“I’m flattered,” he smiled, “yes.”
“And yet . . .”
He shook his head again. “I’m stumped.”
Gracie frowned, her mind spinning, and pointed at his binoculars. “May I?”
“Sure.” He handed them over.
She looked through them. It didn’t add anything to what she’d already observed. The shimmer was more pronounced. It appeared hazy, slightly more mirage-like . . . but it was definitely there. It was real.
She gave the binoculars back to Simmons as a few of the others congregated around them. They seemed as bewildered as he was. She darted a look behind them. Finch had the skycam’s arms clicked into place while Dalton was double-checking the second camera’s harness and settings, both of them keeping an eye on the sighting. She noticed the captain coming out on deck. Two crew members hurried to join him. Gracie turned to the others. “None of you have any idea what we’re looking at here?”
“I first thought it might be a flare,” one of the other crew members said, “but it’s too big and too bright, and it’s just there, you know? I mean, it’s not moving, is it?”
The sleek noise of air being whipped around startled them just momentarily. It was a sound they’d heard earlier that day, when Gracie and Dalton had used the small, unmanned remote-controlled helicopter to get some panoramic establishing shots of the ice shelf.
Dalton shouted, “We’ve got liftoff,” over the whirr of the skycam’s rotor blades.
They turned to watch it rise. The Draganflyer X6 was an odd-looking but brilliant piece of engineering. It didn’t look anything like a normal helicopter. It was more like a matte-black alien insect, something you’d expect to see in a Terminator movie. It consisted of a small central pod that was the size of a large mango and housed the electronics, gyroscopes, and battery. Three small collapsible arms extended out from it horizontally, at twelve, four, and eight o’clock positions. At the end of each arm was a whisper-quiet, brushless motor, each one driving two parallel sets of molded rotor blades, one above it and another underneath. Any type of camera could be fitted to the rig under its belly. It was all powered by rechargeable lithium batteries, and the whole thing was made of black carbon fiber that was incredibly strong and yet super-light—the Draganflyer weighed less than five pounds, high- definition video camera with a helicopter-to-ground link included. It gave great aerial shots with minimal fuss, and Dalton never traveled anywhere without it.
Gracie was watching the black contraption rise above the deck and glide away slowly, heading toward the ice shelf, when a female voice yelled out, “Oh my God,” and Gracie saw it too.
The sighting was changing again.
It flared up again, then dimmed down from its outward rim inward, shrinking until it was barely a tenth of its original size. It held there for a couple of tantalizing seconds, then slowly flared back to the way it was. And then its surface seemed to ripple, as if it were morphing into something else.
At first, Gracie wasn’t sure what it was doing, but the second it started changing, something deep within her knotted. The sighting had clearly come alive. It was shapeshifting, twisting into itself, but always within the confines of its original envelope. It was taking on different compositions with alarming speed, all while keeping up its barely noticeable rotation, and they were all perfectly symmetrical, almost as if it were a kaleidoscope, but less angular, more rounded and organic. The patterns it took on melted from one to another continuously at an increasing, dazzling rate, and Gracie wasn’t sure of what they were, but they reminded her of cellular structures. And in that very moment, she felt a deeply unsettling sensation, as if she were staring at the very fabric of life itself.
The small gathering froze, equally dumbstruck. Gracie glanced over at them. A whole range of emotion was etched across their faces, from awe and wonder to confusion—and fear. None of them was debating what it could be, not anymore. They just stood there, rooted to the deck, eyes fixated on it, their only words brief expressions of their amazement. Two of them—an older man and woman—crossed themselves.
Gracie saw Dalton check on the fixed camera, making sure it was still capturing the event. He held the skycam’s remote control unit, which was suspended from a neck strap, at waist level, his fingers expertly controlling both joysticks.
She caught his gaze and moved her mike down. “This is . . . Jesus, Dalton. What’s going on?”
He looked up at the sighting. “I don’t know, but . . . Either Prince has a new concert tour coming up, or someone’s spiked our coffee with some serious shit.” Dalton could usually see the humor in anything, but right now, he sounded different to Gracie. His tone was drained of all light.
She heard a few gasps, and someone said, “It’s slowing down.” All eyes strained in nervous unison as the sighting moved to take on a final shape.
For a second, it felt to Gracie as if her heart had stopped beating. Every pore of her body was crackling with fearful tension as she stared dead ahead at it. Without daring to take her eyes off it, she said, almost to herself, “Jesus.”
The brighter zones of the sphere were being consumed by a spreading darkness, and it kept going until the sphere’s entire surface looked blackened and coarse, as if it had been carved from a lump of coal.
Chapter 3
A ripple of terror spread among the crowd. The apparition had lost all of its splendor. In the blink of an eye, it had gone from being strangely wonderful to sinister and lifeless.
Finch moved close to Gracie, both of them riveted by the ominous sight.
“This isn’t good,” he said.
Gracie didn’t reply. She glanced down at the skycam’s control box. The image on its small, five-inch LCD monitor was very clear, despite the light mist. Dalton had guided it in a wide, slight arc, in order for it not to come between them and the sighting. With the Draganflyer now more than halfway to the shelf, Gracie was able to get more of a sense of scale. The apparition dwarfed the approaching flying camera, like an elephant looming over an ant. It held the dark, lifeless skin it had assumed for a minute or so, bearing down on them with what seemed like a malevolent intent, then it flared up again, burning brightly, only this time, it took on a more distinct shape, defined by the light which was radiating with different strengths. It now looked unquestionably like a three-dimensional sphere, and at its core was a bright ball of light. Around it were four equal rings, running along the sphere’s outer face, evenly spaced. As they weren’t facing the ship head-on but were at a slight angle, they appeared like elongated ovals. The outer shell itself was brightly illuminated too, and rays of light were projecting outward from the core, between the rings, petering out slightly beyond the edge of the sphere. The whole display was hypnotic, especially as it blazed away against the dull, gray backdrop.
The sight was beyond breathtaking. It electrified the crowd and brought some of them to tears. The couple who had crossed themselves were holding each other close. Gracie could see their lips trembling in silent prayer. Her own body stiffened, and her legs went numb. She felt a confusing surge of euphoria and fear, which seemed echoed in the faces around her.
“Whoa.” Dalton recoiled.
Finch was also motionless, gaping at it. “Tell me I’m not really seeing this,” Finch said. “Tell me it’s not really there.”
“It is,” Gracie confirmed as she just stood there, enthralled. “It absolutely is.”
She held the mike up and struggled for words as everything around her faded to oblivion, a complete sensorial disconnect from her surroundings, her every thought consumed by the apparition. It was beyond understanding, beyond definition. After a moment, she emerged momentarily from her trance, and faced the camera again.
“I hope you’re still getting this, Jack, ’cause everyone here is just stunned by this . . . I can’t even begin to describe the sensation out here right now.” Her eyes dropped away for a passing glance at Dalton’s monitor. He was using the joysticks to zoom in on the apparition, which filled the screen with its radiance before he pulled back out.
She looked out at it again. The skycam was closing in on it. “How far from it do you think it is?” she asked Dalton.
