Chapter 34

34

May 14, 4:25 A . M . ANAT

Aboard the Polar King , East Siberian Sea

From the bridge of the icebreaker, Seichan gazed out at the expanse of ice shining in the moonlight and the dazzling curtains of the borealis. She had a panoramic view from this tenth level of the ship's superstructure.

Closer at hand, the bow lamps illuminated the frozen seas immediately in front of the ship. The Polar King 's red-painted bulk moved steadily across the landscape, curling plates and rafts of ice to either side of its spoon-shaped prow.

"How fast are we going?" Jason asked at the navigation station, watching the radar scan of the region. Sister Anna stayed next to him.

"Three knots," Captain Kelly reported from the helm. "For now, we can maintain a steady pace. But the ice is only two meters thick. It'll get worse before much longer."

"How much ice can the King handle?" Gray asked.

"Three times what we're traveling through right now. Up to six meters by ramming the bow and using the ship's weight to crush our way forward."

Seichan tried to picture a wall of ice twenty-feet high. She had a hard time imagining a ship cutting through it, even one as massive as the King . Concerned, Seichan turned her back on the sea and crossed to the group.

She challenged the captain as she joined them, "What's the likelihood of us being trapped by that ice?"

Kelly shrugged. "We can travel backward nearly as well as forward. And we're currently only using one of our reactors to drive the ship. The second is on standby mode."

Seichan frowned at him, letting him know he hadn't answered her question.

"Low but not zero," he admitted. "Ice is fickle and can shift unexpectedly by currents, closing behind a breaker, trapping it. Happened to a Russian scientific ship in Antarctica a few years back. Everyone had to be ferried off by helicopter."

Gray turned to the ship's navigator. "Mister Murphy, how long until we reach the search zone?"

"We're making good speed," Byron answered. "Another three hours, maybe less. But that ice will grow heavy quick. Once we're in the zone, it'll be slow going."

"What about the radar?" Seichan pressed the man. "Anything showing up yet?"

He shook his head. "Like I said before, there's never been an island found out here." He cast an apologetic look toward the Chukchi native.

Omryn Akkay remained stoic, arms crossed, clearly unswayed by the technology aboard the ship.

Even Bryon expressed similar doubts. "The solar storm continues to muck up our systems. We'll have to hope it clears once we're in the search area."

Jason glanced to the neighboring radio room. For the past hour, he had traveled back and forth between there and the bridge, trying to raise Sigma Command or Monk's team at Severodvinsk. He had no luck reaching either one of them.

"If your radar is compromised by the solar flare," Gray said, "maybe something could still be out there?"

Anna nodded and stepped closer. "How well has the Arctic even been mapped?"

"The surface? Fairly well. Satellites are constantly tracking the size of the polar cap. But under all that ice? Little is known. Only a fraction of the world's ocean floors has been mapped to modern standards. Around twenty percent. And the Arctic Ocean is far worse. Less than five percent."

"What about the East Siberian Sea?" Jason asked.

"Even worse," Byron admitted. "We mentioned before how this corner of the Arctic has been the least explored. While the coastal quarter of the East Siberian Sea has been decently mapped, due to the Northern Sea Route passing through there, farther out from the coast almost nothing has been charted."

"And these waters are extra shallow, if I recall," Anna said.

"Some of the shallowest of the Arctic—which makes traveling through here so treacherous."

Seichan frowned at him. "Then is it possible that the top of a tall seamount could be buried in thick ice, making it hard for a satellite to detect?"

Gray nodded. "The island is also said to be strongly magnetic. A mountain of lodestone. Maybe that emits enough electromagnetic radiation to blur or mask itself. Especially here in the polar region, in this highly ionized air, with a magnetosphere that's constantly under bombardment by solar energies."

Byron cast him a doubtful look, but he didn't negate this as a possibility.

Kelly interrupted the discussion by clearing his throat and pointing to the windows. "Might want to take a look. You're not likely to see a sight like this again in your lifetime."

Their gazes shifted from the radar screen to the glowing skies and shining ice.

The borealis had grown even more brilliant, shimmering and swirling wildly, no longer a tranquil lightshow. Farther out, near the horizon, it grew more violent. Nimbuses of light raged, radiant and furious, reflecting the severity of the solar storm as it reached its peak.

No wonder we lost communication with the world.

Seichan swore she could hear that storm, a barely audible keening that cut through air and steel, accompanied by cracks and sharper whistles.

And it wasn't just her.

Anna rubbed at an ear, as if trying to erase that noise.

The men seemed unaffected.

Seichan stepped closer to the window, drawn with the others. The skies seethed off in the distance, whipping into a great tempest, forming a shining radiant cyclone across the stars.

Gray bumped her as he dug through his pack and removed his tablet. He flicked it on and scrolled through images, settling on one, a photo from the old Greek book. It showed high cliffs circling a valley. At its bottom, a mountain rose, surrounded by a swirling pattern.

Gray held the picture up to the view outside. "First Nicolas, then Mercator, and whoever drew this in the eighteenth century... I don't think they were describing a whirlpool of water ."

Anna understood, equally dumbstruck. "It was a whirlpool of light ."

Gray turned to Kelly. "That's where we must go."