Having just received the manuscript from Moore, the investigators were excited to get reading when Acacia Lexington walked in and announced that she was going to take pictures of the mountains. Slightly warmer than usual, she extended an invitation to any who wanted to accompany her. Not one to shy away from an exciting adventure (who needs books, anyway?), Driscoll accepted her offer. Once in the plane, she opened up a bit and allowed Driscoll and the others to get a glimpse of what excited her--namely, being the first to do something. At 16,000 feet, they decided to fly along with the mountain range for awhile, hoping to see a pass. After 200 miles due south with no passes in sight, she suggested they use oxygen and climb a bit higher.
Unfortunately, it became clear very quickly that something was wrong with the oxygen. It tasted overwhelmingly of oil and was extremely difficult to breathe. In a rage, Lexington ordered the plane back to the Lake camp for an early landing.
Meanwhile, Moore and Shaftoe had gone to the cairn for the Lake expedition; upset by the state of the bodies, Moore cried for awhile, they buried his friends, and then he went back to his cabin. After a little while there, Betsy and Rachel (who had already finished the manuscript) talked to him about it in the mess tent. This was going on when Acacia, back from her flight, burst in upon them in a fury. A fight quickly escalated to a shouting match, the usually calm Moore throwing bitter insults her way. In a huff, Lexington left; an irreparable rift had obviously occurred.
Eventually, Driscoll showed up and let the bewildered Moore know what had Lexington so angry. Our heros checked the oxygen, and found that out of the 50 tanks, only 10 were clear. The rest was welding oxygen; they decided it could be breathed if necessary. (A better alternative would be to ferry more clean oxygen from base camp, if available.) After discussing options a bit, the gang went to dinner. A sobering question was on the minds of all who had read the manuscripts-- if the "Shoggoths" and Pentaforms should not be awakened, how best to prevent others from following in their tracks?
After dinner, when Moore went to the radio tent, Lexington was already using it. A chilled silence between them, she finished up with her transmission and left the headset to Moore. After he finished his report, he relayed that weather at the base camp was extremely foggy; nothing would be able to land there for a few days. Starkweather, on the other hand, could arrive soon.
Rachel headed to the German camp after dinner, hoping to find more about the acquisition of the manuscript. Meyer allowed that while he had received the manuscript from Falkan, he did not know the exact circumstances of its acquisition. He said that he had attempted to confirm some details of the manuscript before, but could never find Lake's camp. Now, he mentioned, the existence of the city could be confirmed or denied--Acacia Lexington had offered the Germans 3 positions in her plane for exploration across the mountains.
Rachel allowed that perhaps more seats could be available on the Moore planes in exchange for clean oxygen. Pressing her luck, she then asked about the other documents mentioned in the manuscript. Obviously lying, Meyer answered that he "didn't know" or "couldn't say" if anyone in the German expedition either had them or knew about them.
That night, Shaftoe (who suffered from insomnia) wandered around and happened to catch the German B and C planes leaving, flying directly South. After they left, a large wind started and storm preparation was hastily carried out. The frightening storm (the first since arrival) lasted approximately 3 hours and was over.
The next morning, the Weddell left at 10AM to pick up Starkweather. Moore agreed with the investigators that some details of the manuscript (particularly the city) would be easy to verify or deny, and that they should hence prepare for a trip across the mountains. Over lunch, they decided to wait for Starkweather and take both planes across. Wallace was put in charge of preparations, and the group members were told to pack no more than 20 pounds of personal equipment each.
Rachel and Moore chatted a bit after the lunchtime discussion; she told him about her conversations with the Germans (and Meyer's shifty lies about documents mentioned in the Dyer manuscript). Moore wondered if the Germans had been lying to Lexington as well, and asked Rachel to find out.
When Rachel wandered over to the Lexington camp, she discovered that Lexington was already having a conference in the mess tents with a couple of the Germans; she waited patiently and gossiped with the always-amenable Hopewell. Eventually, Meyer and Uhr left, and Lexington invited Rachel into the mess tent to talk. After small-talk, they really began warming up to one another, and Rachel told Lexington about the existence of the Dyer manuscript (which Lexington hadn't heard of), the possible city over the mountains, and the worry that there was some life still over there. Lexington, touched at the sharing of information, wondered out loud with Rachel about what the Germans *hadn't* told either of them. They had asked Lexington for three days across the mountains, and she promised to "keep an eye on them" and report back to the Moore expedition via radio.
Back at Moore's camp, news arrived that Starkweather would show up around midnight and the group (composed of Dr. Green, our heroes, Starkweather, Moore, and Miles) could leave for the new territory at around 8AM.
When he arrived at midnight, Starkweather insisted that all men (and women) be woken up to listen to a "rousing" speech. The salient points were:
While the rest of the party went back to sleep, Shaftoe found himself still unable. At around 4:15AM, he picked up a signal from LaRoche at base camp, saying that the fog had lifted (and that the Lexington camp had reported this fact to the German expedition). Shaftoe had enough presence of mind to wake Starkweather up and tell him this, but neither of them had the presence of mind to realize it meant that the Germans were ferrying promised supplies to the Lexington camp. Thus, by the time the Starkweather/Moore planes took off at 9:10AM on the 4th of December, they beat Lexington's Belle by only 10 minutes.
- "We'll beat that little lady and the Germans across those mountains..."
- Guards should be posted to keep watch on stuff to prevent further sabotage.
- He wanted to take off by 8AM.
In the Enderby, de Witt, Miles, Dr. Green, Catherine, and Shaftoe were regaled by Starkweather's exuberant blustering the entire way. In the Weddell, Halpern, Driscoll, Betsy, Rachel, and Wallace were accompanied by Moore's thoughtful looks out the windows. After around an hour, radio communication between the two planes cut out completely. A pass was discovered less than one hour from the Lake camp; thanks to a suddenly strong tail wind, the planes thrust boldly through the openings.
Dyer-aware passengers were treated to immediate confirmation of the plane journey descriptions; they saw caves and such that Dyer described, including many clusters of them at higher altitudes. Little hope was left that the caverns and caves were natural occurrences.
[This was not readily apparent to other members of the expedition, but I include it here for completeness. Betsy became rather frightened when she realized that she could make out a tune in the piping wind sounds; it was faint, regal sounding, yet also off-chord and mocking. An unwholesome sound, it filled her with dread and foreboding. It seemed to her that a message was almost able to be heard through the music, just past consciousness.]
The pass only took 5 minutes to fly through; at 11:23AM, on the 4th of December 1933, they saw the city for the first time. As their gazes were pulled forward, they felt a slight tickle . . . . . and then it was gone.