“No atomic plant?” Melanie asked, brightening.
“It could be an artesian well, couldn’t it? A hot spring?”
“Then maybe there’s weird life around it,” Melanie said. “Things that live only in permanent deep hot wells.”
Don looked. There were encrustations on the rock, and odd natural tubes clustering around the vent, but he had no idea how to classify them, or whether they were alive or dead.
“It didn’t make sense the first time round,” Pacifa said. “But my female intuition says that there’s something fishy here. Suppose we just look around, and if we don’t find anything else, we’ll bring in the geologist and the physicist to tell us for sure about hot springs and nuclear outflows. Obviously our full party is equipped for this mission; we just happen to be the wrong part of it.”
Don agreed, moderately relieved. Pacifa had a sharp mind, and he preferred not to have to argue anything with her unless it was directly in his area of competence. The other two would certainly be equipped to settle the matter. If only that sub hadn’t spotted Eleph, forcing their decoy ploy!
They rode on, and abruptly left the warm water. The near-freezing cold of the normal deeps was a shock even though it was more apparent than real, considering the protective environment of phase and field. But soon they were back in the warmth, in a current that spread across and upward, gradually cooling but remaining much warmer than the normal water.
Three quarters of a mile from the assigned coordinates, on their way back toward their original destination, they saw a fish. That was not in itself unusual; though fish were much less common at this depth than at the surface, they remained present. But this was a strange one.
“It has legs!” Pacifa cried, astonished.
They oriented their lights on it, but the strange fish moved out of sight, stirring up a cloud of silt. “Downward pointing fins, I think, to stilt over the bottom muck,” Don said. “We saw that on the abyssal flats.”
“Uh-uh! Do you think I don’t know the difference? I saw real lizard legs.”
“There it is again!” Melanie cried, catching the fish with her beam.
“Look,” Pacifa said. “You can see the articulation of the bones as it walks. But it’s a fish, with fishtail and fish gills. Not an amphibian muck-wallower at the edge of land.”
Don peered more closely at the elusive creature. He had to agree.
“I’m no naturalist,” Pacifa said. “But this is odd.”
“Prehistoric,” Don agreed, thinking of ancient life. “Premammalian.”
“No doubt,” she said dryly. “But what I mean, Don, is how can a normal cold water fish survive within hot water, legs or no?’”
“And fresh water!” Melanie cried. “It can’t be salt, coming from the ground!”
“It could, if it’s from a nuclear plant,” Pacifa said. “Regular ocean water, run through sluices for cooling the equipment.”
“Wouldn’t the heat evaporate it?” Don asked. “The salt would solidify and gum the works.” But he wasn’t sure; they probably had ways to handle that sort of thing. Maybe a series of cooling stages, with special sealed-in fluids for the really hot parts. It was probably elementary, for a nuclear power specialist.
Pacifa wasn’t sure of her thesis either. “Fish living in this water would not have evolved here, if it’s artificial. They couldn’t just move from cold to hot. Not in just a few months or years. Or from salt to fresh. These barriers are very strong to sea life, I understand.”
“Gaspar will know,” Melanie said.
“You think this fish means the springs are natural?” Don asked, hardly daring to hope. “But maybe they stocked the region with laboratory breeds. To fool us.”
“Decoy fish,” Melanie suggested.
“If this is f-fresh,” Don said, arguing a case he hoped would be refuted, “why doesn’t it look different? Without the salt—”
“Salt in solution is transparent, isn’t it?” Pacifa asked. “You can’t see far in any kind of water, because of the refraction.”
Don lacked the information to refute her, though he remained doubtful. “If this is what we’re supposed to investigate, why isn’t one of our number a biologist? Or chemist?”
“I think someone spotted the thermal flow,” she said. “They must have ways to chart such things. Vaguely, at least. Maybe their echosoundings are affected by the temperature of the water. So they had to send in a team to verify—”
“But that doesn’t explain me,” Melanie said. “I know less than anyone.”
“Cover,” Pacifa said. “Same as me. They could have trained Gaspar or Eleph how to repair a bike or pitch a tent, after all. But by adding us and extending the route to take in that city of yours—who would suspect the real mission?”
“It’s ironic that the least qualified members of our group were the ones to come here,” Melanie said.
“Just Eleph’s bad luck to be spotted by that sub. But don’t forget the two of them will see it; we’re just doing the preliminary scouting, and finding a route Eleph can navigate, while they decoy the pursuit, if there is any. But we still aren’t quite at the coordinates. Maybe it’s something completely different.”
Don shrugged. Melanie spread her hands. They went on.
They were not, after all, quite at the base of the trench. A new canyon developed, a mere fifty feet deep where they intersected it but possessed of a strong current that seemed to be seeking deeper recesses. They were so close to the specified location that they could not avoid this gap; their objective well might lie within it.
Another descent placed them on the rough but ridable floor, with an uncomfortably stiff wind-current at their backs. As they progressed, the walls rose higher and drew nearer at either side. The narrow valley curved and recurved like a monster snake, and the breeze accelerated. Don and Melanie no longer pedaled; they coasted, blown along, hands nervously near the brake levers.
They rounded another turn. Here the canyon narrowed into a crevice only a few feet across: treacherous terrain for swift-moving bicycles. But Don abruptly forgot that concern.
Melanie made a sound halfway between awe and disbelief.
Straddling the crevice was an ancient ship. Intact.
CHAPTER 11
SHIP
Proxy 5–12–5–16–8: Attention.
Acknowledging.
Status?
Doubtful. Mischance struck, and the success of the mission is now in peril.
Details.
A submarine associated with the final challenge happened to come upon the party, and one member of the party was not in a position to conceal himself. So he acted as decoy, leading it away from the others. This diversion was successful, but in the process he fell and broke his arm, and was unable to continue immediately. As a result the party split into two, and one section proceeded to the next challenge. But that fraction of the party may not be sufficiently competent to handle the challenge appropriately.
There is danger?
Not physical. But with the full group not present, the challenge may have a divisive instead of a unifying effect. Therein is the peril to the mission.
But the mission is not yet lost?
Not yet lost. Indeed, it is possible that melding has proceeded far enough so that this hurdle will be overcome. But the issue is in doubt.
Even a failure can have its benefit. We may learn from it a better way to approach the next world.
But a success could offer more of that benefit, as well as salvaging this world.
True. Handle it as you must, Proxy.
They stared at the ship. Not only was it intact, it seemed to be in perfect condition. And it was ancient.
“But the teredo—” Don protested, his belief unwilling to take hold lest it be dashed. “The destructive worm. There can’t be—”
“But this is fresh water, isn’t it?” Melanie asked. “So the clam can’t live here …”
“That must be it,” Pacifa agreed. “Since
we all see it, this can’t be a mirage or hallucination, so it must be a genuine wreck. But what a strange one! I never saw a ship like that before.”
While they spoke, the larger import was filtering into Don’s consciousness. This was no Spanish galleon. This was a beaked craft, curiously high in the prow, about fifteen feet across, with a single mast broken off about ten feet up. That was about all he could make out, for they were approaching it endwise. Even so, his pulses were racing. It might have been Roman, but wasn’t; Greek, but wasn’t; Phoenician … no. Certainly not Egyptian. By elimination, it had to be—Minoan.
Minoan. A ship of the isle of Crete, at the time of its greatness. Right in Don’s specialty. He could not imagine a brighter dream of discovery.
“Right at the coordinates,” Melanie said. “This is our mission. What a relief!”
“No accident,” Pacifa said. “Our party has an Old World archaeologist. And this is Old World, isn’t it, Don?”
“Yes,” he answered absently as they braked.
“But what’s it doing here?” Melanie asked.
They came to a stop almost under the hulk, where its base formed a crude triangle with the canyon, leaving five or six feet for the water to pass below.
“A storm-blown stray—what else?” Pacifa said. “What matters is that it’s here—and so are we. No nuclear plot, no radiation. All we have to do is help Don study it.”
Don hardly heard them. He was in a private rapture, gazing at the ship. A virtually complete, preserved ship of one of the greatest civilizations of the ancient world. This could be anything up to four thousand years old: a phenomenal bonanza for archaeology. A set-group of functioning Minoan equipment. If the teredo hadn’t been able to rifle it, who else could have?
“So now we know what they spotted,” Pacifa said. “An old Roman ship.”
“Minoan,” Don said. “Notice, it is carvel, not clinker built, and the configuration of the—”
“And the fresh water preserved it. How old would you say it is, Don?”
“Between 3,500 and 4,000 years, perhaps even more. We should be able to date it more precisely once we really check it over. And later, with laboratory verification of the wood—” He was talking as if the matter were routine, when actually his mind was partially numb. This was the find of the century!
“How can you check it?” Pacifa asked.
“Why, climb aboard and—uh-oh!” He had forgotten the phase again. He couldn’t touch this exquisite ship!
Melanie rode slowly to it and lifted her hand, evidently finding it difficult to believe that so remarkable an object could be a ghost. She was just able to reach the keel. She froze in place, the current blowing out her skirt. “Don!”
“Might as well ride through it, if we can get up there,” Don said, disappointed. “Maybe we can see inside the hold. It’s certainly not a total loss.”
“It certainly isn’t,” Melanie said. “Don, come here.”
This time he picked up on her tone. He pedaled over. The ship loomed above, seeming absolutely solid. He could not resist reaching up to put his hand through its hull, as she had.
His hand banged.
He stared at his finger, then up at the ship. Unbelievingly he extended one digit to touch the wood. It met a hard surface. “It’s here!” he exclaimed.
“And it shouldn’t be,” Pacifa said, coming to test it herself. “Because, according to Gaspar, this phase world was denuded at least six thousand years ago, and this ship isn’t that old. According to you. And you should know your business. But here it is.”
“But the sunken city wasn’t—isn’t—here!” Don protested. “How can—?”
“Makes you suspect something is wrong with our theory,” she said.
“Terribly wrong!” Don’s head was spinning again. “Unless this ship is older. Surely ships preceded the city, or it could not have been built. Unless the Minoan culture originated here. But then the ruins would be solid for us too.” Nothing seemed to make sense.
“At any rate,” she said, “it does suggest that this warm fresh water is natural. A nuclear plant would date from no more than a generation past, not several thousand years. Unless someone planted this ship to make us think—?”
“In both phases?” Don demanded. “If they could do that, they wouldn’t be mucking about in the deep trench! They’d have conquered us long ago.”
“Who says they want to conquer us?” Melanie asked. “We don’t know anything about them.”
“True, we don’t,” Pacifa said. “We’ll have to accept the phase aspect as definitive. Which puts it right back in the archaeological pot. Obviously you’re here to check it out. If it is genuine, it’s highly significant archaeologically. If it isn’t, it’s significant scientifically, and politically. And I’ll be someone who wants very much to know.”
“Well, let’s get on with it!” Don cried, his excitement growing as his shock abated. The ship might have been here for thousands of years, but it seemed as if it would vanish in a minute if he didn’t get busy.
The tight hull curved up to the deck, about twenty feet above the ground, overhanging the three of them. Pacifa assessed the situation in a fashion only an objective non-archaeologist could. She noted the manner the ship was supported by the impinging crevice walls, checking the contacts with her hands.
“It’s secure,” she reported. “The this-world and that-world ships are identical. Except that the one in our phase sits a little lower, and its sides are stove in a bit.”
“There’s no water to support it,” Don said. “We’re just lucky it was so well jammed in that not even the removal of the water in the phase world could drop it far. I’m surprised it didn’t collapse entirely, in those thousands of years.”
“That is strange,” she said. “Though I suppose with no spoilage—even so, steady pressure should have warped the wood.” She paused. “Wood? Don, do you realize that this phase ship isn’t wood?”
“Isn’t wood?” Don asked absently, still staring upward with awe as the current tugged at his body.
“Feels like stone. The same stuff we’ve been riding over.”
Don remembered the touch. This had bothered him before, about the landscape. But wood? “That makes no sense at all! This is a wooden ship; it wouldn’t have floated if it was stone.”
“It has to make sense,” she said. “Everything does. We just haven’t unriddled it yet. But it does grow intriguing. I’d like to know too why we don’t see anything in the phase world, though we’re ninety-nine-point-nine percent in it.”
“I think that’s because it has less in it,” Melanie said. “Its rocks are all bare or absent, while Earth’s are covered with silt and life. So we see that outermost layer. We might see the things of the other phase if they didn’t exist also in the regular world.”
“Feel that hull,” Pacifa said. “Isn’t that a good inch lower than it looks? The phase hull extends beyond the real hull.”
Don felt. “I—I can see it now. I—it must have been psy—psycho—mental blindness. Not believing—”
“I know what you mean,” Melanie said. “We’re so used to seeing Earthly things that something completely outside that framework disappears, even if it’s in plain sight. Subjective. It’s powerful.” She tapped her wig. “But I’m going to start looking at phase objects from now on, even if it gives me a headache.”
Meanwhile, Pacifa wheeled her bike a short distance upcurrent, propped it solidly, and hitched a rope to its frame. Then she swung a length up over the projecting bow and pulled it taut. “I’ll haul you up as much as I can, and Melanie can help.”
Don was so eager to board the ship that the problem of hurdling the hull seemed academic. He tied the other end of the rope to his own bicycle, balancing the weight as well as he could.
Pacifa hauled on the rope, and so did Melanie. There was no pulley, so this was inefficient, but the rope did slide, and he went up.
“Heave!” Pacifa gasped, and the two heave
d together, drawing him up another notch. It was hard work, even with the three of them cooperating, but there was only about fifteen feet of actual rising to do, and he was able to put his feet against the side of the ship and walk on it, to an extent, as if rappelling. Or at least to brace his feet near the top, while the bicycle banged him. He nudged the prow and caught hold before his strength gave out. Now he could have used Gaspar’s muscle! The bike dangled on the rope, jerking up as his weight came off.
Don held his breath and swung his feet up. He scrambled over the edge and landed on the deck. He stretched back far enough to catch the bicycle, bringing it and its atmosphere back to his lungs. He had had much recent practice in similar maneuvers, descending into the Cayman trench. But going up was three times as hard as going down.
The deck was firm, though his feet stood about two inches below the visible level. The settling of the phase ship, obviously. Disconcerting, but a useful reminder that what he saw was not necessarily what he felt. The planks were tight. The support strong. This was a well made ship, in both worlds.
He turned and looked down. He waved at the two women who were looking up. “I’m fine,” he said. “But I’ll be going into the interior of the ship, so you might as well take a rest. I’ll report every so often, if you’re interested.”
“I want to explore some,” Melanie said. “I’ll go on down the cleft a way and see where it leads, and how far the fresh water extends. I can’t get lost, here. Pacifa can stay in touch with you.”
“But to go alone—”
“I’ve got to learn to do it sometime,” she said. She rolled her bicycle under the ship and moved on beyond.
He realized that she was disciplining herself to eliminate her own weaknesses. This was as good a place and time as any, since she had nothing to do. If it built up her confidence, good.
“Get to work,” Pacifa told him. “I’ll pitch a tent.”
Don tried to absorb it all at once, greedy for information. The timbers of the hull were mortised together with precision, and the whole was extremely well insulated with what appeared to be tar. No doubt it had been on the outside too, but the current had washed it away. The Romans, later, had even impregnated their ships with lead, for protection against such things as the teredo; but this ship predated such sophistication. There were portholes along the sides for oars—ten or twelve pairs. Later the Cretans were to distinguish between war galleys and merchant ships, with the former carrying oars and the latter only sails. This particular ship was evidently a compromise between the two developing types, lacking the cargo space of the fat wind-driven vessels, but also lacking the sleek power of the warships. Not that the Minoans ever had been much for war; peace was their normal course.