The surface was crenelated with fissures and gaps — what treasure hunters called “solution holes” where coins, chains and other items could often be found. Jade painstakingly inspected several of these as she made her way around the circumference of the hole. She was careful to check her watch, just as Professor had told her, and was surprised by how little time had passed. Usually, when she was sifting through a ruin, looking for potsherds or other bits of ancient detritus, she fell into a sort of fugue state where hours could slip by without her knowledge. She was surprised to see that she had only been in the water for about twenty minutes and was nearly halfway around the edge of the circle. The other diver was just a few yards away, and Jade decided that when they met, they would head back to the surface for a break.
She returned her attention to the task at hand, exploring another solution hole. Something glinted from the crack in the limestone and when she took hold of it, she could feel a heaviness that could only mean she had found gold. It was a chain of thick links, similar to those found at other wrecks of the period. She tugged on it gently but the underlying rock refused to yield it up. She pulled harder and suddenly a section of stone broke free, releasing a cloud of sediment.
Jade slipped the heavy chain into her sample bag and waited for the silt to settle out. As it did, she spied something smooth and black with a gently convex surface that disappeared into the surrounding encrustation. It was too large to be a cannonball and a closer inspection showed none of the pitting and corrosion that marred metal objects.
She stared at it for a full minute before realizing what it was.
TWENTY-SIX
The atmosphere aboard the Quest Explorer was electric with the news of Jade’s discovery. Ophelia seemed to have completely forgotten about Professor’s slight and now hovered anxiously at the edge of the planning session for retrieving the Moon stone.
“It’s not dangerous,” Jade insisted, “but touching it would be a very bad idea, especially for a diver on the bottom.”
She did not elaborate and no one asked her to explain, but she wondered if perhaps the object was more dangerous than she was willing to admit. A blackout like the one she had experienced in Teotihuacan might prove fatal in the unforgiving underwater environment. Worse still, the Moon stone’s effect was not limited to direct contact. When Jade had come back aboard, she discovered that Professor’s watch was running a full six minutes slow.
Dorion had been astounded. “That’s the time dilation effect,” he explained. “You were much closer to the event horizon than we were on the surface.”
“You said the difference would be measured in nanoseconds,” Professor pointed out.
“I thought it would. The field must be more massive than I imagined.”
“That will make the Moon stone considerably heavier. Perez mentioned that the orb was heavier, but if it has enough gravity to cause a time differential that significant, then it may be too heavy to lift.”
“Surely it can’t be that heavy,” Ophelia countered. “The Spaniard, Alvaro, was able to drag the thing through those tunnels under the pyramid by himself.”
“It may have continued to accrete more dark matter,” said Dorion. “The sphere shape and the existing field would continue to draw in particles as the Earth passes through space, just like a black hole grows more massive as it pulls in material.”
“We have to try,” Ophelia insisted. “This ship can lift cannons. Surely it can lift a big stone ball.”
“Just how big are we talking?” asked Nichols.
Jade recalled the small portion of it that had been exposed, a section about eight inches across. “Judging by the curvature, I’d say the size of a big beach ball. Maybe twenty-four inches max.”
Professor did some quick math in his head. “A little over seven thousand cubic inches.”
“A cubic inch of twenty-four karat gold weighs seven-tenths of a pound,” Nichols supplied. “If it’s as heavy as gold, then figure about two and a half tons. I seriously doubt this rock of yours is that heavy, but even if it is, our boom crane can lift twice that much.”
“It may be much heavier,” Dorion said in a quiet voice, “to create that kind of relativistic effect…” He lapsed into silence as if unable to put his fears into words.
“Maybe your watch is just running slow,” Nichols countered. “Anyway, we won’t know until we’ve tried.”
“How will we secure it?” asked Jade.
“Cradle sling. Probably two or three overlapping. We’ll clear away the surrounding matrix and then wrap it from the sides. Floatation tubes will add some buoyancy and make the crane’s job a little easier until we can get it to the surface. Should be a walk in the park.”
Jade wasn’t quite so sanguine, but Nichols knew his business. “Let me set the slings.”
“Have you ever done that before?” asked Nichols, skeptically.
“No, but I’ve got the most experience of anyone here with an object like this. I know to treat it like a live wire.”
Nichols frowned and then glanced at Ophelia as if asking her permission. Ophelia just nodded. Jade found that strange, but decided to chalk it up to Nichols simply being paranoid about the possible liability if anything happened to Jade during the procedure.
“I’ll have one of my techs shadow you. We won’t try to lift until he checks your work.”
“Fine by me.”
Nichols nodded. “All right then. Let’s go get your Moon stone.”
Two hours later, and with Professor’s chronograph synchronized to GPS time, Jade was back in the water. She wasted no time with further exploration, but went directly toward the bright orange flag that marked the Moon stone’s location. Using a small rock hammer, she went to work on the buildup of minerals that had accumulated around the sphere, vacuuming the residue away with a suction pump. The encrustation was softer than she had expected, as if the sphere had only been sitting there for a few years instead of more than four hundred. Perhaps, she thought with just hint of concern, the effect of time dilation close to the sphere was so strong that it had actually only been years and not centuries.
Further digging soon revealed a dark orb, smooth and black as graphite, about two feet across, just as she had estimated. The color, or rather the lack thereof, was remarkable, and Jade wondered if it was also an effect of the dark matter field, absorbing light like a black hole. She would have expected the ancient craftsmen who made the Moon stone to use a silver metallic rock, but perhaps they had known what scientists would only discover thousands of years later — the moon only appeared to be a bright white light in the sky because of reflected sunlight. In reality, Earth’s satellite was as dark as the black volcanic sands that coated the beaches of her native Hawaii.
Under the watchful eye of the salvage tech, Jade carefully wrapped four web-like cargo slings around the exterior of orb, securing them in place with titanium carabiners. She wasn’t worried about whether the reinforced nylon straps and the metal links would be able to bear the strain of lifting something that might weigh as much as a mid-sized car, but something — a prescient memory perhaps, or maybe just a bad feeling — told her that recovering the Moon stone would not go as smoothly as Nichols believed.
She clipped the last D-ring in place and then turned around just in time to see the salvage tech kicking toward the top of the crater. Her brow furrowed behind her mask, but after a few seconds she saw him descending once more, this time trailing a thick cable that was attached to an enormous metal hook. He wrestled the unwieldy length of braided wire into place above the sphere and then handed the hook to Jade. The cable was surprisingly stiff and she had to plant her flippered feet on the floor of the excavation in order to get the leverage required to bring the hook close enough to grab the carabiners.