Free Pandemonium by Warren Fahy Page B

“Are they filled with gas?”
    A light like an ignited match flared inside one of the small bell-like creatures as it rose inside the tank.
    “Bombardier beetles!” exclaimed the German.
    The scientists turned to him.
    “Sorry. I did a paper on them as an undergraduate.…”
    “I thought you were an electrical engineer,” Nell said.
    “I was studying biochemical energy systems for a while.”
    “Explain, please, Dr. Reiner,” Maxim said.
    “Bombardier beetles mix hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone generated in separate glands to create an explosive chemical reaction, like a rocket engine. It generates enough heat to boil water. These things might be using a similar process to inflate a bladder with hot gas.”
    “Like sky lanterns,” Katsuyuki said.
    “Hot air balloons!” Nell said.
    Maxim blew a plume of cigar smoke straight up. “Excellent.”
    Geoffrey shook his head, staggered by the implications. “We’ve got water, land, and air organisms? How elaborate is this ecosystem?”
    “Let me show you.” Maxim nodded at one of his men, and the man pulled a golden sash that parted the red velvet curtains at his back, revealing a great oval window encircled by a wide bronze frame embedded in the solid rock.
    Everyone rushed to the window before the curtains had completely opened, and Maxim swiveled in his leather chair to gaze with them through the thick pane of glass that stretched twenty feet high and forty feet wide. The polished window was dark except for glowing colors and shapes that slowly began to emerge. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Maxim said, “May I present Pandemonium.”
    9:55 P.M.
    Slowly, their eyes made out the outlines of another world on the other side of the window.
    A vast lake, splotched with swirling patches of color, channeled into the distance through a corridor angling slightly to the right as far as the eye could see. Hundreds of feet above was a vaulted ceiling with iridescent paisley patterns overlapping over the rock.
    The faint light of the chandeliers lit up the area closest to the window. As suspended forms moved closer in the dark, they took on real shape; as they moved away, they dissolved into spectral ciphers. Multitudes of phosphorescent creatures swirled in glowing storms and spiral galaxies receding to the vanishing point in the colossal cavern.
    Geoffrey scanned the surface of a lake below. He saw creatures snaking over the water, visibly breaking into pieces and rejoining as they swam like the centipede Maxim had shown them. Bioluminous hordes of gammarids darted over glowing patches on the lake’s surface.
    All the scientists were pressed against the window, cupping their hands to both sides of their heads as they peered through the thick glass. Nell looked up at the cavern’s ceiling, which was coated with a shaggy pelt of stalactites. An island of stalagmites the size of buildings soared from the center of the lake with columns reaching all the way to the ceiling at its highest point, six hundred feet above. And every spire was dusted with rainbowfire.
    Purple globes the size of beach balls dangled red tentacles like levitating Portuguese man-of-wars. A faintly illuminated organism like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade float moved languidly over the lake in the distance, extending long feathery plumes at one end that fanned cyclones of orange and pink bubbles into its whale-sized mouth.
    Nell sighed, holding on to Geoffrey. “What in the hell are we looking at?”
    Maxim pointed to a plaque centered on the bottom frame of the window.

    “‘Hell’s Window,’” Maxim translated. “That’s just what Stalin thought he was looking at as he sat in this very chair. I imagine he felt right at home. As for me, I call it Pandemonium.” He spoke in Russian to one of his men to the right of the window, who nodded as he pulled down a heavy switch.
    The chandeliers dimmed to a flicker, and a rack of locomotive headlamps mounted inside the cavern ignited above the