A tentacle slapped Ragnarok in his back, then slid along to bring the mouth to beat. He spun, ax leading and cut a long, deep slice along the length of the tentacle. There were screams all around now and the curses and cries of men in mortal combat. Out of the corner of his eye, Ragnarok saw another man plucked from the ship. More arms were coming out of the water, as if the Kraken had an inexhaustible supply.
Ragnarok struck once more with his ax, severing the arm he had just cut, then he made his way to the mast. He grabbed a length of rope and began tying it around his waist.
In the bow, Tam Nok thrust at Skogul, as the Valkyrie descended on the ship. The Valkyrie knocked aside the haft of the sphere with an armored hand and with the other reached for the amulet on Tam Nok’s chest. Tam Nok rolled forward under the grasping arm, spinning the haft of the staff in her hand. The spear head impacted sideways on Skogul’s back and sliced through the armor.
The Valkyries’ scream caused everyone on the boat, even those in the midst of battle with the Kraken to pause for a fraction of a second, before going back to fighting. Tam Nok got to her feet. Instead of blood, black steam was hissing out of the cut in Skogul’s armor.
Tam Nok swung again, as she had been taught by the master, and the tip of the blade cut along Skogul’s chest, slicing cloak, armor and the chain that held the amulet in one smooth stroke.
Tam Nok stepped back, staff raised as Hlokk and Goll came down out of the fog, but the two Valkyries grabbed Skogul in their claws and lifted her out of the boat disappearing into the fog. Tam Nok knelt and picked up the heavy amulet, cradling it in her hand as she read the runes the covered the outer circle.
A tentacle wrapped around Ragnarok’s leg, knocking him down to the wood floor of the longship. He struggled to complete the knot on the rope around his waist as the tentacle tightened its grip. He looked up to see the tip of the tentacle raise up just like a snake preparing to strike. A flash of steel and the severed tip dropped to the floor, Hrolf the Slayer striking again with his sword and the tentacle where it led overboard. He cut through with two mighty blows, freeing Ragnarok.
The Viking leader got to his feat, rope tight around his waist. He caught Hrolf’s eye. “Keep the ship moving!”
Ragnarok dodged another tentacle, then jumped up onto the side of the ship, ax raised high. He leaped into the air with a battle cry, swinging the ax down as he descended.
Ragnarok hit water and the edge of his ax hit the Kraken dead between the eyes with a massive blow, parting skin and bow, burying completely inside the monster’s head.
The Kraken dove, taking Ragnarok with it as he refused to release his ax. He felt the pressure in his ears as they went down, then suddenly he was jerked to a halt as the rope reached its length. The handle was almost ripped out of his hands, but he gripped it with all his strength. Tentacles battered him on the head and shoulders as the Kraken tried to find its tormentor in the dark water now filling with a thick green ooze from the creature’s wound.
Ragnarok felt pain as teeth gnawed into left side. He swung his feet under him, against the body of the kraken, then pulled with all his might. The ax popped free. Ragnarok took one more blind swing, caught up in the battle rage, ignoring the wound on his side, the lack of oxygen. The edge of bone-slicer caught the kraken in the left eye, popping it like an overripe egg.
With all the power of its many tentacles the kraken dove once more, disappearing into the depths.
Ragnarok kicked, still holding his ax, the weight almost enough by itself to defeat his efforts to surface. He broke into the dank fog, the rope pulling him along through the water. He could hear the splash of oars and Hrolf yelling. Ragnarok shook his head like a large shaggy dog, getting hair and water out of his eyes. He was being towed thirty feet behind the longship and the reason no one was paying attention to his predicament was the large black circle that had appeared in front of the longship. The dragon’s head disappeared into the black. There were cries of fear, but Hrolf kept yelling the commands to row and harsh training held the crew in place, doing their duty.
Foot by foot, the longship disappeared into the black hole, dragging Ragnarok with him, until there was only the rope coming out of the black hole. Ragnarok said a brief prayer as he got closer to the darkness, then he was in.
He felt a moment of disorientation, as if his body was being stretched, then a snap, and he was in bright sunlight, warm water. Ragnarok pulled himself on the rope toward the longship, climbing on board. None of the crew noticed their captain’s arrival as they were all staring at their surroundings.
The ship was in a moat, over a half-mile width of water, that completely surrounded a massive temple. All around was a wall containing the moat. Beyond was the ocean, but his attention was drawn back to the temple. A stepped pyramid, it rose over five hundred feet up, larger than anything man-made Ragnarok had ever seen in his travels. A broad set of stairs went up the sides facing them to the very top. The stones used were black, and smooth, reflecting sunlight in dark ripples.
There was no one about-- no priests, no worshipers, not a human being other than the cluster of souls on board the Viking longship. Just the mighty temple, glistening in the sunlight.
THE PRESENT
Chapter 25
1999 AD
“I can read parts of this,” Sin Fen said. “Enough to make some sense.”
Dane could only see a pattern of runes that Sin Fen had been slowly scrolling through for the past thirty minutes. Deepflight was off-shore, DeAngelo slowly driving the submersible around the edge of the beach, reveling in the diversity of the craft stranded in this cavern.
“Does it tell where the Shield is?” Dane asked.
“I’m getting to that,” Sin Fen said. “It speaks of Atlantis and the war with the Shadow.” She looked up from the screen. “But it also tells who the Atlanteans were. How they were able to develop such a magnificent civilization while the rest of mankind was still roaming the earth in small packs of hunter-gatherers.”
Sin Fen reached up and tapped the side of her head. “Their brains were different. The Atlanteans developed differently than other humans. Perhaps there was something in their environment that required it. We’ve just discovered there’s a thing called the doomsday gene. An ability to adapt rapidly-- within a few generations-- when extreme conditions call for it. Or perhaps Atlanteans were the original humans and the rest of the species developed differently.
“Scientists have often wondered why the mind has two distinctively separate hemispheres. Some say it’s for redundancy, but that seems a bit of a stretch for me. If the head is injured enough to cause brain injury, then it’s doubtful a person could survive back in the days before brain surgery.
“The bicameral mind existed for a different reason,” Sin Fen continued. “Remember, the speech center is present in both hemispheres but active in the vast majority of people only on the left side.”
“And ours is active on both,” Dane said. “Which is why we can touch each other’s minds-- when the other person allows it,” he added.
Sin Fen ignored the comment. “There is a connection between Wernicke’s areas on each side of the brain. It’s called the anterior commissure. Since Wernicke’s area in the left hemisphere is the part of the speech process that brings meaning to our language, what is it on the right? And what happens when the two work in unison?”
She tapped Dane on the chest. “That is our problem, you and I. We have both Wernicke’s areas functioning but little connection between them through the anterior commissure. But the Atlanteans--” she looked down at the display she had been reading. “This tells me the Atlanteans were more evolved than us.
“That’s how Atlantis developed-- keeping the telepathic mind and developing a written and verbal language. They were genetic freaks-- a different branch from the development of the rest of the species. Think of it, Dane-- what they could accomplish then. They had the best of both worlds. They could use their telepathy to get concepts acro
ss without the limitation of the spoken or written word, but then they could use the latter to work on the details of what they were doing, the specifics. And the two worked hand in hand, so to speak.
“Because of that difference, they developed in a fundamentally different way than we did. It’s not a question of what they did, it’s more a question of how they thought differently at the most basic level.
“There is a precedent for this,” she said. “All the ancient civilizations, which we now know were founded by survivors of Atlantis merging with the locals, were different in some fundamental ways that our current civilization. It is thought that it was only when mankind became basically mono-theistic that we changed.
“When man believed in numerous gods, the messages received from Wernicke’s area in the right hemisphere-- what I have told you is the voice of the Gods-- they were accepted. Man made decisions based more on those messages than clearly linear thinking.
“Ancient Egypt spanned over three centuries at the height of its power yet in those three thousand years how much did they develop in terms of technology?” Sin Fen didn’t wait for an answer. “When archeologists uncover a relic of old Egypt, they often have trouble dating it unless there are some sort of writings attached. But what if you lived three thousand in the future from now. And you were excavating New York City? Hasn’t New York constantly evolved, changed? New York a hundred years ago is very different from New York now and will be very different in a hundred years. Yet none of these ancient civilizations show this development.”
Sin Fen was focused on the screen now, reading the runes. “They developed differently than our civilization. They started by harnessing forces at a level we’re only starting to approach. That’s the biggest difference. They worked on the inner self first, before the outside world. We don’t have a clue how the brain truly works-- they knew exactly and were able to exploit that knowledge to build a very unique civilization
“Look at this boat,” Sin Fen said. “It’s an example of their technology. When we first saw it we thought it was primitive, but it’s more advanced than anything we’ve developed. It’s power system is right there--” she pointed at the black cube. “No propeller, no jet-- it works using the earth’s magnetic field to move the ship. They worked within the harmony of nature, not against like we do.”
“The shield?” Dane prompted.
“We have to understand what happened,” Sin Fen said. “The shield is worthless without the knowledge behind it.”
“Then how about the quick version,” Dane suggested.
“The Atlanteans developed on their island continent in the middle of the Atlantic,” Sin Fen said. “They explored the world around them, but did not settle elsewhere. It appears they realized the differences between themselves and the humans on the other continents and desired to keep their bloodlines distinct.
“Of course, they weren’t totally successful. They--” Sin Fen’s voice trailed off as she scrolled through.
“The Shield,” Dane reminded her. “The Shadow?”
“The Shadow came out of the west in the place we now call the Bermuda Triangle gate. The Atlanteans didn’t know what it was. They sent ships-- like this one-- to investigate. And nothing came back. The Shadow began growing. And they learned of other gates on the face of the planet. They realized the threat-- probably faster than we did.”
“When was all this?” Dane asked.
“Around ten thousand BC.” Sin Fen watched the screen. “On the other hand, since they had never really experienced war, they weren’t exactly prepared. They had to use what they had for defense and they knew little more about the gates than we do.
“But they did develop something-- the Shield.” Sin Fen frowned. “It is hard for me to tell exactly what is meant. How it worked. It used the power of the firestone. From I read before, the firestone sounds a lot like nuclear power.”
“Foreman hasn’t nuked a gate yet, has he?”
“No. That would be a rather extreme step,” Sin Fen said, “and based on what we do know, atomic weapons probably won’t work. The firestone was like nuclear power, but not the same. It didn’t need to be shielded. It was able to be harnessed quite easily. The Atlanteans used firestone to power some sort of weapon-- the Shield-- that they used.”
“But they didn’t win,” Dane noted. “This ship is here. Atlantis is gone.”
“They didn’t win, but they didn’t lose,” Sin Fen argued.
“Where’s the Shield?”
“According to this, the Atlanteans used the Shield from an outpost near the gate. Within visual sight of it. They stopped the expansion of the gate, but they acted too late-- the seeds of their own destruction were already sown.”
“How?”
“It seems the Shadow appropriated their use of the firestone just as it’s taken our nuclear weapons. Sowed firestone around the base of the continent and used it to destroy Atlantis just as the Atlanteans were using their Shield against the gate. A pyrhhic victory.”
“The Shield,” Dane repeated.
“It was here,” Sin Fen said. “This ship carried it to their defensive base.”
“And?”
Sin Fen reached down and slid a lever forward. The side of the black cube slid down, revealing a six inch deep open space, backed with gray material. There was nothing in it.
“That’s where the final parts of the shield were carried,” Sin Fen said. She was looking back down at the display. “This ship carried the hardware, but not the power source.”
“So we don’t have anything,” Dane said.
“Not yet.”
“The message on the sail of the Scorpion was in Norse runes,” Dane said. “It directed us here. There must have been a reason.” He turned to the center of the vast chamber where Deepflight was cruising.
“DeAngelo!” Dane yelled. With the lack of any other sound, his voice carried clearly across the water.
“Yes?”
“Have you seen a Viking longship in here?”
“Over there--” DeAngelo was pointing to their right.
“Let’s go,” Dane was already climbing over the side of the black ship.
*****
“Run that again,” Nagoya ordered Ahana.
In slow motion, the various readings that had been picked up by the Can and other surveilling instruments were displayed on an array of screens, all running at the same time.
“It’s all about time,” Nagoya whispered.
“Excuse me, sir?”
Nagoya felt the stir of excitement that came from sudden insight. “We never consider time a manipulative variable-- always a constant. But it’s been there staring us in the face all the time. We wondered why the Scorpion crew didn’t experience any time lag. Why Dane’s teammate Flaherty hadn’t aged. We assume that it was because they were in some sort of stasis, but what if there was no stasis? What if no time had passed for them?”
Ahana kept silent, recognizing the mood her professor was in, letting him think out loud, crystallizing a new theory.
“We really don’t know what time is,” Nagoya said. “We don’t even know when the universe started. The Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite has given evidence that the universe was formed by an explosion fifteen billion years ago-- the Big Bang. If that is indeed so, then t equals zero-- then we have a start point to start our universal clock.
“That simplifies things, perhaps too much. There are still those who postulate theories other than the Big Bang. Those who say the beginning was the result of a quantum fluctuation. That’s where we are now, with several different hypothesis about the very nature of our universe and time. We have Hawking’s and his timeless quantum cosmology; Adrei Linde who talks of chaotic inflation; Roger Penrose and time-asymmetric cosmology. Then like a large wall at the end is Dyson’s thermodynamic death of the universe theory.
“Take Linde and his bubbles of spacetime foam,” Nagoya didn’t even seem to be aware Ahana was listening. “He says we are in
one of those bubbles. That each bubble has its own physical laws, randomly selected from an infinite set. So perhaps these gates are where another bubble touches ours? And the quantum physics in that bubble is ruled by very different laws. So different that even time is different?
“Hawking, on the other hand, says there is only one set of physical laws. That time is an arrow, the direction of which coincides with thermodynamic law. But it is a theory that is incomplete, that does not explain data we have in our hands-- data we have picked up in this very chamber.
“Then throw into this mixture the development of intelligent life. Not just us, but now we know there is other intelligent life, on the other side of the gates. Tipler postulated intelligence developing to de Chardin’s Omega Point. Where all life that existed will be contained in intelligent information processing. That would require different pockets of intelligent life to interact, even if in a destructive way, because ultimately it would not be destructive at the Omega Point.”
Nagoya shook his head. “But that is far beyond us right now and a case for the philosopher. What concerns us is the make-up of the gates. And if the gates have their own physical laws, different from our own, then means we must abandon our own rationality. We must abandon the linear thinking we hold so dear.” Nagoya raised his voice so everyone in the operations center could hear him. “Iceland has been destroyed. A quarter million people dead. Please remember that our own country lies next to a fault even more fragile than the fault that just consumed Iceland. We will be next.
“I want you to reexamine all the data we have. I want you to make time a variable, not a constant. Throw all the rules out. Turns things backwards, sideways, upside down. Any way you can imagine, no matter how strange. We need answers about what the gates are and then we have to figure out how to shut those gates. Let’s get to work!”
Atlantis: Bermuda Triangle Page 24
