Ocean of Storms

by Christopher Mari

  It was the Eos.

  Soong felt her mouth go dry as Donovan squeezed her hand, a look of sheer delight in his eyes. “Alan, I can’t believe it.”

  At that moment, piercing lights turned on all around them.

  “Jesus Christ!” Donovan yelled as he covered his eyes. Blindly he reached for the radio clipped to his belt. “You could’ve given us a warning, Elias.”

  Zell’s voice came back: “I wanted it to be a surprise. Find anything?”

  Donovan and Soong smiled at each other as he clicked his radio again. “You gents might want to come down here.”

  Benny and Zell arrived a few minutes later and found Donovan and Soong standing before the unearthed Eos. The ship was almost obsidian in color and somewhat triangular in shape, dotted with bumps and ridges all along its hull. Although its nose was impacted into the ground, the stern rose up from the cave floor to the ceiling. Whole sections of the vessel were still buried in volcanic muck, but the vast majority of its front section had already been excavated. Ladders and gantries had been set up around the ship to allow access to its various sections. The Eos was as large as its sister ship on the Moon, a virtual skyscraper lying on its side.

  Benny whistled. “Holy shit. When we were on the Moon, I never imagined these things to be so big.”

  “Looks like your theory holds water, Dr. Soong,” said Zell. “This thing’s big enough to pulverize a mountain.”

  “Or a volcano,” Donovan observed.

  “All right,” said Zell. “Let’s find the door. Benny, you’ve got the schematics from the Astraeus?”

  “Right here, Doc,” Benny said as he punched a few keys on his minicomputer. “Okay, on the other ship, the entry hatch was located on the port side . . . oh boy.”

  “What is it?” asked Soong.

  “It’s just that . . . the entry to the ship is near the stern,” said Benny. He jerked his thumb toward the ceiling. “Up there.”

  Donovan scanned the ship with his light. Finally he found a massive scaffolding that rose up the length of its port side.

  “There it is,” he said. “Looks like we’re walking.”

  After a lengthy climb, they arrived at the airlock. Benny and Donovan forced the door open, and the four explorers climbed in. The ship was in far less pristine condition than the Astraeus, having spent the last two million–plus years at the bottom of a volcano, but was still remarkably well preserved.

  Donovan’s light shone on a plaque at the airlock’s entrance. “The Eos,” he said, reading the ship’s name. “Well, one thing about these people, they sure knew their classics.”

  “And were not without a sense of irony, it seems,” answered Zell, looking around. “Now, which way to the bridge?”

  “Where else?” Soong said, gesturing with her thumb. “Up.”

  As they walked up, the four of them noticed the evidence of the excavators’ presence on board the Eos.

  “They took just about everything that wasn’t nailed down,” Soong said. “That’s going to make it harder for us to extract what we need.”

  “It also means that, whatever we know, they know more,” Zell noted. “That could work against us if we try and go public with this stuff.”

  “Still,” said Donovan, “if we can get anything, anything at all that proves what really happened on the Moon, I’ll be satisfied.”

  “Let’s just hope we don’t become martyrs for the cause,” Zell said.

  Once they reached the bridge, the team began trying to work with what little had been left behind. Benny went about trying to power up the ship while Donovan, Zell, and Soong began searching for hard data.

  “Got it,” said Benny. “The damn thing’s in sleep mode. Looks like they tried to kill the power at the source but couldn’t bypass the main circuits.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Donovan.

  “It’s weird,” said Benny. “It’s almost as if the ship wouldn’t let them turn it off.” He turned around in his chair. “Like it was fighting to stay alive.”

  “How can that be?” Zell asked. “I thought we determined on the Moon that this technology wasn’t intelligent.”

  “Nevertheless,” Soong said, “how else can we explain it?”

  Donovan scratched his head. “Very strange. On the Moon the ship’s computers only seemed able to answer questions, not think independently.”

  “I dunno,” answered Benny. “More likely it’s some kinda default mechanism inherent to the programming. Ensures that, whatever trauma the ship endures, the data it’s carrying will still be preserved.”

  “Makes sense, given what they were carrying,” said Soong.

  “So we’re in business?” asked Donovan.

  “Maybe,” Benny replied. “They still managed to do a lot of damage. Whatever data I can get will be fragmentary at best.”

  As Benny worked, the archeologists decided to poke around the Eos a bit and see if they could get a better sense of what happened. Consoles were smashed, chairs uprooted. Papers, obviously left by earlier visitors, were scattered about the craft. To Donovan and Zell, seeing a site of such obvious historical value treated so abhorrently was dispiriting.

  Given that the ship was on a more deliberate angle than the Astraeus, the three scientists felt themselves fighting against gravity at times. Once, Soong lost her footing walking up a passageway and slipped, skittering back down the slope until Donovan caught her arm. After a while, it seemed to them that up and down had sort of switched places. At times, the ship’s angle was steep enough that they could practically walk up a wall with almost no danger of falling.

  “I feel we’ve gone down the rabbit hole here,” remarked Zell ruefully.

  After an hour or so of nosing about, they came to what appeared to be the sick bay. It was in the same condition as the rest of the ship but promised to hold more tantalizing secrets. Soong walked over to one of the tables and began leafing through the charred pages that were scattered about its surface.

  “Any interesting reading?” asked Donovan.

  “Not much,” Soong replied. “Just some notes from someone named Cuevas. Fragments, really.”

  “Keep ’em,” Zell said. “We never know what they might tell us.”

  “Already done,” answered Soong, zipping up her bag. She peered around the ship. “Judging from the condition of this room, as well as the rest of the Eos, I’d say our time travelers didn’t last as long as those on the Moon.”

  “It’s a miracle they survived at all,” Zell said. “This thing must have hit the planet like a meteor.”

  “The question is,” said Donovan, shining his flashlight about, “not how long they lasted, but what they did while they were here.”

  “We’ve got to move,” Benny said, appearing behind them.

  “Have you got the data?” asked Donovan.

  “What I could. It’s not much, but it should be enough.”

  “Why the hurry?” asked Zell.

  “I was extracting the data, and I noticed that there was something embedded in the data stream. Subtle but still there.”

  “What was it?” Soong asked.

  “A tracking signal. Obviously left by our friends. I guess they figured since they couldn’t stop us from accessing the data, they could at least keep us from telling anyone about it.”

  “So we’re going to have company,” said Donovan. “Great. How long?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Benny answered. “Twenty minutes. Ten seconds. Hell, they could be on their way up right now.”

  “Right,” said Zell. “Gather whatever you can carry, and let’s clear out. I suggest we split up, make for Dar.”

  Soong looked at him. “Shouldn’t we head back to the village? Badru’s still there, and the Maasai could—”

  “My dear, based on what we’ve run into this morning, it’s entirely possible that Badru’s dead and his entire village wiped out. There’s no telling how far these people will go to keep their secrets.”

>   Donovan looked over at Zell. “You’ve still got that safe house?”

  “But of course,” his friend answered. “It’s rather sparse, but I think it will suit our purposes well.”

  The team made their way out of the ship and back down the ladder. Before they left, Benny and Soong stopped to take one last look at the Eos.

  “She’s a thing of beauty, ain’t she?” mused Benny.

  “She is indeed,” said Soong. “It’s a shame that no one will ever see her.”

  “If we have anything to say about it,” Benny said, “there’s a chance she might never end up here at all.”

  “Change the present so this future doesn’t exist.” Soong laughed and shook her head. “Try as I might, I can hardly comprehend that idea.”

  “You and me both.” Benny jerked his head toward the entrance. “C’mon, let’s move.”

  As the two of them fled the cave, the last of their lights winked out, leaving the Eos as she had remained for millions of years: in total blackness, her stern pointing awkwardly up to the sky, poised forever for her final plunge into nothingness.

  Chapter 22

  September 15

  Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

  12:05 a.m.

  The streets near the port of Dar es Salaam were quiet at this time of night, and a thick, warm sea breeze blew in across the bay from the Indian Ocean. Donovan made a left onto a side street and drove halfway up the block before parking in front of a dilapidated six-story warehouse. Soong stepped out of the Jeep and into the humid night air.

  “Are you certain this is the right address?” she asked as she glanced up at the worn brick facade of the building.

  “This is it,” Donovan replied as he pulled his ancient leather knapsack from the backseat. “Elias made sure I memorized the address.”

  “How does he know this place?”

  Donovan smirked. “I think he owns it.”

  Soong met Donovan on the sidewalk. “It doesn’t look like much.”

  He laughed. “I don’t think supersecret safe houses are supposed to.”

  It was true: the building’s facade had seen its fair share of bad-weather days. The crumbling bricks had left long streams of reddish dirt on the sidewalk from where the rain and wind had blasted the building for generations. The structure likely hadn’t seen any real use since Tanzania’s colonial days decades ago. Each of its street-facing windows was boarded shut with thick slats of wood. The iron gate on the loading dock and the office door were rusting off their hinges. Only a shiny new lock fitted into the old front door betrayed the fact that the building was still in use. Donovan pulled a freshly cut key from a pocket of his grimy khaki pants and fitted it into the lock. To their surprise the door opened noiselessly into a darkened interior.

  Donovan took his flashlight from his knapsack and shone it around the room. The floor was bare except for a few empty packing crates and straw. Here and there a half dozen wharf rats sniffed around in a desperate search for morsels of food. Finding none, they scattered as Donovan and Soong made their way to the far end of the floor. The floorboards buckled under their feet, but Donovan was fairly certain they wouldn’t give way.

  A single bare bulb throwing off no more than forty watts revealed the elevator. Donovan slid back the creaking iron gate and pressed the button for the top floor. Not wanting to alarm Soong, he reached a hand into his backpack and gripped the pistol he had taken from one of the mercenaries. He took off the gun’s safety and kept it at the ready inside the bag. If anyone had ambushed his friends, he wanted to make sure he would not prove as easy a target.

  Upon reaching the top floor, the elevator door slid back, and Donovan pulled open the gate. He relaxed his grip on the gun when he saw Zell and Benny hunched before a large bank of computers, set up on folding tables and desks in the center of the floor. A faint smell of fresh paint and varnish caught in his nose. Off to one end, half-hidden behind mosquito netting, were four cots made up with clean white linens and warm cotton blankets. To the right of the elevator was a mahogany conference table and comfortable-looking leather chairs. To the left was a pair of couches, a sixty-inch flat-screen television mounted to a nearby wall, a wet bar, and complete kitchen. Somewhere a radio was playing “Moon River” and dulling out the sound of the industrial-strength air-conditioning Zell had installed.

  Zell whipped off his reading glasses and glared at them. “Blast it, where have you been?”

  Donovan put the safety back on the gun and tossed his knapsack on a nearby chair.

  “I’ll take that as your being worried about us, Elias.”

  Zell scoffed as he approached them. “Take that as me thinking you two went on a moonlight drive instead of showing up here when you were supposed to. We’ve been at it for two hours already.”

  Donovan glanced at his friend. Zell had changed his clothes, and his graying hair was darkened and still damp from a recent shower. Benny looked similarly refreshed. “Working for two hours, my ass. It looks like you two have been primping all this time.”

  “Well, I admit we did clean ourselves up a bit,” Zell said, rubbing his recently trimmed beard, “but you two can feel free to use the facilities yourselves.”

  “As much as that appeals to me right now,” Soong said with some exhaustion in her voice, “we didn’t drive all around Lerai Forest for a shower.”

  Zell’s eyes narrowed. “You weren’t followed, were you?”

  Benny swung around in his ergonomic desk chair. “Even if they were, they’d never know it. You oughta see the satellites we’ve got today. They can pick out a bug on your back.”

  Soong folded her arms across her chest. “So what are you saying, Commander? That there was no point in our being cautious?”

  “I’m not saying that. All I’m saying is that if somebody really wants to track us, they can. And that there’s not much point in our making any use outta those cots. Best guess is we’ve got a couple hours’ lead time before we oughta be hightailing it outta here. So if you wanna take a shower, better hop to it.”

  “You’re being paranoid,” Soong said as she grabbed a Coke from the minifridge behind the wet bar. “Are you even certain those men were American agents?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Donovan asked as he reached over the bar to grab a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “They weren’t exactly your run-of-the-mill muggers.”

  Benny sat back in his chair, wincing at his still-aching side. “Definitely Special Forces of some kind. They had the skills.”

  “Which doesn’t necessarily mean they’re working for your government,” Zell observed. “They could be mercenaries of some sort—perhaps even working for the men who were at the dig before us.”

  “In either case we can’t say there won’t be more of them.” Donovan popped open a can of Coke and poured some of it into his scotch glass. “I agree with Benny. We should try to be out of here before anyone decides to come a-knocking.”

  “So you think they were American agents too? Aren’t you taking your grudge with the American government a bit far?”

  “Christ, Elias, this isn’t about any grudge. Not anymore. But I think we have to go on the assumption that they were for now. After all, somebody didn’t want us to get to the Eos. And it’s somebody with a lot of frigging pull.”

  Zell nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “So you’re on the run from your own government.” Soong smiled. “Have you ever contemplated defecting to China?”

  Zell pulled a cigar from the humidor on the bar and lit it with his gold Zippo. “I don’t think it’s gotten that bad, my dear.”

  Donovan wandered over to Benny’s workstation. “So what’ve you got?”

  “Well,” Zell said, contemplating his cigar, “we’ve warmed up the computers and done tests on the data drives we generated on the Eos. They read just the same as the ones we generated on the Astraeus.”

  “But we never saw how those worked,” Soong noted. “They were taken from us as soon as we landed
back on Earth. All we ever saw of that information was what Benny and Yeoh copied onto a legitimate twenty-first-century flash drive.”

  “And don’t forget,” Benny added, “those drives we got off the Astraeus were fed straight into state-of-the-art government computers. No offense, Doc, but compared to that, we’ve got a pretty jerry-rigged setup here.”

  “None taken,” Zell said as he approached Benny. “But we’ve got to hope that these generated drives are compatible with any twenty-first-century computer. After all, why would these people from the future allow us to be able to create such disks and not have them work universally?”

  Soong put a gentle hand on Donovan’s shoulder. “But remember, the Eos’s been exposed to both time and the elements, as well as a systematic dismantling.”

  “Well,” Benny said, scratching his cheek, “the only way we’re gonna know for sure is to try and open it. I’m game, even with reservations about the equipment.”

  “I agree,” Zell said. “Not much point in almost getting killed several times and not trying to discover what you’ve been putting your life on the line for. When you’re ready, Commander.”

  Benny swung his chair around and tapped out a few keystrokes. A list of files appeared on the screen in alphabetical order, featuring everything from “Air Supply” to “Zoological Surveys.” Donovan leaned over Benny’s shoulder to study the list. Though he was somewhat tempted by the “Zoological Surveys” file, he found another that was even more intriguing.

  “Try the ‘Ship’s Logs.’ We should start there.”

  “Okay,” Benny said with a deep breath. “We should get another list of files, probably chronologically, on this screen.”

  As Benny clicked the icon, the lights dimmed suddenly. Computer monitors began flicking on and off throughout the room. The air-conditioning revved up, then slowed down before shutting off completely. The television and the radio turned off and on, bouncing through stations as they did. They squinted as a blinding flash popped out of nowhere in the center of the room. The group looked around them in astonishment as holograms similar to the ones they had witnessed on the Astraeus began to take shape around them.