“Where’s it coming from?” Dane asked.
“The Navy Undersea Warfare Lab at Norfolk. It was flown to Roosevelt Roads Naval Station on board three C-5 transports and from there it was cross-loaded onto a sub tender and is being assembled as we speak. It will arrive on station over the Milwaukee Deep just about the same time we do.”
“Has the lab ever been down that far before?”
“Deeplab is rated for twenty-thousand feet,” Ariana said.
“Has it been down that deep?” Dane repeated.
“Not yet,” Ariana said.
“Better and better,” Dane commented.
She clicked a button and another version of the map appeared. An outline of the Atlantic, from Bermuda in the north to Puerto Rico in the south, to the US mainland in the west with a black triangle in the center. A much larger yellow triangle covered it “At its widest propagation, the Bermuda Triangle gate was just short of touching the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Bermuda. Its current size is much smaller, a triangle centered about forty miles to the north of our destination.”
“So the place we’re going to isn’t inside the gate now?” Dane found that unusual.
“No,” Ariana said, “but-” she paused and turned to Sin Fen.
“Give me the good news,” Dane prompted.
Sin Fen spoke up. “The Navy has been surveilling the Bermuda Triangle area for a while at the behest of Mister Foreman using SOSUS in addition to constant surveillance from overhead satellites.”
“What’s SOSUS?” Dane asked.
“A sound surveillance system that tracks submarines,” Sin Fen answered. “The initial SOSUS systems were laid along the Atlantic Coast in the 50s and 60s as the threat of Soviet ballistic submarines increased. Over the years, the Navy expanded the system into the Pacific and closer to the Soviet Union.
“Basically each SOSUS line consists of a bunch of extremely sensitive listening devices on the ocean floor connected by cable and reporting to an on-shore tracking center. The Navy has constantly been upgrading the system and trying new listening devices.”
“Even after the Cold War ended?” Dane asked. He was always alert for parts of explanations that didn’t quite fit, and although he couldn’t 'read’ Sin Fen, he could read the way Ariana and Captain Stanton were reacting to her words and he knew he was, as usual, only getting part of the story.
“Even after the Cold War,” Sin Fen. “The navy isn’t stupid. They got money to continue working on SOSUS by tying it in with several civilian and government agencies to do a variety of tasks other than track submarines. SOSUS now listens for underwater earthquakes, volcanoes and even tracks whales for biologists.”
“Very interesting,” Dane said. “What did SOSUS pick up?”
“Even before Mister Foreman investigated and we got the map off the Scorpion,” Sin Fen said, “the area known as the Bermuda Triangle has always raised quite a bit of speculation. Over the centuries numerous ships- and more recently planes- have disappeared while in this area.”
“Bull,” Dane said in mild voice.
Sin Fen simply raised an eyebrow.
Dane amplified his objection. “As you may have noticed, I did some reading on the way down here. The insurance company Lloyds of London- who ought to know since they insure ships and planes- did a study and found that the area delineated as the Bermuda Triangle had no statistically significant higher losses than anywhere else. Also, many of the ships and planes that people claim disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle were nowhere near the area when they disappeared. Some were hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from that triangle you’re showing.”
“You are quite correct,” Sin Fen said. “However, there is something in the Bermuda Triangle. It is not so much that ships and planes enter the gate and disappear, we think it is more a case of something from the gate goes to the ships and planes and makes them disappear.”
“What is this thing?”
“We don’t know- yet,” Sin Fen said. “What we do know is that something comes out of the gate and travels to the depths of the Puerto Rican trench every once in a while and returns to the gate.”
“Why this spot?” Dane asked.
“We don’t know.” Sin Fen said. “However, special imaging using a muon detector in Japan, has-”
“A what?” Dane asked.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” Ariana said. “Suffice it to say that this detector can pick up a gate and the gate’s influence in our world.”
“OK, go ahead,” Dane said.
Sin Fen indicated for Ariana to change the slides. A new picture appeared, showing the Bermuda Triangle gate outlined in red. A thin red dotted line went south from it to the Milwaukee depth where there was a red circle drawn.
“A muon active area eight miles in diameter is located there,” Sin Fen said.
“Another gate?” Dane asked.
“Not a gate,” Sin Fen said. “An area in our world influenced by the gate.”
Dane thought about that. “That means whatever is on the other side can pass through the gate and come into our world.”
“Yes or send something into our world that manages to survive,” Sin Fen said.
“That’s a change,” Dane said. “At Angkor the gate was a mixture of our two worlds. There were animals from both sides in the gate. And water stopped the creatures from their side.”
“The creatures, yes,” Sin Fen said. “but whatever the intelligence is on the other side- and there is no doubt there is some sort of intelligence over there- it has been able to send radioactive and electromagnetic rays through the gate and take over our satellites. Who’s to say they can’t also come out in other ways? Much like astronauts exploring another planet. They definitely showed the ability to send our own equipment back at us by releasing the Scorpion and firing the Trident.
“We think they may have developed vehicles or suits capable of coming into our world. Maybe the gates that are located in or over water on our side are located in or over water on the other side,” Sin Fen was speaking rapidly and Dane had the impression this was a matter of some conjecture on her part. “It’s even possible some of their water life can pass over and survive in our water as long as a gate encompasses the area. So water might not be a barrier to such creatures, but rather their natural environment, just as we have land and water creatures on Earth.”
“As usual,” Dane said, “we don’t have a clue what’s going on.”
“Several times SOSUS has picked up a bogey,” Sin Fen continued, “and each time it originates from the gate and returns there.”
“The same bogey the Wyoming picked up?” Dane asked.
“Yes. And the Scorpion. Something very big that moves very fast. It’s real and larger than anything we’ve ever put under the water.”
“Does it go to the spot we’re going to?”
“Sometimes.”
“OK,” Dane said. “Deeplab gets you down to seventeen thousand feet. There’s still a long way to the bottom.”
Ariana hit the button again. An elongated craft appeared, like a plane with stubby wings. The front of it was curved. Halfway back, another circle poked above and below the main body. There was also short wings at the rear along with two vertical fins. One thing Dane noted immediately was that there were no portholes or glass that he could see.
“This is Deepflight 2. We call it a fixed wing submersible, a very radical design departure for deepsea submersibles. That’s what will get us from Deeplab to the bottom of the Milwaukee Depth.”
“How deep is it rated for?” Dane asked.
“Thirty-seven thousand feet,” Ariana answered. “More than enough to get the job done. It’s a four person craft- two in the forward pressure sphere-” she used a laser pointer to highlight the forward part of the craft- “and two in the rear sphere. Each sphere is made of titanium and seals separately.”