Polar Shift

41

Zavala left the 747's cockpit and made his way back to the plane's abbreviated passenger section where Austin was working on a laptop computer. Zavala was smiling as if he had heard a joke.

"Pilots are funny people," Zavala said with a shake of his head. "The cockpit crew would be pleased if you could tell them where to fly the plane."

"I'll have a definite position soon," Austin said. "For now, you can tell them to head in the general direction of the mid-South Atlantic."

"That narrows it down," Zavala said.

"This is the area we're looking at." Austin pointed to the glowing computer screen. "That's a NASA diagram showing data collected by the ROSAT spacecraft. That blob you see extending from Brazil to South Africa is our hunting ground, the South Atlantic Anomaly." He tapped the keyboard and zoomed in on a cluster of rectangles. "This area has the most pronounced dip in the magnetosphere."

"Which means it would be the logical point to start a polar shift," Zavala said.

"Yes and no. Here's where I think we should go." He tapped the screen at a different location. "The earth's crust is thinner here, allowing for maximum penetration with the Kovacs waves."

Zavala puffed his cheeks out. "That's still a lot of ocean to cover. A couple of hundred square miles at least."

"It's a start," Austin said.

He cocked his ear at the sound of an electrical hum coming from the cargo section. A moment later, Karla and Barrett came through the door. Karla's golden hair was in straggles, and she had dark circles under her large eyes. Barrett's hands and face were covered with grease.

Austin thought that even in her disheveled state, Karla could put the most pampered fashion model to shame with her graceful beauty. She raised the screwdriver in her hand like the torch on the Statue of Liberty.

"Ta-dum!" she said. "Time for trumpets and drumroll. We're done."

"The dynamos are all on track and running," Barrett said.

Barrett had hauled the last cable in less than an hour before, and the plane was airborne within minutes of shutting the door. Al Hibbet had watched with a sad expression as the plane took off. He had wanted to join the mission, but Austin said they needed to leave someone with an intimate knowledge of the mission behind. Just in case.

The humming increased in loudness. Karla acknowledged the congratulations that followed, then stretched out on some empty seats and promptly fell asleep. Austin removed the screwdriver from Karla's fingers and tucked it on the seat beside her.

"Thanks," Barrett said. "Now, if you'll excuse me." Following Karla's example, he yawned and crawled onto the next row of sets where he, too, stretched out and immediately fell asleep.

Austin made a note of the longitude and latitude at the position on his computer, then went up to the cockpit to give the plane's navigator the coordinates. He asked how long before they would be on-site and was told it would be approximately two hours. Austin looked out the cockpit window at the layer of cottony clouds that stretched out as far as the eye could see.

The crew was made up entirely of volunteers who were fully aware that they were flying on a dangerous mission. While the navigator laid out a flight plan, Austin and Zavala returned to the passenger cabin.

"From what you said in the cockpit, we'll arrive on target about the same time as the ship," Zavala said.

"It's an even tighter squeeze. We'll be in the same neighborhood. When we get there, we'll have to launch a search pattern. I don't know how long it will take to find the transmitter ship."

"Any delay could be fatal. That low cloud cover won't help."

"I've been thinking about that. The Trouts reported that they saw a lot of electrical activity in the sky minutes before their boat was sucked into the whirlpool."

"That's right. And Al said there were celestial fireworks when the U.S. and the Soviets were fooling around with electromagnetic warfare based on the Kovacs Theorems."

"Then there's every reason to think that we'll see the same phenomenon when Margrave and Gant gear up their zapper. I think we should be looking at the sky rather than the sea. The clouds might actually help us find the ship."

"Brilliant! I'll alert the crew to look for fireworks."

Austin reluctantly awakened Karla and Barrett. He gave them a few minutes to rub the sleep out of their eyes. As the plane sped toward the South Atlantic Anomaly, he brought them up to date on the situation. They agreed to split up when the time came, with Karla on one side of the plane, Barrett on the other. Austin would alternate back and forth and serve as liaison with Zavala, who would keep watch from the cockpit.

Zavala's voice came over the speakers. He said the plane would pass over the outer limits of the search area in fifteen minutes. Austin could feel the growing tension in the cabin. The atmosphere grew even tenser when Zavala announced that they were in the hot zone. They took up their positions at the aircraft's windows. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Austin moved back and forth across the wide cabin, offering encouragement. It was hard to believe that a vast ocean lay below the thick layer of clouds.

Austin had suggested that the plane fly a series of parallel runs back and forth across the search area. It was the same lawn mower pattern Austin would have used to search for a lost ship and would cover many square miles in a comparatively short time. They finished one run, then made another and were on their third when Austin began to wonder if he had made a mistake. He was checking his watch every few seconds.

The plane had turned to make another run when Karla called out, "I see something. Around three o'clock."

Austin and Barrett scrambled across the cabin to the other side of the plane and peered through the windows. The sun was low in the sky and its slanting rays had created blue shadows in the cloud cover.

But off to the right, the sky pulsated with a golden-white radiance that was similar to the glow a thunderstorm would produce in the clouds. Austin grabbed a microphone connected to the cockpit. Zavala replied over the speakers that he had seen the glow in the clouds as well.

The plane banked into a turn and, like a moth attracted to a flame, began its long glide toward the light that bubbled in the distance like a giant witch's cauldron.