The Case of the Arctic Anomaly

(September-December 2012)

4-Hidden Depths

"What the hell is that noise?" Stanley bellowed. The rain had increased, and ahead he could see nothing but gray.

"It's not organic!" Ford yelled back. "And the anomaly detector is off the chart! Whatever it is, it is not of this world!"

"Get your gun," Stan said grimly.

"But it may be an important discovery in paranormal—"

"That wasn't a request! Get! The! QDR!"

Ford dived down below deck and returned cradling the quantum destabilizer rifle. "We'll only have one shot," he warned. "Then it has to recharge for fifteen minutes!"

"Get McGucket to put one of them infinity batteries in it. If we ever see him again!"

"It isn't a battery, it's a zero-point energy accumulator—"

"Whatever!"

"Both of you put your hands up."

Stan roared, "Both of who, Poindexter?"

"Stanley, I didn't say that. It was the gentlemen in the boat behind you."

Stan turned, half in shock. With a painter already lashed to one of the cleats on the Stan O'War II, a sizable boat rocked in the waves. Two men sat in it, one at the tiller of an outboard, one amidships. The third stood in the bow with a shotgun pointed at Stanley. Second thought, with a short barrel like that, the shotgun was probably had a wide scatter and was aimed at Ford as well. Stan took one hand off the wheel and raised it. "If I put both of 'em up, we're gonna turn crossways and capsize," he said.

"You keep your left hand on the wheel. The other, you put up both hands."

Stan couldn't make out the accent. It might have been German or Norwegian or Transylvanian for all he knew. "Better stick 'em up, Ford," he said. "The guy couldn't miss at this distance."

"I am going to stow this instrument in the transom compartment," Ford said, hefting the QDR. "See, it's not dangerous in any way. It's a scientific instrument. I was using it to, uh, gauge the loudness and direction of that peculiar sound."

Shoot him! Shoot him now! Stan said to Ford telepathically. Unfortunately since they didn't have twin telepathy, Ford didn't get the message. Slowly but gingerly he stowed the quantum disruptor rifle in the compartment that held spare sails and other boat-type stuff. Then he raised both gloved hands. "We are not in Russian waters," he said calmly, and then he said something in Russian.

"Save the breath. We do not speak Russian," the guy standing in the boat said. "I am coming aboard."

Something abruptly changed. For a moment Stanley didn't realize what it was, and then he thought, The farshiltn noise stopped. The sloshing of waves and the steady patter of rain sounded quiet by contrast.

Carefully, the man handed the shotgun to the guy sitting on a thwart, and the one at the motor nosed the boat up close to the Stan O' War's side. Now the only sounds were the murmurs of their engine and the reduced thrum of the outboard on the other craft, which drowned out the waves and rain. The guy grabbed hold of the side and all but vaulted aboard the Stan O'War.

When he was aboard, Stan took a better look at him. He stood a little taller than Ford, with broader shoulders. He was wearing a yellow hooded parka and black gloves, and his expression was the opposite of friendly. "Who are you?" he asked.

"We're on a scientific expedition," Ford said. "We detected something odd in this area, heard the sounds, and we came out to investigate, that's all."

"American? Canadian?"

"We're Americans!" Stan snapped. "Red, white, and blue, the colors that never run! God bless the bald-headed eagle! We're two Yankee Doodle—"

"Shut up!"

"Shuttin' up. Who're you, you come barging onto our boat?" Stan glanced at Ford, who still held his arms up. "Poindexter, should that be boatin' onto our barge? I'm not used to this nautical talk."

"All will become clear," said the intruder in a level, low baritone. "You now may lower your hands. You, cast off our line. I will take the wheel of your craft."

"Then how we gonna steer it?" Stan asked.

The guy gave him a blank look. Up close, his appearance struck Stan as . . . shady. Battered, once-broken nose. A diagonal scar across the bridge, healed but taut, and it pulled his lower right eyelid low. He had no five o'clock shadow, not that it was even close to five o'clock, but cheeks and a chin as smooth as a baby's butt. "I mean," the guy rumbled, "I will steer your sloop."

Ford had untied the painter and tossed the line into the other boat. "I assure you, this is all a mistake," he said.

"We shall see. Sit on the deck there, with your backs against the deckhouse. I want to be able to see you."

"It's wet!" Stan protested. "We're gonna soak our a—"

"You perhaps would prefer to swim?"

"Sit down, Ford," Stan advised. He was right. The deck was wet. So were their butts

The man raised his voice and shouted, "Tza letcon a nautrok!"

From the boat a shriller man's voice replied, "A nautrok, sha!"

The motorboat's engine roared. The boarder increased the throttle and turned the Stan O'War II to follow the motorboat.

Not for long. If not for the rain and the mist, they surely would have seen the ship long before. They drew alongside of it, a larger vessel by far than theirs, so large that the forepart was out of view behind the rain. Stan judged that the whole thing had to be at least ninety feet long, maybe double that. It rode fairly low, to all appearances, but the deck was at least twelve feet up. While people up there winched the motorboat aboard and evidently lowered it into a hatch, a sailor descended a rope ladder and took a long line from the Stan O'War. He climbed up again. "Your vessel will be taken in tow," their captor said. "Up the ladder."

"Hey, hey, no can do!" Stan said. "I got a fear of heights!"

"It's true," Ford said. "He does."

"Look, you—what's your name, anyways? I'm Stanley, he's Stanford. So who are you?"

"You can call me Number 9."

"Huh. I think you're more like Number 2, but let it slide. Bottom line, I can't climb that ropey thing. I'll fall for sure."

After a moment of thought, Number 9 reached inside his parka and brought out a small walkie-talkie. He turned it on, said something, and a voice rattled back in the same unknown language. Number 9 said, "Ek da shtal ez kikken sa ashenda. Danner da loopa."

Ford climbed the rope ladder with no fuss, and then a minute later someone on deck tossed down a rope tied in what Stan thought of as a lasso. Number 9, grumbling, secured it around him, and then a winch hauled a petrified Stan up, over the rail, and onto the deck of the larger ship. Number 9 all but flew up the ladder and then said, "This way. The captain wishes to see you."

"Steady me, Ford," Stan muttered to his brother.

Ford put an arm around his brother's waist. Number 9 led them to a hatchway and a ladder that led down into the stern of the ship. At a watertight metal door, Number 9 knocked and said, "Vorlang, da dwa atrankas. Amerikers."

"Enter," boomed a deep voice from behind the hatch.

Number 9 spun the locking wheel and opened the door and said, "Watch your step, strangers. This is the captain."

The hatch was only about five feet tall, and they had to step over a six-inch lip to get in. "Watertight," Ford said softly as he helped Stan duck and get through the doorway.

They turned to see an extraordinarily thin man, very tall, with a long face, high forehead, and a chest-length beard, black shot through with white streaks. His nose was prominent, and his eyes piercing. He wore a fez-like black cap with a tiny bill, a deep blue pea jacket, gray breeches, and ankle boots. "Welcome," he said in an accented English. "I hope you were not put to too much trouble."

"We didn't struggle," Ford said. "But we do object to being boarded and forced off our sloop at gunpoint."

"It is necessary," the captain said. "As you may come to understand, your capture in reality increases your safety. But, gentlemen, let us be less formal. Your names are—"

"I'm Dr. Stanford Pines, research scientist. This is my twin brother, Mr. Stanley Pines, entrepreneur."

"I don't know what that means, but, yeah, that's me," said Stan.

"You may call me," said the other man in a profoundly bass tone, like Christopher Lee on a good day, "Captain Omen."

"You shouldn't have said, 'Oh, you're Irish,'" Ford grumbled later when both he and his brother were in the brig.

"It sounds Irish!" protested Stan. "O'Men, right?"

"That can't be his real name," Ford said. "It has to be a nom de mer."

"Yeah. So what's that?"

"An assumed name," Ford said patiently.

"Uh-huh. And what lingo are these geeks talkin'?"

"I don't recognize it," Ford said. "I assume it's a conlang."

"Ah, yeah, that's it. A conlang." Stam smiled for a moment. Then he yelled, "And what the heck is a conlang, Poindexter?"

Ford was in the middle of changing pants—one of the sailors had brought dry ones from the Stan O'War II—and he took time to fasten and zip them before answering: "A constructed language. An artificial language, with its own orthography, syntax, and vocabulary. It's like Sindarin or Esperanto."

"Ford," Stan said patiently as he also changed into dry clothing, "Memory eraser, you know? You gotta spell these things out."

Patiently, Ford said, "Sindarin is from Tolkien's works. It is an Elvish language in The Lord of the Rings, for example. Esperanto is a language formulated by Layzer Zamenhof as a potential world-wide lingua franca, a language with simple, regular rules of grammar and an easy-to-learn vocabulary. Zamenhof believed if everyone in the world could use it to communicate with everyone else, the resulting understanding would end all wars."

"Uh-huh," Stan said. "And how did that work out?"

The door to their cabin—windowless and with no way on this side to open the door—creaked, and Number 9, standing in the narrow corridor, said, "Captain Omen has invited you to dine with him in the grand salon."

Stan rubbed his hands together. "A saloon, you say? Lead on, Number 9. Hey do you mind if I call you Numb for short? I got a memory problem."

Number 9's stony glare was enough to say "Uh-uh" without his voicing it.

They had to climb a ladder up three decks, and then went down another corridor, and finally Number 9 opened a hatch and said, "This way, please."

"Whoa!" Stan said. They had entered a narrow but long room. The far wall held a line of portholes about four feet in diameter and made from what appeared to be extremely thick glass. A table stretched almost the whole length of the salon, with three places set. Omen stood on the far side of the table, gazing out a porthole.

He turned and gestured. "Please be seated," he said. "You will find the wine refreshing."

Omen sat at the head of the table and poured the wine—white, faintly fruity, but dry—and Stan said, "Now, this is tasty. OK, Captain Omen, my brother says I showed poor manners before. I apologize for askin' if you were Irish. Truly sorry, yada yada. I hope you won't hold that against us."

"I," said Omen gravely, "have no nationality. I consider myself stateless and a citizen of the world."

"Good on you," Stan said. "Cuts down on the old income tax!"

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ford asked, "Captain, is this vessel a submarine?"

"It is a submersible," corrected Omen. "In our tongue, the vessel's name is the Kalanautis. It is of my own design, and all of the crew, like myself, consider themselves outcasts from the world of humanity."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Ford. "Have you declared war on all the nations of the world?"

Omen's dark eyes widened as if in surprise. "No, not at all. I just wish to be left alone to my studies. I am . . . call it the world's greatest oceanographer."

Two stewards interrupted by serving dinner: Turkey Surprise (the surprise was that it was fish) with a delectable sauce served over sea spaghetti, a salad of sea lettuce, sea cucumbers, sea tomatoes, and a dressing made with sea garlic, plus challah bread. "Do you derive all of your food from the ocean?" Ford asked the captain.

"Much of it. The rest we get ashore at Kwik-E-Marts. They give coupons, you know."

"This all seems so familiar," Ford said. "Captain, I'll be frank."

"I'll be Jesse," Stan offered. He was on his fourth glass of wine.

Ford ignored that. "The reason I am here is that my research has been into anomalies, with a concentration on weird things from presumably other dimensions. My instruments indicate that something here meets that criterion—some force, thing, or creature is intruding into our dimension from elsewhere. And it is not you shi—submersible, I mean. Are you hunting something?"

"Yes," said Omen.

"Something not of this Earth?"

"I am not sure of that," Omen said. "It is a great sea beast. Years ago it attacked the Kalanautis off the coast of Brazil and killed two of my best men. That day I swore vengeance, and since them I have pursued the creature. I have chased it round the Norway Maelstrom and round the Cape of Good Hope, and round the Horn, and I mean to chase that beast until I can plant my irons in it and see it perish. Or until I get bored, one or the other."

"So the ungodly noise we heard—"

"That is the call that I hope will summon the creature," said Omen. "I know it was in these waters within the past three months. If it is anywhere within hearing, that unholy call will summon it—summon it to a final reckoning. The day we meet will be the day that ends either the monster or me."

"I see," Ford said. "Well, um, good luck to you. And now that I know what the anomaly is, may my brother and I leave in peace? We aren't stateless, you know. We have a family and friends back in America."

"Perhaps," Omen said. "Perhaps you must remain. I have not made up my mind. I trust your meal was satisfactory?"

"Very good," Stanley said, smiling in a sort of unfocused way. "I'd just like one more teeny wine of this glass. Other way round. Sort of a capnight."

"By all means," Omen said, pouring about half a glass.

"What they hey," Stan said genially. "Not mush left in th' old bottle. Might as well finish 'er off!"

With a smile, Omen poured the last of the wine. "It is made," he said, "from sea grapes."

"May I ask," Ford said humbly, "if we have to be kept under lock? Since there's no way off the submersible, couldn't we be allowed a little freedom? I'm a scientist myself, and I'd be most interested to observe the wonders of the ocean."

"Will you give me your word not to raise your hand against my crew? Not to attempt to escape? To obey my orders as Captain?"

"Okee-dokee karaoke," Stan said and giggled.

"We solemnly swear," Ford said.

"Then I will give orders for you to be removed to a cabin with a porthole. We have ended our search for my nemesis for tonight. We will begin to broadcast the lure-call again tomorrow early. Then, if it comes, you shall see something few human eyes have seen. And if my will is greater than the great creature's, then you will see an end to a monstrous beast."

"One other thing," Ford said. "I hesitate to ask this, but your language—I can speak nearly a dozen myself, and I've never heard it."

Omen smiled through his beard. "I created the language myself, to instill a sense of brotherhood among the crew. It is not difficult to learn." He pressed a button that Stan hadn't even noticed, not really a protrusion, just a spot on the edge of the table. After a moment one of the stewards shimmered in. "Sha, vorlang?"

In Danish—which Ford could understand—the captain said, "Fetch one of the language books from the library. The first in the series."

"Daben, vorlang."

In a few moments the steward returned with an unusually proportioned book, about four inches wide by ten long. It had a green cover and embossed in gold on it were the letters

Mi Kret Buch

Ta

Lenkha Kalanautisa

"All crewmembers begin with this primer," Omen explained. "This particular one has English equivalents. We have a set of more than seven thousand, allowing people who speak virtually any tongue to master our special language."

"Thank you," Ford said. "I shall study it diligently."

"It's due back in fourteen days, and fines are fifty pieces of eight a day after that," Omen warned.

"I . . . will remember."

That evening, in their slightly more comfortable new quarters, Ford sat up in his bunk with a light burning over his head, immersed in the book. Across the stateroom, Stan lay face down on the other bunk, muttering into his pillow. "That last glass of wine was a mistake," he groaned.

"You seemed to be enjoying the first five," Ford said absently.

"Yeah, up until the sixth one came up again and brought the others with it. Yechh! I don't know why Mabel enjoys pukin' so much. What you readin' there, Slick?"

"The language primer," Ford said. "The title means 'My Big Book of the Kalanautis Language.'"

"Kalanautis. What a goofy name. What does it mean, you're so smart?"

"Let me see . . . glossary section . . . compound word . . . oh, dear. And the second part . . . Hah, I could almost have guessed that."

"What, Poindexter, what?"

Ford glanced at his brother, whose complexion was unaccustomedly greenish. "Stanley," he said, "brace yourself. We are aboard the . . ."

Stan raised up enough to toss his pillow at his brother and miss. "Don't pause for dramatic effect! Just tell me! Ow, my head!"

"The Naughty Lass!" said Ford, portentously.

To Be Continued