Chapter 50

"Yes, I see them," I stated.

Sven and Thor had taken up position next to me under the hilltop awning, binoculars held up to their eyes while the morning lookout stood farther away. All of us were looking at the large yacht out in the ocean. Knowing the local boats and crews, seeing a new one as well as their current position off of the pier as well as the sea door, raised the suspicion and the report from the lookout. Not having binoculars myself, I could feel the uneasy stares from the lookouts. All of them having heard the rumors and tales from my more senior guards, their employer was different.

"How far out do you make them?" I asked the men around me.

"I would say they're five miles out from us here, putting them just over four miles out from the docks," Thor responded.

Holding the glasses to his eyes, Sven stated, "That makes ten new boats in little more than a week, My guess is someone's been talking."

Thor added, "More important though is that someone is listening."

"Did anyone really expect people to keep quiet?" I asked, scanning the rest of the empty sea.

"Not really but if they had, getting out of here would have been easier," Sven replied.

"True, I wish we could have had at least a month to get moved. On the bright side at least we know where we are going and the distance is not so bad," I suggested.

"I agree though I wish we could have been long gone by the time word got out and the alien conspiracy programs show up looking to be next season's ratings leader," Sven added.

"If they show up, we will simply add to their narrative about weapons that drain energy leaving them to drift waiting to be rescued." Turning to the sentry, I added, "No one puts a foot on this island without my permission."

Standing to the side, he came to attention, adding in a clear voice, "Sir, Thor has made that order perfectly clear. Only those with previous authorization are allowed on the island provided they have an escort. Those who arrive without permission and an escort are to be detained. If they arrive in an aircraft, we are authorized to damage the craft to prevent their departure. Other craft such as boats, we are to use our discretion in the method of warning them with a couple of shots across the bow being acceptable to discourage visitors. Anyone who makes landfall is to be detained."

Looking at Thor, I stated, "I understand what he just said but just so we are clear, I would prefer that if people are here that they are not injured or killed unless they pose a threat to anyone."

"Yes Deific, that has always been the order, I will pass the word again so there is no misunderstanding." Thor stated.

"I..." I never got past the "I", as the ground under my feet moved. My first thought was earthquake but that would have been wrong as the earth only vibrated in place while the earthquakes I had felt back in California always moved from side to side. Looking at my companions, I could see on their faces that they were feeling the same thing I was. How long the ground vibrated, I had no idea, I was as stunned as everyone else was and it was only when the vibrations subsided, the questions started.

"Was that an earthquake?" the question coming from the lookout.

"Could have been but it felt wrong, when I felt them before it was always going in a direction either left to right, or front to back, this felt like it was right under my feet." I offered.

Before I could add anything, Thor jumped in mentioning we should find out if there was there any damage to the tunnels or the ship. My most recent guards did not know what was in the tunnels so I told him to get a couple of men and take one of the boats and circle the island to see if there had been a landslide explaining what to look for with fresh dirt patches exposed or anything that may have slid into the water. There were a couple more questions before he took off.

The rest of us headed back to the main house only we never made it as one of my early guards Brian, came running up to us, winded, saying the lights were on in the tunnels. Asking what he meant he stated after the shaking stopped the lights started to flicker in the chamber then all of them turned on and stayed on. Brian's information was enough for us to change direction as I had planned on seeing if Antonia was up and if she had felt the vibration.

Checking on Antonia turned out not to necessary as she was in the tunnel ahead of us, standing where the doors had been, her bravery which she had shown the last couple of weeks having fled. A better description would have been her courage had faltered because as soon as I found her standing there shaking, I gave her a hug and told her I loved her and if she could not go any farther, I would tell her what we had found later. Now being there for a discovery was too much for her and after returning my hug she stated she was fine so long as I was with her...

The room with the statues was the first one having light fixtures the crew had cleaned from the muck and with the exception of two all of them were working adding to the portable lights we had brought in. The statues, which with only the spotlights looked dark and forbidding with the shadows around them now stood taller and brighter with a more godlike feeling to them. The tunnels were also brighter and the four of us splitting up into teams with Antonia joining me to look in the control room while Sven and Thor looked in the living quarters.

Having seen the control room as well as the conference rooms, I knew what was there and I was not disappointed in the conference rooms as the lights were on with the exception of a couple of fixtures damaged long before we discovered the rooms. Looking through the hole in the window the beam had made previously, I could see several control panels with various lights and symbols showing meaning nothing to me. Mentioning what I could see to Antonia was another matter as she shoved me out of the way to see for herself.

To say Antonia was excited would have been an understatement. In the past, while we were making love or other events she would stop using English switching back to Italian only to realize later what she had done. Now was one of those times as she was talking to me in rapid fire Italian while she was also crawling through the missing window. Myself I was a bit more reserved as I was willing to climb through the window but had the idea to try the door controls. The debris blocking the door had been removed giving me, I thought, a good chance to work the door using the controls as the lights on the panel were on. The door had other plans as no matter how I placed my hand on the door or what button or sequence of buttons I pushed nothing happened other than the door panel beeped at me. Several more tries gave me the same results and in the end I joined Antonia by climbing through the window opening as the doors needed some pass code that I did not possess.

My climbing through the window was enough for Antonia to realize she had been speaking in Italian. After a short apology and a kiss, she repeated for me what I did not understand saying the books from the machinery room and the ship were in the same language as what was on the screen and would help in deciphering the language. Looking at the screens myself, I could see what she meant as I too had spent a couple of evenings with her staring at the writing trying to understand what various symbols meant.

Deciding to continue my search, I figured Antonia was fine as I peered out the window leading to the chamber with the ship sitting below. The window here, like the rest of the facility, had been cleaned by the crew allowing me to see into the chamber and there were more lights shining down making the ship below look even bigger. Stepping out onto the catwalk I tried the door again only to have the door beep at me and not close. We would need to figure out the doors here in the control room as well as the large doors down below as well as repair the window before we would get a chance to flood the chamber and possibly move the ship to a future home.

I was still standing on the catwalk thinking about what needed to be done when Thor, stepped into the chamber shouting up at me that he had something I needed to see. Of course the ladder extending down from the control room was missing meaning Antonia and I needed to head back to the foyer then down. Shouting down to Thor we would be there shortly he nodded then headed back between the doors we still could not move.

Back in the control room, Antonia was busy working on trying to decipher the screen when I came in and it took me several minutes to convince her to leave the room as Thor stated he had more to show us. Leading the way we were soon through the missing window and down the last corridor leading down to the ship where we found Thor waiting for us. Instead of heading for the ship this time, he led us to the right, towards the machinery room where the sounds of working machinery as well as heat and steam were boiling out towards us. Inside the room, the noise was worse. Machines we had inspected in the past and were not working, were working now, doing what I had no idea. We had ignored them when we were here before, when nothing was working.

What had our attention now was the heat and steam rising up from the previously water filled pit we had turned our attention to once the rest of the facility had been drained. For two weeks the pumps had worked to drain the water from here and at one time we were even questioning how far it went down as we had to request two hose extensions both five hundred feet long as we kept feeding the hose down around the elevator platform.

Looking over the edge I could see the lift we had exposed when we started to pump out the water was missing. When the lift was first exposed, we had assumed it was some type of plug for whatever had been below. When we rappelled down to investigate, we discovered that the plug did not go wall to wall and in fact left a gap of nearly two feet on all sides. We did not have a guess as to why at the time but with the steam coming up now, I was guessing the gap was for ventilation.

The three of us stood there for several minutes until we finally got a break with the controls. One of the guards who had been on the cleanup crew had been playing with the panel that we had guessed belonged to the lift. Looking at panel, we could see indicators showing the lift and if the indicator was to be believed was in fact rising at that moment. Looking over the edge, we had to wait as we could hear machinery working and by the sounds we were hearing, the lift was getting closer.

The final couple of feet were the most interesting as a number of plates all hanging down extended up making the lift safe to enter from all sides. Why this was done no one had an idea with all of us looking at each other with questions on our faces. Looking for a safety to keep the lift in place we failed to find a switch or lever to hold the lift or to keep anyone else from lowering the lift before we were ready to explore what was down below. With hot steam coming up, no one was willing to ride the lift down without an idea as to what was down there, who could blame them, as the steam was hot enough to make any ride down questionable. In the end, we put everything on hold until we could discuss what options we had later.

Asking Thor and Sven what they had found on the ship had both men looking sheepish as they stated when they arrived down here with the steam coming from the room that they had entered the machinery room first. By the time we arrived at the ship we had yet another mystery as the ship I had seen from above from the control room now had power from somewhere as the lights inside were now on in both the cargo bay but more importantly the cockpit. Looking around the outside of the ship, we could see the doors we had opened were still open, their respective control pads showing a number of lights.

Thor was the first to approach the door we had forced open and he was very happy to try to experiment with the door passing his hand over the control, which in turn caused the doors to close. Reversing his movement the outer door opened but the interior door remained closed. Trying other variations of passing his hands over the controls still got the outer door to open but the interior valve remained closed. Only when he actually touched the individual lights from one side to the other did the outer door open to be followed by the interior door. The other door operated the same way and we were guessing what was happening was if a person could not operate the individual controls then he might be considered to be in a space suit or something that would prevent him from touching the controls.

The only door in the cargo area that did not operate the same was the main loading door, as it was not set up with an airlock. We had no idea what the rules were but after a little time, we could get the doors to open and close, as we wanted. While we were there, we also got a chance to work some of the other gear and we soon had the various lifts working going all the way up to the passenger quarters. Other discoveries included all of the chargers working charging the magazines we had not removed from the locker. In all the four of us spent hours working on and experimenting with various ship systems trying to get a better understanding of what was there.

Thankfully, the staff had a meal ready for us as Thor, Sven and I had not eaten at all since we were summoned to the outpost to look at the yacht. Once the meal was over, Thor and Sven excused themselves, saying they needed to check on the rest of the island and they would let me know if there were problems.

For Antonia and me, our job that evening was to decipher the books we had brought to the office before. By the end of the night, I was excited about our progress making sleep long in coming and ending very early as the excitement I was feeling had me on edge. With everyone else still asleep, I did the only thing I could and headed for the gym to work off some of the nervous energy I was feeling, as today would be the first day for any of us to sit behind the controls of the ship.

Before then I had to make several calls not the least being to my assistant in England needing not only her but also anyone else with her same basic skill set. Asking why I needed her and her friends, I told her I could not say on a cell phone but I would pay all of their travel expenses plus a good payday in itself. Before she hung up, she stated she would do what she could.

Thor was the first to arrive in the morning while I was talking to Sarah, getting a raised eyebrow from him when I told her I needed her and any other hackers she knew. Seeing the concern on his face, I broke out in a smile, mouthing I would tell him once I was done with recalling Sarah.

Once I finished putting the phone down, I stated, "Last night Antonia with her background in Ancient Greek languages, managed to put a number of symbols together and comparing them to whatever language the operators of the base and ship used she found a lot of them were similar."

"So she can read their language then?" he asked.

"Not so far but she says linking what she knows to the books and the computer screens is a giant step so this morning after breakfast, I intend to go down and see if the symbols she put together match what is on their computers."

"Antonia's not coming down?"

"Maybe later, right now her morning sickness is limiting what she can do in the mornings. Like I said I plan to go down and use what she figured out then come back up and over lunch go over what we find and what works."

"So I get to go down with you then?" Thor asked, concern written on his face.

"Absolutely yes, the sooner we figure out their language the sooner I can fulfill my promise to you and take you for a ride."

Before Thor or I could say anything else, Sven offered, "Before we get to head to the tunnels, the lookout called saying there are two boats heading our way."

"Have you called them?"

"I did. I raised them on the radio stating they did not have an invitation to visit. They acknowledged they did not but were instructed to come here to deliver a passenger."