The Alex Cave Series. Books 1, 2, & 3.: Box set

by James M. Corkill

  Mike followed Lisa out of the lounge and across the walkway, into her laboratory. She sat in front of her worktable and screwed the end of the pressurized stainless steel cylinder into the mass spectrometer. She entered a command into the computer, and moments later, she saw the results.

  Mike noticed her puzzled expression. “Is something wrong?”

  Lisa looked up and nodded. “There is something wrong with the composition of the methane, Mike. It contains large amounts of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, fluorocarbons, sulfur dioxide, and several other chemicals that you probably won’t recognize.”

  “So what does it mean?”

  “Those elements are only found in the atmosphere, not underwater. I can’t explain why they are in the methane.”

  Mike leaned back against the worktable as he looked at Lisa. “So what do we do?”

  “I really don’t know. As far as using it for an alternative power source, it’s too contaminated to be worth the trouble of retrieving.”

  “Okay, I can live with that. Still, I’d like to know more about those bubbles. You mentioned it might be a new lifeform.”

  “I think the bubbles were coming up through the methane and not from behind it.”

  “I’ll talk to Okana about going back down for a closer look. We’ll take the remote rover to explore the area. It can maneuver around the methane much faster than the sub can.”

  “You won’t make any money that way, Mike.”

  Mike nodded agreement. “I don’t really care about the money, Lisa. I have more than I could ever spend. I just want to satisfy my curiosity and discover new things. If I can solve some of the world’s problems while I’m doing it, that’s great. Like you said, maybe it’s a new life form, and the bubbles are part of its metabolism. If it attracts those chemical elements you mentioned from the atmosphere, maybe it could help clean up our mess.”

  “I agree. We’ll need a sample from a bubble to learn more, and we should do an ultrasound with the new rover unit. The one here on the ship only found the methane for us, but it couldn’t penetrate deep enough to tell us how far down it extends. Maybe the rest of the methane in the crack would be worth recovering. Give me a little more time and I’ll go back down with Okana.”

  “No, this time I’m going down. Why should you have all the fun? It’s my turn.”

  Lisa smiled up at Mike. Sometimes the five-foot-seven Mike Tanner reminded her of a fifty-year-old boy. He wasn’t what people would consider handsome, but decent looking. “You just want to play with your new toy.”

  “That’s the best part of being the boss, Lisa.”

  *

  Okana checked the gauges inside the submarine one last time, and then looked in the rear view mirror mounted above the clear bubble window that was the nose of the submarine. Mike was sitting directly behind him, with a wide grin and a sparkle in his eyes.

  Okana grinned at Mike’s childlike enthusiasm. “We’re going down, Mystic,” he said into his headset.

  Mike felt the g-force as Okana engaged the rear thruster and they were finally underway. He was excited about operating the new remote controlled rover; one of three rovers carried on the Mystic. Each was designed by the ship’s engineer for a specific purpose. Besides its telephoto lens, this rover was equipped with a miniature version of the new ultrasound unit. It would enable them to look through the slab of methane and determine what was beneath it.

  Mike could see Okana’s reflection in the mirror. “You never told me what you did after you graduated from college, Okana. That was eight years ago, wasn’t it?”

  Okana liked Mike, and wished he could tell him he had worked for the CIA, but it was classified. “Let’s just say I traveled a lot, Mike. Places you probably never heard of.”

  Mike knew how tight-lipped Okana was about his past. He had met the thirty eight year old at a beachside bar in San Diego California when they were both smiling at two bikini-clad women who strolled in. Okana had nodded to the women, and before he knew it, they were sitting at a table with the two lovely ladies. He said his name was just Okana, and later Mike learned he had a degree in mechanical engineering and was currently unemployed. When Okana signed the contract to work for him two months ago, he had put the letter ‘F’ for a first name without an explanation. Mike still didn’t know what the F stood for.

  Twenty minutes later, at a depth of 3,900 feet, the greenish white slab of methane hydride appeared through the front window. Okana maneuvered the sub to a level area and set down on the seafloor. “It’s all yours, Mike.”

  Mike set the joystick control unit in his lap and watched the video display from the rover on a small screen mounted to the back of Okana’s chair. He pressed the button to release the latches and maneuvered the rover forward, to the methane.

  “We’ve got a good picture up here, Mike.” Lisa’s voice told him through his headset.

  Lisa and Joshua were sitting in her laboratory, watching the wireless video transmissions from the sub and the rover. The new technology developed for the ultrasound allowed the transmissions to reach the Mystic with no degradation to the signal, so they did not need a long cable.

  Mike maneuvered the rover down to the edge of the slab and that’s when they noticed a change in color. The slab of methane was divided horizontally by a sixteen-inch thick layer of black material.

  “Could you zoom in a little closer, Mike?” Lisa asked.

  “Yeah, hang on a second.” Mike maneuvered the rover and adjusted the camera lens. “How’s that?”

  Lisa could see a clear picture of the black line. “That’s good. It must have been covered by the algae, so we didn’t see it last time.”

  Above the black line, the green-tinted ice was the mixture of the methane and other gases they had sampled, but below the line, transparent ice disappeared down into the crack in the seabed.

  “What do you make of that, Lisa?” Mike asked.

  “I’d say the lower ice is made of purified water, but that’s impossible. Maneuver over the center of the slab and we’ll do an ultrasound.”

  “Understood.” Mike maneuvered the Rover to the center of the slab and slowly brought it down onto the surface. “How’s that?”

  “Perfect. Here we go, 3, 2, 1, on.”

  Brilliant blue light flashed in front of the sub for a fraction of a second and Okana blinked furiously, trying to remove the blue dot in his vision, but it seemed burnt into his retinas.

  Something slammed into the sub, tossing it around like a toy and bouncing it against the seafloor. Okana struggled to regain control as the sub rolled over and over through the water, away from the methane, but the disorientation made his efforts useless.

  The spinning tossed Mike out of his seat and pinned him against the wall of the sub. The turbulent action made him nauseous and he fought desperately to hold it down.

  The sub bounced end over end across the sea floor before finally slamming onto the seabed, and then it slid through the muddy sediment for a few seconds before settling on the ocean floor.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  CHARS HELICOPTER. POLAR ICE SHEET:

  “This is ridiculous, Sonja. I can’t stand just sitting here waiting to freeze to death.”

  “I’m sorry this happened, Tom.”

  “If we had a deck of cards, we’d have something to do.”

  Brilliant blue light suddenly flashed inside the ice, and the air was ripped open by a bolt of blue lightning shooting up from behind the helicopter.

  Tom felt the helicopter slide on the surface and shoved the throttle forward as he pulled up the collective. The blue light suddenly blinked off as the helicopter climbed into the air, and they both stared out the window as he swung the aircraft away from the ice.

  He looked at Sonja and smiled, grateful they were free, and then he turned the helicopter around to see what was going on. They stared out the front window, trying to comprehend what was happening to the ocean.

  The water below the wa
ll began to freeze and the ice was spreading across the water at 18 meters per second. The northern end of the elevated ice sheet began moving south, across the ocean as the water froze and shoved against the original polar ice sheet. Tom gained altitude to watch the expanding ice sheet and noticed that most of the freezing was extending south. He had to continually increase their altitude to see the far southern edge as it continued to expand for nearly fifty kilometers before it abruptly stopped.

  The new sheet of ice began to rise out of the ocean, shoving the old, smaller ice sheet higher into the air, like a pyramid of transparent ice, with one massive slab of ice on top of an even larger one. When the new ice sheet stopped rising, Tom rotated the helicopter three-hundred sixty degrees to see the extent of the freezing. The southern end of the Polar Ice Sheet was now one thousand square kilometers larger, extending south, deeper into the Beaufort and East Siberian seas.

  Tom looked over at Sonja. “Can you believe that just happened?”

  “That is the problem, Tom. Nothing can freeze that volume of ocean so fast.”

  “I don’t mean to argue, but something just did.”

  “It was not a natural occurrence, Tom. Did you notice the perfect ninety-degree angle of the top edge of the ice? Nothing in nature is that precise.”

  Tom noticed the small silhouette of something red and white near the eastern edge of the ice sheet. “I think that’s a ship. We’d better go see if they’re okay.”

  Tom applied full power to the engine and the nose of the helicopter dipped down as their speed increased. As they closed the distance, they could see it was a large cargo ship trapped in the surface of the new ice sheet.

  Sonja could see small dark outlines moving around on the deck of the cargo freighter and leaned forward in her seat. “They are climbing out of the ship! Call them on the radio, Tom! Hurry. Let them know not to get out of the ship or they will freeze to the ice!”

  “The radio doesn’t work, remember?”

  “We are a long distance from the GPS unit now, so maybe it will work this time.”

  Tom reached down and changed the radio frequency. “This is the CHARS research helicopter, calling the red and white ship trapped in the ice. Come in, please.” No one answered. “I say again, this is the CHARS helicopter calling the red and white ship trapped in the ice. Please come in.” He looked over at Sonja. “The radio signal must still be jammed. It isn’t working.”

  “Can we go faster?”

  “We’re already at full speed. Let’s hope they realize what’s happening.”

  As they drew near, Sonja and Tom could distinguish several people standing at the ships railing. “We might be too late, Tom.”

  Tom pressed the button on his headset. “Calling the ship stranded on the ice. This is CHARS research helicopter approaching your vessel. Please come in.”

  “I see you, CHARS. What the hell just happened?”

  “Do not step onto the ice. Your feet will freeze to the surface.” Tom waited for a response. “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes, but it’s too late. One of my men stepped onto the ice just after it froze around the ship. His boots froze to the surface and, a few moments later, he was frozen solid. The strange part is that once the ice stopped rising into the air, his boots came free and his body toppled over onto the ice sheet and shattered into pieces. My men are bringing his body parts back onboard, right now, and they are starting to thaw. My men don’t seem to be having any problems walking around. I guess once it stops rising, the surface isn’t as cold as when it freezes the water.

  “I’m sorry we weren’t able to call you sooner. Can you call for help?”

  “We just did, and they’re sending a helicopter to pick us up.”

  “Good luck.” He looked over at Sonja. “What’s next?”

  “We go back and tell Peter what happened. It will not sound believable over the radio.”

  “I sure as hell wouldn’t believe what just happened if I hadn’t seen it.”

  “I cannot understand how something like this could be possible.”

  Tom swung the helicopter around on a northeast heading, back to Cambridge Bay.

  *

  CHARS. CAMBRIDGE BAY, NUNAVUT:

  Sonja sat across the desk from Peter Hendrix and explained what happened. “Do you know anyone who could explain this, Peter?”

  He lightly shook his head. “It’s hard enough just to describe what happened, much less put a label on it. Who would we contact? You’re the leading glaciologist, Sonja.”

  She stared across the desk and nodded. “Perhaps, but I do not know how sea water could possibly freeze that fast. That question is for physicists, not glaciologists. Whatever caused this did it twice.”

  “I wonder what effect this will have on the atmosphere. Maybe the planet will cool down again.”

  Sonja stood and looked down at Hendrix. “It happened too quickly. Nothing good can come from this, Peter. I have a friend in the United States who is well connected to the scientific community. I will explain it to him and see what he says. He would know who to contact. I will call you when I have answers.”

  Sonja walked out of the administrative building and across the compound to the research facilities. They included laboratories and living quarters for the research scientists from all parts of the world, now stationed at CHARS. The structures were originally built to study the ice cap, and the accommodations were designed against the cold, but now, because of the global warming and the reduction in the size of the ice sheet, it was very comfortable with the windows opened.

  Now, the new ice sheet was beginning to have an effect on the temperature, and Sonja zipped up her lightweight jacket against the sudden chill in the air. Perhaps Peter is right, she thought, but it is happening too quickly. She knew the planet was a living entity and had always reacted violently to sudden changes.

  *

  BOZEMAN MONTANA:

  Alex’s cellphone rang and he recognized the ID as Sonja Hanspevin from the CHARS station in Northeast Canada. He had met the attractive blond Icelander at the same conference three months ago, and they had enjoyed drinks at the hotel bar before he flew home the next morning.

  “Hi, Sonja. This is a coincidence.”

  “Hallo, Alex. Good of you to take my call,” Sonja replied, then got right down to business. “It seems we have a serious problem with the polar ice sheet.”

  He loved her accent. “What kind of problem?”

  “The elevation and size of the ice sheet have increased dramatically.”

  Alex stared at the world map on the wall. What the hell was going on? He wondered. Two significant events in the same day? “How long ago?”

  “It happened twice today. It is difficult to describe, and I wish I had a recording to show you. The ice is transparent, Alex, and it froze one thousand kilometers of ocean to a depth of one hundred meters in only three minutes.”

  How could that be possible? Alex thought, and remembered David seeing clear ice in the Arctic Ocean. He stood and paced in front of the map, staring at the polar region north of Canada. “Who have you contacted about this?”

  “That is the problem, Alex. I do not know who to contact. I was hoping you would know someone.”

  Alex thought about it. “I don’t know anyone, either, but I’ll do what I can. I was trying to remember that man we met at the conference. The one that looked like a hermit.”

  “I remember him. He had strange looking hair and beard. I saved his information on one of my cards because he was such an interesting character. Here it is. His name is Wesley Patterson, and here is his number.”

  “Thanks, Sonja. I’ll keep you informed on what I discover.”

  “Thank you, Alex. Bye, love.”

  Alex entered Patterson’s number and was asked to leave a message. “Hello, Mr. Patterson. This is Alex Cave. I would appreciate it if you called me.”

  He turned off the phone, and a few seconds later, it rang and he recognized Patterson’s number. �
��Hello, Mister Patterson. Thanks for calling me back so soon.”

  “Hi, Alex. I remember you from the convention in Iceland, but I didn’t know you were Robert’s son until I got home. I live up the mountain from your Ranch. Don’t you work for the government?”

  Interesting question, Alex thought. “No, I don’t. I’m an instructor at a college in Bozeman, Montana.”

  “Good. I don’t work with the government anymore. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m calling about that seismic event in Victoria. I was told it was not an earthquake and I’ve been asked to find out what happened. I wanted to get your opinion about what might have caused it.”

  “Any chance you can fly out here to Washington, Alex? There’s something you need to see.”

  Alex looked at his desk calendar. His students were leaving to study the Yellowstone volcano with his friend Jerry Mercer for the rest of the week, and with the state holiday next Monday, he had seven days until he was due back at the College. “I’ll fly out today and give you a call when I reach Sparrow Valley.”

  “Good. I look forward to it.”

  Alex made a quick call to the dean of the college to let her know where he was headed, and then made arrangements to fly to Seattle, Washington.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  THE SUB:

  When the blue dot in his vision began to fade, Okana grabbed the steering arm and brought the sub upright. He stared at the rear view mirror, but didn’t see his companion. “Mike! Are you injured?”

  “I don’t think so.” Mike pushed away from the wall and dropped into the chair. “Remind me to use my seat belt next time.”

  “That was interesting.” He keyed his headset. “Are you there, Lisa?”

  “I’m here. What just happened? All we could see was bright blue light.”

  Even with the sub’s powerful exterior lights, Okana could not see through the roiling cloud of silt, so he engaged the downward thrusters. “Mike and I went for a ride. We need to get back to the ship so I can check for any damage.”

  “Are you guys okay?”