart, assemble as many units as we have on reserve and station them at the possible points of access—half at the end of the Forrest Corridor and the rest in Ocean Ridge and West Laurine. And Stillwater, get a team of engineers down there to reinforce the sea gates. If there’s nothing but water on the other side, they won’t withstand the pressure for long. Any questions?

Ross, Dakota, and Stillwater shook their heads dismally.

Konradin smiled. And stop looking like a bunch of rabbits caught in snares. We’ve been expecting something like this for thirty-eight years. You’re the ones who designed the plans for an invasion. You must have known we might have to use them.

After all this time, said Stillwater, I think we’d begun to hope…

Look, said Konradin. They may not even know about the Forrest Corridor entrance. And they can’t come through the Ocean Corridor now that the island’s been destroyed. They’d have to use submarines, and after an explosion like that, I doubt there’s a clear passage open. We have plenty of time to prepare for an attack. We’ll be ready for them. Whatever happens, we’re not going down without a fight.

Disasters caused by earthquakes, floods, and spring thaws were nothing new to my uncle and his staff. By mid-afternoon of the following day, the crowds had dispersed, the injured were being treated at medical outposts, and Konradin had deployed the remaining army units throughout the system with instructions to pump out the flooded areas and repair the corridors.

Konradin himself appeared wherever spirit and strength were needed. He assisted a work team in repairing collapsed walls and walked among the displaced people of various clans, helping them set up emergency shelters. At one point, he was even doling out soup, along with large helpings of sympathy and encouragement. Wherever he went, his exuberant, booming voice put new spirit into tired bodies, his unquenchable sense of humor made people laugh, and his powerful arms lifted, carried, and hauled.

I followed in his wake, doing what I could with my braced and bandaged wrist, and behind me trailed Konradin’s exhausted bodyguards, not particularly pleased at being asked to lift fallen beams or hold the poles of emergency shelters while their inexhaustible chief banged them into the ground with a mallet. But my uncle seemed to welcome the strenuous physical activity for the same reason I did—it prevented us from dwelling on intruders and invasions. Still, I noticed him glancing at his wristband for messages every few minutes. Like me, he was counting the hours until his generals would return.

Almost a full day after the explosion, Wyatt, the last to report in, finally stumbled into Konradin’s library, looking half-dead. He’d spent the last eighteen hours leading his soldiers through every rat-infested sewer and maintenance tunnel in Ocean Ridge. Nothing, he said, swaying slightly on his feet.

Morgann and Stillwater were already there, drinking Konradin’s brandy. It was late at night, but no one seemed interested in going to bed.

Sit down, Konradin said quickly, gesturing Wyatt toward the sofa. Don’t worry about the mud. The place is a mess already.

Konradin’s library, which was frequently used as an informal meeting room, certainly looked worse for the day’s activity. Although my uncle kept little state, this room was ordinarily one of the most distinctive in all the underworld, with shelves of two-hundred-year-old books (made of actual paper), which he’d inherited from his grandfather, and real wooden furniture that dated back to when all this had been a research base. A large window looked out at the enormous River Cavern and the waterfall directly below. Down on the riverbank, one could also see the three stone-carved totem poles that marked the graves of Konradin’s wife and children.

Like many corridors and apartments along the Acheron River, the walls of the library were of natural, river-cut rock, and hung with caribou skins and old Tanháian weapons. It had the look of a Paleolithic cave dwelling despite the monitor screen on one wall and the modern overhead lights. Now, maps littered the sofa, desk, and table, and a path of footprints, left by countless pairs of muddy boots and moccasins, appeared on both sides of Konradin’s valuable bearskin rug, which everyone had reverently avoided.

"I left Dakota in charge. I’m