CHAPTER NINE
“So we are into Relativity Theory now,” said Grant.
“That’s right.”
“Fine. I’ve been seven hours concentrating at the wheel and I had a full breakfast. Nevertheless, go for it.”
“See if you can keep up. I did not stay at the bottom of the class forever.”
“Try me.”
“The crux of Relativity Theory is that time can be slowed down. That much you know, don’t you?”
“Vaguely, yes.”
“Do you remember what atoms consist of?”
“Electrons and neutrons. That much I do know.”
“Which is why I was called the slow electron. Electrons are particles, small just like me, revolving around a core, called a proton.”
“Which would be just like you in relation to me.”
“You wish. Actually, matter like this,” and she patted the fibreglass body of the cockpit,” is not solid at all, although it appears that way.”
“Now you are losing me.”
“The appearance of solidity is provided by the speed with which electrons circle a proton. They go around so fast that in a split nanosecond of time they are everywhere around that neutron in a very impenetrable way.”
“I hear you. Impenetrable.”
“Don’t get side-tracked. Now for the time aspect.”
“OK.”
“Different elements have different combinations of neutrons and protons. What also differentiate them is that the speed of the electrons are not the same for all elements.”
“So the time differs?”
“Not exactly. We are only talking speed here. But what makes all these speeding, moving things exist together?”
“That must be time.”
“Exactly. See, you are not so bad. They are all connected on a plane. And that plane is time. They can interrelate because they are all in the same time.”
Grant screwed up his face. “Now how did your teacher, Mr...”
“Hall.”
“Mr Hall use the Triangle to explain it all to you?”
“I’m coming to that. He made us read up on all the survivor stories, that is, stories of people who had typical Triangle experiences. I’ve told you the stories about planes that flew from point A to point B much faster than these planes could actually fly. There are many more stories of missing aeroplanes in the Triangle that sent out maydays from positions where they could not be. Totally impossible. Unless you apply Relativity Theory.”
“Which says?”
“Which goes like this. That electronic fog around the ships and the aeroplanes was doing something. It was slowing the speed of all electrons down, of all matter, in the same relative way.”
“And slowing down time.”
“Yes, for everything that was enveloped inside the mist.”
“It sounds contradictory. How does this make an aeroplane fly faster?”
“The electronic mist retards the effect of the curvature of space and time. As a result the future comes quicker. If you were flying from point A to point B, it means that you will arrive at point B quicker than usual.”
“I see.”
“Do you understand what I am saying?”
“No. Do you?”
“This is how I explain it to myself. Have you ever lost the soap while showering?”
“I suppose so.”
“If you lose your soap on a tiled bathroom floor, what happens to it?”
“It slides around.”
“As if there is no cohesion between the soap and the floor?”
“Yes.”
“That is exactly what happens. Because everything inside the mist slows down, time slows down and cohesion is lost with the time of things outside the cloud.”
“So it slips into another dimension?”
“No. Only the time changes.”
“Then why did they disappear, according to Mr Hall?”
“Mr Hall asked us to come up with an answer exactly for that question. What we figured out is that if the grey mist slowed down all the electrons to the point that they stopped, all matter inside of it would collapse and simply disappear.”
“Like into a black hole?”
“Yes, like into a black hole. We had that same idea.”
“So the mist is actually sucking energy. The result is that the plane or ship loses connection in time with what exists around it and eventually disappears.”
“Unless it escapes before the final moment arrives.”
“That’s pretty scary. Where does your Mr Hall say the grey mist comes from?”
“He thinks it is a vortex thing.”
“What does he mean by vortex thing?”
“It is something that swirls. His theory is that the hurricanes that we have every year pack such power that they cause permanent changes to currents of air. They become more than air, in fact swirling electromagnetic fields that move around and attach themselves from time to time to objects they come into contact with.”
“We are lightning proofed, so I guess we are safe.”
“Maybe that is the thing that attracts it.”
“How would you know?”
“I don’t.”
“And your Mr Hall, is he still around?”
“Yes, he is still teaching. Don’t tell me you want to go and see him.”
“Why would that be such a bad thing?”
“He’s crazy.”
“Really. Just now you did not talk as if you thought he was crazy.”
“He is beginning to get quite a reputation. Over the last few years he has been experimenting with all kinds of weird things. He is forever visiting a Canadian guy called Hutchison and now he is using some of the Canadian’s techniques to try and replicate the Triangle effect in the school’s laboratory. We are all waiting for the day that he makes some valuable school property disappear or maybe even the whole school.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I’m serious. Many parents are now beginning to wonder if they want their children to be exposed to him. If you want to see him you’d better hurry up.”
“Actually, I think I’ve heard enough,” said Grant. “It was very entertaining, thank you very much. And now I must go. The longer we talk the clearer it becomes in my mind that there is a certain trade that I have to make. I need half an hour in my office right now. You have the watch.”
As he stepped off the companionway Grants eyes fell on the dirty dishes in the sink. After a moment’s hesitation he stacked the dirty dishes where they belonged and started the sequence. He wondered what his spoilt co-traveller was going to say when she finds out one day that perhaps only one in a hundred yachts on the high seas had a dishwasher to start off with.
He thought his plan had worked perfectly. He had broached the subject of the Triangle as an intentional ploy to get her mind off the embarrassing moments in the cabin, just in case she saw something. He had to admit that the morning’s episode had rattled him. He had the weird feeling that something outside of him was taking control of his body. It was the first time in his life that something like that had happened to him and he found it thoroughly disconcerting.
Perhaps it had something to do with being close to the Triangle, he mused. Did Madeleine not say that there was ample evidence of people losing control of their minds? It was enough to weird you out.
He placed himself on the executive chair in front of the screens in his office. E equals MC square, he mused. It was a good one to remember. You never knew who you could impress with it. But now it was time for the real world.
***
Hadah proudly showed off more of his expertise to his mentor. When low tide arrived, he applied the knowledge accumulated by generations of Goringhaikona to find mussels and abalone where the regular but more casual hunters in the rock pools have missed them. They ate a portion of the mussels raw while they pounded the abalone until it was soft. Then they cooked the balance of the mussels and the abalone in th
e clay jar that had been jangling on Hadah’s side since they had left the Butter River valley. Once they had a good meal and had rested a little bit, Hadah started packing up. He wanted to get into the city, the sights and sounds of which he had missed. The master, however, was in no hurry.
“We’ll sleep here tonight,” he said.
“I’d like to see the city,” said Hadah rather stubbornly.
“Tomorrow,” said the master.
They gathered up some of the salty brush for beds and huddled around their little fire until sleep claimed them both. They were up at first light and this time the master was in a hurry. The two left tracks on the wet sand by the waterline as they passed fishermen’s shacks as well as the whitewash-and-thatch dwellings of the well-to-do. The fishermen had beaten them to it and they crossed furrows in the sand made by their boats where they pulled them to the water, eager to catch the early sea-breeze. Out there on the bay they noticed several small sails, waiting to be lighted up by the first rays of the sun. They reached the castle with its cannons aimed toward the sea just as the sun coloured Sea Mountain pink. Impassive lookouts on the walls were scanning the horizon, spyglass in hand, even though there were posts higher up on Lion’s Head doing the same.
The two KhoiKhoi scurried past the castle, a hundred feet below the watchers where all was still in shadow. Next came the harbour and the jetty. There were sleeping forms in and around the smelly stalls of the fishermen, evidence of the city’s vagrant problem. Bleary-eyed guards at the company’s impressive warehouses stood at corners where they could get catch some early sun. The master stopped for no-one and they marched on. Soon they approached the commons, where draught oxen and other cattle were put out to graze. Here the master left the beach.
Just then an unearthly bellow filled the morning air. They stopped to listen.
“It’s not one of us,” said Hahah knowingly.
“Yes,” said the master. “I agree. That was a slave on the rack. You can hear it from his voice, which is low and strong. Our kind cries like hyenas.”
“Maybe it is a slave that ran away and was caught,” said Hadah, thinking again of the three slaves they had met several weeks ago.
“Maybe,” said the master as another roar vibrated in the space between the sea and Lion’s Head. “He is still strong. It will be another two days, from the sound of it. The executioner just woke up and tightened the screws. That is how he wakes up everybody else in the city.” The master seemed to enjoy his little joke.
“It is a painful way to die,” said Hadah, who thought about what it would be like if it was him.
“It is. I have known about slaves who crept into the place of the executioner at night and slit the throats of their friends on the rack, putting their own lives in danger.”
The two sorcerers crossed the commons, resisting the lure of the breakfast fires that burned at the odd wagon and tent and headed up Lion’s Hill. They could have been just like another pair of herders heading up the mountain to round up their oxen for the trip back to the farm. Only, the master had no interest in the cattle that they passed. They skirted the city and eventually stopped at the stream that ran down into the town and provided it and passing ships with water. They drank and rested.
“Do you see these flat rocks?” asked the master.
“Yes.”
“This is where the women come every day to wash clothes. Aitsi-!uma came here a lot so she could hear all the news, like who was pregnant. She was a very clever woman.”
“Did the women know who Aitsi-!uma was?” asked Hadah, for whom the city and its surrounds was familiar territory. That included the place of the washer women. Out of respect, however, he did not let on.
“A few might have had their suspicions but Aitsi-!uma found it very easy to gain people’s trust. She was always friendly and appeared as if she took a real interest in the people that she met. Also, as a young woman she was very pretty so that people were attracted to her, even the ones who knew her as a sorceress. It is as if I can see her even now, sitting on that rock over there in the long coat that she always wore, talking to the washer women.”
“That is clever indeed,” said Hadah. “Some of them must have been very surprised when they realised the truth afterwards.”
“They were. Many would have fainted if they realised whom they were talking to, telling her everything about their lives. She was very well known in these parts and widely feared.”
“But not by the Dutch?”
“No, but they got to know about her. They heard our womenfolk talk about her and they gave her a Dutch name since they could not pronounce her real name properly. They called her Anke Sommers and amongst the slaves it became Antjie Somers. I’ve more than once heard Dutch women call their children in the evening, telling them to come inside now or Anke Sommers will catch them.”
“That’s funny,” laughed Hadah. “Did she find many babies here for the spirit?”
“Many,” said the master. “We used to run the whole distance to our mountain in one night with the babies, many, many times. She could outrun ten horses in succession, this woman, until she was very old.”
“I’m running better now myself.”
“I know. And now we have to go. The women will be here just now. There is a cave up here that I want to show you. That is where we live when we visit Cape Town.”
***
After a period of intense concentration at the computer Grant was disturbed by movement in the periphery of his vision. He whipped around and saw Madeleine watching him from the door of his office.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, surprised. “Is something wrong?”
“Why did you start so violently?” she asked. “It’s only me. You take the Triangle stories seriously, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry. I did not expect you, that’s all. Nothing more. Is there a problem?”
“Nope. I just had to use the toilet,” she said.
“You mean the heads?”
“You know what I mean. And as far as the boat goes everything is just fine.”
What are you doing?”
“I’m checking out a stock and building a trade,” he said.
“Have you got the same stock on all three computer screens?”
“Yes. This one shows the daily chart, that one the weekly chart and that one the monthly chart.”
“And these wavy things above and below?”
“They are indicators that show the sentiment of the market, whether it is overbought or oversold. This is called the RSI, these three lines the MACD and these the stochastics. See, if all these oscillators group together at the bottom like here, it means that we can expect a change, most probably to the up, since it is oversold. It is a buying signal. If you look on the weekly chart you can see that this stock has been trading down in an even sided triangle now for six months, begging for a breakout. And see this jiggle here? It is called an upside down head and shoulders in the making. At least that is what I suspect. Again, another positive sign. Now what do you see here on the daily chart?”
“It looks like a candle.”
“Exactly. This spiky thing here means that somebody is taking an interest. Somebody knows something and I think that he has got it right. I’m putting together a trade now for going long on this stock.”
“How much are you investing?”
“I wouldn’t call it investing. It’s called taking an option. It’s a trade. I’m thinking of putting down a hundred thousand US.”
“It’s a lot.”
“It’s a lot to lose. That’s why I am constructing this thing so carefully, with stops and hedges built in.”
“And you believe you are going to win?”
“I always win.”
“Then why do you have to build in stops and hedges?”
“There is always a first time. Even for me. There is no point in being careless.”
“All right,” she said. “Let me go upside and battle the waves on the sea.
I’m sorry that I scared you.”
“You did not scare me.”
He had a distinct feeling this trade was going to become another champagne moment.
***
Hadah had by now realised that his master was avoiding contact with all people. He just could not see the reason why. They did not even greet when others came near but just plodded on.
Early that morning the master announced that it was time to leave Cape Town behind and to return home. They left their cave dwelling in Sea Mountain but instead of heading for the road that led to the Great Mountains and Eland’s Pass they followed a course that flanked Sea Mountain to the south. By midday the master stepped off the road and soon they found themselves inside a vineyard. They crawled under the sparse shade of the low bush vines and rested.
“You can eat of the grapes if you find any,” said the master. “The harvesters have been here already.”
Indeed, they found some small bunches that were not worth the trouble of the harvesters and here and there even a full one where it was hidden from sight by a thicket of leaves.
“It is very sweet,” said Hadah with pleasant surprise, “the best I’ve ever tasted.”
“This vineyard was planted by a previous governor,” said the old man between chewing, “long before your time. They say that the wine made from these grapes are famous all over the world, in Holland and other countries.”
Later on they passed Princess Lake and the master pointed out to Hadah where its source was, close to the cave where the princess died from sadness. Hadah looked up, saw the cave and wondered about it all. This was the girl who knew their mountain and its spirit and could use its power. Did she really die from sadness or was it because she did not heed the call of the spirit? If she was the one who answered the call she would have been his teacher and not querulous old Ah!man who did not want him to visit his family or look up acquaintances in the city . They studiously avoided going near the lake where warriors drown and by nightfall found themselves on the shores of False Bay.
Over the next day and a half they stuck to the shoreline, eating shellfish and wild figs and scouring the sand for pieces of ships. They found nothing much for their collection, bar a few planks that could have come from anywhere. The master took pieces off them for good measure and added these to Hadah’s bag.
The Triangle and The Mountain: A Bermuda Triangle Adventure Page 13