“I could throw you overboard and just take these and continue on my way,” Ragnarok noted.
“You won’t,” Tam Nok said. “It is not your nature.”
Ragnarok frowned at that and put the stones back in the bag. “Why England?”
“As I said I am looking for something beyond the edge of the map. But in England I will get more information. That is the first place I must look.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A Shield.”
“It can stop the Valkyries and their creatures?”
“It can do much more than that.”
“How do you know this Shield exists?” Ragnarok asked, intrigued by the concept of such a powerful weapon. His ax- Skullcrusher- had been most formidable and never been broken in battle, until now. A weapon even more powerful than that would be worth more than any gold or jewels. He had seen how Thorlak’s shield had not even slowed the creature in the slightest, even though he had seen such blows in battle split a man’s head wide open. The white armor the Valkyries wore was something he had never seen before, as was the golden beam that had burned him.
Tam Nok pulled another piece of parchment out of the tube and tapped it against Ragnarok’s chest just above his burn. “The runes on the writing inside this tell me that. They tell me the Shield to stop the Valkyries and the Ones who will come after the Valkyries exists.”
“Let me see,” Ragnarok said. His mother had taught him the runes, something his father had reluctantly allowed.
Tam Nok unrolled the scroll.
“These are not runes,” Ragnarok squinted at the lines drawn on the paper.
“Not the runes you know,” Tam Nok agreed, “nevertheless, they are runes of another people. An older people. They tell how they defeated the Dark Ones of the Shadow. And how they- the ancient ones- had a weapon. But I do not know where the Shield is. I do not have the map for that. For that I need to go to England and find someone who can give me the rest of the map- the piece that is missing. The piece that shows the lands beyond Greenland, over the sea.”
Ragnarok had heard stories of land beyond Greenland. Vikings who had been caught in a storm while trying to reach Iceland or Greenland and come upon a strange land, where trees came down to the shore. Where there were strange people, Skraelings, who were unlike any people in Europe. As was Tam Nok, Ragnarok thought.
“You are sure there is someone there who has that?” Ragnarok asked.
“I have been told to go to England to find out,” Tam Nok said.
“You trust whoever told you this?” Ragnarok asked.
Tam Nok pointed up. “I was told by the Gods. I hear their voices. They have always led me in the right direction.”
“Why can’t the Gods tell you where the Shield is, then?” Ragnarok felt pleased with himself for having thought of that, “and skip having to go to this other person?”
“You would not understand,” Tam Nok said. “It is the way things are.”
Ragnarok leaned back once more on the seat considering what she requested. With favorable winds the northern part of England was two days sailing away to the southeast. The Faroes were a day and half, to the north and east. He looked at the map. To think there might be another map showing the lands that Eric the Red had sailed to a generation ago!
“Bjarni,” Ragnarok called to the helmsman. “South, by southeast.”
Chapter 7
“We can maintain position using our global positioning receiver and a series of thrusters,” Captain Stanton explained as he led them through a long corridor leading from the helipad on the rear of the Glomar Explorer toward the center of the ship. “Once we arrive on a site we can stay on position within six inches.”
Dane was impressed. The Glomar Explorer appeared even larger when one was actually on board. Chelsea kept close to Dane’s side as they walked along the steel decked corridor. The hum of heavy machinery was in the air, and the ship vibrated slightly.
The corridor ended and they walked onto a gantry-way that angled around a large open poll in the center of the ship. The pool was over a hundred feet long by sixty wide. Above their heads the derrick poked over three hundred feet into the bright blue sky. The walls of the pool were hung with hundreds of lengths of pipe. The dark surface of the ocean lay calm in the pool at the bottom of the opening. Above, the derrick towered over their heads.
“We are capable of lowering seventeen thousand feet of pipe,” Captain Stanton said. “That’s over seven thousand feet deeper than the next best thing available on the market. Better than any standard rig. And we’re much more mobile than any rig.”
“How long until you’re in position?” Sin Fen asked as they crossed the gantry way over the well.
“Another six hours.” He opened another hatch on the far end. “We have a briefing ready to get you up to speed. This way.”
Dane and Chelsea followed the captain and Sin Fen into a conference room. Ariana Michelet was sitting at the head of the table. The only daughter of Paul Michelet, the founder of Michelet Technologies, Ariana had not only had the good taste to be born into one of the richest families in the world, she had also been graced with good looks. Tall and slender, she had olive skin, very little of which was showing given she was wearing a set of black coveralls that looked like a flight suit. A patch on the shoulder showed a silhouette of the Glomar with Michelet Technologies written in script around the edge.
She stood and smiled, reaching down to pet Chelsea. “It is good to see you- both of you,” she said to Dane.
“I’m a little surprised to see you here,” Dane said.
Ariana straightened and stared at him. “Why is that?”
“After the way your father and Foreman tricked you into going into the Angkor gate- and nearly being killed there- I would think you’d be a little leery of getting involved in anything either of them set up.”
She sat down, indicating for them to take their chairs. “I would think the same of you. Foreman got you to go into the Angkor gate twice. I only went once.”
Dane smiled. “Good point.”
“Besides, we own this ship,” she waved her hand to take in the Glomar. “The technology is all ours.”
“So what exactly is the plan?” Dane asked. “What are we going to do? Drill in the middle of the ocean and hope we come up with something?”
Ariana reached forward and hit a couple of buttons. The room darkened and a map appeared on the wall behind her. “We are heading for this spot, about one hundred miles northwest of Puerto Rico. It also happens to be part of the deepest section of the Atlantic, a thousand mile long valley in the ocean floor known at the Puerto Rican Trench. It contains the deepest spot in the Atlantic which also happens to be the exact location we’re heading for.”
“Why am I not surprised at that?” Dane asked.
“It’s called the Milwaukee Depth.” Ariana pointed down. “The bottom there is twenty-seven thousand, four hundred and ninety-three feet that way. You could dump Mount Everest in there and only about fifteen hundred feet of it would stick out of the water.”
“But the good captain here,” Dane pointed at Stanton, “said you could only drill to a depth of seventeen thousand feet.”
“We’re not going to drill,” Ariana said.
Dane waited.
Ariana hit the forward on the machine and a new slide appeared. It showed a drawing of the Glomar Explorer with the pipe going down below it into the ocean. At the end of the pipe, three vertical cylinders were grouped around a thinner central cylinder.
“We plan to go down in stages. We will lower a deep-sea habitat on the end of the drilling pipe to the maximum depth of seventeen thousand feet. That will be our base camp, so to speak, if you wish to reverse the concept of mountain climbing. The habitat, Deeplab IV, is navy. It will meet us at the site.”