Atlantis: Devil's Sea (26 page)

Martsen shrugged. “I don’t know. Her world is so different from ours that it’s hard to make an accurate comparison. Just because they haven’t built cities doesn’t mean they aren’t as smart as us. Dolphins live in harmony with their environment, unlike humans. Sometimes I wonder when they made the shift from living on land to water.

“What do you mean?”

“I told you that they’re mammals. They developed on land, and then some time in the course of their evolution they went into the ocean.”

“That’s strange,” Dane said. “Why would they do that?”

‘Maybe to get away from us,” Martsen said.

“Why?”

“Because we’re their worst enemies. It’s amazing that Rachel even works with us.”

“How are we their worst enemies?”
“We kill them, Mr. Dane. By the millions. Commercial fishers set out thousands of kilometers of drift nets that catch everything in their path, including dolphins. It’s estimated over five million have been killed in the last ten years here in the Pacific alone. The Russians have practically wiped out the dolphin population of the Black Sea.”

“That’s present day,” Dane said. “That doesn’t explain millions of years ago.”

Martsen shrugged. “There’s more that we don’t’ know about dolphins than we do know. Sometimes I wish I could escape into the ocean.”

“You don’t like people much, do you?”

“I like people,” Martsen said defensively. “There are some doctors who used dolphins in therapy for cancer patients. I’ve gone with Rachel on some of those missions.”

“What?” Dane’s attention was back on Rachel, the eye closest peering up at him as she swam past.

“There are doctors who think that the dolphin’s echo-sounding ability can affect the brain.”

Now Martsen had his complete attention. “How?”

“No one’s quite sure. Some think the energy of the sound dolphins transmit can actually change cellular metabolism. There have been several documented cases of people with severe brain cancer going into remission after dolphin therapy.

“What do you think?” Dane asked.

“I think there’s a lot more to Rachel than she lets me know,” Martsen said. “Sometimes I think she’s the one trying to train me.”

Dane laughed. “When I take Chelsea for a walk back home following her with a pooper-scooper, I often think that if aliens were watching, they would think Chelsea the master and me her pet.”

Dane could hear Colonel Loomis calling for him, but he didn’t turn.
If dolphins could affect the brain
… Loomis called again, and a Klaxon sounded, followed by a loudspeaker ordering all personnel to clear the deck in preparation for diving.

“I have to go,” Dane said.

Martsen nodded. “Take care of Rachel.” She took the box off her belt. She pointed at a small LED screen. “You can scroll through and see what vocabulary I’ve got in there.”

“And what about understanding her?” Dane asked.

“ I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that.”

Dane turned. Loomis was standing on the left-side ramp of the Crab, waving at him. “You better get below,” he told Martsen.

“Good luck,” she said to Dane.

“This way,” Loomis pointed at the Crab in the right hangar.

Dane noticed that a long, torpedo-like object had been added on the front deck. “What’s that?”

“Nagoya’s plug.”

*****

The Learjet’s medical kit wasn’t designed for dealing with the type of trauma that Getty had suffered. The tourniquet had stopped the bleeding, but the man was till unconscious, slumped in one of the plush seats as the plane rolled toward takeoff position.

Miles was looking out the portholes. “I’m surprised the airfield hasn’t been shut down yet.”
“The Mafia is that powerful?” Ariana asked as she went through the meager contents of the kit.

“Capitalism at its worst,” Miles said. He finally relaxed and sat down as the plane rocketed down the runway and was airborne.

The best Ariana could do was give Getty an injection of antibiotics and morphine. She ordered the pilot to head for Berlin and to have an ambulance waiting for them.

“And after Berlin?” Miles asked.

That was a good question, Ariana realized. She now had eight skulls, but she had no clue where others might be, although she had people in her father’s employ making inquiries.

“I don’t’ know,” she finally said.

“The skull was that important?” Miles asked.

She could tell by the tone of his voice that he thought she was on some rich person’s lark, something he had probably seen often enough in his business. “It’s connected to the gates.”

“You said that earlier. How?”
“We don’t know exactly.”
“Important enough for my friend to lose his leg?”
“Probably not to him,” Ariana said.

“The Mafia thought you were more important than the skull.”
Miles didn’t’ say anything, and Ariana went over to the fax machine. A small pile of paper was on the tray, and she grabbed it and brought it back to her seat.

A report from Nagoya on his latest theories on the gates and what he was proposing to do with the Crab was the first thing that caught her attention. She quickly read it through, not completely understanding the physics but grasping the concept. She had never really considered that the tectonic activity might be more than just a destructive activity but instead, a by-product of the Shadow’s desire for energy. Humans had only stumbled on the theory of plate tectonics in the last thirty years, and much still wasn’t understood about the forces involved.

“We’re going to New York after Berlin,” she told Miles.

“What’s in New York?” Miles asked.

“There’s something I want to see.” She picked up the SATPhone to make the necessary arrangements for what she wanted.

*****

It had been christened Anak Krakatoa—Child of Krakatoa—in 1925 when its cone first peeked above the water. In 1950, a minor eruption raised the height to sixty meters above sea level. The next fifty years saw an additional thirty meters added.

The Shadow’s probing undid that in less than a minute. The main lava tube underneath Anak Krakatoa was a hundred meters wide and fed by the pressure of the molten mantel below. For years it had been blocked by the weight of a quarter mile of cooled rock above it in the caldera.

The probing changed that, hitting a crack in the plug, widening it. As if sensing the weakness, the lava wormed its way into the opening, expanding it. And then the plug blew.

The explosion was heard by those who lived on the south end of Sumatra and the north tip of Java. They knew what it was immediately and hurried for high ground, just beating the tsunami that struck their shores minutes later.

*****

“How much time before the entire rim goes?” Foreman asked Nagoya as the information about Anak Krakatoa’s eruption was relayed from various seismic stations to the control room in the FLIP.

“Hard to tell,” Nagoya answered. “Remember that the Shadow used nuclear weapons to induce what happened in Iceland. Now it’s using the power it’s tapped from Chernobyl. The only thing I can do is try to match the power levels.”
“And?” Foreman pressed impatiently.

“And I think we have twelve hours, with a twenty percent margin of error either way.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T
HE
P
AST

79 A.D.

The Pontus Euxinus stretched ahead of the galley as far as the eye could see. Since leaving the Hellesponte, Captain Fabatus had kept the shore in sight off the port side, creeping around the sea. Falco had always found sailors a curious contradiction. They claimed to love the water, yet they feared to stray out of sight of land. It had taken a direct order from General Cassius for Fabatus to take the plunge and take a north-northeast course across the Pontus Euxinus for three straight days, out of sight of land. As soon as he had spotted land directly ahead, Fabatus, and everyone else on board, had breathed a huge sigh of relief. Then he resumed his shore-hugging navigation to the east.

Standing in the bow, Falco could see the ship cutting through the water. He sensed Kaia coming up behind him, but his attention was below, on the gray forms leaping and splashing next to them.

“Good morning, priestess.”

“Good morning, soldier.” Kaia glanced over the thin railing. “We seem to be making good time.”
“After what happened in the Hellesponte, everyone, including the slaves, are most anxious to get us off the ship,” Falco said.

“I’m anxious to get off the ship also,” Kaia said.

“Do you see?” Falco pointed down at the dolphins.

“Yes.”

“Do you feel them?”
Kaia nodded. “They’ve been sending me dreams ever since we entered the sea.”

“What kind of dreams?” Falco asked.

“The past, the future, it’s hard to tell. Images.”

“You’re lying,” Falco said. “You know some of what you see, and you know what it means, buy you feel telling me will hurt me.”

“No,” Kaia said. “I fear telling you will change things. It is one thing the oracle taught me. She had to be very careful giving prophecies, because knowledge is a very dangerous thing.”

“How do they know what awaits us?” Falco asked, indicating the dolphins. “How do they reach us?”

“I do not know,” Kaia said.

“You’ve seen my death,” Falco said it simply. “You fear to tell me because you think it will scare me. You saw me in the arena. Do you think I fear death?”

“No. You seek death.”

“Then why do you not tell me what they have shown you?”

‘It is not time.”

Falco stared off to the north, falling silent.

“Do you know when we will arrive?” Kaia asked.

Falco pointed ahead and to the left, where a promontory of land poked into the sea. “Beyond that lie Varna where the XXV Legion is headquartered.”

“Which means I can open my follow-on orders.” General Cassius had come forward, dressed in his best armor, with a scarlet cloak pinned to the shoulders. In his hand was a scroll with the imperial seal. Falco would have opened it the minute he was outside the gates of Rome, but he knew better than to suggest such to Cassius, a man to whom honor was paramount.

Cassius slipped his dagger under the wax seal, parting it smoothly. He unrolled the scroll and read, eyes flicking back and forth as he went down the lines.

“As we already knew. Take command of the XXV Legion. Travel under the guidance of Kaia, priestess of the Oracle of Delphi, on a reconnaissance in force north of Bospora. Upon encountering any hostile forces, engage and destroy.”

“And what didn’t we know, sir?” Falco asked.

“Upon completion of that mission,” Cassius said slowly as he rolled the orders back up, “the XXV Legion is to continue its reconnaissance and march to the northeast until recalled by the emperor.”

“That’s insane,” Falco said without thinking.

Cassius smiled. “My old friend, I would have thought you had been in Rome long enough to know sanity has nothing to do with decrees of the emperor.”
“I don’t understand,” Kaia said.

Cassius peered at the land north of them as he spoke. “The legion we are meeting is not particularly loyal to the emperor. The emperor does not consider me particularly loyal, and he considers me dangerously popular with the Praetorians and legions. Falco, well, I would say he considers Falco just plain dangerous, probably the most accurate perception of the three. After we assist you, we are to march off into the unknown lands of Asia, awaiting the emperor’s recall, which, of course, will never come. It’s all perfectly logical if you look at it from the emperor’s point of view.”

“I say we—” Falco began but Cassius raised a hand.

“Hush, old friend. There are ears everywhere; ears that will return to Rome.”

Falco noted that Fabatus had drifted close to them, even as the ship cleared the point and headed in toward a harbor, above which a wooden fort in the traditional Roman style was built on a hill.

“Besides,” Cassius said, “we should take things one step at a time. Worrying about these orders” – he tapped the scroll—“is premature. We must first accomplish the first mission assigned.”

*****

The imperial galley was a mile offshore of Herculaneum, or rather where the port city to Pompeii had once been. Now there was only mud and ash where once had been a town.

“Any survivors from Pompeii?” Titus asked Thyestes as he surveyed the damage.

“None, Emperor.”

“Herculaneum?” he asked, referring to the port city that had serviced Pompeii.

“Some sailors who were offshore when the town was covered survived.

Not an auspicious start to his reign, Titus thought.

“There was a report of another similar event,” Thyestes said. “Another volcano erupting.

Titus turned toward his advisor. “Where and when?”

“The island of Thera. Five days ago. And I have been told that the imperial courier ship carrying Cassius was offshore when it occurred.”

“Did they survive?”

“Yes, Emperor. A galley spotted them in the Cyclades, heading toward the Hellesponte.”

A week ago Titus would have preferred to hear no to that question, but seeing the destruction that had come from Vesuvius, he was relieved to hear that Cassius had survived and was continuing on his mission with the strange priestess from Delphi.

“There are reports of trembles in the Earth arriving daily from all over the empire,” Thyestes continued. “From Hesperia, Gaul, even Britain. Also from our provinces in Africa. There has been some destruction in Egypt caused by the Earth moving. A temple dedicated to your father was destroyed.”

Bad omens all around
, Titus thought. He had never been a fervent believer in the various gods, but after seeing the way the Jews fought against his legions in Palestine, he had realized there was a power greater than that of the sword. Even though Jerusalem had been razed, the temple destroyed, and hundreds of thousands put to death, there was still a small band clinging to a rock called Masada in the middle of the desert. Titus knew he would have to deal with that among the many other issues facing his empire.

“Thyestes, perhaps we were hasty with our orders to Cassius.”

Thyestes remained quiet, waiting for his emperor’s thought to be played out.