Polar Shift

42

With time short, it had been necessary to opt for simplicity in setting up the control panel in the spacious cargo section. The console was a flat board that rested on supports raising it to waist level. The layout was deliberately uncomplicated, consisting of a main switch that controlled the flow of power to all the dynamos. Various dials and gauges kept tabs on different parts of the operating system.

Zavala's voice came over the speakers. "We're going into the clouds."

Austin felt a prickling on his scalp and his hair stood on end, not because of fear, but from the sudden electrical charge that saturated the air. Karla's long blond tresses were standing on end like the hair on the Bride of Frankenstein. She reached up and patted her hair down, with limited success. With his shaved scalp, Barrett had no such problem, although the spider tattoo had goose bumps.

The electrical show was only beginning. Every surface of the cargo section began to glow an electrical blue like the Saint Elmo's fire that sailors used to see dancing in the rigging of their sailing ships. The plane's interior lights blinked on and off, as if a child were playing with the switch. Then the lights went out completely.

Stroboscopic flashes from outside lit up the rows of windows and illuminated the bewildered faces in the cargo section like dancers in a disco. The plane seemed to be in the midst of a lightning storm. But there was no thunder, only the muted roar of the jet engines. The relative silence heightened the eeriness of the scene.

The intercom must have operated on a separate system, because Zavala's voice crackled over the speakers. His message was brief and to the point:

"We've lost the cockpit instruments."

A second later, he relayed a message that was even more terrifying. "Oh hell, the controls are gone too."

Austin knew that a plane the size of a 747 wouldn't go into an instantaneous dive, but it wasn't built to soar on the updrafts like a glider. Once the aircraft discovered it was on its own, it would lapse into a tumble that would rip its wings off. He put his arm protectively around Karla's shoulders.

Something was happening in the cargo area. The electrical display seemed less brilliant. The cold fire playing along the walls and ceiling seemed to be dying down. Dark spots appeared in the shimmer and dampened the ghostly blue light. There was one last, brilliant burp of radiance. The interior lights blinked on.

A second later, Zavala's voice came over the speaker with a welcome announcement:

"The instruments and controls are back on," he reported.

Austin removed his arm from around Karla's shoulders and went over to check the control panel. He was worried that the surge of static electricity that had put on such a dramatic light display might have burned out the switches. To his relief, everything was in order.

Karla had noticed a change in the light coming through the window and went to investigate. She pressed her nose against the Plexiglas and called the others over. Austin peered out a window and saw that they were through the overcast. Blue ocean was visible through the vaporous tatters of low-lying clouds. A flickering brilliance from above caught his eye. Instead of the underside of the cloud cover, he saw an aurora of swirling whites, blues and purple that formed a luminous canopy. The very heavens seemed on fire; it was as if a hundred lightning storms were discharging simultaneous bolts.

The plane had made it through the electrical barrier in one piece, but they weren't out of the woods yet. Although the electrical assault was fading, the farther they dropped below the clouds, the plane was being buffeted by gut-wrenching turbulence. Power-packed winds slammed into the 747 from every direction. Despite its massive size, the plane pitched and yawed like a kite on a string.

The buffeting was only a softening up. The plane was slammed like a boxer on the ropes by a series of head-on wind gusts. The cargo space reverberated with loud bangs as the winds hammered the plane as if it were rolling along a road full of deep potholes. Just as it seemed that another pounding would pop every rivet in the plane, the blows became less violent and less frequent. Then they stopped completely.

"Are you all right back there?" Zavala said.

"We're fine, but you need a new set of shock absorbers."

"I need a new set of teeth," Zavala said.

"Tell the pilot that was a nice save. Are the wings still attached?"

"He says thanks, and who needs wings anyhow?"

"That's reassuring. Can you see the ship?"

"Not yet. Still a few clouds." There was a pause, and when Zavala's voice came back on Austin could hear the excitement in it. "Look to the port side, Kurt. Around nine o'clock."

Austin looked out the window and saw the liner below. The ship looked like a toy boat in the ocean. There was no wake, which confirmed what Austin already knew from the turbulence and light show the plane had encountered. The ship was stationary, and the electromagnetic assault had begun.

The ship was surrounded by a ring of waves that were moving away from the vessel in an expanding circle. Although it was hard to judge the size of the waves, the fact that their foamy crests were so clearly visible at the altitude the plane was flying meant that the seas were monstrous.

Austin got on the intercom and asked the pilot to level out at ten thousand feet and to circle the ship, dropping one thousand feet with each circuit. He turned to Barrett, who was standing at the control panel, and told him to get ready. The scientist nodded and began to increase the power to the dynamos. An electrical hum like a thousand bee hives filled the plane's interior.

Something was burning. Austin looked down the length of the cargo space and saw a cloud of purple smoke and sparks coming from one of the dynamos. He yelled at Barrett to kill the power, and, with Karla right behind him, he dashed down the long length of the plane.

Barrett had seen the gauge signifying a problem and had already hit the kill switch. Austin found the source of the sparks was a lead into one of the dynamos. The connection had come loose while the plane was being bounced around by the violent turbulence.

He examined the connection for damage, found nothing serious and quickly reconnected the cable. Austin yelled at Barrett to power up. The humming of the bees began, and rose to a pitch where it drowned out the roar of the jet engines. Karla had joined Barrett at the control panel. Austin stood near the intercom where he could keep in close touch with the cockpit.

"How does it look?" Austin asked.

Barrett's eyes swept over the control panel and he smiled. "Everything is on track."

Austin gave him the thumbs-up, and called to Zavala, "What's our altitude?"

"Eight thousand feet."

"Good. Bring her down to four thousand, and then make a level pass directly over the ship. Let me know when we're starting the approach to the target."

"Aye, aye, sir."

As the plane dropped lower, the pilot had to contend with an unexpected burst of turbulence. He got the plane back on an even keel with some skillful flying. Zavala called to say that they were making their approach to the ship.

Austin called out to Barrett to give it the juice. He hesitated with his hand over the power switch, and for a second Austin thought he hadn't understood. Then Barrett stepped aside and put Karla's hand on the switch.

"This is in honor of your grandfather."

Karla replied with a broad grin and threw the switch. Power flowed into the antenna, where it was converted to pulses of electromagnetic energy. Austin had no precedent or experience to work with, so he was laying down a pattern of energy bursts in much the same way a sub hunter saturates the ocean with depth charges.

They were over the ship an instant later. Austin ordered the pilot to repeat the procedure, coming in at another angle. The 747 wasn't built for strafing runs, and the big plane seemed to take forever as it banked around in a wide turn and started back to lay down another series of charges.

Again Zavala yelled out the five-hundred-yard mark. Again Karla laid on the power.

Another pass, another barrage of electromagnetic pulses flowed into the sea around the ship.

"How long do we need to do this?" Zavala said.

"Until we run out of fuel, and then some," Austin said with a steely determination in his voice.

The mood was euphoric on the observation platform of the Polar Explorer.

Margrave and Gant gazed up through the glass-paneled ceiling, their faces bathed in the pulsating, multicolored light emanating from the aurora high above the ship. Margrave's strange face never looked more satanic.

"Spectacular!" Gant said in a rare show of emotion.

Margrave stood behind the control consol. He had been gradually accelerating the dynamos to full power, and the console was lit up like a pinball machine.

"The aurora indicates we've reached critical mass," he said. "The electromagnetic waves have penetrated the ocean floor. They'll change the electromagnetic flux and nudge the pole over. Keep an eye on the compass for the big flip."

Gant glanced at the compass dial, and then gazed out one of the big picture windows.

"Something is happening to the sea."

The ruffled surface of the ocean immediately around the ship had gone flat.

"We're at the epicenter of the polar shift," Margrave said. "A ring of giant waves will spin off from around the edge of an expanding circle. There will be some vortexes around the perimeter."

"Glad we're not in the way," Gant said.

"It would be unfortunate if we were. The area of disturbance is pretty random. That's what sank our transmitter ship. It's like the calm at the eye of a hurricane. We'll be fine here except for a slight mounding of the water."

Gant stared out at the rising sea. He had never felt so powerful in his entire life.

Austin's mind-set was the opposite of Gant's. He was like a doctor trying to bring a flatlining patient back to life, only in this case the lives of millions lay on the table. He peered out the window as the plane banked for another pass, unable to tell whether the antidote was working or not.

Then he noticed a circular area immediately around the ship where the water seemed to go dull, as if it were being flattened by a helicopter downdraft. He could see striations on the surface of the sea like the grooves made by a strong current. Moments later, the water began moving in an unmistakable swirl with the ship at its center. Within seconds, the area of disturbed water was at least a mile across, bordered by a ring of foam on its perimeter. As the current's speed picked up, the sea within the circle became lower than the surface around it.

Austin was witnessing the birth of a giant whirlpool.

The Polar Adventure only rose around six feet above the surrounding sea level before it began to settle again.

Gant noticed that a depression seemed to be forming in the ocean around the ship. "Is this another side effect?" he said.

"No," Margrave said. His puzzlement changed to concern when the surface became even more radically dish-shaped. White-foamed rips indicated the clash of strong currents. He snatched up the microphone connecting him to the bridge. "Full engine power. We're sinking into a whirlpool."

Margrave shut down the dynamos.

"What are you doing?" Gant said.

"Something's not right. There shouldn't be this kind of reaction."

The ocean hollow was deepening and swirling currents had begun to form, but the ship was under power by then, and moving toward the side of the vortex. Its bow was slightly elevated, and it had to fight against the currents that wanted to drag it sideways, but the ship was making slow headway.

The maelstrom was expanding at the same time, however. Margrave screamed at the bridge to give the engines more power, but the ship seemed destined to lose the race, not really moving from the center of the vortex.

Then the character of the water changed again. The currents weakened, and the surface began to rise back to sea level. It was mounding again.

"What happened?" Gant said.

"A slight diversion," Margrave said. He wiped the nervous sweat from his forehead, and he smiled as he again powered up the dynamos.

As the ship rose higher in the air, the water around the vessel began to boil. The ocean liner was twenty feet in the air, then thirty.

"Stop this from happening," Gant said.

Margrave killed power again but the ship continued to rise.

Fifty feet.

"You fool! What have you done?"

"The computer models-"

"Damn the computer models!"

Margrave left the control panel and rushed to one of the big windows wrapped around the observation platform. Her stared with horror at the sea.

The ship was at the top of a huge, fast-rising column of water.

Austin had seen the whirlpool grow until it was around ten miles wide. Now he watched in fascination as the vortex leveled out, changed into a seething pool of white steamy water, and began to mound into a watery cyclone.

The mountainous mass sprouting from the center of the vortex grew in height and width as it spun like a whirling dervish.

The plane was coming around for another pass. Austin dashed up to the cockpit.

"Bring us up as fast and as high as you can. Get away from this area."

The pilot put the 747 into a steep climb.

The water column reminded Austin of photos he had seen of the nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific.

A panicked voice was crackling over the radio. "Mayday! Mayday! Come in, anyone! Mayday!"

Austin borrowed the radio microphone. "Mayday received."

"This is Gant on the Polar Adventure." He had to shout to be heard over the rumbling in the background.

"Looks like you're in for a roller-coaster ride," Austin said.

"Who is this? Where are you?"

"Kurt Austin. We're a couple of thousand feet above your head. Take a quick look because we won't be around much longer. Dr. Kovacs sends his regards, though."

After a pause, Gant said, "What the hell is going on, Austin?"

"We've given you a dose of the polar shift antidote. I'd say that you and your partner are all washed up."

Gant's angry reply was unintelligible, lost in a thundering clamor.

Austin peered out the cockpit window. The ship was at the top of the water column, where it spun like a top. Austin could only imagine the panicked scene on board. But he had no sympathy for Margrave and Gant, who had sown the seeds of their own destruction.

As the plane altered course and began to bear off from its target like a great lumbering whale, it encountered turbulence generated by the powerful forces that had been unleashed, but it was nothing compared to the earlier wind blasts. The plane continued to climb without incident to around twenty-five thousand feet, where it leveled off.

Karla had her face glued to the window even though there was nothing to see other than the normal cloud cover. She turned to Austin, a dazed look in her eyes.

"What happened back there?" she said.

"Your grandfather was right on the money with his calculations."

"But what was that thing, that incredible waterspout?"

Austin wasn't sure what was happening but suspected that the push-pull of electromagnetic pulses from the ship and the plane had set into motion unimaginable forces.

"Nature doesn't like being messed around with. The combination of the antidote and the initial transmissions created a strong reaction." He smiled. "It's like taking something for an upset stomach. There's always a last eruption or two before things settle down for the better."

"Then it's over, finally."

"I hope so." Austin called the cockpit, and asked, "How's the compass doing?"

"Normal," Zavala said. "Still pointing to the north pole, more or less."

Barrett hadn't moved from behind the control panel. When he heard Zavala's report, he slapped his hands together. He came over and gave Karla and Austin big hugs.

"We did it," he said. "By God, we did it."

Austin replied with a weary grin. "So we did," he said. "So we did."