A ragged cheer erupted across the escape pod. Hui was still weeping, but now, Crane realized, they were tears of joy.
Vanderbilt waded through the water to the escape hatch in the roof of the pod. But even as he did so there was a muffled shout from above. The clatter of footsteps sounded on the roof; the handle of the hatch turned; there was a metallic squeal as it was raised.
And then Crane saw—for the first time in almost two weeks—bright sunlight and a brilliant blue sky.
62
There was a confusion of rooms and cubicles, murmured questions. Someone shone a bright light into his left eye, then his right. A heavy terry cloth robe was draped over his shoulders. And then—full circle, as in a dream—Crane found himself back in the Storm King library, alone, facing the same computer monitor he had faced twelve days ago, the afternoon he first arrived.
He licked his lips. Perhaps it was a dream; perhaps none of this had happened. It had all been some fabulous mental confection that started out full of light and promise but slowly devolved into nightmare. And now consciousness would return; bits and fragments of the illusion would fall away like chunks of an old facade; reason would reassert itself; and the entire structure would be revealed for the preposterous dreamscape it really was.
Then the monitor winked into life, revealing a tired-looking man in a dark suit, wearing rimless glasses and sitting at a desk. And Crane knew that this, in fact, was no dream.
“Dr. Crane,” the man said. “My name’s McPherson. I understand Admiral Spartan gave you my card.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re alone?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you begin at the beginning, then? Leave nothing out.”
Slowly—methodically—Crane related the events of the last two weeks. For the most part, McPherson merely listened, motionless, but the occasional question he posed made it clear that much of what he was hearing was not entirely new to him. As Crane’s recitation neared its end—the vindication of Asher’s theory, the actions of Korolis, the final meeting with Spartan—McPherson’s tired face grew even wearier. The bags beneath his eyes seemed to grow darker, and his shoulders sagged.
Crane stopped speaking, and for a time the room fell into a profound silence. At last, McPherson roused himself. “Thank you, Dr. Crane.” He reached toward a control box that sat beside him, preparing to break the video connection.
“Just a minute,” Crane said.
McPherson glanced back at him.
“Can’t you tell me anything about the saboteurs? I mean, why would anybody do something like this?”
McPherson gave him a weary smile. “I’m afraid there are many reasons somebody would do such a thing, Dr. Crane. But to answer your question, yes, I can tell you a little. You see, we’d been tracing their lines of communication, just as Marris was planning to do. And just an hour ago, an arrest was made on Storm King.”
“Here?” Crane said. “On the oil rig?”
“Dr. Bishop’s contact. We don’t know everything yet, but we know we’re dealing with a cadre of ideologues, fiercely opposed to American interests and dedicated to neutralizing our ability to protect ourselves. Their members are mostly recruited out of colleges and universities, much as Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, and the other Cambridge spies were recruited—young people, impressionable and full of high ideals, who can easily be influenced and preyed upon. The group is very well financed, whether by a foreign government or private individuals we’re not yet sure. But we’ll find out soon enough. Either way, they were committed to preventing us from taking possession of whatever technology was buried down there.”
There was a brief pause. “So what happens now?” Crane asked.
“You’ll remain with us for a few days. You, Ms. Ping, some of the others. Once the processing and debriefing is complete, you’ll be free to go.”
“No. I mean, what will happen to the project? Deep Storm?”
“Dr. Crane, there is no more project. Deep Storm is gone.” And with that, McPherson removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and terminated the feed.
Crane left the library and walked down the drab metal corridor beyond. He passed an office in which a small group of people sat together, speaking in low voices. In another office, a woman sat at a desk, her hands clasped together, head bowed in contemplation or prayer. Everybody seemed to be in shock. A technician walked by him, the man’s gait slow, almost purposeless.
Reaching the end of the corridor, Crane pulled open the hatch. Outside, beyond the metal guardrail of the walkway, the blue-black sea ran away to infinity. He stepped out into the sea air and climbed several sets of steps to the top level of the superstructure. About a dozen of the Deep Storm survivors were clustered beside the helipad, waiting for the AmShale chopper to make its next trip back from Iceland. Standing apart from them, wearing handcuffs and leg irons and chained to a stanchion, stood a pale-skinned man with thick tortoiseshell glasses. He was flanked by two armed marines.
At the edge of the platform, away from the others, stood Hui Ping. She was staring out into the distance, watching the sun sink into the restless waves. Crane walked over to join her, and together they stood a moment in silence. Far below, in the slick of oil that lapped around the rig’s support pillars, two Navy cutters prowled back and forth through a widening debris field, stopping now and then to retrieve an object.
“Done?” Hui said at last.
“For now.”
“What’s next?”
“We’re guests of the government for a couple of days. Then I guess we go home. Try to get on with our lives.”
Hui pushed a stray hair back behind her ear. “I’ve been trying to make sense of it all. I think I understand why Dr. Bishop killed Asher—when she heard he and Marris were tracing the saboteur’s communications lines, she must have felt she had no choice. She couldn’t allow herself to be stopped preemptively.”
“That’s how it seems to me. Asher told me he alerted all the department heads to be vigilant—including her. That was his own death warrant.”
“But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Why we’re all still here.”
Crane turned toward her. “What do you mean?”
“The Facility was destroyed by a massive explosion. That means Korolis must have reached the anomaly. If we were right about what’s down there, why do we still have an earth to stand on?” She pointed at the sky. “Why can I still see Venus on the horizon?”
“I’ve been thinking about the same thing. The only explanation I can come up with is that it has to do with the active security measures we talked about.”
“So the explosion that destroyed the Facility was a protective mechanism of some kind.”
Crane nodded. “Exactly. To keep that repository from being tampered with. A dreadful explosion, to be sure, but a pinprick in comparison to what would have happened otherwise.”
They fell silent. Hui continued gazing out toward the horizon. “It’s a beautiful sunset,” she said at last. “You know, for a while there, I never thought I’d see another one. Even so…” She sighed, shook her head.
“What?”
“I can’t help feeling just a little disappointed. That we’ll never see that technology again, I mean. Even the little bit we came in contact with was—was wondrous. And now it’s gone from us forever.”
Crane did not answer immediately. He turned back toward the railing, slipped his hand into his pocket. “Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure.”
Now it was Hui’s turn to glance at him. “Why not?”
Slowly, he withdrew his hand. In his palm, winking in the orange light of the sunset, lay a plastic test tube with a red rubber stopper. And the thing that floated lazily within it was aglow with strange and enchanted promise.
• EPILOGUE •
Crane rinsed his razor under a stream of hot water, gave his face a cursory examination in the bathroom mirror, then stowed his toiletries away and stepped back into the bedroom. He dre
ssed quickly in white shirt, brown tie, and tan chinos: civilian attire, or as near as the Navy could come to it. Plucking the oversize ID badge from a nearby bureau, he clipped it to the pocket of his shirt. He gave the room a last once-over, then dropped his toilet kit into the suitcase and lifted it from the bed. Like everything else, it had been issued to him by a Navy quartermaster, and it weighed next to nothing in his hand. Not surprising, he thought, since it contained next to nothing: he’d taken nothing with him from Deep Storm except the sentinel, and even that he’d handed over—after a little soul-searching—to McPherson.
McPherson. The man had called just a few minutes earlier, asking Crane to stop by before heading to Administration.
Crane hesitated a moment longer. Then, taking a final look around, he exited the room, walked down the dormitory corridor, and stepped out into the July sunshine.
He’d been at the George Stafford Naval Base, twenty miles south of Washington, for just three days. Yet already he felt familiar with the layout of the small, highly secure facility. Squinting in the bright light, he walked past the motor pool and the machine shop to the gray, hangarlike structure known simply as Building 17. He showed his ID to the armed marine stationed outside, but this was a mere formality: Crane had come and gone so frequently in the last few days everyone knew him by sight.
Inside, Building 17 was brilliantly lit. There were no internal walls, and the cavernous space had the hollow echo of a basketball court. At the center, in a cordoned-off area guarded by more marines, lay a vast riot of mangled metal: the remains of Deep Storm, or at least those portions safe to retrieve—most remained on the sea floor, too radioactive to approach. It looked like some kind of giant’s nightmare jigsaw.
At first—when it had been necessary for him to help with tagging and identification—he’d been overcome by a sense of horror. Now, the sight merely made him sad.
At the far end of Building 17, a series of cubicles had been assembled, tiny in the huge space. Crane walked across the concrete floor to the closest one, and—though it was doorless—rapped on its wall for formality’s sake.
“Come,” said a familiar voice. Crane stepped inside.
The cubicle’s furniture consisted of a desk, a conference table, and several chairs. Crane saw that Hui Ping was already seated at the table. He smiled, and she smiled back: a little shyly, he thought. Immediately, he began to feel better.
Since their arrival at Stafford, the two had spent most of their waking hours together: answering endless questions, reconstructing events, explaining what had happened—and why—to a succession of government scientists, military brass, and several mysterious men in dark suits. This time had only served to cement the bond that, in retrospect, had already begun to form on the Facility. While Crane didn’t know exactly what the future held for him—a research position, probably—he felt confident that Hui Ping would enter into it in one way or another.
McPherson sat behind the desk, gazing at his computer screen. One end of the desk was piled with classified documentation, the other with graphs and bulky printouts. In the center sat a hollow cube of clear Plexiglas. Inside it, Crane’s sentinel hovered.
Crane supposed McPherson must have a first name; that he must have a house in suburbia somewhere, perhaps even a family. But if McPherson did have a life beyond the naval base it seemed to have been put on permanent hold. Whenever Crane had been in Building 17, McPherson had been there as well, attending meetings, writing reports, or huddling in whispered consultation with naval scientists. As the days had passed, the man—reserved and formal to begin with—had grown more and more remote. Lately, he’d taken to watching the video feed from the Marble’s final descent again and again, the way someone might worry at a sore tooth. Crane noticed it playing on the monitor even now. He wondered, in passing, if the Facility had been McPherson’s responsibility; if he might ultimately be held accountable in some way for the tragedy.
“Mind if I sit down?” he asked.
For a minute, McPherson remained glued to the grainy video feed. Then he pulled himself away. “Please.” He paused, glancing from Crane to Ping and back again. “You’re all packed?”
Hui nodded. “It didn’t take long.”
“You’ll be processed at Administration. Once the exit interviews are completed, a car will take you to the airport.” Then McPherson reached into his desk. Crane assumed that yet more forms requiring their signatures would be forthcoming. But instead the man drew out two small black leather cases and handed them formally across the desk. “There’s just one more thing.”
Crane watched as Hui opened hers. Her eyes went wide, and she caught her breath.
He turned to his own case. Inside was an official commendation, signed not only by half a dozen of the highest-ranking admirals in the Navy but also by the president himself.
“I’m not sure I understand,” he said.
“What’s there to understand, Dr. Crane? You and Dr. Ping determined the true nature of the anomaly. You kept your heads when others didn’t. You helped save the lives of—at the very least—one hundred and twelve people. For that, this government will be eternally in your debt.”
Crane closed the lid. “This is what you wanted to see us about?”
McPherson nodded. “Yes. And to say good-bye.” He stood up, shook their hands in turn. “They’re waiting for you in Administration.” And he sat down, returning his gaze to the monitor.
Hui rose, headed for the cubicle exit. Then she turned to wait for Crane. He rose slowly, his gaze moving from McPherson to the monitor. He could just make out the image of Korolis, hunched over the Marble’s viewscreen; Flyte working the robotic arm. McPherson had the volume low, but Crane could nevertheless make out the old man’s birdlike voice: “It’s a weapons dump, the fruit of some intergalactic arms race…”
“Let it go,” Crane said quietly.
McPherson stirred, glanced over at him. “Sorry?”
“I said, let it go. It’s over.”
McPherson returned his gaze to the monitor. He did not reply.
“It’s a tragedy, but it’s over now. There’s no need to worry about others accessing the site. No foreign government can approach the dig interface; it’s too heavily irradiated.”
Still McPherson did not reply. He seemed to be struggling with some inner conflict.
“I can guess what’s eating at you,” Crane said gently. “It’s the thought of a weapons dump like that, something capable of such extreme destruction, buried within our own planet. It bothers me, too. But I remind myself that whoever entombed those devices also has the power to protect them—to make sure they are never tampered with. Korolis found that out the hard way: the video you’re watching proves it.”
McPherson stirred again, seemed to come to a private decision. He glanced over at Crane once more. “That’s not what’s bothering me.”
“Then what is?”
McPherson gestured at the screen. “You heard Flyte. It’s a weapons dump, he said. A burial spot, off-limits, never to be broached again.”
“Yes.”
McPherson reached for the keyboard, typed in a command. The video rewound, characters moving furiously backward across the screen. With another command, he restarted the playback. Crane listened to the taped conversation: “…two black holes in very tight orbit around each other…at a furious rate…one matter, one antimatter…if the force that held them in orbit was removed, the resulting explosion would destroy the solar system…”
McPherson stopped the playback. He plucked a tissue from a box on his desk, wiped his eyes. “We have dumping grounds for our old nuclear weapons, too,” he said in a low voice.
“Like Ocotillo Mountain. Asher was researching the site. That’s how we—”
“But you see, Dr. Crane,” McPherson interrupted, “here’s what keeps me up at night. Before we dump our old weapons, we disarm them.”
Crane stared silently at McPherson for a moment, processing what he’d just said.
“You don’t think—” Hui began. Then she fell silent.
“What’s buried down there, beneath the Moho?” McPherson asked. “Oh, yes. Thousands of devices. Active devices. Unimaginable weapons, black holes locked together in rapid orbits. To de-arm the weapon, you’d simply decouple each pair so they could never touch. Right?” He leaned across his desk. “So if this is just a dumping ground, why wasn’t that done?”
“Because—” Crane found that his mouth had suddenly gone dry. “Because they haven’t been decommissioned.”
McPherson nodded very slowly, “Maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t think it’s a dump.”
“You think it’s an active storage facility,” Crane said slowly.
“Hidden away on a useless planet,” McPherson replied. “Until…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
Slowly, Crane and Ping walked through the echoing hangar. They passed the wreckage that had once been the Facility, heading for the security exit in the far wall. As they walked, Crane found his mind drawn irresistibly to the eyewitness account left behind six hundred years before by Jón Albarn, the Danish fisherman: A hole appeared in the heavens. And through that hole shewed a giant Eye, wreathed in white flame…
They navigated the security exit and stepped out onto the tarmac, into pitiless light. The sun was a ball of fire in a field of perfect cerulean. And as Crane glanced up toward the sky, he wondered if he would ever be able to look at it in quite the same way again.
ALSO BY LINCOLN CHILD
DEATH MATCH
UTOPIA
WITH DOUGLAS PRESTON
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
DANCE OF DEATH
BRIMSTONE
STILL LIFE WITH CROWS
THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
THE ICE LIMIT
THUNDERHEAD
RIPTIDE
RELIQUARY
MOUNT DRAGON
RELIC
Deep Storm Page 32
