‘We are remote, and working for a secret government organization,’ Ethan pointed out.
‘I mean remote from me.’
‘It’s more than likely hre stuff of myth and legend,’ Amy said in reply as she worked, ‘but it is at the very least plausible that if this device has a defensive mechanism then sound may form a component of that. Everybody’s heard an opera singer hit a note and shatter a wine glass: it’s all to do with resonance. Match the resonance of an object with soundwaves, and you’ll shake it apart.’
‘The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was destroyed in 1940 by the same phenomenon,’ Chandler added. ‘The bridge was already known as “Galloping Gertie” because of its undulating behavior. The bridge was peculiarly sensitive to high winds. Rather than resist them the Tacoma Narrows tended to sway and vibrate, a tendency which progressively worsened due to harmonic phenomena. A forty mile per hour wind storm ripped the entire massive bridge apart.’
Ethan looked at Riggs.
‘Would the construction of this base provide any protection from something like that, a sound weapon?’
‘Maybe. Extremely high-power sound waves can disrupt or destroy the eardrums of a target and cause severe pain or disorientation,’ Riggs acknowledged. ‘The NYPD uses the LRAD-500X sonic weapon to disperse crowds but a base this size would prevent soundwaves from such weapons from reaching us if we were on the submarine pens on the other side.’
‘I heard that the crew of the cruise ship Seabourn Spirit used a long-range acoustic device to deter pirates who attacked the ship,’ Sully said, ‘so it’s possible this thing could use sound as a defense. The fact that it’s shaped like a bell suggests it would be effective at dispersing sound over long ranges, and if it’s really powerful even the water wouldn’t protect us — sound passes easily from water into the body.’
Ethan watched as Amy prepared an amplifier that they had bludgeoned together from the base’s old tannoy system. Attached now to a laptop using a complex series of cables and transistors that allowed the amplifier’s 1940s technology work with a modern computer, Amy had scanned in images of the icons on the artifact’s exterior and then applied a computer program to detect likely audio patterns matching the symbols.
‘Okay, we’re ready,’ she said finally. ‘Here goes.’
As Ethan watched, across the data link he heard a strange series of whoops and growls emitted by the amplifier. It sounded rather like a herd of cattle moving by, grunts and snorts that sounded similar but had no particular rhythm or pattern to them.
‘That’s not it,’ Amy said as he looked at the artifact and saw nothing. ‘Next pattern and frequency.’
Another blast of noise hit the rear dock, this time sounding reminiscent of a boulder rolling and bouncing down a rocky hillside.
‘This is going to take hours,’ Riggs uttered from nearby as he listened to the stream of noises coming from the laptop. ‘There must be billions of noises that program could rustle up, and none of them matching the frequency that Amy thinks will open the artifact.’
Despite the noise, Amy could apparently hear the soldier as she worked.
‘Not so,’ she replied. ‘This is a learning program. Every time a sound doesn’t work, it removes both it and its data stream from the list of possible choices, along with all variables in the same tone. Every test we run removes millions of sequences and narrows down the actual frequency and tone that matches the symbols.’
‘You ever done this before?’ Riggs challenged.
‘No,’ Amy replied. ‘But then it’s not every day we find an alien device in the middle of Antarctica with the hieroglyphic version of a doorbell on it, right?’
Riggs scowled and moved away but he said nothing as Amy continued to work.
Ethan perched on the edge of the table nearby and watched as Amy’s amplifier rig emitted sound after sound, each one being systematically rejected by the computer program. Hannah joined Ethan as they listened to the noises.
‘They’re starting to develop a pattern,’ Hannah said as she listened.
Ethan frowned, unable to hear anything that he would have called a melody or tune. ‘I don’t hear anything.’
‘It’s in the background,’ Hannah insisted. ‘Listen.’
Ethan closed his eyes as he heard what sounded like bubbles billowing beneath water, and suddenly he detected the same rhythm that Hannah’s more sensitive ear had picked up on moments before. The random noises were gradually being replaced by a subtle, repeating signal.
‘It’s sounding more like ultra-sound too,’ he whispered as he listened.
‘We’re getting something,’ Amy called.
The SEALs gathered and listened too as the computer’s repeated attempts to match the symbols to sounds began narrowing down the frequencies. Ethan heard a long, low whistle that sounded something like a train approaching down a tunnel, and he realized that he had heard something similar himself.
‘Whale song,’ Lieutenant Riggs recognized the same sound. ‘Damn me, maybe she was right after all.’
As Ethan listened, so he heard something behind the gradually refining whistle, a series of whoops and low, gently rippling howls that began to sound like something approaching…
‘Dialect!’ Amy shouted in delight.
Ethan felt a strange sense of fear as he listened to the noises now emanating from the amplifiers in the rear dock. A harmony of warbles and indistinct noises that somehow still sounded like the conversation of intelligent beings, a rippling back and forth of sounds that he realized must literally be the words of some other species from who-knew-where across the galaxy.
‘My God,’ Chandler exclaimed as he worked alongside Amy, ‘this is a dialect, a discernable language of some kind!’
Ethan was about to ask what Chandler thought the language, odd as it sounded, might mean when suddenly the computer beeped and Amy let out a squeal of delight. Ethan looked at the monitor and saw the computer in Amy’s tent stop producing sounds and instead present her with a file that was blinking on her screen.
‘This is it!’ she chirped. ‘It’s ready.’
Lieutenant Riggs shoved his way to the monitor. ‘Play it, now.’
‘Hang on,’ Hannah said. ‘Why not let them get out of the tent first and then play the sound remotely. We don’t know what’s gonna come out of there.’
‘Like Amy said, there’s nothing alive in there,’ Riggs shot back without looking at Hannah. ‘Open the artifact.’
Amy did not hesitate to proceed, either not hearing or more likely choosing not to hear Hannah’s suggestion as she hit a key on her keyboard. Ethan stood up as he stared at the screen and the amplifier emitted a final sound.
Even from his position looking at a small monitor Ethan could see the laptop inside the tent, the individual icons and symbols on Die Glocke appearing with each new note of the melody now playing throughout the base. Ethan could already tell that it was the sound of some kind of other-worldly species, a resonating series of low hums, howls, hoots and even clicks that corresponded with the symbols on Die Glocke.