Lion, Tiger, Bear [ 345 Maybe.. .fifty kilometers depth, but its a wild guess. After several hours of Bernie and Shafers attempts at deciphering symbols, Bea said: Were leveling out. I see something ahead. Im killing the forward lights. A tiny green dot could be seen in a sea of blackness. Now, what in the world is… that? asked Alice. , Bernie sat anxiously. Whatever it is, its getting bigger. Ten minutes went by as the dot became wider and wider. Im slowing to fifty, said Bea. Shafer stood from his seat. Its a…cavern. As the ship passed into the huge void, Bea slowed. All stop.Then reversed the twin airscrews. Lets hover a bit. Alice.. .kill all the non-navigation lights, said Bernie as he beheld an awesome sight. It was a roughly spherical cavern with water below. Look at the mist in the distance. Must be five, no, six kilometers in diameter, I can barely see the other side. Tunnels go in every direction. One of the tunnels was a waterfall, disgorging a flow a thousand meters long; another tunnel glowed bright with plants and trees. I count around.. .mmm, forty-eight tunnels. Fifty, breathed Gerlach with emotion, overwhelmed with the possibilities of a honeycombed Earth. Countless caverns await, many civilizations. The Vril people were right. Shafer walked down the three steps to the forward windows. It is entirely lit green with bio-luminescence of some kind, Ive seen it before in a deep cave in the Yucatan. The ancients called it Lightstone.Most interesting. Porsche and Gwafa arrived. Unbelievable, muttered Porsche. Jules Verne was right in his book He must have known. Indeed, and so was Bulwar-Lytton when he wrote The Coming Race. The underground world is as real as he imagined it was, said Gerlach with conviction. Just wait till we hand in reports to the Thule and Vril department chairmen. Wheres Baumann? Alice pointed to the blood trail that lead to the forward hatch and shook her head. Gott, muttered Gerlach, looking to Porsche. I would ask you, Bernard, where we are, but I imagine you are not too sure, whispered Gwafa. No Im not. Jesus, your hands. He felt the calluses and blisters. A life in the mines is not for the faint. I will endure.