Devil's Sea

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Loomis was seated in the pilot’s seat, Colonel Shashenka in the copilot’s with a link to the gun turret and targeting screens in front of him. Dane and Ahana were behind them, watching over their shoulders at the video monitors that showed what was outside. They were still on the deck of the Grayback, but it was submerging, and they could see the ocean wash over the gray metal in front of the Crab. Soon the water reached the Crab and began climbing up its side until they were submerged, going down with the submarine.

“Releasing umbilicals and locks to the Grayback,” Loomis announced. He flipped a switch, and the Crab shuddered. “We’re on our own.”

With one hand, Loomis pushed forward on the throttle while with the other he turned them toward the north. “Under way,” he said.

“How long until we reach the gate?” Dane asked.

“Five minutes until hold position,” Loomis answered. “We’re going to stand off at one kilometer and wait until Professor Nagoya opens our doorway.”

Dane glanced at a monitor above and to the right. It showed the view the camera strapped to Rachel’s back. The Crab appeared briefly as Rachel turned toward them, then an empty ocean view as she turned on a parallel course, indicated by the small red symbol on the master display set in the console between Loomis and Shashenka. The Russian’s hand was on the butt of the pistol in the holster attached to his belt, an unconscious gesture that Dane knew indicated the man’s feelings.

Dane could feel the darkness of the gate looming ahead.

Nagoya was surprised to see that his hands were shaking. All the years he had spent theorizing and studying the gates had not prepared him for this moment, when he would actually attempt to open one. He sat in front of the computer, in what was normally Ahana’s position, staring at the screen, trying to hide his trembling hands from Foreman, who was seated next to him.

“We still have a fix on both probes,” Nagoya said.

“The Crab is in position.” Foreman had a laptop open on his lap, the data from the Crab and Rachel being relayed to him via satellite link.

Beneath their feet, the FLIP extended over two hundred meters into the ocean, ending at the muon receiver that Nagoya had rigged to also project.

“Everything is ready,” Nagoya said. He had only a hope that this theory would work, a most unsettling feeling for a scientist. He was used to proving a theory with experimentation before committing himself to it, but here he was not only putting his reputation on the line but the lives of the people in the Crab and beyond that, the fate of the planet.

“Muonic activity?” Foreman asked.

“Nothing unusual.”

“Do it.”

Nagoya hit the Enter key, and the program began running.

From the bulb on the bottom of the FLIP, a stream of muons began flowing in the direction of the first probe.

We’ve got a path,” Ahana said. Her screen showed a red line across their position and cutting into the dark triangle in front of them. “Follow it,” she told Loomis as she superimposed it on his video display.

The craft began moving, following the line of muons.

Dane’s hands grabbed the arms of his seat, and a line of sweat trickled down his forehead. His temples throbbed as they approached the gate. In the midst of all that pain, though, he could sense Rachel alongside, swimming less than ten feet off their starboard side. Her presence was like a light in the darkness that threatened to overwhelm him. He would have thought it would get easier, this third trip into the gate, but this was the worst.

“One hundred meters to the gate,” Ahana announced. “All electromagnetic systems to minimum.”

The lights inside dimmed, and only three screens glowed: the forward video, Ahana’s computer, and the feed from Rachel. But Dane saw more than that. The gate was a presence, the limits of which he could feel. And he could also see the line of muons that the FLIP was projecting, punching into that darkness.

“Fifty meters,” Ahana said.

“A little to the right,” Dane said.

The pilot glanced over his shoulder, but Dane’s eyes were closed.

“Do it,” Ahana ordered. She looked at her screen. “Ten meters. Eight. Six. Four, Two. Contact.”

Dane felt the entry into the gate like hitting a pool splayed out from the high jump. His entire body jerked, spasmed, then he forced himself to focus. Rachel was in front of them now.

“We’re in the gate,” Ahana said. “I’ve lost the line to the portal!”

“I see it,” Dane said, eyes still closed. “Steady as we’re going.”

“We’ve got the Chernobyl probe,” Nagoya said. Foreman had lost the feed from the Crab as soon as it entered the gate. Whether that was from the gate’s effect or the craft’s power-down, he didn’t know. He was behind Nagoya now, watching.

“Linking power,” Nagoya said as the program went to the next phase. The muon line that had been going from the FLIP to the first probe now made another jump to the Chernobyl probe.

“There’s the portal,” Nagoya tapped the screen. “I’m boosting power.

“Rachel has the portal located,” Dane said. “She’s on the muonic trace Nagoya is projecting.” The dolphin was in front of them, swimming slowly, allowing them to keep pace.

“How far ahead?” Loomis asked.

“I can’t tell distance,” Dane said. “All I know is that we’re closing on it.”

“We need to stop just short of it,” Loomis said.

From what Dane was picking up from Rachel, the portal was a sphere space in the center of the gate. The dolphin was getting echoes back from it and other objects in the water, none close so far.

“There are other things out there,” Dane said.

“What things?” Ahana asked.

“Living things.” Dane remembered the krakens that had attacked the Glomar. Rachel was swimming faster, sensing the other objects. “Pick up speed,” Dane told Loomis.

Something was closing on them from the right, swimming fast. Dane could sense Rachel’s fear, but still the dolphin led them toward the portal.

Dane had been watching Loomis pilot the Crab. The controls were simple: a wheel that when rotated turned them left and right, when pressed in, they dove, and when pulled back, they went up. A throttle, much like an airplane’s, controlled their speed.

“Move,” Dane said, tapping Loomis on the shoulder.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the colonel demanded.

“You’re flying blind,” Dane said. “I’ll get us there.”

Loomis reluctantly gave up his seat, and Dane took his place. He closed his eyes and saw what Rachel saw: the image of the portal directly ahead, a creature coming from the right. Rachel turned, putting herself between them and the creature, which appeared in the dark water: a kraken a hundred meters away and closing fast, tentacles trailing as it sucked in water through vents on the side of its head and expelled it.

“No,” Dane whispered as he turned the wheel. “Behind us.”

“Who are you talking to?” Loomis demanded.

Dane didn’t even hear him. Rachel did as he asked, putting the Crab between her and the kraken.

“Brace for impact,” Dane announced.

“Impact with what?” Loomis asked with alarm.

Dane reached down and shoved the throttle to maximum speed. The blunt nose of the Crab hit the kraken in the head, the collision sending a shudder through the craft. Dane spun the wheel, putting them back on course for the portal as the creature drifted, stunned by the impact. Rachel raced out in front again.

“What was that?”

Dane was getting tired of listening to Loomis. “The portal is about two hundred meters ahead,” he announced as he throttled back. There were other kraken about, several coming closer to investigate. Dane estimated they had about a minute.

“I’m launching the plug,” Ahana said.

“We don’t’ have much time,” Dane said. The Crab was slowing. “The portal is a hundred fifty meters ahead.”

“The plug is on its way,” Ahana said.

Dane could see the torpedo moving through the water as Rachel moved out of its way. He could also see the portal now, a black circle directly ahead of them. The torpedo hit the black and stopped, prevented from going in.

“It’s there.” Dane said.

Ahana reached forward and threw a switch. “Let’s hope this works.”

The nose of the torpedo opened, and a two-inch-diameter probe appeared. The core of the probe was radioactive, emitting a weak nuclear force. It extended forward and passed into the portal.

“We’ve got power!” Nagoya slapped his palm on the side of his chair. “The plug is working. We’re drawing power from the portal.” He hit the Enter key on his computer. “Redirecting power back to the portal and opening it.”

“Twenty seconds,” Dane said. A half-dozen kraken were racing toward them. Rachel was close by the nose of the Crab, her fear soaking into Dane.

“If it worked, we should be able to go in,” Ahana said.

“If it worked,” Dane repeated, but he was already accelerating. Through Rachel, he could see the probe against the portal, but there was no apparent change.

“Brace for impact,” Dane announced once more.

He throttled back just before they hit the portal, but there was no impact as the crab, Rachel alongside, went into the portal. The Crab was suddenly jarred as one of the kraken grabbed the turret, but then the portal they had opened shut behind them, slicing the arm off.

They were in.

Ariana blocked her eyes to protect them from the debris blown up by the helicopter as it came in for a landing in Central Park. She was off as soon as they were on the ground, Miles right behind her. A man waited next to a car, and he whisked them to the Rose Center where the master programmer for the Hayden Planetarium, Professor Mike O’Shaughnessy, waited for them, just inside the large glass block that contained the projection sphere.

As soon as introductions were made, he took them inside the sphere. The interior was dimly lit by thousands of projected stars on the half dome above their head.

“Your request was most unusual,” O’Shaughnessy told Ariana as he led them into the exact center where a control panel was located. “We’ve always projected something from the sky. No one has ever thought of projecting from inside the Earth to the surface.”

“Were you able to do it? And use the data I sent you?” Ariana was too excited to sit down. Since leaving Berlin, she had pored through the data forwarded by Nagoya and set it onward to O’Shaughnessy to be programmed.

“Oh, yes,” O’Shaughnessy said. “I had to contract quite a few experts over the last several hours, particularly those who know about plate tectonics. It’s really most fascinating — and frightening, given the data on the Shadow’s manic probing that you forwarded to me. I took into account what happened off the coast of Chile and the eruption of Anak Krakatoa.” He reached down and typed on the keyboard. The enclosure went dark for a second, then lit up with a projection of the Pacific Rim.

“We’re looking from the center of the Earth outward, to the surface of the planet,” O’Shaughnessy said. “Here are the landmasses.” The outline of the continents bordering the Pacific appeared in green. “Here’s the Ring of Fire.” That appeared in purple, roughly following the landmass edges.

“The Antarctica plate is more interesting,” O’Shaughnessy said, pointing to one edge of the projection. “It is now relatively stable but is connected with numerous plates to the north all around. Watch.”

He used the computer mouse to rotate the entire image above their heads, and the world turned. Ariana could see what he meant, as the southernmost plate touched numerous others.

“Einstein had a theory called the crustal displacement, where he thought there was a good possibility that Antarctica was actually Atlantis,” O’Shaughnessy said.

Ariana had heard this before, but she kept quiet and listened, knowing there was a good chance she would hear something new.

“The entire plate that now makes up Antarctica might have been located — according to Einstein — here in the middle of the North Atlantic. A traumatic event, perhaps the Shadow manipulating the plates themselves, might have broken it free from this tenuous connection to the planet below, and it literally drifted over the course of thousands of years to its current location.

“It’s interesting to note that it is only very recently,” O’Shaughnessy continued, “that we have an idea of the actual outline of the continent that is hidden below the ice. It is estimated that if the ice was removed from Antarctica, the removal of all that weight would allow the land below to rise over two miles. The rift around Antarctica extends for over nineteen hundred miles, comparable to the Great Rift Valley in Africa.”

O’Shaughnessy moved the mouse again, and they went back to the view of the half of the planet centered on the Pacific. “In red is the current status of the muonic probing as you forwarded it to me.”

The red covered the entire Ring of Fire with larger, more concentrated splotches near Mounts Wrangell and Erebus.

“When I do the stars,” O’Shaughnessy continues, “there’s a technique I used called progression. What I can do is show how the sky looked in the past, rotating the star fields, or even how it will look in the future. In this case, I’ve progressed the muonic probing into the future, adding power to it.”

The read began to change to crimson as O’Shaughnessy had the computer work forward. Ariana could see it now, what had only been numbers on paper or flat, two-dimensional pictures. Erebus was the key, she realized not Wrangell. It would be the start point when the Shadow began whatever it had planned for the Ring of Fire. It could also be the junction point for the Shadow to extend the destruction to other plates in other parts of the world.

“Can you project what would happen if activity at Erebus is stopped?” she asked.

O’Shaughnessy nodded and sat at the keyboard, typing furiously for almost a minute. “All right. I’m going back to present levels. And projecting…” he hit the Enter key.

It fell apart. Ariana could see it. Wrangell still was affected, but the red lines all along the Ring of Fire gradually faded. She jumped to her feet.

“What are you doing?” Miles asked.

“Thank you, Professor,” she said as she headed for the door, pulling her SATPhone out of her pocket.

“Where are we going?” Miles persisted as they left the planetarium.

“Antarctica. McMurdo Station.” From a previous trip, she knew the research base stood in the shadow of Erebus.

“The Learjet can’t land there,” Miles said. “The landing strip is ice and snow.”

“I’ll get us a plane.” She dialed Foreman’s number.