The Secret of Excalibur

21

‘Well,’ said Mitchell, ‘you did it.’

‘We did it,’ Nina corrected.

Excalibur lay on a velvet cloth, carefully cleaned of dirt and gleaming under the lights in the office at the US embassy. The pieces of Caliburn sat beside it in their open metal case; a similar container had been prepared for the intact sword.

‘Yeah, we did,’ said Chase curtly. He stood away from the other two, leaning against a wall. ‘Cost us enough, though.’

‘It would have cost a lot more if Vaskovich had gotten his hands on it,’ said Mitchell. Ignoring Chase’s dark expression, he leaned closer to examine the blade, then gave Nina an admiring look. ‘You stuck this thing right through stone.’

‘Yeah, what was the deal with that?’ Nina asked, wanting to avert another dispute between the two men. ‘You said you had a theory - what is it?’

Mitchell almost reverently lifted Excalibur from the cloth. ‘It’s something else DARPA’s been working on - but I didn’t expect to see it here.’

‘So DARPA’s building lightsabers, are they?’

Mitchell smiled. ‘Not quite - but we are making monomolecular blades. Or at least trying to.’ Seeing her questioning expression, he continued, ‘If you can create a cutting edge that’s made up of one long, single molecule, then in theory it should be able to cut through almost anything. We’ve had some success by using carbon nanotubes, but only on a micro scale. Nothing with practical applications yet. But this . . .’ He eyed the sword. ‘Remember what I told you about Wootz steel, how it incorporated carbon nanotubes to give it incredible sharpness in 500 BC? So does this - but somehow, whatever it is about your body’s bioelectric field that’s causing the sword to channel earth energy is also aligning the nanotubes into a monomolecular edge. As soon as you let go, they lose their charge and go back to their original alignment - which is why I couldn’t pull the sword from the stone. But you could.’

Nina’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s a hell of a theory.’

‘I know. But it fits the facts.’

‘So if the right person was holding it, they could cut through anything?’

‘Maybe not anything, but definitely a lot of things. No wonder Arthur was unstoppable in battle.’

‘So why me? How come I could make it glow and you couldn’t?’

‘You got me there,’ said Mitchell, handing the sword to her. ‘Who knows, maybe you’re descended from King Arthur!’ He laughed, but Nina did not. He crossed the room and switched off the lights; the metal gave off a faint shimmering glow against the twilight beyond the embassy windows.

Chase raised an eyebrow. ‘Christ, you’re a Jedi.’

‘Try it with Caliburn,’ Mitchell suggested. Nina returned Excalibur to the cloth and picked up the piece of broken blade. It seemed to remain completely inert until she lowered it into the shadows below the table, whereupon the slightest glimmer of blue became discernible. ‘Looks like it reacts to you too, just not so much,’ he said as he turned the lights back on. ‘I guess Merlin must’ve needed another try to get the formula right.’

‘I guess so,’ she said, ‘but I still don’t understand how. And why’s it lighting up here? We’re in the middle of a city!’ She put the piece of Caliburn back in its case.

Mitchell looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe all the highways leading through the countryside and converging on London disrupt the lines of earth energy, even redirect them. We know we can use an antenna array to gather earth energy, so there could be other ways to affect it as well. But that’s something we can figure out now that we’ve got it.’ He carefully folded the velvet around Excalibur, then placed it in its case and closed it.

‘So what happens now?’ asked Chase.

‘Now? Both the swords go to DARPA for analysis. Then after we’re done, Excalibur comes back to England and I’d guess takes pride of place in the British Museum or Buckingham Palace or wherever. And meanwhile, Vaskovich gets jack shit.’ Mitchell smiled. ‘Which suits me just fine.’

‘And what about us?’ said Nina.

‘You go back to the IHA with yet another string to your bow. Atlantis, the Tomb of Hercules, and now King Arthur and Excalibur - that’s a pretty goddamn impressive resume! You should be proud.’ He picked up the two cases. ‘As for me, well, back to the States with these babies so we can figure out how the hell Merlin made them in the first place. Once we do, we can create our own superconductors - and Uncle Sam gets the world’s first fully functioning earth energy generator.’

Nina nodded. ‘I’m going to have to be more open-minded in future, I guess. I thought this whole thing about earth energy was just pseudoscientific nonsense, but Bernd was right about that too. I bet he never imagined that I’d actually be physically able to prove it, though.’

‘But you did,’ Mitchell said. He paused, then put down one of the cases. ‘I owe you a hell of a lot. We would never have found the swords without you, Nina . . . and you, Eddie.’ He kissed Nina on the cheek, then extended his hand to Chase. ‘Seriously, man - you did a great job.’

‘You weren’t too shabby yourself,’ said Chase flatly. After a moment, he shook Mitchell’s hand.

‘Okay, then,’ said Mitchell, picking up the aluminium case again, ‘I guess this is it for now. You’re still booked into the hotel for tonight, compliments of DARPA so you’ll finally be able to put on some clean clothes. And enjoy the rest of your vacation - sorry it got interrupted.’

‘Actually, I didn’t mind that part so much,’ Chase muttered. Mitchell smiled, then left the room, taking the cases with him.

Nina waited until the door closed before speaking. ‘I think I do know why the sword reacted to me and nobody else,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t want to bring it up in front of Jack - I don’t know how much he knows about the Atlantean genome. After we discovered Atlantis, Kristian Frost told me his research found that about one per cent of the world’s population possessed the same genome as the ancient Atlanteans - that they were directly descended from them. I’m one of that one per cent. Some of the more fanciful Atlantis legends said the Atlanteans had unusual powers; I never believed them because they sounded like pure fantasy, but who knows?’ She looked at her hands. ‘Causing a sword to light up just by touching it would definitely qualify as unusual. Maybe the Atlanteans knew how to make a superconducting metal, even if they had no idea what that meant. Merlin might just have been trying to recreate the same thing.’

She waited for a response from Chase. Nothing seemed forthcoming. ‘Eddie? Did you hear me?’

‘Course I heard you, I’m not deaf,’ he replied, frowning. ‘I just didn’t care.’ He stepped towards her. ‘For fuck’s sake, Nina! I told you not to go, and look what happened! You almost got killed. And I don’t know what . . .’ He took a breath. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.’

‘To Jack?’ Nina exclaimed, incredulous.

‘What?’ Chase was briefly confused before realising she had completely misunderstood him. ‘No, that’s not what I—’

‘For God’s sake!’ Nina snapped. ‘I cannot believe you are actually jealous of Jack! What, you think that first he took your job and now he’s going to take your woman?’

‘What do you mean, my job?’

‘You think your job is to look after me, don’t you?’ said Nina. ‘I just run around getting into trouble so that you can save me. But Jack comes along and can do the same thing, and he’s an American, like me, and he’s a PhD, like me, and you feel threatened!’

Chase crossed his arms angrily. ‘That’s the most fucking ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

‘Is it?’ She turned away to look out across Grosvenor Square, its trees and buildings silhouetted against the dusk sky. On the street below, she saw Mitchell descend the steps outside the embassy’s front entrance and climb into a waiting black cab. For some reason, he was only carrying one of the two cases. ‘You’re the one who’s being paranoid about Jack and behaving like a . . .’ She tailed off.

A taxi . . .

‘It’s got nothing to do with Jack!’ Chase protested behind her - but Nina was no longer listening.

She stared at the taxi in growing horror, colour draining from her face as realisation hit. ‘Oh, my God.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, my God!’ she repeated, whirling to face him. ‘It’s Jack - he’s not taking Excalibur to the States. He’s