David Sakmyster - The Pharos Objective

It was time.

Nolan buttoned his jacket and straightened his sleeves. When he next returned, if he came back at all, this chamber would all be different. Full, thriving, alive with wonders. An accomplishment to honor, if not rival, the genius of Sostratus.

After waking from a fitful nap, Waxman unbuckled his seat belt, stepped into the aisle and made his way toward the back of the plane. Caleb was sitting in the row behind him with Phoebe, whose wheelchair was stored up front. He had his eyes closed and headphones on, listening to one of the in-flight music stations.

Cocky kid, Waxman thought. It’s about time he contributed. And now it’s Phoebe’s turn. Time for the cripple to pull her weight. Their last hope was that this damned scroll could be opened, and that it had something useful on it. But he had to be careful; lately it felt like he was on shaky ground with Helen. Every day, everywhere he went, it seemed he trod in Philip’s shadow. Several times he had caught Helen staring at the photographs in her room, the ones she would never remove, the ones he would never again make the mistake of asking her to take down.

All in all, it could be worse. She was still a beautiful woman, and she let him have his hobbies, tolerated his absences and asked no questions. In many ways, she was the perfect wife. And what better way to keep an eye on the project? To fan the flames of Helen’s obsession with the Pharos Code, and to be ready to pounce at the moment of revelation. In one fell swoop, by marrying Helen, he had ensured himself access to vital information before the Keepers could ever learn of it.

And that was all that mattered-that, and finding the treasure. Soon. Whenever he felt like they were losing ground and would never succeed, he closed his eyes, imagined the vault opening for him.

In the lavatory, after squeezing through the narrow door and sliding the occupied slot over, he took a deep breath and stared in the mirror, right next to the No Smoking sign and its vapid threat of fines and jail time.

He reached into his shirt pocket for his pack of menthols, turned on the water, took out his lighter and pulled one cigarette from the pack with his teeth. When he looked up, the mirror had fogged over, thick puffs of steam exhaling out of the sink. Odd that the water could be so hot…

Waxman was about to wipe the mirror clean when lines started appearing on the glass. Smears and curves formed as if a finger slid along the surface.

MAMA

Cursing, Waxman put out his cigarette, then smeared the fog clear off the mirror with his jacket sleeve. “Leave me alone!”

Something in the drain gurgled and bubbled up with the steam that promptly fogged up the mirror again.

I WILL DO NO SUCH THI Waxman wiped the mirror clean again and turned off the water. “I’m done talking to you. We’ve found what we needed, and soon I’ll do what I was born to do.”

Sodus Bay, New York-November

It took the better part of three weeks to unroll enough of the scroll to obtain some fragments to analyze. Phoebe was able to secure a lab and a couple interns at the University of Rochester to assist; and together and in shifts, they worked around the clock, applying thin coats of gelatin, separating the layers and prying them apart piece by piece. Phoebe slept there five nights a week, supervising, and Caleb visited every day.

While this was going on, Helen and Waxman continued their remote-viewing trials at home. They brought in new psychic candidates, and worked at applying their abilities to the remaining five signs. The new recruits were showed the great seal, the alchemy symbols and the symbols for the planets. As always, the context was difficult to capture without leading their imaginations.

Mostly they failed, and the potential hits were far from revealing. Waxman grew frustrated and impatient, and he took to leaving for days at a time. “Doing research,” Helen insisted. Caleb bit his tongue and kept quiet. He never broached the subject with her. Things were going well between them, the best they’d ever been, and he didn’t want to rattle that cage by questioning her husband.

So the days passed. Caleb spent hours walking the leaf-strewn hills below the timid lighthouse, fighting the chill from winds blown over the bay. This particular November morning, he reminisced on the years he’d been away, and he determined to make up for them, to infuse his spirit with the breath of these massive willows, with the feel of the frosted ground beneath his feet, with the sound of the wind and the birds.

He visited the docks and strode along the pier toward Old Rusty. Every morning after his cup of coffee, he came out to toss a rock at its steel hull, just to hear the dull, echoing thud. He thought of Dad. He imagined his father at his side, like it used to be for such a short time. He remembered being taught how to throw a curveball. “Go on,” his father would urge. “Sure it’s a historical treasure, this old lightship, but it’s ours to watch over. And if I want my boy to use it for target practice, damn it he will.”

Even now that memory made Caleb grin. He looked at the dents in Old Rusty’s lower hull, the red paint chipped away and nearly invisible above the barnacle-crusted waterline. The whole ship was eighty-four feet in length, with two steel masts twenty feet high, painted red, with a glass-enclosed oil lantern at each masthead. He thought back on the history of lightships, from the early Roman galleys with baskets of oil and wicks, to the last two centuries of naval use. From 1820 until 1983, more than a hundred lightships were in use along the United States coastlines. Eventually these old relics were phased out and replaced by permanent lighthouses or electric buoys.

This one, Old Rusty, had been here for more than thirty years, decommissioned after serving faithfully at various posts off the Northeast coast. It was listed on the National Registrar of Historic Places, and fell under the watch of the family of lighthouse keepers here, to Caleb’s father, and to his father before him.

Caleb crossed the ramp, stood on its cast steel deck, and peered into the large wooden deckhouse. Inside were controls for a steam chime whistle and a hand-operated 1,000-pound bell, along with framed sea charts, wheels, tables and cupboards. A few years ago it had been opened to the public as a museum, and Phoebe had worked inside part time, collecting donations and dishing out various historical anecdotes. Caleb wondered if they couldn’t apply for a grant to improve its condition a little. Slap on some paint, restore the deckhouse, smooth out those dents in the hull…

For some reason, that simple notion, so distinct from code-breaking and world-spanning quests, seemed idyllic. But he smiled and let that dream rest for now. He said goodbye to Old Rusty, and when he stepped off the pier he saw Helen up at the house, waving her arms. She seemed agitated.

Out of breath from the climb and sweating despite the temperature dropping and the wind picking up, he finally made it back up the hill. Before he could ask what the matter was, his mother’s words reached him on the breeze.

“Caleb! We found something.”

“Another ring,” she said, “this one on the ceiling. Something we never noticed before.” She led Caleb into the family room, where dozens of pictures were hanging on each wall. In the kitchen he heard the psychics taking a break, talking and laughing.

Helen pointed to two pictures. “We asked them to draw images concerning the Pharos chamber and the sign for Iron. Both Roger and Nancy have drawn what looks like a man suspended upside down. It seems to match the image and orientation of the Hanged Man on the Tarot.”

“This is above the third block,” Caleb said excitedly. He pictured the chamber again and tried to imagine being there. Having just endured the torrential flood of the second trap… he unhooks the harness and steps onto the next stone, feels the white powdery residue coating his skin and clothes. The air blowing around him, legs balancing, holding fast against the wind…