He shrugged. “We do not know, but our initial tests show they can help us.”
“And what if you’re wrong? What if this liquid you’re planning to use has side effects?”
Palin’s expression grew inquisitive. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a simple question. What if what you’re planning to use this for, ends differently than you expect?”
“We have little to lose, DeeAnn Draper.”
“Why do you think it’s here?” she asked again.
This time Palin looked at her with deepening curiosity.
“Tell me something,” she said. “Where did the two meteor impacts occur on your planet?”
Palin locked eyes with Ronin, this time causing the soldier to lower his gaze.
“Ronin said something interesting,” she continued, “almost as if by accident. He said that the two impacts on your world occurred on opposite sides of your planet.”
Palin did not respond.
“Is that true?”
“Ronin is a soldier, not a scientist.”
DeeAnn almost laughed, “I don’t think you need to be a scientist to know where something smashed into your planet. Is it true or not?”
Palin turned back to her. “It is complicated.”
“What is?”
“What happened to our world.”
“I didn’t ask what happened to your world. I asked where the impacts occurred. Because if they struck on different sides as Ronin said, it would seem rather coincidental to me.”
“Would it?”
“Yes,” she replied, coldly. “It would. Because the only two alien vaults we have found on Earth were both constructed on different continents, of our own planet. In what we can only guess was an act of insurance. To ensure perhaps that at least one of them survived. After being hidden on Earth for who knows how long. Which brings me back to why you think they were put here.”
Palin’s voice was growing terse. “As I said, we do not know.”
“Then here’s a thought. What if whoever it was that put them here, was also trying to save their planet?”
There was no answer from Palin, but several of the men behind him turned around at DeeAnn’s words.
“What if,” she continued, “whoever put those vaults here, was trying to preserve their own DNA, their own heritage, following a devasting occurrence on their own planet?”
“I do not believe that is true.”
“Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But what if, just what if, they were trying to save themselves, as you are? Spreading their DNA among various planets similar to their own. And what if they located two of their vaults on your planet as well as ours?”
Palin was impassive.
“Impossible?” DeeAnn asked.
“I cannot comment on your theory, DeeAnn Draper.”
“You cannot, or will not?”
When he failed to respond again, she looked at the men behind him. “Is it possible that you did find vaults on your planet? And tried to exploit the liquid inside? My friend Will Borger said he believes that green liquid is both a nutrient and an energy source. And that its capabilities are almost beyond his comprehension. So is it possible then, that you and your men discovered this same energy source on your own planet and mishandled it? And somehow set off an unexpected chain reaction?”
154
A loud pounding on the cabin’s steel door woke Will Borger from a dead sleep. With both eyes still closed, he rolled over on his cot in hopes that it was a dream.
Then it repeated itself. This time louder and more urgent.
With a groan, Borger reached into the darkness and searched for his glasses. Another round of thumps forced him up onto an elbow, cursing when he felt his hand knock the glasses onto the floor.
“Just a minute!” he growled, searching the cold surface beneath him. “Just a damn minute.”
Glasses finally in hand, he found the lamp and flicked it on, then swung his legs to the side. He stood up, wearing a pair of boxer shorts and a tank top, then shuffled to the narrow door.
He flung it open to find Lee Kenwood on the other side.
“Jesus,” he said, peering at his watch. “It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
“Sorry, Mr. Borger. I tried to let you sleep longer.”
“Until three o’clock?!”
Lee nodded, missing the sarcasm. “We’re getting hits,” he said excitedly. “On The Machine!”
Borger’s glower twisted into a look of surprise. “Already?” It’s only been like…twelve hours.”
“Eleven. And yes, it thinks it’s already found something.”
Borger blinked, trying to push the cobwebs from his brain. “That’s too fast. It’s probably errors with the software.”
“I thought so too. But I checked. They’re not errors.”
“Still sounds too soon to me. Nothing works that fast.”
“You said yourself, The Machine is faster than anything else out there. And deep learning algorithms work much faster than what we’re using on IMIS. Remember, Google’s deep learning machine mastered the entire game of chess in only four hours.”
Borger scratched one side of his stubbled cheek. “True.” After pausing to think, he opened the door wider and turned around. “Let me get some pants on.”
***
Eight minutes later, Borger plopped down in the crowded computer room behind Lee.
“Okay, what are we looking at?”
“Right here,” Lee said, pointing at his screen.
Borger leaned forward and studied the text. “They’re in binary. I’m old, kid––but I’m not that old.”
“Sorry. Let me convert them.” Lee entered two long computer commands, and dozens of rows of binary numbers promptly changed to a shorter string of alphanumeric characters.
MAUD 13 REIS FANTASMA 15 GELA 14
Borger squinted as he read the words and turned to Lee. “Does any of that mean anything to you?”
“Not at all.”
“You’re sure the binary converted correctly?”
“Uh,” Lee returned to the other windows and manually calculated the first three binary numbers. He then brought up a chart and found the corresponding characters. “M, A, and U. They look correct to me.”
Borger sighed. “Okay. Let’s do a little digging then.”
Lee brought up a browser window and typed in the first word. Then frowned at the results. “A little over forty-five million references to Maud. The first is the definition of the word, gray striped plaid cloak.” He glanced back at Borger and continued. “Also a common surname. A ship from Norway. The street location of a bus station in San Francisco. Not exactly what we had in mind. How many do you want me to read?”
“It’s too broad. So is 13. Try them together.”
Lee added the number and searched again. “Forty-one million results. Starting with something called discography. Having to do with vinyl albums and CDs.”
“Try the third word, Reis.”
“253 million hits. The first is a commercial real estate site.” He tried again, searching with 13 Reis, only to shake his head. “Even worse.”
Borger stared at the screen, thinking. He’d never seen these words before. But assuming they were converted correctly, what did The Machine believe it had found? Whatever the words meant, it wasn’t obvious.
“Maybe it’s software related.”
“Maybe, but I ran it through a lot of tests and each time the system found what it was supposed to.”
“Okay, then try searching for the whole line.”
Lee complied. “The whole line of text gets it down to 8,300 results. But, it looks like it’s all a bunch of gobbledygook. Like random hits in different languages. And I’m certain the software knows how to translate to English.”
Borger pressed his hands together thoughtfully. “Maybe we’re looking at it wrong then. If it’s not the entire text, then maybe it’s arranged in pieces. Individual references?” He shrugg
ed at Lee. “Or maybe groups of references?”
“Maybe.”
“How about we search for just the first three?”
“Okay.”
Lee typed MAUD 13 REIS. “Okay, only half a million hits this time. Starting with a map from 1513, then something called travel bud dog tag, a family tree for someone named Charles Reis, and someone named Piri Reis. Oh, the fourth is the same reference to the first. Then something in different languages, and–”
Borger leaned forward and read along with Lee. “Why don’t you pull the map reference? Let’s see what that’s about.”
Lee clicked the link and began reading. “Looks like part of a book abstract. Talking about a place called Queen Maud Land.” He paused. “An area in Antarctica. Map was made by a Piri Reis. Admiral, navigator, and a cartographer in Turkey––during the Ottoman Empire.”
Both men fell silent, continuing to read the article together.
“Looks like he did a lot of maps,” said Borger. “Including one in 1513, which sounds a little controversial.”
“So, the numbers 1 and 3 must be part of the year. I wonder if the other numbers The Machine listed are also years.” Lee thought for a moment. “If they are, maybe there’s something wrong with the way my software is listing years. Omitting the first two digits.”
When there was no answer, he looked back at Borger who was fully engrossed in the text.
“Look at this,” he said. “This is interesting. This book is talking about this Piri Reis map and claiming it shows something that it’s not supposed to be able to show.”
“What do you mean?”
Borger didn’t answer but instead continued reading. “Kid, this is really interesting.”
155
“Why on Earth can’t you let me sleep in for once?” groaned Steve Caesare as he stepped into the small computer room. But stopped abruptly at seeing the others.
Lee Kenwood and Will Borger were both seated with Clay, Alison, Chris, and Neely all packed in behind them, leaning against the steel counter.
Neely grinned. “We did let you sleep in. We all finished breakfast.”
“And no one brought me anything?”
“Are you ever happy?”
“Not in the mornings,” teased Borger.
Caesare raised an eyebrow. “Not true. I just need a little more beauty sleep.” He pointed at his face. “I mean, come on.”
Clay laughed. “Well, it’s 7:30. I’m sure you can handle it. Even at your age.”
“Fine. What are we all here for?”
Borger turned to Lee and nodded. “Go ahead, kid. Tell ‘em.”
A surprised Lee cleared his throat. “Uh, well, I think we may have found something interesting.”
“Does this have to do with IMIS?”
“No. Not at all. Well, maybe only a little with how we got the idea, but no. This is from The Machine hardware we were telling you about.”
“From Will’s friend?”
Borger nodded. “At Hewlett Packard.”
“So, remember when we told you we were working on some deep learning software to try to find older, historical references to things that might have been lost?”
The others in the room nodded.
“Well, we think we found some. Or should I say, it thinks it found some.”
“Already?”
“Yeah. This system is much faster than IMIS, including the algorithms we’re using. And we’re not looking for something as complicated as linguistics or speech patterns for another species. With The Machine, we’re just chewing through data looking for relevance. Relationships between a lot of older, forgotten information. And what it found are some things that were already documented years ago. So these first hits can probably be considered what one might call low-hanging fruit.”
“Okay,” Clay nodded. “What did it find?”
“A few references actually. Two we think we may have figured out and another we’re still working on.”
Borger frowned and made a circular motion with his finger. Get on with it.
“Right. Okay. So, the first connection has to do with a guy named Piri Reis. Who lived during the Ottoman Empire. The computer flagged his name and the year ’13, which we think is likely a reference to a map he created in 1513. Called the Piri Reis map, although he made several back in the 1500s. He was a cartographer. But what’s interesting about this one particular map is what it shows. Or should I say, one of the things it shows.”
Arms crossed against his thick chest, Caesare looked at him curiously. “And what is one of the things it shows?”
“Antarctica,” answered Borger.
“Right. Specifically, an area called Queen Maud Land.”
“It’s a territory claimed by Norway,” interjected Clay.
“You’re familiar with it?”
“Yes.”
“Of course, he is,” grinned Caesare. “He knows everything.”
Lee laughed. “Anyway, the thing about Reis’s map, is that it depicts this Queen Maud Land in quite a bit of detail.”
“So, it’s a map of part of the south pole.”
“Exactly,” he said, glancing at Borger. “But it’s a map of Queen Maud Land about two hundred and sixty years before Antarctica was discovered!”
“Wait, what?”
The group all looked at Lee with surprise.
“That’s right. A map of the continent, centuries before it was officially discovered.”
Clay and Caesare both peered at Borger who was nodding.
“How is that possible?”
Lee grinned. “Good question. And it gets better. The area of Queen Maud Land was not only mapped long before it was found by Captain Cook, but the detail on Reis’s map shows actual terrain. A lot of it. Terrain that is currently buried beneath a mile of ice.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. We’re not. In fact, not only is it covered in ice now, but it was also covered in the same ice in 1773 when Cook first landed. And get this, current scientific calculations estimate that this ice has been there for over 9,000 years!”
The others exchanged questioning glances.
“9,000 years?”
“Yep.”
Caesare shook his head. “Wait a minute. You’re saying this map, made by this Ottoman guy, shows areas of Antarctica not just before it was discovered but before it was covered with ice?”
“That’s right.”
Borger nodded. “9,000-year-old ice.”
“Then how did this guy Reis map it?”
“He claimed he compiled it from other maps he had access to. Maps that were even older.”
“Which brings us to the second reference The Machine found,” Borger said.
“Right. The Reis map is the first item, and we don’t think the relationship to the second item necessarily involves Antarctica. Instead we think it may be related through a maritime connection.”
“So what’s the second one?”
“The second reference that the system found takes place a couple hundred years later, with the Spanish. In the year 1715. Which we think is what the number 15, denoted by the computer, means. In 1715 most of Europe had been at war for almost twenty-five years. The War of Spanish Succession, which began in 1701 and lasted until 1713. But it took another year or so for the word to spread and the fighting to stop. By then Spain was nearly bankrupt. And what they needed more than anything was money. Or more specifically, treasure.”
Borger nodded next to Lee. “Enter the Spanish Treasure Fleet of 1715.”
“The Treasure Fleet. See, Spain already had its ships waiting throughout the Caribbean and areas of South America. Filling their holds with valuables claimed from the New Americas. But by the end of the war, they were fighting against half a dozen European nations, which made it almost impossible for their ships to get past a veritable sea of enemy vessels.”
“But they were in such dire straits that they eventually had no choice. So, their treasure fleet set sai
l for home in 1715.”
“How many made it?” asked Clay.
“How about none?” answered Lee. “But it wasn’t from battle. It was because of a hurricane. They started in Havana, traveling up the Florida Keys and then the Florida Straits. The same route Spanish ships had used for 300 years. Eleven ships accompanied by one French ship called the Griffon. But none of the Spanish ships survived. Unlike the Griffon, they hugged the Florida Coast trying to take advantage of the Gulf Stream’s current. But the captain of the French ship stayed farther out, wary of sailing too close to land. And he was right.” He paused, enjoying the excitement on the faces of his colleagues.
“After five days, the weather changed, and the Spanish ships didn’t react soon enough. They were caught in the hurricane and sank. Leaving the Griffon as the only survivor.”
“However,” Borger added, “some people think there was another ship. Another Spanish galleon not listed in the records. Or more specifically, scrubbed from the records. A ship that survived the hurricane because it was not sailing with the others.”
“Where was it sailing?”
“Farther south. Much farther south and east. Two sailors on the Griffon claimed to have witnessed a twelfth Spanish ship leaving Havana. And they claimed it was headed on a different course.”
“Why?”
Lee shrugged and looked at Borger. “They didn’t say. But they did say the Spanish sailors all referred to it as El Fantasma Del Rey.”
Clay frowned. “The King’s Ghost?”
“That’s right.”
“It was actually called the King’s Ghost?”
“No,” Borger corrected. “That’s just what the sailors were calling it. There is no account of its actual name or even existence. At least nothing left in the records.”
“So it went one way while the rest went the other?”
“Apparently. And the French sailors claimed it had something very special onboard. The word they used was inestimable, which in English means priceless.”
“Okay, a twelfth ship,” Caesare said. “Taking a secret route and transporting something priceless.”
Mosaic (Breakthrough Book 5) Page 46