Chapter 18

The chore for Z1 this time was to take us to Europe. That’s when we would really need Dom’s skill in navigation. We would be spending a lot of time over an ocean with no obvious landmarks to orient us. We were going to try to find Greenland and Iceland along the way, but we didn’t know if there were mountains that would stick out of the water. I figured that Greenland was large enough to let us find it, but I had little hope of spotting Iceland.

In a fit of genius, Dom suggested that AI print out a map of the world as we knew it back on Earth. That should help us to find places as large as Greenland and Iceland if they had mountains tall enough. We probably could have profitably used the National Geographic Society maps of the North Atlantic Ocean, but AI didn’t have any of those. Oh, well, we would just settle for what we could get.

We were depending on Dom’s skill at navigation because we would be well out of range of AI’s triangulation ability for fixing our location. He could get a fair idea of our azimuth from Miami by using his loop direction finding antennas, but they would not do any good in pinpointing our distance from Miami. One thing he could do, though, was to determine where Miami was relative to our old maps once we got far enough away.

He could do a kind of “reverse triangulation” if and when Dom could positively identify two points separated by enough of an angle. AI was going to triangulate on us every time Dom reported that she had identified a specific point that was shown on the old map. This repeated triangulation, he hoped, would wash out any minor errors in locating us.

We had a direction finding loop aboard Z1, and that would be used to specify the direction back toward Miami. Eventually, we would pin down a location. When we did, we would place a navigation beacon at the current location. Eventually, if we lived long enough, we should be able to cover Dinosaur Planet with the beacons so that we could always know where we were within a few hundred yards. One day, we might get even closer than that, but we were not going to worry about that for now. One thing for sure, we were going to try to put a beacon at the peak of Mont Blanc—AI knew exactly where it was located.

We headed northeast from Miami when we left on our hunt for Greenland. We had the exact location of the Thule AB (Air Base) in western Greenland, so Dom had us heading for that. However, while on the way, we were going to try to map any land we had not previously flown over. That was why we had arbitrarily taken the northeast direction. We would head directly for Thule AB only after we had come to open water.

So far, our crude, of necessity, determination of our location had placed Miami somewhere in the boondocks of eastern Quebec Province. Hopefully we would know more in a few days; that is, when we reached Thule AB. We were going to spend as much time as we needed to pin down that location. Once we found Thule, we would place a navigation beacon there. Then we would head to Reykjavik, Iceland. That airport was another place that was recorded in AI’s memory. From there, we would head toward Scandinavia. Surely, Norway or Sweden would have mountains showing that we could identify.

Tentatively, we would head south once we had found a suitable beacon location in Scandinavia. However, we were not pushing for a fixed plan until we knew what we would find in Scandinavia. We still wanted to put the beacon on Mr. Blanc so that we could ease our navigation around Europe.

Okay, from 20,000 feet, it looked like we were over open water. Dom had me switch to a more northerly course, though not true north. As we got closer to Thule AB, she gave me more detailed directions. Jane was watching through a window for the coast of Greenland, and sang out when she finally spotted what looked to her like a major coast line.

Oh, dammit, it looked like Thule, AB was under water. In fact, when we compared what we could see against the map we got from AI, it looked like all of the towns that had been in Greenland on Earth were now under water. Dom said, “Bill, it looks to me like we are not going to find a good place for our Greenland beacon. I recommend that we just forget it and head to Iceland. My guess is that we will have better luck there.”

I said, “Okay, I trust your judgment when it comes to navigation and other such matters. You give the word to AI and tell him that I agree. If he has a better idea, we still have time to turn around and do whatever AI suggests, if you agree with him.”

“Okay, I’ll make the call now.”

AI agreed with Dom’s assessment of the Greenland situation and agreed that we head to Reykjavik. That’s where I was heading Z1, so no change was needed. I think that AI would be cussing our luck right then if computers were programmed to do that.

AI was very anxious to nail down the precise location of Miami, and I had come to the conclusion that it was a personal quirk on his part, but I was not going to worry about it. I couldn’t see that knowing the exact location of Miami was all that big a deal. I trusted AI to tell me if it became a major issue. I asked Jane to take over the direct control of Z1 while I used SC1 to take a closer look at the surface of Greenland. Those were supposed to be some of the oldest rocks on Earth, and I was curious to see what they looked like. I was assuming that Dinosaur Planet had the same kind of geology as our Earth. Dom went with me after she talked to AI for a few minutes.

It turned out that AI was curious, too, and he asked for us to bring back some of the Greenland soil for analysis. He didn’t say if there was something specific that he was looking for, but we agreed to pick up some rocks for him if we could manage it.

Dom and I left Jane in charge of Z1 and took SC1 in for a close look at Greenland. Dammit, we couldn’t find a place where we were willing to take a chance on landing, so we had to disappoint AI about getting his dirt samples. The ground was just too rough to take a chance on a conventional landing, and there was not enough grass for us to take a chance on using the wooden ski. We just had to abandon the whole idea of landing until we could come back with a helicopter.

The trip to Iceland was short enough to keep the boredom under control. Dammit, traveling in a zeppelin was just too sedate for us. I wondered if AI could come up with a design that would combine free floating in the air with neutral buoyancy with the speed of an airplane. That would be a much more pleasant way to explore. I was going to ask him the next time I talked to him.

We finally made it to Iceland, and Dom found a mountain peak that she could use as a reference point, so Jane and Dom used a Shuttle Craft to put a navigation beacon in place near its peak. This made AI happy, so we relaxed and headed for Scandinavia.

In a way, Norway was a very pleasant change from our frustrations in Greenland. Dom was able to place a navigation beacon on a high peak in Bergen so that we had a good start on the navigational aids we needed for Europe. We got to thinking about it and decided to skip putting a beacon on Mont Blanc after all. Instead, we found a place in Andorra in the Pyrenees to put the beacon.

I swear that AI was as close to ecstatic as a computer could get when he used the beacon in Bergen and in Andorra to triangulate the location of Miami. He reported, “Yes, Miami is in the boondocks of Quebec northeast of Montreal.” Dom, Jane, and I laughed—now AI could relax!

Now that Dom could come very close to pinpointing our location in Europe, we decided to search for bunkers belonging to the original inhabitants of Europe. The original local AI at Miami did not have much information about the inhabitants of Europe, but there were a couple of spots he knew about having extensive bunkers. The two he knew of were in the Alps. Hopefully, we could find them.

Just in case this happened, the two Shuttle Craft had been fitted with metal detectors that could sense the location of large sheets of metal that might be used as the doors to entry ports for bunkers. Dom was going to stay behind in Z1 to coach us into position while Jane and I flew the two Shuttle Craft down to look for the doors. We were going to have to fly low and slow, and that was very dangerous, especially if we were picked on by pterodactyls. I had hoped that the two Shuttle Craft could back each other up if a fight ensued.