The Oracle's Message (5 page)

Annja felt the bright blue waters of the sea envelop her once again as she turned over and got her bearing. She saw Spier and the rest of his team ahead of her, but off to her right side floated Hans, watching her protectively.

She gave him the thumbs-up sign and he nodded, pointed and they descended together.

A world of bubbles rose from the team as they dove deeper toward the coral reef. Annja found that she had a small feeling of uneasiness in her stomach, but quickly decided it was due to her fear that there might be another tiger shark lingering in the area.

She needn’t have worried. She could already see that the activity around the reef was far greater than it had been yesterday. She spotted a few blacktip sharks meandering around the reef, snatching up smaller fish when the opportunities presented themselves.

Hans eyed her as she looked at the sharks, but unlike yesterday, they were only six-footers. Hardly the massive size of the tiger shark. And while they’d need to be mindful, she knew that the blacktips posed little threat.

Still, she glanced down and reassured herself that she’d replaced the diving knife she’d lost yesterday. The new knife sat snug in its sheath alongside her right calf.

All of the other divers were similarly outfitted. And unlike yesterday, being in a group gave everyone a much better level of protection.

Why did I go diving by myself yesterday? she wondered. It was really reckless of me.

Hans pointed ahead at the coral reef and Annja saw a moray eel poking its head out of the crevice in the formation. She nodded back at Hans and they continued on.

Spier seemed only marginally interested in the reef life itself. He never paused and Annja could see the strength of his leg muscles as they slowly powered him deeper into the depths. For an eighty-year-old man, Spier had remarkable strength and he seemed to have an endless supply of it.

Annja might have wondered what his diet was if she hadn’t seen him devour a ton of fish, beef and pork last night. He seemed to eat whatever he pleased and not suffer for it. But then again, he was also extremely active for his age. Maybe his metabolism had something to do with his extraordinary health.

Spier led them along, past the part of the coral reef where she’d met the shark. Annja was surprised. I thought we’d start with exploring this part of the reef, she thought.

She glanced at Hans, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Annja poked him and he turned. Annja gave him an inquisitive look but he only winked and then pointed for Annja to follow Spier’s lead.

What was going on here?

Annja kicked her legs, pleased that her head hadn’t started aching once she’d descended. The last thing she wanted was to prove Dr. Tiko right by coming back ashore with a worse headache than how she’d shown up yesterday.

But she felt good. Powerful.

She smiled, tasted the salt water and spat it out around her mouthpiece.

Hans swam ahead of her and Annja churned her legs to catch up. They had gone past a school of surgeonfish and Annja spotted a sea turtle lingering nearby, its hooked beak giving it the appearance of an odd-shaped nose.

Annja felt a lot better seeing it. If the sea turtle was around, the chances of spotting another tiger shark seemed even more remote. Tiger sharks loved to eat sea turtles and their teeth were especially suited for cracking the shells to get to the rich meat inside.

Spier led them farther along the reef and then hovered in the depth of the water. He turned and gestured for Annja to come closer. Annja kicked and moved over to where he floated.

Spier pointed at the area of the reef Annja hadn’t had the chance to explore yesterday. She swam down and looked at the conical-shaped coral.

The formation was very strange.

From her past diving trips, Annja knew that shapes like that didn’t appear naturally.

But if it wasn’t natural, then what was it?

She looked at Spier and gave him a quizzical look. He nodded and pointed to another area. Annja glanced around. Heinkel and Mueller had already branched off from the team and were exploring on the other side of the reef. She looked at Hans and he pointed in the same direction that Spier had.

So we’re going to split up, Annja thought. All right, then.

She swam over to Hans and they glided along the base of the reef, careful to avoid any dark holes that might conceal more moray eels. A reef shark swam lazily by, barely even glancing at them.

Hans looked at Annja as if to make sure she was okay being that close to a shark. She gave him a thumbs-up and he nodded. They continued swimming.

Finally, Hans had them stop near the edge of the reef. Looking up, Annja could see their boat some distance above. They’d gone down and then moved perhaps a half mile farther away, running the length of the reef.

From where she floated, Annja could make out the drop-off where the reef gave way to much deeper, darker water.

Were they on the edge of some sort of atoll? She frowned. Yesterday it hadn’t seemed like the reef stretched on for such a distance, and yet here they were.

Hans started exploring the base of the reef and Annja followed. They poked and prodded the various outcroppings, but Annja couldn’t see anything that resembled the conical outcropping Spier had shown her a few minutes before.

Maybe this was a dead end?

Annja sighed. The problem with diving was the communication was very scant. You had a few hand signals and that was it unless you had speaking masks.

But Hans seemed unconcerned with the lack of communication and kept his survey going. Annja floated above and behind him, looking where he looked but also keeping her eyes peeled for anything of interest.

Gradually they worked their way around toward the back of the reef. The water there was much warmer. Annja thought she spotted another conical outcropping and she swam right for it.

Hans had to kick to catch up, but he saw what she was eyeing and followed her lead.

Annja came to rest floating in front of an encrusted piece of coral that seemed strangely symmetrical. She looked across and saw that there was another outcropping and she decided they were almost like miniature towers.

She ran her fingers down the edges of the towers and found small holes that appeared as though they’d been deliberately carved in the structure.

Annja’s mind raced. Hadn’t Spier said something about a long-lost civilization? Was this evidence that they existed? Or was this simply some sort of natural occurrence, as unlikely as that might have seemed?

She noticed Hans looking at the towers intently. When he glanced back at her, Annja gave him a shrug. I don’t know what it is, she wanted to say.

Hans removed his diving knife and pried away some of the built-up barnacles, trying to get a better look at the structure.

Annja watched as the mollusks came away in his hand. And there, underneath the buildup, Annja thought she saw something smooth.

She ran her hand over the exposed patch and almost shouted. It was as smooth as marble.

In fact, she thought it might well be marble.

But how? How could marble have developed under the sea?

Had this supposed city of the lost civilization slipped into the ocean for some reason? Had an earthquake opened up the ground and tossed them into the seas?

Annja shook her head. Whatever this was, she needed more answers than she could find just floating in the ocean.

Hans was making notes with his grease pencil on an underwater clipboard. He’s mapping the area, she decided. This must be along the lines of what Spier was searching for.

Interesting.

Hans looked up and nodded at her as if they’d managed to find something of importance. But Annja wasn’t sure what they’d found. What she really wanted was to get to her computer and do some research.

Maybe she could talk to some locals and see what they knew about this supposed lost civilization.

There was probably nothing to it. But Spier certainly believed there was. Annja wondered if the story of the pearl might not hold some other purpose for Spier. He was eighty and seemed to be fighting his growing age with a tenacity that defied the aging process.

Did he think the pearl would help him stave off his inevitable death?

It was possible, she supposed. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d run into crazy people who thought that immortality was worth whatever price you had to pay to try to achieve it.

Annja glanced at her oxygen gauge. They’d been underwater for almost forty minutes and would have to surface soon.

Hans seemed to read her mind and pointed back the way they’d come. Annja followed him. They left the warmer waters and Annja shivered slightly as she breached the cooler waters where the reef dropped off.

She glanced to her side, thinking about how close she’d come to being devoured by the tiger shark yesterday. Out there in the deep waters, they ruled the roost.

Hans pointed ahead and Annja saw the rest of the team had reassembled back at their entry point.

Time to surface.

Annja checked her depth gauge and saw she’d have to rise slowly. She’d gone deeper than she had yesterday and would need extra time to reduce the danger of the bends.

Mueller and Heinkel went up first. Annja watched them slowly rise toward the surface. Spier and Gottlieb went up next and then Hans and Annja started their ascent.

Annja watched her air bubbles.

Hans watched her as they rose together, his eyes locked on hers.

Annja tried to grin at him, but she tasted more salt water and gave up trying. There’d be enough to talk about once they got back onto the boat.

Sunlight filtered down through the waves and Annja could feel its warmth even ten feet below the surface. A few small fish rose to investigate her, but then quickly scattered when Hans moved his hands in the water.

Annja kept her eyes always moving. She could taste the last third of her oxygen now. It was stale in her mouth.

Spier had timed his exploration perfectly.

Annja broke the surface a few minutes later and saw that dark, angry clouds blotted the horizon.

The sloop bobbed in the waves nearby. Mueller and Heinkel were already aboard, with Spier and Gottlieb closing in on the sloop.

Hans came up next to her. “You all right?”

“Absolutely.”

Hans noticed the clouds. “Looks like things are going to go downhill from here, don’t they?”

“Definitely going to rain. Hard.”

Hans nodded. “So, it will be a good afternoon for a hearty lunch and then perhaps a nap.”

“A nap?” Annja asked.

He winked. “I’m a growing boy. I need my rest.”

She pushed him toward the sloop. “Let’s get aboard.”

She swam over to the sloop and Hans helped her climb up. Heinkel took her oxygen tank and weight belt. Gottlieb handed her a towel and Annja rubbed it over her hair.

Spier smiled at her. “So, Annja, what did you think of our first dive?”

“It was bigger than I imagined. I thought it was just like any other reef when I started to explore it yesterday.”

Spier laughed. “Hardly. Although I’m not surprised you were drawn to it. It’s intriguing, isn’t it?”

“You could say that.”

“So, are you convinced?”

“About what?”

“That the reef is, in fact, the remnants of a lost city.”

“How can you be so sure?” Annja asked as the sloop whisked them back toward the Club Noah resort. “Those ruins might be something else entirely. There’s no record of the civilization ever existing.”

“But the pearl had to come from somewhere, didn’t it?” Spier’s eyes sparkled in the fading sunlight.

Annja glanced to the west and saw the clouds growing darker. They’d be lucky to get back to the dock before the sky opened up on them. Already, the waves they bounced over were churning white as the wind kicked up.

“We don’t have the pearl yet,” Annja said. “So, there’s no way of knowing for sure where it might have come from.”

Spier smiled as if he were humoring a child. “I think we’ll be able to convince you more fully on our next dive.”

Hans frowned. “That likely won’t happen until tomorrow. Judging from the approaching storm, it’s going to be quite unsettled for a while.”

Spier shrugged. “We could always go night diving tonight once the storm clouds pass.”

“A night dive?” Annja frowned. She hadn’t gone night diving in a very long time. The risks of diving at night were always so much more than during the day. For one thing, visibility was almost nonexistent unless you had state-of-the-art lights.

“We’ll be fine,” Spier said, as if reading her thoughts. “We’re all experienced night divers and Heinkel here has brought along the powerful lamps we’ll need to set up on the reef.”

“You think the dive master will let us take his boat and gear out for a night dive? He strikes me as rather easily upset,” Annja said.

Hans laughed. “A few well-placed dollars should suffice.”

“More bribery?”

Spier shrugged. “Why not? At least this way we know we’ll be able to get what we came here for.”

“And what
did
you come here for?” Annja asked. “I mean, I know you want the pearl and all, but for what purpose?”

“I thought I told you last night,” Spier said. “I wish to have the scientific community take a look at it. Examine it. Discover the true nature of the pearl and what its powers might be.”

“Maybe it’s just a black stone,” Annja said. “Without any powers whatsoever.”

“That would be regrettable,” Spier said. “To have traveled all this way only to find out such a thing. Tragic.”

Annja felt a few raindrops hit her face and looked up. The sun had vanished, replaced by the boiling cloud mass above them. Dark streaks mixed with gray, swirling about like steam from some evil black-magic cauldron.

“I think we’re about to get—”

Annja never finished her sentence because at that moment a crack of lightning flashed above them, followed by a rumble of thunder.

A deluge of rain flowed down over them in sheets of tepid water. Mueller guided the sloop to the resort’s dock and they scrambled ashore, grabbing their gear and making for the dive master’s shack.

He seemed genuinely glad to see them and took all the equipment back. Spier smiled at him. “You’ll refill those tanks right away, won’t you?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because we’ll need them again later tonight.”

“Later? This storm isn’t going to let up anytime soon. You’d be foolish to go venturing out in this.”

“We won’t,” Spier said. “But we will once it passes.”

“That could be midnight.”

“So it might be midnight.” Spier held out his hand and, while the team looked away, Annja saw the dive master pocket the sheaf of bills Spier passed him.

Money certainly doesn’t seem to be an issue for Spier, she thought. I wonder where he gets it all.

It occurred to her that she knew very little about Spier or his team. Aside from Hans.

She smiled. She knew a lot about him already.

“You all right, Annja?”

She looked up and saw Hans eyeing her. She smiled at him. “I’m fine. Just a bit tired, is all.”

“What about lunch? You could do with a meal,” Spier said. “I suspect we all could before indulging in a little siesta.”

Annja hadn’t thought about food, but the suggestion of it made her stomach rumble. “I could eat.”

They ran from the dive master’s shack to the main pavilion. Strong gale-force winds lashed at the pavilion but aside from the tables set near the open-air walls, the rest of the area stayed nice and dry. Annja supposed that they knew how bad the weather could get and the resort had been designed accordingly.

There was something rather cool about eating in the midst of a torrential downpour, anyway. She dined on some fresh crab-and-lobster-meat salad, drank some of the fresh mango juice and watched as Spier and his team compared notes on the morning’s dive.

“You saw those conical outcroppings, Annja?” Spier asked after a few moments.

“I did.”

“And yet you refuse to believe they indicate the existence of a lost civilization?”

She smiled. “Forgive me for saying so, Joachim, but a few conical outcroppings do not a lost civilization make.”

“Well, they don’t refute its existence, either.”

“Granted, but I’d like to know a bit more about what we’re supposed to be hunting for here.”

“Like what?”

“Like what civilization this is supposed to be, exactly.”

Spier paused and took a bite of his sandwich. “You’ve no doubt heard of Atlantis.”

“Of course.”

“The legend of a prehistoric earth inhabited by technologically advanced races, that sort of thing.” Spier shrugged. “It’s nothing new, of course. But the conventional thinking has always maintained that Atlantis must have been located in either the Mediterranean or the Atlantic.”

“But you don’t believe that?”

Spier wiped his mouth. “It’s not that I don’t believe it, it’s just that I’m not interested in Atlantis.”

“Okay.”

“But I am interested in the other civilizations that were reported to have existed at the same time. Lemuria and Mu.”

Annja frowned. “Most people think that they were one and the same.”

Spier shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think there were three centers of innovation on prehistoric earth—that is, the earth that existed prior to a massive cataclysm that wiped out the races and the evidence that they ever existed.”

“So you think that Lemuria or Mu is the civilization the pearl comes from?”

“I’m fairly convinced of it.”

“But what evidence do you have?”

Spier shrugged. “It’s not evidence that I need in order to believe. I need faith first. If I am then able to locate evidence, then all will be well.”

Annja sighed. She wasn’t going to be able to argue with Spier about how utterly unscientific an approach that was. She’d met people like him before. They got an idea in their heads and there was no way of prying that idea loose unless you could shock them into seeing reality. With Spier, she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to do that.

Not that there was any harm in his believing the pearl might come from a lost civilization. Annja was game enough to go along with the expedition for as long as it took. And there was something intriguing about the conical structures on the reef.

“I scraped away some of the growth and what was underneath was truly amazing,” Hans said suddenly.

Annja had almost forgotten about that. “Marble,” she heard herself saying. “It looked and felt like marble.”

Hans nodded. “I agree.”

Spier’s smile widened. “Very interesting.”

Annja looked at him. “I wouldn’t say that necessarily supports your idea of the reef being evidence of a lost civilization, however.”

“Yet marble does not occur naturally underwater,” Spier said. “Surely you’d concede that point?”

“Of course.”

“So, it must have gotten there somehow.”

“Yes, but it could have been anything. An earthquake, a terrible storm.”

“I don’t think the Moros or other early Filipinos used marble,” Spier said. “I don’t believe it’s even indigenous to the local geography.”

Annja frowned. She’d need to look that up. If it was true, then that might be another point in Spier’s favor, but she wouldn’t jump to conclusions before she had a chance to check things out for herself.

“I can look into it,” she said.

Spier nodded. “That would be good, I think.” He pushed back away from the table. “All in all, I think we had a fruitful dive today. And when we continue, I’m certain we’ll find even more spectacular things.”

Gottlieb spoke up. “Are we going back tonight?”

“Depends on the storm,” Spier said. “If we can escape the weather, I should think a nighttime dive would prove most exciting.” He glanced at Annja. “Are you interested in coming along?”

Annja smiled. “You’ll still have me along?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Annja shrugged. “I haven’t exactly drunk the Kool-Aid, yet.”

Spier’s eyes narrowed as he processed the reference, and then he smiled. “Ah, yes, well, no worries. I don’t like people who automatically believe everything they’re told, anyway. I find your skepticism refreshing actually. It will help keep us all honest, I suspect.”

Annja smiled. “Glad to help.”

Spier nodded. “And of course you’re welcome to join us. I would miss your presence if you were not with us.”

“As would I,” Hans said quietly.

She smiled at him. “All right, then. I may take the afternoon and see if I can pull anything up on my computer about some of the things we’ve discussed.”

Spier shrugged. “As you wish. I doubt you’ll find anything that would put us off our quest, however. My faith is, as is the faith of my team, very strong.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Annja said. “But until such time as I have faith of my own, I’ll stick to facts.”

Spier smiled. “We’ll see you later, then.”

He walked out into the pouring rain and quickly disappeared from view. The rest of the team dissolved into smaller conversations in quiet German that Annja could barely make out.

Hans seemed happy to simply sit close by. “Still feeling well?”

Annja nodded. “Totally. No problems at all. Just a bit tired.”

Hans smiled. “Nothing like an afternoon nap to restore your energy.”

Annja winked. “I suppose that would depend on exactly what the nap entails, wouldn’t it?”

Hans leaned back. “I am a true believer in the power of a siesta.”

“And what about an afternoon delight?”

“Afternoon delight?”

Annja sighed. “Never mind. If I have to explain it, then it’s already lost its appeal.”

Hans narrowed his eyes, but after a moment he grinned. “Ah…I think I understand now.”

“Do you?”

“I suppose there would be only one way to find out for sure.”

Annja grinned. “A fact-finding mission?”

Hans shrugged. “Reconnaissance.”

Annja nodded. “Recon works for me.”

Hans smiled.

Annja stood and yawned. “Guess I’ll grab a nap.”

She walked out into the pouring rain.

Hans followed.