for two miles.
Reich and I returned to the probe, discussing this problem. If the probe was correct—and Reich seemed to think it was—then it set archaeology an extraordinary problem. How on earth could remains sink to this depth? Perhaps the whole tract of land had subsided in some eruption—collapsed into an abyss underneath? Then perhaps the hollow had been filled with water and mud… But mud to a depth of two miles! How many thousands of years would that take? We both felt as if we were going insane. It was a temptation to rush to the telephone and consult colleagues, but the fear of having made some absurd mistake held us back.
By five o’clock, we had the mole ready to launch, its nose pointing straight downwards. Reich operated the remote control panel, and its bullet-like nose began to revolve. Earth sprayed, then settled into a small, loose pile. For a few moments, the pile quivered. Then there was no sign of the mole.
I went across to the radar screen. At its top, a brilliant white dot seemed to tremble. As we watched, it moved down slowly—very slowly, slower than the minute hand of a watch. Next to the radar screen, a kind of television screen showed only wavy lines that looked as if they were made of smoke. Occasionally, these lines became thinner in places, or vanished altogether; this was when the mole encountered a rock. If it encountered any object that was more than ten feet across, it would stop automatically, and the electronic laser would scan its surface.
An hour later, the white dot had moved halfway down the screen—a depth of about a mile. It was now moving slower. Reich went to the probe, and set it going. Its screen registered the mole—at a mile down. And still in the same position, further down the screen showed the enormous blocks. The probe was accurate.
Now we all felt the tension. The workmen were standing in a group, their eyes fixed on the radar screen. Reich had switched off the probe, since its beam could damage the mole. We were risking damaging an expensive piece of equipment—yet we could see no alternative. We had checked and rechecked the probe. It indicated unmistakably that the immense blocks were of a more or less regular shape, and were resting side by side. It was impossible that they could be natural rocks.
Neither was it inevitable that we should lose the mole. Its electronically fortified metal would withstand a temperature of two thousand degrees; its makers had assumed that it might encounter veins of volcanic lava. The strength of its shell was enormous; the makers guaranteed that it could stand a pressure of two and a half tons to the square inch. But if it reached the blocks at a depth of two miles, it would be supporting about twice that weight, or very nearly. Besides, its transmitting equipment might not stand the temperature. And then there was always the possibility that it might pass beyond the range of the remote control, or sustain damage to its receiver.
By half past eight, night was falling, and the mole had traversed another half of the distance. The blocks were only half a mile below it. We had told the workmen to go home, but many of them stayed. Our cook prepared us a meal from tins; he was obviously in no condition to cook anything elaborate. When the night came down, we sat there in the dark, listening to the faint hum of the radar equipment, and watching the brilliant white dot. Sometimes, I became convinced that it had stopped. Reich, whose eyes were better than mine, assured me that it hadn’t.
By half past ten, the last of the workmen had gone home. I had wrapped myself up in a dozen blankets, for the wind had risen. Reich chain-smoked; even I smoked two cigarettes. Suddenly, the humming stopped. Reich leapt to his feet. He said: ‘It’s there.’
‘Are you sure?’ I found that my voice had become a croak.
‘Absolutely. The position’s right. It’s now directly over the blocks.’
‘What now?’
‘Now we activate the scanner.’
He started the machine again. Now our eyes were fixed on the television screen. It was blank, indicating that the scanner was trained on a massive and hard object. Reich adjusted the controls. The wavy lines began to reappear, but they were now thinner and straighter. Reich made some adjustment that brought them closer together, until the whole surface of the screen became a pattern of fine white and black lines, like a pair of pinstriped trousers. And showing very clearly against this pattern of lines there were a number of black scars, indentations in the rock. The excitement of the past few hours had been so great that I was able to look at these without strong emotion. It was impossible to doubt what they were. I had seen them many times before—on the basalt figurines. I was looking at the symbols that represented the name of Abhoth the Dark.
There was nothing more to be done. We photographed the screen, then went back to Reich’s tent to radio Darga at Izmir. Within five minutes, Reich was speaking to him. He explained the situation, apologized for the risk we had taken with the mole—which belonged to the Turkish government—and told him that we had definitely established that these blocks belonged to the culture of the ‘great old ones’ mentioned on one of the figurines.
Darga, I suspect, was a little drunk. The situation had to be explained to him at length before he understood. Then he proposed fetching Fu’ad and flying over to join us immediately. We convinced him there would be no point, as we were about to go to bed. He said that we should move the mole along to scan the next blocks. Reich pointed out that this was impossible. It could not move sideways, only forwards and backwards; it would have to be withdrawn a hundred feet or so, and redirected. This would take several hours.
Finally, we convinced Darga, and broke the connection. We were both appallingly tired, yet neither of us felt like sleep. The cook had left equipment for making coffee. Against our better judgement, we used it, and opened a bottle of brandy.
It was there, sitting in Reich’s tent at midnight, on the 21st of April, 1997, that I told Reich about my experience of the night before. I started to tell him, I think, to distract our minds from the problem of those seventy-foot blocks below the ground. In this, I succeeded. For, to my surprise, Reich found nothing strange in what I had to say. At university, he had studied the psychology of Jung, and was familiar with the idea of a ‘racial unconscious’. If there was a racial unconscious, then human minds are not separate islands, but are all part of some great continent of mind. He had read a great deal more psychology than I had. He cited the work of Aldous Huxley, who had taken mescalin sometime in the 1940’s, and had also reached my own conclusion that the mind stretches for infinity inside us. Huxley, apparently, had gone further, in a way, and spoken of the mind as a world of its own, like the world we live on—a planet with its own jungles and deserts and oceans. And on this planet—as one would expect—there live all kinds of strange creatures.
At this point, I objected. Surely Huxley’s talk about strange creatures was only a metaphor, a piece of poetic licence? The ‘inhabitants’ of the mind are memories and ideas, not monsters.
At this, Reich shrugged.
‘How do we know?’
‘I agree, we don’t. But it seems common sense.’
I thought about my experience of the night before, and felt less sure of myself. Was it ‘common sense’? Or have we got into a habit of thinking about the human mind in a certain way—as our ancestors thought of the earth as the centre of the universe? I speak of ‘my mind’ as I speak of ‘my back garden’. But in what sense is my back garden really ‘mine’ ? It is full of worms and insects who do not ask my permission to live there. It will continue to exist after I am dead…
Oddly enough this train of thought had the effect of making me feel better. It explained my anxiety—or seemed to. If individuality is an illusion, and mind is actually a kind of ocean, why should it not contain alien creatures? Before falling asleep, I made a note to send for Aldous Huxley’s Heaven and
