The Black Knight (35 page)

‘Project Thor was a research program at Boeing in the 1950s,’ Jarvis added, ‘which is pretty much what Wilms must have based his own design on. The system most often described is an orbiting tungsten telephone pole with small fins and a computer in the back for guidance. The system described in a 2003 United States Air Force report was that of a twenty foot long, one foot diameter tungsten pole controlled with a satellite and capable of hitting any spot on the globe with a velocity of around Mach ten.’

Lopez looked at the map of Antarctica displayed on a screen nearby.

‘Can we track this thing?’ she asked.

‘Cheyenne Mountain is already providing us with a tracking solution,’ Jarvis explained. ‘The team at Cheyenne are calculating orbital trajectories and such like as we speak.’

Lopez turned to Hellerman.

‘How long would it take between launch and impact of one of these tungsten weapons?’

‘The time between deorbit and impact would only be a few minutes, and depending on the orbits the system would have a world-wide range.’

‘Damage radius?’ she pressed him.

Hellerman sighed.

‘In the case of the system mentioned in the 2003 Air Force report above, a six meter long tungsten cylinder impacting at Mach ten has a kinetic energy equivalent to nearly twelve tons of TNT. Some sources suggest a speed of nearly forty thousand feet per second, which for the aforementioned rod would amount to a kinetic energy equivalent to one hundred twenty tons of TNT.’

Lopez looked again at the map and she knew that they were running out of time.

‘Wilms must already have tasked his satellite with the hit,’ she said. ‘Is there any way we can knock it out of orbit or intercept it in some way?’

Jarvis shook his head.

‘There are no other options,’ he replied, ‘and with Wilms out of the picture Majestic Twelve would likely have taken control of the KIL Satellite.’

‘And it’s the perfect kill,’ Hellerman said. ‘The ice will refreeze the impact zone within days. Nobody will ever know what happened down there.’

‘The satellite must have codes,’ Lopez said, ‘a way for us to hack it.’

‘Get back to Wilms and get them from him,’ Jarvis ordered. ‘Any way you like, just get them or this will all be over long before we can get Ethan and Hannah out of there!’

***

XLII

Antarctica

‘We’re almost there.’

The interior of the
Seehund
was bitterly cold as Ethan guided the submarine using the electric motors toward a shimmering veil of water above them. From below he had almost missed the submarine pens in the gloom, only the faint halo of illumination coming from glow sticks tossed across the docks revealing its location at the last moment.

Ethan gently angled the hydroplanes upward and prepared to surface as he looked down at Amy.

‘We don’t know what’s happened here since we left, so be ready for anything.’

Amy nodded, her features pinched with concern as the
Seehund
rose up and Ethan peered up out of the dome as the submarine finally broke the surface of the pens. To his relief he saw Riggs and Del Toro rush to the side of the dock with mooring lines as Ethan held the submarine in position alongside the dock and they tied the vessel down. Ethan shut down the engine and immediately reached out for the dome latches, unlocking the seals and pushing the dome up and open.

A waft of clean, cold air breezed in to the submarine and Ethan breathed it in deeply as he levered himself out of the cockpit.

‘Did you get it?’ Riggs asked.

Ethan nodded as he jumped down onto the dock and stretched his legs, Amy jumping down after him. ‘We got it. It’s attached to the cable on the bow.’

Riggs looked at the cable.

‘Good,’ he replied. ‘Let’s get it out of the water and into the base. The sooner we get this sorted, the sooner we can get the hell out of here.’

Ethan saw Hannah hurry across to him. ‘We lost contact and thought that you’d both gone under.’

‘We almost did,’ Ethan admitted as he watched the SEALs hurriedly attach the cable to a winch on the edge of the dock. ‘I don’t know what that thing is but it’s lighter than we expected. It came up without any trouble but it shuts off any electrical devices within a few yards of it.’

Doctor Chandler’s voice reached him from behind.

‘Electromagnetic interference,’ he called out as he descended the steps onto the dock. ‘A common event during UFO encounters.’

‘And lighting storms,’ Amy countered as she turned to watch the SEALs begin to winch the object up out of the water. ‘Just because it’s charged doesn’t mean it’s from another planet.’

‘Doesn’t mean it’s not, either.’

‘That’s not a logical argument,’ Amy protested. ‘You can’t prove a negative. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and you don’t have…’

‘Will you two cut it out?’ Hannah snapped. ‘Look, you can test the damned thing to your heart’s content now.’

Ethan watched as the SEALs heaved on the winch and something below them in the water loomed out of the darkness. As he watched, the water in the pen began to glow a luminescent blue as fresh bacteria plumes began appearing on the water.

The winch heaved again and the tip of the object broke the surface. Ethan could see that it was as black as night, a sort of metal that seemed entirely smooth and yet matt in appearance, reflecting none of the lights illuminating the pen. As the SEALs hauled on the winch, more of the object was lifted clear of the water and he heard Amy gasp in surprise.

The object was indeed bell-shaped, roughly twelve feet high and perhaps ten feet in circumference at its base. Ethan could already see that there were odd markings around the rim of the base as the water streamed off the object, like angular hieroglyphics that were etched into the solid metal itself. The object was lifted clear of the water, and Ethan stepped back as the SEALs swung it around on the crane and gently lowered it onto the dock.

The metal base landed with a hefty thump on the dock as Riggs stepped back from then winch, his face sheened with sweat.

‘Heavy,’ he said, ‘but not nearly as heavy as it should be. It must be hollow or something and made of aluminum.’

‘That’s not aluminum,’ Chandler said as he cautiously approached the object and rested his hand against it. ‘The electromagnetic charge proves that.’

He pushed against the object, but he could not move it as Amy crouched down alongside the base and began making careful copies of the inscriptions in her notebook.

‘Looks like ancient Egyptian, or perhaps even the Sumerian script,’ she said as she worked.

Doctor Chandler nodded, a bright smile spreading on his features.

‘That, my dear, would not surprise me in the slightest. The Sumerians recorded in their history the stories of gods from the skies who came down with great knowledge and shared it with the people. They repeatedly stated that these beings resided in the oceans, and that they would come from the water from time to time to help humanity.’

‘And no doubt Santa Claus was there to record the events,’ Amy chortled as she worked.

‘Mock me all you like,’ Chandler muttered in reply. ‘Our ancestor’s tales of ancient intervention by gods from the sky form the basis of all today’s religions, regardless of what today’s believers may assume to be true. This,
Die Glocke
, is the first tangible evidence of that.’

Amy shook her head in silence as she continued to work.

‘I don’t give a damn where it came from,’ Riggs said as he stared at the object. ‘It’s too big to fit through the front door, so one way or the other we’re going to have to get it out in pieces.’

Chandler stared at the SEAL aghast.

‘Destroy it? The most precious discovery of modern times? An object that will change human history and you want to smash it to pieces?!’

‘It’s not going to change anybody’s history if it ends up buried beneath a couple hundred thousand tons of ice,’ Riggs pointed out.

‘We don’t know what it contains,’ Amy shot back, for once on Chandler’s side. ‘What happens if we break it open and what’s inside is lethal to us, an infection of some kind? We’ll all be dead then, too, regardless of what happens to this cavern.’

Ethan stepped in. ‘Look, there may be another way.’

‘Tell me,’ Riggs said.

‘The device is light enough that it could plausibly be floated out of here using the
Seehund
, right? We could use the same sub-glacial tunnels that the Nazis used to get into the glacier and build this base. Amy and I saw those channels and there’s life down there, so there must be a way out.’

Riggs frowned. ‘Our support will be coming in using that same path. We can’t risk the chance of a collision beneath the ice.’

‘There’s no guarantee that the channels are still fully open,’ Chandler reminded them. ‘We were briefed that our reinforcements might not be able to make it all the way here, which would mean a longer wait at the base.’

Riggs dragged a hand down the stubble foresting his chin as he looked at Saunders.

‘We heard anything yet?’

‘Nothing on the secure channels,’ Saunders replied. ‘If they’re on their way, they’re staying real quiet about it.’

Riggs nodded and looked at Amy. ‘And you say that this object could contain things that might be dangerous to humans?’

‘It’s from another world,’ Amy pointed out. ‘Another civilization built this. We have no idea what they might have placed inside it.’

Riggs nodded as he made up his mind.

‘If that’s so, then we can’t risk letting it out of this base and perhaps infecting the rest of the planet with some Godawful disease or virus. The only option we have is to open it here.’

‘Say what now?’ Hannah uttered.

‘It’s the only logical course of action,’ Amy agreed enthusiastically, eager to be the one to open the first genuine alien artifact in human history. ‘If this base is about to be destroyed by natural forces, then we know that any virus will be contained by the collapse. All we have to do is ensure that whatever’s inside this bell does not make it into the water flow and out into the wider world.’

‘And how would you do that?’ Hannah asked. ‘This whole cavern is carved from ice that flows out of the glacier, right? One drop of water infected here will be carried directly to the southern oceans.’

‘The blast doors,’ Ethan guessed. ‘We seal them up and open the bell while we’re inside. That way, it can’t get out.’

‘Nothing can be sealed so perfectly,’ Chandler insisted. ‘We cannot reliably examine this artifact outside of a proper laboratory.’

‘Bit short on the laboratory side of things, Doctor,’ Riggs said as he strode by and headed for the interior of the base. One way or the other, we’ve got to open it here and find out what’s inside or this whole mission will have been for nothing, so we’ll have to use the field tents instead. Get on it Amy, figure out how to open this damned thing and fast.’

*

Amy sat on the dock, huddled in her Artic coat as she stared at the bell’s implacably solid side and let her mind wander free. Ethan could see her from where he leaned against the railings at the base entrance, Hannah alongside him as they waited.

‘She’s not going to figure this out in time,’ Hannah whispered. ‘Veer’s men could come through the front door at any moment and we won’t be able to hold them off for long.’

‘Give her time,’ Ethan said. ‘She’s desperate to see what’s inside the damned thing and that’s a powerful motivator.’

‘You never heard of what happens to curious cats?’

Ethan smiled as he pushed off the railings and walked down onto the dock. He approached Amy from one side, saw her looking straight into Die Glocke’s featureless surface as though seeking a reflection that wasn’t there.

‘How can it be so smooth and yet not reflect anything?’ she asked him, rhetorically he guessed because he felt like the last person on Earth to have a decent answer.

‘They ran out of polish?’

Amy chuckled despite her deep thinking and shook her head, then sighed and bowed it. ‘I can’t figure these icons out.’

Ethan looked at the shapes and symbols adorning the circumference of the artifact and shrugged.

‘It’s hardly surprising. It took centuries for archaeologists to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs, and you’ve only got an hour at best.’

‘The archaeologists had the
Rosetta Stone
to help them,’ she replied. ‘I don’t have a damned thing, and I doubt very much that Chandler’s idea of comparing these to Sumerian script is going to work.’

‘I wouldn’t rule it out,’ Ethan replied.

Amy looked up at him in surprise. ‘You don’t buy into all that ancient alien crap, surely?’

Ethan felt mildly embarrassed for some reason, but he held his ground.

‘I’ve seen quite a bit of evidence to support it, Amy, believe me. We wouldn’t be sitting here looking at this thing if alien civilizations hadn’t launched it here or left it behind. Kind of suggests that people like Chandler might be onto something.’

Amy scowled and looked again at the device.

‘We were always going to find alien life eventually,’ she muttered. ‘Just because we have doesn’t automatically mean that every crackpot theory about ancient aliens is suddenly true.’

Ethan looked again at the icons and frowned.

‘What makes you think that they’re letters or numbers anyway?’

Amy shrugged. ‘I guess it’s because there’s no other thing that they could be. Why inscribe an artifact like this at all if not to pass on a message.’

‘Yeah, but it could just as easily be a registration plate or something, right?

‘Are you always this comical?’ Amy asked him with a wry smile.

‘Just sayin’,’ Ethan shrugged again. ‘We’re assuming this thing is of huge importance because it was left here. What’s to say it wasn’t just a simple vehicle left behind by a group of camping interstellar travellers who were just passing through and…’

Ethan was cut off as a deep moan reverberated through the cavern, thundering with enough force to vibrate the air in Ethan’s lungs as he staggered sideways and sought a handhold. He leaned against the side of
Die Glocke
as the chamber shuddered around them and the icy black water cavitated once more, symmetrical loops shimmering in the dim light from the glow sticks marking the dock’s edge.