The Copernicus Legacy: The Forbidden Stone (23 page)

Chapter Forty-Six

T
ime is a crazy thing, Becca thought.

When you can’t sleep—and naturally she couldn’t sleep, no matter how exhausted she was—a twenty-five-hour flight halfway across the world lasts three months. Each second drags out to thirty, each minute becomes an hour, each hour a week. A jet is nothing but a big metal box of noise. Lights are always on. You’re squashed upright in a teeny seat, your stomach is pinching and rolling, your temples are thudding, your eyes are on fire—and then they serve you plastic food!

It reminded her of nights at the hospital after her sister’s surgery. There was always something happening, lights, sounds, machines thunking and whining, strange smells, voices chattering, whispering.

She hadn’t slept a wink there, either.

And to lose a day of your life in the process! She hated to lose anything, but losing time—
time
—was one of the worst things you could do. Time was all you had, wasn’t it?

On the other hand, Copernicus had discovered a time machine. And some kind of “traversable wormhole.”

What would she do if she had a machine like that? Where—when—would she go? What would she change?

Could
you change anything?
Should
you? Wasn’t there something called the butterfly effect? Altering one tiny thing, like where or when or if a butterfly flaps its wings, can change the future in huge ways, like eventually producing a hurricane.

Opening
Moby-Dick
at random, she found herself reading, of all things, about the moment the crew of the
Pequod
spots a giant squid in the ocean. It was described as a monster with . . .

. . . innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas . . .

She closed the book. The kraken was just such a monster, and those words only drew her back to Copernicus’s diary.

As difficult as it was to decipher some pages, it was strangely comforting, and Hans Novak, the Magister’s young assistant, seemed like one of their friends, a part of their team in a way, and riding on the journey with them.

She set the diary on the tray table and studied its cover carefully for the first time since Bologna. It was as beautiful as it was plain: dark red leather, tooled subtly around its edges with a design of intersecting geometric shapes—diamonds, triangles, circles linked with circles—that met at the brass guards in the four corners.

The daggers on the corner guards, she now noticed, converged at a single spot in the center of the cover. Her heart quickened.

They met in the center of the line that read, in German,
Seine geheimen Reisen auf Erde und im Himmel
—His Secret Voyages in Earth and Heaven—at the word
im—
in.

It was then she noticed that, while the whole title was imprinted in gold leaf, the gold of the word
im
was nearly flaked off.

As if it had been touched often.

She ran a finger over it. Surprisingly, the wooden board beneath the leather pushed in with the pressure, as if the board itself had a small circle cut into it just under that word.

She lifted the cover of the diary and watched the inside endpaper as she pressed the cover word again. The endpaper bulged slightly, and its upper left corner lifted slightly away from the board.

“Oh!”

No one woke up. They were dead to the world.

Setting the cover flat on the tray table, Becca shifted the book around so that the upper corner faced her. Pressing the cover a third time, she pried the endpaper up enough to see that a slip of parchment was hidden beneath. She dug in her bag and removed an emery board. Pressing it under the flap, she tugged out the parchment until it fell free of the book.

“Wade,” she whispered, elbowing his arm gently. “Wade?”

In a dark, uneven, and unfamiliar hand, were several lines in German with the English title,

Legal Man

Becca jumped in her seat. “Wade! Look what I found.”

He grumbled, lifting his head to her. “Are we there yet?”

“This wasn’t written by Hans Novak. Look. A piece of parchment. And the handwriting is different. It’s about Magellan. Listen.”

The engines roared around them as she translated.

I bow as the great explorer strides across the dock.

“Magister Nicolaus!” he says. “You travel so far alone.”

“My assistant is away.” I lean close and explain my purpose.

The captain responds, “Upon my life, I will!”

“It’s the moment Copernicus and Magellan meet,” said Wade, blinking his eyes wide open.

I reveal the contents of my palm and unwrap the velvet cloth. The sail-shaped stone lies shining in the moonlight.

“Aquamarine,” the captain says. “How fitting for a mariner.”

“Holy cow, Wade. Vela is a stone! A blue stone, small enough to hold in your hand!”

From a leather pouch I withdraw one of Achille’s daggers and present it to the Captain. “The first shall circle to the last,” I tell him.

With thanks, he goes with the morning tide.

Upon my life, I will. I shall never forget the words of the very first Guardian.

Becca looked over at Wade. His eyes were glistening, studying the handwriting. “Becca, you got it. This is the best clue so far! We have to tell them—”

“Wait.” She paused. The engines roared, but she found herself whispering. “I just want to . . . I mean, you kind of weren’t sure at first. About the time machine. Do you . . . I mean . . . now . . .”

He looked her in the eyes, and the cabin dimmed as more lights went off, almost shrouding them. “I guess I do. Maybe I’ll never be able to wrap my head around time travel. Dad knows way more. All the contradictions, you know? But I look at Uncle Henry and how he died. And the Order. And Dad. The Guardians. All of it. So, I think so, yeah.”

They didn’t wake the others. There wasn’t going to be any rest once they arrived in Guam, so they may as well sleep, she thought. She and Wade talked together for a while until she felt herself getting drowsy and closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Hours must have gone by before Lily rustled noisily next to her. “The plane is descending to the first layover.”

Darrell stretched his legs out. “Is the pilot controlling the descent?”

“We can only hope!”

“Guys, Uncle Roald,” Becca said, rousing herself. “Guess what?”

“Read it to them,” Wade said.

They all listened spellbound as she read what she’d discovered.

“Vela is a small blue stone in the shape of a sail,” Roald said in a breath. “Becca, this is amazing.”

“It’s one more clue,” she said.

“A giant one.”

Darrell slapped Wade’s shoulder. “We are getting so close. From the whole giant world to one little island. The first relic is half a day and two more hops away. Unbelievable!”

After a brief stay in Dubai, the flight to Japan seemed a new kind of interminable. The flight from Japan to the islands was more of the same. Becca read and reread the Magellan encounter until she memorized it, struck by the different handwriting and wobbly lettering, wishing she had a sample of Copernicus’s handwriting to compare it against.

Finally, Lily reached across her to lift the window shade. The row of seats turned golden in the light. It was an hour before dawn, but the sky was already brightening over the great blue Pacific. It was like flying into the very first days of the world. Back to the creation. The start of everything.

And there it was again.

Time.

“Less than an hour and we land,” Wade said.

His eyes blinked into the orange sunlight.

She took a breath. All right, then. A new day.

Chapter Forty-Seven

B
ecause it was one of the first flights of the morning, the jet was able to taxi to the gate without delay. Twenty minutes after touchdown, they were in the terminal, while Dr. Kaplan made a quick call.

“We’ll be picked up by one of my contacts at the University of Guam,” he told them. “They have great researchers to help us determine where Vela might be hidden—”

“They’re here,” said Wade.

A black van was parked on the tarmac near a small private jet. Several men waited in front of it. They stiffened as if suddenly called to attention. The young woman from Berlin stepped out of the jet, sliding a slim duffel bag over her bare, toned arms to her shoulder. She was down the stairs in a moment, and the men gathered around her like players around a quarterback. She spoke, and they each nodded once. One of the men slid his right hand into his open jacket and patted the area under his left armpit.

“They’re armed,” said Darrell. “Dad—”

“I’m on it,” Dr. Kaplan said, his phone out. After a minute of low talking, he pulled them close. “Our ride will meet us outside the cargo area. Here comes our escort through customs now. Let’s move.”

Becca turned to go with the others when she touched Wade’s arm.

The pale man with the bruise on his head emerged from the jet with a small computer in his hands. He spoke to the woman, and she whirled her head around to the terminal. “Go!” she yelled, and the van took off, while the woman herself entered the terminal at a sprint.

“That’s how they know,” Becca said. “They’ve already unscrambled Carlo’s phone.”

“Come—on!” Wade pulled her away from the window and they ran for customs. They were whisked through in no time and pulled into a small beat-up Honda driven by his father’s contact from the university. The kids crouched on the floor of the backseat, while Dr. Kaplan did the same in the front. They were able to squeak out of the airport parking lot without stopping. As their car slid past the van, Wade and Becca peeked out to see the young woman staring motionless through the terminal door. She was startlingly beautiful up close, but the expression in her eyes was not really human. As if she were a species of rare animal. A dangerous one.

The driver, a short middle-aged man with thin brown hair and sunglasses, jammed his car into top gear before turning completely sideways to Dr. Kaplan. “Your reason for coming here, to learn about Magellan’s time on the island . . . I must say, it’s rather common knowledge. Can you explain your research a little?”

Dr. Kaplan cleared his throat. “Actually, I . . . it’s complicated.”

“Mysterious!” he said. “Well, you’re in luck. We’ve arranged for a hotel, but first, we’re heading to Janet Thompson’s bungalow. Her grandmother was, of course, Laura Thompson.”

The kids shared a look.
Of course?
Lily mouthed.

“I saw that!” the driver said, turning around.

“A truck!” Darrell yelled.

The driver spun the wheel almost completely around while branches on the roadside snapped against the car.

“Maybe drive now and talk later?” Dr. Kaplan asked.

The little man laughed as he swerved back onto the road. “I’ve been driving on the island for thirty years without a real accident.”

Darrell nudged Wade, whispering, “Define
real
—”

“I heard that!” the driver laughed. “I mean no fatalities.”

He sputtered onto a broad road that skirted the southeastern shore of the island. On one side was the vista of the Pacific Ocean in the morning, thousands of miles of nothing but bright blue water. Looking straight east toward home, Becca could almost see the gentle arc of the horizon. To the south of the island stood a handful of low mountains.

“We’re getting close,” Becca said. “I can feel it.”

“Me, too.” Darrell nudged Wade. “It won’t be long now, bro.”

“Do you think it’s just the one van?” Wade asked. “Or will they have more?”

“If we’re as close as we think we are,” his father said, “we have to believe they’ll have more. If we need to get into the jungle, we’ll have help, right?” he asked the driver.

“A retired Navy SEAL is the most knowledgeable guide to the island. If you need to go deep, he’s your man.”

Becca stared inland at the vast sea of beautiful tangled green that seemed as giant as the ocean itself. The seashore was sprinkled with villas and hotels, but the island’s interior melted into a dense world of thick vegetation that looked as forbidding as it must have back in Magellan’s time. As if the jungle would swallow right up anyone who entered. The sun bore down, and a heavy mist coiled from the interior like smoke.

The island must have been all jungle at one time.

She leaned over to Wade. “If Vela’s hidden in the jungle, our only hope of finding it is to trace every inch of the story from Magellan down to the present.”

“Before the Order does,” he whispered.

The driver turned his head nearly around to the backseat. “Sounds like a scavenger hunt! But you should know that what you’re seeing here is not the most dense jungle on the island. The real business is up north, beyond the air base. Ritidian, they call it—”

“Another truck!” cried Darrell.

Laughing, the driver plunged off the shoulder as the truck barreled past. “Ten minutes, and we’re there!”

“If we make it,” Lily whispered.

They did make it, finally, jerking to a stop in front of a winding driveway. Perched at the top was a modest pink bungalow with a wide, open porch across the front.

“Call me when you need a ride,” the driver said.

“Or maybe we’ll call a cab,” Darrell whispered.

The man laughed. “Still no fatalities!”

As he motored away, a slender, middle-aged woman with red hair strode down the path from the house, waving. “The university called and told me to expect you. I’m Janet Thompson.”

Dr. Kaplan greeted her and introduced the kids. “We’re interested in whatever you—or your grandmother—might know about Magellan’s stop on the island in 1521.”

“I’m sorting through Grandma’s papers right now,” she said. “Come in.”

They gathered in her open living room, a homey collection of wicker furniture and island art, where she listened as they explained their search, giving her as much information as possible, but bypassing the “relics” or “time machine” or “fall into the wrong hands” business.

“Something Magellan might have left here.” Janet frowned, then spun around and went straight to the back room of the house. She was back in a few minutes with a pile of books and pamphlets.

“Antonio Pigafetta was an Italian writer, a member of Magellan’s crew and his friend. He wrote an eyewitness history of Magellan’s voyage from the moment they set sail from Spain. Chapter fifteen is where he describes the landing on Guam. He mentions the crew in several places, including Enrique, the captain’s servant.”

“We’ve read that Enrique may have brought Magellan’s body here from the Philippines,” Roald said.

She unrolled a map like the one in the Museo Copernicano, marking the stops on the voyage. “That’s the legend. No grave has ever been found.”

“If Enrique was a friend of Magellan’s,” Darrell said, “and Magellan died in an attack, I mean, wouldn’t Enrique get his body out of there? I think he’d do everything he could to get it out of there. Wade, you’d get my body out of there if it was me, wouldn’t you? Bro?”

Wade pretended to think about it. “I would, bro. But please don’t ask me to do that.”

Darrell grinned. “I probably won’t. But it’s good to know that you’d be there for me.”

“Pigafetta’s account is a bit sketchy,” Janet said, “but it was always Grandma’s belief that Magellan must have visited the Ritidian caves in the north. Let me get you my best island map.”

She smiled and left the room, patting the head of a small wooden native sculpture of a warrior.

While everyone pored over the books on the wicker table, Wade knelt over the map of Magellan’s voyage.

“Thanks to Becca’s discovery, we know for sure that Magellan was the first Guardian. I’m thinking it’s like this. Magellan carries Vela all the way from Spain, looking for places all along the voyage. I mean, he doesn’t have any idea where he’s going to land.”

“Plus remember,” said Becca, “Hans says that there had to be clues to the relic’s location in case they needed to reassemble the astrolabe.”

“Right,” said Wade. “This is where Pigafetta comes in. Magellan tells him to write about each of these hiding places, because those descriptions may be the Guardians’ only clue to where the relic is eventually hidden. So they sail on, Magellan finding hiding spots here and there, and they land in Guam. It might be a good hiding place, but maybe there’s a better one coming up. So fine, he casts off to the next islands, the Philippines. Then, tragedy. The first Guardian is killed.”

“And Enrique takes his body and Vela to the last safe place they found a hiding spot. Here in Guam,” said Darrell. “It makes sense.”

Lily raised her eyes from the text. “Enrique disappears from the history a few days after Magellan is killed. Which is perfect, right? Pigafetta has to assume his history might be read by the Teutonic Order. So what does he do to keep the Knights from catching on? He drops Enrique from the history. In a single stroke, both Magellan and Enrique vanish from the story. Vela is hidden safely on Guam!”

Roald was pacing and reading now. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, good. The clue to its exact location must be in this chapter.”

“Except that half the chapter is Pigafetta talking about the
velas Latinas
that the island people had on their boats,” Darrell said. “He even has a really bad picture of it—”

Roald studied the picture. He stood. “And that’s it.”

“Dad?” said Wade.

His father began to smile. “He doesn’t tell the location. He shows it. Look at this drawing, page sixty-two of the paperback. It’s labeled ‘Isles des Larrons,’ which is French for ‘Island of Thieves.’ This is what Pigafetta called the
velas Latinas
because the islanders stole from them.

“The island is lumpy and not the shape of Guam at all,” Roald went on, “but that’s not the point. The point is that he’s drawn four rock formations, three in the south and central part of the island, and one in the north. They’re not anywhere near geographically accurate, but they’re not meant to be. He’s giving the Guardians a clue to the relic’s location. His mountains form a very distinct triangle, pointing directly north. It’s the same shape as the lateen sail—
vela Latina
—and, as if that’s not enough, the rigging of the boat depicted below the island is
also
a triangle, pointing to the same exact location—”

A loud gasp came from behind them. “You . . . ?”