Druid's Descendants

by Mark Philipson

  Sobuku fought off what she named fringes by studying sonar signal profiles and deciphering pitch levels played back on slow speed. She matched prerecorded sonar transmissions stored in the ship’s memory banks with initial wire-frames to partial renderings to full-resolution translations.

  More days passed. Sobuku mapped pitch variance to visual images to keep fringes from creeping up on her. With each session, Sobuku scanned incoming sonar and studied pitch levels. With each session, data streams Sobuku tweaked into full renders showed the same featureless expanse of the black zone.

  Sobuku fell into a rhythm. Every hour, the time she spent studying incoming sound waves representing slight irregularities on the bottom decreased.

  When the next sonar signal emitted, Sobuku expected the return signal analysis to be similar to the proceeding signals. She noticed a slight variance in the upper levels of the audio histogram. Water density showed a steady increase out past the 100 kilometer leading edge of the signal.

  Sobuku took a chance. She messaged Kenshin:

  — Request increased power diversion to extend sonar signal to 200 kilos?

  — Permission granted

  On the next transmission, when the incoming front edge returned, the first thing Sobuku noticed was another increase in water density. From this point, she took advantage of the power increase to run a microscopic analysis of particles suspended in the water. The analysis showed the particles to be rich in protein and oxygen.

  At the very edge of the returning signal, Sobuku noticed a strong variance in the wavelength. The histogram showed a low spot between two peaks. The zoom-in showed the valley to have a smooth, parabolic floor. Another zoom showed the floor to be broken and jagged.

  At that moment, a message from Kenshin came through:

  — Ending power surge.

  Sobuku took a snapshot of the sonar histogram just as the power diversion returned to normal. She used drawing tools to manually sketch a wire-frame over the high and low areas of the histogram image. Sobuku applied three dimensional conversion and rotated the image horizontally. Proportional editing pinched rugged grids on predicted paths.

  It took a few seconds for it to sink in. All this time she’d been analyzing the bottom contours. What she was looking at represented the top of the water column. This was a vertical image.

  16

  THE REFLECTION MUST be an iceberg, Sobuku reasoned four hours later as she watched the leading edge of an incoming transmission, now within the one-hundred kilometer range, populate the display on the console.

  In the image, a network of grids formed on moving areas of light and shadow. Crisscrossing lines came on-screen and stuck to the contours of the shifting visual translations.

  Under the grid, on the first texture render, sheets of blue and white crystals formed layer upon layer of ice stretching from the surface thousands of meters into the depths.

  Light reflected off masses of drifting clouds of plankton.

  Shadows shifted again to become wire-frame images of finned animals swimming to the surface and diving back again.

  Once the ship’s memory classified the objects as a large herd of leopard seals; detailed analysis revealed the seals took oxygen directly from the atmosphere. A true warm-blooded creature breathing air from the surface.

  Sobuku messaged:

  — Captain, I think you should see the latest incoming sonar rendering.

  — Have it. It look likes Director Hasegawa’s theory is correct. The pole is sustaining life. Switching to full-power mode. Prepare for icebergs.

  Sobuku studied incoming sonar. Seals, some exceeding four meters from nose to tail, pushed bullet-shaped bodies from the top to the bottom of the wall of ice. Shafts of light illuminated clear water and flickered off facets of solid ice.

  As the Gato closed, Sobuku saw packs of seals swimming to the lower section of the iceberg and pause to feed on bunches of mollusks clinging to the uneven surface.

  Iceberg mode, implanted in Kenshin’s subconscious during training, came forward. He brought the Gato within 25 meters of the surface and combined above-water forward-looking view with submerged forward-looking view.

  Incoming sonar images showed the approaching mountain of ice moving in an east to west pattern at 28 kilometers at the waterline. Wind gusts, some clocking in at 84 kilos, flowed in north to south bursts and buffeted the iceberg in zig-zag patterns.

  Kenshin, now controlling the ship in full power mode, swam to port, the same heading as the towering block of ice.

  The Gato beat its flukes hard. Kenshin kept the body in-line with the navigation trajectory. The ice mountain pushed waves ahead of it. Massive blocks cracked, fell away from the wall, tumbled down the face in a white avalanche, and crashed into the water.

  Gaping caverns formed. Thundering breakers rushed in, fulling the holes with seawater, streaming out in waterfalls that froze in the air and melted under the water.

  The gust sweeping the peak of the iceberg died. Seconds later, a wind gust blew in from the south and pushed the ice in the opposite direction.

  Kenshin glided around and over the retreating layers of ice supporting the summit. Once wild surf on the windward side subsided. Calm waters on the windward side crested and slammed into the block.

  The Gato avoided jagged pinnacles projecting from the water line. Kenshin brought the sip back on course.

  Long days of tedious voyaging in low-power mode over the black zones gave way to a frenzied passage through channels of shifting ice-blocks.

  Kenshin used the ship’s on board navigation systems, coupled with the whale’s lightning fast reflexes to wind around and through narrow corridors of open water.

  Swirling eddies pushed and pulled mountainous blocks at the water line, throwing rippling wakes in their paths. Howling gusts, bleached white with ice crystals, rolled up the faces and raked across the summits.

  Two days later, after 48 hours of threading and dodging a broken range of runaway mountains, steering currents died down. Wind gusts faded into silence.

  Cliffs of solid ice rose 1,000 meters form the surface of calm seas. The ice wall splintered. A shard, 300 meters tall and 600 meters wide and 500 meters thick at the base and 200 meters thick at the top, broke away from the face. The teardrop-shaped block, when it struck, drove geysers of water hundreds of meters in the air. A series of tidal waves crested high in the shallows near the edges of the ice shelf and subsided in the depths.

  — 75° North. We’ll continue under the ice-pack. Take the helm.

  Sobuku acknowledged. She set the bow trajectory at 15°. Slow, rhythmic beats of the flukes and tilted pectoral fins pushed the Gato deeper and deeper down the face of the ice-shelf.

  On the overhead visual, sonar signals showed the peaks and valleys of the lower end of the shelf.

  After three hours of nosing over high spots and plunging into low areas, Kenshin messaged:

  — 90° North. We’ve reached our destination.

  The Gato circled, Sobuku transmitted sonar signals against the shelf and stored the incoming data. Once the ship completed a twenty-kilometer radius of the Pole, she analyzed the data.

  Two hours later, — when all the peaks and valleys were drawn, rendered, and classified for chemical composition — Sobuku discovered the low spots on the face were dotted with sections filled with sea-water or pockets of air. She messaged Kenshin:

  — Captain, the most accessible point is at these coords.

  Sobuku shared the map with the bridge. Kenshin studied the properties of the access point designated by Sobuku: read-outs displayed density measurements indicating frozen sea-water, sea-water, and oxygen-rich air.

  Kenshin diverted raw energy from the Coreglass to the mesh filter on the tip of the blowhole converter. Tilting the Gato to port, Kenshin circled the access point. Heat radiating off the converter melted away a wide area. Kenshin maneuvered the Gato into the half-dome cavern scoured out by the converter.

  Kenshin melted the solid ic
e in the chamber above the cove and stopped within a foot of the next layer. As he backed the Gato out of the chimney, Kenshin extended a mechanical arm laying flush with the side of the converter dome. A bit mounted on the tip drilled a hole and inserted a ceramic tube.

  The Gato swam clear of the cove. At that moment, Kenshin activated the detonator. The solid layer of ice splintered and fell. Thousands of tons water followed, filling the excavated hole and pushing a wall of water down and outward.

  17

  THE GATO CONTINUED making its way slowly, scouring out a path to the top of the ice-shelf.

  Keeping the ship in a near vertical position, Kenshin guided the Gato as it stood on its tail and pushed the blowhole up into sheets of pack-ice. The whale maintained the pose while Kenshin set the detonator in the final meter of ice.

  The crew and ship repeated this process again and again. Two days and twelve detonations later, the Gato melted four meters of ice and broke through to the surface.

  Sobuku had spent the entire ice ascent strapped into the chair. Climate assessment equipment was tested and ready to deploy. There was only one thing left to do before leaving the ship and bring her gear onto the shelf.

  Kenshin turned the Gato on its tail and maneuvered the massive whale head in tight circles. The blowhole converter melted a circular pattern. As the pattern widened, Kenshin eased the Gato on its side until the ship scoured out an elliptical hole roughly twice its size.

  Two sections lifted off the face of the converter and telescoped outward and at a diameter of 20 meters. A network of blue cells lined the underside of the paddles. Sensors in the cell indicated temperatures nearing the freezing point at the bottom of the access point. The cells turned red. Radiant heat flowed off the grid and bathed the water column.

  The ship-whale rested while radiant from the converter kept water temperatures above freezing and cutting off the ship’s escape route.

  Because the sun rotated in a narrow circle on the horizon, light conditions remained the same 24 hours a day.

  Because she had no need for sleep, Sobuku ran a final check on the equipment and second skin. She prepared to disembark.

  She messaged Kenshin

  — I’m ready to go out, Captain.

  — Do you need assistance?

  — I’ll be fine.

  — Very well. Bring your gear to the bridge.

  Sobuku threw the backpack over her shoulder, folded a tripod, telescoped the legs down, and slipped it into a sleep on the pack.

  She climbed to the bridge. When she neared the top, Sobuku held on with one hand while she unslung the pack and then hoisted it into Kenshin’s waiting hands.

  Kenshin set the pack down and pulled Sobuku the rest of the way up.

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to fit through the converter with this pack on.”

  “No, you won’t …” Kenshin looked at he pack. “I know, we’ll do it the old-time sailor way and hoist it out of the tube,” he said. “One of us must remain with the ship at all times. Mission Specialist Sato, bring the gear topside.”

  Sobuku set the pack beneath the entrance to the blowhole. She located a rope, remembering to refer to it as a line when addressing the captain. After tying a perfect slip-loop to the shoulder harnesses, Sobuku climbed to the top of the converter tube.

  For the side of the tube, Sobuku pulled out a hidden cleat and tried off the free end. She hauled the pack from the deck of the bridge to top of the blowhole.

  Sobuku untied the pack and set it down. She stood on the Gato’s head and looked around. Behind her and in front, sunlight glinted off a circular plain of ice running to a deep blue sea.

  At the center of this circle, flat sheets of ice gave way to rolling hills leading to an ice-capped mountain range rising like a backbone at the top of the world.

  Kenshin eased the ship into position when Sobuku messaged a request to disembark. She lifted her pack and stepped off the whale’s head as it fell in line with the ice-shelf.

  After removing the tripod and extending the legs, Sobuku jammed the spikes into the ice and set the tripod into place. From the back, she removed a ceramic ring and attached it to the upper part of the tripod. On the ring, Sobuku attached a series of glass tubes. Inside the tubes, vials glowed and interlocking gears spun.

  Sobuku checked the initial readings. As expected, she thought, the northernmost polar region is producing high oxygen levels in the air.

  The initial findings revealed numbers far greater than Sobuku had imagined. What anomaly could account for the self-sustaining areas populating the floor of the northern ocean?

  Sobuku mounted the last piece of equipment on a shaft in the center of the tripod. The top of the black cylinder opened. A parabolic dish rose on telescoping rods, stopping ten meters above the ice-shelf. The bowl rotated in a 360° pattern. Sensors embedded in the base received sonar signals, converted the sound waves to radio frequencies, and transmitted radar signals into the air.

  She was about to begin the first dynamic analysis of the data collected by the tripod components when Sobuku noticed a variation in the radar input: the sweeping arc showed a moving object on the ice at a range of 2,400 meters.

  Kenshin, now hooked into the enhanced sonar, noticed the object on the sweep as Sobuku messaged:

  — Captain, I’m sharing an incoming image.

  Kenshin zoomed in. Flat signals took shape as wire-frame grids clung to an evolving skeletal image. Layers of flesh and blood textures covered the bones. Thick, white fur covered skin.

  Memory banks flashed classification read-outs: Mammal … Carnivorous … Amphibious hunter

  When it stood on its hind legs, a dimensional display showed a height of 8.5 meters. The bear weighed in at 3,000 kilograms.

  Kenshin messaged:

  — Suspend all operations and return to the ship. Leave sonar enhancer intact and bring in all other equipment.

  Sobuku removed the instruments from the ceramic ring and set them in the holders. She lifted the backpack and carried it to the ship.

  Sobuku lowered the pack and climbed down the converter and stepped onto the bridge.

  “I’m assigning you to watch the ship,” Kenshin said. His skin suit changed colors, reflecting the interior cabin, then the stark blue of the sky and the intense glare of ice.

  18

  KENSHIN SET THE skin-suit to reflect the white glare radiating off the ice. He strapped on a pair of goggles and peered through the dark lenses. A few twists of a set of adjustable rings cut down the glare and brought every crevice and every contour into sharp focus.

  Using the tower as a visual reference, Kenshin homed in on the radar beacon. He walked across the ice, making slight directional adjustments based on the strength of the incoming radar signal.

  The signal faded as the captain put distance between himself and the radar tower. He climbed up to the top of a snow bank, fell to one knee, and turned the lens ring wide-open.

  The polar bear came into focus. From a resting position, it raised itself up on all four legs and looked in Kenshin’s direction. When it turned and raised its snout, Kenshin saw a massive pair of hind legs, long, thick neck, and an elongated muzzle.

  Oversize legs gave the animal increased strength and support while hunting for prey near ice flows and shorelines. The elongated neck and head provided a greater reach for a mouth filled with sharp teeth.

  The bear raised itself up completely and sniffed at the air. Kenshin wondered about the animal’s sense of smell. Was it powerful enough to detect odors from underneath a skin-suit?

  The bear turned its head in the opposite direction, turned back around, and then broke into a run. Fur covered pads on webbed feet threw ice crystals in the air.

  Seconds later, the bear stopped in its tracks and slumped over. Red blood flowed and pooled on the ice.

  Kenshin brought the image in closer. A shaft had penetrated the bear’s spine, forcing the tip to drag pieces of lung and heart with it.

  Zooming
to maximum power, Kenshin focused in on the tip of the shaft impaling the bear to the ice. He snapped a series of images.

  The floor of snow and ice around the bear crumbled. The carcass tumbled down into an air-pocket and disappeared.

  Kenshin returned to the Gato.

  From the moment she received the images, Sobuku began a detailed analysis of the spear-tip. Evidence suggesting the presence of Brahmantium, the essential component in the Coreglass, the unknown mineral force behind the living energy, was abundant.

  “I thought as much,” Kenshin remarked after hearing Sobuku’s report.

  “Why, Captain?” Sobuku asked, anxious to hear the answer.

  “Judging by the manner in which the ground around the bear caved-in … it appeared to melted from below. “

  This exchange prompted Sobuku to verify something that had been posing a question in the back of her mind for days: What was the source of the light and oxygen in the dark and light zones?

  The results came back positive for Brahmantium in its most elemental form.

  Could this phenomena be the work of Citizens or was the earth producing the compound on its own, as if it were following an evolutionary agenda.

  The Brahmans, or River Citizens, accepted the fact it was the destiny of the human race to live in artificial environments under glass domes.

  A growing number of Ocean Citizens, or Natural Oceanics, believed it was the destiny of the human race to re-inhabit the earth.

  Sobuku looked way from the console, “What do you make of all this, Captain?” she asked.

  “So far, the evidence is not solid enough for a conclusion,” Kenshin shook his head. “We will continue the mission as defined.”

  “What about the evidence of advanced tool production possibly fashioned from a mineral with high traces of Brahmantium —“

  “I understand your concern,” Kenshin broke in. “There is no contingency for contact with a native population that we don’t even know exists. Until then, as Captain, I’ll carry out orders.”