There was no one about- no priests, no worshipers, not a human being other than the cluster of souls on board the Viking longship. Just the mighty temple, glistening in the sunlight.
Chapter 25
THE PRESENT
1999 AD
“I can read parts of this,” Sin Fen said. “Enough to make some sense.”
Dane could only see a pattern of runes that Sin Fen had been slowly scrolling through for the past thirty minutes. Deepflight was off-shore, DeAngelo slowly driving the submersible around the edge of the beach, reveling in the diversity of the craft stranded in this cavern.
“Does it tell where the Shield is?” Dane asked.
“I’m getting to that,” Sin Fen said. “It speaks of Atlantis and the war with the Shadow.” She looked up from the screen. “But it also tells who the Atlanteans were. How they were able to develop such a magnificent civilization while the rest of mankind was still roaming the earth in small packs of hunter-gatherers.”
Sin Fen reached up and tapped the side of her head. “Their brains were different. The Atlanteans developed differently than other humans. Perhaps there was something in their environment that required it. We’ve just discovered there’s a thing called the doomsday gene. An ability to adapt rapidly- within a few generations- when extreme conditions call for it. Or perhaps Atlanteans were the original humans and the rest of the species developed differently.
“Scientists have often wondered why the mind has two distinctively separate hemispheres. Some say it’s for redundancy, but that seems a bit of a stretch for me. If the head is injured enough to cause brain injury, then it’s doubtful a person could survive back in the days before brain surgery.
“The bicameral mind existed for a different reason,” Sin Fen continued. “Remember, the speech center is present in both hemispheres but active in the vast majority of people only on the left side.”
“And ours is active on both,” Dane said. “Which is why we can touch each other’s minds- when the other person allows it,” he added.
Sin Fen ignored the comment. “There is a connection between Wernicke’s areas on each side of the brain. It’s called the anterior commissure. Since Wernicke’s area in the left hemisphere is the part of the speech process that brings meaning to our language, what is it on the right? And what happens when the two work in unison?”
She tapped Dane on the chest. “That is our problem, you and I. We have both Wernicke’s areas functioning but little connection between them through the anterior commissure. But the Atlanteans-” she looked down at the display she had been reading. “This tells me the Atlanteans were more evolved than us.
“That’s how Atlantis developed- keeping the telepathic mind and developing a written and verbal language. They were genetic freaks- a different branch from the development of the rest of the species. Think of it, Dane- what they could accomplish then. They had the best of both worlds. They could use their telepathy to get concepts across without the limitation of the spoken or written word, but then they could use the latter to work on the details of what they were doing, the specifics. And the two worked hand in hand, so to speak.
“Because of that difference, they developed in a fundamentally different way than we did. It’s not a question of what they did, it’s more a question of how they thought differently at the most basic level.
“There is a precedent for this,” she said. “All the ancient civilizations, which we now know were founded by survivors of Atlantis merging with the locals, were different in some fundamental ways that our current civilization. It is thought that it was only when mankind became basically mono-theistic that we changed.
“When man believed in numerous gods, the messages received from Wernicke’s area in the right hemisphere- what I have told you is the voice of the Gods- they were accepted. Man made decisions based more on those messages than clearly linear thinking.
“Ancient Egypt spanned over three centuries at the height of its power yet in those three thousand years how much did they develop in terms of technology?” Sin Fen didn’t wait for an answer. “When archeologists uncover a relic of old Egypt, they often have trouble dating it unless there are some sort of writings attached. But what if you lived three thousand in the future from now. And you were excavating New York City? Hasn’t New York constantly evolved, changed? New York a hundred years ago is very different from New York now and will be very different in a hundred years. Yet none of these ancient civilizations show this development.”
Sin Fen was focused on the screen now, reading the runes. “They developed differently than our civilization. They started by harnessing forces at a level we’re only starting to approach. That’s the biggest difference. They worked on the inner self first, before the outside world. We don’t have a clue how the brain truly works- they knew exactly and were able to exploit that knowledge to build a very unique civilization
“Look at this boat,” Sin Fen said. “It’s an example of their technology. When we first saw it we thought it was primitive, but it’s more advanced than anything we’ve developed. It’s power system is right there-” she pointed at the black cube. “No propeller, no jet- it works using the earth’s magnetic field to move the ship. They worked within the harmony of nature, not against like we do.”
“The shield?” Dane prompted.
“We have to understand what happened,” Sin Fen said. “The shield is worthless without the knowledge behind it.”
“Then how about the quick version,” Dane suggested.
“The Atlanteans developed on their island continent in the middle of the Atlantic,” Sin Fen said. “They explored the world around them, but did not settle elsewhere. It appears they realized the differences between themselves and the humans on the other continents and desired to keep their bloodlines distinct.
“Of course, they weren’t totally successful. They-” Sin Fen’s voice trailed off as she scrolled through.
“The Shield,” Dane reminded her. “The Shadow?”
“The Shadow came out of the west in the place we now call the Bermuda Triangle gate. The Atlanteans didn’t know what it was. They sent ships- like this one- to investigate. And nothing came back. The Shadow began growing. And they learned of other gates on the face of the planet. They realized the threat- probably faster than we did.”
“When was all this?” Dane asked.
“Around ten thousand BC.” Sin Fen watched the screen. “On the other hand, since they had never really experienced war, they weren’t exactly prepared. They had to use what they had for defense and they knew little more about the gates than we do.
“But they did develop something- the Shield.” Sin Fen frowned. “It is hard for me to tell exactly what is meant. How it worked. It used the power of the firestone. From I read before, the firestone sounds a lot like nuclear power.”
“Foreman hasn’t nuked a gate yet, has he?”
“No. That would be a rather extreme step,” Sin Fen said, “and based on what we do know, atomic weapons probably won’t work. The firestone was like nuclear power, but not the same. It didn’t need to be shielded. It was able to be harnessed quite easily. The Atlanteans used firestone to power some sort of weapon- the Shield- that they used.”
“But they didn’t win,” Dane noted. “This ship is here. Atlantis is gone.”
“They didn’t win, but they didn’t lose,” Sin Fen argued.
“Where’s the Shield?”
“According to this, the Atlanteans used the Shield from an outpost near the gate. Within visual sight of it. They stopped the expansion of the gate, but they acted too late- the seeds of their own destruction were already sown.”
“How?”
“It seems the Shadow appropriated their use of the firestone just as it’s taken our nuclear weapons. Sowed firestone around the base of the continent and used it to destroy Atlantis just as the Atlanteans were using their Shield against the gate. A pyrhhic victory.”
“The Shield,” Da
ne repeated.
“It was here,” Sin Fen said. “This ship carried it to their defensive base.”
“And?”
Sin Fen reached down and slid a lever forward. The side of the black cube slid down, revealing a six inch deep open space, backed with gray material. There was nothing in it.
“That’s where the final parts of the shield were carried,” Sin Fen said. She was looking back down at the display. “This ship carried the hardware, but not the power source.”
“So we don’t have anything,” Dane said.
“Not yet.”
“The message on the sail of the Scorpion was in Norse runes,” Dane said. “It directed us here. There must have been a reason.” He turned to the center of the vast chamber where Deepflight was cruising.
“DeAngelo!” Dane yelled. With the lack of any other sound, his voice carried clearly across the water.
“Yes?”
“Have you seen a Viking longship in here?”
“Over there-” DeAngelo was pointing to their right.
“Let’s go,” Dane was already climbing over the side of the black ship.
* * *
“Run that again,” Nagoya ordered Ahana.
In slow motion, the various readings that had been picked up by the Can and other surveilling instruments were displayed on an array of screens, all running at the same time.
“It’s all about time,” Nagoya whispered.
“Excuse me, sir?”
Nagoya felt the stir of excitement that came from sudden insight. “We never consider time a manipulative variable- always a constant. But it’s been there staring us in the face all the time. We wondered why the Scorpion crew didn’t experience any time lag. Why Dane’s teammate Flaherty hadn’t aged. We assume that it was because they were in some sort of stasis, but what if there was no stasis? What if no time had passed for them?”
Ahana kept silent, recognizing the mood her professor was in, letting him think out loud, crystallizing a new theory.
“We really don’t know what time is,” Nagoya said. “We don’t even know when the universe started. The Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite has given evidence that the universe was formed by an explosion fifteen billion years ago- the Big Bang. If that is indeed so, then t equals zero- then we have a start point to start our universal clock.
“That simplifies things, perhaps too much. There are still those who postulate theories other than the Big Bang. Those who say the beginning was the result of a quantum fluctuation. That’s where we are now, with several different hypothesis about the very nature of our universe and time. We have Hawking’s and his timeless quantum cosmology; Adrei Linde who talks of chaotic inflation; Roger Penrose and time-asymmetric cosmology. Then like a large wall at the end is Dyson’s thermodynamic death of the universe theory.
“Take Linde and his bubbles of spacetime foam,” Nagoya didn’t even seem to be aware Ahana was listening. “He says we are in one of those bubbles. That each bubble has its own physical laws, randomly selected from an infinite set. So perhaps these gates are where another bubble touches ours? And the quantum physics in that bubble is ruled by very different laws. So different that even time is different?
“Hawking, on the other hand, says there is only one set of physical laws. That time is an arrow, the direction of which coincides with thermodynamic law. But it is a theory that is incomplete, that does not explain data we have in our hands- data we have picked up in this very chamber.
“Then throw into this mixture the development of intelligent life. Not just us, but now we know there is other intelligent life, on the other side of the gates. Tipler postulated intelligence developing to de Chardin’s Omega Point. Where all life that existed will be contained in intelligent information processing. That would require different pockets of intelligent life to interact, even if in a destructive way, because ultimately it would not be destructive at the Omega Point.”
Nagoya shook his head. “But that is far beyond us right now and a case for the philosopher. What concerns us is the make-up of the gates. And if the gates have their own physical laws, different from our own, then means we must abandon our own rationality. We must abandon the linear thinking we hold so dear.” Nagoya raised his voice so everyone in the operations center could hear him. “Iceland has been destroyed. A quarter million people dead. Please remember that our own country lies next to a fault even more fragile than the fault that just consumed Iceland. We will be next.
“I want you to reexamine all the data we have. I want you to make time a variable, not a constant. Throw all the rules out. Turns things backwards, sideways, upside down. Any way you can imagine, no matter how strange. We need answers about what the gates are and then we have to figure out how to shut those gates. Let’s get to work!”
* * *
“Range one thousand meters and closing,” Captain Stanton’s voice was tight. “It’s dark. Not fog- the edge approaching is too straight, moving too methodically.”
Ariana could see the same thing underwater- a straight line on the sonar coming steadily toward Deeplab: the edge of the Bermuda Triangle gate.
“Five hundred meters.”
“Recommend we shut down all systems now,” Ariana said.
“We’re going to drift,” Stanton repeated his protest to that plan of action. “If Deepflight can’t use its equipment, it won’t be able to find us.”
“There’ll be nothing to find if we don’t shut down,” Ariana said.
“I back her plan,” Foreman’s voice was filled with static, the gate already affecting satellite communications with the Glomar.
“Three hundred meters,” Stanton said. “I’m going to keep this line open to Deeplab. It’s a passive system.”
“All right,” Ariana said, “but let’s shut down. Now!”
“Roger that,” Stanton said. “Shutting down.”
Ariana began turning off the habitat’s systems for the second time, this time with a little more care. She left the emergency battery-powered lights on and the link to the surface.
Soon she was sitting in a dim red glow. “One hundred meters,” Stanton’s voice broke the silence.
“Fifty. I don’t like this at all,” Stanton said. “I can sense something. This is not good.”
Ariana could feel the same thing- an overwhelming sense of dread, like a heavy wool blanket draped over her body and mind. She had the feeling of being trapped, exacerbated by being inside the small sphere of Deeplab’s communication center.
“Can’t see more than twenty meters,” Stanton said. “I can’t see the top of the derrick. We’ve got no communications with the outside world any more. You’re going to get some oscillation as we’ve shut down the dampener. The sea’s mild though- almost dead. So that’s-” there was a crackle of static, then in the background, Ariana could hear a scream of sheer terror. Then several more as the first one was abruptly cut off.
“It’s coming from the pool,” Stanton said. He barked out orders to other men on the bridge, then came back on the intercom. “We can’t see a damn thing.”
A new scream, one that Ariana knew couldn’t have come from a human mouth echoed out of the intercom.
“Sweet Jesus,” Stanton was leaving the mike open. “What the hell is that? It’s in the air, port side. I can’t see it, but that’s where the noise is coming from.”
The scream came again.
“It’s closer.” There were more human yells of fear and pain in the background. “I’m getting reports from the pool. Something’s coming out of the water. Giant squid. Something like that. But-” there was a statacco noise, then the inhuman scream.
“Oh, God. I can see it. Hovering in the air. White face. Red eyes. Long hair. Robes. It’s some kind of demon. Just watching.”
There was a burst of an automatic weapon firing.
“I can see one now. It’s climbing out of the pool, just forward of the derrick. God, it’s awful. Red body. A dozen arms at least. It’s big. S
ixty feet long. There’s another. Another. There’re dozens of them. They’re coming over the side of the ship.
“And that thing. It’s just watching. It’s-” the sound of glass shattering blanked out whatever Stanton was saying. “They’re here! They’re here!”
The intercom went dead.
Ariana sat perfectly still, as if by moving she could bring down whatever had taken over the Glomar three miles above head. Only her eyes moved, shifting around to the walls that surrounded her, that suddenly didn’t feel very thick or secure at all.
Chapter 26
THE PAST
999 AD
Eleven men were gone. Some of the warriors whom Ragnarok had known since they were boys playing at war with wooden swords. He felt Hrolf’s eyes upon him as he made his mental roll call. The old warrior was slumped against the tiller, as Askell the Healer sowed up a jagged cut on the side of his face where one of the tentacle mouths had slashed home. Ragnarok coiled the rope that had connected to the ship and put it back in place at the base of the mast.
Tam Nok was in the bow, mesmerized by the temple that dominated the view in that direction. Ragnarok found the temple impressive but not enough to distract him from the state of his crew and ship. Half the remaining men were wounded, and Ragnarok could sense the shock brought on by the dual assault from the Valkyries and kraken, followed by transit through the black circle to their present strange location.
“The sun is wrong,” Bjarni had his hands on the tiller even though they weren’t moving. He had not moved through it all, standing fast at his duty place.
Ragnarok squinted at the sky. He realized what the helmsman meant- the sun was higher in the sky than he had ever seen, even at the summer solstice.
“We are far south,” Bjarni said. “I have never been this far south.”
“Where are we?” Ragnarok asked Tam Nok.
The Khmer priestess was startled, broken out of her semi-trance. “This is- this is here. The place we have been searching for.”
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