The troupe of twelve pitched base camp on the gentle slope that fronted the entrance to the cave. They were members of the S. University Explorers' Club led by Takehiko Sugiyama.
Although they had been particular about selecting a shaded spot to pitch their tents, no sooner had it passed three in the afternoon than the tents were being directly exposed to searing sunlight. With faces bathed in sweat, the club members shouldered their equipment. Their load consisted not only of caving gear; they also had their full diving equipment to carry, which was no joke. The cars were parked on an empty stretch of ground near the foot of the mountain, about a mile and a half downhill from the camp. Each club member had had to make two roundtrips to carry their two sets of gear uphill.
The screeching of cicadas was so loud that normal conversation was out of the question. The club members devoted their energies to setting up base camp rather than conversing. Their preparations were progressing ahead of schedule. Takehiko gave a satisfied smile as he saw how adroitly the members were handling the preparations. Putting down the tackle he was carrying, he took a brief rest and stretched his back.
The dark mouth of the limestone cave gaped right in front of them. The opening to the grotto had been made wider than it had been back when his father had arrived here two decades earlier. The impenetrable darkness that lay beyond the opening, though, was exactly the same as what his father had witnessed. For Takehiko, the cave was a place that he'd felt destined to visit sooner or later.
Now known by the impressive name of White Rock Caverns, these limestone caves discovered by his father had been visited by dozens of research teams. Until the year before, plans had been made to develop the caves into a tourist attraction under the aegis of the local village administration. However, the plans had been abandoned for the most part. Not only had the project been opposed by local environmental protection groups, but the estimated costs of building roads and other tourist infrastructure had been staggering. Thus the limestone caves had been left untouched. The general public was not allowed to enter the caves. The district forest office granted admission permits only to such official groups as research teams.
The caves were only a three-hour drive from where Takehiko lived. He could have come whenever he wanted. Nor had he lacked specialist friends; he could have dived into the subterranean lake where his father had died whenever he chose.
Takehiko had intentionally kept putting the visit off. Hardly a day had passed during most of his life without him picturing that subterranean lake. It had even figured in his dreams. He had long lost count of the times he had woken in the middle of the night, gasping in panic at the water and darkness as they closed in on him.
At this time in his life, he faced no hardships worth mentioning. It occurred to him that the time had come.
Once summer vacation was over, he would have to cut down on activities with the Explorers' Club, and devote himself instead to completing his undergraduate thesis and finding a job. The following year would see him a busy, gainfully employed member of society. He felt that his visit must happen now or never.
Takehiko had just turned three years old when his father's body had been retrieved from the bottom of the subterranean lake. Children of that age do not even understand the meaning of death. That muscular, vital body he had hugged every day had been there one moment and gone the next; the only sensation he had had was that something familiar had suddenly vanished.
Six months after the two men encountered tragedy in the cave, a local exploration team had chanced upon the body of Sakakibara, the friend of Takehiko's father. Immediately after the grisly discovery, the team had also discovered his father's body while surveying the underground lake. Thus they had finally resolved the incident involving the two men who had gone missing about six months earlier. Even after the team had removed the boulder, Sakakibara's decomposing body had remained dangling there. As the team turned their flashlights on Sakakibara's corpse, they had been aghast to see the calcified back of his crushed skull cleaving as one to the limestone.
The police had explained to his mother that his father's death was probably due to temporary derangement caused by being trapped so long in the darkness'.
What the police meant was that his father had become so mentally confused that he'd drowned himself in the lake. Cases of suicide by drowning are apparently not uncommon among desperate people marooned or adrift at sea for a prolonged period of time. Takehiko's mother refused to accept the conclusion offered by the police, although there was no use in contesting it; it was a point of personal rather than criminal bearing. She did, however, doggedly insist that her husband had not been the kind of man to panic in a crisis. She understood her husband's personality better than most.
The club had completed its preparations for diving in the cave by eleven the next morning. Takehiko and five other members would be the first to dive, while the other six members remained on standby. All team members, including the two female members, were certified scuba divers and had plenty of experience diving at sea. Only three members of the team, however, had cave-diving experience. It was the role of the captain, Takehiko, to initiate the remaining nine members into the mysteries of cave diving.
After a meticulous check to ensure that all equipment was working properly, the six divers lined up on the bank of the underground lake. Takehiko once again ran through the most important points to keep in mind:
'Avoid using your fins as much as possible. If you disturb the sediment, you'll end up with zero visibility. If you panic and try to surface, understand that there's nowhere to surface. The only thing is to avoid panicking.
Have you got that? Do not panic, whatever you do. Remain calm at all times. Approach any crisis with calm. Okay?'
Nodding in response, the other divers inserted the mouthpieces of their regulators into their mouths without a fuss. In addition to the lights fitted onto their helmets, all divers carried powerful searchlights. Each diver was tied to the lifeline at a uniform distance from the next diver. Their air cylinders were not fixed to their backs. They were to clasp their cylinders to their breasts if the need arose. The ability to move them this way prevented them from getting in the way in such a constricted environment.
The presence of the divers brought a distinctive aura to the cave as the beams from their twenty-odd lights reflected off the surface of the lake and illuminated the walls of the cavern. They were fitted out with so much equipment and so many lights that they literally dazzled. Takehiko's father had been unadorned with such gear when he made his attempt on the tunnel. If he could see them now, he may well have smiled at the somewhat excessive array of equipment.
The prolonged rainy season had caused the subterranean water level to swell. Takehiko silently dived beneath the surface of the abundant waters of the lake, leading his fellow explorers on their way.
No sooner had he gone under than he became aware of the oval opening to a tunnel, about three feet across, in the left wall. He noticed countless little bubbles moving toward the opening and being drawn in. It had to be a tunnel that led to an outlet. In an attempt to relive his father's experience, Takehiko held in his breath and let himself be directed by the current towards the tunnel, reminiscent as it was of the viscera of some enormous monster.