Oracle (30 page)

Jade watched her leave.
“She’s going to get Nichols, or someone else, to let her make the dive.”

“
Probably. And she’ll probably do just fine.”

“
Then why didn’t you just give in?”

Professor shrugged.
“Dunno. You ready?”

Jade put on her mask and, with Professor trailing, made her way down a gangplank to the dive platform at the waterline. Dorion and several
members of the crew gathered above, eager to see what treasures would be found. On the platform, another crewman, likewise suited up to dive, showed Jade the weighted line that would take them to the edge of the excavation. From there, she would be on her own, free to investigate the hole that
Explorer
had blasted in the reef. Without further delay, Jade held her mask in place and stepped off the platform into the lukewarm soup of the Atlantic.

Ophelia’s expression betrayed
none of the rage that was burning just beneath her smooth exterior.
How dare they deny me this opportunity! They wouldn’t even be here if not for me.

Nichols would not refuse her. She had already found the correct pressure point to use against him. The only question was whether he could give her what she wanted quickly enough. Perhaps
she could also get him to recall the divers, bring Jade back up before she found the prize. Ophelia wanted to be the first to find it, the first to touch it and peer through the window into the infinite possibilities of the future.

There was no sign of Nichols on deck. She found that odd, but a helpful crewman who seemed to be having difficulty raising his eyes to meet hers—a fact that she found deliciously satisfying—told her where to find Cliff Barry. Barry seemed all too eager to accommodate her, and led her to a private companionway that had not been on their tour. There was just one door at the end of the corridor, and beyond
it, Barry told her, lay Nichols’ executive stateroom.

Barry
knocked and Ophelia tapped her foot, counting out the seconds. There were two things she hated: being told no and waiting. Having been subjected to the former by Chapman made this all the more unendurable. Finally, the door opened, but the face that greeted her did not belong to the owner of QMI.

Ophelia stared at the familiar visage for a moment.
“I know you.”

Recognition quickly gave way to alarm, but before she could protest, Barry addressed the man.
“We’re alone.”

“
Inside, quickly.” The man stepped back and Barry put an impertinent hand on Ophelia’s back and pushed her forward into the stateroom.

Ophelia tried to mask her rising fear with outrage.
“Don’t touch me,” she snarled, and then rounded on the unidentified man. “You were at Delphi. One of the men that tried to kill us. How dare you—”

“
Shut up.” The order was delivered in a cold, emotionless voice that was somehow more commanding than if it had been a shout. Ophelia closed her mouth and said nothing more. “Thank you,” he continued. “My name is Brian Hodges, and yes, I was there at Delphi. And before you say anything more, you should know that I’m here because your brother sent me to keep you out of trouble. You have no idea what you’re playing with here, Ms. Doerner.”

“
You’re trying to stop us. You tried to kill the others last night.”

“
Yes. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped and now things are considerably more complicated.”

“
Why are you doing this?”

Hodges
’ eyes narrowed. “I’m sure your brother told you about the Norfolk Group, and what we’re trying to do. That thing you’re looking for could set the world on fire. We—the Group, men like your brother—are not going to allow that to happen. In a situation like this, our protocols call for total sanitization. But apparently, those hard and fast rules aren’t so hard and fast when family is involved.” He made no effort to hide his contempt. “Big brother doesn’t want little sister to get hurt, so that puts me in a bit of a pinch.”

Ophelia
’s heart was racing. Despite all they had been through, even the harrowing events in Greece
,
only now did she recognize so acutely her dangerous position. There was no one here to protect her and the only weapons she had with which to take control of the situation—her money, and her sexuality—were not going to make a bit of difference here. She drew in a shaky breath and said, “I won’t give up. If that means you have to kill me—”

“
I’m not going to kill you, Ms. Doerner. Not if I can help it. And since it’s obvious that I can’t get you to listen to reason, that leaves me just one option.”

“
What’s that?”

His
lips curled into a humorless smile. “I’m going to help you get what you want.”

Jade followed
the line down quickly, holding her mask against her face and blowing through her nose to equalize the pressure in her inner ear. She could feel the powerful tug of the Gulf Stream’s current. Five hundred years ago, European mariners had relied on this warm-water conveyor belt to speed them across the Atlantic with their cargo of wealth from the New World, but the current was capricious. The strong surface current also energized tropical cyclones; it had probably been just such a storm that had thrown the
Misericordia
onto the shoals near Great Isaac Cay, and then buried it under tons of sand.

The weighted line ended at a berm created by the powerful thrust from the
Explorer’s
engines at the edge of a much deeper crater. Most of the sediment stirred up by the operation of the mailbox blowers had settled, but Jade could see the flow of the current in the few remaining suspended motes. It wouldn’t be long before the ocean filled in this divot and erased all trace of their excavation.

Jade stared down into the crater for a moment, marveling at what had been uncovered. She had not expected to see a Spanish galleon, sitting pretty and just waiting for her to
stroll its perfectly preserved decks, yet what she now saw was almost as impressive. The ship had been mauled relentlessly by the currents and eroded by the corrosive power of salt water, but she could clearly make out the heavy wooden beams of its skeleton. Other dark shapes were starkly visible against the white sand. Metal artifacts perhaps, encrusted and oxidized, lay scattered about the bottom of the crater.

The crew diver joined her there a moment later, and after flashing
her a thumbs-up, kicked forward and dropped down into the hole. Jade went in after him. To maximize their search time, they split up and began swimming in opposite directions, scouring the bottom for treasures. Although Jade was only really interested in one item, anything that might establish the identity of the wreck would help them legally justify their initial exploration, which could prove essential if the recovery of the Moon stone turned out to be more difficult than expected. Jade’s prescient glimpse into the not-too distant future assured her it would not, but inasmuch as she hoped that vision would turn out to be wrong, it was better to do this by the numbers.

Beneath the sand lay an encrusted mass of limestone, the ancient remains of the reef upon which the sediment had accumulated.

The surface was crenelated with fissures and gaps—what treasure hunters called “solution holes” where coins, chains and other items could often be found. Jade painstakingly inspected several of these as she made her way around the circumference of the hole. She was careful to check her watch, just as Professor had told her, and was surprised by how little time had passed. Usually, when she was sifting through a ruin, looking for potsherds or other bits of ancient detritus, she fell into a sort of fugue state where hours could slip by without her knowledge. She was surprised to see that she had only been in the water for about twenty minutes and was nearly halfway around the edge of the circle. The other diver was just a few yards away, and Jade decided that when they met, they would head back to the surface for a break.

She returned her attention to the task at hand, exploring another solution hole. Something glinted from the crack in the limestone and when she took hold of it, she could feel a heaviness that could only mean she had found gold. It was a chain of thick links, similar to those found at other wrecks of the period. She tugged on it gently but the underlying rock refused to yield it up. She pulled harder and suddenly a section of stone broke free, releasing a cloud of sediment.

Jade slipped the heavy chain into her sample bag and waited for the silt to settle out. As it did, she spied something smooth and black with a gently convex surface that disappeared into the surrounding encrustation. It was too large to be a cannonball and a closer inspection showed none of the pitting and corrosion that marred metal objects.

She stared at it for a full minute before realizing what it was.

The atmosphere aboard
the
Quest Explorer
was electric with the news of Jade’s discovery. Ophelia seemed to have completely forgotten about Professor’s slight and now hovered anxiously at the edge of the planning session for retrieving the Moon stone.

“
It’s not dangerous,” Jade insisted, “but touching it would be a very bad idea, especially for a diver on the bottom.”

She did not elaborate and no one asked her to explain, but she wondered if perhaps the object was more dangerous than she was willing to admit. A blackout like the one she had experienced in Teotihuacan might prove fatal in the unforgiving underwater environment. Worse still, the Moon stone
’s effect was not limited to direct contact. When Jade had come back aboard, she discovered that Professor’s watch was running a full six minutes slow.

Dorion had been astounded.
“That’s the time dilation effect,” he explained. “You were much closer to the event horizon than we were on the surface.”

“
You said the difference would be measured in nanoseconds,” Professor pointed out.

“
I thought it would. The field must be more massive than I imagined.”

“
That will make the Moon stone considerably heavier. Perez mentioned that the orb was heavier, but if it has enough gravity to cause a time differential that significant, then it may be too heavy to lift.”

“
Surely it can’t be that heavy,” Ophelia countered. “The Spaniard, Alvaro, was able to drag the thing through those tunnels under the pyramid by himself.”

“
It may have continued to accrete more dark matter,” said Dorion. “The sphere shape and the existing field would continue to draw in particles as the Earth passes through space, just like a black hole grows more massive as it pulls in material.”

“
We have to try,” Ophelia insisted. “This ship can lift cannons. Surely it can lift a big stone ball.”

“
Just how big are we talking?” asked Nichols.

Jade recalled the small portion of it that had been exposed, a section about eight inches across.
“Judging by the curvature, I’d say the size of a big beach ball. Maybe twenty-four inches max.”

Professor did some quick math in his head.
“A little over seven thousand cubic inches.”

“
A cubic inch of twenty-four karat gold weighs seven-tenths of a pound,” Nichols supplied. “If it’s as heavy as gold, then figure about two and a half tons. I seriously doubt this rock of yours is that heavy, but even if it is, our boom crane can lift twice that much.”

“
It may be much heavier,” Dorion said in a quiet voice, “to create that kind of relativistic effect…” He lapsed into silence as if unable to put his fears into words.

“
Maybe your watch is just running slow,” Nichols countered. “Anyway, we won’t know until we’ve tried.”

“
How will we secure it?” asked Jade.

“
Cradle sling. Probably two or three overlapping. We’ll clear away the surrounding matrix and then wrap it from the sides. Floatation tubes will add some buoyancy and make the crane’s job a little easier until we can get it to the surface. Should be a walk in the park.”

Jade wasn
’t quite so sanguine, but Nichols knew his business. “Let me set the slings.”

“
Have you ever done that before?” asked Nichols, skeptically.

“
No, but I’ve got the most experience of anyone here with an object like this. I know to treat it like a live wire.”

Nichols frowned and then glanced at Ophelia as if asking her permission. Ophelia just nodded. Jade found that strange, but decided to chalk it up to Nichols simply being paranoid about the possible liability if anything happened to
Jade during the procedure.

“
I’ll have one of my techs shadow you. We won’t try to lift until he checks your work.”

“
Fine by me.”

Nichols nodded.
“All right then. Let’s go get your Moon stone.”

Two hours later
, and with Professor’s chronograph synchronized to GPS time, Jade was back in the water. She wasted no time with further exploration, but went directly toward the bright orange flag that marked the Moon stone’s location. Using a small rock hammer, she went to work on the buildup of minerals that had accumulated around the sphere, vacuuming the residue away with a suction pump. The encrustation was softer than she had expected, as if the sphere had only been sitting there for a few years instead of more than four hundred. Perhaps, she thought with just hint of concern, the effect of time dilation close to the sphere was so strong that it had actually only been years and not centuries.

Further digging soon revealed a dark orb, smooth and black as graphite, about two feet across, just as she had estimated. The color, or rather the lack thereof, was remarkable, and Jade wondered if it was also an effect of the dark matter field, absorbing light like a black hole. She would have expected the ancient
craftsmen who made the Moon stone to use a silver metallic rock, but perhaps they had known what scientists would only discover thousands of years later—the moon only appeared to be a bright white light in the sky because of reflected sunlight. In reality, Earth’s satellite was as dark as the black volcanic sands that coated the beaches of her native Hawaii.

Under the watchful eye of the salvage tech, Jade carefully wrapped four web-like cargo slings around the exterior of orb, securing them in place with titanium carabiners. She wasn
’t worried about whether the reinforced nylon straps and the metal links would be able to bear the strain of lifting something that might weigh as much as a mid-sized car, but something—a prescient memory perhaps, or maybe just a bad feeling—told her that recovering the Moon stone would not go as smoothly as Nichols believed.

She clipped the last D-ring in place and then turned around just in time to see the salvage tech kicking toward the top of the crater. Her brow furrowed behind her mask, but after a few seconds she saw him descending once more, this time trailing a thick cable that was attached to an enormous metal hook. He wrestled the unwieldy length of braided wire into place above the sphere and then handed the hook to Jade. The cable was surprisingly stiff and she had to plant her flippered feet on the floor of the excavation in order to get the leverage required to bring the hook close enough to grab the carabiners.

The exertion left her arms feeling rubbery. She knew that she had probably been breathing a little harder too, using up her precious supply of air. According to her watch, she still had at least twenty minutes of bottom time, and if she ran out unexpectedly, she could always ditch her gear and make an emergency free ascent, but it probably wouldn’t come to that. They were nearly finished.

With one hand on the cable, she turned to get more instructions from the tech diver but he was no longer in the crater with her. She looked up and spotted him, a dark speck moving beneath the enormous oval of the
Explorer’s
hull.

Where
’s he going?

“Where is she?”
Professor said. He sounded irritated, but Dorion thought perhaps he was trying to hide his concern. “She’s five minutes overdue.”

Dorion leaned out over the rail
and peered down into the depths, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on down in the excavation. There was little to see, but Dorion had learned how to spot the rising bubble of the divers’ exhalations. “They do not appear to be out of air.”

Professor shook his head.
“She’s got a reserve, but the whole point of a reserve is that you don’t use it. You keep it, well, in reserve. For emergencies.”

“
If there are relativistic effects from the Moon stone, as I believe there must be, then time is passing more slowly for Jade. To her, it may seem like only a few minutes have elapsed.”

Professor made a growling noise, as if acknowledging the possibility but drawing no comfort from it. Dorion knew that no further explanation was required. He was used to people looking at him blankly when he tried to explain even the simplest aspects of Einstein
’s Theory of Special Relativity, but he knew that Professor was already well versed in the subject. He still didn’t know exactly what subject Chapman was a professor of, but he was one of the few people Dorion had ever met, outside of CERN, whom he considered to be an intellectual peer.

“
Someone’s coming up,” shouted a crewman, and both Dorion and Professor hastened to the edge to watch the diver rise into view. Dorion felt a twinge of disappointment when he saw that it was the salvage technician that had gone down to supervise Jade.  Barry joined them on the dive platform and helped the man climb aboard and shed his gear.

“
Where’s Jade?” Professor asked.

“
Just finishing up,” the diver said. He turned to Barry. “Now is as good a time as any.”

Something about the man
’s tone, or perhaps it was the look in his eyes, resonated with something in Dorion’s memory. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but he knew that he had glimpsed this moment before. No doubt it was part of the same vision that had led them to this spot. He had not told the others everything he had seen while holding the Shew Stone. So much of it had seemed irrelevant or just completely unimaginable, and just as with his earlier premonitions at CERN, sometimes it took a trigger to bring one of those memories to the forefront of his consciousness. That was what he was experiencing now, but only as a vague feeling of foreboding.

Something bad was about to happen.

He was still thinking that when he saw Barry nod to the diver. In a smooth, almost nonchalant motion, the Chief Mate hefted one of the diver’s oxygen bottles and swung it like a baseball bat. There was a loud clank as the aluminum cylinder slammed into the back of Professor’s head.

Professor crumpled, dazed but still clinging to consciousness. Dorion felt similarly stunned by the brutal attack. He drew back, a purely reflexive movement, and looked about for some avenue of escape. No one moved to block him. Instead, Barry deftly picked up a heavy weight belt and wrapped it around Professor
’s waist. The latter seemed to grasp what was happening, but his efforts to resist were slow and ineffective. Barry got the belt buckled and then gave Professor a hard shove that toppled him over the edge of the platform where he vanished with a small splash.

Dorion ran. He sprinted up the gangplank to the main deck where Ophelia, Ni
chols and several other crewmen were looking on.

“
Ophelia,” he shouted. “They just—”

His cry fell silent as he caught sight of the familiar
, but almost forgotten, face of Brian Hodges, standing with the others.

Ophelia stepped close and placed a hand on Dorion
’s arm. “It’s all right, Paul. You’re in no danger.”

Dorion gaped. His mouth worked but he couldn
’t find any words.

“
It’s going to be okay,” Ophelia continued. “This is the way it has to be. You’ll see.”

She turned her head toward Hodges and gave a nod.

Hodges returned the nod and then directed his attention to Nichols. “Do it.”

Dorion felt paralyzed. Do it? Do what? This wasn
’t what was supposed to happen.

Or was it?

The memories of an uncertain future broke free from the place where he had, in utter disbelief, locked them away, and flooded through him.

It was.

The
Quest Explorer’s
engines roared to life, and the ocean beneath the ship began to boil.

Jade heard a
splash, not an unusual sound on a dive site, and looked up at the outline of the hull. Something was coming down. No, not something. Someone. The outline of the rapidly falling figure was distinctly man-shaped, but something looked wrong about it. The man wasn’t kicking with his fins or trying to reach the guide line. He was simply sinking, and fast. Someone had fallen overboard.

Without a second thought, Jade let go of the cable and started swimming for the distant shape, even as she saw the current grab hold and start to pull him away. The Gulf Stream hit him like a stiff wind, dragging him away but without enough force to slow his downward plunge. She could see that the man was moving, struggling, but none of his efforts seemed to reverse his awful trajectory.

Kicking furiously now, her fins propelling her through the water like a rocket, she could make out more detail. The man wasn’t wearing a wetsuit, definitely not a diver….

Oh my God. It
’s Professor.

At that instant, an ominous rumble filled her ears. She glanced up just in time to see a plume of white froth erupt at the stern of the
Quest Explorer.

Disbelief and rage vied for primacy in Jade
’s mind. What were they doing up there? With a diver in the water and a man overboard, they had fired up the mailbox blowers. Were they insane?