“Yes. You. The one and only Alison Shaw. Missed something. Something potentially very big.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “You know how tired I am, right, Lee?”
“I do,” he grinned. “But this is worth it. At least to me.”
“What did I miss?”
“A translation,” he said. “A while back, when you and Mr. Clay rescued that guy Demos and his son.”
“The man we just got back from seeing?”
“Yep. In fact, right after you two rescued them, there was a brief exchange between you and Dirk, and you misunderstood something he said which may be important. Especially given where we are right now.”
“The spot where we rescued them. What was it?”
“When Demos and his son were reunited with their family, Dirk was next to you in the water and could see they were happy. And he said, them happy. Followed by, them want metal.”
Alison frowned. “And?”
“And it was followed by another reference to what Dirk called an old metal. But you most likely thought he was talking about Demos’ boat when he said old metal.”
“I…remember that.”
“Good. Because it just so happens that one of the contextual changes IMIS recently made was Dirk’s use of the word metal. Instead of seeing this as a general term, IMIS has now changed the wording from old metal to old boat.”
“Old boat.”
“That’s right. Or perhaps more specifically, old ship.”
Alison looked at Chris then back to Lee. “Are you saying that you think old boat was a reference to the Spanish ship we’re looking for?”
Lee nodded with a satisfied expression. “As a matter of fact, I do. And I would be willing to bet a fair amount of Chris’s money on it.”
“Hey!”
Behind them, John Clay appeared in the narrow doorway, too late for Lee’s joke. “Corbin and Beene are in the water with the hydrophone. We’re ready.”
***
The lab was once again standing room only. Everyone faced the room’s three large monitors, while Will Borger and Lieutenant Tay sat at the chrome table in front of them. When Lee arrived, Borger glanced over his shoulder and motioned to the seat next to him.
“Are our friends ready?”
“Yes.” Lee sat down with his laptop and sent a test translation through the underwater speaker. “Dirk. This is Lee. Are you ready?”
Much ready Lee. Where Alison?
Lee looked up at her while typing his reply. “She is here with me. Alison says hello.”
Hello you Alison.
“What about Sally?” she asked.
“Dirk, where is Sally?” Lee typed.
Sally no here. Sally slow.
A moment later, IMIS changed the last word to tired.
“I see,” he typed. “Our friends are ready with our small metal. They must follow you.”
A translation error sounded from the laptop, but Dirk’s reply was unaffected.
Me find. We go.
Lieutenant Tay leaned forward and spoke into his own microphone. “Gentlemen, Dirk is ready and coming to you.”
Corbin’s voice responded with an affirmative.
Next Borger spoke, “Activating the hydrophone.”
Tay nodded. “Remember guys, we need to stay behind Dirk as he uses his echolocation. And keep the hydrophone as close to perpendicular to him as possible for the best signal.”
“Roger that.”
Moments later, Dirk arrived. Corbin and Beene angled forward to follow, pushing their square, modified hydrophone ahead in front of them.
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The first cymatic images of Dirk’s echolocation signals were barely discernable on the monitors. Resembling a black-and-white kaleidoscope more than anything else, the computer-enhanced footage displayed nothing even remotely recognizable, prompting Borger to tilt his head.
“Huh.”
Everyone waited several long seconds before Caesare frowned and tried viewing the image sideways. “That…does not look like much of anything to me.”
“Me either.”
Borger reexamined his computer’s connection to the hydrophone. “Says it’s getting strong signals.”
“Corbin, Beene,” Tay called into his mike. “How close are you to Dirk?”
“Five or six feet.”
“Can you back off a bit? He might be blocking some of the sound waves.”
“Roger.”
A few seconds later, the video on the monitors improved marginally.
“That’s a little better.”
“Very little,” Borger mumbled with eyes on the screen, thinking deeply. “Maybe we’re not close enough to anything.”
Emerson looked at the rest of the group. “Anyone know where we’re headed?”
“Not precisely,” Tay answered. “If this doesn’t work, we may need to fall back to a towfish and use our side scan sonar. A lot less accurate but it’s reliable.”
Clay watched as Alison raised an eyebrow at Lee Kenwood, who did the same back to her. She then nodded and motioned to his keyboard.
Lee typed a message. “Dirk, can you take us to the old metal?”
Everyone within earshot turned and looked at Lee, leaving nothing but silence until Dirk’s reply echoed loudly throughout the room.
Me show Lee.
Clay shot a wide-eyed look at Alison. “Old metal?”
She grinned sheepishly. “Surprise?”
***
“I think we’re getting something. The image seems to be tightening up a little.”
“Corbin,” Tay called. “What’s your depth?”
The SEAL checked his glowing dive computer. “Sixty-two feet. But we can’t see a damn thing. Visibility isn’t more than ten or twelve feet with our lights.”
“They’re too deep now for any of the moonlight to penetrate.”
“Roger that, Corbin. The Pathfinder’s sonar is showing a coral layer just below you. At about eighty feet. Which seems to be matching the imaging we’re getting off the hydrophone.”
“You guys seeing anything interesting yet?”
“A few objects but we’re trying to tighten up the image more.”
“Roger.”
“Whoa!”
Something new appeared on the screen, blurry but distinct from the rest of the picture. “Guys, slow down just a minute and angle the phone down ten degrees or so.”
“Copy.”
On the monitors, the object crystalized slightly. Through a multitude of billowing shapes making up the waves from Dirk’s echolocation, the thing appeared long and straight.
Ackerman squinted. “What is that?”
“No idea.”
After a moment, Tay leaned forward into his mike again. “Can you guys move the hydrophone around a little? We’ve got something, but the image isn’t clear enough.”
“Move it around?”
“Yes.”
Caesare glanced at Clay. “A bit like going up on the roof to move the antennae around for the old man, eh?”
Clay grinned. “I’m guessing half the people in this room have no idea what that’s like.”
At that, Caesare merely frowned and shook his head.
On the monitors, the CymaScope image sharpened for a moment before blurring again.
“Wait. Go back.”
The sharpness improved briefly again but quickly faded.
“Still hard to see, but it looks like it could be a wooden beam.”
Borger leaned back in his chair with crossed arms. “Possibly. I hate to say it, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to make out much with this kind of resolution. At least not with any degree of confidence.”
“Agreed,” Tay nodded. “Even if we manage to pass over whatever it is we’re looking for, I doubt we’d even know it.”
On the monitors, the shapes continued to billow slowly back and forth, as though overlaying multiple images over the same object.
“Maybe the hydropho
ne isn’t sensitive enough.”
Alison shrugged. “Or maybe Dirk’s echolocation is being drowned out by the other dolphins.”
“That could be,” Borger said. “What we really need is a way to separate them. But that would take time. And we’d need to get the Speak Dolphin team’s help.”
Standing next to him, Chief Ackerman turned to Emerson. “Should we continue, Captain? Or break out the towfish?”
Emerson pursed his lips. “Do we think these images are going to get any better?”
Tay and Borger looked at each other. “Unlikely, sir.”
Emerson nodded and glanced at his watch. “Okay then, drop the fish. Bring the men back up.”
“Aye.” Tay turned and began to speak but stopped short when a translation sounded through Lee’s computer.
Alison.
Behind them, Alison looked surprised. “Is that Dirk?”
Lee studied the screen. “I don’t think so.” He typed a reply. “Sally, is that you?”
Yes Alison. Me Sally. I here.
Lee grinned and instinctively shifted to the side so Alison could move closer to the keyboard.
“Sally, you made it.”
Yes Alison. Me make.
Alison laughed.
“Are you okay?”
Me happy. Me here Vize.
In the lab, Alison checked in with Lee and Chris. “That’s interesting. I wonder why she brought him?”
She typed on the keyboard.
“Vize is here?”
Yes Alison. Vize help.
“What does that mean?” Emerson asked. “He needs help?”
Alison straightened, staring at the screen. She smiled and shook her head. “I think she means just the opposite.”
***
It took only minutes for Sally and Vize to catch up to the SEALs and Dirk. And at that very moment, both Corbin and Beene immediately felt the powerful buzzing from Vize’s melon through their skin.
When the signals bounced back, the CymaScope images on the monitors changed dramatically. And it was Caesare who spoke first, taking the words out of everyone’s mouth.
“Holy crap!”
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The change was astonishing.
In mere seconds the video feed on the monitors became noticeably clearer and more precise, revealing the item atop the coral. Proving, not just to Alison but the whole team, that the frequencies used by Vize were distinctly unique.
The long object was still slightly blurry but now easily recognizable. And indeed, a wooden beam. Long and straight, and very old. Slowly deteriorating in its gravesite at the bottom of the Caribbean.
Borger looked back over his shoulder at Clay and Caesare. “I think we’ve found our wreck.”
The speaker sounded when Corbin called up over his headset. “Well?”
A spellbound Tay slowly depressed the button on his mike. “Paydirt.”
***
Unsurprising to anyone in the lab, the ancient wreckage was spread over a wide swath of coral. Clusters of objects were left behind when the ship had broken into pieces, likely on its initial descent over three hundred years earlier. Objects and relics now lay half buried in coral or fine white sand. Many larger pieces, such as wooden sections of the ship, were clearly recognizable with Vize’s help. But many smaller objects were still too hazy for positive identification.
“Corbin, how much air do you and Beene have left?”
“Six or seven minutes.”
“Roger. Stand by.”
Tay spun around in his chair. “Captain, it’s going to take several dives to map things out. Should we go ahead and bring them up?”
“Anyone have any other ideas?” Emerson asked, looking around the room. His eyes stopped on Clay and Alison, standing together. “Miss Shaw?”
“Yes?”
“Anything else we should ask your dolphins?”
Alison blinked and slowly turned to Lee.
“You’re sure Vize isn’t a name?”
Lee’s head bobbed up and down. “It’s a description.”
She smiled slyly. “Then let’s ask them.”
It took Lee a moment to understand what she meant before swiveling back around to enter another message.
“Dirk. Where is the Vize metal?”
***
With less than two minutes of air remaining, the divers found what they were looking for. Their task had been made easier with Dirk’s assistance. And now they had visual confirmation from the hydrophone. In addition, something else appeared that looked surprisingly familiar––a giant patch of enormous underwater plants. Unusually tall, they reached upward and waved rhythmically in the gentle ocean current––only visible thanks to the cameras in Corbin and Beene’s helmets, plus the glow from their bright LED lights.
Hovering over the top of the plants, both men could clearly see the rectangular object around which the plants had rooted. An elongated rectangle with seemingly straight edges and measuring approximately six by eight feet in size.
Also colored in an unmistakable greenish tint.
165
Once out of the water and lowered onto the Pathfinder’s deck, the object appeared to be a perfect rectangular block. Ninety-eight and a half inches long by seventy-six inches wide and twenty-eight inches tall. At first glance, the block looked to be made from the same material as their alien ship, complete with faint shapes and diagrams covering every square inch of its top.
Under the night sky and surrounded by the entire team, Borger was the first to reach down and touch it. Gingerly, then more firmly, until finally pressing harder against the surface with his palm.
A much fainter but still visible glow encircled his hand before fading the instant he removed it.
He gazed up at Steve Caesare, standing on the other side. “We’ve definitely seen that before.”
***
It took two more days for the Pathfinder to return and complete the preparations.
Each in his own harness, John Clay and Steve Caesare were being lowered slowly down through the water, toward the alien ship. Spotting Corbin and Beene standing freely below, Clay and Caesare shared a brief look of uncertainty through their masks. Their feet finally pierced the bubble of air as they continued to descend through the strange ship’s outer shield.
Grasping the tether tightly in both hands, each man watched as the bubble crept up their bodies, swallowing them inch by inch. Until, eventually reaching their necks and finally masks, it consumed them completely, leaving both men dangling in open air beneath a ceiling of sparkling seawater.
After a full minute, they nervously removed their regulators and breathed in.
“Wow. Now that is incredible!” Caesare exclaimed.
Clay nodded in agreement in silence, staring up at the watery ceiling.
Still dangling in the air, the two looked back up when their tethers jerked to a stop. They then sighted the strange block being lowered from above.
“Clay, it’s Borger. You guys okay?”
He pressed his waterproof earbud firmly in place. “Yeah, we’re…in. Everything’s fine so far.”
“You see the package above you?”
“Yep. Keep it coming.”
“Okay. Let us know when it’s within reach.”
Overhead, the block continued lowering until it too pierced the air bubble just as they had. Soon it was close enough for Clay and Caesare to each grab one of the four straps securing it. Together, they descended alongside––down to the smaller ship where Corbin and Beene were waiting.
“Stop the package,” Beene called up. And the block promptly halted, suspended a little over four feet from the surface.
Clay and Caesare’s tethers extended until they touched down. The men quickly released their own cables. Keeping their dive gear on, each man grabbed one strap and gingerly led the block toward a ramp leading upward.
“Okay, start feeding some slack. Slowly.”
“Roger that.”
Together,
with the package still hovering above the surface, the four-man team moved up the ramp one gradual step at a time.
But when they reached the top of the ramp, something changed.
Caesare looked at the others. “You guys feel that?”
“Yes.”
“Feels lighter.”
Each studied the block, taking a half step away while still maintaining a hand on their strap.
The movement was almost imperceptible at first. Barely a nudge. But it was there. A nudge, or more accurately a slight pull, toward the inside of the alien ship.
“Something’s happening,” Beene said, looking at Clay, who then called back up to Borger.
“We’re on the flat, Will. More slack.”
“Roger. More slack.”
Step by step, the men remained alongside the block, watching as the invisible tug upon it steadily intensified.
When they reached the first room, the steel tether from above impacted the edge of the new ceiling and stopped, preventing any further progress.
“Whatever that is, it’s getting stronger.”
The others instinctively let go of the straps and examined the object still poised in midair. Its thick cable, taut and strained, ran up and out over the ceiling.
“More slack.”
“We’re working on it,” came Borger’s reply. “We’re almost out of cable. How much more do you need?”
“We don’t know.”
Clay watched Corbin peer under the heavy block, waving his hand back and forth below it. Then he briefly pushed up on it from the bottom.
He shook his head at Clay. “I don’t think we’re controlling this thing anymore.”
Clay glanced at the block and spoke into his microphone.
“I think we need them to release it.”
“What?”
“Have Tay and his men release it,” Clay repeated.
“You want them to release the cable?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you sure?”
“We’re not sure of anything at the moment,” Clay replied. “But it’s too tight to unhook from here. Just tell Tay to release it.”
Mosaic (Breakthrough Book 5) Page 50
