Roz shook her head pityingly. “A little bird? The real deal? You’ve been listening to Ironwood too long. I’d be happy to provide an upgrade.”
Lyle continued, undeterred. “Two: Since the algorithm works, odds are good there is an actual underground structure at the site in Antarctica. Three: The Argentine air force is apparently planning to bomb the site. So given those facts, what conclusion do we draw?”
“A Nazi sub base?”
“Focus, Roz.”
“No, I’m serious. There’s always been talk about the Nazis building a base in Antarctica just before World War II. There was a German whaling industry, so they had a presence down there at the time. Whaling probably had some kind of strategic importance, so no surprise some country on a war footing would want to ensure supplies.”
“How do you know this stuff?”
“Aliens beam it into my brain when I’m sleeping. I read, Jack.”
“Okay, okay. So what else did you read about the Nazis?”
“Well, after the war, a couple of U-boats did turn up in Argentina. So maybe there’s something buried in Antarctica that speaks to some long-ago involvement between the two governments. The Argentines today had nothing to do with it, but who needs the bad publicity, right? So they decide to obliterate a less than glorious bit of history in the name of public relations. Like we wouldn’t do the same.”
Lyle thought it over. In a crazy sort of way, Roz’s scenario made more sense than thinking a modern installation had been built undetected during the era of satellite surveillance.
“Not bad,” he said, “but there’s still a problem.”
“Only one? I’m improving.”
“We used the SARGE database to find the underground structures. Sent the info to Ironwood. Forty-eight hours later, the Argentines know about it, too. How’d that happen?”
“Ironwood sold them the info is what you’re suggesting?”
“Easier than believing the Argentines are listening in on our conversations with him.”
“Okay. So here’s what we do,” Roz said. “Phone up Ironwood and tell him what you told me: In five days, his long-lost alien base is going to be a test range for the Argentine air force.”
“What does that get us?”
“My read on Ironwood is that he’ll freak.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then he doesn’t care. Which means we’ve been had. Which means he did sell the info to the bad guys. Which means his pardon is toast. Which means we get to go on a road trip to Vanuatu and slap the cuffs on him ourselves. Make sense?”
Lyle knew there was a reason he kept her around.
“I’ll make the call,” he said.
FIFTY
At night, the few lights of Port Vila subtracted some of the brilliant stars above but added to them below, their reflection glimmering in the slow rise and fall of the harbor’s dark waters.
David found Jess on the veranda, hands on the thick wood railing, gazing down at the distorted mirror, or, perhaps, at nothing. He hadn’t seen her since she and Ironwood had their run-in.
Her shoulders straightened as he approached, and he knew she’d heard him. He leaned against the railing, his back to the harbor.
“I called Cambridge,” she said.
“The testing?” They’d been told the university’s first attempt to sequence his DNA had been flawed. David could guess why the technicians had said that. He’d thought the same the first time he had made the attempt.
“Preliminary results.”
“And?” David had almost forgotten about the DNA swabs they’d sent from Cornwall to Cambridge. No matter what those results were now, he had no way of using the information to save himself. No time.
“You’ve got the anomalies in your genes. I don’t. They’d like to do a complete sequencing of your genome now.”
That was it, then. He and Jess weren’t what she called “cousins.” At least Jess is safe, David thought with relief. Nor would he have to tell her what those anomalies might cost her, as they were costing him.
Jess’s voice had betrayed more than disappointment, however, Why? A moment later, he had it. “You think that means I’m a MacCleirigh, and you’re not.”
She kept her back to him. “Finding your anomalies in other people is how you found our temples.”
Maybe he couldn’t help himself, but he could still help her. “Have you ever heard about genetic drift?”
She hadn’t.
“It’s something that can happen because of the way genes get divided through the generations.” David turned to face the harbor, shoulder to shoulder beside her. “You know how a child is a fifty-fifty combination of her parents, right? Well, a lot of people think of a grandchild as twenty-five percent of each grandparent, but that’s not quite right.
“You see, if the grandchild’s a boy, there’s a chance one of the grandmothers might not have made any genetic contribution. If it’s a girl, one of the grandfathers might be out of the chain. So—and here’s the important thing—after three or four generations, someone might still be able to definitely trace back their connection to a recent ancestor, say a great-great-great-grandmother or -grandfather by birth, but genetic drift means there might be absolutely no genetic connection.”
He couldn’t see Jess’s face. It was hidden by her hair.
“Genetic drift happens all the time, Jess. In fact, it’s probably the engine that speeds up evolution to make new species arise so quickly when small populations are isolated.”
“So I’m a MacCleirigh by name. Just not genetically.”
“Maybe think of it another way. Genetics is just how our bodies are put together. Names are what really define us. Our culture. Our beliefs. Our traditions.” David was finding this part of his argument unusual for him. He’d never been one for family. Not even friends. He’d never thought of culture or beliefs or traditions defining him.
“You’re still a MacCleirigh. You’re still a defender. And you’re only a few weeks from solving the Mystery of the Promise. In Australia, you told them you’d do everything you could.”
“I’m doing that, all right. I’m working with the monster who’s stolen our heritage and killed one of our own.”
David took that statement to be a last echo of what Jess had been struggling with alone. “You know it’s not as black and white as that.”
“Maybe he didn’t pull the trigger, but he gave the order, intentional or not. Not a lot of difference for my aunt.”
Not a lot of difference for me, either, David thought. He took a breath. No more secrets. If she could accept the truth, so could he. Maybe he would tell her everything he knew about his genetic anomalies, about the death sentence they conferred. Who knew? It might even make her feel better that she didn’t share those lethal markers with him. Maybe they’d both feel better equally unburdened.
Before he could begin, however, the kitchen door to the veranda flew open, and Crazy Mike rushed out.
“Mr. Woody needs to see you both, right now.”
The quiet tastefulness of Ironwood’s study was unexpected, especially after his casino, but, on second glance, David found it also had its oddities. An antique globe at least three feet across, mounted in a polished wooden stand, was ornamented with what appeared to be a solid gold meridian, and Ironwood’s gigantic desk was carved, it seemed, from a single block of wood, if such a feat were possible. Just getting it into this room would have required the removal and replacement of a wall.
“I’ve had a call from Jack Lyle. We need to talk.” Ironwood gestured to a pair of wicker chairs, but his gaze was fixed on an oil portrait on a nearby wall. It was of himself, much younger, and a diminutive woman with light brown hair. In the background, David recognized Port Vila harbor as seen from this room’s windows.
The down-feather cushions on the chairs were deeply comfortable. David settled back. “Something wrong with the database?”
“No.” Ironwood’s chair swiveled away
from the portrait, a determined look on his face. “There’s been some kind of . . . security breach. Don’t know where. But . . . Jessica, it appears your people got hold of the SARGE printout of the outpost—the temple—on the peninsula.”
David was about to ask how when Ironwood held up a hand to stop him. “Somehow, they have used their considerable influence on certain members of the Argentine government, or military, or . . . I don’t know how they did it, but the Argentines are going to bombard that outpost with every weapon at their disposal.”
“Su-Lin.” Jess started to her feet. “I have to talk to her. She has to know how wrong this is.”
“No, no, no.” Ironwood motioned for her to sit down again. “Even if that woman takes your call, I guarantee that the only thing she’d do is play you along until bombs fall.”
“You have a plan,” David said.
“Already in motion. The Argentines are going to bomb in three days.”
“From now?” Jess looked horrified.
Ironwood nodded. “So we’ll be there in two.”
Two days from now? David felt a jolt of hope, but still he asked, “What happened to ‘It’ll take months for the weather to clear’?”
“It’s not my show. This is courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.”
“Jack Lyle’s sending us on the air force’s dime?” Now David was confused.
“Oh, I’m picking up the tab.” Ironwood grimaced. “Fuel, planes, crews. The air force lends its equipment and people for worthy civilian causes, provided the civilian covers the costs. About four million dollars, they figure. It’s worth every penny if we find an alien outpost that hasn’t been cleaned out by looters. Or one of your temples of the First Gods, Jessica. Maybe that White Island you told me about. Heck, I’d even settle for the first evidence of human habitation of Antarctica. Whatever it is down there, they’re going to have to rewrite all the history books. Because of the three of us. Because we did not give up.”
“Why’s the air force helping us at all?” Jess asked.
David had the same question. He wasn’t buying military civic-mindedness.
“Because”—the billionaire spread his arms to indicate the room, and by extension all that he possessed—“I gave up my pardon, all my guarantees, most of my company . . . so we could get there first.
“I’ve agreed that three days from now, they can take me away, make an example of me, and put me in prison for what will surely be the rest of my natural life.
“So let’s make sure what we find is worth it.”
ANTARCTICA 7,794 YEARS B.C.E.
In the innermost chambers of the Scholars’ Peak, Tel’Chon swept down the spiral staircase, oil lamp held high, preparing his argument, incapable of believing he would not prevail.
At the spiral’s end, he stepped through the narrow doorway and closed the vent of the lamp to extinguish its flame.
The path through the cavern was always lit. Tall braziers flanked the precisely worked stones that led from the stairway’s narrow tower to the Hall of the Navigators. Flames roared from raised metal gratings, and smoke curled up to the distant ceiling, but the cavern was so large that the air was never harmful, even in the past when all the braziers had been lit along the pathway, instead of only one out of every three.
That was part of his argument. There was a time in living memory when all the fires of the cavern could burn continuously because there was ample fuel to be gathered in the lands surrounding the Scholars’ Peak and the port of Carth below it.
Now, though, the forests seen in the murals painted throughout the corridors above were gone. The once green land supported only sparse bushes, useless clumps of blowing grass. Without vegetation to hold it in place, each year the winds blew more of the soil away.
And the snows, anyone with eyes could see, advanced down the mountains a little more each year. Sometimes not enough to notice from one winter to the next—but look at the murals, look at the landscape. In the centuries since the artists had done their work, the snows had advanced by stadii.
Tel’Chon walked quickly, fearing that Ganesh would change his mind and refuse the audience. But as he neared the end of the pathway, he saw the towering doors to the great Hall were open, and the braziers to either side, twice as tall as the ones marking the path, blazed as if there were no shortage of fuel, and never would be.
Tel’Chon paused for a moment before the golden model of the Navigators’ cross, this one fashioned by the Navigators themselves. The supporting rod it sat upon, which served as a locking latch for the tall doors, was wrapped in bands of white and purple ribbons. Without them as protection, it was dangerous to handle the heavy cross. The underside of the rod was fitted with sharp edges that could cut unwary palms and fingers. Why they were there, no one knew, though obviously the Navigators had placed them there for a purpose.
Tel’Chon cleared his mind, stepped through the doors that were more than twice his height, and announced his presence. His voice echoed in the Hall. It was circular, as wide across as fifteen khai lying head to feet in a line.
On its great, encompassing wall, Tel’Chon had heard, there was a diagram that explained the most complex known facts of the Earth’s origin. Whether that rumor was true or not, the young scholar couldn’t be sure. For now, the wall was covered by overlapping panels of woven purple cloth, to be removed only when the doors were closed and Gold Master scholars were assembled.
Tel’Chon had years of study to complete before he could even begin his ascension to that rank.
Ganesh looked over to him. The old scholar was by the central table, a circular structure of carved stone shelves, tiered to hold 1,321 of the Navigators’ gold books. Each one was a collection of fifty-three thin squares of gold on which their numbers and charts and star paths were embossed.
There was other information in them, too, Tel’Chon knew. So far, however, despite generations of study, only the portions with numbers and star patterns had been translated.
“Your message said you have a study proposal.” Ganesh looked back to the book he read in the light of the small braziers that ringed the tiered shelves. It was clear he didn’t think this audience would last long.
Tel’Chon began with his carefully prepared preamble. “Gold Master, there is a need in the Fleet to prepare new charts of the Storm Sea passage from Carth to Nikenk.”
Ganesh used a carved ivory rod to turn a gold leaf in the book he consulted. “The recent shipping losses have been caused by storms, not problems with the charts. You may go now.”
Tel’Chon was prepared for that rapid dismissal. “Gold Master, the new charts I propose are not for revising navigation.”
Ganesh looked up from his book. “What else would navigation charts be used for?”
“Records of the weather, of storm conditions.”
“Can you read the Navigators’ hand?”
“No, Gold Master, but the storm conditions can be inferred from the charts describing wave height and wind speed.”
“What would be the purpose of that inference?”
“To better predict storms. To allow the Ship Masters to change course or delay a voyage in order to reduce the risk of loss.”
Ganesh closed his book and tapped his leaf turner on the edge of a shelf, agitated. “The same calculations could be used to support the contention of some that storm conditions are worse now than in the past.”
Tel’Chon agreed. “Numbers show us the patterns of the world. Some patterns do change over time.”
“But the world does not.”
Tel’Chon had thought he would have prevailed with his argument for better storm prediction. Who could argue with the need? He realized there must be a hidden reason why Ganesh was being so obstinate.
“Gold Master, I share the contention that the storms are worse. And that the Navigators’ charts show the landshapes are changing. And—”
“Enough!” Ganesh punctuated his command with a sharp rap of his ivory rod. “You may leave n
ow.”
Tel’Chon didn’t know what else to do, except beg. “Please, Gold Master. We’ve lost too many ships this past year.”
“Ships are always lost. The shipyards will build more.”
“With what? Each ship lost on the return from Nikenk means a loss of cargo. Of fuel. Of food. What happens if we lose so many ships the people of Carth go hungry? Or freeze?”
“That will not happen. You may go.”
“But it happened to the Navigators!”
Ganesh’s dark face twisted in anger, a rare expression in any khai. “You should know better than that. The fate of the Navigators is not a known fact.”
Tel’Chon felt reciprocal anger rise. “Their fate is in their books. Read them. They’re only charts and observations. There’s no sign they ever spread beyond these shores. They sailed the world, but like seabirds following the seasons, they kept returning to this one place. Never established a second home. They built this magnificent library of their knowledge. But they didn’t act on it! And when this land changed, they vanished!”
Ganesh left the central table. With a trembling hand, he clutched the neck of Tel’Chon’s tunic and pulled down, ripping the purple fabric of his scholar’s colors.
“You’re finished here,” Ganesh said. “Leave now and never return.”
Tel’Chon was stunned. To never see this hall again? To never read another book? To never know the secret that lay behind the fabric panels?
“I won’t leave.” It was unthinkable to give up the search for knowledge.
Ganesh raised his ivory rod and brought it down across Tel’Chon’s face.
The young scholar rocked back in shock and pain. “Master, no!”
Ganesh struck again. And again. Until Tel’Chon could take no more and struck back, pushing the frail scholar with the force and the anger of youth denied.
Ganesh stumbled backward, fell, and the crack of his skull against the stone floor was like a lightning strike in the great Hall.
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