by A S Bond
“None. But I’m a quick study.”
“It’s not a schoolroom out here.” Brooke eyed him and handed over a beautiful, carved wooden paddle, which stood as high as Dex’s shoulder. “Don’t. Drop. It.”
He grinned at her, unabashed.
“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”
Brooke stayed in the stern, keeping them in close to the shoreline. She was conscious that paddling out into the center of a lake was dangerous for open canoes, because it was so easy to be swamped by even small waves whipped up by any sudden wind. Dex sat in the bow, and after some simple instruction, he quickly got the hang of paddling. Despite his lack of skill, the extra power meant Brooke’s beautiful old cedarwood and canvas canoe cut smartly through the water.
Soon, the forest came right down the water’s edge, and it formed a thick, dark boundary to the fluid world of light and air and movement on the lake. It was hot work too, once the sun was up, and both of them quickly discarded their outer layers in favor of T-shirts and hats. A light breeze kept the bugs away.
Brooke smiled to herself. She was never happier than when she was out in the country. She felt free, and the constant chatter and stress of the city just fell away.
“How far to Umiakovik?” Dex called back across his shoulder, jerking Brooke out of her trance and reminding her why she liked to travel alone.
“Another two miles to the end of this lake, then a few more downriver until it feeds into the lake there. We should be close by lunchtime.”
They paddled in silence for a while, until Brooke realized she was focusing on a different sort of view way too much: her new companion’s shoulders were pleasingly muscular as the paddle swung and dipped. Surprising for a scientist, she thought. But then, there was very little she actually knew about Dex, and he was hard to read. That quietness had to be masking a certain relentless focus, but what else?
“You’re paddling like a pro, now,” she called out. He half turned to smile at her.
“I told you I was a quick study.”
“You’re in pretty good shape, too. Most people would be begging for a break by now.”
He shrugged.
“If you’re not a paddler, what do you do?”
“I keep fit, sure, but...I’m not really into sport. I like to learn new things, but I move on pretty quickly. You clearly know what you’re doing out here,” he said, before she could quiz him further.
“Sure, but that’s not because I’m all that practical,” Brooke admitted. “It just comes down to training. I guess you could say what I really love are the challenges—and the romance of it too, sometimes.”
“Training?” Dex glanced over his shoulder. “You make it sound like you’re an ex navy SEAL or something.”
“Not quite.” She laughed, and then she found herself telling him all about her childhood in Minnesota: the big old log house by the lake where she had fallen out of her first canoe more times than she could remember; the brutal cold of the long winters, and the day she learned her father had been killed while on active service in Iraq in 1991.
“He was leading a small forward operating group, scouting out the area.”
Dex nodded to show he was listening, but his face was turned away. Somehow, it was easier to talk that way. Brooke swallowed the lump rising in her throat.
“Well, it was a trap, an ambush; there was a bomb that took out most of the group. Dad called in air support to get them out of there, but they had no place to go, and...and those left alive were outnumbered. They tried to protect the wounded, but there were just too many of the enemy. The last two - my dad and his second in command - they ran out of ammunition, it was just supposed to be reconnaissance, and when it came to hand-to-hand combat, they used everything they had, even the metal tripod for their guns.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, the chopper arrived at that point, and finished the fight. When they landed, my Dad was the only survivor. He died later in the hospital. We didn’t get to see him again.”
“That must have been really hard, for all of you.”
She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “We moved. My mother couldn’t bear all the memories. We went to St Paul. I was the youngest and still in high school, but my older brothers left home then, too.”
“Do you see them much?” Dex had turned to look at her and for a moment, Brooke thought he was about to reach out a hand, but he didn’t. She started paddling again.
“Not much. I haven’t been back to Minnesota since I left, and I guess we’re all pretty scattered, now. Mom’s still in St Paul...” Brooke stopped paddling again, and they floated serenely in the quiet. “And my brothers...well, Chris is a climbing guide in Alaska and Jaime -the oldest - joined the Army, just like Dad. He’s a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan right now.”
In the strong sunlight, it seemed like the canoe was balanced on a piece of glass. A sudden squawking broke the moment, as a dozen ducks rose from the surface and disappeared into the hot, white sky on a whirring beat. How had he done that? Brooke wondered. She had been trying to find out about him and ended up sharing something very few people knew about herself. He was so reserved and yet something about him made it easy to talk, like he already knew her and nothing surprised him.
“What was that?” Dex’s paddle slowed as he peered into the dark shadows among the trees.
“Maybe a bear,” Brooke said. “Or a caribou. They’re pretty nervous at this time of year.”
“There can’t be many hunters out here.”
“Not many.”
Dex looked thoughtfully at the sky for a few minutes and said
“Those birds...they remind me of something. I just can’t remember....”
“The birds yesterday were acting crazy,” Brooke said, happy to change the subject from herself. A part of her felt that she had shared too much. Why had she talked like that? About things that had lain untouched for years?
“It was just before I saw you. They were all squawking, flying round randomly. I thought it was pretty strange, than I saw your plane, and I thought they had just been frightened by that.”
“That’s it! I noticed it too. But there was something odd about it...more unnatural, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, yes, but...”
“Something else struck me as very strange; what you said about the satellite phone and the GPS dying too. “
“And my digital watch.”
They both stared out across the lake, the only sound the rhythmic dip and swish of their paddles.
“Everything went dead?” Dex said after a while. “I think my subconscious has been working on this while I’ve been asleep, because there is an explanation.” He stopped paddling, the paddle raised and dripping over the side.
“Tell me.”
“A solar flare could stop anything electrical like that. And a coronal mass ejection could maybe even burn it out. It would certainly knock out the electronics on a small plane.”
Turning around to face Brooke as best he could, Dex continued.
“Of course, it may be just my background that makes me think of that first, but I really can’t find any other way to explain everything.”
“What’s the difference between a solar flare and a coronal whatever?” Only part of her was listening to Dex talk, and she noticed that he appeared entirely unaware of their surroundings, now that he had a problem to work through.
“Okay.” Dex ran a hand through his hair and thought for a moment. “The sun has a strong magnetic field, which causes sunspots and flares; it’s like an energy release, if you like.” He paused, clearly thinking how to frame his thoughts for her.
“And?”
“Well, a coronal mass ejection is when magnetic fields link the corona - that’s the gaseous outer part of the sun - to the solar interior, and enormous loops of coronal material travel outward over a million kilometers per hour, containing roughly 10 times the energy of the solar flare. “
“And reach
Earth?”
“Absolutely. It’s a shock wave of traveling solar particles, which cause geomagnetic storms.”
“So we get the aurora borealis?” Brooke was on firmer ground now.
“Yes.” Dex nodded vigorously. “Coronal mass ejections, along with solar flares, can disrupt radio transmissions and damage satellites and electrical transmission lines, cause power outages, and so on. It is possible to harden circuits against it, but most non-military things aren’t.”
“Like your plane’s electrical circuits.”
“The largest ever recorded CME was in 1859, and it set telegraph stations on fire all over the world. So, yes, it could certainly kill my little floatplane’s avionics. In fact, that’s probably what happened to Kyle and Max’s, plane, too.”
“This happens more than once?”
“Well...” Dex looked up at the deep blue sky above them, as though he expected to see a red flare light the heavens. “There can be several a day, during an active phase, which is every eleven years or so. I think we are entering such a phase now, but I would need to check.”
“How good a pilot is Max?”
“I don’t know. I just pray they were as lucky as I was.”
Moving quietly across the lake, their passing caused barely a ripple in the serenity of early fall. Could that really be all there was to it, Brooke wondered. Dex certainly seemed to know his stuff, but there seemed to be more going on here in Labrador than some random solar activity. Could it be that the disappearance of Dex’s brother was linked somehow to an unproductive nickel mine, or even the attack on an American Apache ‘chopper half a world away?
Chapter 14
A splash of red and yellow leaves marked Brooke and Dex’s exit from the lake into a wide river as clearly as any intersection. The banks rose into high sandy slopes scattered with tiny purple scrub flowers, and the water became shallower and faster, running over a stony bed that scraped the tips of their paddles.
A change in the sound of the water suggested something downriver, and Brooke steered the canoe to the riverbank.
“I think the map showed rapids around here. I’ll walk up and check them out; we may need to portage around them, if they’re too big.”
“Portage?”
“It would mean unpacking everything and carrying it all - and the canoe - past the rapids. But don’t worry,” Brooke said when she saw his face. “We probably won’t have to. Why don’t you have a drink and go sit in the shade?” She handed him one of the mugs. “There’s no need to boil the water first out here.”
Brooke scrambled sure-footed across some large boulders and worked her way up the thin strip of sand and rock that marked the boundary between water and forest. After a hundred feet, she lost sight of Dex behind a stand of black spruce, but the river spooled out into the distance and she studied it, frowning in concentration.
She wasn’t really looking at the water, though. She needed time to think. If it turned out she had to take Dex with her to Okak, what should she tell him? The whole truth? No, Scott had sworn her to secrecy. A part of it? That might be unavoidable. For now though, she had a responsibility to get him out of here, or at least on his way, in one piece. So much the better if they found his brother first.
With no decisions made other than to play it by ear, Brooke sighed and shaded her eyes, focusing on the job at hand, and she looked carefully at the way ahead. Just how tricky was it going to be?
“The river level is really low, so we should be fine to run the rapids as we are,” Brooke called to him as she returned and came within earshot of Dex. She untied the canoe, and he opened his eyes sleepily. “They’re only minor ones anyway. Just do as I say, and we’ll be fine.”
“Yes, Captain.” Dex gave a mock salute and she fought a small smile. They slipped back into the current, the canoe moving like a living creature on the water.
Brooke moved as if on automatic pilot. Her mind was full of the odd connections and coincidences of the past two days, when the sunlit foam on the first standing wave of the rapids distracted her.
“We need to pass through the middle!” she yelled at Dex’s back above the rising roar of the river. “You’re up in front; watch out for rocks and move the bow using the paddle like I showed you.” Dex nodded briefly to show he understood, before the front of the canoe dropped and they raced through the center of the first rapid. “Okay , good. But we’re not done yet.”
Dex nodded without turning around. Brooke worked hard in the stern, keeping them on course as best she could as they swept towards the next rapid. Here, the water was deeper again, and large boulders rose from the frothing, brownish water.
“Left. Left! Get her nose in!” Brooke yelled to him as they came up on the first outcrop much too fast. Dex stuck his paddle out to the left and pulled hard, the muscles on his bare forearms corded with the effort. The bow of the little boat turned and they slid past the rock, which took a toll of varnish from the gunwale.
“Good! Just the last one to go. Keep your eyes peeled.”
But the last of the three rapids was barely more than a patch of fast water, as the sandy cliffs began to flatten out and the rapids subsided. Then they were past it and Brooke’s heartbeat slowed in time to the pace of the river, as it once again widened out into a sweeping bend, their route through marked by low shingled banks.
“Okay, Umiakovik is just ahead,” Brooke told him. “You want to stop here and rest?” Dex’s shoulders were slumping, his paddling sluggish. “Then we can take a closer look around the lake; see if there are any signs of your brother.”
They crunched gently onto one of the shingle banks that looked firm enough and, using the precious camping gas for speed, Brooke soon had some hot coffee ready and two portion-sized bags of rice and beef stew boiling on the stove.
“I really wish that satellite phone was working,” Brooke said.
“Someone in particular you would like to speak to?”Dex looked up at over the rim of his mug.
“Er, just my editor. He’s the one who got me into this mess.”
“I’m glad he did.”
Brooke didn’t look up, but instead poked at a bag of stew. She had been giving it some thought, and there was one possible way out of this.
“There’s a valley a few days further on, used as a hunting camp this time of year. There should be people there, with satellite phones, and maybe a floatplane, too. You could hitch a ride out.”
“Not until I’ve found Kyle and Max. “
Brooke nodded. “I said I’ll take you to Umiakovic, and I will. But... I need to find out what’s going on up here, and everything tells me I need to get to Okak to do that. I don’t mind taking you to the camp first, though. You should get checked out by a doc—” She broke off and reached for the binoculars. “I have a feeling we’re not alone.”
Dex leaned closer. He could barely hear what she was saying.
“I thought it might have been wolves tracking us, but I was wrong.”
“What?” Dex grabbed the glasses from her and scanned the opposite bank. “What are you talking about?”
“Someone has been following us.” Brooke fought to keep calm. “And now we’re being watched from the woods.”
They sat on the shingle island mid-river, staring at the dark line of trees on the bank. Over the sound of the river, neither noticed a small rustling from behind them. Whoever, or whatever, was in the woods on the bank made no move, but something made Dex turn around to look over his shoulder. What he saw made him explode upright with an involuntary yell.
Brooke spun around on her heels, expecting what, she didn’t know, but it was almost a relief to face nothing worse than a bear. Black bear, she decided. Smaller than its grizzly cousins, thank goodness.
It was nonetheless a male, getting fat on a berry patch close to the water when it caught the scent of their lunch. Brooke stood up.
“Move next to me.” she murmured. The bear, intrigued by this intrusion into his territory, swayed sligh
tly, trying to focus its poor eyesight on them. Cursing to herself, Brooke looked down at their lunch, the food spread out and wafting tempting smells deep into the forest.
The bear seemed interested in this potential addition to his pre-hibernation feasting and suddenly stood up on his hind legs, long nose catching at the air, his small ears making him look deceptively like a child’s toy. Slowly, Brooke reached into an outside pocket of her pack and pulled out a canister. Dex raised his eyebrows. “Pepper spray,” she mouthed at him. He looked around; the river was right behind them.
“We’re trapped.”
Brooke shook her head, but just then, the bear dropped back on all fours with a grunt. Deciding that twenty feet of shallow water was no barrier to a tasty snack, it began to wade into the river towards them.
“Move back. Gently.” whispered Brooke.
“I’m in the river.”
“Keep going.”
The water was soon up to their knees and achingly cold, but the bear remained determined to investigate their camp.
“Dammit, he could smash the canoe,” Brook whispered.
The bear reached the edge of the island, and pulled itself out of the water with a perfunctory, dog-like shake. For a moment, it nosed around their food, and then looked up, blinking short-sightedly at the two humans standing in the river.
The charge shocked Dex, who would never have believed a bear could move so fast. Brooke stood her ground, and when the bear was almost on them, she fired the spray directly at the animal’s eyes. It stopped immediately, its huge forepaws splashing down into the shallows.
“Keep moving back.” Brooke’s eyes never left the bear as it paced up and down the edge of the island, shaking its head.
“We can’t. There’s some sort of channel directly behind us and the water is too deep.”
“Right. If it charges again, we may need to fight back. When I say, make as much noise as you can and try to look big and threatening. I have another shot in this, but it doesn’t seem to be deterring him, so be ready.”
“Do you have a second spray? A gun? Anything I can use?” Dex hissed in her ear.
