Deep Fathom (47 page)

Something inside listened and compensated, tuning away the interference.

However, these raindrops were but the first trickle of a coming flood. Overhead, past the orbit of the moon, the true storm rushed toward Earth, a raging gale of wild energy and particles, plunging through the vacuum of space at 1.8 million miles per hour.

Oblivious to the threat, the satellite finished its cascade. The chemical laser fed energy in microbursts to the particle-beam generator. Power levels rose exponentially, building to thresholds that could only be sustained by a whirling pair of electromagnets. Its shielded central processor registered the escalation, making one final adjustment, locking on a signal far below.

Power screamed between whirling magnets, seeking a way out.

At last a switch was opened—energy pulsed out in a narrow beam of neutrons, ripping through the atmosphere, striking the sea below and passing through the waters as easily as it had the air. Fed from space, the beam raced into the midnight depths of the ocean, where even the light of the sun could not penetrate.

Karen stood, face pressed to the cold window. Beyond the weak light of the portholes, she searched for some sign of Jack, but could see nothing.

A starless midnight.

Then, in a blinding flash, the crystal pillar burst with radiance.

Karen gasped, blinded. She closed her eyes, covering her face with an arm, but the pillar still shone, the image burned into her retina. She stumbled back, tears running down her face. It took several seconds before she could even open her eyes. When she did, each porthole shone with such brilliance that it seemed the sun itself had descended atop the sea base.

“My God!”

Shielding her eyes, she moved to one of the ports, trying to see outside. Nothing was visible. Not Jack, not the seabed beyond. The world was just light. “Jack…”

Lisa continued to stand near the bow rail with George and Robert.

The old historian sighed out a long stream of smoke, seemingly unperturbed by the missile aiming across the sky toward them. By now its fiery tail was easy to see.

Lisa reached out and took George's hand. He squeezed her fingers in his grip. “Don't worry,” he whispered, suddenly fatherly, his eyes on the sky.

As they watched together, the missile seemed to freeze in place, hanging as if caught in amber. Lisa stared, mouth hanging open. Surely it was an optical illusion.

One second…then another and another passed.

It still refused to move.

Robert spoke up, drawing her attention away from the strange sky. He was bent over the steel rail, looking down. He turned to them, taking off his headphones. “Guys…where's the ocean?”

“What do you mean?” Lisa and George joined the young marine biologist. She stared past the rail and gasped.

Beyond the keel there was no water. The ship was floating in midair, rocking gently on invisible waves.

Lisa bent over the rail. Far below, a fierce light shone. She looked around, turning. Inside a hundred-yard perimeter of the ship the sea was gone. Beyond this circle, the ocean was as normal as any day. It was as if the
Deep Fathom
were floating over a deep well in the ocean.

Only this well had a sun at the bottom of it.

“Look at the sky!” George called out.

Lisa tore her eyes from the wonders below to see something even more amazing overhead. In the sky, the small missile, once hanging in place, began to slide back down its
smoke trail, as if it were retreating.

“What is going on?” she asked.

Jack stood with his arms blocking his helmet ports. He huddled against the light, mouth open in a silent scream. The power surging inches from his back vibrated his armor shell. His skin was flushed, hairs tingling. He felt the energy down to his bones.
God
…!

Before his sanity was burned away in the brightness, he sensed a change in the timbre of the energy. The light softened.

He lowered his arm.

Rather than blinding, the radiance from the pillar had become a silvery wash through the dark waters. The seamounts, the research station, the lava pillars, were all limned in stark relief, etched in silver, becoming mirrors themselves in the strange light.

A voice whispered in his ear, hopeless, scared. “Jack…”

As he stared, knowing death lay moments away, he spotted movement from the corner of his eye. He turned, searching out the helmet ports.

Then he saw them!

Reflected in the silvery surfaces of the nearby sea cliffs, he watched images of men and women kneeling, arms raised to the heavens. More gathered behind. Throngs of robed and cloaked figures, some with elaborate headdresses of feathers and jewels, others bearing platters laden with fruits, or leading sheep and pigs on leather tethers.

“My God,” he whispered.

Searching around, he saw similar images in all the mirrored surfaces: warped figures moving across the curved skin of the sea base, fractured images on the broken wall of lava pillars, even on a nearby boulder, the reflection of a tall man, kneeling with his face to the ground.

It was as if the silvery surfaces had become a magical looking glass to another world.

“Jack, if you're out there, answer me!” It was Karen.

Jack's voice filled with wonder, his fear fading. “Can you see them?”

The kneeling figure lifted his face. He was bearded, with piercing eyes, and strong limbs. He stood and stepped from the mirrored boulder.

Jack gasped, backing and bumping into the pillar behind him. All around him the procession of people moved forward, leaving their reflected surfaces. He now heard distant voices, echoing songs, chanting.

The figure from the boulder lifted his arms high, a shout of joy on his lips.

Jack found his gaze drawn upward. There was no ocean, only sky. A bright sun hung above, eclipsed by the moon. Glancing back down, he saw hazy mountains in the distance and dense forests. Yet, strangely at the same time, he could still sense the ocean, the sea base, the cliffs….

He suddenly understood. These were the ancient ones, the people of the lost continent. He was glimpsing their world.

Karen whispered in his ear, barely audible past the growing songs and chants. “I…I see people around you, Jack.”

It wasn't just him! Jack stepped forward to view the wonder better. As he did so, the tall bearded man crashed to his knees, a look of rapture on his face. He was staring right at Jack.

“I think they can see me, too!” he said, astounded.

“Who are they?”

Jack stopped and raised an arm. All around the ghostly clearing, men and women fell in postures of worship and prostration. “They're your ancients. The ones you've been looking for all these years. We're seeing back into their world through some strange warp. And they're in turn seeing into ours.”

The kneeling man, some sort of leader or shaman, called loudly. Though the words were unintelligible, he was clearly pleading.

Jack had an idea. “Karen, are we still patched through to the
Fathom
?”

“Yes.”

“Can you feed what this man is saying up to Gabriel? Can he translate?”

“I'll try.”

There was a long pause. Jack gazed around in amazement.

Finally, a familiarly tinny voice, scratchy with distance, spoke in his ear.

“I will attempt to translate…but I have only begun to attach phonetics to the ancient language.”

“Do your best, Gabriel.”

Charlie spoke up. “You'll have to hurry. We're escalating to the peak pulse frequency in thirty-two seconds.”

The man at Jack's feet continued to speak. Gabriel's translation overlapped. “Our need is great, spirit of the pillar, oh god of the sun. What message do you bring us that the land shakes and cracks with fire?”

For the first time Jack noticed the ground was trembling underfoot. At that moment, he realized not only
where
he was, but
when
!

He stood at the dawn of this continent's devastation.

Jack also grasped his own role here. He remembered the platinum diary's story:
The god of light stepped from his pillar
….

Outfitted in his armored suit, basked by brilliance, he
was
that god.

Knowing his duty, Jack stepped forward and raised both arms. “Flee!” he yelled as Gabriel translated, his words echoing out to those gathered. “A time of darkness is upon you! A time of hardship! The waters of the sea will claim your homelands and drown them away. You must be prepared!”

Jack saw the shocked look on the other's face. The man had understood.

Charlie yelled through the speakers. “Get ready for the final pulse!”

The view of the lost continent began to flicker.

Hurrying, Jack stepped forward. “Build great ships!” he
ordered. “Gather your flocks and fill the ships' bellies with food from the fields! Save your people!”

The shaman bowed his head. “Your humble servant, Horon-ko, hears and will obey.”

A shocked gasp arose from the radio.
“Horon-ko,”
Karen said. “The one who wrote the diary…the bones in the coffin.”

Jack nodded, staring down at the man. Their shared stories had come full circle. As he stood, the images sank back into the mirrored reflections.

“Here it comes!” Charlie screamed.

Jack braced, tense, waiting for the coming explosion.

But it never arrived—instead, the brightness simply blinked away like a candle snuffed.

Jack straightened. After the intense light, the midnight seas were especially dark. The glow from the base's portholes appeared anemic and wan.

Karen yelled, fear in her voice. “Jack!”

“I'm still here.”

She sighed with relief, then Charlie interrupted. “What about the pillar?”

Jack spun with his thrusters, thumbing on his suit's lamps. His lights spread far in the darkness.

Nothing.

The crystal pillar was gone. All that remained were bits and chunks scattered across the dark seabed floor, glowing in his beams like a sprinkle of stars. He moved forward, stepping among the shining constellations.

“Jack?” Charlie whispered.

“We did it. The pillar's destroyed.”

Charlie whooped with joy.

Jack frowned. Charlie's happiness was hard to share. The world was saved, but what about them? “The tactical nuclear strike?” Jack asked. “Spangler's revenge. When's it due to hit?”

“I wouldn't worry about that,
mon
.”

Charlie sat in the pilothouse, radio pressed to his lips. “Jack, you missed the eclipse the last time. You might want to get back up here so you don't miss it a second time.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Charlie grinned at Jack's consternation. He couldn't resist stringing his captain along. His heart was too full of amazement and joy. He stood and stared out the wide window. The others were all gathered on deck, pointing up.

In the clear sky, a black sun shone down, casting the ocean in platinum.

Charlie checked his wristwatch. A little after twelve o'clock. He glanced back at the sun. It was low in the sky, too low.

Shaking his head in wonder, Charlie glanced to the satellite navigation system. Its clock and date were constantly updated with a feed from a dozen satellites in geosynchronous orbit. He stared at the digital time and date stamp. He had confirmed the anomalous results with the local weather band, too.

 

Tuesday, July 24

01:45
P.M.

 

“Goddamn it, Charlie, what are you talking about?”

Charlie sighed, letting Jack off the hook. “We ran into a little anomaly, Jack. Like I said before, I'm no expert on this new science of ‘dark energy.' ”

“Yeah, so? What happened?”

“Well, when we bombarded the pillar, the dark energy behaved as I had hoped—radiating straight back out, rather than down. But it had a side effect I hadn't anticipated.”

“What?”

“Rather than stirring up the magma, the dark energy spike triggered a massive global time flux,
resetting
the Earth's battery to the moment when the dark matter had
last
been excited. Back to the solar storm two weeks ago. Back
to the day of the eclipse.”

Jack's voice was incredulous. “What the hell are you saying? That we've traveled back in time?”

“Not us, the
world
. Except for our local pocket here, the rest of the planet slipped back sixteen days.”

In the docking bay of the research station, Karen helped Jack out of his bulky suit. She had listened in on the geologist's conversation with Jack.

A global time flux
.

It was too wild to comprehend right now. All her mind could grasp was that they had survived. The pillar was gone. The world was safe. The mysteries of Einsteinian anomalies, dark matter, and dark energy would have to wait.

Jack groaned, climbing out of the unhinged armored suit.

Karen held his arm, assisting him. Here was what she understood:
flesh and blood
. Jack had survived and returned to her as he had promised.

As he stumbled free, he straightened with a large smile. “We did it.”

Karen opened her mouth to congratulate him—then their eyes met. She realized words were too weak to convey her true feelings. Instead, she threw her arms around his neck, knocking and pinning him back against the heavy suit.

Before either of them knew it, their lips sought each other out.

Karen kissed him hard, as if proving him no ghost. He pulled her closer. His lips moved from her mouth to her throat. The heat of his touch was electric, a dark energy of his own. She gasped his name, winding her fingers through his hair, tangling and twisting, refusing to let him go.