by John Hunt
“Carver’s journal details how the celebration ended, essentially with a massive orgy among the native participants. This orgy is similarly documented in each of the reports, and also in Cook’s log, although it was very amusing reading the different perspectives and judgments conveyed by the various writers. Captain Cook noted a ‘pagan ritual consisting of unmentionable acts which are not appropriate for the Christian man to observe.’ On the other hand, one of the able-bodied seamen, educated beyond the norm, wrote in one journal with the lasciviousness of Shakespeare — he detailed positions and noises thoroughly, but indirectly. I know little about the man. It was the shortest of the records, with no personal history really. But I wish he had written more, for his words flowed like poetry.
“But I am getting off track.” Onbacher reproached himself. “Let me go back to the midshipman’s journal. Carver’s version of the evening was essentially the same as the others, quite detailed. But whereas the other men all returned to the ship, abiding their captain’s order to do so, the young Carver disobeyed and stayed most of the night with his paramour. He later swam out to the ship and sneaked aboard under the amused eye of one of the expedition’s senior officers.”
“If my memory serves, British ships of the day were run very tight,” Petur commented. “Young Carver did not get bent over the barrel for this breach of order?”
“Apparently the men of the day were not much different than now. Boys will be boys, and this officer quietly sympathized. There is no record of punishment.”
“John Carver was lucky. Actually, it sounds like he was lucky twice that night,” quipped Petur.
“Yes. He was quite lucky. Three times. For the two young lovers, in their mission to seek a private moment, stumbled onto something few had ever seen and that they were never supposed to witness. Carver writes with great excitement about the events that followed the celebration. He had led his girl deep into the woods, looking for a patch of soft moss. It was a dark night, and they soon distanced themselves from the bright lights of the multiple torches of the seaside huts. Natural acts then ensued. Apparently things went more hastily than Carver had planned.”
Petur laughed. “That certainly is a private diary!”
“After the passion ended, the two kids took a nap. Carver doesn’t say how much time passed, but suddenly he was aroused. He was terrified by the familiar sound of his Captain’s voice, only a few yards away. Thoughts of keelhauling and hanging rushed through his head. Dozens of torches were moving rapidly down a nearby path, carried by the men of the Tahitian King’s household.
“In a minute, the entourage had passed. Then John Carver showed that he was a man. For with an obviously reticent Lohanai in tow, he followed the torches down the path. I believe I would have run for the ship as fast as I could, without looking back.”
“Joseph, I always knew you were a coward at heart.”
“I am, I am. But Carver was not. Or perhaps he was more curious than he was smart. In any event, the two lovers walked surreptitiously on the footpath far behind the Tahitian royalty. The trail followed a rapidly flowing narrow river and led miles into the interior of the island — up the high central volcanic peak called Tahiti Nui. They watched as the royal family and Captain Cook climbed over a ridge and disappeared into the volcano’s caldera. Then Carver and Lohanai crept up to the ridge and looked down into the rocky crater.
“I’ve been there myself. There was then, and is now, a great deal of moss lining the caldera, but no real trees. The two interlopers’ view was unobstructed as they peered over the ridge and gazed down on an amazing sight. No white man before or since has ever again seen what Captain Cook and John Carver saw that dark night.”
Joseph set his pipe on a nearby glass end table next to his beer, and stood up, shuffling off toward the kitchen, this time in search of food. He rustled about in Petur’s pantry for several moments and finally removed a box of shortbread.
“I usually wait for tea for shortbread,” Joseph commented. “But I haven’t had any in so long, that I’m simply impatient.” And with a snap, he broke a piece of the fine Scottish cookie in two and placed it in his mouth.
Petur watched his older friend savor the rich taste of the wafer as it melted in his mouth. “Joseph, speaking of impatience, how long are you intending to keep me in suspense?”
Through a mouthful of cookies, Joseph smiled and said, “Oh. Sorry.” Finally, after he swallowed his cookie and took an agonizingly long swig of beer, he continued. “What Carver writes next in his journal sounds like the fantasies of a drunken young man. And as far as I can tell, it has never been corroborated. Nonetheless, he relates in great detail the events of the next hour.”
In response to another lengthy pause, Petur prompted, “Did he get caught by Cook?”
“No. He was well-hidden in the dark night, and the men of the tribe and Cook himself were bathed in bright torchlight. It was as if they were putting on a play, with the volcano’s crater serving as an old Roman theater. On stage they were oblivious to the two young lovers who were the only audience.
“There was a chest made of shining wood, with handles that stood out of the four top corners. Perhaps half as tall as a man and rectangular. The four eldest members of the king’s family carried it. They placed it on a low stone altar. The other men, numbering perhaps thirty, then planted their torches in the ground in a perfect circle centered on a strange wooden carving adjacent to the altar. Carver estimated the carving to be a man’s height, and shaped like a cylinder with a plate upon the top. The young man likened it to an enormous model of the drive mechanism of a music box.”
Petur interrupted. “What did he mean by that?”
“It took me a while to figure that out. I consulted with a music box expert — did you know that there is such a profession? He showed me a small metal object similar to a tapered flat-head screw. Looked like a golf tee. Anyhow, that’s what I picture the wooden carving to look like — a giant screw, with a wide flat head, and its tip pointing into the ground. Apparently it was elaborately decorated, although the decorations are not well described.
“The king then gave a long speech, nodding frequently at Cook. The man was excited during the speech, but of course Carver could not understand any of it. Carver writes that the king then seemed to go into a trance with his head arched back, his eyes wide open, vacantly looking into the starless sky. The other men then stood as one and began chanting. The same four elders who had carried the chest on the long trip up the mountain now proceeded to open it with much ritual. Four of the younger men stood directly behind them, watching their every movement.
“The process of opening the chest was lengthy and complex. There were multiple rods built into the walls of the thing — at least that was what Carver called them. These rods, thirty or so, slid in and out of the chest in what seemed to him to be a specific and set order. Carver did not count, but he estimated there were over two hundred movements of those rods. It took almost an hour, but at last the four old men pulled eight of the rods out in one synchronized motion, and the top of the chest opened as if on a spring.”
Petur commented, “That sounds like an impressive combination lock.”
“I did some quick calculations some time ago. They reveal that it would be almost impossible to crack. It seems to me that these older men were the keepers of the chest — selected to memorize the intricate pattern of moves needed to occasionally reveal the secret that lay within. The younger men were the apprentices, perhaps in the midst of the lifetime of reinforcement necessary to fully remember the sequences of movements of the rods. In my imagination I see generations of Tahitians passing down the secrets of the chest. I often wonder just how old that chest was.”
“Or perhaps it was all just show,” Petur suggested. “All part of the ritual. Maybe they could have opened the chest right away had they pulled those last eight rods initially.”
“Perhaps. But the romantic in me dictates that it be a complex combination.”
Joseph smiled sheepishly. “In any event, all we know is what was written in the journal of a love-hungry boy.”
“So what was in the chest?”
“Patience, my dear man. Carver, even from his higher angle, could not see the inside.” Joseph reached into his pocket and pulled out his bag of tobacco. He took a large pinch and stuffed it expertly into the bowl of his pipe. Soon the room began filling with the sweet smoke once again as Joseph puffed — a satisfied man.
“The king, whose eyes had been transfixed on the sky for that whole time, now began to walk. He came close to the chest, then slowly reached over the edge and down inside. He was deliberately slow and methodical. Carver writes that while the king approached the chest, the younger men had run three lengths of hemp rope in three directions away from the central tall, screw-shaped sculpture.
“The ends of the rope were then attached to the giant screw, and then, laboriously, the same four old men who had carted the chest all the way up the mountain began to turn the screw. Around and around they twisted it, each in turn guiding the ropes carefully down the tapering shaft. The work got easier as the portions of the rope dragging along the ground shortened — their length consumed by wrapping around the screw.”
Petur pulled paper and a pencil from a drawer and offered them to Joseph. Without saying anything, Joseph sketched a picture: a screw in the middle, with three ropes extended like spokes of a wheel but only a short distance from the center. Stick figures indicated men, and Joseph drew four, tucked tightly together alongside each portion of rope.
Then he continued, adding drawings to his diagram as he spoke. “The king, as I had been saying, reached inside the chest and withdrew a sphere. There was nothing remarkable about it, from what young Carver wrote. About the size of a man’s head, it looked like a ball, and was clearly quite heavy. He could see no markings on it, although he was far away. It was much smaller than the chest itself. Carver wrote that the chest must have wasted much space.”
Petur got up and walked to a small table on which a rusting black cannonball, the one Joseph had given to him in Alexandria, rested. He picked it up and carried it back to Joseph, who smiled and nodded.
“Yes, I recall. I understand that the sphere to which Carver referred was bigger than this cannonball. In any event, the king was then lifted up on the shoulders of two of the stronger young men, and he carefully placed the sphere in the middle of the head of the screw-shaped carving. Gently lowered to the ground, he then slipped back into the trance. Most of the men were now lined up along the three ropes. The four elders began a chant. All the men soon joined in. The king then raised his arms to the sky, hands in tight fists. The chanting grew louder and louder until it reached a frenzied pitch. Then the king lowered his arms.
“On cue, all the men ran away from the screw, pulling their ropes. They ran very fast, and the screw began spinning like a top. Faster and faster they ran, and faster the giant screw turned. On the top sat the sphere, which was spinning along with the head of the screw. At last the ropes pulled free of the screw, and the men tumbled to a stop. All eyes now turned toward the carved screw and the sphere resting at the top. Both were still spinning very rapidly — so rapidly in fact that Carver could hear the whoosh of the wind as it was spun into a vortex by the carving.
“On the top, the sphere began to glow, a gentle red light like a setting sun. Then the king pushed the screw along the ground, the skin from his hands being ripped off by the rapidly turning carving. His hands were almost instantly bloody, but still the king pushed until he had moved it several meters. Soon the screw was spinning on the dirt ground and beginning to wobble as a top does as it winds to a halt. But the sphere had remained stationary when the king moved the screw. The sphere, still glowing incandescently, had stayed in place, hovering as if weightless above the ground.
“The men looked up at the miracle and began to chant once again. The screw fell over and rolled on the ground, provoking several men to jump clear. Carver watched as the sphere slowly rose at a shallow angle toward the west. In his journal he calls it magic. Although not a religious man, Carver said it must have been the devil’s work.”
Petur sat silently as Joseph took a break. “So this thing is floating up above the Tahitians. What was Cook doing?”
“Carver could not see his captain’s face. But Cook did not move, seemingly transfixed as he stared at the levitating sphere. It kept drifting up and away, and Carver thought it would head all the way up into the sky. But just then, after more than a minute of this floating, one of the men threw a long net into the air and over the top of the spinning sphere. The friction caused by the net slowed the spin, and the glow disappeared as the sphere fell to the waiting arms of the Tahitian king. They trapped it before it got away.”
“Excuse me, Joseph, but this all sounds like the fanciful imagination of a love-struck sailor, perhaps one who had recently discovered some sort of Polynesian mind-altering chemical. Or even just a magic trick.”
“And perhaps it is just that. I told you I was going to be telling you a tale. I did not tell you that it was necessarily a true story. I don’t know that it is. But then, I don’t know that it’s not, either.”
Petur stretched his feet up on the couch. “If this is true, then the Tahitians had indeed invented some sort of device which could defy gravity. As you told me before.”
Onbacher nodded. “It would seem to be one alternative among several.”
“Yet unlikely. Hmmm. What happened next?”
“Well, Carver and Lohanai ran down the mountain trail. He gave her a lengthy goodbye kiss before he began the swim out to the ship. While scrambling up the boarding ropes, the sailing master, who was up wandering the decks, heard him. Carver writes how this officer, the master of the ship, just gave him a fierce scowl and then a wink as he waved the boy quickly below decks. I have the logbooks from that ship, both the captain’s official log and private journal. Carver’s unauthorized absence from the ship was never noted.”
Petur chimed in, “So maybe it didn’t happen!”
“Maybe it didn’t. But there is another entry in the watch log of interest that night. The watch officer, who, like the sailing master, had neglected to record the time of return of John Carver late that night, nonetheless dutifully recorded for posterity the return of Captain Cook at just prior to eight bells. That is a little before four in the morning. No explanation was given for his whereabouts during the later part of that evening.”
Petur was sitting up again. “What does Cook say about it in his own logbook?”
“I don’t know,” Joseph replied.
“I thought you had his logbook.”
Onbacher nodded. “I do. I keep it in my library in my house in Alexandria. And indeed there was an entry on that date about the dancing and feasting and celebrating. But there was no mention of the events following the carnal portion of the evening’s celebrations. There is no mention of the long march up to the volcanic peak, or the spinning sphere floating weightlessly as it glowed. Nothing about seeing a display of antigravity. No mention at all.”
Onbacher paused for just a moment and smiled. “But then, Petur, several pages had been torn out of the journal.”
Petur smiled too. “One just has to wonder what had been written on those pages!”
“Yes indeed. But I don’t know. What I do know is that someone carefully removed those pages, for some reason. Yet, I have no idea who that someone might have been. I can only assume that a significant event was recorded that someone wished to conceal.”
“This is fascinating. You’ve got a man who witnesses a remarkable event, another man who is supposed to have, but whose log has been altered, and other journals from the voyage all bookmarked at that same date by an unknown person. It certainly is intriguing.” Then Petur said with a degree of resignation, “I guess we’ll never know what really happened, will we?”
“Perhaps we won’t, Petur. But then, perhaps we will.”
“Do you
know more?”
Joseph smiled. “Yes, a bit. But not enough. I’ll tell you more when I know more. In the meantime, I have successfully taken your mind off your grief about the OTEC for a while. And that was my mission.”
“Well, you’ve been successful in that task, at least. Will you keep me informed about what you learn? I am thoroughly intrigued.”
Joseph’s face became solemn as he replied.
“I will tell you more right after the next disaster.”
17. Destroyers of Wealth
THE WATER WAS still, and every ripple irritated Akheem Azid. Fortunately the full moon was completely obscured by clouds, making the night dark. With luck, no one would see them approaching.
The tiny black inflatable rubber boat was barely sufficient to hold the two men and their small supplies. His right leg was cramping beneath him, but to move it now risked destabilizing the small craft, as well as creating additional waves that might lead an astute observer to note their impending approach. He would suffer the pain for the moment. It was at times such as this when Azid thought most actively about changing his line of work.
“Khamil,” he whispered in Arabic. “You must be silent in your paddling. Remember, it is the accidental fool who can appear out of nowhere and spoil the most solid plans.”
Khamil, with his short but stocky figure curled into the boat like a pretzel, grunted his agreement and redoubled his efforts at propelling the craft forward without disturbing the water — an impossible task, of course. They were only 100 meters now from the sandy shoreline that rose out of the water onto the artificial island on which Osaka’s Kansei International airport had been constructed. The lights from the fences and buildings were beginning to brighten the surroundings.
“For someone in your occupation, you are nothing if not compulsively careful,” Khamil whispered back to his associate.
They reached the sand and rocks that rose sharply and artificially out of the water. The raft skidded upward on the slope, and the two men disembarked.