Echoes of the Fourth Magic Read online

  “Aye aye, sir!” came Thompson’s enthusiastic reply.

  Del stared incredulously at the captain. He hated the man, but he couldn’t deny Mitchell’s effectiveness as a leader. Under Mitchell’s command, nobody dared surrender. They all had jobs to do, and under the captain’s demands they had no time to worry about the implications of their situation.

  A few hours later, Del was tossing uneasily on a makeshift cot, his dreams a lament for the security he had left behind. In that distant world, Debby celebrated her seventieth birthday huddled with her grandchildren in a placebo called a bomb shelter.

  “Doc says I can go back to work,” Billy announced to Del the next day. “I’m on my way to the bridge now. How about you?”

  “R and R for at least another day,” Del replied with a sly smile, clasping his hands behind his head.

  “I’ll come back and see you later,” Billy said, and despite his feigned contentment, Del envied him. Sitting around idly allowed too much time to worry.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Corbin said with a shrug of surrender, for in truth, he had no answer to Mitchell’s obvious doubts. “It seems to be operational.”

  “How can we be in a hundred feet of water?” Mitchell snapped, despite his grumbling, a twinge of hope found its way into his tone.

  “That gauge operates by measuring the pressure on an inch-long wand protruding off the side of the hull,” Martin Reinheiser mechanically explained, as if reading out of a book. “It’s a new design, untested, really. Perhaps the wand was snapped off and the equipment has been fooled, taking the total pressure on the remaining piece and calculating it over the whole expected length.

  “Or perhaps we are in a place sheltered from the pressure of the ocean depths,” he added, his analytical mind searching out every possibility.

  “Not possible,” Corbin replied.

  “How deep could we be without the hydraulic system?” Mitchell asked, ignoring his first officer.

  “About seven thousand feet,” Billy answered from the door. The men turned to him. “Reporting for duty, sir.”

  “Where’s DelGiudice?” Mitchell demanded, a sour look on his face, as if merely speaking Del’s name left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Doc wants him to rest another day,” Billy explained.

  “I’ll deal with that jerk later,” Mitchell whispered under his breath. “Get going on that viewing screen, Shank.”

  Billy moved to the intercom, knowing he would need some help from the engine room to test the power levels to his panels. “Thompson,” he called.

  An empty pause.

  “Engine room, come in.”

  Still silence. Mitchell grew worried and reacted with typical anger. He grabbed the com away from Billy. “Thompson!” he shouted.

  “Here, sir,” came the unsteady voice, much like the tone they had first heard the day before.

  “What’s the matter?” Mitchell demanded.

  “Sinclair’s dead,” Thompson muttered. The men took the news stoically. Corbin rubbed his face to brush away any intruding emotions, and Billy Shank let out a resigned sigh.

  Thompson’s voice came with sudden determination. “How deep are we?”

  Mitchell rarely felt sorry for anybody, but he pitied the man on the other end of the intercom, trapped alone in the steamy engine room. “We’re not sure,” he replied calmly. “The gauge says a hundred feet; we think it’s broken.”

  “Then mine must be broken, too,” Thompson said, again stubbornly. “I’m going out. I’ll be up front soon.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” Mitchell shouted. “If that gauge isn’t right—”

  “I’ll be killed,” Thompson interrupted with a resigned, almost sedated, laugh. “So what?”

  Mitchell started to reply, but merely shook his head, for there seemed nothing to say, no arguments to refute the man’s choice.

  “I’m alone back here with no food or water,” Thompson went on. “I’ll be dead soon anyway.” He ended any further arguments by shutting off his mike.

  There wouldn’t have been any arguments forthcoming anyway. “His right to choose the way to die,” Ray Corbin remarked.

  “He’ll never make it,” Reinheiser muttered.

  “Unless the gauge is right,” Billy snapped, not appreciating the physicist’s too-sure pessimism in an already dismal situation.

  They went back to work halfheartedly, unable to concentrate on their tasks as each of them, even Reinheiser, waited and prayed that somehow Thompson would make it through, that the gauge would indeed be right. But as minutes passed, the miracle seemed less likely, and finally Reinheiser took it upon himself to defuse the tension.

  “Gentlemen,” he said with his customary formality. “Since Seaman Thompson hasn’t yet arrived, we must assume that he is dead. So let us concentrate on our assigned duties and get this ship back together.”

  Corbin and Billy exchanged helpless glances. They hurt at the loss of yet another companion, but once again they had to push their emotions deep inside and refuse to acknowledge the pain.

  “How’s that screen coming?” Mitchell snapped, trying to bring everyone back into the tasks at hand.

  “Good, sir,” Billy replied. “I should have something for you in a few minutes.” He focused on his work and tried to forget that a friend of his had just died, taking what was possibly their last hope with him.

  “We aren’t going to see much without the outer searchlights,” Reinheiser remarked. “Let us hope they’re still working.”

  “Even if they are, all we’re going to see is dark water and gray stone,” Billy mumbled to himself, too low for anyone else to hear. But he, too, hoped that the equipment would work. At least then something would be fixed.

  Billy restarted his computer once more, then double-clicked on the appropriate icons, and the screen crackled sharply and filled with snow. He stood up, grumbling, reached over to the back of the panel and jiggled the connector behind his personal monitor. The picture came clearly into view for just a split second, then returned to snow.

  “Did you see that!” Corbin cried.

  “I’m not sure what I saw,” Mitchell gasped. “Shank, get that damned picture back!”

  “Trying,” Billy replied, confused as to why they were so excited. He hadn’t seen.

  “The hull of an old warship,” Reinheiser said.

  “But did you see its condition?” Corbin cried. “It looked like it just went down!”

  The screen flickered a couple of times, the picture came clear again, and the four men gaped at the eerie sight. Settled on a rocky reef less than twenty yards ahead loomed the spectacle of an old frigate, the lettering on its side naming it as the USS Wasp.

  “Explain that,” Mitchell challenged Reinheiser.

  “We should get Del—I mean Mr. DelGiudice, sir,” Billy offered. “He’s always reading books about naval history.”

  “Go,” Mitchell said, and Billy was off. He returned moments later with Del and Doc Brady.

  “Well, mister, what do you make of it?” Mitchell asked.

  It took Del a minute to find his voice. “The Wasp?” he said aloud, trying to jar his memory. “The name sounds familiar.”

  “Late 1700s, by the looks of it,” Reinheiser said.

  “Early 1800s, I think,” Del corrected. “I could tell you more if I could get to my quarters. I’ve got some books about old ships and—”

  A bang sounded above them.

  “The outer hatch,” Corbin observed. “Thompson?”

  The men surrounded the ladder leading to the sub’s squat conning tower and Mitchell called over the intercom to the air lock. “Thompson, is that you?” he asked into heavy static.

  The handle of the inner hatch began to turn.

  “It better be Thompson,” Billy muttered grimly, casting a wary eye at the old ship and clutching a heavy wrench.

  Water gushed in as the inner hatch opened and a pair of black leather boots dangled through the hol
e.

  “I knew it!” Billy cried, and he whacked up at the legs.

  “Hey!” came a startled cry from above.

  Mitchell recognized the voice and grabbed Billy as the legs were pulled back up into the air lock. After some shuffling, Thompson stuck his head through the hatchway.

  “Have you all gone crazy or something?” he asked of the startled faces below. Eyeing Doc Brady, he added, “Have I got something for you! You aren’t gonna believe this!” And he disappeared back through the hole.

  After more shuffling, the dangling legs came through again. “Give me a hand with this guy, he’s waterlogged,” Thompson said. Stunned, Mitchell and Brady mechanically helped lower the body, that of a man in his thirties, dressed in a gray suit, complete with tails and a gold pocket watch.

  “All he’s missing is the top hat and cane.” Corbin laughed, too overwhelmed by the unreality of it all, and too relieved to see Thompson to be apprehensive.

  “Got that, too,” Thompson said. He slid down the ladder, a cane in one hand and a gray top hat on his head. “Well? What do you think?”

  “It looks like he just died,” Corbin said.

  “Very little decomposition,” Doc Brady agreed, but his attention was on Thompson and the seaman’s frenzied actions.

  “Like that hull,” Reinheiser remarked.

  “They’re all like that,” Thompson teased.

  “What are all like that?” Mitchell demanded, having no patience for Thompson’s antics. “And what the hell took you so long?”

  “All the ships outside are like that, sir,” Thompson replied. “You’ve got to understand, I had to look around.”

  “Of course,” a calming Doc Brady said.

  “I closed my eyes when I left the ship,” Thompson explained. “I really expected to die. But the gauges are right and the pressure wasn’t bad at all. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was an old schooner lying just off our tail. This guy was all tangled up in a rope on the capstan. I couldn’t believe it. I started swimming toward him and noticed that all around were these other ships!”

  “How was the visibility?” Reinheiser interrupted.

  “Not bad. A couple of hundred feet at least,” Thompson replied. “And at first I couldn’t understand that, either. By my figuring it’s nighttime up top, and even if it was bright daylight up above, how much would filter down a hundred feet? So where’s the light coming from?”

  “Where indeed?” Reinheiser asked.

  Thompson had the answer. “I saw these weird flashes up above us and I headed for the surface. But when I got closer I realized that there’s solid rock above us.”

  “What?” Mitchell and Corbin asked together.

  “Solid,” Thompson reiterated. “We’re in a giant cave. Back a couple hundred yards there’s a funnel going up into the ceiling—the light’s more intense there. I would have checked it out closer, to see if it opens up to the surface, but I couldn’t get near it; I kept getting shocks. Static, or something. I picked this guy up on the way back. I had to show you.”

  “How does the Unicorn look from out there?” asked Mitchell.

  “Bad,” Thompson replied. “Real bad, sir. There’s some holes midship, but that’s the least of it. She’s listing to port up here, but she’s listing to starboard in back.”

  “Impossible!” Reinheiser argued.

  “The middle of the ship got twisted,” Thompson continued earnestly, putting his clenched fists one on top of the other and turning them in opposite directions. “I’d figure at least a thirty-degree discrepancy between the two ends.”

  “It’s a miracle we’re alive,” Reinheiser said.

  Mitchell didn’t hear him. He just stared blankly ahead, dismayed by the now indisputable fact that his ship was gone beyond hope of repair.

  But the brutal damage report didn’t daunt the others. Something very strange was going on and they were intrigued, especially Martin Reinheiser. At this point, at least, curiosity outweighed worry.

  “I’ve got to get out there,” Reinheiser begged Mitchell, his voice almost a whine.

  “I’d like to get back out, too, sir,” Thompson added. “I want a closer look at our damage.”

  “And I want to get at those books in my cabin,” Del said, refusing to be left out of the excitement.

  “No, you don’t,” Doc Brady cut in, still examining the corpse. “Thompson will get them for you. You’re staying here and getting healthy!” Del would have argued, but Mitchell’s outburst stopped him short.

  “Do what you want!” the captain bellowed, his face contorted into an angry scowl. It was Mitchell’s turn to feel the hopelessness, to believe that nothing he did in this situation could make any difference. He knew the gloom would pass. The violence within him had been able to push all his hurts away since he was a child, but for now he just had to get away from the others. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room.

  The others blankly watched him go, confused by the solid captain’s sudden despair.

  “He’s lost his ship,” Reinheiser observed, studying the tenseness of the departing captain’s stride, logging this newest revelation of Mitchell’s disposition.

  “Help me get this body to the conference room,” Brady told Del, whose face drooped in disappointment. “All right,” Brady conceded. “Maybe I’ll let you go for a dive later.”

  Del smiled. “Let me tell Thompson where the books are.” He bounded across the room, mesmerized by the potential adventure that awaited him outside the Unicorn, able to forget, for just a while, the carnage around him—and the inevitability of his own impending doom.

  Chapter 3

  To the Tick of a Different Clock

  “WHAT DID YOU bring that for?” Mitchell grumbled.

  Reinheiser glared at him from across the table. “From the Wasp,” he explained, holding up the untarnished belt buckle for the rest of the men to see and pointing to the upper-left-hand corner, which clearly showed the initials JB.

  With that, the physicist pointedly turned away from Mitchell. “I took this from the ship’s captain, judging from the cadaver’s uniform,” he said. “If we can find any records of the Wasp, it might prove useful.”

  “Always thinking, aren’t you?” Mitchell remarked.

  Reinheiser ignored the comment, unsure whether he had been insulted or complimented. “I also positioned a microphone under the break in the cavern ceiling. The funnel narrows considerably, but remains, I believe, large enough to admit the sub. The black area at its top seems similar to the one we were observing before the storm hit.”

  “You’re assuming that we were forced downward by the storm, through that hole,” Corbin said.

  “We did go down,” Del insisted, unconsciously clenching his fist as if he was still grasping the chair. “And we were pushed right through that hole.”

  “We must consider all of the possibilities,” Reinheiser said. “But whether or not we went through the hole, whether the break in the ceiling is indeed the hole or not, it deserves our attention. That funnel is generating some sort of electrical disturbances—pulses, if you will—that may prove important. With the sonar equipment, we might be able to find some pattern to the pulse intensity.”

  “And then?” Mitchell asked, his tone still edged with frustration and dripping with sarcasm.

  “Possibilities,” was all that Reinheiser bothered to reply. He turned to Thompson, who had accompanied him on the last dive. “Do you know more on the status of the ship?”

  “She’ll never swim again, that’s for sure,” Thompson replied. “Our propellers are completely destroyed and we’re bent and twisted in the middle. And we’ve got at least three fair-sized holes in us. There may be other smaller ones, too—I’m sure there are. The engines are in pretty good shape, though, considering the beating they’ve taken.”

  “Could you get her up?” Reinheiser asked.

  “Surface?” Thompson balked at the idea. He started to chuckle, as if he believed
the question a jest, but the physicist’s stern visage told him otherwise. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat and continued. “Well, I can patch some of the holes, and I think we can muster the power to blow our ballast tanks. But half the sub is full of water and we haven’t got pumps to handle that. There’s no way we can carry that load.”

  “Let me worry about that,” Reinheiser said in a condescending tone that conveyed the message to Thompson, and to all of them, that their role was to follow orders and leave the thinking to him. “How long to patch the hull?”

  “A few days, and I’ll need someone to help me.”

  Reinheiser nodded and patted his goatee. With a look, he indicated to Mitchell that he had heard enough from Thompson. Billy Shank was the next to speak.

  “There’s not much more to tell about the bridge,” he began despondently, obviously not enjoying his role as a prophet of doom. “The screens work, the com works, and a couple of the PCs are actually responding, though the mainframe is off-line and going to stay that way. At least the sonic equipment is okay; here’s the latest readout.” He handed the papers to Reinheiser. “Apparently the depth gauge is functional, too, but that’s about it. Everything else is dead and I really don’t see how we can fix any of it.”

  “What you’re saying is that we can see and hear anything that’s in our area,” Corbin remarked grimly. “And that’s all we can do.”

  Even Mitchell seemed touched by the apparent finality of Corbin’s statement. The sense of personal mortality descended upon the men, its weight bowing their heads low.

  But not Reinheiser. He studied the sonic printouts, oblivious to their despair. “What about supplies, Mr. Corbin?” he asked in his emotionless tone.

  “There’s enough food in the storage compartments below the galley to last several years,” Corbin replied. “Water could be a problem, though. As far as I can tell, we’ve got about two weeks’ worth with strict rationing, and we aren’t likely to get any more. Our purification units are both completely destroyed.”