“How much of what Foreman knows do you know?” Dane asked.
“Whatever he has let me know,” Sin Fen answered evasively.
“Does Foreman know all that you know?”
Sin Fen paused. “What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, Dane opened a hatch on the side of the ship. Sin Fen followed him. They made their way to the bridge. It was a small, high-tech operations center. A red emergency light activated as he opened the hatch, giving off a muted glow. Dane sat in what must have been the captain’s seat, while Sin Fen took a seat just in front of him and to the right. There were no windows to the outside world. Like the Deepflight, a number of video screens lined the front wall.
“If that Avenger still had power,” Dane said, “let’s see what we have here. The light says there’s a good chance we can power some of this stuff up.” He swung an arm that had a laptop computer attached to it in front of him. He hit the power button. The screen glowed.
“So why are the batteries still fresh?” Dane asked as the computer booted.
“Maybe they’re held in the same statis the ships and planes seem to be in,” Sin Fen said. “If you’ll note, there’s no rust- at least no more than they had when they came here- on any of the metal hulls.”
“Does that mean we’re not growing any older, being in here?” Dane asked as slid his finger across the touchpad.
Sin Fen looked startled. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Dane shifted his attention from the computer screen to his female partner. “I think you’re lying.”
“Why would I lie?”
“That’s something I’m going to have to figure out,” Dane typed into the keyboard. “I’ve got the captain’s log.” He scrolled down. “Just like Deeplab- it goes off-line before we get any useful information about what happened to the ship.”
Dane leaned back in the captain’s chair and looked about the control room. He turned the chair to the right and dialed in a frequency on the FM radio transmitter.
“What are you doing?” Sin Fen asked.
“Worked once before,” Dane said. He keyed the mike. “Big Red this is Dane. Big Red this is Dane. Over.”
“Last time you did that, you almost got blasted to bits,” Sin Fen said.
“I’m not set up for Morse,” Dane said, “and we’re not next to a gate.” He waited, then resent the message. There was nothing but static coming out of the speakers. Dane tried several more times, but after five minutes he realized that his former teammate, Flaherty, who had gone over to the other side with the Ones Before, wasn’t listening.
Dane turned off the radio. “Let’s keep looking.”
They left the bridge of the Nightfarer, the light turning off behind them automatically. Dane surveyed the beach they had yet to traverse.
He pointed. “How about something we don’t recognize?”
Sin Fen looked. A long, slim ship, about a hundred meters long by five wide was a quarter mile away from them. It had a hull made of black metal, much like the floor beneath them but was open to the sky on top. A single, very thin mast of the same black metal extended up twenty meters. On the rear was a raised platform on which rested a black box, about two meters cubed.
“Ever see anything like that in the history books?” Dane asked.
“No.”
“Then let’s check it out.”
They crossed the black beach and arrived at the strange ship. Dane grabbed the gunwale and pulled himself up and into the boat. The floor was level with rows of seats extending the length of the ship, to the raised platform in the rear which had steps leading up to it. Everything was made of the same black material. Dane ran his hand along the side- it was similar to the material the shore was crafted from.
He helped Sin Fen clamber on board, then they walked to the rear. Behind the black cube was a semi-circular panel, with levers and buttons amid what looked like computer displays.
“Pretty modern for an old looking ship style,” Dane noted.
“No propellers though,” Sin Fen said.
“So what is this for then?” Dane indicated the panel. Under each lever and button there was writing, a form Dane had never seen.
Sin Fen ran her fingers across the lettering. “Runes.”
“Viking?” Dane asked.
Sin Fen shook her head. “Similar but not the same. More of a root language, because I see some similarities to Sanskrit. Similar to what was on the wall of the watchtower you found near Angkor Kol Ker.”
“Can you read it?”
“Some.”
Dane waited. A large, four-masted schooner was to the right of the ship he was on. The name on the bow was Atalanta. Dane recognized the name from the book he had read on the Bermuda Triangle. The Atalanta had been a training ship for English midshipmen. It, like the rest of these ships and planes, had disappeared with no survivors, no bodies recovered, no sign of wreckage.
Further around the cavern saw a B-29 bomber in vintage condition parked a half mile away. Next to it was a cigarette boat, the type used by drug smugglers throughout the Caribbean.
“This boat has a propulsion system,” Sin Fen finally said.
“Yeah, a sail,” Dane pointed.
“No, a propulsion system other than the sail,” she said. She nodded toward the black box in front of them. “It’s in there. I don’t know how it works, but the controls for it are here.” She indicated several levers and a small wheel.
“And this-” her right hand was over a flat black piece of what appeared to be glass. “This is some sort of- well, as best I can make out, some sort of active display that helped the pilot of the ship.”
“I don’t get it,” Dane said. “Is this another kind of secret government ship we’ve never heard of?”
“No,” Sin Fen said. “This is old, very old. This may be the oldest ship in here.”
“How can that be?”
“Because this is an Atlantean ship,” Sin Fen said.
Chapter 22
“Sail!” The voice came from the lookout perched on the platform attached to the mast.
Ragnarok looked up. The man was pointing forward. Ragnarok climbed up until he was next to the man. It was a fine, clear day, with a stiff wind pushing them to the north. They were well west of the Faroes by Bjarni’s calculations. Their last sight of land had been three days ago, the Hebrides off the coast of Scotland. It would be another day before they saw the white coast line of Iceland.
Ragnarok shielded his eyes and squinted. A small ship was on the horizon, tacking across their projected path, heading east. Hrolf climbed up and joined him.
“What do we have?” the old warrior asked. His eyes were bad and Ragnarok knew he probably couldn’t even see the ship.
“A small boat,” Ragnarok answered. “I’m surprised to see it this far at sea,” He noted the sail. “Three black lines on the sail.”
“Straight up and down?” Hrolf asked.
“Yes.”
Hrolf spit. “Lika-Loddin.”
Ragnarok had heard of the man, but never met him. Lika was the Norse word for corpse and Loddin had received that name for his bizarre way of making a living.
“Close on his ship,” Ragnarok ordered Bjarni.
As the distance between the two Viking ships closed, Ragnarok looked for Tam Nok. She was huddled under her cloak just behind the first oar seat, studying the metal map. She had other documents from her bamboo tube spread out around her. Ragnarok climbed down from the mast and walked forward.
“Have you learned anything more?”
Tam Nok looked up. “I am beginning to understand this old writing.”
Ragnarok pointed at Loddin’s ship. “There is a man on that boat who might be able to give us more information.”