Chapter 24: A Light on the Beach
The next day Maggie sat beside Marcus while the team flew along in the metal cart, listening to him relate what had happened the night before. Everyone was interested, and as Marcus predicted, Doc in particular was fascinated by what he learned. He asked Maggie the same questions over and over again until Marcus chided him about it.
“I’m sorry to pester you, Maggie. I just want to know everything about the experience.”
Maggie shrugged. “Sorry, Doc. It was strange and unsettling, but there’s not much to actually tell.”
“Fascinating,” he said over and over again. “Simply fascinating.”
“Maggie,” Karl said, “did you sense anything else around the light? People, machinery, anything?”
“No. The beach is too far away. I just zeroed in on the light for some reason. Why?”
“We’ve covered about half the distance to the beach from where we stopped last night. We’re still a good way off, but I’m pretty good at scanning from this distance. I’ve been scouring the beach for the last hour. I can’t sense anything that would put out light. Nothing at all.”
Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know what the light source was. Maybe it was people around a camp fire and they’ve moved on now.”
“Maybe.” Karl didn’t sound convinced.
“Do you want me to help search for it?”
He put up a hand. “No. We’re still far enough from the beach that it doesn’t matter yet. Let’s hope it’s not anything that will be an issue. For now, you should conserve your strength. We’ll deal with it when we get closer.”
As day faded into night and night wore into the witching hours, Maggie wasn’t entirely successful at staying awake. Her head bobbed frequently before reaching the beach, but then everyone’s did. When they arrived and vacated the cart, Maggie’s muscles felt like wood. They’d spent double the time in the cart today than they had yesterday. But the air was fresh and cool and salty. Walking up over a small rise revealed the sandy beach below them. The sky was still black, but a tiny ribbon of light blue was making an appearance in the eastern sky.
The men set about finding the watercraft. They located some ropes that were as thick as Maggie’s waist and pulled on them.
“Where’s this ship hidden?” Maggie asked Joan.
“In the water, half buried in sand.”
Maggie watched with fascination as, little by little, a grey-blue, metallic mass came up out of the water. It was huge. It looked immensely heavy, but the guys, despite a bit of straining, managed to pull it toward the beach without popping any blood vessels.
“Joan, how are they doing that? Are they using their minds, or are they all a lot stronger than they look?”
Joan laughed. “It’s the material the ship is made from—an alloy not discovered in your time yet. It’s extremely lightweight material and has incredible floatation properties. That craft will float on the surface even with all of us and our supplies aboard.”
“Then how did you get it to sink?”
“By taking on water. It takes on as much as necessary depending on what depth you want to go to. All the guys did was use their minds to release the water so the boat would float to the surface.”
“So this is an underwater craft? We’ll be traveling below the surface?”
“Yes.”
Maggie giggled nervously.
“It’s actually kind of fun,” Joan said, patting Maggie’s hand. “We’ll be sleeping, but it’s interesting to watch the ocean going by, all the sea life only inches away from you on the other side of the glass.”
“Yeah, but does it make you claustrophobic?”
Joan laughed. “No. It’s very spacious inside. You’ll be fine, I promise.”
Maggie was helping Joan unload supplies from the cart when she remembered the light. She cast her mind out…and found it. It wasn’t that far away—just a few clicks to the south. She wondered why Karl hadn’t been able to sense it earlier in the day. Perhaps whoever was responsible for it had left and come back?
Maggie looked around. The others would have used their abilities to explore the beach the moment they reached it—probably much earlier than she had. Nat was even looking south toward the source of the light she was sensing, so they must have all sensed it. No one had brought it up though. Perhaps they were hoping they wouldn’t have to. Soon they’d be aboard the watercraft traveling west, and who or what else inhabited the beach would be a moot point.
Deciding not to worry about it until someone else brought it up, Maggie turned her attention back to the task at hand.
The sky had lightened several degrees when the craft was finally beached. It was enormous—twelve feet tall, fifteen or twenty in width, and twice that in length. Maggie thought it was magnificent.
Doc went to the side of it, put his hand into an invisible crevice, and pulled. A door opened outward, revealing light within. Maggie hadn’t seen the outline of the door when it was closed, but she supposed it had to be that way to be watertight. Joan had talked about seeing marine life through the glass, but Maggie couldn’t see a single window in the ship. But then she couldn’t see the roof, so maybe the glass was at the top.
The team loaded the supplies from the cart into the craft while Doc and Nat went in and out, muttering together. Maggie handed crates to the rest of the team until the cart was empty. Then she and Joan had to hide it. They found a copse of dense foliage that would be a sufficient hiding place a short distance away. Joan showed Maggie how rather than trying to push the cart, she should use her abilities to move dirt, brush, and other obstacles out of the way so the cart moved forward on its own. It was remarkably easy to move and maneuver that way.
“Is this the way the ship works too? You move the water out of the way to move it forward?”
Joan shook her head. “That’s how we drive the cart and many of our other vehicles. The ship is an older model. It has a propulsion system, more akin to what you’re used to in your time.”
“If you still have the technology for fueled propulsions systems, why don’t you use them more? Wouldn’t it be easier than expending your own energy?”
“Easier, yes. But not always safer.” They walked back toward the beach as they conversed. “When you have neurological control of a craft, you can see every obstacle and compensate for it well before you reach it. You can travel safely in the dark, if necessary, and using senses other than the normal five almost completely eliminates human error. Many people in our world are superstitious about engines. They don’t like trusting their lives and safety to a man-made machine with no mind and no soul.”
As they neared the beach, Maggie could see that the guys were clustered near the craft, speaking in quiet tones with grave looks on their faces. There was a problem.
“The ship has been dormant for several years,” Doc said as Maggie and Joan joined them. “The computer hasn’t been used. We just have to work out a few kinks and reprogram it.”
“How long will that take?” Karl asked. The sky was light blue now, but it would be close to an hour before they saw the sun.
“An hour,” Nat said. “Two tops.”
“Nat and I will figure this out,” Doc said. “I suggest everyone get as much exercise and fresh air as possible before we confine ourselves to another small space for several hours of travel.”
Doc went over to a small, square console that Nat had removed from the ship and was tinkering with. Doc started working on the opposite side of it.
Maggie gaped. Was that the propulsion system for the entire craft? It was the size of a basketball!
Shaking her head, Maggie plunked herself down in the white sand. She was too tired even for curiosity right now; she certainly didn’t want to think of exercising. Joan sat down beside her, and Karl took the seat on the other side. Marcus and Clay walked up beside them. Obviously none of them would be doing cartwheels in the surf. They’d been up most of the night.
“Well,” Karl
said after a moment, “at least whatever you sensed the other night won’t be a problem, Maggie.”
Maggie turned to look at him. “How do you know that?”
His eyebrows went down in confusion. “Uh,” he faltered, “because there’s nothing here. Like you said, who or whatever it was must have moved on.”
Now Maggie was confused. She looked at the others for help, but none of them seemed to disagree with what Karl was saying. They merely looked back at her. Maggie looked back at Karl, who was eyeing her warily.
“What?” he said.
“What are you talking about? It’s right there.”
Karl looked alarmed. He turned to look in the direction she indicated, but she knew he was looking with his abilities more than his eyes.
“Where?”
Maggie looked around at the others in the group. They were staring at her in stunned silence. That included Doc and Nat, who looked up from their work to gape at her.
“Maggie,” Clay said, “there’s nothing else on this beach for miles. If we cast out, there’s wildlife and plants but nothing that would give off light or heat—not in the way you described it the other night.”
“I’m not crazy,” Maggie said, “I’m telling you something is there. And I think there’s a person too.”
“What?” The pitch of Karl’s voice was getting higher by the sentence.
Marcus walked over to stand by Karl. It looked like both of them were simply staring into the murkiness of predawn, but Maggie knew they were seeing much more than their eyes could account for.
“Where?” Karl asked again.
Maggie was annoyed. It wasn’t like she could give him the name of a specific place. “I don’t know. It’s not far—half a mile, maybe a mile away.”
After a few minutes, Marcus turned around to look at her. His pleading look said he wanted to believe her but couldn’t. The others looked skeptical too.
“That’s it.” She got to her feet. “I’m going to see what it is.” With that, she set out resolutely down the beach.
She could hear Marcus’s stuttering voice from behind her.
“Wha-huh…uh…”
She heard his feet crushing sand just before his hand closed around her wrist. He pulled her back hard enough to force her to turn around and look at him.
“Wait.” His voice was calm but firm. “You’re not just going to waltz out there by yourself.”
“I don’t think we should go waltzing out there at all,” Nat said.
Maggie looked at him, surprised that her teacher would try to rein her in.
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” he said, seeing the look on her face, “but we are already on a mission. Who or whatever you’re sensing doesn’t seem to pose a threat to us. I think we should focus on the mission. If it’s doable, we can explore this thing on our way back.”
Maggie wanted to punch him just to knock some sense into him. He said that like they were just going on a reconnaissance mission. For all they knew, they might not return; they had no idea what to expect.
Maggie had her reasons for wanting to lay eyes on what she was sensing, reasons that scared her, but perhaps that wasn’t the team’s problem. She looked back and forth between the team that held her loyalty and the unseen source of energy that held her curiosity, wondering whether she should argue or not.
Karl stepped up beside Marcus, who still held Maggie’s wrist in a vice-like grip. “Say what you gotta say, Maggs,” he said.
“I need to find out what this is. I’m new at this, so maybe it’s not what I think it is, but if that’s true, I need to know that. I think the light is from a fire. It doesn’t feel like the hum of electricity. It feels like the lick of flames, energy, other things being consumed. If I’m wrong and it’s really…a rock or something, then I’m not nearly as prepared for this as everyone thinks. If I’m right, maybe it’s important that I can sense it and no one else can. It’s too much of a coincidence that something this strange is happening so close to the place we’re going to perform a mission that might change the world as we know it and where the highest directors of the collectives reside, don’t you think?”
Doc’s eyebrows climbed higher and higher as she spoke. Joan and Karl and Clay were shifting uncomfortably. She was right, and they knew it. Both Nat and Marcus stared at her steadily, faces expressionless.
Doc nodded. “If Nat and I stay, I think we can have the ship ready to go in less than two hours.” He turned to Joan. “You’ve been driving all night. Can you protect the team if necessary?”
Joan waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, I’m fine.”
“All right, then,” Doc said with gravity. “Go see what you can find. Clay and Joan will do their things to keep everyone safe. Be careful but quick. No matter what you do or do not find, Maggie, I want everyone back here in two hours. Your arguments are logical, but I tend to agree with Nat. We are already on a mission and this”—he threw a hand out toward the ocean—“is our priority. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she said.
Joan got to her feet, and the five of them started south.