The Navigator (The Apollo Stone Trilogy Book 1)

by P. M. Johnson

  “We can talk about that later. Let’s focus now on escaping,” said Kane. “This is an old smugglers’ cave. They used it as a place to hide food, whiskey, and weapons during the Long Winter.”

  Lena scoffed. “How did they get anything through that narrow crevice?”

  Kane ran his fingers along a section of the rock wall. He pointed at a narrow fissure in the wall. “Since you’re so curious, I want you to reach in there and tell me what you find.”

  Lena reluctantly did as Kane asked. She reached into the fissure and felt around until her fingers touched something metal.

  “Find something interesting?” asked Kane with a slight grin.

  “I think so, yes.” she answered. “Feels like a lever.”

  Loud voices filtered into the cave from the outside. Kane motioned for the others to come to him.

  “Pull it,” he said to Lena.

  Lena pulled but the lever did not move. She heard the voices getting louder and pulled as hard as she could. Finally, there was a slight popping sound as the lever rotated toward her. Kane leaned against the stone wall and it moved slightly. Logan, Cap, and Ravenwood added their weight and a portion of the wall about the size of a door swung slowly open. They entered as quickly as possible. When all were on the other side, Kane and Cap pushed the door shut until they heard a clicking sound.

  Chapter 39

  Everyone stood still in the perfect blackness of the tunnel. They hardly dared to breathe as they listened to the muffled sounds of people bickering on the other side of the rock door.

  After a few minutes, the voices were gone. Kane whispered, “Everyone hold hands. Form a chain and we’ll make our way down the tunnel as best we can. There are side tunnels that branch off, but keep going straight. Ravenwood, you lead.”

  “Certainly,” said Ravenwood as he squeezed pass Logan and Kane to get in front of the group. “Is everyone ready?” he asked.

  Logan reached forward and took Kane’s hand with his right and reached back to Lena with his left. Cap was last in line and took Lena’s outstretched hand. When everyone was ready, Ravenwood began inching forward through the darkness, alerting everyone to loose rocks, dips in the floor, and low sections of the ceiling.

  As they walked hand in hand, Logan said, “Ravenwood. Who are the Sahiradin?”

  “The Sahiradin?” replied the Ravenwood. “You remembered my warning to the SPD officer.”

  “Yes,” said Logan. “You said Sahiradin don’t make deals with humans, they kill humans. What did you mean?”

  Ravenwood didn’t respond right away. Logan wished he could see the older man’s face and try to read his thoughts. Finally, Ravenwood said, “The Sahiradin are an ancient people from a place quite distant from here. Twelve thousand light years away from here, to be more precise.”

  “I assume the survivor that the Apollo astronaut found in the escape pod on the moon was a Sahiradin,” said Lena.

  “Indeed,” said Ravenwood. “In fact, he is the captain of the ship which had exploded.”

  Cap interjected, “You just said he is the captain of the ship. So you think he’s still alive?”

  “As I told you in Deep Pool, who’s to say how long an alien lives,” said Ravenwood. “But I’m convinced this particular one is still alive.”

  “Alive and helping to build up the PRA’s war machine,” said Kane.

  “Is that war machine crippled now?” asked Cap. “Do you think the Guardians will call off the attack now that they don’t have the Apollo Stone?”

  “Not likely,” said Ravenwood. “But I like your optimism.”

  A moment later Ravenwood said, “Aha. We may be in luck.”

  A sudden flash of light blinded Logan and the others. Logan let go of Kane’s hand and shielded his eyes with his hand. Looking between his fingers, he could see Ravenwood holding an old kerosene lamp. Logan looked around and saw what his feet and hands had already told him. They were in a narrow, rough-hewn tunnel with a dirt and rock floor and low ceiling.

  Kane took the lantern from Ravenwood and said, “Let’s move. We should soon come to a large natural cave with an underground stream. The water will lead us out of the mountain.”

  “What else do you know about the Sahiradin?” asked Lena as they continued down the tunnel. “Who are they?”

  “The information I have is a little bit out of date,” said Ravenwood. “But it is my understanding that they are an extremely aggressive people, and they have conquered many worlds.”

  “So what were they doing when their ship exploded?” asked Lena.

  “I cannot say for sure,” said Ravenwood.

  “If they’re as aggressive as you say,” said Cap, “I’ll bet they were scouting Earth’s defenses, and something went wrong with their ship.”

  “Possibly,” said Ravenwood. “I don’t know the details of their mission.”

  “How do you know any of this stuff?” asked Cap, voicing a concern Logan shared. “I mean, how are we supposed to know if you’re telling the truth? How are we supposed to know you’re not just plain crazy?”

  “Valid concerns,” said Ravenwood. “All I can say is that I have certain unusual knowledge about these matters.”

  “Here’s the cave,” said Kane. He held the lantern in front of him for others to see that the tunnel gave way to a large open space. The light was too weak to illuminate the entire cave, but Logan could see the tips of stalactite hanging from above. He heard the gentle trickling of water nearby as well.

  “As for how Ravenwood knows these things, I might be able to help,” said Kane as he looked from face to face. “My great grandfather was a woodsman who scraped out a living after the Impact near the old Canadian border. One cold morning he was out checking his traps near a lake called Crow Wing. He saw a figure lying under a tree near a large flat piece of granite called Raven’s Rock. He walked closer and there was Ravenwood lying naked and unconscious in the snow.”

  “The old man didn’t know where Ravenwood had come from, but he knew he couldn’t leave him naked in the cold. So he took him in and kept him safe. Ravenwood had no memory of who he was or where he came from. He couldn’t even speak English. My great grandmother named him Ravenwood, after the place where he was found, and my family’s been keeping him safe ever since then.”

  Cap shook his head. “This is getting too damn weird. Ravenwood magically appeared in the woods?”

  “It wasn’t magic,” said Ravenwood. “It was science. I was sent here.”

  “Sent here?” asked Cap. “Who sent you?”

  “It’s all a bit confusing,” he said with a smile. “And I don’t pretend to know all of the answers, but suffice it to say that I am here to help.”

  A thought suddenly popped into Logan’s head. “It was you who caused the lights to burst back at the Greenspurs’ stronghold. And you somehow shattered the doors of the Great Hall.”

  Ravenwood smiled and winked in reply.

  “How is that possible?” asked Logan.

  Logan looked from Ravenwood’s face to Kane’s. Then Kane held up the lamp for all to see. There was no wick and no kerosene in the lamp, but there was a tiny spot of dancing light flickering where the wick should have been.

  Cap ran his fingers through his short blond hair and said, “Groovy.”

  Ravenwood smiled at him, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Right on.”

  Chapter 40

  Kane was the first to break the surface of the pond. The others appeared nearby. They all swam toward the bank as best they could with swords and bracers in their hands.

  As he swam, Logan looked around the pond to see it was surrounded by a mixture of hardwood trees. Big oak, maple and chestnut threes encircled the water’s edge, like ancient spectators waiting for them to arrive. After they had all climbed onto the shore, they sat for a few minutes to catch their breath and warm themselves in the noonday sun.

  “Kane,” said Lena. “Why do you know more about that cave and the tunnel than the Greenspu
rs who’ve been living in these mountains for generations?”

  Ravenwood laughed. “Kane knows every rabbit trail, watering hole, and secret shelter east of the Mississippi.”

  Kane looked at the treetops and gave an almost wistful smile. “I’ve spent a lot of time traveling on the east side of the river. I guess it’s gotten so I can feel where a trail or cave is.”

  “You feel them?” asked Lena with a light laugh.

  Kane looked at her and said, “If you spend enough time in the wilderness you develop a sense for its language, its hidden rhythms.”

  “Did you sense the cave had a hidden door?” she asked, smiling.

  He returned her smile. “No. But I’ve been through the Gap a number of times, and I’ve discovered a few of her secrets.”

  “And we’re fortunate you have,” said Ravenwood. “Now, we must decide which way to go. We’re on the northern slopes of the Allegany Mountains, so we could take our chances and go due west, but I think we’d be picked up in a matter of hours.”

  “No thanks,” said Cap.

  “But our other option would take us very far out of our way,” continued Ravenwood.

  “How far out of our way?” asked Logan.

  “We’d have to head east for a day and then south for ten days. Then west for at least a week.”

  Everyone was silent as they considered these options. Then Cap said, “Why not hitch a ride?”

  “How would we do that?” asked Logan.

  Cap sat up straight and said, “By now the Guardians have ordered everyone from mailmen to field marshals to beat the bushes and find us. No offense to Kane’s knowledge of mountain trails, but we’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting to the Mississippi on foot. It doesn’t matter if we go south or west. We can’t evade an all-hands-on-deck search for very long.”

  “So what’s your plan?” asked Lena.

  “If the Guardians are shipping every piece of equipment they can spare west to fight the League, we should sneak onto one of those shipments,” he said. “Get on a supply train, or something.”

  Ravenwood shook his head. “I’m sure they’ve considered that possibility. Those trains are very well protected.”

  “I agree the supply trains are heavily guarded,” said Kane after a moment’s consideration. “But we still might be able to do it.”

  Ravenwood looked puzzled. “How?”

  “I know a transportation officer in Fairhope where the PRA built a major food and supply depot,” said Kane. “I’ve worked with him a few times to smuggle things in and out of the PRA. Maybe he can get us out.”

  “Will he help us or turn us in?” asked Lena.

  “He might refuse to help, but I don’t think he’ll turn us in,” said Kane. “Can’t rule it out, though.”

  Logan watched Ravenwood’s face as he weighed their options. The old man raised his eyes toward the sky as the faint sound of approaching helicopters drifted over the mountain peaks and down to the bank of the mountain stream where they sat. He took a deep breath and looked at Logan. Then he clapped his hands and said with a broad grin, “Let’s do it. As Kane said, it’s not without risk, but it offers a better chance of success than trudging through the Allegheny foothills with no food or supplies.”

  Ravenwood stood and offered Cap his hand. He pulled the young man to his feet and said, “Hitch a ride,” he said with a warm smile. “Good thinking, my boy!”

  It was ten o’clock that evening when they reached Fairhope, a tiny town of about 1,000 inhabitants. They saw the supply depot complex, which consisted of several large warehouses and a network of train tracks and roads connecting it to food and manufacturing developments and the cities they supplied.

  From their position in a cluster of trees about five hundred meters from the depot, Logan could see a supply train slowly roll in and position itself under three large chutes. Grain poured into the railcar below each chute. A few minutes later, the train inched forward and the next group of railcars was filled.

  They had been waiting in the shadows for over an hour when they heard a door slam. A flickering light appeared in the window of a nearby house. Kane stood and quickly crossed the open ground separating them from the house, motioning for the others to follow. When they had all reached the house, Kane lightly rapped his knuckles on the back door.

  The door slowly opened to reveal a middle-aged man with a scraggly graying beard and tangled brown hair. Seeing Kane and the others, he shot a nervous glance around the outside of the house, then signaled for them to enter. When the last person went by, he gave the area one final look and closed the door.

  The man signaled for them to remain silent and quickly walked toward a door, grabbing the lit kerosene lamp off a table along the way. He led them through a door and down a staircase into a cellar with rough stone walls and a dirt floor. Once everyone was down the steps, he looked at Kane and asked in an exasperated voice, “Damn it! What are you doing here? What did I do to deserve this?”

  Kane held up his hands to calm the man down. “Now, now, Bernie,” he said. “Settle down. We just came to do a little business.”

  “Everyone is looking for you and your friends, and I mean everyone,” said Bernie as he eyed the group suspiciously. “I’ve had SPD officers inspecting my trains all day long. Army regulars have been marching up and down the rail yard. Helicopters been buzzing over my head.”

  Pointing his finger, Bernie said, “Pictures of these three are in everybody’s hands. And they’ve got pretty good descriptions of you and the old man, too.”

  “Well, then you know why we’re here,” said Kane. “You need to get us out of the PRA and across the Mississippi.”

  Bernie laughed and shook his head. “Get you across the river? I deal in merchandise. I don’t smuggle people. And even if I did, tell me why I should risk my life? Good way to get myself hung.”

  “Settle down, Bernie. You’re all worked up. This isn’t the Bernie I know,” said Kane in an easy tone. “The Bernie I know would factor the level of risk into the price and find a way to get it done.”

  “You’re not listening to me,” said Bernie, leaning forward. “This isn’t just trading food or booze. What you’re talking about is treason. They will kill me if they find out, and believe me, with the way they’re looking for you guys, they will find out.”

  “C’mon, Bernie,” said Kane. “There must be a price inside that calculating head of yours. How much do you want?”

  Bernie didn’t say anything. He just looked at the group of people in his cellar and nervously scratched his stubbly beard.

  Kane turned Bernie’s shoulder to face him. He looked in his eyes and said, “If you get us across the river, I’ll get you fifty cases of Iowa rye whiskey. Best stuff you’ve ever had.”

  “Kane, I’m telling you it ain’t about the whiskey. It’s about me in an unmarked grave.”

  “Seventy-five cases,” said Kane.

  Bernie didn’t answer, but something in his eyes changed. Logan could see he was thinking about the offer. After a couple heartbeats Bernie said, “Two hundred cases. That’s what it’ll cost me to get a visa and smuggle my fat ass out of this shithole and across the river.”

  “Why do you want to leave?” asked Kane, surprised. “You’ve got a good thing going here. You must have enough money stashed away to buy a false identity and live well in one of the coastal cities. Nice car, good food, pretty girls.”

  Bernie dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “A couple years ago, yeah, that was the plan,” he said. “But things have changed.”

  “What’s changed,” asked Kane.

  Bernie leaned toward them and whispered, “The blight.”

  Kane’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “The crops are failing,” said Bernie, looking at the stairs as if SPD officers were about to rush down and arrest them all.

  He looked back at Kane. “It started five years ago. First, it hit the northeast. Government had to burn million
s of bushels of spoiled corn, potatoes, and wheat. Then it spread south and west. Rumor is over fifty percent of this year’s yield will be affected.”

  Ravenwood stepped forward. “Are you sure about this? Are you absolutely sure?” he asked.

  Bernie nodded his head. “Yeah, I’m sure. I’ve been working at this depot for twenty-two years. The depot chief’s been cooking the numbers, but he can’t fool me. I see what comes in and what goes out. I know the blight is real and it’s getting worse.”

  “What’s causing it?” asked Logan.

  “Do I look like a fucking farmer?” replied Bernie angrily. “How the fuck should I know?”

  Lena looked at Ravenwood. “Have crops across the river been affected?”

  Ravenwood shook his head. “No. I don’t believe so.”

  “It would explain why the Guardians are throwing everything they’ve got into this attack,” said Kane. “It would also explain what the Travelers have been seeing for a while now. It’s getting harder for them to find crops to scavenge. They’ve been relying more and more on what they can gather or kill in the forests.”

  “But why do the Guardians think gaining territory on the west side of the river will change anything? The blight will probably hit there soon, too,” said Cap.

  “Unless the blight only affects crops grown in the People’s Republic of America,” offered Ravenwood. “None of you would recall this, but in the years after the Long Winter, the PRA experienced the biggest population boom on the continent. That population growth was fueled by modifications to their crops combined with soil treatments, which greatly boosted yields in the new environmental conditions.”

  “So you think there’s something about those modifications that’s making the plants here susceptible to the blight?” asked Logan.

  “It’s a hypothesis,” said Ravenwood. “But as Kane suggested, it would explain why the Guardians are anxious to acquire new untreated land.”