Текст книги "Deep Fathom"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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The lieutenant avoided eye contact. “Take it up with Commander Spangler,” he repeated, from the sub’s pilot compartment.

The researcher’s face darkened. “C’mon,” he said brusquely to Karen. “I’ll have Dr. O’Bannon take a look at you.”

“I’m fine,” she said as she followed him toward the exit. Earlier, she had been given a couple of aspirin and a shot of antibiotics. She was sore but not incapacitated.

Once through the hatch, Cortez led her to the upper deck ladders. He gave her a running tour of the facility as he guided her up. Karen listened intently, impressed by her surroundings. She was two thousand feet underwater. It was hard to believe.

She climbed the ladder up to the second tier, where men and women bustled around minilabs. Heads turned in her direction as she stepped forward. Whispers were shared. She knew what a sight she must look.

“…and the level up from here is the living quarters. Tight but with all the conveniences of home.” He tried a weak smile.

Karen nodded, feeling out of place, eyes staring at her.

Cortez sighed. “I’m sorry, Professor Grace,” he said. “This is hardly the most opportune way for colleagues to meet and—”

“Colleagues?” She frowned at him. “I’m a prisoner, Professor Cortez.”

Her words wounded him. “That was none of our doing. I assure you. Commander Spangler has full control and authority over these facilities. With the nation at war, we have little say. Our research here has been labeled a matter of national security. Liberties have been taken in the name of protecting our nation’s shores.”

“It’s not my nation. I’m Canadian.”

Cortez frowned, not seeming to see the significance. “The best way to keep further…um—” He frowned at her bruised face. “—abuses of power from occurring is to cooperate. To work from within. After this is over, I’m sure the government will have a place for you.”

Bullshit, Karen thought. She knew where her place would be: six feet under, shot as a spy. But she saw no need to burst this man’s bubble. “So what have you learned down here?” she asked, changing the subject.

He brightened. “Quite a lot. We managed to harvest a small sample of the crystal. After a cursory study, it has displayed the most surprising properties.”

Karen nodded, remaining silent about her own knowledge.

“But with the newest directives from Washington, any further research has been put on hold.”

“New directives?”

“With the war so close, Washington now considers the site too vulnerable. Just yesterday we were ordered to extract the crystal pillar and ship it back to the United States for further study. But now even that order’s been changed.”

“What do you mean?”

“Initial assays of the sediment and seabed show the spire is but a single pinnacle of a larger sample. Much larger. At the moment, we’ve not even been able to determine the deposit’s true depth and extent. So far the damned thing has defied standard scanning methods. All we know is that it’s massive. Once word reached Washington of our newest discovery, our orders were revised.” His eyes narrowed with worry. “Rather than just the pillar, we’ve been ordered to harvest the entire deposit if possible.”

“How are you going to do that?”

He waved her to one of the portholes. She peered out.

In the distance she could just make out a tall spire beyond the lights. Jack’s pillar! Around the area, more of the armor-suited deep-sea workers labored. “Who are those men?”

“The Navy’s demolitions experts. They plan to use explosives to blast a hole into the core of the deposit, then mine the load from there.”

Karen stared in shock. “When do they begin?”

“Tomorrow.”

She turned. “But the obelisk…the writing…”

He looked stricken, too. “I know. I’ve been trying to urge caution. This whole region is geologically unstable. We’ve had daily temblors and even one serious quake two days ago. But no one will listen to me. That’s why – regardless of the circumstances of your arrival – I’m glad to have you here with us. If we knew what was written on the obelisk, it might stay the government’s hand longer, buy us some time for our own research.”

Karen balked at helping her captors, but the thought of the ancient artifact’s destruction disturbed her even more. She stepped away from the porthole. “What if I can point you in the right direction about the inscription?”

His eyebrows rose with interest.

She lowered her voice. “But we’ll need to trust each other.”

He slowly nodded.

Karen said, “I’ll need a computer and your current research into the language.”

He waved for her to follow him and kept his voice low. “Rick is our team’s archaeologist. He’s still topside, but I can have him transmit the data to an empty workstation.”

“Good. Let’s get to work.”

As Cortez led her to an unoccupied cubicle, Karen calculated, planned. As much as it bothered her to deceive the man, she had no choice. “If you can get me an open Internet line,” she said, “I’ll show you what I’ve learned.”

6:45 P.M., Deep Fathom,Central Pacific

Jack knocked on Charlie’s door. No one had heard from the geologist all day except George Klein, and afterward the historian locked himself into the ship’s small library. The two were clearly working on something, but Jack was losing his patience.

“Who is it?” Charlie called out, his voice hoarse.

“It’s Jack. Open up.”

A shuffle of noises, then the door cracked open. “What?”

Without invitation, Jack pushed inside. What he found startled him. Charlie’s usually tidy lab was in a shambles. The worktable along one wall was covered in equipment and gadgets. In the center of the mess, the crystal star was clamped in a stainless steel vise. Charlie’s computer displayed inexplicable graphs and tables. Jack had to step over piles of journals and scientific magazines. Specific articles were ripped and hung on the bare wall.

It was as if a hurricane had struck there. And Charlie looked no better. His eyes were red-rimmed, his lips chapped. His clothes – baggy shorts and a shirt – were stained with ink, oil, and grease. It was hot and humid in the room, and sweat soaked his armpits and lower back.

Jack noticed that the room’s single fan had been unplugged to make outlet room for Charlie’s equipment. Jack yanked a cord, shoved in the fan’s plug and switched it to high.

“Christ, Charlie, what are you doing in here?”

The geologist ran a hand through his hair. “Research. What do you think?” He kicked aside some of the scattered magazines and pulled up a chair, sitting on its edge.

“Have you even slept since I gave you that thing?”

“How could I? It’s amazing. Nothing like this substance has ever been discovered. I’m sure of it. I’ve hit it with every test I can manage here: the mass spectrometer, the proton magnetometer, X-ray diffraction. But it defies everything. At this point I couldn’t tell you its atomic weight, its valence, its specific gravity – nothing! I can’t even get the friggin’ thing to melt.” He tapped his mini-oven. “And this thing heats to a temperature of seven hundred degrees.”

“So you don’t know what it is?” Jack leaned against the worktable.

“I…I have my theories.” Charlie bit his lip. “But you have to understand. My research is still preliminary. A lot is still speculative.”

Jack nodded. “I trust your hunches.”

Charlie scanned the lab. “Where to begin…?”

“How about at the beginning?”

“Well, first there was the Big Bang—”

Jack held up a hand. “Not that far back.”

“The story goesthat far back.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose.

“I’d better take you through it a step at a time. After I heard your description of the crystal’s effect on basalt, it got me thinking. I tried to repeat the effect on other rocks. Granite, obsidian, sandstone. No luck. Only basalt.”

“Why basalt?”

“That’s just what I wondered. Basalt is actually hardened magma. Not only is it abundant in prismatic crystals, but it’s rich in iron, too. So rich, in fact, it’s capable of being magnetic.”

“Really?”

“You remember the strange magnetization of Air Force One’s metal parts. The same thing happens to basalt when it comes in close contact with the energized crystal. When powered, the crystal is able to emit a strange magnetizing energy.”

“So how does this magnetization make the mass of the rock change?”

“The mass doesn’t change. Only its weight.”

“You lost me.”

Charlie frowned. “You’ve been in space.”

“So?”

“In space you’re weightless, right?”

“Yeah.”

“But you still had mass, didn’t you? It is gravitythat gives mass its weight. The more gravity, the more something weighs.”

“Okay, I get that.”

“Well, the converse is true. The less gravity, the less something weighs.”

Jack began to catch on. “So the crystal is not changing the mass of an object, it’s changing gravity’s effect on it.”

“Exactly. Making the magnetic basalt weigh less.”

“But how?”

Charlie rolled a chunk of basalt toward Jack. He caught it. “Do you even know what gravity is?”

“Sure, it’s…well, it’s…okay, you smartass, what is it?”

“According to Einstein’s Unified Field Theory, gravity is merely a frequency.”

“Like a radio station?”

“Pretty much. The frequency of Earth’s gravity has been determined to be 10 ¹²hertz, somewhere between shortwave radio and infrared radiation. If you could get an object to resonate at this frequency, it would lose its weight.”

“And the crystal can do this?”

“Yes. The crystal emits this energy. It magnetizes the basalt’s iron content, which triggers the crystalline structure to resonate. Vibrating at a frequency equal to gravity, the rock loses its weight.”

“And you learned all this overnight?”

“Actually, I learned it within the first hour of experimenting with the crystal. That was the easy part. But understanding the energy radiating from the crystal– thatwas the hard part.” Charlie grinned tiredly at him.

“You’ve figured it out?”

“I have my theory.”

“Oh, out with it already. Tell me.”

“It’s dark energy.”

Jack sighed, sensing another lecture. “And what’s dark energy?”

“It’s a force conjectured by a cosmologist, Michael Turner, in an article in the Physical Review Letters.”Charlie nodded to one of the pages taped to the wall. “After the Big Bang, the universe blew outward, spreading in all directions. And it’s still expanding. But from the newest studies of the movement of distant galaxies and the brightness of super-novas, it is now accepted that the rate of expansion is accelerating.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The universe is expanding faster and faster. To explain this phenomenon, a new force had to be coined—‘dark energy.’ A strange force that keeps the universe expanding by repelling gravity.”

“And you think this energy given off by the crystal may be dark energy.”

“It’s a theory I’m working to prove. But it’s a theory that could possibly explain the crystal’s substance, too. Dark energy is tied to another theoretical bit of physics – dark matter.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

Charlie chuckled. “What do you see when you look up at the night sky?”

“Stars?”

“Exactly, mon, what astronomers call luminousmatter. Stuff we can see. Stuff that lights up the sky. But there is not enough of the observable stuff to explain the motion of galaxies or the current expansion of the universe. According to calculations of physicists, for every gram of luminous matter there must be nine grams of matter we can’t see. Invisible matter.”

“Dark matter.”

“Exactly.” Charlie nodded, his gaze flicking to the crystal. “We know a lot of the missing matter is just run-of-the-mill stuff: black holes, dark planets, brown dwarves, and other material our telescopes just haven’t been able to detect. But with ninety percent of the universe’s matter still missing, most physicists suspect the true source of dark matter will be something totally unexpected.”

“Like our crystal that emits dark energy?”

“Why not? The crystal acts as a perfect superconductor, absorbing energy so completely that most methods for scanning for its presence would fail.”

“So astronomers have been looking the wrong way all along. Rather than in the night sky, they should have been looking under their own feet.”

The geologist shrugged.

Jack finally understood Charlie’s drive. If he was right, the answer to the fundamental mysteries of the universe’s origin lay in this room – not to mention a source of amazing power. A power never seen before. Jack pictured the massive crystal on the seabed floor. What could the world do with such an energy source?

George appeared in the open doorway behind him, shuffling papers. “Charlie, you should…oh, Jack, you’re here.” George looked disheveled and out of sorts.

“Were you able to find out what I asked?” Charlie asked.

George nodded, a glint of fear in his eyes.

Jack turned to Charlie. “What’s going on?”

Charlie nodded to George. “His graph. The fact that every eleven years the number of ships missing in the area spiked. It got me thinking. It looked familiar, especially the dates. I rechecked George’s data. His graph follows almost exactly the cycle of sunspot activity. Every elevenyears the sun enters a period of increased magnetic storms. Sunspots and solar flares reach peaks of activity. These peaks coincided with the years when the most vessels vanished in the region.”

“And you knew this solar cycle off the top of your head?”

“Not exactly. I was already researching this angle. Remember on the day of the Pacificwide quakes, there was an eclipse coinciding with a major solar storm. I wondered if there might be some correlation.”

“You think the solar storms triggered the quakes – and the pillar had something to do with it?”

“Think about the platinum book. Even back then, the writer reports seeing strange lights in the northern skies before the big quake. The aurora borealis. It grows more brilliantly and expands far south during a solar storm. The ancients were experiencing a peak of solar activity prior to the disaster.”

Jack shook his head. “This is all too much.”

“Then let me put it all together for you. You remember our talk about the Dragon’s Triangle a few days back?”

Jack nodded.

“And do you remember me telling you how it is exactly opposite the infamous Bermuda Triangle? How the two create some type of axis through the planet that causes disturbances in the magnetic lines of the Earth? Well, now I think I have an explanation. I would wager there are two massive deposits of this ‘dark matter’ crystal – one under the Dragon’s Triangle and one under the Bermuda Triangle. The two poles have been acting like the positive and negative ends of a battery, creating a massive electromagnetic field. I believe it is this field that drives the Earth’s magma to flow.”

Jack tried to wrap his mind around this concept. “The Earth’s battery? Are you serious?”

“I’m beginning to think so. And if I’m right, those ancients made a horrible mistake by digging free a sliver of this battery and exposing it to direct sunlight. They made it vulnerable to the big solar storm. A lightning rod, if you will. The crystal took the solar radiation, converted it into dark energy, and whipped up the Earth’s magma core, creating the tectonic explosion that destroyed the continent.”

“And you’re suggesting something like that happened heretwo weeks ago?”

“A watered-down version of it, yes. Remember in the past the pillar was on dry land. Today it’s insulated by six hundred meters of water. The depths served to shield it from the strongest of the storm’s energy. It would’ve taken a significant solar event to trigger the recent quakes.”

George lifted his hand to speak, but Jack interrupted, afraid to lose his train of thought. “How does all this tie into the President’s plane?”

“If it was passing over the site when the crystal was radiating, the dark energy could have damaged the jet’s systems. I’ve noted strange fluxes myself when experimenting with the crystal: magnetic spikes, EM surges, even tiny fluctuations in time, not unlike your own short lapses in the sub. I bet these bursts of energy have been messing with vessels in the area for centuries.”

“If what you say is true…”

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t purport to be an expert on dark energy…at least not yet. But can you imagine the devastation here millennia ago? Quakes that tore apart continents. Massive volcanic eruptions. Ash clouds that circled the world. Floods.”

Jack remembered words in the ancient text: the time of darkness. The insulating layer of ash would have created a greenhouse effect, melting the ice caps and drowning their ravaged lands.

“We got off easy,” Charlie said. “Can you imagine living during that time?”

“We may have to,” George said sharply, his face stern.

Jack and Charlie turned to him.

George held up a sheet of paper. “I contacted the Marshall Space Flight Center. I confirmed what you wanted, Charlie. On July twenty-first, four days before the quakes, the Yohkoh satellite recorded a massive CME on the sun’s surface.”

“CME?” Jack asked.

“Coronal mass ejection,” Charlie translated. “Like a super solar flare. They can hurl billions of tons of ionized gas from the sun’s surface. It takes four days for the explosion to hit the Earth, creating a geomagnetic storm. To support my theory, I postulated that such a violent event would have been necessary for the submerged pillar to react so severely.”

George sighed. “They also confirmed that the epicenter for the Pacific quakes has been calculated to be where the pillar lies. At the spot where Air Force One crashed.”

Charlie lit up. “I was right. Not bad for a couple days’ work.”

Jack turned to George. The historian held a second piece of paper, at which he was glancing nervously. “You have more news, don’t you?”

George swallowed. “After I contacted the Space Center, they forwarded the latest pictures from the Japanese satellite. Another coronal mass ejection occurred just three days ago. It was the biggest ever recorded.” George stared at them. “A hundred times larger than the last one.”

“Oh, shit,” Charlie said, his grin fading away. “When does NASA expect its energy wave to hit us?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Damn…”

“What?” Jack asked. “What’s gonna happen then?”

Charlie looked over at him. “We’re not talking quakes and tidal waves this time. We’re talking the end of the world.”

7:02 P.M.

Miyuki sat at the worktable in the marine biology lab. In the background she heard the muffled voices of Jack and a pair of his crew talking animatedly in the geology suite. Around her a thousand eyes watched from the clear plastic specimen jars lining the shelves and cabinets. It made it hard to concentrate.

Shaking her head against these distractions, Miyuki continued her own line of research. Earlier she had Gabriel do a global search through all the rongorongoexamples gleaned from Easter Island to see if there were any other references to the pillar or the ancient disaster. She had little luck. A few scant allusions, but nothing significant. Now she was rereading through the passages in the platinum diary.

At her elbow, the briefcase-mounted computer chimed. Gabriel’s voice came through the tiny speakers. He had been assigned to work out a linguistic equivalent to the language, using phonetics supplied by Mwahu. Miyuki looked up from her sheets.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Professor Nakano.”

“What is it, Gabriel?”

“I have an incoming call from Dr. Grace. Would you care to take it?”

Miyuki almost fell out of her chair. “Karen…?” She slid in front of the computer. “Gabriel, patch in the call!”

Above the flat monitor, the one-inch video camera blinked on. On the screen, a cascade of pixels slowly formed a jerky image of her friend. Miyuki leaned near the microphone. “Karen! Where are you?”

Karen’s computer image flittered. “I don’t have much time. I was able to contact Gabriel with your coded address for him on the Internet. He was able to encrypt this video line, but I can’t trust that someone won’t catch on.”

“Where are you?”

“At some undersea research base near Jack’s obelisk. Is he there?”

Miyuki nodded. She leaned back. “Jack! Come quick!”

The captain of the Fathompoked his head out of the geology lab, his face worried. “What is it?”

Miyuki stood up and pointed to the screen. “It’s Karen!”

His eyes widened. He fell out the door of the geology lab and stumbled around the table. “What do you—” Then he came in view of the computer’s screen. He rushed forward, leaning close. “Karen, is that you?”

7:05 P.M., Neptune base

Karen watched Jack’s face form in the small square in the lower right-hand side of her computer monitor. He was alive! Tears welled in her eyes.

“Karen, where are you?”

She coughed to clear her throat, then briefly summarized the past twenty-four hours: her capture, the trip by helicopter, the imprisonment in the sea base. Afterward, she continued, “I tossed a bone the researchers’ way and told them about the rongorongoconnection. It’s a useless lead without the additional examples we discovered, but they don’t know that. By feigning cooperation, they’ve given me a little latitude.” She looked over her shoulder when a spat of laughter echoed down the curving length of the tier. “The others are up at dinner or working in private. I don’t know how long I can keep this line open without arousing suspicion.”

“I’ll find a way to get you out of there,” Jack said. “Trust me.”

Karen leaned closer to the screen. “I wanted you to know. They’re planning to blow up the obelisk sometime tomorrow afternoon. They’ve probed the area and seem to believe there’s a larger deposit under it. The tip of the proverbial iceberg.”

On the monitor, Jack glanced to the side. “You were right, Charlie!”

“Of course I was,” someone said off screen.

Karen frowned. “What do you mean? What do you know?”

She listened as Jack sketchily recounted what they had learned from the platinum book and Charlie’s theories. Karen sat frozen as the story unfolded: ancient disasters, dark matter, solar storms. She listened with her mouth hanging open as Jack told her of the coming danger.

“Oh my God!” she said. “When is this storm supposed to strike?”

“Just after noon tomorrow.”

A new face appeared on the screen. Jack made the introduction. “This is Charlie Mollier, the ship’s geologist.”

“So what do we do?” Karen asked. Sweat trickled down her back. She was sure she would be caught any moment.

“Tell me about the explosives and intent of the demolition squad,” Charlie said.

Karen explained the Navy’s plan to blast into the core of the crystal’s main vein.

Jack spoke up. “Maybe that’d be good. At least the pillar won’t be poking out any longer.”

“No,” Charlie said, “if they succeed, it’ll make matters worse. They’ll be laying open the very heart of the deposit, increasing, not lessening, the area of exposure to the solar storm. The only way to protect against this disaster is to bury the pillar or cleanly clip it off, separating it from the main deposit.”

“In other words, knock down the lightning rod,” Jack said.

Karen checked her watch. If the geologist was right, they had only seventeen hours. “What if we specifically target the crystal pillar with the explosives?”

“Still dangerous,” Charlie mumbled. “Even if you could arrange it, the kinetic energy of the blast could be absorbed into the main deposit.” He shook his head. “It’s risky. The strength of an explosion sufficient to crack a pillar of that immense size could trigger the very disaster we’re trying to avoid.”

The video phone line went silent as parties pondered the hopelessness of their situation.

“We need more help,” Charlie mumbled.

Karen chewed on this idea. “I could try enlisting the aid of the head researcher here. Dr. Cortez. He’s cautioned the Navy against blasting the crystal, and I don’t think he’s a big fan of Spangler’s, either.”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I’m suspicious of anyone working alongside that bastard.”

“But he’s a geophysicist,” Karen argued. “Renowned in his field.”

“And I could truly use some expert help,” Charlie agreed.

Jack frowned and looked directly into the camera. “But can we trust him, Karen?”

She sat quiet for a long moment, then sighed. “I think so. But I’ll need your data. I’ll need to convince him.”

Jack turned to Charlie. “Can you download your research?”

He nodded and disappeared.

Miyuki spoke from off screen. “I’ll compile all the translations, and prepare Gabriel to transmit everything.”

“Great,” Jack replied. He turned back to the camera, and Karen thought he seemed to stare right into her heart. “How are youdoing?” he asked softly.

“Considering the fact that I’m imprisoned a mile under the sea and the world’s gonna end tomorrow, I’m not too bad.”

“Did they rough you up?”

She remembered her black eye, fingering its sore edges. “No, I fell onto a doorknob…a few times in a row.”

“I’m sorry, Karen. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved in all this.”

She sat straighter. “Don’t take the guilt for this, Jack. I’d rather be where I am now than back at the university, oblivious to all this. If there’s a way to stop what’s gonna happen, I’d rather be here on the front lines.”

Miyuki spoke from off screen. “I’ve got all the data collected. But to send it, I’ll need this video line to upload the information.”

Jack nodded. “You hear that?”

“Y-Yes,” Karen fought to keep her voice from breaking. She hated the thought of losing contact with her friends.

“Gabriel will keep monitoring this channel afterward,” Miyuki said. “Use his code if you want to speak to us.”

Jack leaned nearer, his face filling the little screen. “Be careful, Karen. David is an ass, but he’s no fool.”

“I know.”

They stared at one another for an extra breath. Jack kissed his fingers and pressed them against the screen. “I’ll get you out of there.”

Before she could answer, the phone line switched off and the video square vanished. Replacing it was a colored bar, filling slowly with the incoming data stream. She directed the information to a DVD recorder. Alone, she waited for the file to be transmitted.

A voice spoke off to the side. “What are you doing?”

Karen turned. David was climbing up from the lower deck. He was supposed to be out in the Perseus,overseeing the demolition team. He must have returned early.

Barefoot and in a wet suit, he stepped from the ladder and moved toward her. “I told Cortez to keep someone with you at all times. What are you doing here unattended?”

She fixed a bland expression on her face. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the colored bar fill slowly. “I gave Cortez what you wanted. The key to the ancient script. They’re researching it and didn’t want my help.”

He moved to her side.

Karen twisted around, blocking the view of the data bar with her elbow.

He glanced at the screen, then back at her. His eyes narrowed. “If you’re not needed, you should be confined to your quarters.” He grabbed her by the shoulder. “Come with me.”

He yanked her to her feet. She dared not even glance back at the screen, lest it draw his attention. “Why confine me?” she asked boldly, stepping in front of him, blocking his view. “Where am I going to go?”

David scowled. “Because those were my orders. No one goes against them. Not even Cortez.”

“To hell with—”

The back of his hand struck her face, hard, knocking her to the side. Caught by surprise, Karen gasped and almost fell to one knee. She grabbed her chair to keep upright.

“No one questions my orders,” he said thickly. Rubbing the back of his hand, his eyes flicked to the computer monitor.

Karen winced. Oh, God…She turned to the screen.

It was mercifully empty. The transmission had been completed.

She straightened with relief.

David glanced along the curved row of labs, clearly suspicious, looking for some evidence of a foul plan. She saw his nostrils flaring, scenting the air like a bloodhound, before he whipped back toward her.

Karen inadvertently shied away.

He leaned near her. “I can smell Kirkland on you, bitch. I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’ll find out.”

A cold chill slithered up her back.

He snatched her by the elbow, fingers digging hard. “Now let’s find the others. It’s time they were taught a thing or two about military protocol.”

As she was pulled away she glanced at the empty workstation. Hidden on a little silver disk over there were the answers to everything – ancient mysteries, the origin of the universe, even the fate of the world. She had to find a way to place it in the hands of someone who could help. But how?

8:12 P.M., Deep Fathom

Jack sat on a stool in the geology lab. Charlie worked at his computer, reviewing his data. Both were searching for answers. Jack struggled to think, but Karen’s face, bruised and scared, kept appearing in his head, distracting him. He closed his eyes. “How ’bout if we tried short-circuiting the damn thing?”

“What?” Charlie asked.

“You said the deposit acts like some electromagnetic battery. What if we, I don’t know, overloadedit or something.”

Charlie turned from his computer, frowning tiredly. “That would only accelerate—” The geologist’s frown deepened. Jack could practically see the calculations running in the man’s head.

“Do you think it might work?”

His eyes focused back on Jack. “No, not at all. But you’ve given me an idea.” He stood, crossed to the worktable and scrounged through his gadgetry. In a few moments Charlie had a spare marine battery hooked to a meter.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked.

“Running a little experiment.” He lifted the battery’s leads and connected them to the steel clamps holding the crystal star. He put on one of Robert’s night vision masks. “Can you hit the lights?”

Jack slid off his stool and flicked the switch. In the dark cabin, he heard Charlie shuffling around. Then he heard a tiny snap of electricity. A blue arc zapped between the battery’s leads, painfully bright in the dark. The crystal artifact lit up like a real star.

The radiant light fractured into a spectrum of colors. Jack remembered a similar sight – when the electromagnet used to haul up sections of Air Force One had brushed too near the pillar. The spire had glowed with the same brightness.

As he watched, the star grew brighter and brighter. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. Charlie was bent over the star, flicking his gaze between it and the meter. One hand turned a dial. The hum of the battery grew louder.