Kraken Rising: Alex Hunter 6 Read Online Free PDF

could ever be. Everyone expected it would be her to become famous. But now he was here, and it would be him that would be remembered.
    Mile after mile below the Antarctic ice Zhang Li and his team had tunneled, first following the signatures from the satellite spectrometry and ground penetrating satellites, and then once locating the mineral traces, following them down to their lodes. Along the way there had been accidents, and there had been mysteries.
    He remembered one particular core sample: the drill-pipe had been withdrawn from two miles below the snow, ice, and rock, and its contents laid out on the plastic sheeting for examination. There had been silence for several minutes, as the scientists, geologists, and engineers had stared in confusion, their steaming breath rising around them.
    The previous core samples were laid out on tables like long rods of sparkling diamond – some green, some blue, some brilliant white, all displaying the varied and magnificent mineral colors that had accumulated miles below the Antarctic’s surface. But the new sample was different – the stone gave way to something else at the tip … something that bled.
    The flesh, if that’s what it was, was mottled green, and the liquid, the blood, that leaked from it, had a bluish tinge. But it was the eye-watering smell – ammonia, and near overpowering, that had chilled the men far more than the freezing temperature.
    “We hit something,” Zhang Li had said, wishing he could wipe at his streaming eyes, but the huge gloves made it impossible.
    Sho Zhen, their head geologist, and his only friend on the mission, frowned down at the congealed mass. He ran two fingers over the sticky sample. “Something alive.”
    Zhang Li saw the sudden alarm in his friend’s face. “ Pah .”  He stared at Sho. “More likely some sort of fossilized animal preserved in the ice.”
    “But, we were below the ice.” Sho Zhen looked up into his face.
    Zhang Li shook his head. “The Russians have been bringing up lumps of mammoth flesh from their frozen tundra for centuries.” He glared for several moments, until the man nodded. “We need to move the drill location, and then recommence.” He headed for the door. “See to it.”
    Zhang Li snorted as he remembered. They’d closed that drill location, stored the strange flesh, and then within a day, had forgotten about mysterious sample. It was of no consequence or interest to the mission.
    Zhang Li ground his teeth again as the mind-tearing sound of the huge circular rock cutter dragged him back to the moment. He pushed his hard hat back, wiped his brow and then squatted next to some dinner plate sized shards of stone, one in particular catching his eye. He turned it around, and frowned down at it. He then grabbed at the others, turning some over, sliding them closer and then rearranging them like a jigsaw.
    His eyebrows knitted. Millions of years ago, the area he was in was probably an ocean floor, and the soft mud had taken an impression. In the matrix he could make out a fossil imprint – a circle, nearly two feet wide, serrated at its edges, and in the center a hole. He placed one of his fingers into it, and it sunk in to the second knuckle.
    The thing reminded him of something he had glimpsed at the Beijing Maritime Museum – fighting scars on an ancient sperm whale hide. He couldn’t quite place it in his memory, and gave up. Zhang Li got to his feet. Like a window on a world long past, the ancient continent gave up its secrets to those it determined were worthy, but today, he was not to be one of them.
    The rock cutter made a high, screaming noise that made him wince. He had been part of the deep dig for years, and knew every pitch, clank, grind, or whisper that came from the huge boring tool, and this was the sound of the giant circular blades spinning in space.
    Voices yelled for a halt, and Zhang Li jogged down the tunnel. The air was still thick with floating dust that stuck to the skin,