Free The Gods of Atlantis by David Gibbons Page A

pulling his chest strap with one hand and releasing the carabiner with the other, then injecting air into both of their buoyancy compensators. He watched the line snake away and disappear into the molten mass below them, and turned Costas round to face him. ‘You okay?’
    Costas was wide-eyed, his visor fogged up around the edges from his exhalation. Jack had a sudden sickening feeling. They had just lost their one lifeline, and they had expended more air than they had bargainedfor. Costas returned his stare. ‘I think that’s twice very lucky,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Let’s get up there, do what we have to do and get the hell out of here.’
    As they swam upwards, Jack turned to look out over the lava lake. A surge was rising in the middle, then moving along as if something were swimming just beneath the surface like some ancient spirit monster. Suddenly the mass rose in a giant bulbous dome and split open, disgorging a huge bubble of gas into the water. A second later there was a blinding flash and Jack could see the pressure waves in the water surging towards them. Costas clung to him, pressing his visor against his. ‘Brace yourself!’ The shock wave pushed them violently towards the rock face, and then they were pulled back again over the lava lake by the implosion. Jack held on to Costas with one hand and finned with all his strength back towards the rock-cut door. He seemed to be getting nowhere, as if this were a bad dream, the door impossibly beyond his reach. Then the sucking force of the implosion miraculously relented, and they came to the ledge below the door.
    ‘What the hell was that?’ Jack said, panting.
    ‘Phreatic explosion.’ Costas’ visor fogged up as he struggled to regain breath. ‘It happens on land when lava flows over pockets of water, superheating it. Somehow that big bubble of gas under the surface of the lava must have had the same effect, sucking in water, encasing it and boiling it up.’
    Jack stared up at the carved lintel above the doorway in front of them. Costas followed his gaze, panting, then he saw what Jack had seen. ‘Symbols. Ancient writing. Is this what you saw before?’
    ‘It’s fantastic.’ Above the doorway was the rectilinear Atlantis symbol, with other symbols on either side, familiar from the syllabry they had discovered five years before but not yet translated. They looked freshly carved, as if done just before the flood, and several looked only partly completed. Beneath them Jack could make out other symbols, very eroded and clearly much older, some of them looking as if they had been partly chiselled away. He activated his camera. There was no time for detailed recording now. He was jittery with adrenalin, and checkedhis computer readout. Fifteen minutes of breathing gas left at this depth. He was conscious that the danger had made the reflective part of his mind shut off in the focus on survival, on dealing with each new threat as they encountered it, and that he needed to maintain an awareness of the bigger picture, of just how close they had come to never leaving this cavern alive. He stared at the entrance. He would need five minutes, just to look. With the lava rising inexorably, it was the last chance before whatever lay inside there was lost forever.
    ‘Jack, you’ve got a problem.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Check your internal temperature readout.’
    Jack looked sideways inside his helmet, scanning the digital readout. ‘Twenty-six degrees Celsius. I thought it was getting a little warm. I’ll adjust the thermostat.’
    ‘Don’t do that yet. Wait till you really need it. You’ll blow the system.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘It must have been the heat when we were close to the lava. You’ve got a leak from your coolant reservoir, Jack. You can’t afford to be that close to extreme heat any more, as you’ll soon have no way of cooling down.’
    Jack shut his eyes, trying to control his breathing. For a moment he felt nauseous, a flutter