The Black Knight

by Dean Crawford

  ‘They’re starting to develop a pattern,’ Hannah said as she listened.

  Ethan frowned, unable to hear anything that he would have called a melody or tune. ‘I don’t hear anything.’

  ‘It’s in the background,’ Hannah insisted. ‘Listen.’

  Ethan closed his eyes as he heard what sounded like bubbles billowing beneath water, and suddenly he detected the same rhythm that Hannah’s more sensitive ear had picked up on moments before. The random noises were gradually being replaced by a subtle, repeating signal.

  ‘It’s sounding more like ultra-sound too,’ he whispered as he listened.

  ‘We’re getting something,’ Amy called.

  The SEALs gathered and listened too as the computer’s repeated attempts to match the symbols to sounds began narrowing down the frequencies. Ethan heard a long, low whistle that sounded something like a train approaching down a tunnel, and he realized that he had heard something similar himself.

  ‘Whale song,’ Lieutenant Riggs recognized the same sound. ‘Damn me, maybe she was right after all.’

  As Ethan listened, so he heard something behind the gradually refining whistle, a series of whoops and low, gently rippling howls that began to sound like something approaching…

  ‘Dialect!’ Amy shouted in delight.

  Ethan felt a strange sense of fear as he listened to the noises now emanating from the amplifiers in the rear dock. A harmony of warbles and indistinct noises that somehow still sounded like the conversation of intelligent beings, a rippling back and forth of sounds that he realized must literally be the words of some other species from who-knew-where across the galaxy.

  ‘My God,’ Chandler exclaimed as he worked alongside Amy, ‘this is a dialect, a discernable language of some kind!’

  Ethan was about to ask what Chandler thought the language, odd as it sounded, might mean when suddenly the computer beeped and Amy let out a squeal of delight. Ethan looked at the monitor and saw the computer in Amy’s tent stop producing sounds and instead present her with a file that was blinking on her screen.

  ‘This is it!’ she chirped. ‘It’s ready.’

  Lieutenant Riggs shoved his way to the monitor. ‘Play it, now.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Hannah said. ‘Why not let them get out of the tent first and then play the sound remotely. We don’t know what’s gonna come out of there.’

  ‘Like Amy said, there’s nothing alive in there,’ Riggs shot back without looking at Hannah. ‘Open the artifact.’

  Amy did not hesitate to proceed, either not hearing or more likely choosing not to hear Hannah’s suggestion as she hit a key on her keyboard. Ethan stood up as he stared at the screen and the amplifier emitted a final sound.

  Even from his position looking at a small monitor Ethan could see the laptop inside the tent, the individual icons and symbols on Die Glocke appearing with each new note of the melody now playing throughout the base. Ethan could already tell that it was the sound of some kind of other-worldly species, a resonating series of low hums, howls, hoots and even clicks that corresponded with the symbols on Die Glocke.

  The sequence played out and then the base returned to silence. Ethan looked at the artifact but it remained silent and still. Amy frowned at it and then stared up at the camera.

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  Ethan shrugged, ‘So, maybe it is just a registration plate after all?’

  Saunders’ voice attracted their attention away from the screen. ‘We’ve got company.’

  Lieutenant Riggs cursed under his breath as he grabbed his rifle. ‘Damn it, this was a waste of time.’

  Ethan accompanied him over to the shattered windows and looked down to see Veer’s men fanning out toward the base.

  ‘They’re going for it,’ Saunders said. ‘They’re attempting a full-frontal assault.’

  ‘Their funeral,’ Riggs growled. ‘Let ‘em in close and then we’ll take them to pieces.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  Riggs looked across at Ethan. ‘Time to end the games out back. If we can’t open that thing up, then neither will they. Be ready to dump it back into the ocean if the base is breached.’

  Ethan nodded as he drew his pistol and checked the mechanism. He hurried across to the monitor and spoke quickly.

  ‘Amy, we’re under attack. Get out of there, right now.’

  They were out of time.

  *

  ‘It’s over,’ Chandler said. ‘We just don’t have the time to finish this.’

  Amy held her hands to her head as she stared at the artifact.

  ‘It should open!’ she insisted. ‘We deciphered the signal!’

  ‘We deciphered something,’ Chandler corrected her. ‘We need to get out of here before Veer’s men kill us all!’

  Amy struggled to think clearly as Chandler made for the tent exit. She saw him move out of the main tent, seal it behind him, and move into the entry corridor where he could then exit the entire tent out onto the dock. Amy was about to follow him, hoping that she could return to the work before Riggs and his team sent Die Glocke to the bottom of the ocean, when she saw the writing on the transparent plastic before her.

  DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT FIRST SEALING MAIN ENTRANCE

  The words were written in reverse on the plastic in bright red letters and suddenly she realized her error.

  ‘Left to right,’ she gasped.

  ‘What?’ Chandler asked her from outside.

  ‘We assumed that they read from left to right,’ she said again, ‘but even here on Earth both Islamic and Japanese script run in the opposite direction. What if we played the sequence back to front?’

  ‘There isn’t time, Amy! We have to go!’

  Amy ignored him as she whirled to her computer and tapped a few keys. The program flipped the sequence and she hit the play key without hesitation.

  The melody played once more, the somber whoops and calls echoing around the chamber with eerily intelligent rhythm that seemed to resonate with some deeply buried, primal memory in her mind as she stood rooted to the spot as the sequence played out.

  The sounds faded away and for a long moment Amy stood in silence and stared at Die Glocke, but again nothing happened.

  ‘It didn’t work, Amy,’ Chandler cried. ‘Get out of there!’

  Amy turned to leave, but then she heard it. A hiss of escaping vapor filled the tent as she turned back and saw a thin gap appear as if by magic around the tip of Die Glocke, as slowly the top of the device opened.

  ‘It’s working!’ she yelped in delight and edged her way closer to the device.

  ‘Stay back,’ Chandler urged her. ‘We don’t know what’s in there!’

  Amy did not hear him as she moved alongside Die Glocke and stepped up onto a tool box in order to peer inside the device. She reached out for a flashlight and switched it on, then aimed the beam down into the interior.

  Her heart sank as she sighed.

  ‘It’s empty,’ she said.

  Chandler peered in through the plastic wall of the tent. ‘It’s what?’

  ‘It’s empty,’ she said. ‘I can’t see anything inside it except two cylinders, and they’re hollow. How can this thing be empty?!’

  The scientist stared at the device for a long moment and then his face fell in horror and he cried out a warning.

  ‘Amy, get away from it!’

  Amy tried to step back, and then everything fell silent and black.

  ***

  XLIV

  Antarctica

  ‘What the hell happened?’

  Ethan stood with Hannah beside the dock and stared at Amy as she lay unconscious inside the tent, Chandler scrambling into his bio-hazard suit and hurrying inside as he spoke.

  ‘She managed to open Black Knight, and that thing shot out of it and hit her in the face.’

  Ethan looked down at Amy and saw what looked like a gold disc of some kind on the dock alongside her. Chandler approached it cautiously and knelt down alongside it.

/>   ‘What is it?’ Hannah asked.

  Chandler whistled softly as he examined the disc.

  ‘It’s gold,’ he said, ‘and it’s inscribed with schematics of some kind.’

  ‘A gift?’ Ethan asked furtively.

  ‘No,’ Chandler replied, ‘gold is valuable on Earth because it is a rare metal, but that may not be the case on other planets. It’s been used because gold is extremely resistant to decay, so anything transcribed upon it and suitably protected will last for millennia. NASA did something similar with an engraved gold disc attached to the side of Voyager 1, the most distant man-made satellite in history – it’s already left our Solar System. This disc likely explains what Black Knight is for or who made it. It’s a communication, literally, from another species.’

  Ethan clenched his fists. ‘Good, then we got what we were looking for. Now all we have to do is get it out of here.’

  Chandler did not share Ethan’s enthusiasm, however, and looked up at Black Knight. ‘What bothers me is why this contraption should be used to contain such a small message,’ he said finally.

  ‘Let’s not worry about that,’ Hannah urged. ‘At least not right now. We need to leave.’

  At that moment, Sully appeared at the dock.

  ‘They’re here!’ he called. ‘We’ve got contact with the submarine!’

  Ethan whirled and with Hannah followed Sully at a run back up to the command center, where Riggs was manipulating the team’s radio. Ethan saw Lieutenant Riggs’ signals beacon flicker briefly.

  ‘Tell me you’re not mistaken,’ he gasped in relief.

  Riggs checked the frequencies. The radio beeped again as it connected with the US Navy submarine lurking somewhere below them in the deep.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ Saunders uttered from his position, ‘better late than never.’

  ‘The channel must be open right to the coast,’ Hannah said as she looked at Ethan. ‘They made it through.’

  Ethan checked the magazine of his pistol as he replied above the sound of sporadic gunfire and the rumbling of the cavern around them.

  ‘It’s not going to be open for long if this cavern collapses and we don’t have any way of getting past Veer’s men and out to the pens.’

  Riggs nodded.

  ‘They’re not going to surface while they’re under fire and risk damaging the submarine.’

  Ethan peered around the edge of the corridor and then looked at Riggs.

  ‘I can hold them off here while the rest of you get aboard,’ he suggested. ‘Amy’s the priority now along with that disc, we need her out of here and contained.’

  ‘She’s not safe,’ Riggs insisted. ‘She’s been exposed to whatever’s inside that thing. I’d rather see her buried here than take her with us, so the disc is the only thing that’s coming along.’

  ‘She’s a human being,’ Hannah snapped at Riggs. ‘She could be cured. She’s the only way we can learn a cure!’

  ‘And the DIA aren’t going to be happy if you and your team falter at the last hurdle and leave behind the very thing that they’ve been hoping for,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘Burying Amy under the ice and I’ll bet the DIA or the Navy will bury every one of your careers the moment you get out of here.’

  ‘This wasn’t part of the mission,’ Riggs snapped.

  ‘Amy is the mission now,’ Ethan shot back. ‘She’s Black Knight as much as that disc, which has also been exposed to anything that might lurk inside Black Knight!’

  Riggs scowled and glanced at Del Toro, who shrugged.

  ‘I don’t like it but he’s right: we take the disc, we gotta take her too ‘cause if we don’t the mission’s a bust.’

  Ethan was about to argue the point when one of the SEALs dashed in.

  ‘They’re preparing to attack,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Two minutes and we’re done!’

  Ethan looked at Riggs, and realized that he was right. He holstered his pistol and rushed toward the rear dock entrance.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said quickly. ‘If the submarine can get in here, then the Seehund can still get out!’

  Riggs stared at Ethan in amazement. ‘Sure it can, but it only takes two people!’

  Ethan stopped at the door and looked back at him.

  ‘The Seehund is sealed, fully contained. If we send it east through the tunnels with Amy and the disc inside, she can be picked up off the coast by the Polar Star under controlled conditions and from there travel back to America.’

  Riggs looked like he’d been slapped. ‘And Veer’s men out there?’

  ‘Don’t know about the Seehund,’ Ethan replied. ‘They’re going to be looking for a large submarine trying to get into the pens, not a small one trying to get out.’

  ‘And the minor issue of how the hell anybody can go in there with her right now, if she’s contaminated in any way?’

  ‘The biohazard suits,’ Ethan said quickly. ‘The pilot can handle the submarine if Amy is tied down well enough. With the current beneath this glacier they’ll be out of here within an hour or two, and the Seehund can remain safely submerged for that long. If we put Amy inside a suit too, then they can be removed from the sub at Polar Star without fear of contamination.’

  Del Toro shook his head. ‘That’s a huge risk for whoever does the driving, Warner.’

  ‘But no risk for the rest of the planet,’ Ethan said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘No,’ Riggs snapped as he pointed at Hannah. ‘You’re too good a shot to be expendable. Ford, you’re up. Get a suit on and fast!’

  Hannah’s legs almost collapsed beneath her. ‘Me?’

  ‘You know enough of the controls from your briefing and you can get her out of here,’ Riggs insisted. ‘It’s the smartest option, ladies first and all that.’

  Ethan gripped Hannah’s arm. ‘It’s the right thing and Amy trusts you.’

  Hannah baulked, but then a rattle of gunfire smacked along the wall behind them as a deafening rumble shook the base and churned the water in the pens.

  ‘Running out of time folks!’ Saunders chortled. ‘Time to leave!’

  Hannah grit her teeth as she glared at Ethan. ‘If I get out of this alive, I’ll sue you!’

  Ethan grinned and tugged her toward the rear dock. ‘Come on!’

  They ran together to the dock, where the Seehund was moored alongside the oxygen tent containing Die Glocke. Ethan ran down the steps and across to where two of the SEALs were hurriedly preparing to push the device back into the water.

  ‘Leave it there,’ Ethan insisted.

  ‘We can’t,’ one of the soldiers insisted. ‘It’s a part of the mission.’

  ‘The only useful thing inside that artifact was that disc,’ Ethan snapped back. ‘I want Veer to think he’s won while Amy and that disc get away untouched.’

  Doctor Chandler had watched the exchange in silence, but now he stepped forward.

  ‘I will go with Amy,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t control the Seehund,’ Ethan dismissed his offer.

  ‘I may be considered a conspiracy theorist and crank but I’m not an imbecile,’ Chandler replied quietly. ‘Amy took an enormous risk to retrieve Black Knight and now she’s in need of our help. So far I’ve been a passenger on this mission, but now I can see that if I go with her, it will leave you two to support the SEAL team and perhaps succeed in holding Veer’s men at bay for long enough to save yourselves.’

  Ethan looked at the old man for a long moment, and then at the SEALs.

  ‘It’s not rocket science to pilot this thing,’ Sully replied, ‘if he can hold a straight course then he should be able to make it out.’

  Ethan turned to Chandler and sighed. ‘There are leopard seals down there that might investigate the sub, just try to follow them to air pockets that must exist along the entire route if they can make it this far beneath the glacier. It’ll keep your oxygen reserves topped up. Once we’re out of here, we’ll catch you up in the other submarine and help you track out of here.’
/>
  Chandler dragged on his biohazard suit as Ethan briefed him. The two SEALs looked at each other and then at Amy inside the tent.

  ‘We’d do better to just drop the device and the tent into the water and send the Seehund back to the coast,’ Sully said in a whisper.

  ‘She needs to live, just like the rest of us. Do either of you want the job of piloting the sub’ out of here?’ Hannah demanded.

  Both of the SEAL’s stood up straight, refusing to be cowed.

  ‘I’d do whatever it takes to complete the mission!’ Sully snapped back.

  ‘Then help get Amy into that suit,’ Ethan snapped. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  As if in response the chamber shuddered again and chunks of ice plummeted from the ceiling of the chamber and crashed into the frigid black water around them. The SEALs jumped into action as they opened the Seehund’s viewing dome. Chandler zipped up his suit and turned to the tent entrance.

  ‘Amy, can you hear me?’

  Ethan looked at the young scientist, who was standing perfectly erect despite the trembling cavern and dock around them, her eyes filled with fear.

  ‘I can hear you,’ she mumbled, almost tearfully.

  ‘We’re leaving,’ Chandler said, ‘and we’ll get you back to Polar Star and out of here, okay?’

  Amy nodded. ‘And the disc?’

  ‘It’s coming with us,’ Chandler assured her.

  ‘Hurry,’ Ethan urged.

  Chandler unsealed the tent entrance and stepped inside, carefully sealing it behind him before he moved through into the tent proper. Amy remained silent and still as Chandler gently reached for the helmet of her suit.

  ‘Easy now,’ Ethan said. ‘Double check that it’s secure.’

  Chandler lifted the helmet and held it over Amy’s head, the scientist several inches shorter than Chandler. Then, slowly, he lowered it into place and then sealed it.

  ‘Good,’ Ethan said as he glanced at the SEALs. ‘Okay, here goes nothing.’

  Chandler took hold of Amy’s gloved hand and led her out of the tent, careful to seal the Black Knight in behind him.