The Basingstoke Chronicles (3 page)

"Whatever you say!" I replied.

Rodrigo stole a sly glimpse at our female companion in his skewed rear-view mirror. Her
custom-made sunglasses suited her perfectly, a modern twist to her old-fashioned glamour. He
saw that I, too, had seen and looked across at me. We couldn't help but grin as we used to in the
old days--the difference being that the girl in the back was taken.

As it turned out to be the last drive we would take together, I look back on it now as a
wonderful moment; my three greatest friends accompanying me on an impromptu Caribbean
adventure, without a care in the world. While we slowed to exit the coastal road, my eyes eased
shut to savor the pungent balm of a saline breeze.

After a few hundred yards from the pocked beach, the sapphire ocean darkened into a
choppy brew. We left the vehicle to haul our wetsuits and change of dry clothes across the beach,
when a small boy approached us from the
Faro Luna
hotel, wearing not a stitch of
clothing.

"Are you pirates?" he asked, wide-eyed.

"Yes," replied Ethel. "We forgot to fetch our cargo, that's all."

"Sshh! Don't tell him about the gold, woman!" added Sam.

Perhaps doubting, perhaps in awe, the lad simply stared at us as we walked away.
Another dreamer in a woken age, desperate for something extraordinary to happen.

Sam and Ethel boarded their hired vessel
Aquitaine
from the neighboring jetty
in fine spirits. Rodrigo yelled one last piece of advice as they cleared the boat's moorings: "Just
remember, there's only one female you can trust at sea, so make sure she doesn't sink."

I saw Ethel purse her lips and clip her husband's ear for his chauvinistic salute, and I
knew the two of them were going to have a whale of a time that day. As for me, it was as if the
years spent away from my companion were little more than grains of sand underfoot as we
approached his beautiful yacht, the
Moncado
.

She had not changed in the least: thirty feet of pristine, white luxury as sleek as a
glistening dolphin against the early morning sun. As she was fully rigged--our scuba gear awaited
us below deck--Rodrigo wasted no time in letting her engines first purr and then roar as we
chased across the rising waves for our first eager hunt before noon.

The shallow coral reefs of Cienfuegos are celebrated for their impressive variety of
marine life and excellent visibility for diving. Rodrigo assured me that farther out to sea, beyond
the tourist haunts and well into the island's fishing lanes, the underwater realm was even more
vast and spectacular. Boats and ships of every classification lay sunk upon its ancient bed.
Entombed in these could be relics and artifacts more valuable than anything above the surface, at
one time coveted by pirates and princes alike, now whispered of amongst only those deeply
deceased.

I have always maintained that the ocean is man's last great romantic conquest. Outer
space, to many, is where our attentions should lie, but I still regard that as a dream for the distant
future. The oceans, covering fully two thirds of our fair planet, are as much an alien frontier as
anything in or beyond our solar system. Undersea topography, in terms of sheer scale, can dwarf
the Himalayas without much effort. Species of marine life unlike anything yet recorded in
evolution must wander the depths in a state of harmony we have yet to imagine, oblivious to our
fratricidal reign above.

The undersea environment, too, quickly becomes our worst nightmare--pounds per
square inch piling upon our fragile tolerance like a coffin of anvils and vices, squeezing life from
us with horrible, mechanical pressure. And then there's the oxygen, ironically surrounding us
while remaining elusive to our human respiration, forcing us to use an artificial supply. For all
these reasons and more, I regard scuba divers as the astronauts of the sea.

Rodrigo navigated us to the precise coordinates provided, through Dumitrescu, by the
fishermen that had discovered the body three weeks before. The
Aquitaine
stopped a few
hundred yards away.

I sensed something distracting Rodrigo. Usually talkative to the point of boorishness, his
words now seemed forced between bites of his lower lip. I never did find out what superstition
pricked his intuition so.

"Good thinking," he said, referring to the distance between our two boats. "This way we
won't be treading on each other's toes...flippers."

"Or they just want some private time."

"Could be."

He gave me a careful look as we prepared our oxygen gear and must have noticed how
sluggish I was, also. "Some things don't change, I see."

"What?" I replied.

"The Englishman who can't abide summer. What's that saying? 'Mad dogs and...?'"

"Mad dog Cubans, you mean. How can you stand this blasted sun?"

"I think you'll be all right, Baz, if that's all you're worried about." He threw me my mask.
"I hear it's a bit cooler down there."

The deepening blues pressed in increments about us as we started our descent. My eyes
quickly adjusted. After about a hundred feet, Rodrigo struck an orange flare and let it spiral to the
deep. As it fell, the entire gamut of blues and greens awoke a sprawling undersea landscape
beneath us.

Not as deep as all that.

Abrupt variations in the height of the sea floor were worthy of note. The rim of a giant
ocean vent had crumbled away to leave only its incisor-shaped remains. A curious trail of jagged
impressions atop the nearest rock tooth--each one adjoined at an almost perpendicular angle to
the last--stretched a good forty feet across the ocean floor. Too erratic to be man-made, too
conspicuous to forget, they constituted a zigzag phenomenon that had me puzzled.

What's left of an ancient fissure?

Jittery shoals of tiny fish approached and then darted away with spectacular unanimity as
Rodrigo lit his flares. Pastel colors seeped across obscure vegetation clusters as the flame passed
by. All the while, we observed keenly the unpredictable sea bed. A stray piece of timber here, an
uncoiled length of rope there, a twisted knot of metal: anything we might have construed as
potential boat wreckage of recent origin we had to dismiss at first glance. All were either
embedded in years' worth of sand or were simply too isolated or haphazard to suggest
anything.

Though my capacity for undersea exploration far exceeds the time afforded by any gas
cylinder, a diver, above all else, has to be a vigilant timekeeper. Just over an hour had elapsed in
our search. Two-thirds of my oxygen supply was exhausted. Our circular reconnaissance route
neared completion.

Savoring the few remaining minutes, I observed the spectacular local fish. I decided to
follow one unusual fellow on his downward route. Striped with silver and black, bisected by a
horizontal black line, he measured a good arm's length from mouth to tail but was extremely
narrow. From the side, in my torch beam, he resembled an oversized grin with alternate gap teeth.
I wondered what jest of evolution could possibly have inspired this ridiculous creature.

As we swam by the upended bow of a rowing boat, I remembered seeing its vee shape
during our first pass. A few feet behind, however, a small ivory pendant rested on the sandy bed,
and seemed exempt from the grim assimilations of age and the sea. It did not belong.

I ran my fingertips over the chain of beads. My first impulse told me it had been
carefully crafted. The texture was smooth, yet not artificial. Into every alternate bead was carved
the same pattern displayed on the
Enigman's
mysterious garment. The slender,
rectangular pendant showcased an array of indented dots, seemingly without correlation. I was
intrigued.

As I turned to rise and signal Rodrigo, I shuddered from a sharp, excruciating pain. My
right knee felt as though it had cracked against a brick wall. Contorting myself to both nurse the
wound and unleash a torrent of curses on the offending rock ledge, I soon floated there, in the
deep, truly dumbfounded. I could not reconcile what I saw, or rather, what I could not see. Where
there should have been rock, there was only water--nothing but water. My knee had hit
nothing.

Then what had hit me?

I kicked out to continue to the surface. My right flipper again clashed with something
solid. And again there was nothing to account.

What the hell?

It was as though I were a bubble of oxygen anchored to the sea bed, unable to escape.
Panic took hold, so I let myself drift back down to the bottom.
Breathe in, breathe
out...slowly.
It is impossible to describe how vulnerable I felt, so far from safety. Eyes shut
tight, I reached out for help. My imagination un-spooled amid sickening revolutions. When I was
almost on the point of blacking out, my outstretched hands touched something secure, smooth,
something metallic. Breathing in easier, shallow cycles, I concentrated on the sound of air
bubbling from my apparatus--a soothing, effervescent rumble. After a few moments, I opened my
eyes.

There was still nothing to see. The object was invisible to the human eye. As the moment
drew on, awe and unnatural excitement made me shudder. The brief panic had lifted the sluice for
my adrenaline.

Regaining my composure, I began to explore its dimensions.

I traced the smooth surface, and soon concluded the object was cylindrical in shape and
large, roughly fifteen feet high, with a diameter no more than half that. Atop the shape, a peculiar
configuration of curved metallic extensions stretched upward, almost meeting at the uppermost
point. Not actually being able to see any of this, my imagination volunteered its own schematic,
one I'm afraid to say amounted to a giant culinary whisk. Though for what dish I was at a loss to
say.

Five smooth, sturdy legs supported the object's base. They splayed outward to raise the
cylinder a few feet from the sea bed. It was here that I gained my first view of the phenomenon.
Reaching as far as I could across the underside for another physical clue or possible entry point,
my eyes opened wide. I saw seamless silver. Not a scratch, dent or marking of any kind was
visible. At that depth below the surface, considering the attentions of marine biology and
chemical alteration, that something so foreign could remain in such a pristine state I found
incredible.

No sooner had I drifted back outside to survey the rest of my discovery when it vanished
again. The thing was a puzzlement, for sure.

An object only visible from beneath?

It was time to seriously address the nature of this invisibility. I returned to the object's
roof. Poking my head between two of the extensions, I once more discovered I could see the
object clearly. My blind guess had in fact been a good one. The blades of a rudimentary whisk,
six-inch-wide silver tentacles, converged above me, almost touching, with perfect geometric
symmetry. As I drifted back out once again, the transparency resumed. A tickle of triumph
danced over me.

What technology is this? Or whose?

The secret of its invisibility was a shroud of some kind, draped over the object to mask
it on the ocean bed. As I could only see it from
inside
this boundary, perhaps the
invisible fabric had no physical dimension at all. Was it a manipulation of light and
electromagnetism, a photonic shield of mind-bending ingenuity? Whatever the origin, I was
certain of its connection to the mystery I had sought to solve. After all, the pendant had been left
only a few meters away.

Having first satisfied myself that everything aloft was immovable and unresponsive, I
swam back down to its base. This time I swam low through the legs and, reaching the centre of
the span, knelt upright for a better position from which to inspect.

Suddenly, the most extraordinary disorientation I have ever felt began to affect me. My
eyes were fixed on the sleek silver hull when the circumference of my torch beam suddenly
began to expand. It was as though I was shrinking to an unfathomable state inside some
surreptitious snare. I had to look down for fear of wheeling backward. At that moment, I settled
with a gentle sigh of relief, for the legs, I realized, were extending. The base was rising slowly
from me.

What did I do?

Petrified but acutely curious, I stood tall and bit into my plastic mouthpiece. I tied my
fate to the science of this enigmatic mechanism. The silver legs finally stopped extending at
about nine feet, holding the object steady.

A few feet above me, a tiny turquoise hole, no bigger than a halfpenny, appeared in the
centre of the base. It quickly grew, opening the metal skin as though it were about to give birth. I
can't put into words how strangely inviting this gesture was. My mind felt like a steady compass
after a violent tremor.

Inside, a translucent turquoise material walled the vessel from roof to floor. Rising up to
enter, I was again surprised. The interior was in fact a chamber of air. Were it not for the
seawater cascading from me onto the hard floor, I might have been climbing a lighthouse tower
on a clear afternoon in Cornwall.

I daren't trust this air pocket, though. I retained my own oxygen supply. Even
recklessness has its limits. Studying the vessel, I found little with which to grapple--no wheel, no
lever, no inkling of its practicality.

Imagine an elongated dome, which would comfortably hold three standing men, built
with a chameleon-like metal shell. What a curious vessel it was. Empty and undecorated except
for what appeared to be a strange cipher scribed across a two-by-eight foot panel in the wall
opposite. I guessed that if the chamber were located on land, its color would adapt in kind. Its
shade of blue suggested a light filter of some kind diffused the outlying pigment of the sea.

The floor was slightly concave to ensure water was not trapped inside. With its gaping
keel, it reminded me of the old-fashioned diving bells used for deep sea exploration. Though one
would expect a plethora of theories to emerge, I can honestly say that was not the case. There was
only a grim satisfaction, the vindication of a life-long insistence. I had discovered something
truly extraordinary
and
real.