The Prophesy: Book 3 - The Hammer of Atlantis

 

The first tests of the Spider that looked more like a potato beetle than a spider, but kept her original moniker, were held in a shallow lake near the southern border of the Elvin Kingdom. The run through the uneven terrain proved the Spider to be agile, extremely fast, able to move over a wide variety of conditions and even fend off a pissed-off bear. The poor bear, after being scared stiff by the Spider, got ported to the Ark. Paschal, Harp and Samson, accompanied by their respective bonded, had the Spider walk through the forest to the nearest pond, a shallow affair less than fifty feet deep. Norbert, Samson's bonded, dove into the lake to watch the behaviour of the Spider as first Paschal, then Harp, and finally Samson handled the insect from varying distances.

By the end of the day, the tests were very conclusive. A few glitches occurred in extreme conditions, such as climbing huge oaks, or walking down a cliff face made of sandstone. The cliff face fractured and some rocks began falling behind the advancing spider. The solution found by Harp was to make the insect jump the last hundred feet down and make a run for it. The spider broke a leg, but managed to run out of the way before the cliff fell over it. This entire incident revealed the presence of a weak strut, whose metal presented tiny sulphur inclusions.

"You have to ask Thorsten to inspect that machine, Paschal. He has a flair for these things."

"Given today's results, I will have him do that tomorrow, and we will do another run along the same cliff face in a few days."

The next day, Thorsten not only inspected the legs, but also the body of the Spider. He had Paschal replace two segments of legs, one on the rear right side, and another on the middle left leg. A careful study of the inside of the Spider also revealed a couple of weak joints, which had to be remade.

"You need to run pressure tests, Paschal. Unfortunately, we do not have isobar rooms. Our only recourse is to test in real conditions. Are you worried about weight?"

"No, it is not relevant to the issue since it is not designed to float. I just want it to be able to resist at anything nature might throw at it."

"Then you could put in a triple-shell body, and wrap these ocular stalks into at least a band of orichalque. I noticed their mobility is limited, so you could make it so one band slides inside the other, with stoppers at both extension and contraction."

"Right. I'll get right on it. These are good ideas."

"I was thinking about something. Did you ever look at a bee nest? It is highly resistant to shocks and pressure. The honeycomb structure, placed between the layers of orichalque, would give you light weight but formidable resistance."

"I see, Thorsten. The issue is that this thing must sink, not float. It has to weight more than the weight of the water it displaces, considerably more, or else it won't sink. We will look into the honeycomb design for surface ships, if we ever need any."

***

The next test was radical: Paschal had his spider jump right off a six-hundred foot cliff, smash into the rocks below, and roll over, since it landed on its back. The test showed two things. The spider was top-heavy, and the legs needed to have more freedom of motion so it could grab at something from above, or, more precisely at the nearest surface to pull itself right side up. To solve the issue, the elbow join was given more freedom, letting the foreleg rotate almost three hundred and sixty degrees, and the foreleg was redesigned so telescopic rods to twice the body height could extend the retractile claw. The rods were more fragile when extended, but since they were usually shielded inside the outer skeleton of the foreleg, they were less exposed.

A repeat of the same test after the legs were retrofitted with the telescopic grapplers revealed the need to establish a push-pull mechanism, were a set of legs would push on one side and the other set of legs would pull on the surface to rotate the Spider right side up. Another reflex was to extend all six legs during free fall to protect a few from having to bear the whole weight alone.

"Well, Paschal, this is typical of insect behaviours. I've looked at a fallen potato beetle, and it behaves exactly that way: it has full legs extension while it's on its back. During the fall, the walking mechanism is disengaged, and the legs take on full extension. If, by chance, it falls on its legs, they act as shock absorbers and fold at the joints."

"That's encouraging Thorsten. Harp, Samson, do you think we are ready for a deep-lake run?"

"The issue is finding a lake free of ice. Lake Tanganyika, in Africa, might be an option, but I do not know how deep it is now, given the dry spell. Lake Baikal is ice-bound, so we cannot use it."

"Samson's comment is correct, the other issue is getting the Spider across to Africa. It is cumbersome, weights several hundred tons, and can't fly. Why not go for broke? Let's run a test along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Most of it is shallow, we haven't done any serious exploration there, and there is a colony of crocodile priests we haven't bothered exterminating yet. Let's see if the Spider can defend itself on land, where we can assist if the need arises."

"Ah, finally, some exercise!" exclaimed Sitar, who had walked in just as Harp exposed his point. "I've not had my fill of crocodile guts for a year!"

"Make that two years!" exclaimed Ian from behind Sitar.

"You two are incorrigible. Our last skirmish with them dates to less than six months!" Paschal replied.

"That's what I said! It's an eternity!"

"Ian!"

"What? Six months represents a little over twelve percent of my life!"

"Anyway, let's plan the trip to the beach! Since we plan to have the Spider work in radioactive environments, we should test its behaviours in the Glowes first. How about having it climb down from the top of the dam that marks the Roars?" suggested Paschal. "The forest below the Roars Falls is still radioactive by a considerable amount, and if things start working badly, we will have less distance to bring this beast back to the assembly site, and plenty of water to decontaminate the surface."

"Ok, Paschal. Since we are pretty close to the Roars, it makes sense. What is the status of the neighbouring archduchy, Arcadia?"

"Its population is now incorporated into Thebes. Arcs that was the capital of Arcadia, is empty, and everything worthwhile has been moved to Thebes. We found some elements specific to our passage in the area as Atlanteans. We also have finished evacuating anything along the river. We are currently rechecking for forgotten people, or individuals declared missing."

"That is good. We will pass by the area, and have the Spider walk on the top of the dam as a first check of its reaction to radioactivity. If I remember, a bird flying over the dam fried. It should be a good test."

"I've installed a sphere in the body of the Spider to give us a feedback on the radioactivity level inside."

"That's a good idea, Paschal. Porting it to find out it leaks radioactive material once it's back in the construction shed wouldn't do."

***

The next test was auto-navigation. A set of waypoints going from Thebes to Arcs was set, following first a series of crevices, then ridges, and finally entering Arcadia through a narrow pass. The idea was to see if the Spider could find its way back to a pre-defined point, should the boys lose contact. The result was more than impressive: the Spider negotiated the exit from Thebes without even scratching the paint off the walls. Then it gained speed, and began a run across Lava Flows that took the boys by surprise. To keep up with it, they had to resort to dragon form, as the Spider travelled the lava beds, crevices, ridges and volcanic trash pile at an astounding one hundred miles per hour. They saw it jump down cliffs, climb up others, jump across gorges, splash across narrow streams and, overall, make the walk across the rough terrain seem a piece of cake.

The entrance to Arcadia presented a challenge. The pass was too narrow at its peak for the Spider, and it had to backtrack to find its way around the obstacle. Its solution was ingenious. It climbed up, out of the narrow passage and began jumping back and forth from side to side along the gorge until it could no longer do so. It came crashing down a rather steep slope, and found itself buried in an avalanche of rocks, on its back.

«Let's see if it can get out of this mess on its own. I did put some basic problem-solving algorithms in the system,» said Paschal.

As the boys watched, the Spider pushed on the rocks that were on itself first, clearing its underbelly of the biggest debris. Then it began righting itself up. That was not an easy task, as the rocks kept rolling back on it from above. Finally figuring out that it would be easier to roll downward rather than at random, the Spider began pushing on the rocks uphill, while pulling on those below. In general, but it was not always the case, the rocks above rolled down on the Spider, filling the hole vacated by its gradually turning body. After an hour of effort, the Spider had righted itself and it began crawling down the steep slope, followed close behind by a carpet of rolling boulders. The Spider gained speed again and managed to outpace the avalanche downhill.

As it reached the first trees, it took a mighty jump, clearing the first tree line like a horse clears a hurdle, and resumed its run downhill toward Arcadia's forest, still several miles away. The cascade of rolling rocks that had been on its tail got snagged by the trees, that got buried to the hilt. Meanwhile the spider reached the forest and began negotiating its way through he pines. Lower down, the spider encountered birch trees, then thick clumps of maple and finally, oaks. Its passage through the forest left a rather impressive swath of fallen trees, broken limbs and panicked animals, that the boys obediently ported to the Arc project for rescue.

«Well, it damages a lot of things as it travels, but then it gets animals to move and we can then detect them more easily. Birds are so rare around now I keep an eye for them particularly. Enron would be pissed if he thought we did not make a special effort at saving the specimens we meet as we travel,» said Harp.

«Right, and there is something that bugs me. The snow cover should be deeper, and from the ground cover we see, it's rather thin. We are going to have a shortage of water when the summer comes this year.»

«You are right, Paschal,» replied Samson. «It's the shallowest snow cover I've ever seen in this region at the beginning of spring. We will have a lot of forest fires.»

«That isn't big news, Samson. We have had issues with water for the past four years, maybe more.»

«This is true, Paschal, but I'm referring to a drought that has never been so intense in this area for as long even I recall. And that is a long time, young man.»

«We should be near the Roars shortly, Samson. The Spider has slowed down its progress from its original speed due to the rough terrain and the presence of trees. In fact, I think I see the Falls' cloud about ten miles ahead of us,» Harp interjected, as he pointed below to an impressive fall over the dam that kept the lake high on the Elvin kingdom's side of the cliff.

«Indeed, this Spider covered one hundred and eighty miles in straight line to the first waypoint in three hours flat. We left at prime and it is about five to tierce, from the sun's position. Let us watch as it handles the climb down into the Forbidden Forest.»

***

They watched the Spider as it analysed the situation. It must have decided that jumping was too risky and it began climbing down the dam's face headfirst.

«Did you manage to program good sense into that thing?» asked Harp, as he watched the Spider progress rapidly downward.

«I had to give it some sense of what could constitute a dangerous situation if I wanted it to have some initiative at defending itself. Nonetheless, the mission is primordial. It will fight its way through just about anything to accomplish its goal.»

«How did you do that?» asked Sitar, who had been quiet up to now.

«I put the algorithm to a simple set of rules: Is it bigger than the Spider? Is it bigger as a bigger drop or a bigger animal? The second rule is this: Is the danger between its current position and the next waypoint or goal? If it is so, can the Spider outrun, walk around, or otherwise evade the perceived threat? If so, do it! If not, face it!»

«That sounds so much like the flight or fight response!» piped up Harp.

«I did model the Spider's behaviour roughly on animal behaviour studies of the Ancients. I had to give it some form of gauging capacity at what dangers were, and a form of ability to learn from experience. What you saw with the dam is partially a reaction to previous experience with cliffs, including the broken leg one.»

«How far will that learning go?» asked a worried Samson.

«I understand your worries. Could we lose control? If it were possible for the Spider to go that far, I wouldn't have given it any autonomy. Since it has about as much wit as an ant, and cannot reproduce, I feel relatively safe. There are physical circuit breakers, and we can intervene in the brain circuitry directly as well, even port inside the Spider to take manual control if we need to.»

«Port inside?»

«Yes, Samson, there is a control cockpit, that lets a human sit and control the action of the spider, an override of its meagre autonomy. And it is genetically coded to respond to only us.»

«Paschal, is this behaviour normal?» asked Harp.

Below them, through their powerful dragon eyes, they could see the Spider explore first a direction, than another.

«I think it is trying to find the least radioactive path. Let's fly and watch. Samson, monitor the radiation level reports coming from the Spider.»

After an hour, the spider took a mighty run and jumped over the pile of debris caused by the flood produced by the emptying of lake Solon. As it literally flew over the rock pile at a speed in excess of a hundred miles per hour, barely touching the ground, the radiation level outside the spider climbed to one point five million rads per hour, more than enough to cook anything that came within range. Even if they were flying around sixty thousand feet, the boys decided to do a run-around rather than fly over the barrier.

«The Spider is heading for the nearest lake!»

«Yes, it's wanting a bath, Samson,» commented Paschal

«It's in for a bad surprise! The water glows,» noticed Harp.

«Even then, the radiation level in the water is probably less than what is now covering its body. I suspect it will be hitting every water hole it crosses as it continues on its way to the Gulf.»

The Spider effectively walked the lake bottom, coming out of the experience a lot less radioactive. It then resumed its run across the now much safer forest, following the best path possible. The boys had planned to keep the Spider away from the coast, which contained the maximum radiation levels, and had planned approximately forty waypoints that kept the Spider west of the coastal mountain chain. In all, the planned path covered one thousand five hundred and sixty-nine miles, but with the adjustments the Spider did to this in an effort to minimize risks, the whole trip covered two thousand miles over land, and under water. The boys had set the final arrival to the Gulf at somewhat west of the Houston Radioactive Flats, what was left of the city of Houston. It took thirty-three hours and twenty minutes for the Spider to negotiate the trip, at an average of sixty miles per hour.

"Let the fun begin!" Sitar said with glee as they watched the Spider climb over the last rise to the Gulf and come face to face with the crocodile priests and their hunters.

***

As the Spider came running down toward the beach, the hunters created a line of defence against the charging robot. The Spider did not even react to their presence, finding their puny size was trivial. The Hunters began firing arrows at the advancing mass, which left the danger level still low. Then the spider spotted the crocodile priests. Its attitude changed radically at that point. It charged their concentration and began cutting them to pieces with its pincers, creating a fountain of body parts, blood, and guts. As the Hunters tried to intervene in the process, they suddenly found themselves added to the threat list, and they too felt the pressure mount on their ranks as the Spider began slicing them to shreds.

The boys watched the behaviour of the Spider from a safe distance, and Sitar was mightily pleased with the result. On the other hand, Samson wasn't so thrilled.

«Paschal, we will need to remove the Hunters from the list of threats.»

«Why is that?»

«Our human form closely matches the Hunters. It might not be able to differentiate us from them.»

«Samson has a point, Paschal. As soon as the Spider is done with this crocodile priest camp, port into the cockpit, and erase the recognition of Hunters as threats. It is too dangerous for us.»

«All right, Harp. Anyway at the speed things are going, we have less than two minutes left of that battle. I'll port right in. Samson! Did the radiation percolate inside the Spider?»

«No, we are still at less than two picorad per year, well below the environment's natural level, which is currently at one thousand five hundred millirads per year except in the Atom God's domains.»

«It's safer inside the Spider than outside?» wondered Sitar.

«That's what the measures say, even if the outer shell is still contaminated by radioactive particles to the level of several million millirads."

«Ok. I'm porting now!» decided Paschal. Paschal converted to human form and before gravity had time to grip him ported inside the Spider.

«I'm in. I'll be taking control of the Spider as soon as it begins moving into the sea.»

The boys watched the battle come to a close, but what surprised them was the behaviour of the Spider afterwards. Instead of going directly to the sea, it dug a hole in the beach about fifty feet wide, and ten feet deep using its paws as shovels. Then it picked up the carcasses of the crocodile priests and Hunter to dump them in the communal pit. It then combed the battlefield for members and other residues of the battle and unceremoniously added them to the pile. After completing the task, it filled in the hole with sand and packed it using its belly as compaction tool. Finally, it raked the entire beach, hiding any trace of the camp, the battle or its own passage.

«I wonder where it took that behaviour?» asked Paschal. «I certainly did not program that!»

«Are you serious? This is very interesting!» Harp said.

«And dangerous!» commented Sitar.

«Before erasing the Hunters, let me run a test!»

«What kind of test, Harp?" asked Paschal.

«You will see!»

Harp flew down from into the cloud cover, converted to an eagle while hidden by them, and landed just beyond the first rise off the beach. He then converted to wolf form and walked calmly in front of the Spider, who ignored him superbly. Then, returning to where he had come, Harp shifted to his human form and emerged warily from behind the dunes.

At first the Spider took an aggressive posture, but as he calmly walked to it, the Spider began showing signs of doubt, swinging to and fro on its paws as if debating to attack or not. Finally, it did not, and even backed away from Harp.

«That is interesting. What happened?» asked Samson.

«I wish I knew. It's headed out to sea. I'm going to stay in until it reaches one hundred feet, then we will use remote feedback to monitor its activity. Harp, stay on the beach, I'll use you as anchor to port when I leave.»

The first goal of the Spider was to explore the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico between the House¹¹¹¹ ("House: Houston, Texas") Flats and the Glasses of Ti¹²¹² ("Ti: Corpus Christi, Texas."). The bottom of the sea revealed an important fauna, which tapered off near the two radioactive wastelands and between the barrier islands and the shore proper. Further out, extensive reefs could be seen, with a vast concentration of huge fish and even bigger corral reefs, presenting a vast variety of colours. Near the Houston Flats, the Spider detected some high-radiation pockets, which were inhabited by trilobites measuring over five feet in radius.

«This is really strange Harp. I thought trilobites were extinct?»

«I thought so too. Maybe we are seeing another type of arrested evolution. If I remember, trilobites evolved in a rather high radioactive environment, covering a period extending from five hundred and twenty-six million years before present to two hundred and fifty million years before present. The nearest cousins and possibly descendants are the horseshoe crabs, which look remarkably like trilobites. Maybe the radiation level is such that horseshoe crabs have stopped their development in their trilobite phase,» suggested Paschal.

«I wonder about something. Let me test this hypothesis,» asked Harp. He took control of the Spider and quickly captured a trilobite. After some careful examination, he placed the animal near one of the many radiation detectors, and it immediately climbed considerably in value.

«That's what I thought. See that pocket under the trilobite's shell? It concentrates radioactive elements to produce a sustained controlled chain reaction. The trilobite feeds on radiation! Or, more precisely, uses it to keep its body temperature above the seawater's thus speeding its metabolism!»

«Why would it do that?» asked Sitar.

«The increase in body temperature gives it an advantage over colder-blooded preys, in the form of added speed in cold waters at the bottom of the sea. It probably hunts the deep sea at night and comes up to the shallows during the day to either lay its eggs or mate, or continue hunting. Just look at these huge eyes. This thing hunts by sight, smell, and tactile feedback. And look at the distance between the ocular pedicles! It must have stereoscopic vision! It must be a formidable sea-bottom predator!»

«Paschal, are you aware you just explained why they disappeared? If I follow your reasoning, the sudden diminution of radioactive material at the bottom of the sea that marked the late Permian might well have been the cause of the mass extinction that is its signature. Probably the trilobites were not the only species depending on controlled nuclear reactions to survive in the cold waters of the deep oceans.»

«I am aware of the implications, Samson. And look at the polyps and other life forms. Their size is consistent with the peak of the trilobite's reign. Mind you, I doubt the trilobites we see now will ever reign as master of the seas ever again, if only because there are fishes, something that is conspicuously absent from the fossils of the epoch,» replied Paschal.

«I wonder why there are these pockets of radiation near the flats?»

«There is more than that; watch the magnetometer as we pass over one of these pools of trilobites, Sitar.» replied Harp.

Just then the magnetometer peaked and then fell considerably.

«The only possible explanation for these magnetic anomalies is the presence of metal masses. Remember these huge metal ships we saw in the Tunnel's museum? I think we are detecting some similar objects. The Spider is walking over a ship cemetery. I would not put it beyond the Ancients to have built nuclear-powered ships that got sunk during the Cataclysm,» Harp said, completing his analysis.

Figure 3: The Robot Spider Undersea

As they were watching the Spider do its search pattern, the boys and Samson discussed their experiences in the Pyramids of Requirement as they had come to call their ordeal.

«I have been thinking about the battle of Mages, Harp, and there is one thing that bothers me in it,» interrupted Samson, as Harp was busy explaining how he felt at finding his mage master in the White Pyramid.

«What is that?»

«Why didn't he kill you while you were still weak?»

«Greed and over-inflated ego. He was sure he could beat me; that is the ego part; the greed was that if you eat a tiny, weak source of food, you stand less to gain from your efforts. If he waited, he would gain more out of the fight than if he had killed too early.»

«How is that related to greed?»

"Sitar, if you hunt flies, your meal consists of flies; if you hunt chicks, your meal consists of chicks; and if you hunt a bear, your meal consists of a bear. The thing is, he could have killed me easily, but it would have been less profitable for him meal-wise, that is in magic gained. While I was accumulating magic, and then when I was reborn as Harp, I consolidated that magic. He had estimated that by the time I met him for that battle in the Pyramid, he would have accumulated a huge store of magic and so would I; the winner would more than likely double the take if the battle was held late. On the other hand, he did not expect me to have mastered my magic to this extent. And he truly expected Ian to be with us on the white tile; had Ian committed that cardinal sin, he would have targeted him rather than us.»

«And made a big blunder?»

«No, Ian would have been too busy trying to protect himself to focus on analyzing the battle, and we would have been too busy protecting Ian to do likewise. That Ian was outside of his reach was probably the tiny grain of sand that put an end to his ambitions. His greatest mistake was a desire to possess all and everything, otherwise known as greed.»

«I thought he had access to the Seers of Atlantis?»

«Let me answer, Harp. Samson, the construction of the Pyramids was foreseen, but the battles' outcome was not, nor even who would be coming out of them if anyone were. These Pyramids are nexuses, were someone could not foretell events from either the outside or the inside. That we managed to do so is a breakthrough that even the Seers of Atlantis could not foretell. That Ian can foretell, as well as all of us, when we left the Pyramids was unknown to them. Therefore, neither did that soul-eater. All he knew is that a day would come where Harp would be crossing that pyramid, and he wanted to be there to intercept him. He knew Harp, or more correctly, Merlin, would not resist the challenge. He had an ego as big as a pyramid, but, you, Merlin, are not far behind!»

«Har! Har! Har! Paschal, as far as egos go, the pyramids put you in the same category! Anyway, Paschal is right; it is the reason why we could never know what lay ahead for us in these pyramids. By breaking the barrier, we not only gained a capacity to foretell, but also an exponential capacity at magic. Moving the first pyramids took a lot out of us, but the last one, the flight simulator, which was by far the most complex of all, was a piece of cake. And moving Kantar did not even make us sweat.»

«You told us in your report you could foretell, but, for a reason I cannot grasp, Horus did not ask you how far you could foretell.»

«Dad is afraid of the answer. He sees foretelling as a chain, a bond, and he has the impression that knowing the future will bind him. We thought so too at one time, Samson. I remember moaning about destinies not so long ago.»

«And it is not the case?»

«No. It is a roadmap. It tells us what are the options, the junctions, but, like any map, it does not tell us about the holes and bumps along the way. The future is fluid; the past, to the best of our knowledge is like the road travelled. We can see the options that were, the decisions to choose one road rather than another, but for now, we cannot change the path. And I think this is a good thing, so far!»

«And how far in time do you see?»

«To the end of this Universe, the end of Time for this bubble.»

«I thought this Universe eternal?»

«Anything born must die. We, as Atlanteans, will die, first as individuals, then as a species. We know what will come after us, and we are part of it, as part of the Final Entity, the Cosmic Conscience. We are cells, organs, of a growing body. We see this and it fascinates us. We know that the road to this is long, filled with traps and dangers; much like a baby's growth is in constant danger even in the womb. It is our role to see to it that things go as smoothly as possible.»

«I sense you are hiding things from me, Harp.»

«It is true, Samson, and it is for the best. Knowing too much might scare you. I know we were.»

Samson knew when he was told a discussion was finished and that no other questions would be answered, so he kept quiet, watching the Spider progress ever further out in the Gulf.

***

Just as the discussion was coming to a close, Sitar noticed the sea darken around the Spider.

«It must be one hell of a pool of fish to produce that darkening!»

Just then the Spider was able to look up and what the boys saw sent shivers down their spines. A megalodon shark was running circles around the Spider, eyeing it suspiciously. The giant shark dwarfed the Spider.

«Can you trigger the alarm, Paschal? Make it run for cover!»

«I don't need to do anything, Samson. The Spider has decided this was not a battle fit for its size, and is now running at well over sixty miles per hour at the bottom, trying to find cover! The Megalodon is keeping up with it, which tells a lot about its power!»

«I don't see anything that could serve to hide the Spider in,» commented Sitar. «The valleys are shallow, much like if someone had given the bottom a gentle raking.»

Just as Sitar made that comment the shark decided to attack the Spider from behind. The giant maw opened wide, intent on swallowing the meal whole. The Spider's tactile feedback warned it of the sudden water pressure change and it jumped left violently at the last moment. The sudden change of direction by the Spider took the shark by surprise, and it was halfway past before it could begin adjusting. The Spider didn't halt her run, but suddenly latched onto the shark's side, drilling its pincer paws deep within the hide of the animal. The spider then began climbing up the shark's side, leaving a trail of bloody holes as it progressed. Finally it reached the back of the megalodon, and began crawling toward the front, as the shark tried violently to shake the insect off its skin. The shark tried to use all types of tactics, splashing out of the water on its back, rolling, or even rubbing its back on the sea bottom, but nothing worked. The Spider drove its pincers deep within the muscle mass of the shark, and hung tight.

The boys watched from three hundred feet above sea level the battle unfold below them. The water was sufficiently clear they could follow the progress under water as clearly as if it had been in midair.

Yet, the Spider was not finished with the Megalodon. It moved up to its dorsal fin, and began systematically sewing it off with its powerful pincer jaws. The shark found itself at a progressive disadvantage as it lost one of it most important rudders. The Megalodon could still swim, but turning was now a lot more difficult, and it slammed hard into an underwater valley side.

Just as it began trying to move away from the floor, a black cloud erupted, rendering it blind. The shark began swimming frantically away from the area but it could not turn fast enough and a set of eight giant tentacles wrapped themselves around its rear fins, as a giant octopus emerged from between rocks to gain a lunch. The Spider sensed the frantic efforts of the animal under its pincers and decided the best policy was to make a run for it while the two were busy resolving their differences.

«Look at the size of that octopus, Samson. Its tentacles must be at least twice the size of the shark! And that beak seems to be able to cut through rock!»

«Yes it seems to be one heck of a piece of seafood, Sitar!»

«Are you trying to make me sick?»

«If only it was true! I would stock up on them, knowing it would be safe from your voracious appetite!»

«I wonder why the Spider is staying around. That kind of activity is bound to attract other predators!»

«I was wondering the same so I ran a diagnostic. It wants to learn from the battle of the two, in case it meets either type again, Harp.»

«Curiosity killed the cat, Paschal.»

«Don't worry, the Spider isn't alive. But I think it has learned what it wants. See, it's moving away at speed. Anyway, the shark or the octopus would have found it unpalatable. Orichalque is millions of times harder than diamond, notwithstanding the broken leg we had during our test runs, which was due to a manufacturing defect.»

As the boys watched the Spider move away, the battle attracted more and more predators and carrion-eaters. It quickly turned into a feeding frenzy, were every animal took a bite at anything that came nearby, be it the protagonists or an unfortunate passerby. The Spider increased its run and reached a remarkable eighty miles per hour as it ran on the sea bottom.

Some a hundred and fifty miles away from the ongoing battle and feeding orgy it slowed down and moved into a deep gorge. It slowed to a crawl and then halted. Around it were huge coral structures, with an important concentration of fish. It began delicately breaking the coral reef, before reaching what it was looking for.

«What is it doing?»

«Samson, we are using the Spider for two roles. First, as it moves under the sea, it lets us collect by porting fish, corals, and entire ecosystems to the Sea Tessaract. We have been doing that ever since it began it is roaming. The second objective is to detect any unnatural object of worthwhile size. We are not interested in the Ancients' garbage but more in finding the missing Crystal. I had it detect any anomaly of more than a foot that might eventually lead to the Crystal. Let's watch and see how it handles itself with what it found. It might be a good test for when it really has found the Crystal,» replied Paschal as he watched the work of the Spider on the sea bottom.

As the boys watched the Spider work, it became apparent it had discovered a wreck. First came into view a reddish pile of objects, which were immediately identified by Sitar as iron cannon balls. Then a series of oblong objects emerged from the protecting coral reef, easily identified as cannons of varying calibres. Then the Spider took to digging in between the two rows of cannons, and unearthed a treasure trove of gold and silver coins, followed by a huge pile of precious stones.

«That is a Spanish Galleon, Samson! The width between the two cannon rows was already indicative of a galleon, but the cargo clinches it. The three cannons piled one over the other we saw earlier tells us it had three gun decks, typical of the ships of the line of the Spanish Empire of the fifteenth century. That the cargo is still present also tells us it got caught in a storm and sank without trace. Had it been attacked, the cargo would have been taken away.»

«Should we recover the wreck?» wondered Samson.

«Sure. For two reasons: first, it may be possible to identify the ship from its cannons; second, it is a good exercise for us in the art of recovering undersea objects. We need to port them into a special area of the Sea Tessaract. Pulling them out to expose them to oxygen could seriously damage the artefacts. Harp, you know how you built that tessaract, Do we have enough space for this?»

«More than enough, Paschal! Although the tessaract is divided into zones, the biggest zone are the shallows, contrary to the real oceans; this is because the deep seas are very poor in life form and diversity of habitat. On the other hand, shallows are extremely diversified, and the foreshores even more. We can put the contents in one of the shallow area that is yet unoccupied.»

«I wonder how you manage to do an intertidal habitat, Harp?"

«It is a simple question of using a clock to change the gravitational field at a given rate. Magic has its use, especially in tessaracts.»

«One day, Harp, you will have to explain to me the tessaracts in detail,» commented Samson as they watched the Spider delicately remove the cargo and put it piece by piece in a net that emptied as quickly as the Spider filled it.

«Are you willing to discuss the theory behind fibrous space and its interaction with multidimensional topology?»

«Get lost!»

«I thought so! I lost you the moment I mentioned fibrous space, didn't I?»

If dragons could blush, Samson gave it a good try!

«What are you thinking, Paschal? You have been silent for a while.»

«I am logging each item as it gets removed from the wreck, to create a three-dimensional map of the site and the ship when we go back home. It might be interesting to compare this with the Galleon we recovered from the Tunnel, Sitar.»

«Well, I hope it won't take the Spider too much more time, I spotted a Megalodon heading its way.»

«I have had enough of these mingling brutes! Let's go protect our investment!» replied Harp. «Paschal, stay up and continue logging the activity of the Spider. We will play interceptor for it while it works! Everyone else, dive!»

«Ah, some sport! I've wanted to tackle a Megalodon for a while! Let's tackle that giant one, located twelve miles from the spider down stream. If we are lucky the other bothersome creatures will head for the fight, ignoring the Spider for a while. Call in your familiars. We may need them to be effective.»

Samson, Harp and Sitar took a V formation with Samson in the lead and gained speed from their holding pattern thee hundred feet above the sea's surface. As they entered the water slightly ahead of the Megalodon, every life form felt and heard the sound wave the impact of the massive dragons made as they collided with the water. Anything within fifty miles that had teeth immediately converged on the impact zone, curious as to the cause of the disturbance. Even the furthest away felt the impact between Samson and the Megalodon as the two huge body masses collided headfirst. Sitar and Harp took the Megalodon in a pincer move, each heading for it from a different side. The collision of the two dragons with the fish's gills cut its breath short, and it began immediately trying to take bites at everything that came within jaw range.

Up above the sea, Paschal kept recording the work of the Spider and porting the contents of the net to Thebes, as it waited for the arrival of the princes' familiars. He had a spectacular view of the events below, and could see the dragons' massive bodies collide with the grey coloured megalodon. Samson's gold glistened in the sun, while Harp's blood-red hue was shone like a setting sun and Sitar's emerald green gave the impression the sea bottom itself was alive.

The battle had been going on for ten minutes when the familiars showed up on site. Ian, Enron, Thorsten and Harold, each with its own familiar accompanied them.

«Why all the fuss? I expected only four additional dragons!»

«And keep all the fun for yourselves? There is no way in hell that I am going to miss on some fun! I could incinerate the Royal Bench if I sat on it another minute!» exploded Harold.

«What's the deal?» asked Thorsten, always practical.

«The deal is simple. Protect the Spider while it does its work undersea. The princes and Samson are down there dealing with the biggest Megalodon I have ever seen. But it seems everything with a set of teeth is converging on the battle. I have to keep logging the Spider's activity, and that makes for a distracted dragon, namely, me! It is safer for me up here than being involved in a battle.»

«Ok. Continue your work. Dad, assist in the battle! Thorsten, Enron and your familiars, patrol around the Spider. Intercept anything getting near the Spider. Typhoon, I think we got our work cut out for us. That megalodon is headed for the Spider. Intercept!»

Just then, Yamato and his bonded, Hatuibwari, emerged from the cloud cover.

«Yamato! Patrol the battle zone and report to me any intruder in the area. Hatuibwari, you are on escort duty for Yamato while he is busy monitoring the sea bottom from above. We never know what might be flying! Roast anything that happens to enter our airspace!»

The battle spread around the Spider, which continued doing its submarine archaeological work as if nothing was happening. Dragons smashed into all types of fish, and some even managed to feed while fighting, swallowing whole schools of barracudas, smaller sharks, and sea bass. Apalapa managed to bite off a huge chunk of the megalodon the princes had been fighting, and the feeding frenzy was on. In less than five minutes, the shark was reduced to shreds, which were quickly disposed of by the pilot fishes that had accompanied the master of the seas.

Ian and Typhoon caught the megalodon by surprise, diving on it from above the sea from a height of several thousand feet. The impact was such that the giant fish was pushed to the sea bottom, its spine broken and unable to move. It had not even stopped breathing that a huge wave of crabs and lobsters descended on the still living fish and began eating its way through the paralyzed shark. Even the pilot fish were taken by surprise and ended up as meals for the invading crustaceans.

«A school of white sharks is headed to the battle zone from the west! Samson, Norbert, head straight west at a leisurely speed. Harold and Aido-Hwedo fly over and take them from behind! Harp and Jormungandr, take the north flank! Enron and Uwibami, deal with the south flank! Brinsop, Anbraxias, Thorsten, Ian, Typhoon, air attack! Dive on them and push them to the bottom!"

The battle began to look much like a melee, as sharks attacked dragons, barracudas, and each other with a ferocity that was amplified by the blood the water contained. Fortunately for the dragons, the sharks stood no chance against them, as their rocky skin was well beyond what the sharks had ever dealt with. After four hours of frenetic battle, the area was cleared of both whites and megalodons, while a couple of octopuses had paid their venture in the battle with their lives. The school of barracudas was decimated to a few rather lonely individuals, probably the latecomers to the battle.

«Dragons, clear out the area! The Spider has finished its work and resumed its exploration!» Paschal informed them. «I hope you left me some scraps to eat. I'm hungry!»

«Do not worry, my bonded,» Brinsop interjected, «the sea is vast and its food reserve considerable. I am sure we will find a pool of fish to feast on shortly!»

«I hope so. I am as starved as the prince,» commented Hatuibwari, to the approving nod of Yamato.

Barely had the dragons expressed their need that a huge school of herring was seen, as a dark fuzzy cloud moving along the path followed by the Spider, some twenty-two miles east of its current position.

«Ok. Let's pack them up! I want you to swim around the school, releasing air bubbles from the bottom. By gradually make the circles smaller. Those that feed, dive from above in the compacted school, mouth open and swallow as many as you can.»

The dragons understood the advantage of the tactic proposed by Sitar and immediately began applying it, to the disarray of the herrings and the benefit of those that needed feeding. In no time at all, the six or seven dragons still hungry had their fill, each swallowing several tons of fish in short order.

«Let's move the rest to the sea Tessaract, Harp. While they are packed like this is easier to do so, since we do not need to port them individually,» suggested Enron.

«That's a good tactic. We may use it with other schools.»

***

The dragons took off for Thebes, leaving only a few to escort the Spider as it continued its systematic grid pattern at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. The search pattern had been set to cover from the tip of the Florida Keys to Cuba and the Antilles Archipelago up to Trinidad and Tobago and the French Guyana. The Spider would thus cover the entire Gulf of Mexico, the Isthmus of Panama, and the shores of South America until they reached the islands. As the sea level had already dropped considerably due to the beginning of the ice age, many islands were wider and bigger than what the Ancients' maps showed, with narrower passes between them. The total area to explore was over five hundred and seventy-nine thousand square miles. The spider had barely covered a thousand square miles and already had met a number of troublesome residents of the Gulf. The sea bottom of the Gulf contained enough deep waters to test the resistance of the spider to pressure.

«Let's go home. The Spider can probably defend itself, and if it has issues, we will know. The tracking device I placed in it will tell us if anything disturbed the search pattern. It's running at eighty miles per hour eastward, and should reach Florida in six hours or so. By then it will emerge to the surface, walk along the shore a mile and head west. The search pattern will continue until it reaches Trinidad and Tobago.»

«Are you sure you won't miss something by spacing the search lines so wide?»

«Actually, no, the Spider uses a technique I read about in the Ancients' naval books. They called it side sweeping and used sonar. From the description, it was a sound wave that rebounded on the sea bottom to let them map it. I have set the field to sweep a mile wide on each side, so we actually get two independent scans of the same region from different lines. The Spider is creating a three-dimensional picture of the sea bottom by using the magic field sensory array that covers its body. By recording and overlapping he records I plan to be able to detect anything under the sea bottom to a depth of several hundred feet. I know, Samson, it's overkill but something tells me we may need this.»

«Why is that?»

«We vanished off the surface of the planet some seventeen thousand years ago. According to the Ancients, the sea bottom accretes deposits at a rate of seven point seven inches per thousand years. Do the maths; the thickness of sediments covering any Atlantean artefact would be one hundred and thirty-four inches of sediments in the slowest deposit areas, or slightly over eleven feet of sediments. Some are way thicker, due to rivers dumping their load, but mostly, the Ancients underestimated the impact the Baby Moon's fall had on sedimentation rates. I suspect that the shores were the most severely washed away by the huge tidal waves, much like when we had this blowout on the west coast. That is why I prefer getting deeper readings rather than ones that are too shallow.»

«And what will this accomplish?»

«It all depends on what we find. But what must be found is the Crystal. I hope it is in this Gulf, but there is one thing I am sure is here. I was thinking about what we did before the moon's fall, and one thing we certainly did was to build roads along the shores. These roads are now buried deep below a thick layer of sediment. Coastal Atlantean settlements dotted the area, mostly along the eastern edge of what is now the Antilles. One of these settlements was of importance, and was a major port. I want to locate it and see if the Crystal is there. It should not be too difficult to map the Road of Gold, a total misnomer I ever there was one, since its golden hue was due to the nature of the pavement used not because it was made of gold, an impractical covering, if ever there was one! Anyway, Samson, you should remember it! That port was your residence as Atlantean viceroy before the fallout! You had so much fun with the hurricanes and your trident. Too bad you were busy preparing the evacuation to be on the last ship that departed Atlantis to protect it from the elements. We would have our sixth Crystal now.»

«Hold it right there, young man! I was back in Atlantis when things turned sour! Horus had called me back to Atlantis for consultation, and the weather was so bad nothing could fly much less float! In fact, may I remind you my Trident was found under the Sphinx, not in some lost shed off the coast of America!»

«Cool it, you two!» thundered Ian, getting pissed at the exchange. «What happened, happened, and we must deal with it. Now, if anyone wants to try to travel back in time to fix the issue, he is my guest!»

The icy tone Ian used almost brought a thunderstorm from the sudden cooling of the atmosphere. Ian continued, on a tone that said he meant it. «We need to finish this as quickly as possible, and every tool we can create to speed the process is welcomed. Samson, as God of the Seas, you will gain control of the Spiders, and Paschal, as architect, you will begin assembling an armada of Spiders, numbering in the several thousands. See to it this is implemented without delay! Harp, with the help of Thorsten, verify the integrity of the production chain. Paschal, standardize and sequence the production of the Spiders with the help of Williams. I want a careful analysis of the line of production so we can put at the sea bottom at least a thousand additional Spiders a day! Samson, see with Dunbar to the organization of the search patterns! We have less then three years to cover seventy percent of the planet! I expect the reports on the production chain tomorrow morning! Spend the night on it, if necessary!»

Harold, who had been listening on without saying a word, was shocked by Ian's almost dictatorial attitude, but he also admired his son's determination and sense of organization. Samson was shocked by Ian's tone. Where was the cute and fun-loving child he had kept on his lap so many times before? Enron's smirk as he looked at his dad's shocked face told everyone he was barely able to hold off exploding in laughter.

«See, dad, you should have kept the crown. Being king had its privileges, one of them being to smack the ass of an impertinent prince!»

Ian looked at Enron with blazing eyes. «Don't think you will be sitting on the royal bench lazing it off! You will, with the help of Yamato, speed up the exploration of the surface lands. I want everything that can fly off the ground, be it the bonded in their dragon form, the dragons, or the Pegasuses. You will be admiral of the fleet! Tomorrow at dawn, you and the rest of the air force are to take off and head to Australia and New Zealand to finish the exploration of the Pacific islands! This has been delayed more than enough!»

Now it was Enron's turn to show the long face.

«But who will sit on the Bench tomorrow? I have a hearing!»

«I will, and believe me, the lawyers on both sides had better be prepared, because they will pay if they are not! I won't put up with specious arguments, and attempts at intimidating each other or the Court! There is going to be a new rule: the losing party's lawyer loses his head! Let's see how many lawyers will be willing to defend a lost cause after that!»

«Do you need my axe?» asked Thorsten.

«Does a dragon need one to chew some head off?»

«Beware of fleas, Ian. I've had to sit on the Royal Bench, and some lawyers probably never saw water since their mom stopped washing them!» replied Thorsten, smiling.

«You have a point. I'll torch them instead!»

«Not in my throne room, you won't! The Ancients' god may have liked the smell of burning lamb but I don't!» said Harold.

«They are pork anyway!» commented Thorsten.

«All the more reason not to! Did you ever smell burning pork? It's even worse than lamb or beef!»

«Anyway, you got your marching orders! Implement them. Dad and I will be dealing with the kingdom while you do what I asked. Dad, mom's out of the stasis chamber and so is my little brother. We still have not given him a name. Go see mom at the hospital tonight and discuss with her what name to give to him. Since mom is too weak to feed him, I've asked Samantha to find a lactating wolf. Samantha is dry since she did not have pups this year. Do not be surprised to see a pack of she-wolves around him. I heard it's a question of privilege to be able to offer milk to the baby, and there were quite a few skirmishes, until Greywolf instituted a rooster. He will be so fed we will have to be careful he doesn't become bottom-heavy.»

«As if you weren't?»

«Dad, one more comment like that and I dump you in lake Eloise!»

«The pleasure of raising magic kids!» commented Samson to suddenly find himself sputtering from an instant visit to the afore-mentioned lake.

«Who did that?» sputtered Samson, dripping wet.

«The kids aren't the only ones with magic power, Samson. Don't forget it!» replied Harold with a smirk.

***

Deep along the coast of what was once Nicaragua, the Minotaur progressed with considerable difficulty along the brackish swamps of the coast, tailed by the very stubborn and now completely schizophrenic Edward. Salt burned their many wounds, but nothing would deter the Minotaur from its goal, to follow the tracks of Marlin, even in hell should it be necessary. They both saw events occur at sea and on the coast, but did not even bother analysing them, enveloped as they were by their respective obsessions.