Deep Sea One (17 page)

The men stood ready to detain the fuming woman.

"Wait," Nina shouted suddenly. "Calisto, you might be right."

"Please don't say that. I have had my fill of terrifying shit on this trip," Gary moaned from behind Sam, who nodded with him.

"The book! Wait," she panted and fell to her knees to consult the texts. "It speaks, right? It needs to be spoken to for us to gain access."

"A password?" Sam asked in perplexity.

"Sort of. Look, here is a grid with letters on the page next to the map. This, gentlemen . . . and lady . . . .is a Masonic cipher!" Nina cried with a birthing smile. "It will tell us what to say."

Amazed and thoroughly surprised they looked at Nina.

"You're welcome," Calisto's low voice hummed from her angry stare, and Nina could not help but give her a rough embrace in utter glee and absolute relief.

Sam was still reeling from the talk of giant gods moving their faces.

☼

Chapter 21

On Deep Sea One, two days after Mr. Purdue and his party left for Nepal, the oil rig played host to some strange events that Liam at first ignored as superstition and such, but when it became downright uncanny he had to share his astonishment with his colleagues. Flicking his cigarette from the smoker's area into the eternal oblivion of the cold water beneath the structure, Liam was in deep contemplation. He had noticed that the weather had become increasingly erratic during the past few days, defying the readings on their weather warning system entirely. It had caused two accidents among the few men employed on the platform, on two consecutive days, until they discovered a pattern and avoided a third mishap the day after.

The water shimmered in silver across the vastness of the moonlit waves as the ocean breathed deep and occasionally whispered with a foamy hiss. Liam squinted his eyes and looked to the horizon, but it was obscured by an approaching fog that also showed up uninvited and unannounced. But by now, few things about the great blue mystery surprised him.

All the strangeness came after the ROV had gone missing, he noticed, but it was a minimal discrepancy, so he shifted it from his mind for the moment. Two days after the boss left on his adventure, that little discrepancy became an undeniable anomaly, but oddly he was the only one to realize that suddenly nature had a habit.

Not one to make alarm for nothing he had kept to himself that the sudden gathering of clouds was unnatural, that such a possession of the sky and surroundings had each time been followed by a severe storm. Because of his reputation for being superstitious and believing in sea gods and so on, the mechanic put off remarking on the phenomenon. However, after the second accident he was convinced that he needed to bring the subject under some scrutiny. Two men were badly injured being struck from their posts by a tidal wave that came from nowhere, after the skies darkened too rapidly and lightning whipped at the radio tower.

Tommy was off-duty this week and he stood in for him, assisting in whatever Darwin needed him for as engineer.

"Looking for a kraken?" he heard Darwin's mocking voice behind him.

"If I find the monster, I'm puttin' a leash on it and the first one whose balls I'll have it go after will be yours," Liam said dryly without looking at the engineer. "Have you noticed that we cannot predict the weather conditions lately?" he asked and coughed heavily. Darwin gave it some thought, rummaging through his weary memory, and then replied, "Yes, but it has never been an accurate science. It's always a bit off by a day or so . . ."

"No, Darwin, I mean minutes. Within minutes the environment changes completely. Haven't you noticed? I checked the computer. I even staked it out all night a few days ago, but there is nothin' wrong with the hardware. Still," he sighed and looked at the sea, "it changes rapidly and violently and I don't like it one bit."

Darwin detected the sincerity in his colleague's tone and for once elected to give him the benefit of the doubt. He joined Liam on the small iron steps where he stood vigil.

"I have to admit, I have noticed that the happenings here were a bit strangely timed," he jested, "but that is hardly a cause for concern. What is your theory, then?"

Liam stood pondering, his eyes floating continuously over the heaving water. He slowly shook his head from side to side.

"I don't have a theory. All I know is that 'tis not normal and it worries me, man," Liam answered. "An' I s'pose that doesn't make for a good argument, but just . . . just pay attention in the next few days. I'd wager me pay on it that it'll swing again to somethin' not on that monitor."

"Hmm, all right then. I'll pay attention. You have been known to have moments of uncharacteristic perspicacious vision after all. I need you to help me with the last hydraulic switch on Drill 2. You coming?" Darwin nudged him.

They walked toward the eastern point where Drill 2 was situated. No words were exchanged between them, but the subject of the recently ended conversation lingered in both their minds. It was indeed an odd occurrence for storms to rise without warning at this speed, but usually Darwin's first safe assumption was fatigue. Paranoia born from long days and nights and the surreal surroundings they found themselves in warranted a little skittishness every now and then.

"I want to get the toolbox, hang on," Darwin said and made his way toward the tubular Perspex elevator Purdue frequently utilized for his own comfort. Adjacent to it was the storeroom where the tools were kept for repairs and basic construction. Liam waited for him in the mating illumination of the dead yellow security light and the rays of the full moon hovering above them in the cloud riddled sky. Most of the crew was asleep already, well after dinner, and he could feel his eye lids growing thick and sandy from a long double shift.

He rubbed his eyes so hard that his vision was blurred when he was done. Darwin came from the dark, but he ignored Liam and headed straight for the technical office.

"Hey! Where you goin'?" he shouted. He took a good look at Darwin's silhouette, which appeared to have suddenly grown a few inches in height and girth. But soon, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he realized that it was not Darwin after all. The figure stood still, looking in his direction, and then lifted his open hand in a wave. As the man was about to turn, Darwin emerged from the storeroom with his monkey wrench and some rope. They met face to face in the distance in front of Liam. Now he could clearly discern their differences and saw that the stranger was unusually tall with a powerful build.

"Can I help you?" Darwin asked, surprised by his own uttering, as he was familiar with most of the men on the oil rig and this was an almost absurd thing to ask. It was unlikely someone could just arrive there by speed boat or trawler, park his vehicle and walk around. This was not a factory on land; it was a place well into the wild ocean where radar and permissions dictated all arrivals, therefore rendering the presence of an unknown visitor quite precarious.

"Yes, you can direct me to the main docking bay, please. I am new here and I left my tool belt there today. Don't know the place too well yet, you see?" the man replied with an awkward rubbing of hands and a dumb smile. He was wearing a hard hat, which in itself was cause for distrust. Those were only worn during work hours, which had been over for hours.

"Sure, but I would need to see your clock card," Darwin lied, while Liam walked up to them. The stranger removed his hard hat to shake Darwin's hand.

"Johann Storhoi," he smiled.

The engineer was quite taken aback by the stranger, who boasted shorn white hair and equally fair facial hair and eyebrows. Even in the dark his sharp blue eyes were visible, piercing Darwin as the engineer introduced himself as the shift boss.

"I work out the shift rosters, Johann. How come I have not seen you before? What is your position here?" Darwin asked, his tone firm but polite. He was not really the shift boss, of course, and if the man accepted it he would know he was an intruder. Still, how could an intruder get on the platform without being noticed?

"He is a freelance subsea engineer I am using for this month, Darwin," said a voice from the shadows. Peter Hall was, among other things, a metallurgist and the real shift boss of Deep Sea One. He strode hastily toward them.

"Johann, I need you to go downstairs and check the pressure on the A24 and the cylinders. Been looking everywhere for you," Peter said abruptly while tapping Johann's arm to hurry.

"Good to meet you," Johann told Darwin and reluctantly went back to work with Peter in tail.

"Why would he need another subsea engineer? What the fuck am I?" Darwin ranted.

"I don't know. Funny that Peter didn't mention him or introduce us when he arrived," Liam replied, watching the two men disappear sublevel.

"No, Liam, something is off here. I wonder if Mr. Purdue knows about this guy. Peter doesn't have the authority to employ people, so where does this idiot come from? Wearing a fucking hard hat in the middle of the night, no less. He is as much an engineer as I am a fucking beauty queen," Darwin sneered under his breath, determined to investigate further in the morning.

Liam chuckled, "But you have such great legs. He might just be an engineer!"

"Blow me," Darwin retorted dryly, his eyes still wandering where the two men had descended the iron stairs.

Thunder roared from the thick black clouds that smothered the moon and left the oil rig lit only by the security lights. Darwin and Liam started. They looked up at the swirling grey, holding on to their jackets from the sudden violent gale that rode in on the gaining swells of furious foam. In astonishment they stared at the irrational weather above, then at each other.

"Believe me now?" Liam shouted in the whistle of the gusts.

"Come, let's get inside!" Darwin bellowed over the gaining chaos and the two ran into the radio room to check the monitors.

"Restore point at ten minutes ago! And print it out!" Liam exclaimed, fascinated and delighted that Darwin the cynic was with him when it happened again. He pushed against Darwin, who was busy recalling a recent satellite map of the area and printed it out.

When the paper slid through the slit in the printer, both men grasped it and waited impatiently for the machine to completely spit out the paper.

"There it is, old boy!" Liam screamed with excitement. His concerns were proven valid and he panted from the fascination he felt for the strange phenomenon. Darwin simply stood frozen, scrutinizing the coordinates to ascertain that it was indeed their location where, ten minutes before, there was minimal cloud cover and steady temperature.

"What did I tell ya?" Liam kept on and on, like a child who just convinced his father that there are monsters in the closet.

"This is insane. How is this possible?" his colleague muttered, still frowning, unable to peel his eyes from the image. "Liam, these are our coordinates. This is the platform and here is the temperature, ten minutes ago!" Darwin still moved his index finger along the longitude and latitude lines to make sense of it, yet sense eluded him. Now he envied Liam for his belief in the more mysterious things of life—then at least he could wrap his open-minded head around what just happened. But for him it was utterly frightening to consider.

"It is as if there is some intelligence behind it," he marveled, as he looked out from the large rectangular window. "Call me crazy, but I can feel it. Whatever is going on out there right now is driven by some deliberate force, something otherworldly that possesses purpose. Something that thinks like we do, only . . ." he gasped a little, "it has the stupendous power of a . . . a . . ." he stopped speaking, unable to find the words.

"god?" Liam finished his sentence in a calm revelation as he joined his colleague at the window to admire the storm, his one-word contribution sending shivers through Darwin's skin.

☼

Chapter 22

Carefully, Nina decrypted the grid cipher by using the dots and corners as reference to the letters randomly written inside the nine squares. One by one she added letter after letter until she had a line of gibberish with spaces between. It did not make sense—in English. However, in the local dogmas of deities this particular collection of letters represented a mantra recited by followers of Mañjuśrī. Its giant face enthralled Sam, but Calisto avoided its countenance now, for the sake of composure. She was nauseous and her head throbbed like a bass drum, forcing her to sit in the dirt while Dr. Gould was arranging the spaced words and the men huddled around her to watch. Finally she had it done. They all frowned.

"Oṃ a ra pa ca na dhīḥ."

"Seriously?" Gary asked, trying to pronounce the grotesque alien phrase he was convinced was incorrect.

"I think so," she said almost imperceptibly, slightly uncertain herself.

"Well, we won't know until we actually read it out loud, so let's get to it," Sam suggested. He could see the group growing tired and leaking morale in copious amounts.

"How the hell are we supposed to know how to pronounce that last word?" Gary said with a miserable scowl on his face.

"Just say it until it has the right sound, damn it," Calisto chimed in from the discomfort of the gravel and thorns.

Nina and Sam tried the mantra. Starting slowly, they read each word not to confuse the consonants that followed consecutively.

Nothing.

"Pfft," Purdue puffed from the rock he was seated on. "It's not working. Now what?"

He felt utterly miserable for having come so far, enduring such peril and reaching the fabled shrine only to be locked out by a grinning god with weather cracks and a bad case of obesity.

"Try again. We must be saying it too slow," Sam urged and Nina nodded in agreement.

Again they began chanting the words over and over until they became familiar with the sequence and before long they started feeling the rhythm of the mantra. It was quite simple once they got used to the sound of it and eventually Purdue joined them. Calisto also said her bit from where she was struggling to keep her equilibrium in check. Gary just watched. He was not the eloquent type and enjoyed being a Canuck so much that he did not care to try and take in the culture.