Jimbo, Morris, and Caroline moved around the deck, dropping weighted nano lines into the water around the prow. They plunged into the black water to port and starboard. The dry ends of submerged lines were joined at the shielded junction box as was the long cable leading to the balloon now stationary in the sky five hundred feet above the Raj’s bow.
Dwayne keyed a hand radio.
“Boats, you better tell your crew to clear the deck.” Boats appeared on the weather deck and shouted over the rail.
“You looking to draw down lightning? There’s not a cloud in the sky, dumbass.”
The night sky was clear and black and alive with a skein of stars that was reflected in the dark water all around the ship.
“Just get them into the areas we shielded, okay? And I’d shut down any electronics until we give you the all clear,” Dwayne called up to him.
Boats barked a gruff obscenity and returned to the bridge where he made an all-hands announcement over the loud hailers in Amharic and English. The crew mumbled regrets but moved from their perches to go inside.
“Everything cool?” Jimbo said.
“We’re good to go.” Morris grinned and gave them a thumbs up.
“Where do you need us?” Dwayne said and nodded to Jimbo.
“I need Caroline in the control shed. But you’re wearing rubber soles. You’re free to stay on deck and watch the show. Just don’t touch any metal,” Morris said.
“You mean we could get electrocuted?” Jimbo said.
“The danger of that is minimal. It will be a low-ampere background pulse,” Caroline said. “Nothing will happen beyond your hair standing on end, most likely.”
“Theoretically,” Jimbo added.
Caroline smiled and followed her big brother below decks to their control room.
Parviz and Quebat were suited up in their Tyvek bunny suits down in the reactor control room. They were connected to Morris and Caroline in the Tube chamber by a hard-wired speakerphone.
“We are at half power,” Quebat announced.
“That’s enough for a jolt,” Morris’ voice came through the headset they each wore.
“Activating in three,” Parviz said and worked the mouse at his workstation.
At the count of three, the reactor fired a megajoule charge down the lines leading to the junction box at the bow and down the cables leading to the water and up to the balloon hanging above in the windless sky.
Dwayne sensed a change in the air. He could feel the crackle. There was an invisible molecular reaction going on all around Jimbo and him. The oily odor of ozone filled his nostrils and mouth. He was having second thoughts about being exposed out here.
The balloon’s sheath began to glow all around with a blue-tinged light bright enough to throw shadows across the deck. The glow increased in intensity and fingers of an azure field of static raced down the cable. Worms of coruscating electricity flashed up from the weighted cables. The twin charges met at the junction box. Dwayne’s short cut hair bristled on his head. Jimbo’s longer hair stood up in an Afro that made Dwayne laugh out loud.
A soundless explosion, with the balloon as its source sheathed the ship in a sudden brilliance from stem to stern. It was gone in the blink of an eye. The frisson that animated the air vanished as the night closed in again.
Down in the Tube chamber, the steel rings were bleeding off billows of frigid air. Caroline stared into the mist with wide eyes. She took a deep breath and could smell the rich tang of salt air coming from somewhere within the Tube. She turned to Morris, and he glanced up from his screens to flash her a broad grin.
They’d done it. Through that chilling fog and down that ice-rimed walkway lay a world that was the same as theirs but so vastly different. It was the world as it was. Before Christ. Before the printed word and before an airplane ever crossed the sky.
“What the fuck is going on?” Boats demanded the next morning.
He stood at a rail on an aft deck of the bridge tower and looked down at Dwayne and Jimbo on the sunken deck. The Rangers were zeroing in rifles and sharing a tub of iced beers. There were plastic barrels bobbing in the creamy wake of the Raj. The ship was underway north for the island of Nisos Anaxos. The barrels were tethered to the stern rail by a couple hundred yards of line. The pair was punching through the heavy plastic with their Winchester Model 70s. The plastic drums were getting heavy with all the water they were taking in through the holes shot in them.
“What’s your point, Boats?” Dwayne called up.
Boats vanished from the rail and reappeared, storming toward them along the port rail.
“The crew’s busy, and it’s just you and me, soldier. What in the name of Jesus was that show last night? My boys are cool as ice in thirty-foot seas, but they nearly took a collective dump when the decks went neon last night.”
“We told you what we were doing,” Dwayne said and wiped sea spray from the Winnie with an oiled cloth.
“Don’t even try giving me that ‘environmental study’ shit,” Boats said. He was standing inside Dwayne’s space.
“I told you, Dwayne,” Jimbo said, and jacked the last round from his rifle.
“Told Dwayne what?” Boats said.
“Jim said you were smarter than you look,” Dwayne said.
Boats’ eyes narrowed. He wasn’t sure how to take that.
“Tell him the whole thing,” Jimbo said.
“Why?”
“I want to see the look on his face.”
Dwayne laid it out for Boats. He told him about the Taubers’ very
