“So the energy tap could be for energy the Shadow has already used?” Dane asked, trying to understand.
“We know some of the energy is being sent to the Devil’s Sea gate in our present,” Ahana said. “But there is also the possibility that the energy is being spread through not only space but time.”
Dane considered that. “That means Chernobyl could be a very critical node to the Shadow.”
Ahana nodded. “If we could get a better understanding of the entire gate and portal system, it would help.”
Dane thought they were focusing too much on the scientific aspects of all of this. “What purposes do you think the gates have other than gathering energy?” he asked.
“Besides trying to destroy our world?” Foreman asked. “Obviously they gather humans and our vessels as the graveyard in the Bermuda Triangle showed.”
“We saw the vessels, and some of them had been cannibalized. But what do they do with the people they take?” Dane wondered.
There was no response to that.
A scream woke Pytor Shashenka from a nightmare into an even worse reality. Why was he still alive? Why hadn’t the radiation taken him? How could he be alive after what had been done to him?
The scream echoed in the cavern. Out of the corner of his eye he could see one of the strange creatures moving about. He had no energy to turn and look, and he didn’t want to see what it was doing to whoever was screaming.
He was glad Andrej had died in the explosion and not been brought here.
One of the creatures paused in front of him. It had something metallic in its claw. It jabbed forward, and Pytor felt something go into the middle of his chest, then be withdrawn.
He passed out once more.
In the southeast Pacific, a quarter-mile-thick-crust of solid igneous rock had covered a mile-wide chasm between the Pacific and Nazca tectonic plates for millennia. An empty chasm extended two miles down below the cap to red- hot lava coming out of the Earth’s mantle. Even though the gap was growing bigger year by year, the rate had been slow enough to allow discreet adjustments.
The muonic probing from the Devil’s Sea gate changed that in an instant. As the power moved through the covering rock, a section gave way, causing a cascading effect along a forty-mile stretch.
That far under the ocean, the effect was hardly noticeable, even though the power that was expended was tremendous. However, as the power reached the surface, a wave began to form, very long in length and low in height heading for the westward side of South America at seven hundred miles an hour.
“What’s the limit on weaponry?” Dane asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you authorized to use nuclear weapons through the gates?” Dane clarified his question.
“The Shadow has used nuclear weapons,” Foreman said.
“I take that as a yes,” Dane said. He turned to Nagoya. “Since you don’t know exactly what’s over there or how the gates are connected, you have no clue what the use of a nuclear weapon will do inside of a gate or portal, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” Nagoya admitted.
“It’s war,” Foreman said simply. “You don’t use a hammer when you can use a battering ram.”
“At what point will you decide to use nukes?” Dane asked.
“When we have determined they’re needed,” Foreman said.
“I hope that doesn’t occur while we’re still in the gate,” Dane said.
“Of course not,” Foreman replied. “This is a reconnaissance mission.”
“What else do you have?” Dane asked Nagoya, knowing it was a waste to extract promises from Foreman.
“The Shadow has been probing constantly,” the Japanese scientist answered. “We’ve been analyzing the pattern of the probes, and while it is covering the entire Ring of fire, there are two key points that the Shadow seems to be paying particular attention to.” He nodded at Ahana, who once more changed the display on the monitor.
“Here,” she pointed. “Mount Wrangell in Alaska. The northernmost volcano on the Ring of Fire. And here.” She changed the view. “Mount Erebus, in Antarctica. The southernmost volcano.”
“I think you need to clue Ariana in on this,” Dane suggested to Foreman.
“We have our experts,” Foreman said.
“Ariana has been inside a gate,” Dane pointed out. “That gives her an insight your experts don’t have. She also has a degree in geology and a lot of practical experience.”
“I’ve already forwarded the data to her.”
“Back to opening the portal,” Dane said. “What’s the plan?”
Ahana pulled a folder out and opened it. “We have our people specially modifying this craft.”
A long, thin craft, almost looking like a pencil, was next to a dock in the picture. The front end of it was bulbous.
“What is it?”
“It’s called a FLIP,” Ahana said. “Floating Instrument Panel. The government began working on it, adding a superkamiokande to the bow” —she tapped the bulb—“about six months ago. There was concern that this site might be targeted by the Shadow, and it was felt it might be good to have a mobile detector.
“It’s over two hundred meters long and has no engines. It gets towed to wherever we want to set up. Then ballast is shifted to the bow, and it goes underwater. The bow sinks, while the stern remains above water until it’s vertical, like this,” she turned the picture, bow facing down. “About twenty meters off the stern, where our control center is located, remains dry. The floor rotates as the entire ship does.”
“And what will having a detector on scene do for us?” Dane asked.
“We’re not going to detect,” Professor Nagoya said. “We’re going to transmit. This is the other end of the extension cord. We’re going to lock on the Devil’s Sea probe coming out of the portal and transmit a beam of muons into the gate, into the probe, toward the Chernobyl probe. What we’re hoping to do is tap into the forces at work inside the gate; the weak and strong forces, and then draw them out to us and use them to open the gate and portal.”
Dane had little idea what Nagoya was talking about, and he could tell the military men didn’t either.
“We’ve got support from a carrier task force,” Colonel Loomis trilled in. “The Crab will be launched off the deck of the Grayback, our special operations submarine. The Grayback will remain on station for recovery, five kilometers outside the perimeter of the gate.”
“When do we go?” Dane asked.
“Everything will be ready tomorrow night,” Foreman said. “Tonight, we deploy to the task force.”
“Why don’t’ we check out the graveyard tomorrow then?” Dane suggested. “As long as we aren’t sending out a signal like Deepflight did, we should be safe doing that.”
“Why do you want to check that?” Foreman asked.
“We found that Atlantean ship in the Bermuda Triangle graveyard,” Dave said. “And the Viking ship. Who knows what might be in there? Perhaps your brother’s plane.” He could see that last thought hit home.
“All right,” Foreman agreed. “I’ll arrange a submersible to be ready.”
“How long do we have on the Ring of Fire?” Dane asked Ahana.
“It’s hard to tell,” she said. “So far, it just probing. We’re not even sure if the probing will lead to anything.”
“Ours will,” Dane noted. “I would assume theirs will, too.”
Ariana Michelet felt like a ghoul, carrying a satchel containing six crystal skulls into her father’s Learjet. She had Van Liten’s five plus the one from the museum. She put the bag in the seat across from her, then instructed the pilot to take off. She was going from New York to London, were Van Liten had told her another skull was being held by the museum there.