The Triangle and The Mountain: A Bermuda Triangle Adventure (14 page)

The master sat at the fire until late asking questions of
his hosts. He wanted to know everything, including what the sickness looked
like in people, how they contracted it and how long they lived once they had contracted
it. While this was going on they were picking bits off a huge salted
snoek
fish – payment to the herders for their labour – until only the bare bones were
left. Salted
Snoek
fish was a favourite with the master but tonight he
did not seem to enjoy it. His mind seemed to be elsewhere.

***

“More toast?” asked Madeleine.

“Thanks, but no. This was nice.” Grant handed his plate
back.

“I’ll put the dirty plates in the sink for now,” said
Madeleine with emphasis, as she backed down the companionway, “for you to rinse
and stack in the dishwasher when you come down.”

“You’re very eager! But in fact, you are not taking over
yet,” said Grant. “I am coming down with you since we have a job below. We need
to secure the inside of the boat. We have too many things that fly around when
the going gets rough. We’ll work from stern to bow.”

Once they were done to Grant’s satisfaction he returned to
the cockpit. “I’m going to stay on the wheel for a little while longer,” he
said. “The waves are lower but we still have the odd ten footer coming our way.”

“You just don’t want to stack the dishes away,” said
Madeleine.

“That’s not true,” said Grant. “Why don’t you join me here
and we continue to solve the mystery of the Triangle?”

“Why are you so interested? We are not going into the
Triangle, are we?”

“Nope. As I showed you, we beat against the wind until we
get to that point on the map that we’ve decided on and then we reach back
without touching the Triangle.”

“What does it mean to reach again?” asked Madeleine.

 “Wind on the wing,” he said. “Put differently, we take the
wind at ninety degrees over the right hand side of the boat, more commonly
called the starboard side. It means fast sailing. The reasons why I’m
interested are purely those of the tourist. The Triangle is such a well-known
thing and here we are right next to it. It’s just natural to ask about it and you
seem to have it all on your fingertips. It is an opportunity that I cannot let
pass.”

“You can get crazy if you delve into it too deeply,” said
Madeleine.

“But you are still ok?”

“I am.”

“You hope.”

“Yes, I hope so. I’ve done my research but I’ve not taken it
too far. It’s never been an obsession.”

“Are there people who make it an obsession?”

“Oh, yes. There is my old science teacher.”

“Your
science
teacher! I suppose he shoots it all
down.”

“It is actually just the other way round. He is a believer
and too deeply into it.”

“That’s a bit unexpected.”

“Exactly. Isn’t it strange?”

“What is his take on it?”

“He uses the Triangle phenomena to teach Einstein’s relativity
theory.”

“What! Now that
does
sound batty! Were you in his
class?”

“Oh yes.”

“And you understood what it was all about?”

“Not at first. At the beginning I was the last in the class,
which is why he called me his slow electron.”

“That did not go down well?”

“No, but it helped me to understand some of it.”

“What did you understand?”

“E equals MC square.”

“What?”

“That is the formula for relativity theory. ‘E’ stands for
energy.”

“Oh, yes, I remember now. It’s been a while. I actually
studied that formula somewhere but what does it have to do with the Triangle?”

“According to my science teacher, everything.”

“How?”

“It’s like this. I told you earlier of the people who had disappeared.
But not everybody disappeared. Some people survived and we have their reports.”

“That sounds interesting. What do they say?”

“For starters, there are quite a number of common factors in
their stories.”

“Like what?”

“In all known cases the electronics go dead and the compass
starts spinning. The engines still function, though, although sometimes at a
slower pace.”

“How did they escape, then?”

“Before I get to that, there’s more. They all talk about a
grey mist, sometimes eggnog in colour.”

“Mists are common after storms. Also, the warm water of the
Gulf Stream will generate mist as it gets in contact with colder air on its way
to the north.”

“There are conditions when you expect mist and others when
mist or fog of any kind should be absent. We are talking mist when there was
not supposed to by any mist on the sea or even clouds in the sky.”

“Aha, and the history of the Avengers form part this body of
evidence, because they could not even see the sun. They must have been flying
in the mist.”

“Exactly. He would have called you one of the fast electrons
in his class.”

 “Tell me, does he actually believe in all of this?”

“He seems to have it down pat.”

“Well, continue then.”

“There is the story of this guy who flew in his plane from
the Bahamas to Miami. He thought he was in a very large cloud. Eventually he
saw a gap in it and he flew through the gap. When he got to Florida, he realised
that he had travelled much faster than he had thought. In fact, it was
impossible to travel so fast.”

“He had lost time?”

“Yes.”

“Has his story been verified?”

“He had two passengers with him in the plane. They had all
observed the same thing. Once they got out on the airfield in Miami, however, they
were so spooked that they did not say a word about it - not to each other, not
to anybody. Not for a long time. Then the pilot heard about other people who had
had similar strange experiences and he started making enquiries. That is how
their story became known.”

“What were the other cases that they compared their own
experiences to?”

“There was a pilot called Jenson who called in to say that
he was lost in a fog. Then they lost contact.  Eventually he made contact again.
He was still flying but his position was so far away that they could not
believe it. He did not have enough fuel in his tanks to have flown that far.”

“Did he come back?”

“No, he disappeared without a trace. There are several other
stories of aeroplanes. For instance, there was this Catalina. Again, there was
a whole crew on board, so it was not just one man’s story. The horizon
disappeared in a mist. Then the compass started spinning faster and faster.
They had a lot of instrumentation on board but all of it got into a funk. When
they checked, however, the power was still there. Everything had power but the
instruments were not working. After four hours of this they simply flew out of
it and then there was no sign of the mist. They had a printer on board that
printed current satellite pictures but the next picture showed no cloud
anywhere near them or in the area that they flew through. What had happened was
a total impossibility. 

“So the mist comes and goes?”

“Yes, but there is more to it than that. It appears to be
very localised. One day it happened to a ship that was towing a barge. All the
instruments showed funny readings or no reading at all and there was a cloud, but
this is the interesting part, because the cloud was only enveloping the barge,
not the ship that was pulling it. There was otherwise no mist on the sea, only
around the barge. This has led him to the conclusion that the grey cloud or mist
wraps around a particular vessel. It’s not a general mist. People in those vessels
were fooled into thinking that it was a widespread condition but it was not. A
grey mist attached itself to the ship or plane while elsewhere there was no
mist.”

“So the grey mist actually attacks a specific aeroplane or
ship?”

“Yes, it appears that way.”

“Has he got any theory as to what the grey mist is all about?”

“That is the point. He said it was no mist in the ordinary
sense. It was an electronic fog. To understand its effect we have to go into
Relativity Theory.”

***

The next morning the two sorcerers did not re-join the main
road to Cape Town. Instead, they headed over the grassy flank of Tygerberg Hill
directly toward the Atlantic Ocean which lay in front of them. Between them and
the ocean was another road, a busy one that led up the West Coast. As they
approached, they converged with an ox wagon that carried fresh produce for the
market in the city. A young boy was leading the procession with a leather strap
attached to a point between the first two oxen. An older
KhoiKhoi
sat
perched on the front of the wagon and levitated a long whip over the backs of
the animals, producing a sharp crack every now and then. A third man walked on
the side of the oxen, also carrying a whip. For all this activity, the wagon
moved no faster than a slow walking pace, the metal bands on the thin wheels
digging into the sand by the width of two hands. The driver wore a wide-brimmed
hat that once had distinct contours but now flopped over his shoulders in a way
that made both master and apprentice sniff with delight. He lifted a portion of
it and Hadah recognized an uncle.

“Your mother is waiting to see you,” he called.

“I will visit soon,” called Hadah. He grew up in a coastal
settlement not two hours’ walk away and he knew exactly where the load of
cabbages was from. They have practically arrived in his backyard now but the
older sorcerer was his master and he followed where he led, which was directly
to the sea.

The master stopped on the beach. “Look for pieces of ships,”
he said.

They headed in the direction of the town and examined every
piece of wood that was not the usual driftwood. There were quite a number of
pieces, especially old, crumbling ones higher up where the sand was dry. Hadah
pointed them out.

“There are pieces here from every part of a ship,” he said.
“We used to play with them when I was a child.”

“Of course,” said the master. “Ships were smashed to pieces
on the rocks over there just a few years ago and even others before them. Their
remains are here on these dunes where the high tide left them. Nobody else had
use of these broken things so they left them here for us.”

 They did not put entire planks in their bags but stepped
behind the dunes where they found handy rocks, which they used to pound their
finds to pieces. Of every plank they took only a sample.

“Take care,” said the master. “We only take pieces of the
Dutch ships, not of the fishing boats.”

They found straight planks, some bent planks, some painted,
some plain. There were also some strangely formed wooden things with wheels in
them and portions of sea chests and barrels. Everything got smashed and a piece
extracted. They even cut up an old rope. They marvelled at its thickness and
agreed that it could only have come from a very big ship.

When their bags were three quarters full they stopped.

“We’ll get some more on the way back,” said the master.

Hadah wanted to continue to the town but the master stopped
him. “No,” he said. “We will eat some shellfish first.”

“OK,” said Hadah and saw a chance to show off his superior
knowledge of the sea. He came from a tribe of beachcombers after all. “We will
have to wait for the low tide in order to get to the rocks with the food.”

“Then we wait,” said the master.

They found shade under some hardy bushes and propped
themselves up on their bags.

“Do you think we could have parts of the ships that went
down in the time of Aitsi-!uma?” asked Hadah.

“It is possible,” said the master.

“What happened on that day?”

“It was a big day,” said the master. “There were more than
thirty ships in the Bay. Then suddenly this violent storm came up. It was so
powerful that the ships’ anchors started slipping. The tall waves pushed them
out on the rocks where the sea beat them to pieces.  Many ships in the fleet
were destroyed. After the storm there were pieces of ships and cargo all along
the beaches. I am quite sure that we have some of those ships in our bags.”

“That must have been a good time for the people living
here.”

“They thought so, yes, but the Company had forestalled them.
They put soldiers all along the Bay. The soldiers put up gallows at certain
places. They had orders to catch anyone who set foot on the beach and hang him
right there. There were survivors from the ships lying in the shallow waves,
too weak to drag themselves up to dry land. Many of them died there because
nobody was allowed to help. Those are the laws of the Company. Cargo is more
important than people. I learnt something on that day.”

“But Aitsi-!uma was happy.”

“Aitsi-!uma was very happy. It was a very good day for our
business.”

CHAPTER NINE

“So we are into Relativity Theory now,” said Grant.

“That’s right.”

“Fine. I’ve been seven hours concentrating at the wheel and
I had a full breakfast. Nevertheless, go for it.”

“See if you can keep up. I did not stay at the bottom of the
class forever.”

“Try me.”

“The crux of Relativity Theory is that time can be slowed
down. That much you know, don’t you?”

“Vaguely, yes.”

“Do you remember what atoms consist of?”

“Electrons and neutrons. That much I do know.”

“Which is why I was called the slow electron. Electrons are
particles, small just like me, revolving around a core, called a proton.”

“Which would be just like you in relation to me.”

“You wish. Actually, matter like this,” and she patted the
fibreglass body of the cockpit,” is not solid at all, although it appears that
way.”

“Now you are losing me.”

“The appearance of solidity is provided by the speed with
which electrons circle a proton. They go around so fast that in a split
nanosecond of time they are everywhere around that neutron in a very
impenetrable way.”

“I hear you. Impenetrable.”

“Don’t get side-tracked. Now for the time aspect.”

“OK.”

“Different elements have different combinations of neutrons
and protons. What also differentiate them is that the speed of the electrons are
not the same for all elements.”

“So the time differs?”

“Not exactly. We are only talking speed here. But what makes
all these speeding, moving things exist together?”

“That must be time.”

“Exactly. See, you are not so bad. They are all connected on
a plane. And that plane is time. They can interrelate because they are all in
the same time.”

Grant screwed up his face. “Now how did your teacher, Mr...”

“Hall.”

“Mr Hall use the Triangle to explain it all to you?”

“I’m coming to that. He made us read up on all the survivor
stories, that is, stories of people who had typical Triangle experiences. I’ve
told you the stories about planes that flew from point A to point B much faster
than these planes could actually fly. There are many more stories of missing aeroplanes
in the Triangle that sent out maydays from positions where they could not be. Totally
impossible. Unless you apply Relativity Theory.”

“Which says?”

“Which goes like this. That electronic fog around the ships
and the aeroplanes was doing something. It was slowing the speed of all
electrons down, of all matter, in the same relative way.”

“And slowing down time.”

“Yes, for everything that was enveloped inside the mist.”

“It sounds contradictory. How does this make an aeroplane fly
faster?”

“The electronic mist retards the effect of the curvature of
space and time. As a result the future comes quicker. If you were flying from
point A to point B, it means that you will arrive at point B quicker than
usual.”

“I see.”

“Do you understand what I am saying?”

“No. Do you?”

“This is how I explain it to myself. Have you ever lost the
soap while showering?”

“I suppose so.”

“If you lose your soap on a tiled bathroom floor, what
happens to it?”

“It slides around.”

“As if there is no cohesion between the soap and the floor?”

“Yes.”

“That is exactly what happens. Because everything inside the
mist slows down, time slows down and cohesion is lost with the time of things
outside the cloud.”

“So it slips into another dimension?”

“No. Only the time changes.”

“Then why did they disappear, according to Mr Hall?”

“Mr Hall asked us to come up with an answer exactly for that
question. What we figured out is that if the grey mist slowed down all the
electrons to the point that they stopped, all matter inside of it would
collapse and simply disappear.”

“Like into a black hole?”

“Yes, like into a black hole. We had that same idea.”

“So the mist is actually sucking energy. The result is that
the plane or ship loses connection in time with what exists around it and
eventually disappears.”

“Unless it escapes before the final moment arrives.”

“That’s pretty scary. Where does your Mr Hall say the grey
mist comes from?”

“He thinks it is a vortex thing.”

“What does he mean by vortex thing?”

“It is something that swirls. His theory is that the
hurricanes that we have every year pack such power that they cause permanent
changes to currents of air. They become more than air, in fact swirling
electromagnetic fields that move around and attach themselves from time to time
to objects they come into contact with.”

“We are lightning proofed, so I guess we are safe.”

“Maybe that is the thing that attracts it.”

“How would you know?”

“I don’t.”

“And your Mr Hall, is he still around?”

“Yes, he is still teaching. Don’t tell me you want to go and
see him.”

“Why would that be such a bad thing?”

“He’s crazy.”

“Really. Just now you did not talk as if you thought he was
crazy.”

“He is beginning to get quite a reputation. Over the last
few years he has been experimenting with all kinds of weird things. He is forever
visiting a Canadian guy called Hutchison and now he is using some of the
Canadian’s techniques to try and replicate the Triangle effect in the school’s
laboratory. We are all waiting for the day that he makes some valuable school
property disappear or maybe even the whole school.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I’m serious. Many parents are now beginning to wonder if
they want their children to be exposed to him. If you want to see him you’d
better hurry up.”

“Actually, I think I’ve heard enough,” said Grant. “It was
very entertaining, thank you very much. And now I must go. The longer we talk
the clearer it becomes in my mind that there is a certain trade that I have to
make. I need half an hour in my office right now. You have the watch.”

As he stepped off the companionway Grants eyes fell on the
dirty dishes in the sink. After a moment’s hesitation he stacked the dirty
dishes where they belonged and started the sequence. He wondered what his spoilt
co-traveller was going to say when she finds out one day that perhaps only one
in a hundred yachts on the high seas had a dishwasher to start off with.

He thought his plan had worked perfectly.  He had broached
the subject of the Triangle as an intentional ploy to get her mind off the
embarrassing moments in the cabin, just in case she saw something. He had to
admit that the morning’s episode had rattled him. He had the weird feeling that
something outside of him was taking control of his body. It was the first time
in his life that something like that had happened to him and he found it
thoroughly disconcerting.

Perhaps it had something to do with being close to the Triangle,
he mused. Did Madeleine not say that there was ample evidence of people losing
control of their minds? It was enough to weird you out.

He placed himself on the executive chair in front of the
screens in his office. E equals MC square, he mused. It was a good one to
remember. You never knew who you could impress with it.  But now it was time
for the real world.

***

 Hadah proudly showed off more of his expertise to his
mentor. When low tide arrived, he applied the knowledge accumulated by
generations of
Goringhaikona
to find mussels and abalone where the
regular but more casual hunters in the rock pools have missed them. They ate a
portion of the mussels raw while they pounded the abalone until it was soft.
Then they cooked the balance of the mussels and the abalone in the clay jar
that had been jangling on Hadah’s side since they had left the Butter River
valley. Once they had a good meal and had rested a little bit, Hadah started
packing up. He wanted to get into the city, the sights and sounds of which he
had missed. The master, however, was in no hurry.

“We’ll sleep here tonight,” he said.

“I’d like to see the city,” said Hadah rather stubbornly.

“Tomorrow,” said the master.

They gathered up some of the salty brush for beds and
huddled around their little fire until sleep claimed them both. They were up at
first light and this time the master was in a hurry. The two left tracks on the
wet sand by the waterline as they passed fishermen’s shacks as well as the
whitewash-and-thatch dwellings of the well-to-do. The fishermen had beaten them
to it and they crossed furrows in the sand made by their boats where they
pulled them to the water, eager to catch the early sea-breeze. Out there on the
bay they noticed several small sails, waiting to be lighted up by the first
rays of the sun. They reached the castle with its cannons aimed toward the sea
just as the sun coloured Sea Mountain pink. Impassive lookouts on the walls
were scanning the horizon, spyglass in hand, even though there were posts
higher up on Lion’s Head doing the same.  

The two
KhoiKhoi
scurried past the castle, a hundred
feet below the watchers where all was still in shadow. Next came the harbour
and the jetty. There were sleeping forms in and around the smelly stalls of the
fishermen, evidence of the city’s vagrant problem. Bleary-eyed guards at the
company’s impressive warehouses stood at corners where they could get catch
some early sun. The master stopped for no-one and they marched on. Soon they approached
the commons, where draught oxen and other cattle were put out to graze. Here
the master left the beach.

Just then an unearthly bellow filled the morning air. They
stopped to listen.

“It’s not one of us,” said Hahah knowingly.

“Yes,” said the master. “I agree. That was a slave on the
rack. You can hear it from his voice, which is low and strong. Our kind cries
like hyenas.”

“Maybe it is a slave that ran away and was caught,” said
Hadah, thinking again of the three slaves they had met several weeks ago.

“Maybe,” said the master as another roar vibrated in the
space between the sea and Lion’s Head. “He is still strong. It will be another
two days, from the sound of it. The executioner just woke up and tightened the
screws. That is how he wakes up everybody else in the city.” The master seemed
to enjoy his little joke.

“It is a painful way to die,” said Hadah, who thought about
what it would be like if it was him.

“It is. I have known about slaves who crept into the place
of the executioner at night and slit the throats of their friends on the rack,
putting their own lives in danger.”

The two sorcerers crossed the commons, resisting the lure of
the breakfast fires that burned at the odd wagon and tent and headed up Lion’s
Hill. They could have been just like another pair of herders heading up the
mountain to round up their oxen for the trip back to the farm. Only, the master
had no interest in the cattle that they passed. They skirted the city and
eventually stopped at the stream that ran down into the town and provided it
and passing ships with water. They drank and rested.

“Do you see these flat rocks?” asked the master.

“Yes.”

“This is where the women come every day to wash clothes. Aitsi-!uma
came here a lot so she could hear all the news, like who was pregnant. She was
a very clever woman.”

“Did the women know who Aitsi-!uma was?” asked Hadah, for
whom the city and its surrounds was familiar territory. That included the place
of the washer women. Out of respect, however, he did not let on.

“A few might have had their suspicions but Aitsi-!uma found
it very easy to gain people’s trust. She was always friendly and appeared as if
she took a real interest in the people that she met. Also, as a young woman she
was very pretty so that people were attracted to her, even the ones who knew
her as a sorceress. It is as if I can see her even now, sitting on that rock over
there in the long coat that she always wore, talking to the washer women.”

“That is clever indeed,” said Hadah. “Some of them must have
been very surprised when they realised the truth afterwards.”

“They were. Many would have fainted if they realised whom
they were talking to, telling her everything about their lives. She was very
well known in these parts and widely feared.”

“But not by the Dutch?”

“No, but they got to know about her. They heard our
womenfolk talk about her and they gave her a Dutch name since they could not
pronounce her real name properly. They called her
Anke Sommers
and
amongst the slaves it became
Antjie Somers
. I’ve more than once heard
Dutch women call their children in the evening, telling them to come inside now
or
Anke Sommers
will catch them.”

“That’s funny,” laughed Hadah. “Did she find many babies
here for the spirit?”

“Many,” said the master. “We used to run the whole distance
to our mountain in one night with the babies, many, many times. She could
outrun ten horses in succession, this woman, until she was very old.”

“I’m running better now myself.”

“I know. And now we have to go. The women will be here just
now. There is a cave up here that I want to show you. That is where we live
when we visit Cape Town.”

***

After a period of intense concentration at the computer
Grant was disturbed by movement in the periphery of his vision. He whipped
around and saw Madeleine watching him from the door of his office.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, surprised. “Is
something wrong?”

“Why did you start so violently?” she asked. “It’s only me. You
take the Triangle stories seriously, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry. I did not expect you, that’s all. Nothing more.
Is there a problem?”

“Nope. I just had to use the toilet,” she said.