The Navigators (3 page)

Chapter Four

A
cloud of dust covered the spot where Riff and Barry had been. It cascaded all the way down the slope. A big gray mud cloud expanded through the water, too, with waves going out in all directions.

I couldn’t see Barry or Riff, just waves and splashing. I ran toward the site. Barry’s head popped up for a second, then submerged again.

As I got closer, he came up again, eyes wide and mouth gaping.

“Come on!” he barked at me. Then he went under again.

I ran to the water and stopped at its edge. “What's going on?”

Barry thrashed like a madman, his head breaking the surface again. “Riff is trapped!”

Then he disappeared back under the water.

I jumped in, but the water was cloudy. I felt around – nothing but mud and sand. From the surface, Barry yelled to me.

Gasping for air, I stood. Barry’s face was white.

“He’s right here! Come on, I can’t get him out!”

I moved to Barry. He pulled on what seemed like a ball of mud. “Right here, Peeky. Grab him! Pull!”

Plunging underneath, I felt for Riff. I found Barry’s hands and grabbed what he grabbed. It was an arm.

I held the arm and surfaced for air. Barry threw himself at the sludge that had piled on top of Riff, straining to move it an inch. “Keep pulling!” He groaned, clawing frantically at the mud.

Riff wasn’t budging. Barry’s eyes grew wild. “Pull!” He screamed. “Come on!”

It seemed hopeless. Whenever I pulled mud from Riff, more slid into its place. Every time I tried to push the dirt in one direction, my body floated in the other direction. If I tried to stand and lift, I only sunk deeper into the sticky bottom.

But I had to keep pulling on that arm. I wasn’t going to just let Riff die.

Now I understood the desperate look on Barry’s face. He realized we might not get Riff out. There was no life in that arm.

Under the water, I struggled. My lungs aching, I refused to give up. My head pounded. My heartbeat thumped in my chest.

I pulled on the arm, straining as hard as I could. I had no more air. Red spots dotted the blackness of my closed eyes as I neared the verge of passing out.

Then the arm lifted. It practically pulled me upward.

I broke the surface to find Roger hauling a mud-covered Riff out of the water.

Melissa helped pull Riff’s pale, limp body onto the sand. “Can you hear me?” She checked him quickly. “He’s not breathing!” She opened his mouth and blew air into it.

After a few quick puffs, she checked his eyes. “Come on, Riff. Breathe!”

Roger worked his way up to what remained of the dig site and grabbed the field radio to alert the nearest hospital. As I gasped for breath, I thought about my earlier warning, that the closest hospital was an hour away. They would never get here in time to help.

I watched, helpless and exhausted, as one friend tried to save the life of the other. I could do nothing else. I dropped to my hands and knees, sucking in air as fast as I could.

“Come on, Riff.” Melissa continued mouth to mouth resuscitation. “Come on! Breathe, dammit!”

She exhaled into Riff’s mouth again.

“Come onnnn!”

Riff jerked his head to the side and coughed, spraying water across the sand.

“Oh, thank God.” Melissa rolled Riff onto his side. He coughed with force.

“Tomàs!” Roger called to me. “Peeky! Get the water!”

I ran to collect the water bottles I had dropped going to the scene. Roger shouted into the handset to Shands Hospital in Gainesville. “Student crew at Central Florida Mine 31 with an injury accident. Requesting medevac. Standing by for instructions.”

Medevac. A helicopter. If Riff had sustained any serious damage, that might make the difference. Good old Roger.

“Riff.” Barry leaned over him. “Look at me. Can you hear me?”

Riff’s eyes rolled around for a second, before gaining focus. The color returned to his cheeks.

“You’re gonna be okay, Riff.” Melissa patted his shoulder.

Riff bobbed his head. Then he coughed some more, spitting up mud and pond water.

I handed him one of the water bottles and splashed some water onto his face and mouth. He took a drink. “Wh… wha…”

“Take it easy,” Barry said. “Go slow.”

Riff nodded. He opened his mouth again. “Why… is Roger naked?”

In his hurry to help, Roger hadn’t bothered to stop and put on any clothes. Nobody seemed to notice until now.

“Oh my God!” Barry laughed. Everybody did.

“You’re welcome.” Roger dropped down onto the sand, exhausted.

Melissa hovered over Riff. “How do you feel?”

He propped himself up on one elbow, thinking for a moment. “Squeezed out.”

“I bet,” Melissa put the water bottle back to his lips.

Riff took a swallow. “Thanks.”

“Riff…” Melissa bit her lip. “You could have internal injuries. We need to get you checked out.”

“Oh, what crap. I’m fine. Let me up.”

Everybody yelled, “No.”

I spit a few grains of sand out of my mouth. “You were practically buried alive.”

“I’m okay.” Riff shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Where’s the machine?”

Barry sighed. “We lost it, buddy.”

“What do you mean?” He lifted himself on one elbow. “We worked it free. We had it out!”

Barry glanced over at the cloudy water. “It’s in there.”

“I bet it is. Damn.” Riff stared at the muddy pond “We had it more than halfway dug out. I was pulling on it, and it came loose.” He looked around at all of us. “Next thing I knew, I was underwater.”

Roger was still laying on his back catching his breath. “You almost died, and all you care about is a stupid fossil?”

“We weren’t working on a fossil.” Barry ran a hand over his hair, hands on hips. “It was some sort of machine.”

“Some discarded junk from the miners!” Roger waved a hand. “What’s the big deal?”

I glanced at him. “It wasn’t junk. It was a machine of some sort. Something… old. Elaborate. I only saw part of it, but it sure wasn’t anything the miners left behind.”

“That's not important right now.” Melissa put her hands on her hips. “What's important now is figuring out if Riff is okay.” She turned to him. “You tell me. How are your legs? How are your arms? Let's go through, step-by-step. Do you have any broken bones? Are you feeling any pain?”

Riff put a hand on his side and winced, but waved her off. “Stop.” He sucked in a breath and squeezed his eyes closed, groaning. “I'm fine.”

“See? You probably broke a rib. And I bet you're dehydrated.” Melissa wiped her brow with her sleeve. “Plus, you could still go into delayed shock.”

“Oh, I was shocked all right. From having naked boy’s
wang
in my face. What the hell, Roger?”

“You’re still welcome.” Roger flipped him off. The radio crackled. Shands hospital asked for an update.

Barry glared at Roger. “Get rid of them.” Melissa’s eyes flashed at him. Barry put his hands up. “Just until we get this figured out, Missy.”

“He needs to get checked out by a doctor!”

I cleared my throat. “Barry, it
is
protocol…”

“And he will,
after
we figure out what to say.” Barry rubbed his chin. “Look, we broke safety protocols. All of us. If we take him in now, we’re in deep shit. Shands will report it back to the university and Dr. Anderson will have no choice but to suspend us all.”

Melissa shifted her feet. “But…”

“But nothing. You know I’m right. If we go in right now, we’re screwed. We’re suspended. No question about it. That affects all of our scholarships. Our grants.” His gaze fell on me. “Exchange student status, too. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless we get all our stories straight right now. Then we have a way out of this.”

“I don’t know.” Melissa’s eyes darted to the others’ faces.

Barry shrugged. “I don’t see any other option, do you?”

“You guys broke protocol.” Roger sat up. “Digging on the side of the hill like that -”

“Not just us. What are you doing naked anyway, working on your sun tan?”

Roger paused, beaten. “Okay, you’re right. We broke protocols. All of us.” He gestured to the radio. “What do I tell them at Shands?”

“Nothing.” Barry bit at his fingernail. “Wave them off. And dammit, cover up.” He pulled off his T-shirt and flung it in Roger’s direction.

Laying down the big radio, Roger grabbed the shirt and tied the sleeves in a knot behind his back. It covered his front but left his butt exposed like Tarzan. He held out his arms to Barry. “There. Happy?”

“Sure. How about we eclipse that fucking moon now?”

“Whatever.” Roger stared at the radio. “And feeding Shands some bullshit line won’t work. They’ll know something’s up.”

“Tell them you overreacted.” Barry’s eyes widened. “Better yet, explain that you were just trying to be
extra
careful. You saw something and called it in before you knew what really happened. False alarm. Then sign off. That will buy us some time.” Barry eyed Melissa. “And when they eventually follow up with USF, Riff will have already been checked out by the university doctors on campus. We’ll take him in ourselves. Tonight. Shands won’t have an issue.”

Roger remained silent for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

He walked off, radio to his ear, to deconstruct his emergency call to the hospital.

Melissa folded her arms and stared at the horizon.

“What about the machine?” Riff stared over at the water.

I pointed, swallowing my disappointment. “It’s under the landslide. In the pond.”

“Is it?” Riff got up slowly and moved to the edge of the water. It was still murky. “It can’t be more than a few feet under the surface, can it?”

Barry stood up and peered past Riff. The mud cloud was now a tan colored ring in a calm, gray pool.

I craned my neck for a better view. “How big was it?”

“You guys still obsessing about my naked dick?” Roger approached from behind us.

“We were talking about your imagination,” Barry called over his shoulder. Then he turned to me. “The machine is right under the surface. Isn’t it, Peeky?”

I stepped into the murky water again and felt around. “It’s right here.” I could feel the metal piping. “Right under the surface, Roger. The find of a lifetime, maybe. But we can’t get it out without a little more manpower. Are you in?”

Riff waded into the water. “
I’m
in.”

Roger eyed the water, rubbing his chin. “How heavy do you think it is?”

“That’s the strange thing.” Barry rubbed his neck. “It’s big, but it’s not heavy. That’s why we were able to work it loose.”

Riff scoffed. “That, and a small landslide.”

Barry and Riff’s enthusiasm was contagious. I smiled. “I’m telling you, I only saw a glimpse of it, but it’s unique. It’s something special. I think we should try to get it out.”

I clapped Riff on the back as he stared into the water that minutes ago had nearly taken his life. “Let’s get it. I’m in.”

Melissa went to the water’s edge and placed her hands on her hips. “Well, then, why don’t we just tie an ATV to it and pull the damned thing out?”

The smile barely crossed her face before Barry sprinted up the hill towards the ATVs.

Chapter Five

W
e didn’t have time to inspect our discovery. Riff needed to go to the hospital, and the strange machine was still covered in mud. It wouldn’t offer any clues until we cleaned it.

Heavy rains made the long ride back to Tampa even longer. The skies opened up and pelted us for two solid hours and the old truck’s windshield wipers grunted with each swipe across the glass. Roger could barely see the road at times.

An old tarp had worked well enough to cover the machine so we could drive off the mine site without making the gatekeeper suspicious, but the moment we got up on the highway, the wind grabbed the old scrap cloth and sailed it into the weeds. In the heavy downpour, we let it go. Nobody wanted to get soaking wet again retrieving a worn out canvas. For now, the machine sat on the trailer in the parking lot of University Community Hospital with the ATVs and everything else.

We checked Riff in, then the rest of us—cold, damp and muddy—took seats in the lobby. Quiet exhaustion consumed us.

While we waited for the doctors to tell us Riff was fine—hopefully—my mind focused on the strange machine. I didn’t like it sitting out in the open but I didn’t want to raise a fuss either. We had a lot to learn about it.

Barry finally broke the silence. “Let’s just stash it in my apartment until we can have a good look at it.”

“I don’t know.” Roger shook his head. “It could get stolen pretty easily out of there.”

“Nobody’s exactly checking for it or anything, Roger.” Melissa turned to Barry. “I think that’s fine. We’ll have… unobserved access to it that way.”

I gazed out the window at the waning daylight. “Technically, we should take it to the department and log it in, but I guess it’s a little late in the day to do that.” I didn’t want anybody else finding out about the machine, either. Not until we’d all had a good long look at it first.

“Let’s drive past the car wash and hose it off, and then drag it up the stairs to my place.” Barry leaned in. “Park it right in the living room. It’ll be safe for one night. Then we can see what we want to do with it from there.”

It sounded reasonable to me.

Melissa stretched out in the chair. “I’ll be there first thing in the morning.”

Roger nodded. “Me, too.”

“Me, three.” They wanted to see what the heck it was, in the light of day. I had gotten a glimpse of it before the landslide. The elaborate appearance of it, the detail in the metal. I knew it was special.

A loud, authoritative voice interrupted our plotting. “Mister… Picante? Thomas?” A middle aged black man in a long white lab coat entered the waiting area and adjusted his reading glasses. “Uh, Tom… Tom… Tomàs, maybe? Pick-ant?”

I jumped up, followed by the others. “I’m Tomàs Pequant.”

He raised his eyebrows at our mud stained appearance, dropping his jaw. “You are here for…” He scanned the chart on his clipboard. “Richard Franklin Fellings?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “How is he?”

The doctor folded his arms and took a deep breath. “Well, Mr. Fellings has had quite a shock, Mr. Pequant. Can you tell me what happened?”

I hesitated. I instantly forgot the cover story we invented at the mine.

“Uh…”

“He fell.” Melissa saved the day. “Riff – Mr. Fellings. He… fell.”

The doctor peered over his reading glasses at her. “Mm-hmm. Must’ve been quite a fall. You were there, too, miss…”

“Oh, I’m Melissa Mills.” She extended her hand. She was ready with the “You Probably Know My Father, The Next Mayor Of Tampa” card.

The doctor shook her hand.

“And, yes, I was there.” Melissa motioned to the group. “We all were.”

He made a few notes on his chart. “Mm-hm. Are any of you family to Mr. Fellings?”

Melissa and Roger answered simultaneously, but she replied “No” as he answered “Yes.” Barry stood silent, biting his nails.

The doctor stopped writing and peered at them again. “Take a moment. Compose yourselves. Get your stories straight.”

I stared at him, shocked.

“I’m an ER doctor at a hospital situated next to a large university. I’m used to talking with twentysomethings with explanations that are borderline bullshit.”

Melissa spoke up. “Um, well, sir, we aren’t family, but…” She read his nametag. “We are the ones who admitted him, Dr. Harper.”

“We’re his friends,” Roger added.

“Well, I think your friend is going to be okay.” The doctor scribbled on the clipboard. “Some cracked ribs, a lot of bruises and cuts, but nothing that appears too serious. Still, I’d like to keep him for observation. Twenty-four hours, just to be safe. Can you tell me how it happened? This ‘fall’ of his?”

“Rock climbing, sir,” Roger blurted. We all stared at him. Barry bit his nail again.

“Rock climbing…” Dr. Harper looked us over. We were all still covered in mud. “Rock climbing in
Florida
. On one of our many mountain ranges, I suppose.” He closed his clipboard and tucked it under his arm, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the lenses of his glasses. “Okay, here’s the deal. It’s been a long day for me, and seeing all this mud I’m going to assume it’s been a long day for all of you, too. So your buddy Cliff is going to-”

“Riff,” Roger corrected, immediately grimacing as he did. We glared at him again. The idiot couldn’t control himself.

“Fine, yes. Riff. Mister Fellings, the amazing Florida rock climber.” He tucked the handkerchief into a pocket and placed his glasses back on his nose. “I’ll tell you what. I’m not going to ask where in the very flat state of Florida you went rock climbing. I have a small daughter at home, and there would be less fantasy in one of her unicorn stories. Besides,” he hooked a thumb at Barry, “I don’t want to give this one a heart attack.”

The doctor narrowed his eyes. “I hope you know, despite your friend’s injuries, from the looks of things you were all probably very lucky today.”

“Yes, we were, Dr. Harper.” I nodded. “We know that. Let me make sure you have my contact information for Riff’s overnight observation. Can I get you a soda?”

“I have a migraine,” the doctor grumbled as I gestured to a nearby row of vending machines. “Do you know what it’s like being a doctor with a migraine?”

“Uh, no sir.”

“It’s damned embarrassing, is what it is! I’m a doctor. I’m supposed to cure migraines, not get them.”

I made my way to the Coke machine. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the hushed argument the others were having about our contrived story – and our inability to remember it.

But no matter. We were free and clear. Riff would get observed for twenty-four hours, and the rest of us could go home for some much needed sleep.

After we dropped our new toy off at Barry’s.

* * * * *

It only took a few minutes for Roger and Barry to haul the machine up the stairs and nestle it next to the coffee table in Barry’s living room. Then we said our goodnights and everybody left.

My dorm room was a short walk from Barry’s place, but Melissa insisted on driving me. Her eyes looked tired. I shifted on the seat. “Long day. You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just sleepy.”

“Me, too.”

We arrived at my dorm. Melissa turned and smiled. “Want me to walk you to the door?”

“No, thanks. I got it.” I was achy and didn’t really want to move. I put my hand on the door handle. “Good night. See you bright and early at Barry’s tomorrow.”

“Okay. Goodnight.” Then she leaned over. “Peeky…”

I glanced at her.

“Thanks for not saying anything back at the mine. About me and Roger. And the swimming… I’m sure you could see things from the ATVs.” She let out a nervous laugh. “It was bad enough we were breaking safety protocols by going off on our own, much less for… you know.”

I lowered my head. “A gentleman doesn’t notice such things... or comment on them if he accidentally did notice.”

She glanced downward, pursing her lips. “Thanks. You’re a good friend, Tomàs Pequant.”

“I try.”

“If it had been anybody else, I’d have died.”

I pulled the handle and popped open the car door, embarrassed. Was she using a politician’s trick, pretending I’d met a standard I’d obviously failed to meet? Slyly shaming me by stressing her pride in me, and making it so that I’d rather die than fail her again?

It would be a long night alone in my dorm room to think about it.

Other graduate students wouldn’t lower themselves to living in a freshman dorm, but as an exchange student, I was happy to have a place to stay at all. My family didn’t have money like Barry’s or Melissa’s. We were middle class, but that had a different meaning in India than it did here. We didn’t have a TV when I was growing up. We had a car, but if you looked down, you could see the road going by through the holes in the floor. My trip here was meant to change all that, and I sacrificed a lot to make sure that it did.

I checked the time. Once again, it was too late to Skype anyone back home. They’d be at work. I started some tea to help me relax.

What things I’d seen today from this team! How lucky I was to be a part of it. I was proud of them, how they sprang into action to save Riff. Nobody hesitated for a minute.

Melissa surprised me. She really took charge. Smart, beautiful and brave, she jumped right in with the resuscitation. She probably saved his life.

A moment before, she had been soaking wet and nearly naked, frolicking in the water—while I shamefully hid behind the ATVs and watched. Another wave of embarrassment burned my cheeks.

Put that out of your head.
She is your friend.

I readied my cup and spoon, but my thoughts returned to the mine. And Roger, running in naked to save the day. I chuckled. He showed real composure, though. He was a naturally gifted athlete, and his strength paid off today.

My teapot whistled for me. Meanwhile, a few blocks away, I knew Barry would still be up, studying the machine.

* * * * *

He had been fascinated with its sleek, lightweight frame, and its many knobs and gauges. But tonight, by design, Barry had the machine all to himself, and he meant to make the most of it.

He stared at it for hours, standing silently in his living room. He occasionally circled it like a shark, observing every detail, taking it all into memory, only pausing to crack open a new can of Diet Coke or to use the bathroom to get rid of the prior one. Then he was back at it, mesmerized by it, and absorbing every aspect of it as if it might suddenly disappear and never return.

Its metal surface was smooth and free of corrosion of any kind—odd, for such an old machine. The piping work that made up most of its egg-shaped frame was bronze in color but completely without rust. Its underside was mostly a simple sled, just two rails, really. There were no visible nuts or bolts, or even any obvious welds. It appeared almost polished just sitting there, after getting the dirt knocked off by yesterday’s rains on the drive home.

As he looked it over, he tried to decipher its many unusual features. It seemed to have some kind of self-contained, "closed" powering system, because it had no obvious opening to insert or pour a fuel of any kind. There were countless rows of metal tubing that ran under the seat. They also appeared on the surface of the large cylinder at the sled’s rear, to take something very important—or dangerous—from here to there, and back again.

It had two large levers attached on each side, and a flat panel of mysterious dials that sat in front of a lone, hard metal seat. It would fit just one lucky passenger at a time. Behind him or her rested a very large and very intimidating wheel, like a turbine fan, with a hundred rectangular blades all waiting. It was probably three feet across, but located just inches from the back of the seat. The mud from the mine had held the big fan in place, but now it moved freely at the slightest touch.

The whole rig was deceptively light. At the mine, it had been laden with dirt. Now, un-muddied, two people could easily move it.

It was either very old technology, or very advanced. There was no way to tell. Glass has been around for thousands of years. Metals, form making, fans… nothing new there. The tubes along the underside were small and sleek, but things like that had been around for hundreds of years.

Barry was a scholar, and not just of paleontology. The fact that the machine’s innovative construction gave it a futuristic aura—but that was always the leap to make when faced with something that had never been seen before. Titanium had rarely been used as a strong, lightweight support before the 1980’s. By the 90’s, manufacturers used it in every golf club shaft and bike frame.

The lack of numbers or letters indicated that the designer had a universal appeal in mind. Whoever used it wouldn’t need to know the builder’s native language to make it work, but didn’t the ancient Egyptians do the same thing with their hieroglyphics? And the Mayans? Doesn’t a kids’ iPad game use the same approach, letting you learn as you go, never needing an instruction manual?

The dots on the dials got larger as they moved from left to right, like the volume knob on a car radio.

There were no easy answers. Every argument for one conclusion could create an equally compelling argument in the other direction.