Chapter 1

It was late afternoon in the heart of Arabia’s Empty Quarter, and Arthur Vallentine, petroleum geologist, stood on the crest of a mammoth sand dune, staring southward into a rust-colored void. As far as he could see, the dune mountains stretched, sculpted by the wind into vast dollops of orange-ish whipped cream. He looked down at the salt flat that formed the bottom of the valley below – a sterile lake of gray, flat as poured concrete, shimmering in the heat. As the sun dipped toward the horizon, the colorless sky began to take on subtle hues of copper, as if mirroring the dunes. A slight wind picked up, and Vallentine buttoned his khaki jacket.

“There’s zero volcanism in this area, Art. So how do you explain this?”

Abdul Rahman Dossary, also a geologist, known to his friends as Dahoum, stood up and opened his hand, showing Vallentine three jagged pieces of glassy black rock.

“It’s obsidian, Art.”

“I know.”

“So there’s no obsidian in this part of Arabia.”

“There is now.”

“What do you make of it?”

Vallentine said nothing. He scanned the horizon. They were standing in the center of one of the world’s most stable geological zones. There was no evidence of volcanism stretching back 600 million years. Bedouins could have carried the rocks from the Red Sea area, where there were many lava flows. But he had a hunch this was not the case. The pieces of obsidian were not chipped by tools. They were just rocks. Bedouin only carried essentials. Why would they have brought these chunks of volcanic rock to the Empty Quarter?

“Here’s more!” Dossary shouted. He crouched in the sand and came up with more rocks, holding them over his head.

“They look like ejecta,” Dossary said. “They must have been thrown from an eruption. Somewhere around here. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no plate activity around here.”

Vallentine nodded. “It doesn’t fit with the known geological history of this part of the world.”

Dossary laughed. “Looks like we’ve got a major paper ahead of us.”

“Not so fast. Right now they’re just anomalies. We haven’t found evidence of a pyroclastic flow. We know there are no visible cones in this region….”

Dossary dropped the rocks into a plastic bag, and stuffed them into his knapsack. “Well, maybe the dunes have covered the evidence.”

“Well, if they did, it was long ago. These dune fields are pretty stable.”

“Maybe it has something to do with that strange seismic reading.”

“Could be.”

Dossary walked up to Vallentine and looked him in the eyes. The young Arab geologist was clearly excited by this find. It was his first field expedition, and he reminded Vallentine of himself twenty years ago, when he had helped nail down the evidence for the great Salimah oil field – a find that was now finally onstream, flowing a half million barrels a day of extra light crude.

“What do you think we’ve got here, Art?” Dossary asked, his own eyes wide.

“It’s too early to say, Dahoum. But I don’t think it has anything to do with oil or gas, and that’s why we’re out here.”

“Still, it might be geologically important!”

“It might.”

They picked up their bags and headed back to the fire-engine-red oil-company Hummer. Vallentine opened the cooler in back and took out two chilled bottles of spring water, handing one to his colleague. They drank deeply, then climbed into the vehicle. As Dossary was starting the engine, he looked ahead to the west and frowned.

“What the hell is that?”

Vallentine looked up. “Shit! Looks like storm clouds. That’s not possible.”

A vast, round black and silver cloud rose over the western horizon, apparently heading toward them. Behind it, the setting orange sun created a backdrop of fire. The cloud moved quickly, roiling silently. About ten miles off, it stopped, and began descending slowly. The two men stared, without saying a word. Static electricity set their hair crackling. The Hummer’s engine stuttered and stalled.

Soon the cloud settled on the land and seemed to drop between two dune ridges. It was gone.

The twilight air was hot, still and silent. The sunset bore no traces of the cloud’s passing.

Dossary turned to his companion: “Did you just see what I saw?”

“I think so. Damn, that was weird!”

“We should check it out, Art.”

“Now wait a minute, my friend – ”

“Let’s see if we can start the Hummer.”

Dossary turned the key and the engine roared to life. He looked at his colleague.

“It’s only a few hundred meters to that ridge. I think we should check it. Maybe it’s a volcanic episode!”

Art shook his head. That was no volcanic eruption. A strange lump seemed to be forming in his gut.

“Okay, Dahoum. It’s your call. I don’t think we’ll find anything…”

The Hummer spat sand and took off over the dunes, heading for the ridge where the cloud had vanished. The hot desert wind whipped their faces. The two men were silent as their vehicle climbed the last dune.

They reached the top just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Dossary slammed on the brakes.

The two men stared open-mouthed. Before them, stretching below in spreading shadow, was a great whirlpool of orange sand, some hundred meters across, churning slowly, sucking, like some vast drain. At the bottom of the vortex was a circle of utter blackness.

“Holy shit!” Vallentine cried. “Holy screaming shit! Back up, Dahoum! Back up!”

Dossary gasped, grabbed the stick shift with a sweaty hand, threw the Hummer into reverse. The huge wheels spun, spraying sand, but the vehicle nosed forward and downward as the edge of the ridge began to dissolve into the vortex.

Dossary gunned the engine frantically. The Hummer moved slowly, inexorably, into the spiraling stream of sand heading down into the immense funnel.

“Get out! Now!” Vallentine cried. He leaped out of the vehicle, landing hard on his stomach in the powdery, moving sand. He began scrabbling up the slope, trying to escape the silicon current. Dossary remained frozen in the Hummer.

Vallentine struggled for what seemed like an eternity, but he made no progress. The force of the vortex was too powerful. His muscles were ripped with pain. Down, down he spiraled, barely ten meters from the doomed Hummer. Gasping, he flopped onto his back, and stared up at the darkening sky. All around him, he could hear a moaning sound. He wondered if it was the roar of the whirlpool, or the wind, or something else. The sound of the desert jinn, he thought. Vallentine began laughing uncontrollably. He could hear Dossary, in the Hummer, softly weeping. Below, the black hole waited, like an immense, slavering mouth.
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