Gillian Anderson - The Sound of Seas

Dr. Cummins flashed him a thumbs-up that relaxed them both. Mikel hadn’t realized how on edge he was until then.

Walking almost shoulder to shoulder so that one could help the other in case of uncertain footing, they approached the pit with the same gingerly steps they would take approaching a fissure or crevasse. Along the opposite rim of the pit, Mikel saw only the fast-frozen ice, not ground. There wasn’t a single visible crack in the deep cover here; it was like vanilla frosting laid on with a thick spatula.

“I’ve seen geothermal heat generate melting like this on the Amundsen Sea, but not here,” Dr. Cummins said, leaning toward him as they trudged across the ice.

“That’s quite a distance away.”

“About two thousand kilometers,” she said. “To be honest, we don’t know the extent to which subaerial volcanism may be responsible for any of that. Even so, to have reached this far? That wasn’t even part of the most ambitious thinking. Dr. Jasso, is it possible that your ancient civilization covered the entire continent to the western region? It was pretty icy there during the period you indicated.”

“I don’t believe so,” he said. “From the research, I believe there were densely populated pockets across the continent. I would imagine that population, if not controlled, was strictly determined by the food supply.”

“Obviously, they would have had fish, sea mammals, birds—”

“Possibly each other,” he added. “I know nothing about their interment practices.”

“That’s an unpleasant thought, though you’re right. I have heard about isolated pockets that practiced cannibalism along the Amazon.”

“The Galderkhaani were big on jasmine,” Mikel said. “Drank a lot of warm tea, I’d imagine.”

“I like that better,” Dr. Cummins said. “The practice, not that flavor of tea. Dr. Jasso?”

“Yes?”

“Am I whistling past a graveyard?” she asked.

“It’s quite possible,” he said. “I’m uneasy here too. I would be interested in going back through reports from this region, see if other researchers have experienced anything—” he stopped as he sought an appropriate word.

“Off? Ripe? Gray? Oppressive?” Dr. Cummins contributed.

“All of that,” he said.

There was a high, warbling rush of sound. The two of them stopped at the same time. Dr. Cummins pulled her parka from one side and turned her ear toward the pit.

“That’s not the wind,” she said. “Did you hear anything like that below?”

Mikel shook his head. Whatever it was, the sound came from inside the pit, soft and melodious, modulating slightly and echoing on its way up and down.

“It could be an ice flute,” she suggested. “Wind through a hollow icicle—”

“That’s not whistling,” Mikel said. He had heard those in Norway, frozen “panpipes.” Wind passing through a hollow tube of ice has a shriller quality. “That’s humming.”

“Can’t be,” Dr. Cummins said. “Can it?”

“I have learned to dismiss nothing where Galderkhaan is concerned.”

Dr. Cummins shook her head as if to say, I’m just not ready for that .

They started walking again, cautiously, when the frozen water on the lip of the pit nearest them, the northeastern rim, began to darken. It was like watching bread turn moldy in time lapse: something unhealthy was moving toward them.

“Doctor?” Mikel asked.

“I don’t know what it is, I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “Let’s go back to the truck.”

She started to move but Mikel stayed where he was. He had an idea what it was… and what might stop it.

“Dr. Jasso?”

“Something may be trying to communicate.”

“ That is an optimistic take on a mass moving beneath the ice!”

The shadow rolled toward them unevenly, like an incoming tide, until Mikel could see for certain what it was made of.

“God damn him,” Mikel said.

“What?”

“Get back in the truck.”

“What is it?”

“Please go !” Mikel yelled. “They’re being controlled by a tile in New York!”

Dr. Cummins did not need to be told again. She backed away then ran as fast as her boot-heavy feet could take her.

Snatching off his glove, the archaeologist grabbed his cell phone from the pocket of his parka and punched a button.

In New York, at the subdued headquarters of the Group, the call came as expected.

Downstairs in the laboratory, Casey Skett winked at Flora, who was seated in a folding chair, her hands tightly knit on her lap. Adrienne Dowman was on the other side of him, in an old, thickly cushioned chair, sitting supernaturally still and just staring. Skett had one hand on the keypad controls of the acoustic levitation device. He had his eight-inch knife in the other. He slipped the blade into a sheath attached to the back of his belt. “I can get to it quickly,” he cautioned Flora.

“I have no doubt,” she replied.

Skett answered the phone. “Hello, Dr. Jasso. I’m glad to see you made it.”

“I said I would!” he yelled. “Now call them off! You didn’t have to do this!”

“I was testing the acoustic suspension,” he said. “Consider it a dry run and also a little bit of insurance.

“They are Belgica Antarctica , flightless midges. On average, only a sixth of an inch long… but there are a lot of them, eh? They were awakened from hibernation by a frisson of ancient Galderkhaani power, following the arc from here to there.”

“I know the mechanism, damn you, Skett. Cut it. Now! ”

“But they’re harmless,” Skett assured him. “Unless they gum up your engine or crawl up your pant legs, nibbling and nesting. Which they will do, seeking the warmth they’ve been deprived of.”

“I swear to you—”

“What, Dr. Jasso? What will you do?” Skett’s tone lost its affected bonhomie. “I know—perhaps you’ll keep in touch with me instead of hopping about on your own, leaving me blind?”

“Yes, fine. We just got here by truck and were reconnoitering the pit.”

“We?”

“Myself and Dr. Victoria Cummins.”

“The glaciologist?”

“That’s right! Now cut the link!”

“How did you get there?” Skett asked.

“Toyota Tacoma.”

“Excellent,” Skett said. “Very good. Makes things easier.”

Skett was facing the monitor that controlled the acoustic levitation waves. He punched the numbers up. In front of him, the stone Mikel had recovered from the Falklands was crushed by sound, its energies dampened.

“Back the truck away roughly ten meters,” Skett said. He glanced at a laptop on the laboratory table. “The insects won’t come any closer as a group… the line vectors off there. Unless I amp up the power.”

Mikel’s voice was muffled, no doubt shouting instructions to his companion. The scientist was definitely outside the truck; Skett could hear the wind’s raspy brush against the audio.

After a moment Mikel came back on the line. “Is that why Flora screamed, Skett?” Mikel asked. “You were flexing your long-distance muscles?”

“Poor dear overreacted,” Skett said. “I think she thought that allowing the tile to power up, you would be attacked by penguins or whales.”

“How did you know I wouldn’t be?”

“You’re well enough inland,” Skett replied. “There are two tiles— I brought one to the party, you see. Two tiles, two separate but proximate lines of power, one weak, one stronger—the stronger one being the one I presently control. Sections of the coastline may be covered with penguin feathers thanks to the other… a whale or two might have butted a ship… and I think I heard some dogs baying on this end. But that’s all. The arcs from here to there are very precise. You will notice, I think, that the insects left their nesting ground and lined up pretty much in a southwesterly direction, well, westerly to you, since south has little meaning where you are. Are they disbursing?”