The Oracle's Message

Hans came up next to her. “You all right?”

“Absolutely.”

Hans noticed the clouds. “Looks like things are going to go downhill from here, don’t they?”

“Definitely going to rain. Hard.”

Hans nodded. “So, it will be a good afternoon for a hearty lunch and then perhaps a nap.”

“A nap?” Annja asked.

He winked. “I’m a growing boy. I need my rest.”

She pushed him toward the sloop. “Let’s get aboard.”

She swam over to the sloop and Hans helped her climb up. Heinkel took her oxygen tank and weight belt. Gottlieb handed her a towel and Annja rubbed it over her hair.

Spier smiled at her. “So, Annja, what did you think of our first dive?”

“It was bigger than I imagined. I thought it was just like any other reef when I started to explore it yesterday.”

Spier laughed. “Hardly. Although I’m not surprised you were drawn to it. It’s intriguing, isn’t it?”

“You could say that.”

“So, are you convinced?”

“About what?”

“That the reef is, in fact, the remnants of a lost city.”

9

“How can you be so sure?” Annja asked as the sloop whisked them back toward the Club Noah resort. “Those ruins might be something else entirely. There’s no record of the civilization ever existing.”

“But the pearl had to come from somewhere, didn’t it?” Spier’s eyes sparkled in the fading sunlight.

Annja glanced to the west and saw the clouds growing darker. They’d be lucky to get back to the dock before the sky opened up on them. Already, the waves they bounced over were churning white as the wind kicked up.

“We don’t have the pearl yet,” Annja said. “So, there’s no way of knowing for sure where it might have come from.”

Spier smiled as if he were humoring a child. “I think we’ll be able to convince you more fully on our next dive.”

Hans frowned. “That likely won’t happen until tomorrow. Judging from the approaching storm, it’s going to be quite unsettled for a while.”

Spier shrugged. “We could always go night diving tonight once the storm clouds pass.”

“A night dive?” Annja frowned. She hadn’t gone night diving in a very long time. The risks of diving at night were always so much more than during the day. For one thing, visibility was almost nonexistent unless you had state-of-the-art lights.

“We’ll be fine,” Spier said, as if reading her thoughts. “We’re all experienced night divers and Heinkel here has brought along the powerful lamps we’ll need to set up on the reef.”

“You think the dive master will let us take his boat and gear out for a night dive? He strikes me as rather easily upset,” Annja said.

Hans laughed. “A few well-placed dollars should suffice.”

“More bribery?”

Spier shrugged. “Why not? At least this way we know we’ll be able to get what we came here for.”

“And what did you come here for?” Annja asked. “I mean, I know you want the pearl and all, but for what purpose?”

“I thought I told you last night,” Spier said. “I wish to have the scientific community take a look at it. Examine it. Discover the true nature of the pearl and what its powers might be.”

“Maybe it’s just a black stone,” Annja said. “Without any powers whatsoever.”

“That would be regrettable,” Spier said. “To have traveled all this way only to find out such a thing. Tragic.”

Annja felt a few raindrops hit her face and looked up. The sun had vanished, replaced by the boiling cloud mass above them. Dark streaks mixed with gray, swirling about like steam from some evil black-magic cauldron.

“I think we’re about to get—”

Annja never finished her sentence because at that moment a crack of lightning flashed above them, followed by a rumble of thunder.

A deluge of rain flowed down over them in sheets of tepid water. Mueller guided the sloop to the resort’s dock and they scrambled ashore, grabbing their gear and making for the dive master’s shack.

He seemed genuinely glad to see them and took all the equipment back. Spier smiled at him. “You’ll refill those tanks right away, won’t you?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because we’ll need them again later tonight.”

“Later? This storm isn’t going to let up anytime soon. You’d be foolish to go venturing out in this.”

“We won’t,” Spier said. “But we will once it passes.”

“That could be midnight.”

“So it might be midnight.” Spier held out his hand and, while the team looked away, Annja saw the dive master pocket the sheaf of bills Spier passed him.

Money certainly doesn’t seem to be an issue for Spier, she thought. I wonder where he gets it all.

It occurred to her that she knew very little about Spier or his team. Aside from Hans.

She smiled. She knew a lot about him already.

“You all right, Annja?”

She looked up and saw Hans eyeing her. She smiled at him. “I’m fine. Just a bit tired, is all.”

“What about lunch? You could do with a meal,” Spier said. “I suspect we all could before indulging in a little siesta.”

Annja hadn’t thought about food, but the suggestion of it made her stomach rumble. “I could eat.”

They ran from the dive master’s shack to the main pavilion. Strong gale-force winds lashed at the pavilion but aside from the tables set near the open-air walls, the rest of the area stayed nice and dry. Annja supposed that they knew how bad the weather could get and the resort had been designed accordingly.

There was something rather cool about eating in the midst of a torrential downpour, anyway. She dined on some fresh crab-and-lobster-meat salad, drank some of the fresh mango juice and watched as Spier and his team compared notes on the morning’s dive.

“You saw those conical outcroppings, Annja?” Spier asked after a few moments.

“I did.”

“And yet you refuse to believe they indicate the existence of a lost civilization?”

She smiled. “Forgive me for saying so, Joachim, but a few conical outcroppings do not a lost civilization make.”

“Well, they don’t refute its existence, either.”

“Granted, but I’d like to know a bit more about what we’re supposed to be hunting for here.”

“Like what?”

“Like what civilization this is supposed to be, exactly.”

Spier paused and took a bite of his sandwich. “You’ve no doubt heard of Atlantis.”

“Of course.”

“The legend of a prehistoric earth inhabited by technologically advanced races, that sort of thing.” Spier shrugged. “It’s nothing new, of course. But the conventional thinking has always maintained that Atlantis must have been located in either the Mediterranean or the Atlantic.”

“But you don’t believe that?”

Spier wiped his mouth. “It’s not that I don’t believe it, it’s just that I’m not interested in Atlantis.”

“Okay.”

“But I am interested in the other civilizations that were reported to have existed at the same time. Lemuria and Mu.”

Annja frowned. “Most people think that they were one and the same.”

Spier shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think there were three centers of innovation on prehistoric earth—that is, the earth that existed prior to a massive cataclysm that wiped out the races and the evidence that they ever existed.”

“So you think that Lemuria or Mu is the civilization the pearl comes from?”

“I’m fairly convinced of it.”

“But what evidence do you have?”

Spier shrugged. “It’s not evidence that I need in order to believe. I need faith first. If I am then able to locate evidence, then all will be well.”

Annja sighed. She wasn’t going to be able to argue with Spier about how utterly unscientific an approach that was. She’d met people like him before. They got an idea in their heads and there was no way of prying that idea loose unless you could shock them into seeing reality. With Spier, she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to do that.

Not that there was any harm in his believing the pearl might come from a lost civilization. Annja was game enough to go along with the expedition for as long as it took. And there was something intriguing about the conical structures on the reef.

“I scraped away some of the growth and what was underneath was truly amazing,” Hans said suddenly.

Annja had almost forgotten about that. “Marble,” she heard herself saying. “It looked and felt like marble.”

Hans nodded. “I agree.”

Spier’s smile widened. “Very interesting.”

Annja looked at him. “I wouldn’t say that necessarily supports your idea of the reef being evidence of a lost civilization, however.”

“Yet marble does not occur naturally underwater,” Spier said. “Surely you’d concede that point?”

“Of course.”

“So, it must have gotten there somehow.”

“Yes, but it could have been anything. An earthquake, a terrible storm.”

“I don’t think the Moros or other early Filipinos used marble,” Spier said. “I don’t believe it’s even indigenous to the local geography.”

Annja frowned. She’d need to look that up. If it was true, then that might be another point in Spier’s favor, but she wouldn’t jump to conclusions before she had a chance to check things out for herself.

“I can look into it,” she said.

Spier nodded. “That would be good, I think.” He pushed back away from the table. “All in all, I think we had a fruitful dive today. And when we continue, I’m certain we’ll find even more spectacular things.”

Gottlieb spoke up. “Are we going back tonight?”

“Depends on the storm,” Spier said. “If we can escape the weather, I should think a nighttime dive would prove most exciting.” He glanced at Annja. “Are you interested in coming along?”

Annja smiled. “You’ll still have me along?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Annja shrugged. “I haven’t exactly drunk the Kool-Aid, yet.”

Spier’s eyes narrowed as he processed the reference, and then he smiled. “Ah, yes, well, no worries. I don’t like people who automatically believe everything they’re told, anyway. I find your skepticism refreshing actually. It will help keep us all honest, I suspect.”

Annja smiled. “Glad to help.”

Spier nodded. “And of course you’re welcome to join us. I would miss your presence if you were not with us.”

“As would I,” Hans said quietly.

She smiled at him. “All right, then. I may take the afternoon and see if I can pull anything up on my computer about some of the things we’ve discussed.”

Spier shrugged. “As you wish. I doubt you’ll find anything that would put us off our quest, however. My faith is, as is the faith of my team, very strong.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Annja said. “But until such time as I have faith of my own, I’ll stick to facts.”

Spier smiled. “We’ll see you later, then.”

He walked out into the pouring rain and quickly disappeared from view. The rest of the team dissolved into smaller conversations in quiet German that Annja could barely make out.

Hans seemed happy to simply sit close by. “Still feeling well?”

Annja nodded. “Totally. No problems at all. Just a bit tired.”

Hans smiled. “Nothing like an afternoon nap to restore your energy.”

Annja winked. “I suppose that would depend on exactly what the nap entails, wouldn’t it?”

Hans leaned back. “I am a true believer in the power of a siesta.”

“And what about an afternoon delight?”

“Afternoon delight?”

Annja sighed. “Never mind. If I have to explain it, then it’s already lost its appeal.”

Hans narrowed his eyes, but after a moment he grinned. “Ah…I think I understand now.”

“Do you?”

“I suppose there would be only one way to find out for sure.”

Annja grinned. “A fact-finding mission?”

Hans shrugged. “Reconnaissance.”

Annja nodded. “Recon works for me.”

Hans smiled.

Annja stood and yawned. “Guess I’ll grab a nap.”

She walked out into the pouring rain.

Hans followed.

10

When Annja woke a few hours later, rain continued to pelt the cabana. She’d left the veranda open again, welcoming the gusting winds. She looked out from the bed and watched as the waves battled one another beneath the dark clouds.

A quick glance at her watch told her that it was after five in the evening. Presumably, dinner would be served soon in the main pavilion. But before she ate another meal, Annja wanted to do some research.

She eased herself out from under Hans’s arm. He shifted, mumbling in his sleep. Annja looked down at him and smiled. He was handsome even with his eyes closed.

She took a quick shower and dressed, then eased out the door, running softly down the main path toward the administration building. She could have used her own computer, of course, but she wanted a little privacy, and since she had a guest with her, it seemed a better idea to do this without Hans looking over her shoulder.

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